The Walking Dead

About a week ago I was chatting with a buddy and complaining about the status of zombie apocalypse movies.  I had just watched two stinkers, one was  remake called Survival of the Dead and another was well, who cares. They both sucked. I had high hopes for Survival because it was a Romero remake and like Dawn of the Dead there was a lot of promise.  Blah.

Fast forward to 10/31/10.  The Walking Dead.  My concerns were heard.

How hard could it be?  28 Days Later figured it out.  Put an every day person in the zombie apocalypse scenario and let him deal with it. We have all daydreamed about it. Some of us even have bags of gear stowed away just in case.  I do.  But I ask the question again.  How hard could it be to create a GOOD zombie movie?  Well if we had that answer we would have monthly releases of 28 days and Dawn of the Dead. But every once in a while, we get a blessing. We get The Walking Dead.

I found out about it a couple of days ago when I was searching for the original Halloween.  Call it ritual, but I have to watch it every year.  As I was searching I saw a trailer on AMC for a new series...  And shit, I had to believe!  \The Walking Dead was nothing short of a massive pleasure.  Sure, it draws from 28 Day Later, and all that came before it, but how could that be wrong.  They take every day people... a sheriff and a dad, and throw them into the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Drama ensues.  I won't say it's an amazing show yet. I won't even go as far as to say it is great. But I will say it is a whole damn lot better than what I watched the other day. And to go a step further, I would say it is following close behind 28 days and Dawn of the Dead. After just an hour, it is already above just about all zombie flicks/tv I have seen before.  I could have seen the twist with the protagonist's partner and wife coming... but screw it... it's not perfect.  I have three letters for you. DVR. Set it. Watch it. I have a feeling you will be reading a lot about it in the next few months.  

Jawaballs

Oh and for the record, Bear McCreary is doing the music. Some of you may remember him from the most awesome tv series of all time, Battlestar Galactica... (The New One for all you old school die hards.)

Bear wrote and created some of the most memorable tv/movie music in history. 

Battle For Salvation tournament report: Get him a body bag!

Hey Folks.  So the BFS tournament went down this last weekend.  I brought my 2k point Nova army prepared to throw down and compete for the top!  But it seems fate can be cruel.  And no, there is no video. I don't shoot video at tournaments any more for a number of reasons.

To cut to the chase, I went 1 and 3 on Saturday.  Thats right, the opposite record I scored at the Nova open.  What happened?  I dunno.  Things just went the other way!  All four games were tough fights. A lot of times wins or losses are determined by the smallest of details.  I could have very easily gone 0-4, and frankly, 4-0!

Game One:
I found myself up against James Dean and a salamander army.  The game was for Victory points and Dawn of War.  I came onto the table and had a fantastic round of shooting!  Almost all of my guns actually drew range through the darkness and I did some damage.  But quickly the game bogged down into a predictable slug match.  The crucial failure of the game for me was when he deepstriked a squad of hammer termies with libby close to my line. I assaulted the squad, with my termy death squad, and he wiped me out!  Well, not really, my priest survived the fight.  But it was not a good trade for me.  The combat lasted the whole game. He jumped in with a dread and I piled on 3 assault squads trying to save the priest. The priest actually failed leadership when I lost combat, fell back and rallied the next turn.  It was a messy affair with 14 assault marines trying to glance a dread to death with krak grenades.  Guh.

The highlight of the game for me was a tankshock against Vulkan. He and his squad faild their test and fell back. I chased them to the edge of the board with the Razor, but James managed to kill it with his last krak grenade on my assault turn after two and a half turns of trying.  Vulkan survived.

The game ended with me having a 60 point advantage in Victory Points. That was not enough for the win, so we went to tie breakers. Kill points and table quarters were the next margin.  I won by controlling more quarters.

Game Two:
Stelek.  I found myself 1-0 and matched up against Stelek's wolves.  It was an objective game.  I went first and deployed in the center, and he deployed his three squads of missile launchers as far from my guns as he could. He began to try to mix them all up so that they would give each other cover saves in the open, but stopped when I pointed out that all 15 of the models looked exactlly the same.  There was literally no way to tell one squad from the next, and once they started taking casualties, it would be impossible to keep the units straight. He mercifully kept them in an organized line. He reserved the rest. Then he seized the initiative, and my luck for the rest of the day was gone.

This was one of those games where every thing just goes poorly.  I made two major mistakes.  One was to divide my forces. I should have kept my guys massed and assaulted in force. Instead I tried to take on his wolf guard with single assault squads.  I charged a group with my termies, but lost them all to plasma fire and his counter assault.  Another mistake was when I beat a squad in combat and they fell back. As they were falling back I assaulted them.  They beat that assalter squad then went on to take out another. I should have just chased them off the table with a razor.

The tale of the game though was simply the dice. Stelek's tactics were sound. I could have been better. but it did not help that on his first round of shooting he exploded two of my predators with single missiles each. He fired a dev squad at a tank, penned it's front armor with one missile, I failed cover save, and he exploded it. This happened twice this turn.  The next turn he would fire a single las at my Land Raider from a razorback. Hit, failed cover save, penetration and destroyed result.  C'est la vie!

So he went on to nearly table me.  Thats ok though!  I took it on the chin and kept pluggin away.  The game ended with one of my speeders trying to stay away from him and one or two shell shocked assault marines drinking beers with the wolves.  It was  fun game none the less and I can say that things could have definitely gone better.  Not quite the showing I was hoping to have against Stelek.  Oh well, maybe Fritz and I will make a trip out there and encounter him again.  Thanks for coming out man!

Game Three:
Orks.

I found myself up against one of the dudes from Brother's Grim.  He had a very different Ork list then what I am used to. No battle wagons!  three large groups of lootas, three grot squads with heavy guns, 3 squads of buggies with missiles and 5 or 6 truks with two force field mechs.  I opened up with the guns and had a great first round.  His right flank took a beating as I blew up all of the truks and did some wounds from the explosions on his grots and lootas.  I am embarrassed to say that at this point I had the game bagged!  Then I went for the kill on his right flank.  I moved up the LRC and disembarked my death squad.  I had three squads of boys lined up for the kill.  I was going to perform a classic multiple assault furious charge.  My guns did their jobs by cracking open the transports, all I had to do was roll higher than 2 on two dice for difficult terrain on the charge.  They were just over two inches away... about 2 and a quarter.  Sadly, I failed.  My guys did not get into assault  because I rolled two 2s.  I did not get my charge bonus to attack. I did not get to reroll misses.  Instead of dealing 22+ wounds to his orks, killing over a dozen and watching them all run off the table...  my termies sat dead in their tracks.  Ouch. On his turn he made me pay.  He ate me up with his guns, then assaulted me with three squads including 5 or  6 claws.  I survived the initial charge, and even managed to get another assault squad in to try to save them, but it was over.  His flank held and my line crumbled.

This marked the trend of the day for me. Three games in a row and three assaults where my usually uber effective death squad got quagmired and killed after I tried to bail it out, losing not only the termies, but a troop squad not meant to go toe to toe with the enemies best.

