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Lamenters Captain!

November 18, 2013, 5:52 am
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Here is my Lamenters Captain in Terminator Armor WIP. I have a lot of layering to do on the yellow but you can see it start to take form on his leg and arm.  

The model is a Dark Angels terminator from the new kit.  I went with a terminator captain because I decided to use my Space Hulk terminators for my Lamenters army.  I figured I would give them an appropriate leader! I went went with a cap with Lightning Claws.

I left the other arm off so I could get at the armor and cloth unhindered. I will attach it once the reset is done.  

So the checks... On the cloth I want a sort of faded effect near the edges so you can see on the hood that I tried to break down the black and white. I need to really push it back and forth but for now it looks decent.  Speaking of fading I need to go backinto the checks on the rhino in the background and lighten the color. More on that later.

I am using red trim on some spots, like knee pads and such, so I went with half of his torso robe being red. I also went with the inside of his robes being red. You can see the red robe behind him on the table. 

Not much more to say about him right now! This is a slow process and really wont start to look great until it nears completion. (If ever) 

Enjoy!

Jawaballs

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Lamenters update

November 21, 2013, 5:07 am
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Here are a bunch of pics showing a lamenters update!  

Lamenters captain

I have started thinking about basing. I want to utilize LED lights in my display and some of the bases and I spoke to Chris from PoweredPlay Gaming who is a company that offers easy to use, prewired, LED light sets.  He is going to send me some things to try but in the meantime I wanted to base my captain.

I decided to go with something I tried before, an LED Tea light.

Behold...



First job is to separate the lamp from the housing of the tea light. By inserting a blade into the seam and working it all the way around you can pop off the housing without damaging the delicate wiring inside.



Next up is the terrain. You can see in the above picture the base of the tea lamp. It has a blue switch on the bottom and a loose wire that holds the LED.  I don't want to get into trying to pull this apart any more than I have already so I want to figure out how to use it as is. Fortunately I have these grid "sidewalk" pieces made by Lemax. They are about a quarter inch deep and come apart easily and with a little flocking sand, cover the assembly of the light fairly well.




I am using a base from Dark Vengeance that has precut holes. But I have to enlarge one of the holes to fit the switch button that will be accessible through the bottom of the base.



Plastic cutters cut a big enough hole.




Some super glue on the bottom of the tea lamp does the trick, you can see the blue switch.


Now for the ground... I cut up a piece of my sidewalk, and drilled a hole with my pinning drill where I want the LED to poke through.


Then I use my xacto blade as a drill, I put it in the holl as far as it goes and twist it around. This shaves out the hole making it wide enough for the LED.


Voila!  Now the sidewalk can be placed over the LED and cover most of the housing of the tea light base.


I popped my captain off his painting base to fit him on.


Now it is time to disguise the base. I used a bit of the sidewalk that I cut off to hide the LED a bit. I will surround the rest of the exposed part with basing sand.


I then started using other cast off squares to cover up the broken bits of the base. I want it to look like a bit of sidewalk that has been exploded. It sits at an angle, and when I add flocking sand to fill the gaps should look like a bunch of blocks broken in rubble.


What else? I am using a spare Riptide head as accent. I am going to have it ripped off and laying at his feet, on a little hill of sand and rubble that is on fire. The flickering LED will not bee visibile, but will reflect off the model, and look like a little bit of burning Tau love.

Next up I will show the basing sand and finish.

I cant wait to get my hand on those LEDs from Powered Play Gaming.  I have a treat in store for you when I do my Dreadnought!

Jawaballs
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Lamenters Terminator Captain with LED base!

November 22, 2013, 4:09 pm
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Still WIP but...




Here is a video, you need to watch this to appreciate the image!

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Stuff for sale

November 24, 2013, 2:20 pm
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Pathfinders. I found 3 more after taking this pic

a handful of guardians

3 lords. Two on left are magnetized at hip. All have magnetized weapons. I have some more of the weapons.



3 wraithguard. I need to find a head.


guardian squad with weapon


warlock

3 bikes. one sword is broken needs replace, there is an elven banner for banner pole


autarch rider

converted far seer, needs left arm and canopy for bike




all of his parts are here some place

serpent upgrade set from forgeworld, complete

factory sealed

necron snipers, one built rest on sprue

necron warriors, one painted bone, box missing one or two

3 primed stealth suits with fusion


more to come


Converted Ulthwe guardians using dire avenger and fantasy elves

oop fire dragons?

Far seer converted from wizard

pile o warlock

harlies, one is painted, I need to find his torso


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A little holiday humor from the soon to be uneployed!

November 25, 2013, 7:04 am
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Hi all.  As you know, my wife is a pretty good writer and occasionally I like to share her popular posts that she puts up on a site called Woman Around Town.  Usually her stuff is a light hearted poke at the silly and absurd things we see every day. This time though, it is a more tongue in cheek look at something that hits us all pretty hard.  (If we are unfortunate enough to be in this boat)

Employment, and her impending lack thereof.

So for those of you who like a little sense of humor with your lack of work during the holidays TAKE A LOOK HERE. Sometimes all we can do is laugh.



Next up. More Lamenters!

Jawaballs
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LED Dreadnought!

