Chris Tomlin

Morning all, Yeh, it's pretty huge. Still can't say I've missed it if I'm honest! So, it's time for another quick battle recap!! I had listed my planned army list above, but just in case you missed it; Cabbage - General, Ironclad, Dabs Shaman Warchanter Warchanter 10 Brutes 5 Brutes 3 Gore-gruntas 3 Gore-gruntas Ironskull's Boyz Spear Chukka Spear Chukka Spear Chukka As I mentioned above this is a lot of units for an Ironjawz army! It's actually quite nice to have so many with the Spear Chukkas in the list, as in theory it allows you to pick the most suitable deployment position for them to maximise threat potential etc. This list is a slight variant on my FHGT list, which I described as "the best Ironjawz list I've ever used" (carefully worded so that I'm not claiming it's the best Ironjawz list of course! The switch I made was to drop 5 Brutes for Ironskull's Boyz and a 3rd Spear Chukka. I knew I wanted to add the Shadespire Warband as for one they presented a nice opportunity to model and paint something new for the army and secondly, I actually think they are priced really nicely to do a good job for us. I was a little worried they'd get some good rules and end up being 100+ points, which would not have been ideal. Being pretty crappy, but 80 points is waaaay more useful to us. It gives us a solid body of 8 wounds with a good save (and a mortal wound save) that can be used to hold objectives without having to designate a significantly larger investment to do the job. In a large percentage of the games I played I found myself having to use my 2 units of 5 Brutes in roles not best suited to then; screening, blocking of areas of the board for teleporting units etc. It just felt wrong everytime. Ironskull's Boyz do not have that much less board presence (though admittedly, it certainly is less) so can do this job as well I feel. On top of this, we get a 3rd Spear Chukka. Two have been great in all my games, your return only starts to diminish when one is picked off and you lose the rerolls. Having a 3rd builds in some redundancy here, whilst also giving you some pretty horrendous ranged damage potential. It changes the way we play and perhaps more importantly, changes the way opponents have to play against us. Admittedly I have not played even half as many games under GH2017 as I'd have liked to, but this will come over time and I guess we'll see what I'm saying in 6 months time. Who knows, it could be "Spear Chukkas are rubbish and unreliable!". Oh, the other option would be to keep the second unit of 5 Brutes in there and just swap out a Warchanter for Ironskull's Boyz. This variant leaves you 20 points under giving the potential for that all important Triumph, which the 10 Brutes love. Anyway, thats the preamble out of the way. Hopefully I've explained my reasoning soundly enough there. Now, onto the game; Game 114 vs @Paul Buckler (Slaves to Darkness) As per usual, Paul was running one of his obscure unique lists. It's always fun to play against Paul in these kind of games as not only is he a complete gent, but you also get to play against stuff you perhaps wouldn't otherwise. This can make for intriguing games as often you haven't got a clue what half of stuff does, or how it interacts together. In this instance it was more of the latter, I'd played vs all the units in Paul's army before, but the combination of them together like this was certainly a new experiance. He had; Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount, Gaunt Summoner w/ Familiars, Sayl the Faithless, Bloodstoker, Bloodsecrator, Sorceror Lord, 2x 10 Chaos Knights, 5 Chaos Knights, 2x10 Chaos Warriors and a summoning pool that ended up being spent on a Balewind Vortex and 5 Flesh Hounds. I have to say this army looked absolutely brilliant on the tabletop, Paul's done a nice job in a short space of time (as we've come to expect from the Dogfather). Even more so than this though, it looked utterly imposing. All those large cavalry models cover an impressive amount of space on the board. So the idea here, if you couldn't work it out, is to buff a unit of 10 Knights up with everything available and then use Traitor's Mist from Sayl to chuck it infront of the opponent and get it in with an easy change (after the game we spoke and going forward Paul will try a second 'stoker over the 'secrator just to guarentee this). We were playing Scorched Earth, so the potentially for early burns on my objectives was definitely a thing I had to be wary of. As it was, there wasn't much I could do Turn 1 when 10 Knights, with all the buffs, teleported to my right objective and cleared it off before promptly burning it. Ouch. That was a problem (though luckily Paul just rolled a 1 on the D3). This gave me a bit of an issue in my turn as I couldn't immediately use the Maw-krusha to go threaten him, I had to deal