Chris Tomlin

Just keep in mind that Rock Lobbers are super spiky! By that I mean they either seems to be amazing or do nothing, there is little middle ground (much like Ironjawz in general!!). Try not to go into games expecting to be able to insta-kill 5-6 wounds heroes each turn, you need to roll a lot of 3+'s for that to happen and even one failure can put pay to your plans. Overall though, I think they are a worthwhile investment as they just give us an option to achieve things we have no other means to do. Definitely not switching them out any time soon. I really like them Thanks Zambo! Hey, agree totally. I almost feel it's a must to spend our ally points on shooting right now. My preference is 100% for 4 of them. The Fungoid is in this list for two reasons; The points fell together nicely! SCGT features 2 Malign Portents scenarios, so if I do end up taking these, he's helpful to have on board. The versions I've had with 4 Rock Lobbers and the Shaman tend to need 3 units of Gore-gruntas I find, though I think I mentioned above that in theory I do like the idea of 30 Ardboys in these kind of lists. That said, like @Sangfroid, I'm very adverse to Brute-less builds! Hi, yeh sorry I never really list them. My set ups are always the same though; Brutes in units of 10+ have Boss w/ Klaw & Smasha, max Gore-choppas and Jagged Gore-hackas. Brutes in units of 5 have Boss w/ Klaw & Smasha, 1 Gore-choppa and Choppas. Gore-gruntas have Choppas Hope this helps You're right, all 3 do seem useful. I've played a bit with both 2 and 3 Spear Chukkas - I think they're great, really really like them. One of the main reasons I've switched to Rock Lobbers is that I've just finished painting my conversions. Totally not adverse to going back to the Spear Chukkas at some point. Is a shame you can't fit 4 in though. As for the Doom Divers, they also seem good. I know what I'd like to convert them out of and simply haven't gotten around to it yet. Yeh agree with all of that. Both are definitely really good for us. The comments around how the different machines effect the list composition due to points difference is the most pertinent to me right now I think. Yeh it's strange. Would be great if they were all 100pts and could use each others crew to gain the benefits regardless of war machine type. That might be asking too much though haha!! Haha you don't ask for much do you! Not sure there was much by way of meaningful duels in this game though. Just the Cabbage punching Goatman into pulp! Thanks for comments though. I find that lighting is the number one factor for how my models look on the table - also the angle of the photos as from the top down they are quite dark. Cheers, Chris

Morning, Thanks to those who have paid up so far. Hopefully get a fair few more on board in the coming weeks before I look to finalise number. The entrants list will be updated this afternoon. Entrants & Grudges updated 10/04

Hey man, thanks once again for your kind comments - it is most appreciated. No worries for getting the wrong thread. With the Phoenixes, patience is definitely the number one skill required for that many line/edge highlights. Not tricky, just takes ages haha. In terms of airbrushing, I'm really not a fan of models that a purely painted with an airbrush. There's a certain style to quickly airbrushed models (often referred to as pro painted on eBay haha!!) that just looks rubbish to me. That said, airbrushing used as a tool for basecoats, layers etc and mixed in with brush work for final highlights is something I have come to appreciate, though personally my preference is still for brush painted miniatures. To each their own though. Cheers bro! Hopefully get some time in on the Phoenix Guard this week!

Ok so here are some photos, if people like this I'll try to do it more often. As mentioned above, the Brayherd spread out across the table looks pretty scary! Here is a little look at my deployment; Could've perhaps done with a 'before' shot here, but this is after I took off the first unit of Bestigor and how the table looked; And then just a selection of successive shots as the Maw-krusha mopped things up (there was an 8/8 Destructive Bulk in here somewhere!!) And there we have it! They don't really tell much of a story so not sure how useful they are. Also my models don't look particularly great in these pics so not sure how keen on them I am! Let me know if it's worth doing again though. Enjoy!