November 30, 2013, 2:13 pm
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Continuing to work on my Lamenters army, it has become apparent that I need to pick up the game. So I contacted the guys I met from Powered Play Gaming while I was at Nova and picked up some of their LED kits!

What they offer are a set of pre wired LEDs complete with switch, battery, plug and play board and an assortment of colored lights.  Why is this awesome?  Because any one can do it.  I had zero experience with wiring or LEDs other than playing around with my tealight base.  I was intimidated by having to wire, solder, and power LEDs within my models.

These kids are intended to be used within wargaming models, and are made to be incredibly easy to use.  Here are some pictures showing how:



 Open up the pack and you pull out a mass of wires and a little board.  At first glance it seems a bit confusing, but each wire is labeled with it's color and it very quickly becomes apparent what to do. Any one who has hooked up an Xbox to a TV can do this!


Here is the board.  There are 6 sockets on the board. Two of them are larger than the others, These are the two that the switch and power goes into. It is obvious by the size of the plugs.


They sell miniature 9 volt batteries.  You can get one of these, or use the plug provided to hook up a regular sized 9 volt.

Here you can see the switch and battery about to go into their plugs.


Then you plug in one of the LED plugs into any of the four remaining slots and whammo!



Here is a closeup of the board. The two slots on the left are for the battery and switch, leaving 4 slots for LEDs. Easy?


If you decide not to get the miniature 9 volt which runs like 10 bucks, the kit comes with this regular 9 volt plug that you can use instead.


And here is the result!

My WIP dreadnought. I lit up the blood claws with red LEDs and the cockpit and range finders under the chassis with blue.



Here is the view without the armor on. I am painting up the pilot that will be exposed. You can see my clumsy application of the LEDs inside the cabin.  I used a hot glue gun to set them in place.  It was important to place them the way I did, pointing at the view finders, because I used a fiber optic pack also available from Powered Play.  I drilled out the range finders, and inserted a piece of fiber optic. The pack that they sell comes with three different sized round bits of optic plus a couple of square rods and a file.


The lights have to be shining into the ends of the optics in able to have the optic 'carry' the light.  Here you can see me showing how it works. If you look at the near end of the bit of optic you can see the blue light shining through.  The other end is up against the LED in the cabin.


Here you can see the back of my model and how I hid the wires. I built up a base using some plastic side walk pieces I found from a model train company.  It looks like temple flooring.  Inside the base I had enough room to store all of the wire and the battery and I used hot glue to seal it up. Yes, once the battery wears out, this guy will go dark. :(  Well not exactly, I purposefully glued the board to the base behind the model.

First this will allow me to put in a new battery if I desired. But also, this leaves me two extra slots to add more LEDs that I plan on using on my display. This dread is going to be in a repair gantry being worked on by servitors.  When he is on display I can plug him into some LEDs wired into the gantry!

Now, I suggest you use these before gluing your model together. This model was already painted red and has been re purposed as a Lamenters dread.  This meant I had to pull him apart to do the work.  The chassis came apart easy, but I had to drill holes into the arms to enable the LED to fit. I was able to wire the arms through the shoulders, but in order to wire the model to the base I had to drill holes through the bottom of the torso.  You can see the wires here.  Had I the know how to snip the wires, I could have maybe drilled holes through the legs before assembling the model, and wired them completely internally. But I found a good enough way. I inserted two straws into the base to serve as access pipes and left the wireing partly exposed on the ground .This will look like a ragtag repair bay where the dread is charging up...  I hope.  I will find some more wire bits and leave them lying around and stuff.  

I am going to use these to light up a landing pad for my Storm Raven, and to wire up the storm raven itself.  But again, it has been assembled, so I am fairly limited on what I can do.  For example I wanted to light up my Rhino headlights but since that model is almost complete it simply wont be possible.

Plan out whatever lighting you want to do while your models are still on sprue!

Any way, if I could do this, YOU can.  They are working with Secret Weapon to create some bases already built to house the wires and batteries, and have new stuff on the way, like a board that can make the LED "flicker".

I will have a lot more of this posted up soon including some how to Video once I shoot it.  Until then, this LED kit get a huge thumbs up from me. Visit the website HERE and if you want to take the leap give Chris a call, he was super helpful with suggesting how to do this.

More to come!

Jawaballs
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Tonight on Jawaballs Live

December 3, 2013, 3:08 pm
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I am doing my live show tonight at 7pm EST.  I will be showing off my LED lightup dreadnought!  Tune in!

See the live feed HERE.

Jawaballs
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Tau Dataslate

December 6, 2013, 6:35 am
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Hey guys, so I just read through the Tau Dataslate.

What the hell.  It appears to me that 40k is going the way of DnD 3.5.  It seemed like every month they released 3 more books that just made the game more and more broken than before, ultimately leading up to a complete reboot. (4.0)

Case in point: Dataslates

Now you don't even have to play tau as allies... you can just bring in a kill team comprised of a riptide and 6 broadsides to support whatever you want...

Really quick I came up with a list and I'm sure you all can do way better.

Space Marine Codex:

Librarian master level 2
10 man scout squad
10 man tactical squad
x3 Thunderfire Cannons

Codex blood angels:

Librarian
Death Company x5
DC Dread with talons
Storm Raven with hurricane bolters

Riptide with Ion
two 3 man broadside squads with missiles.