The game was a kill point mission. He picked 5 of my units and had to kill them, vice versa.  I picked three of his truks and 2 boys squads. He picked three of my razors, my speeders and a troops squad.  On the last turn I had all five of his KP dead and he had 4 of mine. One las razor survived.  On my top of 7 I moved the razor behind two predator tanks so it was blocked completely from LoS. He had to shoot and explode my predators to get to the razor. Game Set Match? Not so fast!  Some truly inspired ork buggies moved up and opened up on the predators, penetrating, and exploding one of them.  Ugh.  It all came down to a single big shoota, now able to fire on the razor.  It hit, glanced and immobilized it to death.  Draw.  My win turned into a tie instead.

The tie breakers would be busted out and this one was tight.  It came down to overall victory points, which he won.  Great game!  You cant ask for a closer affair and he was a fun opponent to play.  Always a pleasure to play against our brothers from Grim!

Game Four:
At this point I have been beat down and the day has been long.  I am 1-2 and smarting from two tough losses.  What do I see before me? Mech Guard.  Oh boy.  Without getting too into it you can imagine how this one went for me.  I moved up and lined up my termies for a fantastic assault. All I had to do was pop a couple of transports with 4 or 5 melta shots, 9 Las cannon shots, 6 auto cannon shots and a couple of plasmas.  On my assault how many men did my termies get to grips with? Zero.  Instead they found themselves assaulting and destroying three heavily damaged chimeras.  In a risky tactical move I detached my libby and sent him after a squad of vets alone. He shined and wiped them out, but the rest of my squad failed. They died the next turn to a heavy volley of shots and concentrated assault from Strakken and vets.

At this point it was late in the day, about 8:30 pm. My opponent held or was about to hold 3 of the five objectives, and there was no way what I had left on the table was going to survive.  Plus, my buddy who was in town for the weekend just sent me a text picture of his frosty and enticing beer from the pub he was at.  So I threw in the towel on the last two turns and gave him the result he would have probably gotten any way.

Jawaballs goes down in a burning heap, 1-3.  Tactically I did nothing different from The Nova.  If any thing, the changes I made in my tactics were even stronger with some gambles that worked out.  The difference was in the things that usually are instant wins for me, like my terminator squad wiping out whatever it hits, failing in all four games.  My army is designed to make up for poor dice luck with consistent redundancy.  Failing redundancy coupled with poor luck, makes it hard to come back from major set backs.

So there you have it!  Like Danial Laruso, I limped off the floor.  I could almost hear the echoes of the snide combatants from the Kai Dojo laughing in my ears.  Only there would be no hot 80s blonde and cool 50s pickup waiting for me.  Just the sweet, sweet embrace of frosty IPA and a 12 year old scotch.

Time to put BFS behind me and get regrouped for The Warstore Weekend!

More to come.

Jawaballs

Roger Waters show... OH MY GOD!

I don't get to go to many concerts, so maybe that will have a little to do with the fact that I thought last nights Roger Water's performance of the wall was absolutely the best show I have ever seen.  Thats right, I went there. The best ever.  I have had two moments in my life where music gave me a mind altering experience, and Roger Waters was a part of both. Last night was the second, and the first time I listened to Dark Side of the Moon was the first.  Maybe it is that his messages strike home. Who knows, but last night I was both smiling and tearing at the same time.

The show was Roger and supporting band performing the entire The Wall album.  Pretty straight forward.  But it was so much more then that.  The set was a huge wall dividing Roger from the band behind him, that slowly was built up as he played up to the apex of the album, Pink's (Roger's fictional alter ego in the album and movie), descent into insanity and redemption.  The wall spanned the entire stage, and when it was finished being built stood an easy 30 feet tall.

During the entire show, images and phrases were projected onto the wall, including names of soldiers who fought and died... not only in WWII but just very recently soldiers dieing to IEDs in Iraq.  Not only were there soldiers, but also civilians who were also killed as a result of war right next to the soldiers names.  Nice touch.  But it was not just sad... mixed in with the images were movie shorts of kids being reunited with their soldier parents.  The one that reduced me to silent sobs was one little girl who was looking around with an expectant smile, who finally spots her father entering the room, and bursts out in tears as he runs and scoops her up.  I guess since I am a new parent, this was a particularly touching moment for me and really strikes home what it means to go to war... and to return.  And more importantly, what it means to those who don't.  This sobering experience is something that would have never occurred to me a year ago and that is part of the magic of Roger Waters.

Roger by the way sounded fantastic. You would barely tell that the man has been a rock star since the 60s.  His voice is as powerful and piercing now as it was when he first performed Another Brick in the Wall.  As the show built up to it's peak, I have to say that my breath momentarily rushed out when the wall predictably came crashing down.  I knew it was going to happen yet it still hit me like a punch in the gutt. That is theatre at it's best.  When the predictable still shocks. When we are left staring at the end like we just ran ten miles to find 400 naked blondes dancing at the finish line. Simply amazing.

I have heard the songs a thousand times, no more than that... but it did not matter. The music rang in my ears every second of the train ride home.  It is ringing now.  I am finding myself wishing I could go back tonight and do it all again. I missed Pink Floyd in the 80s, and I missed Gilmour taking them out in the 90s.  But I am happy to say that I managed to catch Waters doing it now.  It is rumored that he and Gilmour are on at least speaking terms again, and they teamed up for a show last year in England... so maybe we will get the chance to see them together one last time in the states. If so, I absolutely will be there.  If you were on the fence about seeing this show, and you have the chance to go, GO. This is one of those moments that we live life for and must be experienced.

Jawaballs

Up and coming blogger fun? Brent!

Hey folks!  As part of my ongoing efforts in community support, I wanted to give a shout out to a fellow blogger, friend, and professional stalker,  Brent!  Brent's blog Simply Average has really taken some strides in the last year for the better!  The question is... how?  I mean, really, Brent has made a cyber career out of rehashing blogospheredrama and stalking me. So why do I give him props?  By the way, I'm just busting his balls. I give him props because he has done it with style.  I met him at Bolscon last year and we played a fun game and had a great conversation. That is because he is likable! We ended up hanging out the whole weekend and I know I have a friend to chill with the next time we travel to the same destination. But also, he has a unique and funny sense of humor that does not deviate from it's purpose.  (not sure what that purpose is just yet...)  He has some how managed to weasel his way into writing on two of the heavy hitter blogs in the realm, and has become one of the more recognizable internet personalities. Not bad for a year's time! All of his articles are refreshing and fun to read, if not entirely full of sense.  Any way, it is to Brent that I offer the first Rising Star of Internet Fanboi Love award. Brent, I am your 151st follower. And readers, if you do not already follow him, I urge you to visit his blog and do the same. Go get some more strange in your life. There are much worse ways to waste your time than reading his stuff!

Jawaballs

Wolves at the gate

+++Transmission Begins+++
Going off the topic of Blood Angels for a post or two, what is wrong with this list?
This is not a rhetorical question... what do you all feel are the strengths and weaknesses of this Space Wolves' list? It certainly wouldn't have a good comp score, but it seems to me that it plays to the Wolves' strengths: special weapons in "Tactical squads", Counterattack, heavy weapons splitting fire, and scary psyker powers.
-------
1850
------
HQ-
Rune Priest in Terminator armor and a Wolftooth necklace with Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning.

Troops -
5 x 10 Grey Hunters with a melta, a plasma gun, a power fist, and a Mark of the Wulfen in a Rhino with extra armor.