Morning guys, Back from my trip to London for Wrestlemania weekend....feeling pretty tired at work as I haven't fully caught up on 3 nights of going to bed after 5am yet! Urgh. Anyway, I wanted to post some brief comments on my game from last Thursday. I will go through the above comments and write replies in a bit - as always, thanks for these responses. Game 121 vs James Eveleigh (Brayherd) James' army looks super intimidating on the table (as you'll see when I add the photos). It includes; Beastlord, 2 Shaman, Darkoath Warqueen, 30 Ungor Raiders, 3x30(!!) Bestigor and 3 Jabberslythes...then he sticks down his massive Herdstone to compound matters. 90 Bestigor, wow! He also has them modelled on 25mm round bases (something I constantly berate him for haha!) which means they are getting a bunch of attacks in. I guess the flip side is that on 32mm bases they would look even more imposing as they'd utterly flood the table. The last time I played James' Beastmen he was able to win pretty convincingly, though this was pre-Ironclad it has to be said. Going into this game I was pretty confident the Cabbage could do some work ignoring the rend of the Bestigor. That said, whilst I have gained Ironclad (and Rock Lobbers), he's added the trio of dirty Jabbers to his build. We decided to play one of the Malign Portents pitched battles that will be used at the South Coast Grand Tournament (SCGT), including the prophecy points (predetermined amount per battle round as per the battleplan). We picked out Dark Omens as it basically seems like a slightly more interesting version of Knife to the Heart. This game was the best part of a week ago now, so I will keep the details short especially as it was so massively one sided . The prophecy points and portents are really fun, although I found I quickly worked out the most efficient way to spend my points each turn and didn't deviate from that (even though I had the ability to switch guiding portents due to the Fungoid). So each turn I was; giving a Rock Lobber +1 to hit, allowing the Fungoid to keep eating shrooms, giving the Cabbage a reroll on his armour save and putting 3 points into the objective (battleplan specific rules). All of these were really strong. T1, James didn't do much other than chuck the 3 Jabbers straight forward as a deadly first wave. I was able to dish out a massive 15 wounds spread across the 3 of them with my 3 Rock Lobbers (pretty lucky, but the +1 to hit helped and I also took Damned terrain on one machine as it was safe to do so). I then was able to use the Gore-gruntas and 5 Brutes to clear up the madness inducing monsters with minimal Mortal Wound splashback, which was my primary goal for the game as it would allow the Maw-krusha to get to work unhindered. With that first wave out of the way early T2, I was now able to focus on the Bestigor. I perhaps should've targeted the heroes with the Rock Lobbers, but the +1 to hit against the big units was too juicy to turn down and I was able to generate a bunch of extra shots across the game. James did fail Mystical Terrain on 30 Bestigor one turn which was a bit unfortunate and he also gave himself a chance for a 10" charge with another 30 into the 3 Rock Lobbers, which would've been pretty devastating for me actually. As it was, luck was definitely on my side this game and aside of luck, the Cabbage now did not have any real threats (providing I could roll 2+ saves). As it was, the combination of the Rock Lobbers barrage and the Maw-krushas damage output was far too much for the Bestigor which dropped like flies. I literally didn't even touch my unit of 10 Brutes all game - they just sat unmoved on my home objective protecting the Fungoid (not that anything got near). James did mop up both Grunta units and a unit of 5 Brutes, but not before the Brutes had snuck in and killed his Beastlord. By the time we got to turn 5, all 90 Bestigor were dead...an impressive feat I felt, made even more so by the fact that only 2(!) of these had fled to battleshock, I literally took the other 88 off as casualties. Brutal! In T5 I was able to delete the Ungor and a Shaman, leaving James with a sole survivor, a Shaman lurking in the back! To his credit, when James realised he couldn't win (I had two turns outnumbering his objective for a 36-30 win - tbf James capped out his home objective in all his turns) he decided to put all his efforts into the Maw-krusha. This made for an entertaining end to the game as whilst I was mostly bossing the saves, the few times I failed a batch (he was on 3+ the last couple of turns, out of Fungoid range) I was able to pull off some sweet dabs...in fact 7 over the course of the game and he ended up alive on one wound!!! But yeh, it was a really really fun game with James and I truly thought I was going to have a problem until I just didn't. I actually really like his army and do think it could cause people serious problems. The Cabbage and Rock Lobbers were just amazing though. I felt I played well enough though and had a solid game plan. I won't lie, it was nice to have such a crushing win as it's been literally AGES since I've had a game go like that for me. Result - Major Victory I will add the photos shortly. Cheers for reading, Chris