1780 points.

Both the BA and the Tau are considered Battle bros to the Marines.  And look at this, 6 heavy support choices!  A ridiculous amount of fire power, and some decent anti assault.  (Sure you say, just shoot the troops.) But this is just a taste of the what is possible. I can certainly go with a furioso dread instead, and pack in more troops to the list without losing any strength, and this is only 1780 points!  Plus I could skip the BA completely and go IG instead... or Eldar...

How bout the best of all three worlds?  The Marines as stated above, an Eldar Deathstar council on bikes with a Wraithknight, and the Tau kill team.  (575 pts for the KT)

It would look like this:

Librarian master level 2
10 man scout squad
10 man tactical squad
x3 Thunderfire Cannons (640)

Riptide with Ion
two 3 man broadside squads with missiles. 6 broadsides (575)

Farseer on Bike
6 Warlocks on bikes
3 Bike troop squad
Wraithknight   (706)

1971 points.

Man... it's crazy.  I guess it is kind of good. Who needs a balanced game when you can just play every thing at once!

Lets just embrace the madness. Grand Tournaments should now just allow all 40k approved Forgeworld and let the apocalypse come.
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Having our cake and eating it too.

December 12, 2013, 6:03 am
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For what it is worth, there seems to be a lot of grumbling about the rapid fire output of codex books.  Weren't we just griping not long ago about how long it took them to get out updates?

And how about the Dataslates?  Aren't these what we really wanted? The ability to play what we want? When you look at it, these are the ultimate balancing factor.  Now GW is giving us permission to pretty much play whatever we want.

But in reality, wouldn't that be how it works out any way? When I imagine warfare in the 41st millennium I don't see a sea of blue armor clad Ultramarines standing alone against a sea of Yellow Iyanden.  I see The Ultramarines with multiple allies going up against Iyanden and their allies.

  Maybe the Ultramarines are getting psychic assistance from Ulthwe in the form of a Seer Council and Wraithknight because Eldrad forsaw some horrible deed performed by this particular faction of Iyanden and he knows that if he fails to stop them even more Eldar lives will be lost... Maybe they also enlisted the help of their Tau buddies, but all the Tau could spare was some fire support in the form of a Riptide and 6 Broadsides because helping the Ultras preserves that border of their Empire against the Tyranids, and that is certainly for the greater good.

Maybe the Iyanden have banded with the Dark Eldar because they believe the Ultramarines have defiled an ancient Eldar temple that both of them claim ownership over. Maybe the Flesh Tearers got pissed at Calgar and sent in a dispatch of assault marines to make a point.  They are not necessarily helping the Xenos, but it is certainly within their nature to launch a strike out of pride and anger. Maybe they thought Calgar was withholding some sort of Sanguine Relic!  While we are at it, Farsight sent in a Riptide and Broadsides of his own on the side of the Iyanden to try to brake the Tau stranglehold on his Enclave.

Looking at the botched intel surrounding some of our own recent wars, it is not too far a stretch to imagine armies blasting away at each other over misinformation, and it is also not too far a stretch to imagine multiple allied forces working together out of convenience and mutually beneficial goals, not necessarily common ideology.

With this in mind, that is what the Dataslates bring to the table!  Let us ignore the fact that they are money grabs intended to promote the sales of the newest and most expensive models. (Wraithknight, Wraithguard, Marine Flyers, Broadsides and Riptides)  Lets us instead focus on the fact that we can keep our beloved Blood Angels, but actually play the other models we love. I can use my sweet Mephiston conversion and lovingly painted assault marines, alongside my Ulthwe seer council and with the fire support of the Tau dataslate and an attack wing of flyers from The Ultramarines!  Blood Angels don't have access to the Storm Talon.

And did I say that this is balancing?  It is the great equalizer!  No longer are our weaker armies shelved in favor of the newest most powerful books.  Now we can literally have our cake and eat it too!

What it comes down to is that we already accept 6th edition as a broken sort of game. We already accept that while it is indeed fun to play, it is not all that good a game in the competitive tournament sort of sense. Why are we so aghast to see dataslates and new a new codex every couple months?

So why try to force the round peg into the square hole?  Let us embrace the game for what it now is... A quite literally balanced game system where no one is over penalized for playing an army they like because they can easily make up for that armies weaknesses by any of the multitude of other options available to them.

Bring on those Dataslates. Lets hope those unpaid GW interns keep pumping them out!

Bring on Forgeworld!  Open up the GTs to all 40k approved Forgeworld units. There is no place for Superheavies in a standard game of 40k, but how bout those Elysian armies?  I would absolutely love to encounter one in a tournament.

Bring on those new game changing codex books every three months.  Give me my Blood Angels now not later!

Let us take a step back from the number crunching meta fest that 40k has become. Let us instead take this moment of time to embrace the hobby for what it is meant to be.  A fun, and creative HOBBY, where people build and paint models and then play a game with them... rather than a finite rules system that we have taken it as our right to rape and abuse (along with each other).

I am looking forward to encountering some creative combinations of dataslates and armies. I hope the TOs embrace the change and instead of placing restrictions upon what can be played that only reward the small but vocal minority, open up the game to what 40k has become, the first truly balanced system in it's history.