Heavy Support -
3 x 6 Long Fangs with 5 missile launchers and a power fist
-------------------
Any thoughts?

+++Transmission Ends+++

The Sons of Sanguinius go forth once more!

+++ Transmission Begins +++

Greetings, Battle Brothers.

Recently I played two battles with my Blood Angels, both at 1500 points. They were quite different games and as always were learning experiences.

I used the same list for both games except for an exchange of Razorback loadout between them.
1500 points -
HQ -
Librarian w/ Wings of Sanguinius and The Blood Lance
Elite -
Librarian Dreadnought w/ Wings of Sanguinius and The Blood Lance
Troops -
4 x 5 Assault squads (each with a melta and a power fist-armed Sgt) in a Razorback (see below, but usually 4 TL lascannons)
Fast Attack -
2 x Baals with TL Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolter sponsons, and Storm Bolters
Heavy Support -
Vindicator with a Storm Shield
-----
Game 1 - vs Tyranids.
This game was played on a jungle board with no hard cover but lots of places for bugs to lurk in. It was going to be a Capture and Control mission in a Pitched Battle.
The Blood Angels swapped out 2 lascannons for TL assault cannons on their Razorbacks before the battle.
The opposition list:
a Tyrant and 2 Guard
2 Zoenthropes and a Venomthrope
3 Warriors and a Prime
3 Shrikes
the Doom of Malantai
2 Pyrovores
3 Gaunt squads - one of 10, one of 15, and one of 20
Broodlord
2 Lictors

The Tyranids went first, and the Blood Angels reserved everything, which gave the bugs several turns to advance.
The Blood Angels came on from the edges of the battlefield, intending to sweep around the sides of the Tyranid swarm to kill the Gaunt swarm defending the far objective. Unfortunately, my opponent was a younger player who really was a bit too excited about trying to win, so we did not finish the game. We only got a few turns in, so I unfortunately did not learn much except that it is very difficult to kill Tyranids fast enough.
-----
Game 2 - vs Imperial Guard

This battle was also a Pitched Battle, but was a Dawn of War deployment.
The Guard army:
an HQ squad (with a lascannon) in a Chimera
2 squads in Chimeras
a Veteran squad with 2 meltas in a Vendetta
a standard Russ
a squad of Rough RIders
a Stormtrooper squad w/ 2 plasma guns
a Banewolf
a Medusa

The HQ Chimera deployed behind a building, as did the Russ. The Medusa dug into a large ruin, while the other Chimeras rolled out in the middle of the board. The rest of the army was in reserve.
The Blood Angels all were in reserve, though they had won the initiative.

Turn 2 saw almost the entire Marine force coming in, only a Baal and one Razorback still in reserve. One Baal came in and got a rear armor shot on the Leman Russ, destorying it in one volley. The 3 Lascannon-armed Razorbacks came on trying to shoot at Chimeras and the Medusa, but only one weapon found its mark, destroying an enemy transport. The Vindicator (which had driven into ruins) missed wide and the Librarian Dreadnought hunkered down outside the ruins near the Vindicator.
The Guard turned its guns on the advancing Angels - one Razorback being destroyed by the Medusa, and one by an outflanking Veteran squad.

On Turn 3, the Librarian Dreadnought invoked the Wings of Sanguinius, flying forth to engage the transport-less squad of Guardsmen, killing 3 in the assault. The foot-slogging Librarian's assault squad charged the Veteran squad that had destroyed their Razorback, killing them all. The remaining Baal came in on the Marine's left, shooting at a Chimera, but missing.
The Guard's Vendetta came in, shaking the Vindicator's crew and destorying its weapon while the Banewolf came in the middle of the board.

Turn 4 - A Baal killed the Vendetta in one volley, the other Baal went all-out to ram the HQ Chimera, destroying it and the Vindicator rammed the last Chimera to the same effect. The Librarian Dreadnought killed the last of the Guardsmen hidden in ruins near an objective. The other Librarian headed at all speed towards an objective while two now-transportless squads hoofed it towards the Medusa.
The Guard lscannon team tried again (and failed) to kill the Baal that had rammed their Chimera, the rest of their squad ran for a nearby objective. The Roughriders appeared behind the Medusa's ruins, ready to charge the first available target. The Baneworlf rolled forward and released a gout of toxic goo, completely obliterating a squad of Blood Angels. The Medusa missed the last Razorback on the field. The Vindicator took fire from a squad and was destroyed.

But not the last Razorback available to the Blood Angels, as one roared out of reserve on the next turn to tank shock the squad that had been in the Vendetta (which had moved onto one of the objectives). A heroic Guardsman fired off a shot with his melta and destroyed it, but the Marines inside were now in cover right on top of a objective. A Razorback knocked the Banewolf's cannon off the vehicle. The surviving Baal rolled through the wreckage of the ruined command Chimera to open fire on the command squad, killing a few. Both Librarians used The Blood Lance to do the same, finally killing the last of them. A squad of Marines finally moved into the ruins with the Medusa, destroying it with a powerfist.
Not much appened in the Guard turn except for a squad rallying to threaten an objective.

The game continued to a Turn 6, in which an assault squad shot at and assaulted the remaining Guard squad, killing them all. The last Razorback destroyed the hull of the Banewolf, eliminating that threat.
The Imperial Roughriders charged the Marines in the wreckage of the Medusa, killing all but the brother with a power fist.

The game then ended, with the Blood Angels having captured one objective and contesting 4 others, with the Imperial Guard controlling none and contesting the same 4.

What did I learn from this game?
- Baal Predators Ramming 15" or more is quite effective against AV 12 Chimeras even when its guns do not.
- I should have been much more aggressive against the Medusa, moving 18" to get an assault squad in Assault with it rather than trying to shoot it with TL lascannons.
- The Medusa made 3 cover saves and was able to take two dangerous shots at my Marines.
- The Banewolf cannon is surely a Marine killer.
- Banewolves should be near the top of every target priority list.
- Vindicators are fire magnets, so a Siege Shield is important to have so the vehicle can hide in cover.
- My mantra still holds true: assault shooty troops, shoot assault troops. I was much better off killing the shooty guardsmen and vehicles with my assault squads than trying to gun them all down with my Lascannons.

+++ Transmission Ends +++

New Jawaballs Blood Angels!

I finally found my battery charger and am back in blog business.  Sorry for the long delay since my last post!  I will start today by showing you all some images of my newest Blood Angels infantry. Behold, the Jawaballs MKIII.  Sorry for the quality of the pics.  I am using a little canon pocket cam to shoot close up high def macro pics with no tripod.  :)

What is the difference between this and my old guys?  Well lots!  To begin with, I am now using Army Painter Dragon Red as my base.  My MKII BA used a modified version of the method presented in White Dwarf when Space Hulk came out.  Army Painter made this method much easier with their new fantastic spray.  

So again, what is the difference?  Well I begin with a black undercoat, then a light application of Dragon Red, almost just a dusting.  Army Painter spray has the unfortunate habit of filling in details, so the least amount as possible should be used.  

Here is an example of a model that has only been primed with Dragon Red:

I went back and painted the details black, but notice the black showing at the cuffs of the armor on the legs, on the codpiece, under the chest piece... all of that black showing throw the red creates a nice shading effect. This marine will be holding a meltagun when I am finished.