with the 10 Knights in my deployment zone before they went down my line causing mayhem. Luckily the Cabbage did do reasonable work and took out 5 of the 10 Knights. Elsewhere I moved up, using the Spear Chukkas to hold the middle objective and Ironskull's Boyz to hold the left (a perfect role for them, previously this battleplan was a bit of a pain as when I played it before I didn't really have suitable units just to stand back). Paul had cleverly hidden most of his characters from the Spear Chukkas due to some nice blocking terrain. However I was able to kill the Gaunt Summoner and a couple of Knights. I'll say now, the 3 Spear Chukkas were insane this game. Whatever they shot, they hit and wounded. Paul did pass some saves over the game, but they definitely paid for themselves, especially towards the end when he had to start bringing his characters out. They had an absolute field day. I won the priority for T2 and, spoilers, I actually went on to win all 4 priorities meaning I had the early double and Paul never got one back. This was massive as I had to say that any double turn for Paul would have seen him win I'm sure. In my T2 I was able to get my 10 Brutes into the other 10 Knights who were guarding Paul's centre objective, they actually got to tag on one side of his unit, whilst the other half was in a wood so struggled to bring many into combat with the pile in. Didn't really matter as my guys were beyond useless in combat, so was a complete slapfest. My surviving Gore-grunta unit went into the Chaos Warriors on Paul's right hand objective and with some heavy suppresive fire from the Spear Chukkas supporting them were able to take that objective and eventually burn it in T3. One big mistake I made was to push up with Ironskullz Boyz. I still kept them in range to score their objective but created a large gap in my backfield which Paul was able to take the Knight unit out of combat with my 10 Brutes and jump them into. A totally unforced error on my part and a sign of my current rustiness. That said, Paul believes if I didn't push forward he would've had space to teleport infront of them. I think he was just trying to make me feel better as I thought that was the game. The Cabbage took the first unit of Knights down to a single model, which subsequently retreated (to later be killed by my Weirdnob Shaman - was worth the risk on my part as at the stage in the game I did this, it looked like it could come down to kill points). Anyway, we're all a bit disjointed here now...long story short, the Cabbage went over to his left hand objective and failed to kill a single Chaos Warrior in the first round of combat(!!!), however he later claimed and burnt the objective the same time the Gore-gruntas did, scoring me 5. In the centre the 10 Brutes killed the Chaos Lord and held that objective for a turn before later burning it. The 5 Chaos Knights and 5 Brutes were both kinda out of the battle so ended up fighting in the middle just to feel usefull. The other big unit of Knights killed Ironskull's Boyz, burnt that objective and went for my middle one. So essentially it all came down to a couple of dice rolls at the end for priority and what we got for burning each others central objectives (as it was the Spear Chukkas miraculouisly managed to hold off against some inept Flesh Hounds for one round when they should've lost it!). But yeh, somehow ended up 14-13 to me!! Result - Major Victory Wow, sorry guys, that report started off cohesively but ended a complete mess haha! Perhaps I was a little overexcited jumping around the place. Suffice to say it was a really good game that I have to say I was pretty lucky to end up winning. I think I may one massive mistake in allowing that large Knight unit into my backfield, however I managed to priority roll my way to victory (Paul even popped a 5 for his roll on T4, but I confidently declared my pink TBS dice would obviously pop a 6 for mine. It did. Obviously ). Paul had some really good armour saves over the game (plenty of rerolls), but I have to say that my Spear Chukkas were insane haha...A good advert for taking 3. They got their points in pure kill points alone, let alone the impact they had in picking off countless Warriors and Knights across the game. I think Paul's army would be much better with generic Chaos allegience so he could take Cunning Deceiver. Oh, big shout out to my Shaman...for failing to cast a spell all game! Hopefully Paul can share some of his thoughts and commentary on the game as well as I don't believe he has his own thread for this particular army. But yeh, that's about it really. I have to say the game was just what I needed having not played AoS for some time and dropping out of a bunch of events. I'm away in London on work this Thursday but hope to get back to regular club games soon enough. Thanks for reading, Chris