Thoughts?

Jawaballs
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The Jawaballs wishlist for a new Blood Angels codex

December 20, 2013, 6:29 am
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Rumors have it that the new Blood Angels codex could be a fall 2014 release, or maybe all the way into January 2015.

Sigh.



I guess it is not too early to start wishing?

First, what are the issues?  Well, for one, the book was written with the strengths of 5th edition in mind.  It was a very good 5th edition codex. It certainly wasn't over powered, but it was strong, and there were multiple competitive lists as opposed to some of the newer mono build books out now.

Now, on a competitive level, the Blood Angels are sitting near the bottom of the list.

Why?  Well first, what made them powerful in 5th was Furious Charge and NFP on a 4+.  Both were huge, as going before all other space marine, and most other models was a major advantage.  In addition, a 50% chance to ignore most small arms fire sent them over the top.

But with 6th edition came major changes. First we lost the +1 bonus to initiative on Furious Charge.  Then FNP had a minor change, it now only works on a 5+ but works against more shots that previously ignored it.

The only problem is that the Blood Angels were written to balance out those huge 5th ed advantages. One of their major weaknesses is the absence of affordable fire power. It was not a huge problem in 5th because there were not many armies that could put down hundreds of mid strength shots.  But nowadays a single round of Tau shooting can easily wipe out any army I ever won a tournament with in 5th.  So the loss of their advantages coupled with the "balancing" lack of dakka left them fluttering in the wind!  And no, the Baal Predator does not help.  At best it can pump out 12 shots, but has to be within 24" to do so, and will certainly die the following turn if it does.

But that is old news and has been covered to death, and is not the only thing that killed the Blood Angels.

Next came the 6th edition rule set in general.  As we all know, 6th ed is the shooting edition.  The newer books allow for an unprecedented amount of mid to long range, mid strength shooting.  It used to be that rapid fire bolters were one of the best solutions to mowing down lots of troops.  Now 20 shots is pretty much the norm from any shooty unit.

Also comes Overwatch and Interceptor.

As if the Blood Angels needed even more disadvantages...  Assault a squad of 12 pathfinders with a Blood Angels assault squad is a terrible joke.  First they are going to have to make at least 2 or 3 saves from that squads overwatch, but every other unit within 6" also gets to pepper them.  We all know how that works by now.

Interceptor?  So much for deep striking/drop podding Blood Angels. I believe they were the first to have some sort of "Skies of Blood" rule.  Good luck deep striking any where on the table with riptides ignoring cover and getting a reroll on the scatter!

Again, all of this has been beaten to death.

My old pappy always said, don't complain unless you have a solution to fix your problem!

So here we go.

The Jawaballs Wishlist for the new Blood Angels Codex.

First, open up all Space Marine toys.  Access to Thunder Fire Cannons will be a welcome blessing.  I have not tried them yet but the ability to use the new marine units would also be nice.  Besides, Marines have one of the things that made BA unique in 5th ed, the Storm Raven but Blood Angels still can't use Scout Speeders or Storm Talons...

Second, bring the points cost in line with the current marine books.  I pointed out an army using Codex: Blood Angels, then did the same army using Codex: Space Marines, and got something like 14 more models on the table, including Thunder Fires, and only really gave up Blood Claws on a dread and the FNP bubble..  Blood Angels units like Vanguard Vets and Death Company have to pay a crazy amount of points for Jump Packs as compared to current marines.  And Blood Angels are supposed to be the Jump Pack army!  Blood Angels are simply not worth the old points any more. We all know that and this will certainly be addressed.

Third, return their ability to assault.  Furious Charge is a universal special rule so they aint never getting back that bonus to initiative.  But at least give them a chance to make it into assault!  They need a special power, like "Blood Curdling Charge", that scares their opponents so badly that they cannot overwatch. Or at least forces them to make a leadership with an appropriate minus.  That alone would give them a chance.

Fourth, give them a chance in open terrain.  In order to use their new assault abilities, they still have to make it across the table and with the distance between deployment zones in some of the 6th ed mission, that is increasingly difficult. In 5th edition they got a Librarian power that gave them a cover save. Well, new armies can easily ignore cover now... How to do this? Give them tech... like air dropped barriers placed by the Thunderhawks that can provide lanes of protection as they advance.  They can be little force field thingies that only last for a turn and is placed with Deep Strike rules, using Void Shield technology. What a cool tactical element to add to the game!

Fifth, new models? Blood Angels already have some of the best Marine models. The Death Company and Sanguinary Guard box sets are fantastic for creating assault themed armies.  There are so many well crafted and beautiful bits that they simply don't need new models for infantry.  In fact, the only thing they really need are a few new Characters. Corbs, Mephiston and Tycho are showing their age.  A Sanguinary Priest upgrade sprue, in the same vein as the Commander box set would be sweet.  Create a set that includes all of his options plus options for Corbs!  Speakign of Corbs, return him to his HQ status, or create a Sang Priest HQ option like they have for the Reclusiarch.  

Maybe a new variant to the Thunderfire... or other heavy support artillery options that any assault army would definitely have to support their advancing assault troops!  Supressing artillery guns... (Dont you dare say Whirlwind)

So there you go folks. What do you think would return our beloved boys in red back to the top tables?