So on to the next step.  I begin layering Blood Red onto the edges, and working it towards the insides of the armor plates.  If you use it little by little, you can get a nice blend from Blood Red to dark Dragon Red. A nice example of where this happens is at the bottom of the lower leg. I fade the BR from the bottom up to just below the knee pad where I leave DR showing.  In the next picture I have a model almost completely finished with this step.  You can see the effective blending and highlighting using just Blood Red and Dragon Red. This model is already good enough to be on the table and an army painted to this standard, with finished details of course, could easily compete for best painted.

Then I use Red Gore to reinforce the dark. Now doing the reverse of the first step, I work from the other end of the armor plates and blend red gore into the blood red.  Again, the lower part of the leg of the model in the pic is a great place to see what I mean. 

From here I paint the spaces between the armor plates with black and/or a dark mixture I have of dark flesh and blood red and black.  (from White Dwarf)

Then I start working the highlights with Blazing Orange. But I do not want to "orange" my Blood Angels out too much, so as I finish the highlights, I use a mixture of Blazing Orange and Vomit Brown. (also from White Dwarf.)  The brown is sufficient enough to mute the glaring orange without taking away the brightness of hue. In this marine you can see the stages all coming together. I have not used any washes yet.   

So on to the near finished marine!  Here is an example of one almost complete, with all of the above steps almost finished. I did the helmet using the same technique, but I used Iyanden Darksun painted on as my base over black. Then I used Valejo Deep Yellow on the edges, followed by GW golden yellow, and finally Valejo Lemon Yellow with a white highlight.  I did the eyes using Catachan Green, Snot Green and Goblin Green.  

I did the studs by leaving them Dragon Red, then just layering on blood red, blazing orange and the mixture of BO and VB.  I need to finish the details and weapons and rebase him, but he is just about complete!  End result will be a squad of marines that matches my new tank painting recipe which looks much more dark and most importantly crisp on the table. My previous style was very messy and artsy. With this method I am taking a much more graphical approach, from the point of view of a designer. 

I will be posting up more pics as I finish the squad. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to ask questions. I will try to answer them in video form.  

More to come.

Jawaballs

  

Jawaballs is selling his army?

Hey folks!  You read right. I'm selling my army. Well, not all of it.  The fact is that I want to buy a house and need a downpayment.  SO, it is time to start selling off some of my cherished toys!  I am offering this up here first since many of you have shown interest in buying some of my models if I ever decided to sell them. Well, now is your chance!

Here is the first one up for grabs:

Death Company Furioso Dread with matching drop pod.

Details:

This matched set of models was part of my "Death from Above... Stomp Stomp" army list made using the old Blood Angels PDF.  The army actually had 3 of these beasties!  These models were used in the Conflict GT, among others, and was part of the army that scored me 2nd place and a ticket to Vegas.  It also was part of an army that won many painting accolades including a Best Painted. 

The drop pod is painted with my unique checker pattern, love it or hate it!  Also each ramp was painstakingly painted with shaded hazard lines.  The 1 on the doors matches the 1 on the Dread. All of the doors open and close. The inside was drybrushed to a good level, but the details were not incredibly worked over. Im not insane! :)

The Dread is a Blood Angels Death Company Dread. I used the Forgeworld Grey Knight Dreadnought as the model. I sliced off the GK iconography and replaced it with Blood Angels stuff.  The left arm is the Forgeworld GK Close combat weapon, and has a Heavy Flamer attached. It does not come off.  The right arm is the Forgeworld Dreadnought close combat weapon with a meltagun attached. The meltagun is a standard issue marine melta, converted fairly well to fit the arm with a cable attaching it to the arm.  The banner is an accurate Furioso Dread banner, hand painted and magnetized for ease of removing.  The dreadnought is also magnetized. Both arms are removable, and the torso is magnetized to the legs, allowing it to swivel, and pop off for storage.  

Not much more to say!  This bad boy appears in a lot of my videos and pictures.  Now he can be yours!  

Price:

I have not set a price yet.  I am throwing this out there to see what the market might be.  So I am accepting offers!  Just to give you an idea of the minimum that I am looking for: We all know the cost of forgeworld models alone. So please take that into consideration when you make offers.  These models have been professionally assembled, converted and painted and are part of my private collection.  The hand painted hazard lines on the pod alone took about 5 hours.  If I had to estimate the time spent on these models, including the checkering, converting, and etc... I would say no less than 30 hours went into them.  

Please understand that this is not a fire sale and I am not throwing models away. I am parting with something that I love in order to take the next step in my life! Let your offers reflect that.  

How this will work:

Email me, jawaballs at hotmail. Once I start getting offers, I will keep an anonymous tally of them here.  I will accept offers for a week. If I have gotten an offer that I am satisfied with in that time, I will accept it.  If not I will open up the sale on Bartertown and Rogue Market.  

If you are interested in purchasing models from my army past, feel free to let me know!  

Models available are:

Black death company rhino with dozer

3 red rhinos with hand painting on top

whirlwind

a Baal Predator with Forgeworld extra armor

and yes, the Notorious Feather Tank. Baal predator.

two more DC dreds with pods.

one blood angesl furioso dread.

Blood Angels Honor guard. (the one that made golden daemon finalist in 2009)

I will be posting them all up over the next month. But if you have had your eye one something, let me know!  

More to come.

Jawaballs

Gamesday 2010!

Jawaballs discusses the winning banner with a blog readers dad!

The sweet GW girl give JB the loot!

Part of my massive backlog brings me to Gamesday 2010.  All I can really say is that I had a great time!  Fritz and I ran our club table again. He orchestrated a meat grinder game where all comers could play a 1k point army and just bash each other to bits. I took all chalengers on the open gaming table.

I played three games in a row, crushing all three brave souls for daring to put their models on the table across from me.  :)

Game one:
I played against a follower of my blog who modeled his army after my older 1850 list with Baal preds, a Vindicator, and tactical marines.  The guy did a pretty nice job painting his tanks with my checker pattern, and even used the same dreadnought chaplain model that I used for mine!  The best part? He had J and B shaved into his head! Now that is fan loyalty. :)

The game itself was over in a couple of turns.  My new list simply out classes my old list and I had too much fire power for him to deal with.  I immobilized his dread, and his vindicator in their deployment locations, and then proceeded to have his troops for breakfast with my terminators.  I will be putting this stuff up on video so I am glossing over it all here, plus it has been almost two weeks since the games so I am foggy on the details.

The end came down to me chasing around a couple of Baal preds until I destroyed them around turn 3.

Game Two:
I played another Blood Angels player and follower of my blog.  His list was a little more like my new one, and he watched the first game, so he knew what was coming his way. I think that worked against him. He tried to hunker down deep in his deployment zone with his armor... even getting cover saves, 9 las cannons can hurt pretty bad.  To his credit, the game lasted much longer than the first!  But the result was the same. A complete tabling.  None shall defy the might of Jawaballs and live!  At the end I offered his last survivors a chance to keep their heads by swearing fealty to me... but they chose the honorable death and charged my terminators, succoming to the Black Rage, and infiinity.