The Troggoth Hag is an easy fit for 2 Spear Chukkas and the Weirdnob Shaman. This was the difference between mine and @Sangfroid's lists at Facehammer GT.

Hey, I played my first game with Ironskull's Boyz last night and really enjoyed it (managed an incredibly close 2-1 win over @Paul Buckler's Liberators). Despite playing a few odd games with the core set vs my missus, this was my first proper match so I suspect I was a little clueless in places. By the 3rd game I definitely felt I was playing a bit better and made some good moves/ploys to help sneak the win. I am playing again tonight vs @Andy Talbot. I'll stick with the deck I used last night and then hopefully after that I'll be able to come back and share some thoughts. Chris

No worries mate. Yeh I think this sounds ideal tbh. Probably worth googling various tattoo styles for inspiration as well. I think warpaint is better suited to the less complicated designs as in my mind the Orruks would be daubing it on with crude tools or their hands, so perhaps the more intricate designs aren't quite so fitting. All just my opinion of course! Be sure to share what you come up with

@Ollie Grimwood - Whilst the designs could be the same, the technique and colours used for tattoos would differ to warpaint. Warpaint is obviously daubed over the top of the skin, whilst tattoos are imbedded into and under the skin. Even GW mix up the two by referring to what is clearly warpaint in the Bonesplitterz book, as tattoos! If you're going for warpaint then you can use literally any colours you like as theoretically you do not need to consider the skin colour. In terms of the design I would definitely practice drawing, then painting them on a flat piece of paper before attempting to freehand the model. Try and break the shapes down into several smaller ones that make on the design, or just keep it very simple to start with. If you fancy trying your hand with tattoos, the key is to add some of the skin tone into the colour mix that you are painting the design in and usually a thin glaze of the top skin tone right at the end will tie it all in. Remember you're trying to make it look like something permanent and part of the skin as opposed to a bright design whacked over the top...unless you want that look, then you go the warpaint route (which is what I do with my Ironjawz). The only good tattoos I've seen on greenskins have been done with a darker green. The equivalent to our black tattoos I guess. In general you very rarely see good/realistic tattoos on miniatures IMO. That said, warpaint is a completely acceptable alternative that often far better serves the purpose of adorning your models with a spot colour etc. Chris

Hey @Ollie Grimwood, Do you mean tattoos or warpaint?

Thanks boyz, Yeah @Sangfroid that'd be super sweet (and thanks to Hearthstone I get the reference!). I can defo see us getting Grot sky pirates at some point. In a shocking turn of events, I am actually going to play a game of AoS tonight...crazy eh? The Black Sunz will be taking on @Paul Buckler's latest project; Slaves to Darkness. It's a Knight heavy build so should be an interesting game. Hoping this will be the start of me getting in regular games again, especially as I'm not playing any more events in 2017. Also gonna be having a Shadespire match, using Ironskull's Boyz for the first time, which is also pretty exciting. Anyway, my list for tonight is; Megaboss on Maw-krusha - Ironcland, Dabbing Weirdnob Warchanter Warchanter 10 Brutes 5 Brutes 3 Gore-gruntas 3 Gore-gruntas Ironskull's Boyz Spear Chukka Spear Chukka Spear Chukka Loadsa units, maybe the most I've seen in an Ironjawz list haha! This is 2,000 on the dot. I'd been wanting to try out the 3 Spear Chukkas since enjoying the pair, and the new addition of Ironskull's Boyz to our arsenal gave me the chance to do so without losing a unit. Sure, they don't have the punch of 5 Brutes, but it doesn't impact my board presence too negatively and in theory should see more reliability from the Spear Chukkas as its not a case of kill one to deny the re-rolls. I'm not sure how great a match up this will be for the Spear Chukkas tbh, but should be interesting I think. Overall I'm intrigued by Ironskull's Boyz as a new option when list building and think they will definitely have a place in most lists. A nice little bonus for us IMO. I'm glad me and @Sangfroid have not recorded about Ironjawz post GH2017 yet as we would definitely want to discuss this little unit as well. I will report back on this game next week as I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Cheers, Chris

Hey guys, So I've been pretty quiet of late, but after a short hobby break I found myself back at my desk last night armed with the Shadespire Ironskull's Boyz box and my extensive bitz collection. My plan was to customize this warband to be painted and based like The Black Sunz for use in games of AoS (nice to have a new unit, even if they are a bit naff). I then intend to get another set of Ironskull's Boyz just to speed paint in the studio scheme for Shadespire. Anyway, as is often the case when I'm converting, I came up with a bit of background in my head. I haven't written it down as a story as such but my idea is that in my version of the Mortal Realms, Krunk has been able to use the leviathan Vegnagun to tear a rift into Shadespire, freeing Ironskull's Boyz. Being grateful at receiving the opportunity to smash up a bunch of new stuff they decide to join The Black Sunz, but not before they've embarked on a new career as pirates, pillaging the realms and all their inhabitants. Or something. Kaptin Ironskull has a ring to it, right? These conversions were super fun to make and is the most I've used my dremel in ages as they are actually quite in depth in places. Lots of little touches I can't really capture in single photos. They aren't completely finished yet, I do have some basic mouldline removal, greenstuffing and a couple of final additions before they are ready for an undercoat. Anyway, check them out! Let me know what you think. Cheers guys, Chris

@Marc Wilson - balance paid mate.