Jawaballs

Oh by the way I do have Comment Moderation in place still.  Please be civil!
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Hand made full sized banners!

December 21, 2013, 4:23 am
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Don't worry about not getting what you want for Christmas, buy yourself a banner!

Here is my newest hand made banner for a gaming club in the UK, The Northern Knights!


If you are interested in a banner for yourself, take a look at the ones on the right that I have done and let me know what you want! The banners are about 7.5x3 feet, an exact proportional copy of the banner that comes in the 40k space marine command squad kit.  They are painted with top quality acrylic paint on heavy Duck canvas.  They are hand sewn by a professional and painted by yours truly!  They look great at events like Adepticon where the little extras make a big difference, or hanging on your wall in your man cave.  A slightly smaller version is available for those of you with slightly smaller spaces.  Email me at hotmail if you want one!

Jawaballs
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Big Lamenters WIP update

January 8, 2014, 5:53 pm
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Templecon is a few weeks away, SO I have been in paint mode!

Here are some pics of my WIP. Keep in mind these are VERY work in progress.  Most of the models lack final highlights.

First up, some Lamenters Terminators. The doomed shooty terminators unlikely to ever find a home on a competitive player's table from Space Hulk. And yes, I am playing them WYSIWYG, which means I paid for the chainfist. (Not pictured) I am going to deliver them to the table either by Deep Strike or in the Storm Raven. Either way is perilous in this 6th edition game, but hell, these are Lamenters.  It will make for great stories to see them get exploded upon entry every single game!  My hope is to have some exciting and fun games and to make some interesting battle reports telling the story of the unfortunate Lamenters. This army is actually one cobbled together from the remnants of the chapter after the Badab War.  As such, none of the squads are complete, and they don't quite have harmonious weapons. The Assault Marine Sergeant carries a plasma pistol! Who does that?  :)  And there is a priest in this army, driving a bike and wielding a power fist...

I broke his toes when I was cutting off the Space Hulk
base. Nothing a little glue and sand wont cover up!  

I am not sure if the sash things between his legs look Lamenter or Tim Burton..


"What are you aiming at son? Go get em!"

Vanguard Vets with Jump Packs! No, the banner is not actually there.


And who was it that accused me of being a WAAC player?  I give you combat scouts.
The Sergeant has the chainsword. Plain, naked combat scouts for no other reason than I love painting the models.










And finally, I could not resist the temptation to rig up a Razorback with LEDs. I would like to send a HUGE thanks out to Chris at PoweredPlay Games. Check him out HERE. He sent me some LED kits and they were so easy to use that I am amazed I never tried them before.

The best part of this Razor is that I have the battery, board and switch inside, but there is still room on the board for more LED plugs, so when on display I can open up the hatch and plug in the LEDs from the display board!  While I know that the Flame Storm Cannon will not likely ever get a chance to lay its hot love down upon some Tau scum, I went for it just to get the chance to use those sweet LEDs in the barrels.

When I rigged this up, I planned out the wiring, which was super easy, then assembled the model, but didnt glue the top on. Then I primed and airbrushed the yellow base coat. The top is completely removable. Finally I installed the LEDs and wires and voila!  A power drill does come in handy. I filed down the orb headlight facing on the model so that it was flat, then I drilled through it, and the chassis with my power drill, leaving a hole just big enough for the LED to peek out.  In the gun, I left the LED at the base of the turret, and ran Fiber Optics down the barrels to deliver the light.  The headlights are SUPER bright, almost too bright, but so what, it looks awesome!


So the army is about 80% done.  The razor will take no time to paint and I have to finish the other vehicles and the dread. I will be done the terminators by Friday, and the tactical marine this weekend, leaving me with a few assault marines to paint, then every model to clean up and detail. Then I have to do the display.  It will be coming down to the wire, so I wont be able to add the motion element I had planned. I went to buy one but all the ones on Ebay are over 60 bucks... before Christmas they were going for 20... I was hoping to get one for a steal now... Oh well.  I will definitely have that done for Battle for Salvation! I dropped the bike squad for now. I simply had too much to do so had to revamp the list a bit.  But don't worry, they will be in the expansion of this army as I paint more.  (and they will give the lonely priest some one to ride with)

I am getting better at painting checker shoulder pads.  I only have about 7 more to do!  It is tedious and requires focus, so I can't do a lot at once, but my plan was to get one done every day on top of the rest of the painting, so I should have them done by next week.

I can't wait to see how this army looks on the table.  It has been the funnest army I have ever painted and it has rejuvenated my love for the hobby. I have ZERO aspirations for winning a single game with this army ever, but I have gone all in on the hobby part, so screw it.  Competing for Best Painted will be my competition!

Hope you enjoyed for now, much more to come no that I have found my camera. My wife lost it.

Jawaballs

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LED Lamenters Razorback WIP

January 13, 2014, 8:13 am
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Here are some more WIP pics! I airbrushed the base coat with Badger Mustard Gas over white primer, then I layed in two layers of Yellow on the edges with a brush using Yriel and Flash Gitz.  






For the doors I measured the checks with a metal ruler and drew the lines on white primed doors. Then I traced a dime in the center for the circle and painted the black checks, then painted the circle with layers of grey and free handed the heart.