Hey @Spiney Norman, Thanks for the comments. All my painting is brush work, I do not own an airbrush. As for the Ironjawz, the armour is painting in a pretty inefficient way tbh. I have continued with this method as I started with it and like how it looks, but suspect similar results could be achieved with less stages!! Basecoat black Line the edges and ridges with a mix of black and Mechanicus Standard Grey Highlight with Mechanicus Standard Grey, adding progressive more Dawnstone for successive highlights (3 highlights total - top one pure Dawnstone) Paint some areas of larger chipping (so not all round the edges) in Leadbelcher Wash the entire area with Army Painter Dark Tone Spend forever going round the armour carefully applying chips over the black ridges and highlights to the Leadbelcher areas. I use Runefang Steel for this, but if I started again now I would 100% switch to Stormhost Silver (just didn't want to change halfway through the army or anything). But honestly, if you went over a flat black undercoat with Stormhost Silver chips (which you could stipple much quick than painstakingly painting each one) I don't think over 50% of people (probably much higher) would even be able to tell the difference, especially in gaming areas with poor lighting. That is an incredibly depressing thought to me haha!! That said, it's all worth it when someone does notice the difference/effort Be sure to share pics of your Black Knights and Graveguard when finished! Chris

Hey, For month 4 I'll be adding 20 more Phoenix Guard to the army. Technically I have the points for 30, but can't face that in a month so will just be underpointed for the month again (month 4 games are 1300pts). I have changed my previous plans and will not be painting two different versions of the list (one campaign, one for SCGT) as I don't want to rush and will just use something else at SCGT. I will just continue to add monthly for the campaign instead, however this does give me the conundrum of which allies I'll be adding. I also don't think I want to do 4 Frosthearts now as I'm not sure it'll be viable if (when!) they go up in points in the next handbook. So by the end of the month, the army will be; Leaders Anointed Of Asuryan On Frostheart Phoenix (240) Anointed Of Asuryan On Frostheart Phoenix (240) Anointed (80) Battleline 20 x Phoenix Guard (320) 10 x Phoenix Guard (160) 10 x Phoenix Guard (160) Total: 1200 / 1300 I'm now thinking the 2,000 point list I'm working towards might look like this; Leaders Anointed Of Asuryan On Frostheart Phoenix (240) Anointed Of Asuryan On Frostheart Phoenix (240) Anointed Of Asuryan On Frostheart Phoenix (240) Anointed (80) Archmage (120) - Allies Loremaster (100) - Allies Battleline 30 x Phoenix Guard (420) 10 x Phoenix Guard (160) 10 x Phoenix Guard (160) Units 3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (180) - Allies Total: 1940 / 2000 Allies: 400 / 400 I can't say it's overly efficient, especially with 60 wasted points. I'll admit I'm currently finding it frustrating to build a pure Phoenix Temple list, where theme is so restrictive. I could literally drop 10 Phoenix Guard, add 3x 10 Skinks and suddenly have all the flexibility I want. I'm definitely not doing that though, it seems a bit backwards to me haha! But anyway, I digress...

Thanks for all the replies guys, I'm quite busy at work today but will try to reply later on. I had a great game last night vs 90(!) Bestigor and 3 Jabberslythes, so I'll report on that ASAP as well....I even took some photos, just for @DinoTitanedition

Tickets are available now and are priced at £45. Payment is to be made via PayPal as friends & family to lunatic_pandora@btinternet.com

Guys, Ticket info will be on Twitter this evening, so keep an eye on @the_black_sun for updates. Full details will be added here tomorrow. Cheers, Chris

Yeh I always kinda planned to do that with this thread but always forget. I'll see if I can snap some tonight.