Morning all, So Curse of the Katophranes took place last night and was great fun! Really enjoyed the format, works really well for a club night and actually feels like a bit of a bonus in the week as you're not using a weekend day for it. Still kept a tournament feel I believe and the frantic nature of the quicker games creates a real buzz. Thanks to @Paul Buckler for hosting and providing mats/terrain at Dogger HQ and of course to everyone who showed up on a frankly horrendously dark, wet and windy Thursday night. Special thanks to @Tom Hewitt & @Bueno who had even longer journeys to get home. Also thanks to @Drakira for helping out with the awards ceremony and @Tom Hutchings for picking me up from the train station!! A final word of thanks to Element Games for sponsoring the event. I was genuinely impressed with the standard of the warbands on show and was particularly pleased that some people had even finished models specifically for the event. Even as we were wrapping down last night people such as @#SteveJames were considering the prospects of doing a new project just for Skirmish, which is super cool. If you want to see pics of the warbands, @Cowboy Boots Matt took some photos on the @ProPainted Twitter account (be sure to check out the new podcast as well). The lighting was pretty dark but he made do with the aid of a camping light! There's some videos and pics on my Twitter account (@the_black_sun) as well and you can use the hashtag #CotK to find it all. I did end up as spare player so wasn't able to do as much coverage as I hoped, but you'll still get a feel for it. Onto the winners; 1st Place - Tom Hutchings (Order) @Tom Hutchings 2nd Place - Matt Darkins (Order) @Biscotti Monster 3rd Place - Paul Petford (Order) @ppetford Best Warband* - Ben Chalk (Chaos) @Bueno Best Opponent** - Gary Hennessey (Chaos) @The Lost Lighthouse (Gary) Element Games Spot Prize 1*** - Gary Hennessey (Chaos) Element Games Spot Prize 2**** - James Eveleigh (Chaos) * Ben took 9/13 votes. The other 4 went to Gary Hennessey (2), @Tom Hewitt (1) and Matt Bennett (1) ** 9/13 players received sports votes, with Gary getting 3/3! Crazy good. * **Awarded to the first player to lose a model to Crumbling terrain. **** Awarded to the player who uncovered the most treasure hoards in Treasure Hunt. James tied this 3-3 with @#SteveJames, so the tie break was whoever lost the most models to the arcane storm in Seize the Relic. Overall standings (I did not include myself as spare player), I will include a photo with kill points etc later on; Tom Hutchings (Order) @Tom Hutchings Matt Darkins (Order) @Biscotti Monster Paul Petford (Order) @ppetford Ricky Mee (Order) @ChippyRick Paul Buckler (Order) @Paul Buckler Matt Bennett (Chaos) @RipVanWiggy Tom Hewitt (Order) @Tom Hewitt Ben Chalk (Chaos) @Bueno Matt Lyons (Order) @Cowboy Boots Matt Aaron Bailey (Chaos) @Forestreveries Steve Phillips (Chaos) @#SteveJames Gary Hennessey (Chaos) @The Lost Lighthouse (Gary) James Eveleigh (Chaos) Well done to everyone, I had a really fun time. This is definitely something I'd like to run again and there is space at Dogger HQ to accommodate more players, so perhaps the reach could be slightly greater next time. Would be awesome to see some new faces as well. Cheers, Chris

Hey guys, Some more photos of the trophies here and my warband for playing as the spare player (scores will not be inputted and I will play the lowest ranked player each round); 50 Renown (49) Herald of Tzeentch (24) Varanguard(20) 5 Giant Rats (5) 60 Renown (60) Herald of Tzeentch (24) Varanguard(20) Skyfire (11) 5 Giant Rats (5) 70 Renown (70) Herald of Tzeentch (24) Varanguard(20) Skyfire (11) Putrid Blightking (7) 8 Giant Rats (8)