And here is the Storm Raven after some much needed progress. I did the checks on the other wing, the top turret and side sponsons, and layed in some color on the edges. It is unbelievably hard to paint the same exact heart twice free hand. I painted the heart on the other side over a year ago!  This one came out a bit bigger, I need to go back and make it smaller.  It comes to a little sharper point than the "lamenters" heart.  (The one on the razor above is pretty good.)



More to come! I am starting 3 grad courses today for my second masters, so very soon I am going to be buried with work to do. SO I am trying to get as much progress on this army as I can now!

Jawballs
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Templecon is upon us!

January 14, 2014, 5:27 am
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In just a few weeks I will be traveling to Rhode Island for what is one of the coolest cons I have ever been to. Templecon!



With trying to balance family, work and life, I have had to reduce the amount of traveling I do for cons and I reduced the number I attend to just three. And Templecon is one of those.

Sure I go for the 40k GT, but unlike most cons, 40k is a very small part of the bigger picture.

So what is Templecon?  It was my introduction to Steampunk and cosplay. It is a gaming mecca and all around super nerd fest.  The first time I attended, I was awed by the amount of stuff going on!  It seemed that in just about every corner there were dudes playing games, literally. On the way up the elevator there were some guys huddled in the lobby playing Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted so much to join them!  Plus my eyes almost popped out of my head at all the beautiful and creative costumes. Each year they have a theme, this year it is Cyberpunk.

The entire weekend is a huge production. First, they block out the entire hotel. That's right, the entire building. And it sells out instantly. Every room. In fact, it is so huge that not only do they sell out the hotel, but two more neighboring ones!  It is that big.

So what exactly goes on?  Well first there are seminars and classes throughout the weekend.  I will be attending a Bourbon seminar on Thursday night and a Scotch tasting on Friday.  But I will be teaching a painting seminar on The Jawaballs Way on Friday, and my friend Dave and I are doing a Zombie panel and book reading on Saturday.  Two small elements in a huge list of things to do.  There are live bands and three areas full of vendors selling.. well every thing!  There was a room full of classic console games to play and of course the huge gaming GTs.  The first year 40k was a small 3 game tournament stuffed into a basement room. The last time I went it was a huge GT sharing space with the even huger Warmachine.

I am unveiling my new Lamenters at this con and can't wait to get them on the table.

If you would like some info on Templecon, here is their Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/TempleCon

And here is their main page:  http://www.templecon.org/14/

My painting seminar is full, but if enough people want to attend one, I will attempt to run another. So if you are going to Templecon, and want to attend my paint seminar, comment here or email me.

If you are in the northeast and want to experience good people in a fun atmosphere, Templecon is worth the trip.

Jawaballs
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Late night update

January 18, 2014, 10:30 pm
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Hey guys. I just wanted to share a quick WIP update on my Lamenters dread with LED lights.  I need to work on the checks more, and decide if I want to keep the checks on the leg plate with the checker base which is not changing.  I think it is a bit too much check!  I will probably just paint the leg armor yellow.

You can see all of the WIP behind him too. Three are assault squads, my librarian, couple scouts, death compnay and way back is a rhino.  Most of the models in the army are mostly done. I need to finish a handfull of marines like the ones closely behind this dread, then base and final detail.  I am pushing to have this totally done by the 26 cause I want to play in a local 3 game tournament.  That is just a week away!

I have all the materials for the display and I am going to start putting that together tomorrow.  I should have some nice update pics for you on Monday.

More to come!

Jawaballs
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Lamenters first action

January 27, 2014, 10:46 am
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And I forgot my camera!  It's ok though, they were not done yet any way. Every thing is just about done, it all just needs some detailing. I wanted to get it into a different venue and see how they look gaming tables before putting the final touches.

How did they perform on the table?  Dead last. I scored 6 out of 60 points. In their first game, in typical Lamenters fashion, an assault squad with a priest and Librarian attached took some wounds in the first round of shooting of the game, then failed leadership and ran off the table.  This lead the way to an entire day of catastrophic failure.  To accent the day, I got tabled in about fifteen minutes by a Draigo wing army.  I threw every thing I had at him but only took out a couple crusaders. Then he shot down my Storm Raven with psy cannons and destroyed every thing inside as I rolled nothing higher than a 2 for the invul saves and he rolled a penetrating explosion on my dread.

I will take a lot of pics later this week!

Jawaballs
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Templecon 2014

February 9, 2014, 6:50 pm
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I know I have been dropping the ball on pics lately. I got to Templecon and realized I had no card in my camera. I will post pics of my finished Lamenters this week though.

So Templecon 2014 is in the books. I had yet another fantastic time! This time I attended as a vendor. My friend David Monette joined me and we had a room in The Clockwork Bazaar. This is a whole wing of rooms where people open up their rooms as little shops. Mostly they were selling costumes and such for Steampunk.  We were selling my DVDs and Daves book The Zombie Axiom.  Also I was unloading some stuff I had on my shelves.