Both of these games were guys who don't typically play tournament level games, and they went up against my list from Nova which was primed to kill.  I admire both of them for their good spirits and fun.

Game Three:
One of the guys at the next club table, who had been watching my games all day decided to take a swipe at the title.  He had a ravenguard army with lots of jump pack marines, a raider full of termies, and some armor.  It was obvious that he knew what he was doing and I went into this game with my tournament competition mind set.  I knew I had him in the fire power game, but he had a lot of death in the raider and they would easily take me down if they got the charge on my termies.  So the dance began. Who would get the charge.  He moved his raider around my left side using a pyramid to block LoS.  I used mine to make a feint, dropping it just close enough to entice his boys outs of his, but quickly estimating the distance he could move, disembark and charge, was confident that he would fall short.

He bit the bait, and went for the charge... but I was right on! Short.  Next turn, my raider belched it's red death onto the table, and 25 invulnerable saves later, his raider squad was dead.  The rest of the game was just mopup as I converged on his objective. He made a valiant effort of trying to hold me off and get a draw, but in the end I just had too much coming at him.  3 Razors moving 18" from across the table to tank shock and contest objectives is tough to take!

Great job man! Sorry I have forgotten all the names. :(

Please don't take these short reports as any thing less than me having fun with a blog post. I am not being arrogant or bragging.  These were just fun games.

So what else?  I did not get to see much more. I did get my hands on a couple of Forge World Heresy sets of armor. The Maximus and Heresy styles.  I am in the process of painting them now and will be posting up pics soon.

Also, I entered my Chapter banner into the banner contest, and in a narrow victory, walked away with 1st place!  I think that the difference was the huge group of guys who had been at our club table. They all came over and screamed themselves horse for my banner.  The runner up was an awesome hand painted chaos khorne banner, held by a guy in one of the coolest costumes I have ever seen. He looked like a demon with yellow eyes. Look for video of that soon too.

Sadly, that was it for me.  I didnt get to see any thing else.  I met Jacob, the winner of the Storm Wardens army and I will be posting up video about that soon too.  We had a lot of fun and it was cool meeting so many blog readers!

The next day I was supposed to be at the Glen Burnie bunker in the morning to take on challengers... BUT Brother Captain James had other plans.  As usual.  BCJ found a practice sword in our friend Mike Cho's trunk.  In an ill advised unsheathing of the sword, James nearly managed to sever all of the tendons in the palm of his hand.  Smack!  Three and a half hours later, we were making fun of him on the way out of the ER.  So much for making it to the bunker on time! By the time we arrived, any one who was there had either left or was about to leave.  No game for me!  Sorry guys.

In the future, as fun as the club table was, I don't think we will run one.  It was great taking challengers and showing off my army, but I don't think it was worth missing all of Gamesday to do it.  Next time I think we will simply stake out an open gaming table, set up banners, and get in a game or two, but still be able to see the rest of the show.

More to come!

Jawaballs

Jawaballs review: Nova Open 2010

The Nova Open Drunk Guy.

Danny Internets and Ultrabob

My Blood Angels on Display

Ok ok, I know, it's old news. Sorry!  School just started as as you all know, we get most of our good internet posting done from work. It is amazing that I was off all summer, and could not wait until work started so I could get something done!

I also wanted to wait for some of the hubbub over the Nova to die down a bit before I threw in my two cents. I really have not read much of the feedback or reviews on it.  (again no time to lurk when I'm not at work) But I know in general the feedback has been extremely positive.  I wanted to take a step back and give the Nova a fair evaluation vs a gushing rave. I think this would do Mike Brandt the most good, as well as go inline with what I try to do always on my blog. Call it as I see it.

So first caveat. I don't know any specifics of what has already been said. If I am repeating another author, I'm sorry.  Also, my overall experience at the Nova was positive and I will happily return next year.  It was obvious that Mike worked his tail off, along with all of the rest of the staff who volunteered their time by the way.  I just wanted to get that out there, I don't think that any of the dozen or dozens of guys you saw helping out got a penny of loot or cash, and in fact, I think a lot of them actually gave of their own money to make it happen.  Great stuff guys!  Your contributions were appreciated. Finally, I'm sure that for every thing we saw, ten thousand decisions, efforts and annoyances happened to make it a reality. It is easy for some one to point out things that you did not do right while glossing over those that you did.  I understand that you simply could not plan for, and if you did, could not make happen EVERY little detail to pamper our little bottoms. So please take what I say with a grain of salt.

So on with the review.

First of all, location.  I think that the event was held in a great location.  Personally for me it sorta sucked as what should have been a 4.5 hour drive home turned into a 8.5 hour drive home due to rainy driving through New Jersey. But the location itself made it possible for some of your further southerners to make it up there, being about equidistant to the North East, and actually, all the way out to Tennessee or so.  Convenience of physical location is only a small part of the greatness.  The event location itself was top notch. The hotel was big, new, and nice. The weather sucked so I did not get a chance to go for a swim and test out the pool, but the hotel was above average in my book. The restaurant was neat and clean, and the rooms were spacious, and most importantly to me, well Air Conditioned.  It is amazing how difficult it is to get a good AC unit in a room!  Also the staff was outstanding.  I left the biggest tip at a hotel I have ever left because they were so friendly and respectful. As you are walking through the hall, cleaning crew turn off their machines and scramble to get out of your way.  I don't know about you, but being a not so small dude myself, and carrying a huge army transport, it is refreshing to see a house keeper turn off his vacuum and let me pass rather than hurriedly going about their work so they can go hide in the back and smoke a cigarette. They smile and wish you a happy day, and are genuinely interested in your response. Not in the fake "I will smile to your face then turn around and glare at you when you pass." way.  I felt truly comfortable at the venue. I have been to quite a few of these things, and I point this out because it was a pointed improvement from most other establishments.

In addition to the hotel, comes the surrounding area.  The hotel is part of a huge convention complex. Next to the Hotel, divided by some vast parking lots, are a few convention space buildings with modular walls. So the facility can tailor the space available to the space you need. Pretty sweet!  But also, it is right there. While having the space be actually in the hotel is better, this is the next best thing.  Not only is the convention space right next to the hotel, but so is the food!  If the hotel restaurant was not good enough for you, right next door was a Taco Bell, McDonalds, Chick Fil A, and I think some others. I never made it out past Taco Bell and Mcdonalds.  Also, conveniently placed was a Gas Station, which was nice because I coasted into the hotel parking lot on fumes.  It had a little mini mart. In other words, you could arrive at the hotel, park your car, and then not have to get in it again until you are ready to leave. Convention space, gas, snacks, food, every thing was within a stones throw. (Through I did actually drive around the hotel to the convention space. I'm lazy.)  The great service extended itself out to the fast food joints.  I am used to CT/NY service.  In a nuttshell, rude, careless, sloppy and overpriced.  Your are more likely to get spit in your Sausage Egg and Cheese than you are to get a smile from the cashier.  No so in Chantilly!  Each time we went over to Mc D for breakfast, or Taco for Lunch, we were greeted with fresh smiling faces and it is odd, but the food tasted better too.  Maybe the biscuits sat around less, maybe the Gordita was just made with a little more care... who knows, but myself and every one I ate lunch with noted the difference. It was good!

