Neona Dēmons - the Dreadland walkers.

[Chris Tomlin]

@Payce - You know the drill brother; fantastic work as always.

Enjoyed the battle reports as well as the pics of awesome minis. The table and terrain looks great as well.

[Payce]

Quick 4am update, because I'm high on paint fumes and Pepsi.

Brutes are done, 1000 points are done. Army shot coming where there's actually some light around. For now, have a WIP shot of this precious little lady that will soon join the fold;



Her name's Durrty Feedr and she's an absolute doll. I love her to bits.

[flambyx]

Good luck on this one.

It's a fantastic miniature but it's so challenging .. Just the base is way too big

Beyond that, really like the feel of your army.

[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎06‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 3:09 AM, Payce said:

Her name's Durrty Feedr and she's an absolute doll. I love her to bits.

Class.

Can't wait to see how this cheeky chunker comes out!

[Payce]

Allright, showtime!

First ever Matched Play game today, to celebrate the impending death of GHB1 and Ironjawz as we know them, against my friend and regular tournament partners brand new Seraphon - so brand new, in fact, that he had to take two behemoths to even make a thousand points. Took the opportunity to finally get some army shots of my completed first thousand points as well, from a bunch of angles.

As for the game itself, we played Take & Hold, with me bringing the standard list;

Megaboss - general, Bellowing Tyrant, ToP
Warchanter - ToP
10 Ardboys - full command, twohanders
3 Gruntas - piggies
5 Brutes - claw and club, big thing, twohanders
5 Brutes - claw and club, big thing, double onehanders
Ironfist

My opponent brought a somewhat less standard list, consisting of... literally everything he had painted.

Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur - general, Reckless, Obstinate Blade
9 Saurus Knights - Alpha Knight, banner, Celestial Lances
5 Saurus Guard
3 Skink Handlers
Bastiladon - Solar Engine

(yes, that is a Jurassic Park-banner)

I won the rolloff and the finished deploying first, deeming he should go first. Moving forward and setting himself up nicely for my charge, he manages to do very little in his shooting phase, the Oldblood targeting my Ardboys and missing everything, the Solar Engine picking two wounds off a unit of brutes. On the return charge, I... literally missed everything, bad Ironfist rolls, worse Rampaging Destroyers rolls and even worse still charge rolls making sure most of my units remained at between 9 and 13 inches from any viable targets, with the exception of the Gore-gruntas that did 5 wounds onto the Bastiladon, and took two back.

Turn two, and the dinosaurs win the rolloff. He charges both his Knights and Oldblood into my unit of Brutes on the left flank, whose primary job is to tie up said two units in combat and keep my Ardboys guarding the objective safe. Which doesn't really work all that well - they manage to get two wounds in on the Oldblood before they're wiped out. This moment, apparently, lit a fire under my boys' rears, as the remaining five Brutes charged the Oldblood and killed it outright, and my Megaboss charged the Saurus Guard and took out four of them. With my Gruntas having moved up but failed their charge, I'm suddenly in range of both objectives.

And I double-turn, and in reality, the game is over. My Megaboss wipes out the last Saurus Guard, my Gruntas remove the Skinks, and my Brutes tie up the Knights in combat - I cap both objectives at the end of turn three for an instant Major Victory. The double turn is literally what won me the game - had he taken priority, his Knights would have had free reign to charge my Ardboys, which would almost certainly have cause a draw, so while I won from my tactic working out more or less like I planned, he still played well enough that it was hardly as one-sided as it sounds.

And with that, Megaboss Uru can celebrate the first and only win for the Dēmons in the current state of the game. He is seen here with his collection of lucky trinkets and powerful talismans.

Next up, cabbage!

[Charles]

Really enjoy the battle reports and photography. Thanks for putting in the effort ?

[Payce]

So, with the news and leaks from the new General's Handbook, we have a firmer grip on what's coming and going. First and foremost, no Arachnorok, which makes me sad since I had one ready and a mean conversion planned. Second, with the changes to the batallions and the across-the-line points increase, a Teef Rukk seems significantly less attractive now. Which leaves us with the Idol, which still looks awesome, and the Gargants. Provided the Grot Shaman remains unchanged (literally the only relevant model I've not seen the points on yet), we could fit in two Gargants and a Shaman bang on for 400 points, which is likely going to be my go-to allied build if applicable. If not, the cheaper Shaman is still a good option to the Weirdnob if we're pinching points.

As for the Ironjawz themselves, the points drop to Gordrakk is decent, but not enough to ever be taken (the loss of the command trait just isn't worth it). The points drop on the cabbage is mostly as expected, my guess was 20 lower than he ended, but he's decently costed now - although being the same points as a Frostlord on Stonehorn (and 60 more than a Durthu) is still a bit of a headscratcher as he's both less killy and less survivable than both of those. The Gruntas have the expected price reduction that "everyone" knew was coming with the Skirmish rules, and the Ardboys Mighty Horde is literally just awesome.