My Lamenters got their first real workout this weekend. And they performed in spectacular fashion! I scored zero points in 4 of my 5 games...  But that is ok.  I was more about simply enjoying my games rather than trying to win them. I set small goals for myself, like killing my enemies commander and such and went after them.  Frankly it is liberating to release yourself from the need to be competitive. I enjoyed every game I played, well except for a game against a Tau army where I just put all my guys in a clump in the center for them to be blasted to end the game. Which is how I will treat any ridiculous army in this new 40k world. Just give them the win and move on so we can get a drink instead!

Now, on the other side of the coin, I did very well in soft scores.  First I would like to thank every one who voted for me for Players Choice. I am honored and humbled. We had to select our favorite army in the room, and mine earned the most votes!  But I had to make a decision because the TO did not want to give Players Choice and Best Painted to the same guy, and rightly so! Oh I also won Best Painted.  :)  So I selected Best Painted as my award and passed Players Choice to the next in line.

I was pleasantly pleased to find that I also tied for first in Best Sportsman. There were four guys at the top but it went to my friend Ed Miller.  I have to say, these things are much more rewarding to me than winning the GT.  I like how it makes me feel as a person and player.

So thanks again for all the compliments at Templecon and the votes. It is greatly appreciated to be rewarded for my hard work.

Sadly, my next action won't come until October at Battle for Salvation when I play in their special invitational.

I will set up my display and take some good pictures and video this week and post it asap!

Jawaballs


Here is a shot of the gaming hall.  It was packed!  You can see me off in the background in the blue and gold rugby.


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My trip to the big game!

February 20, 2014, 7:07 am
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I forgot I had these pics!  I was organizing my images of my Lamenters army when I found all my footage from The Superbowl!  That is right, I was there!  Let me start by saying that The Superbowl has nothing to do with a game of football.  And if you have only ever watched the halftime show on TV, than you have no idea what it is about.

It was such a visceral experience, so engrossing and amazing to watch, that it can only ever be appreciated live.  Not just halftime, the whole time. Hell, I got to my seat about 4 hours early, and in a blink of the eye the game was on. I don't know what I did for four hours!  Whatever the result of the game, I really didn't care, it was a fantastic thing to be there and one of my most memorable days ever.


We got there fairly early and the place was still not packed...

My sister has a friend who is well connected. He gave her the pair of tickets, 5th row!

Our seats.


Just about 25 feet away John Elway was having a chat with Terrel Davis!



Just before one of the touchdowns by the Hawks.

Me and my sister!

Going to a Superbowl was on my bucket list, one of the things I never thought I would do. It is just too expensive to get tickets and fly to the venue. However, this time it was held at Giants Stadium, just a quick train ride for me!  (well not so quick it turned out, but you get the point)

With the travel and lodging taken out of the equation, not to mention the incredible kindness of my sister's friend, I managed to check this one off.  What a great day!  The weather was beautiful and it was a thrill to see all the behind the scenes.  :)

Jawaballs
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Lamenters from Templecon 2014

February 21, 2014, 5:39 am
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As promised! This is VERY pic heavy folks. Sorry for the long load time but it is worth it!

Yes there is still a lot of work to be done. I am very unhappy with the basing, and some of the models are unfinished, such as the sergeant terminator with the unfinished power sword.  But when you look at the army as a whole, and the layers upon layers of yellow it took to accomplish the appearance than you can get an appreciation for this army.

This army won Best Painted and Players Choice (Though I had to give that one up, I could only have one) at Templecon.

This was just the first wave of painting though. I will be completely unveiling this army in October at The Battle for Salvation Best Painted Invitational. (I have no idea what they are really calling it, we will go with that.)  The invitational is a full GT that will run alongside the competitive BFS GT.  However, in order to get into this one, you need to have won a Best Painted at a major tournament!  I was already in for having won Best Painted a couple years ago at BFS, but this just cements the deal.

Why is this awesome! Because it should be about the funnest tournament I have ever played in.  First of all, in theory, I should be up against other dudes like me, who care more about the hobby than the game. And I should be facing other lists that won't table me 4 out of 5 games!  The event should be an eye candy extravaganza and loads of fun.  I can't wait!  

What do I have to do now? I need to remake my display.  There is a lot I am unhappy with on this one, from the layout to the execution. I don't think there is any salvaging this one.  In that process, I will rebase most of the models.  With that said though, I think this display was a huge success. (we are our own worst critics)  I have been promising for years a display with lights, motion and sound and I finally delivered.  I did learn a thing or two here.  I won't get too into it, but there should be fast improvements for the October display.  Until then enjoy! There is video at the bottom.












































Here is some video.




Jawaballs
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It's been quiet... time for a Charity Army!

April 1, 2014, 4:00 am
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I have been buried with going to graduate school full time, and taking a break after painting my Lamenters army, but that is soon coming to an end. A lot has been happening lately with so much new stuff being released, and yes I have opinions. I will share more on that later. For now, I wanted to make a big announcement!

It is time for another charity army project! This year the Nova Open Charitable Foundation is taking the reigns again with running the show, and they are helping to organize the completion of FOUR armies for charity. HERE is a link to the NOCF site where you will find all the info you need.  I personally will be painting a couple squads of Ultramarine veterans. More on that soon. For now, here is the press release:



DONT WAIT!  You can buy your tickets to win the Space Marine army HERE. You know the drill.