Does any of that matter to you? Probably not, especially if you don't go to many big events. But I'm sure some of you can appreciate the value of good service.  If one thing can be said about traveling to these things, good service does indeed matter.

Now for the event itself.

I arrived at about 2:30pm on Friday.  It was pretty early by any standards. I wanted to settle in, and go take a swim in the pool. Rain foiled the swim so I settled for a quick nap.  At about 4:30 I snaked out of my crispy cold room and went on down to the room where open gaming was supposed to take place and found 5 or 6 other guys waiting around as well, including a group of guys who are from my neck of the woods and I play against all the time at local tournaments.  It was nice to see familiar faces. Though I have been getting to know many many faces at these things now, so that is not really an issue. I will talk more about that later.

Any way, we hung around the empty gaming space, wishing we could get in some open gaming. One guy was sitting in there painting an army, but there were no tables set up.  I know that the Nova team was busy and I'm sure there were other circumstances leading to why there were no tables set up for early comers to play on, so I am not criticizing about the lack of tables. However, I am suggesting that in the future, a space for tables be made available for those early comers to maybe get in a game.  This is a difficult thing to do when the convention space is not attached to the hotel, and this particular hotel probably demanded an arm, leg and your first born for the space they had.  Mike, please do not feel that you have to answer any of these points as I make them. You do not need to defend yourself. You did a great job. Do with this information what you will.

Suggestion #1: Set up a space for early arrivals to play games.

So we moved on to the bar in the hotel.  I sat with my Brothers Grim buddies and we had a couple cold brews.  It was nice to hang out in a comfortable bar setting. An even bigger treat was the parade of gamers who came into the bar looking to socialize, including Stelek. It was funny to place faces on the names, and real names with the cyber ones and to see that the actual visage was any thing but what you imagined them to look like.  A lot of my friends actually do call me Jawa at the local scene, but it was different to have guys introduce themselves as their real life selves.  Chum, Stelek, Dash, Huron, to name a few.  It was neat to shake your hands.

Drinks ensued and small rules debates broke out. Great gamer fun!

Dinner came and went and I rushed over to the gamer room for the Whiskey Challenge.  They had the room divided into two, with 4 or 5 tables reserved for the WC and an equal number set up for open gamers. Sadly though, very few people actually got to play games.  But there was a nice little cash bar available right next to the room.  I got to play Old Shatter Hands, and yes Tim, I will be doing a Batrep on our game, don't think you got off scott free.  The WC was a really cool media event.  Mike Brandt invited some of the bigger blogger names to play for little bottles of Whiskey. The winner of each game got a top shelf bottle, while the loser got some swill.  Thanks Mike!  During the games a couple of podcast groups were doing live shows.  The games were broadcast live on Ustream, with player interviews inbetween rounds.  I thought this was a great touch. I was able to be the guy infront of the camera for once!  I'm sorry, I don't have links for the podcast groups at the moment. Please email me the URLs guys and I will post them up.

So the Whiskey challenge was a fun event. The fans got a great dose of  "who's who" and an entertaining bunch of games as Stelek and Dashofpepper clashed and I tried my best not to table Tim from Tau of War in two turns. :)  Oh snap the smack talk still continues!

FOR THE RECORD I AM JUST PLAYING. I find it sad that to some readers/haters I have to spell out that I am not being an arrogant ass, I am poking fun at a friend.

The WC went on into the wee hours, and eventually I staggered upstairs to bed.  The only con I have to say is that I felt bad for some of the guys who really wanted to get in an open game, but could not.  I know there were space issues and cost issues.  Just pointing out an observation! Mike already pointed this out himself, and I'm sure he is already taking steps to fix this for next year.

Suggestion two: Make more late night Friday gaming available.

On with the event.  So my fellow Battle for Salvation club members and I made our way over to the con space.  The space we played in was well lit and organized.  But here is where I have my first real criticism. While some of the tables were nice, with good terrain, others were felt mats with low quality terrain.  My first game was on one such fabric table. A couple of the terrain pieces were organic bean shapes of felt laid out on the table with a plastic tree at either end. Terrain was sparse on a lot of tables to say the least.  Having won my first three games, I played on the tables that seemed to be a bit higher quality for most of the tournament, but taking a walk around the other tables in between games, I noted some questionable gaming environments.

My second terrain issue was the... what is the word... arbitrary? use of rules concerning the middle terrain piece.  On each table there was an objective marker located directly in the center of the table. But also located in the center was a large terrain piece that worked in most cases to block line of sight, as is a GW requirement I believe right?  Mike house ruled how to deal with this piece. But this presented issues for the terrain.  On a lot of tables the tower from the Bastion box set sat in the middle of the table. This tower has no obvious entry ports, and no way to get up from the bottom, and a distance to the top that does not jive with the standard 3" per level rule.  With no way to place models 3" high on the terrain piece, models would need a 6 to get to the top as per the rules. So to make this easy, the objective was placed on the top of the tower, and models treated the 9" tall structure as if it were not elevated at all.  For movement purposes, this tower was no taller than a crater. Did this have an effect on the game?  Well, part of the trade off for getting shots off from an elevated position and taking away cover saves is that it takes time to get up there, or down from there.  But with these towers you were able to go from ground level to 9" up in the air simply by moving onto the terrain piece. This gave a big advantage to smart players who used it.  On turn one a Devastator squad in a rhino could zoom 12" up to the edge of the tower, disembark onto the top of it, and be shooting their weapons the next turn.  On any other legal terrain piece that is equally as high, it could take them two or three turns to get up there. The difference being 5 rounds of shooting from a very elevated position vs what could possibly be none if the models have to work their way up by using difficult terrain tests to get up levels.  It is what works out to giving the squad a 9" disembark into a superb shooting position.  Know what I mean?  I know what you are thinking... who gives a Dev squad a rhino. Well, how bout a tactical squad with a lascannon?  A guardian squad with a starcannon?  Better yet, a Fire Dragon squad, who goes to the top of the tower 9" high, but measures their shooting distance as if they were on ground level.  They get to deny cover saves to tanks, AND still reach them with melta shots.

The point here is that the terrain pieces created sources of exploitation.  What would I have done? Not used them... or treated them like impassable terrain.  It was still possible to be within 3" of the center of the board and score the center objective sitting on top of the tower.  That was enough. I'm sure that Mike is already working to improve the terrain issues for next year. It was obvious that they did the best they could with what they had on hand so I won't even bother with the suggestion line. What I will do is point out the absolute best terrain I have ever seen at a tournament.  At Mechanicon each table was individually made from high quality materials, with wooden edges that were raised to stop dice from rolling off the edge, and hand made terrain pieces that looked awesome.  Yes, that cost Tony and the guys money. They took a big loss on the first tournament. But they will recoup that loss.  And they have fantastic tables. Tony meet Mike Brandt, Mike Brandt, meet Tony!  :)  Best of both worlds!

Tables aside, the tournament was run perfectly.  Mike patrolled the tables, and there was always a judge in reach. He personally came over and made judgements on some rules issues.  Actually not even issues, we were just too lazy to bust out the book and it was quicker to ask a judge a question. The answer was always instant and fair.  Great judging!