Round One Draw Matt Darkins vs Aaron Bailey Chris Tomlin vs Jan Proudley Ben Chalk vs Paul Petford James Eveleigh vs Gary Hennessey Tom Hewitt vs Steve Phillips Matt Bennett vs Tom Hutchings Paul Buckler vs Matt Lyons We also have some sponsorship from the fantastic Element Games! £5 voucher codes will be given to 1st Place, Best Warband and Best Opponent. There are also 2x £10 voucher codes that will be awarded for specific achievements (to be announced on the day). Here is a photo of the fantastic trophies up for grabs as well (they are big!); For those of you not attending, be sure to follow along at home - I will be trying to Periscope as much as possible during the event on Thursday night. Looks like I'm playing as spare player now so this will not be as much as I would've liked! Still, check out my Twitter @the_black_sun Cheers, Chris

Afternoon Ardboys! Right then, let's finish these off. Apologies in advance to @Paul Buckler and @ChippyRick if any details are slightly off as it's a little while since the games now (can't believe I haven't played again since! Rubbish!)... Game 112 - Facehammer GT - Round Four vs Paul Buckler @Paul Buckler (Wanderers) When this draw was put up I was really happy. Despite my only practice game for the event being vs Paul, with the same armies in the same Battleplan, I knew it would be a great game and I wouldn't have to dread getting up on the Sunday morning! As it was, I think the Dogfather was actually more drunk than me on the Saturday night!! We were playing Battle for the Pass and Paul's army was identical to the one I played before with the Nomad Prince, 3 Waywatchers, Mage, 20 Eternal Guard, 10 Eternal Guard, 20 Glade Guard, 20 Sisters of the Watch, 5 Wild Riders and 5 Sisters of the Thorn...that sounds about right, oh he had the battalion as well. Last time we played this, Paul made a mistake when teleporting his army down one flank in that he left a space between his Eternal Guard bases that allowed the Cabbage to nudge a couple of MM forward and be within 1" of his Prince, taking him off and ending the game. This game started pretty much the same deployment wise (bit of a headache trying to mitigate the jump on a Sunday morning!) as did the first turn. When he jumped this time though he had a much tighter wall in front of the Prince, two models deep. I was once again able to get some good early positional play on the middle objectives and even made a run for his (was able to double trigger Mighty Destroyers on my 10 Brutes - bit of a pro tip if you didn't already know you can do that), however they failed a 6" charge onto his home objective. The Cabbage once again went into Paul's massive blob of Aelves that had jumped to the flank. With the scream and Destructive Bulk I was able to peel off the out layer of defence, which meant that when I piled in I was once again within an inch of that poor Nomad Prince - Take him off!! This is huge as it really limits Paul's movement, especially once they have already jump to one side of the table. Paul was pretty unlucky here as I think this only came about because I killed 9-10 Aelves with the scream and bulk combined. Still, the Cabbage then proceeded to sit there for way longer than he should've passing around 50 2+ saves we calculated. The 10 Brutes eventually got stuck into the 20 Eternal Guard on his home objective and I was actually pretty impressed with their resilience. Fortunately the Spear Chukkas had also been able to focus their attention on them, so I was able to battleshock them off. Long story short, I was way up on Paul at this point, with very little opportunity for him to get back into the game. I got a bit cocky/sloppy later on and almost allowed him to get 4vps with his Wild Riders (just lazy play on my part not checking a gap I left), as it was though, Wild Riders are rubbish so it wasn't a problem! After the last game with Paul I didn't feel that I learned all that much about the match up, however I do now feel it's a pretty good one. Sure, I had some luck but I think the Cabbage is just a problem for the Wanderers. The fact that I pretty much just used him, 10 Brutes and the Spear Chukkas (whilst Gruntas held objectives) vs Paul's entire army says it all really. Oh, I should note that after losing all my priorities (literally) in games 2 & 3, I won all of them in this game! Result - Major Victory Game 113 - Facehammer GT - Round Five vs Ricky Mee @ChippyRick (Stormcast Eternals) Another game, another local friend! I'm totally ok with playing mates at Tournaments though, given my complete lack of games outside of events at the moment. I was also especially pleased to be playing Ricky in the last round, knowing that a win for one of us would result in a good placing so it's a bit of a win win. I also really find that playing Ricky brings out the best in my play, I think that's due to a combination of his incredibly tight play and wanting to get one over on a friend (especially one that's a better player than you!). We've had some great tournament games over the years and I was in no doubt this would be another one. This was my first time