The NOVA Open Charitable Foundation (NOCF) will open its 2014 charity army fundraising raffle season
tomorrow, April 1, 2014. Visit www.novaopenfoundation.org and join the “Compassionate Force” by
taking chances on winning one or more of the amazing armies being offered this year and supporting
deserving charities in the process!

BACKGROUND:
The NOCF was created to assist international miniature painters and artists who produce armies as
fundraising vehicles for charitable causes. Recognizing the immense generosity of the worldwide
tabletop wargamer, the NOCF was formed to bring this “Compassionate Force” together under a single
banner with a broad international outreach. Every raffle ticket purchased in support of these charity
armies will contribute to causes which address the needs of humanitarian emergency relief, children’s
concerns, medical research and the military.

In 2013, the worldwide tabletop wargaming community’s support of the NOCF charity army raffles
raised over $10,000 which was donated to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, The
Fisher House Foundation and The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The three charity armies from
2013 were shipped from Washington, D.C. to winners in Washington State, Missouri and as far away as
Tasmania, Australia!

2014 CHARITY ARMY RAFFLES:
*A Consortium of professional and award-winning artists from within the tabletop wargaming
community has come together in support of the NOCF Macragge Project. Learn more about each HERE.
The proceeds from these two armies will support Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The NOCF expanded the work of the Consortium to two separate armies in 2014, representing Battle of
Macragge, the epic clash between Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth and Ultramarines led by Marneus
Calgar. Both of these armies are full 1850-tuned armies, including numerous extra models for force
flexibility.

● ARMY #1: Battle of Macragge Ultramarine List
o Marneus Calgar and Honor Guard
o Chief Librarian Tigurius
o Chaplain Cassius
o 5 Tyrannic War Veterans
o 1 Drop Pod
 o 30 Tactical Marines with a variety of weapon load outs
o 10 x Scouts: 5 w/ Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks, 5 w/ Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons
o 3 Storm Talons with Skyhammer Missiles
o 3 Thunderfire Cannons
o 1 Knight Titan
o 3 Centurion Devastators with Hurricane Bolters and Heavy Graviton Cannons

Some of the models I will be painting.


● ARMY #2: Battle of Macragge Tyranid List
o Flying Hive Tyrant w/ 2 Twin-Linked Devourers
o 5 Tyranid Warriors w/ Magnetized Weapon Options
o 1 Tyranid Prime w/ Norn Crown, Magnetized Weapon Options
o 60 Termagants
o 2 Mawlocs
o 1 Carnifex w/ Magnetized Weapon Options
o 20 Gargoyles
o 2 Lictors
o 1 Deathleaper
o 1 Venomthrope
o 3 Tyrant Guards (expected magnetized options for either tyrant guard or hive guard)
o 2 Hive Crones
o 8 Genestealers

*Stiff Neck Studio, under the leadership of Capt. Wesley Cogdal, is once again donating an exceptional
army for the NOCF charity raffles. This year, they are expanding our army range to include the first NOCF
Fantasy army, lovingly entitled “Man Eaters of the Great Maw!” The NOCF proudly donated funds from
last year’s Stiff Neck Studio army to The Fisher House Foundation, and we hope the Compassionate
Force will come together in 2014 to double those funds for this charity.

● ARMY #3: Fantasy Ogre Kingdom List

o 1 Ogre Tyrant
o 6 Ogre Bullz
o 5 Ogre Iron Gutz
o 4 Lead Belcher's
o 1 Stone-horn
o 1 Scrap launcher

*Built by a combined force of hobbyists associated with the Penny Arcade forum, the Deathwatch Army
has been donated to the NOCF with the request that it be raffled as a fundraiser for Child’s Play Charity.
Forty pages of forum posts followed this army from musings on a “general 40K” thread to each model
being painted by a different person over the course of a year, culminating in the most recent post which
announced, “The army is in the care of the Nova Open Charitable Foundation. . . .” The handler, who
wishes to remain anonymous, recognized that a lot of people had given of themselves to create this
Deathwatch Army, and it had a lot to give back to the community. A staff member of the NOVA Open
Tabletop Wargaming Convention, Martin Bagley, has agreed to take on the task of repairing and
restoring this army to its original grandeur over the next few weeks.

● ARMY #4: Deathwatch Army List
o Full List Can be Found HERE





2014 Sponsors:
Remember to check the Foundation website ( www.novaopenfoundation.org ) every Sunday between
now and August 17, 2014 to see which of our amazing sponsors is offering a gift certificate for the
weekly Saturday drawings!

KR Multicase is once again donating customized KR transport cases to safely nestle each of our amazing
charity armies for their travels.

 TheWarStore contributed dozens of models to the two large Macragge armies and the Ogre Kingdom
army this year.

Secret Weapon Miniatures stepped up again in 2014, providing all bases and Masterclass scenic
products for the Macragge armies.

Powered Play Gaming joins the NOCF charity efforts in 2014 to offer products for the lighting of models and, more particularly, for the full-on 4’x6’ Macragge Project Terrain Table being created by Michael
Frazier.

NOVA Open also donated the dozens of models necessary to complete the Macragge and Ogre Kingdom armies.

Special thanks to the 11th Company who will podcast the drawings internationally during the NOVA Open Tabletop Wargaming Convention, August 31, 2014.

More to come!
Jawaballs
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