I'm sure you all know about the format of the tournament by now, but in summary, if you won your first game, you played against some one else who won. If you lost, you played vs some one who lost. After the first game, you were pretty much assured a place against an opponent playing an army that was near your same level.  This is great for the more casual gamers. Guys who went 0-2 got to fight it out for pride, rather than go up against yet some other power gamer who would smash them into oblivion. And said power gamers knew that the games would only get tougher as they worked their way to the top.  At the end of the day, I think 6 guys were left undefeated.  These 6, plus some of the guys who went 3-1 on the day were invited to play the next day for all the bragging rights.  Pretty unique!

The missions were also very new and in my opinion efficient.  A lot of tournaments like to throw in piles of silly rules that end up giving certain builds advantages over others, and they are usually unknown before the event.  Not this time! At this tournament there were 3 goals. Table Quarters, Victory Points, and objectives. You played for all three in every mission.  The difference was that for each game, the value of each goal changed.  In one game, victory points would decide the winner, and in another, objectives.  But you had to go for all of the objectives every game!  Tie breakers were decided by the secondary objectives, and more importantly, your overall performance was too.  At the end there were six 4-0 guys. The top guy was the guy who won his games, claimed the most objectives, most table quarters and most victory points throughout the day.  This was great because it eliminated accusations of shenanigans. The number one guy was calculated by a formula, and undeniable. Also you were able to prepare for the missions before hand, as most guys did. It was a truly competitive event in this regard and for this I say outstanding to Mike Brandt.

As a bonus for the guys who did not win games, you were given tickets for each loss. Your tickets were thrown into a pot and drawn for loot!  I think that most guys who were not playing on the top tables won loot.  Pretty cool.  The loot was flowing all day.  One thing Nova definitely got right.

The fluff competitions were also well run.  Renaissance Man was the award given to the guy who got the best combined score of Sportsman, General and Painting.  A very prestigious award to be sure! Absolute best overall.  This title also carried a ticket to Vegas and was my goal for the tournament.  Painting was judged by two different judges, and the scores were averaged.  They followed a rubric.  General points were obvious, and Sportsman points were decided by the players. But it was not a "pick your one favorite player" thing that can be manipulated by large clubs all picking the one guy they want to win as is seen in painting and sportsman awards at some big events.  At this one, you asked to rank each of your opponents with a 1 through 4. But you could not use the same number twice. So each player was giving out a single 1 and a single 4.  That meant your sportsman score would be any where from 4 to 16.  This was also done in secret at the end of the tournament. No more having to fill out your sportsman score in front of your opponent.  What did this do? It gave honest sportsman scores!  I tend to do well on sportsman.  I scored 14 out of 16.  Not bad.  But not good enough!  The winner for Renaissance Man was Danny Internets.  My friend Dan edged me out by .01 points.  You read right... a one hundreth.  The difference? I did much better in painting, he did much better on the tables, but in sportsman he scored 15 out of 16 while I only scored 14.  There you go!  I love that a completely mathematic approach was used to read data gathered by human beings.  This eliminated the "Share the wealth" fudging which appears at some other events and gave an accountable number to the contestants. Guys were not penalized because the TO hates Vulkan builds, or the judge is a Fantasy guy who does not fully understand 40k. (Yes I have seen guys penalized at other events for those very reasons.)  No whining at Nova to be sure!

Ok, my time is at an end so I will wrap this up.  Plus there is nothing I can say from this point that has not been reported on in duplicate. Aside from a couple of small, and most importantly correctable issues, the Nova Open was a flawless and perfect example of how an event should be.  For those of you who had reservations about the true 40k spirit of the Open due to the elimination of Kill Points, disregard your apprehension next time!  While true some guys thrive on kill point missions, at least the Nova made it very clear how you would be able to play, and gave you time to build your army to take advantage of the missions.  Granted that the Nova shifted army lists over to heavy mech by eliminated kill points.  But knowing that before hand you had the opportunity to tailor your army to beat mech and do well.  So it was a double edged sword!  Mike Brandt was a gracious and thankful host. He was visible, and welcoming to all.  The venue was top quality, and the services the friendliest I have ever encountered.  I will absolutely make the trek to Chantilly next year.  Mike, if you would like a more detailed critique with specific examples and things I did not write about, I would be happy to share with you personally. Feel free to email me!

More to come...

Jawaballs

News and notes

Hey folks,

Well, School starts up for me tomorrow, you know what that means? More time for me to blog!  Believe it or not I will actually get way more blogging done from work than I will taking care of the jawababy at home.  I still have Nova Open info and Gamesday stuff coming up!  I have been having problems with Windows Movie Maker for some reason. I throw together a movie made up of video shorts that I have shot, and when I go to publish, it just stalls out and I have to restart the program, losing all of my work.  Frustrating. Any clues WTF?  On a related note, I am looking for a quick, convenient and easy program that I can use to convert my HD video from my Canon Vixia HF 200 into a format that I can use on Movie Maker.  I have Studio Pro, but it is honestly too much software!  All I want to do is select a folder full of videos from my camera, and tell them all to turn into files Movie Maker can use.  Is that too much to ask?

On a related note, I will be taking a break from the weekly Jawaballs Live! broadcasts.  I need to try to make some money so I will be going back to the photography gig after school.  I shoot action pictures for high school yearbooks.  Jawa wants to buy a house!  While I enjoy doing the broadcasts, I need to devote those evenings to doing something that makes me moolah.  I will however do unscheduled broadcasts a couple times a month. So stay tuned here for details on those.

I have a couple of cool things coming up in the next few months, and some neat things I think you guys should check out.

First of all, a new 40k blog!  The blog scene is exploding which is fantastic. But I always love to plug the Blood Angels ones. Kevin, a reader and poster here, has decided to take a stab at a blog of his own, and HERE IT IS!  Go take a look!

Also there is a new Blood Angels infosite/forum that has just launched and I registered for.  GO SEE IT HERE.  It just launched, but at first glance looks pretty spiffy!  Way better than my hack job of a site.    I'm happy to be part of the growing community.

Coming up for tournaments we have two in October and one in November.

First of all comes The Battle for Salvation! 

This one is being put on by my club of the same name, and NO we are not a religious organization. We simply meet in a Salvation Army hall which happens to be in the back of a church.  This tournament is being run in the style that had a huge success this year at The Nova Open. There are 48 spots only, and the top few will be invited back the second day for a mini round robin tournament to decide the overall Emperor of mankind and winner of The Battle for Salvation.  It is being held in White Plains, NY which is a short train hop from Manhattan and is a beautiful destination for any one who appreciates beautiful fall weather and great 40k.  Visit the site for more details.

Moving on, my next stop will be at The Meadowlands for The Warstore Weekend! 

This is a great weekend being put on by every ones favorite online store, The Warstore!  Neal and the boys have a bunch of great stuff planned for the weekend, including a 40k tournament that I plan on entering. So I hope to see you all there!

Then shortly after I will be traveling out to PA again for The Mechanicon!

Last year I made the trip out for the first one and came a 3+ armor save away from winning it all. Tony and the boys ran a warm and inviting tournament on beautiful tables with cool terrain, and their philosophy is to try to send away as many dudes as possible with loot.  They have one award called Army Domination that goes to the best player for each particular army. Never win with your Necrons? Well now is your chance!  Come throw down in PA!