Morning all, Back with another super brief report for you guys. Will just keep it simple so I don't end up with a backlog for myself (playing again tonight!); Game 120 vs Matt Clarke @Gmac2610 (Stormcast Eternals) Another game vs Stormcast, but a completely different list to the one I was up against last time. Matt had the Aetherstrike Force and his army consisted of; Prime, Castellant, WHW hero (Knight Errant?), Venator, Azyros, 2x Judicators, Liberators, Hunters, 2x Raptors (one of each sort) and 2x Aetherwings. I think that was about it? As previously mentioned I think Ironjawz and Stormcast do line up nicely vs one another for a good game and this was certainly no exception, a very close and exciting game. My list was the Fungoid + 3 Lobber variant mentioned above and I have to admit I feel like this is a pretty strong list (from an Ironjawz point of view that is). We were playing Battle for the Pass and much like last game my opponent forced me into a deployment zone with a bunch of Mystical terrain around my home objective. This gave me my first big choice of the game. Initially I planned to camp all 3 Rock Lobbers together near that home objective, however they would all be subject to Mystical (can be a huge bonus for them if you're brave/stupid), but worse that that it would certainly entice Matt to really attack into that objective, potentially scoring him 4 victory points and clearing out my powerful artillery - I would've just been stacking things in his favour. So I was looking where else I could deploy them in a blob, when it occurred to me it might be better to forgo the chance at an extra shot and instead deploy them individually. This way I could minimise the impact of his deepstriking (especially the Prime) and could also use them as area denial for where he could actually bring his units down. I'm talking on this a bit more as it was an interesting choice I felt, but I suspect the correct one. I did roll a couple of 6's over the game, but nothing too depressing. As it was, the early turns weren't as routine as I planned (move Gruntas up, score 5) as Matt was able to bring down the Hunters on one side and the Hurricane Bolter Raptors on the other and start threatening two of my Rock Lobbers, so I had to pull back a unit of Gruntas and 5 Brutes to deal with those. Brutes did their job, but the Gruntas spent waaaay too long on 3 Raptors. I was still able to take one side objective with the other Grunta unit and get the 10 Brutes to the other side (thanks to the bonus 6" move). The Cabbage did some good work in getting into Matt's backfield and tbh I thought that'd probably wrap the game up for me as he'd be able to clear them out and sit pretty. As it was that WHW hero is a complete pain! He totally ignores rend and was rocking a 2+ save thanks to Staunch Defender and the Castellant buff. So whilst I took down the Raptors, I literally couldn't kill that dude afterwards; totally underestimated him. He also had rerolls to hit and wounds vs me!! Ouch. By this point the Fungoid was out of shield range (then dead!), so kinda unexpectedly I ended up losing the Cabbage. It didn't help that the Aetherstrike Force battalion rules allowed him some extra shooting and Matt actually used his Venator's Starfated arrow as part of this, which was something I totally overlooked. In fact, it was a pretty funny game in that it was quite easy for me to chain together attacks due to his small unit sizes, but then he'd be able to shoot in-between...so we'd still be alternating in the combat phase but it was fight, shoot, fight, shoot!! Think I mentioned the same after my last game vs Matt. Anyway, the Prime came down T3 and promptly rolled a 2&1 for his charge which was pretty helpful . Matt ended up right back in the game, but my early rounds of just scoring 5 had put me in a solid position throughout. I was able to get the bigger unit of Brutes into his back objective and whilst I couldn't kill that damn Errant or whatever he's called, my boyz still held that objective firm for a couple of turns giving me a 28-22 win. As it was I got the Prime down to his final wound from the two Brute Bosses from the units of 5...was just trying to squeeze through that final Rock Lobber hit to finish him. But yeh....super vague report there that in no way does the game justice. It was heaps of fun and totally swingy towards the end - who knows what would've happened had that Prime got into my home objective a turn earlier. The Rock Lobbers were slightly underwhelming, I was trying to get the Castellant with him but some of the time just had to settle for Judicators which just isn't overly efficient (3 damage is an awkward amount against them). But yeh, sorry that'll have to do. Great game. Result - Major Victory Playing Brayherd tonight, got my Malign Portents cards at the ready! Will likely report back on Tuesday once I'm recovered from Wrestlemania weekend!! Chris x

Haha yeh fair one dude! Hope you can make it. Would be great to have you along! Good news Dan! Niiiiice!! Awesome, be nice to see you both again. Good luck with the hotels! (I booked Travelodge Cardiff Central for £183 for two nights)

Morning all, Thanks for the replies, likes etc Thanks man. I am happy with the scheme and think it all ties in nicely with the cold bluey-grey. I like the glass analogy. Thanks Steve, glad you like him. The gold actually got a little extra attention here as after a first pass I wasn't happy so washed it down and re-layered. It's given it some nice depth, particularly on the Phoenix's hat thing! Cheers bro! Yeh I definitely wanted to keep somewhat of a limited palette that also ties into the base for that very cold feel. In terms of the army composition, it's kind of annoying me at the moment. I wanted to include a bunch of stuff but am finding the allies system restrictive in this instance and unfortunately even building it as an army of the Phoenicium doesn't help due to battleline. As we've seen recently, mixed Order is the popular way to go as you can jam in 3x10 Skinks for 180pts and then take whatever the hell you like! I'm not keen on this personally for my army (no issues with others doing it), so will remain as pure Phoenix Temple. That said I definitely will be painting up a small variety of allies; namely Eldritch Council for some magic and Phoenix buffs (and maybe a Dragon!) as well as some Stormcast Vanguard Chamber stuff for some shooting. All that said, I do plan on buying into Idoneth Deepkin completely. Ideally they would be painted in a similar fashion to these models and based the same, but I worry it won't work, so that is something that needs consideration. A few people have asked this so I will certainly be doing so . Thanks! Chris