playing Starstrike and I felt this could be where I potentially could miss my Ironfist and old Rampaging Destroyers as I felt they really gave me the edge in Gifts from the Heavens. Ricky had a Skyborn Slayers army featuring the Celestant Prime for some added punch. I was really really pleased with my deployment and subsequent play in this game. I set up a very defensive formation, screening off my 10 Brutes, Cabbage, other characters and Spear Chukkas with the Gore-gruntas and 5 man Brute units. At any one time there was about 10 combat gauges on the table with me checking gaps, pile in ranges and that sort of thing. Ricky won the first priority roll, but then I won the following 3 (giving me 7/8 on day two). Him winning the first one didn't matter as I knew he wouldn't drop until T3. However, me having all the other ones was key and meant that I could pass the turn to him, giving me a potential double when he did drop. The objectives fell well enough (so I can't really comment on the lack of the extra moves, if you get unlucky with where they fall it could be an issue I guess), I was never really going to be challenging for his as I just moved my army forward to claim two of the objectives and eventually push my line further onto (and past) them so that he'd find it harder to claim them (couldn't just drop in and claim if that makes sense). As it was, his drop went pretty awfully, with his Prime killing 1 (maybe 2 Brutes) from my unit of 10 with his 8 attacks and getting deleted in return!! I was also able to spread my Spear Chukkas prior to his drop (as they had nothing to shoot) to try and mitigate the Primes sceptre, I could then move them closer to gain the rerolls after this hit. His Decimators also failed their 5" charge which was pretty massive and allowed me to move forward another couple of inches in my next turn, blocking off all avenues and essentially winning the game. But yeh, even if Ricky had got his charge in, I don't think it would've been a forgone conclusion or anything, my boyz would've just had to do some fighting, which they do quite like! As it was, I was able to smash up the Protectors with 5 Brutes and the 8-9 following up. So yeah, the failed charge gifted me the win without doubt, but it was kind of a ****** way to beat your mate in a game of relative importance. As I say, I'm pretty confident in hindsight that I could've withstood the charge and brought the Cabbage into play (could've pinned his line on the ends to mitigate Starsoul Maces as well). We'll never know though I guess. It is really interesting to play the total drop army that stays off the board for a few turns, pretty weird/scary!! Oddly, I did play Skyborn Slayers round 5 at FHGT last year, however my opponent dropped T1 in that game. But yeah, was a good, tense, tactical game...exactly what I've come to expect and love from my games with Rick. Result - Major Victory This string of results, along with a painting nomination and 3 sports votes saw me get into 4th place out of 91 entrants, unsurprisingly I was pretty stoked with that. Interestingly if I'd somehow picked up a 4th sports vote (tall ask!) it would've seen me take Best Opponent (which I won at this event in 2016) and the additional points boost from this accolade would've seen me pushed up to 2nd place haha!! Completely hypothetical of course, but I like looking at stuff like that. What's also interesting is that my results (Mi, Ma, L, Ma, Ma) were exactly the same as my FHGT results from 2016 (where I came 9th - this was actually the position I was originally shown in this year before the sports update. Spooky!) The absolute strangest thing for me though has to be no Sylvaneth?! Literally a first. Haha But yeh, that was the Facehammer GT 2017. Once again it's without a doubt my favourite event of the year. The boys ( @Terry Pike, @Lez, @Russ Veal and Byron) do a fantastic job and I can't wait for next year. Congratulations to all the winners, especially @Sangfroid for taking home Best Destruction (awarded for highest Kill Points). As I've mentioned elsewhere, this is genuinely feels like the strongest Ironjawz list I've ever used and I can't wait to get in some more games with it. I appreciate I haven't gone into specifics on things, so please feel free to ask any questions about elements of the list etc. The next update will be a hobby one. Work on my RAW Leviathan / Idol of Gork, the machine known as Vegnagun, is well underway with 16 hours sunk into the model so far. 8 of those have been spent with a pot of Runefang Steel, painting chips and scratches all over the thing. I predicted 8-10 hours for this stage, which seems about right at present. Hopefully he looks good when done. I am considering going back round my army and adding a small amount of weathering to the weapons (literally just a brown recess wash) as my next project, but we'll see. I definitely want to spend some time with Shadespire and Phoenix Temple over the next couple of months. I have an Ironjawz list I really like for the time being so it would be great to just get some games in! Thanks so much for reading. Much love, Chris