Not missing a beat, except for the one I will get from my wife, the following weekend I will be traveling out to Rochester, NY for Da Boys GT 2010! I have spoken to Goatboy and Darkwyn and both are planning on attending, which makes it a mandatory Jawaballs appearance just to share some brews since I missed them in Austin.  I love you honey!  If she only knew that I only went out to these events to hang out with cool dudes and get wasted. :)

Jawababy bathtime with an annoyed Jawawife.

  Finally it is a little far out yet, but I am planning on gathering up Fritz, Black Matt, Brother Captain James, Danny Internets and the rest of the bunch for a trip out to Rhode Island, home of TAPS and Templecon!

The details elude me at this very moment, but a challenge has definitely been dropped for the top clubs of the east coast to show up and represent... and a finger was definitely pointed at Battle for Salvation.  I forget who sent me the email and it has been lost amongst thousands of spams and youtube comment announcements, so whoever it was resend your great email!  Was that you Kevin?  

There is another team event that Fritz will be organizing for us to attend in the near future as well. Is it time for Battle for Salvation to claim the Golden Throne?

Finally finally, the one good thing to come from Fritz and I having to bail on Wargamescon, is that we have some airline credit with Jetblue to go some place, and we decided to go to next years Adepticon.  If you missed us at Gamesday, Bolscon, Nova Open, Mechanicon, Hard Boys, Grim, The Unknown, or any of the other places we have traveled to for a throwdown, head on out to Adepticon where we will be hooking up with our buds from Bell of Lost Souls to beat face!  

Phew that was a lot of stuff!

Ok, that is all for now.  This week I plan on spending loads of time formating my hours of video content from Nova and Gamesday, and writing up some late reviews on both.  Also be looking for more info on the Templecon throwdown and I hopw to see as many of you as possible at The Battle for Salvation! Don't wait, there are only 48 spots and there will be NO extended spots.  

More to come...

Jawaballs

Email help! How to beat IG Mech?

Email in:

Heyo Jawa,
 
Got a few questions for you.  How do you deal with IG?  To give you some background to what happened to me tonight and why I'm asking here's our lists.
 
Libby  sword/shield
 
SP power weapon
 
5 5 man RAS power weapon, meltagun, RB w/ las/plas hk missles
5 man RAS power weapon meltagun rhino
 
3 baal preds w/ heavy bolters hk missle
 
2 preds las spons hk missles
 
him
 
command squad with astropath/master of the fleet chimera
 
4 veteran squads   2 with all 3 meltas  2 with 3 plasmas  I don't remember if they had power weapons because I didn't get anywhere near them. 
2 autocannon weapon squads
2 infantry squads with las weapon teams
 
2 vendettas
 
2 demolishers
1 deathstrike missle launcher
 
 
He didn't tailor his list to fight me specifically.  He's a guy that's been teaching me how to improve my game to tourney level(along with your help too) and recently just got the army to the point he could play it.  He won first turn and I didn't think to reserve my army.  Even turtling around my libby rhino for SoS half my tanks were stunned/shaken and 1 pred was wrecked.  It was all downhill from their.  I'll admit I've never rolled so poorly in my life but it was unreal how much fire was coming down on me.  I only wrecked 2 tanks and took 1 gun off a vendetta and he nearly tabled me.  I think I had 4 marines left and no tanks.  
 
Should I reserved even though he's running the astropath if he wins first turn?  Is there some other tactic I could have used.  I his my razor chassis behind my baals to get 3+ covers on them but at the beginning of turn 2 I knew turtling wasn't going to work and tried to push out and press him a bit but I was denied in all regards.   There were 3 paths across the board(we played with about 7-10 terrain pieces), 1 he blocked with 2 chimera squads 1 melta 1 plas and the other 2 were like driving through hell via LC.  
 
How do you beat ultra competitive mech IG?  Even had I been rolling better I don't think I could have won that game.
 
 
Thundrchickn

Response:

Hey Thundrchickn!  With the list you were packing, you were in trouble.  Going up against that list in a tournament is always going to come down to luck.  If you are lucky enough to get first turn, you have a fighting chance.  With your list, I would probably deploy and seize the initiative. A 1 in 6 chance of crippling him is not bad, and I have to say that those are probably better chances than you would have in a gun battle. Just understand that if you fail, you are screwed.  In a recent tournament vs Danny Internets in which he was using a similar list, I deployed and went for the seize. I knew what he was going to do, but I knew that it was my only real chance at beating him.  Of course I failed and he tabled me, but we played a game for fun right afterwards, in which I did seize, and I tabled him.  

So, you have to ask yourself... feeling lucky... punk?  

Extreme luck aside your options are limited.  AV 12 is a surprisingly tough nut to crack. He has a lot of hard hitting guns that can get at your soft parts.  You have two choices.  

Deploy:

He is going to go first. He is going to blast the shit out of you. Just accept that.  Take your losses, and on your turn move every thing up into his face and pop smoke.  All you need is a break and blammo, you are in his lines and popping chimeras with your melta guns and assaulting the boys inside.  The good part is that with your depleted squads you will not slaughter him on the charge. You will beat his boys on his assault, then move onto the next on yours.  Again, with a little luck, you will create a chain reaction where you get to mow him down.  

Reserve:

His cheeze may actually work in your favor.  I can't wait until allies are removed from the game. (I honestly don't know if it is the allies that give the dude that messes with reserves or not, but it does not matter, I threw in this quip here.) But until then you may get lucky and have nothing come on turn two.  That is two turns of him having nothing to shoot at!  The good thing is that you can come on from reserve and fire all your guns.  You are guaranteed to get shots off at his vendettas before losing them.  You are packing 9 Las Cannons.  With a good round of reserves, you can get them on the table and smoke his ass.  Target the vendettas, then try for shots at his crap in the back. Some of those heavy hitting pieces are only AV 12!  All you need is a pinhole and he has to make cover saves. A 50% chance at shaking them is good enough, and all you need to do is shake them.  So shoot them until shaken, then move on.  Move your razors 12" and shoot the las. Bring on your Baals and go for side shots from the flanks.  

In a tactical game, the most competitive way to go is reserves. You are playing into his strengths, but it is relying on less luck.  If you want to go for the win... gamble and Seize the Initiative.  I have lost more games than I have won in tournaments to Mech Guard. But I did manage to take down two of them at the Nova Open.  (granted circumstances worked out in my favor for both games)  

Also, it is worth checking out his list.  A couple of medusas in the back, and Russ tanks with Demolisher cannons is an absolute deploy.  He does not have the range or fire power.  He will hurt you with his Vendettas, but your return fire should take them down.  Then pop his Medusas to protect your razors, then eat him up with your marines.  

List help?

Drop a Baal and pick up another ac/lc pred.  The HKs are nice, but you can probably drop most of them too.  Drop down to just missles on the predators.  For what you are paying for all those missiles, you can make a few changes and pick up a chaplain with melta pistol, and/or more priests.  I would increase the size of your rhino squad to 8, and throw in the chaplain and priest with melta pistols.  Give them a fist and melta gun and now you have a killer unit inside an 18" red torpedo. Give it dozer blades.  If you need more points, drop another Baal.  I wrote an article come time ago about Las being King again. It is.  

Good luck!

Jawaballs