As for allegiance, I'm slightly disappointed that none of the issues that needed fixing was fixed, but I'm also equally excited that it looks like we have to approach the army in a whole new manner. The loss of speed from Rampaging Destroyers makes the Ironfist even more mandatory now, even with the points increase, but we're overall losing D6(+2)" movement per unit per hero phase. The combat shenanigans is going to make up for this in the lategame, but getting across the table is going to be a challenge now. I also dislike the solution to deal with our Bravery issues - while D3 Inspiring Presence looks good, it also comes at the cost of a command trait that synergises with our allegiance abilities, and a command ability that offers offensive punch. The fact that we're still stuck with using IP over Waaagh! as our command ability is not a good design solution.

I'm overall really happy with the changes, though - it should change up the Brute-spam, and encourage diversity to lists far more. Cheaper Grunta screens and Chanter-stacked Ardboy hordes looks awesome. For my first list, that I'll be bringing to a tournament in 4 weeks, I'm aiming to bring the following list;

Cabbage (general)
2 Chanters
Shaman
30 Ardboys, full command, twohanders all around
2x3 Gruntas, pig iron
2x5 Brutes
Ironfist

Clocks in at 1990 points (so even a potential triumph roll in there), and I think it looks really strong. I could be wrong. What it does, is actually include every single Ironjawz model, with a purpose. The plan is for the Ardboys to screen the characters (which in turn supports them, offering a 3+ save and 2+ to hit), the Gruntas to screen the Brutes, and the cabbage to wreak havoc, forcing the opponent's immediate attention elsewhere.

It's going to be awesome.

[Payce]

Ladies and gentle men. I give you:

Snoffo uv de Klan Bannuk, de ninth uv hiz name, de frekvently-burnt, King uv de Neona Dēmons, de wyverns uv Paolarr an yer mommy, Redjent uv de Dreadlands, Grand Warlord uv de Northern Steppes, Envoy uv Mork, Pwner uv de Realm, Skurge uv de surrovndin landz, Silver Tower enthusiast an de Daddy uv dem All.
 

And he's done. I've converted his weapons to be able to use him both as Gordrakk and as the regular cabbage with Gore-hacka and Scrap-tooth. While I know that's not the best setup, I got an extra cabbage lying to build for the other configuration that will be build. And painted. Eventually.

And now, back to reality.

 

[Chillpill]

Subscribing to this!! Love the colours! Real orcs wear pink!

[Chris Tomlin]

Wow! How did this have no replies or likes!!

I do disagree with a fair amount of your above analysis on GH2017 Ironjawz. I wonder if your opinions have changed at all since reading through the book etc? I've genuinely think we've done well out of all this.

In other news, your Maw-krusha is fantastic. Love it. Your colour scheme works perfectly on him. I'm glad you kept the pseudo monochromatic thing going.

This is definitely one of my favourite Ironjawz armies out there. Great work as always.

Ha! Got ninja'd by @Chillpill

[harrocks]

funnily enough I think I prefer this pastel shade approach to the primary colours 'canon' one - which I still can't warm too (unless v. weathered).

[Payce]

So, that took a turn.

Last time I checked in I was prepping for a tournament with my orc boys - I went 3-2 and came in 4th overall (out of twelve). After that, I played a couple game against Stormcast and the then-broken Tzeentch and had my rear handed to me, before some general ups and downs in life made me a break from painting and playing altogether. Got sort of back into it last fall when I jumped on the bandwagon with some Nighthaunt, spent way too much money buying literally one of everything, only to realise when I started to play them that I really disliked the playstyle of the current meta Nighthaunt lists, and that making them play the way I would like would take painting up 60+ more models on top of my existing army.

Which honestly, I will, at some point - I really like the model, and while painting them is less than exciting (they're just sheets, man, sheets!) and I think there's stull hope to play them at a decent level with some changes to my playstyle. That, however, doesn't help much with a major tournament coming up in less than three weeks, and thus, here we are. The Neona Dēmons are back, babes.

Some changes are needed, however - last I played, Brutes were the hott shizz, I fell off before Gorefistdrakk (alpha-)hit the meta, and now, well... one-drops ftw?

So I bought a box of Blood Bowl orcs to make myself some new Ardboyz; Champ with Big Chop, banner, icon and drummer with pairs; six dudes with three shields, two more Big Chops and a last set of pairs.

(Never mind my significant other building a Thricefold Befoulment in the back there. Evil. Evil, evil, evil.)

If I have time, I plan to re-tool some of my existing Ardboyz into an identical unit of ten, if not I'll just run them as they are - all Big Chops, all day. Also pondering whether to add a Fungoid to my list, or stick with the Weirdo - I'll discuss my list and thoughts around it in a later post (I still paint abysmally slow, so I'll soon run out of updates if I rely on painting alone.)

Come to think of it, I never did post pictures of my Weirdo. I'll add some shots of her in my next post as well. In the meantime, it's back on the grind.

(Why. why, why did I ever go for chessboards. Oh, right - because Ghazgkhull Mag Uruk motherbrokking Thraka, that's why.)

[Gorthor21]

Keep at it man, it’s a really cool looking army and I’m looking forward to seeing those converted blorcs painted pink!