Hey, I like to have the flexibility of the 2x5 Brutes for objectives, Waaagh count etc. Also don't underestimate the effect of having an additional set of Boss Klaw & Smasha attacks in the army; so so good! I still find that whilst the unit of 10 is a bit of a powerhouse, it does kinda need babysitting with Inspiring Presence a lot of the time - with 2x10, the opponent can easily whittle down the unprotected unit. I guess it's down to personal preference, but for me I'd always set up 20 Brutes as 10 with Hackas and then 2x5 with Choppas. In terms of the Rock Lobbers, there's no overriding game plan. I assess the preferable targets at the start of each game and go from there. The great thing about them is that they are so versatile and can pretty much shoot whatever you like. Sometimes targeting units of 10+ models over a character/monster will be an entirely valid tactic as hitting on 2's with extra shots of 5's is very juicy. The ability to remove support characters semi reliably (though I like your optimism with virtually guaranteed haha!!) is definitely one of the best options a lot of the time as it's something we would normally never be able to achieve and tbh, that's one of my largest deciding factors when selecting targets; what can these achieve that nothing else in the army can. Sorry for the non-answers there! How do you find the Fungoid? Cheaper, better and more survivable than the Weirdnob, am I right?

Thanks mate, glad you like them. Looks like @Sangfroid has you covered, with one exception; No. It's never Malpo!!!

Entrants - updated 13/06 - Paul Buckler - Laurie Huggett-Wilde - Tom Hewitt - Will Philpott - Ian Gilmore - Russ Veal - James Eveleigh - Tim Fisher - Ben Diesel 10 Mike Wilson - Patrick O’Sullivan - Sam Davies - Steve Hursell - Steve Phillips - Matt Arnold - Liam Cook - Jonathon Kyprianidis - Matthew Lyons - Jen Lyons 20 Chris Lewis - Elliot O’Neill - John Greene - Chris Mills - Ed Hamon - Daniel Ford - Marc Brookes - Owyn Abram - Ben Johnson - Mathew Davies 30 Danny Cashman - Jack McQuiggin - Rob Ellis - Stephen Curtis - Matthew Sheret - Francis Arthur - Martin Clarke - James Allan - Karl Breakspear - Dave Roberts 40 Les Martin - Patrick Rance - Karl Wadley - Andy Talbot - Mike Parker - Pete Allison - Chris Allison - Alex Gilbank - Paul Marshallsay - James Box 50 Tom Dix - Nicky Martin - Greg Shelton - Dan Hadert - Tom Wall - Jon Barwise - Josh Richards - Maxime Julian - Wayne Rendell - Aaron Hazell 60 Sam Sendell - Ritchie McAlley - Ian O'Brien - Mark Curtis - Martin Neal - Stewart Callander - James Tinsdale - Tom Lees - Daniel White - Simon Froley 70 Kieran Harper - Ben Richards - Dan George - Angus Brain - Shaun Lang - Joe Clark - Ian Ralph - Duncan Stacy-Marks - Adam Button - Alex Bruce 80 Andy Hall - Joseph Carr - Tony Moore - Kane Holloway - Nigel Chorlton - Andrew Lewis - Alastair King - Dave Avery - Nicholas Ruesink-Brown - Brook MacRae 90 Adam Mumford - Benjamin Savva - Ben Smith - Byron Orde - Martin Morrin - Tom Pedley - Ricky Mee - Chris Green - Tomas Erling - Will Barton 100 Adrian McWalter - Mike Burgess Spare Player - Aaron Bailey Grudges - updated 05/06 1 - Matthew Lyons vs Ben Diesel 2 - James Box vs Jonathon Kyprianidis 3 - Chris Lewis vs Tom Hewitt 4 - Matt Arnold vs Elliot O’Neill 5 - Ben Johnson vs Ricky Mee 6 - Will Philpott vs Steve Hursell