Morning all, Wow, loads of replies here!! There definitely could be something in that. I think my next artillery conversion would be Rock Lobbers. I have something in mind. Hey man, looks like @Sangfroid covered you here. It is indeed just part of the rules and not at all "cheesy". Would you dock someone sports for them taking -1 off your save rolls with a Rend 1 weapon? You got it! It's definitely tactical. I think I remember @Ben writing a post about it when it first came up...possibly even was @Soup Dragon doing it? Cheers dude, we are definitely blessed with the group of guys we have posting on here! Genuinely helps get me through the day haha! Glad you enjoyed me and @Paul Buckler on WHTV as well, that was so much fun to do. I agree the 20 Ardboys is a strange choice in James' list, personally I can't see why you'd take them...but clearly it worked out very well for him. Our lists are so different which would make for such a great conversation I think. Once I'm back into the podcasting routine I'll definitely be in touch with him. Your Ardboy looks great. Really cool. Good work man. Thank bro. The way to get around the commitment issue is to just play it all in a day as we did. Getting 4 friends together for a full day session is hopefully something achievable for most people. Personally I think that's the way to do something like that and I'd definitely be up for it again. Gargants are super cool...at some point I will definitely add one to my army. I'm pretty sure I'll use a 40K Deff Dread for mine. Fantastic work on the Gargant man, he looks brilliant already. The mask is great and really adds a brutal sinister vibe to what can be quite a comedic looking model. Love it, thanks for sharing. Yeh I'm not totally sure on the Gundabad Trolls, the armour is also somewhat different stylistically. Dunno. 16 hours into the Idol now man...he should be finished later this week in time for next #MiniatureMonday. Haha I'm sure it's not perfect, but yeh I'll be sticking with it for a while as my go to list. That said for my next two events, RAW and Warchiefs GT, I will be taking something different just due to the nature of the events. That's correct. It's only in the turn you charge. Thanks for reading man, appreciate it. Lots of talk regarding the Engine following that post from @Aginor, for me I think it purely comes down to this though; Thanks again to everyone for reading and replying etc. Final two FHGT reports vs @Paul Buckler and @ChippyRick are now finished and will be posted this afternoon. Cheers, Chris

Yeh man, been talking about it for probably over a year now right? Ah! You know me well then? Seriously though, as much as I like to post this stuff as a complete record for myself, it's clearly the interaction with you guys here that makes it worthwhile to me. If no one was reading I definitely wouldn't bother haha! Very cool games, but yeah the EotG thing is just plain wrong! The 2 units of Gore-gruntas are utterly crucial to the list and allow you to run without the Ironfist due to their naturally high movement value. The don't really get involved in key moments, but in many ways are the workhorsespigs of the list. I need to get in touch with James (the guy who came 2nd at the GT) properly as I'd love to do a rundown of his games for the podcast. We've barely seen the Gorefist at all, let alone seeing it doing so well. I think we can probably see how it would perform well vs the Flesh-eater Courts armies he played, but it would be fascinating to get some real insight from him as his list is just so different. Kudos to that man. I'm a fan! I prefer the Spear Chukkas over the Doom Divers, but to each their own. I heard he likes the models, which is basically my reason for the Spear Chukkas as well, so fair play! Would love to see your Ardboys. Thanks for the reply, Chris

It started off as a joke, but tbh the crux of whatever I wrote would come down to that and I simply don't have the time to expand on it with the deadline being today. Soz bro I did want to write something really cool about my Leviathan, Vegnagun, either where it came from (maybe some 40K crossover tease) or how/why Krunk got his boyz to build it etc. Alas, time is what we want most, but what we use worst!

Morning, Hope everyone is well...it's Friday after all! I'm finishing up my first 5 day week in 6 weeks! Needless to say I've had plenty of catching up to do (which unfortunately equals less TGA). Still, the week is almost over and I'm going to see Still Remains tonight with @Forestreveries and @Andy Talbot, so pretty excited about that!! Unfortunately FHGT games 4 and 5 will not be covered until early next week now...however I don't feel too bad about this given the lack of responses or interest in the last three haha!! In hobby news, I have now put 10 hours into the Idol of Gork / RAW Leviathan. After doing my three layers of grey edging/scratches over the black and basecoating the metal I have liberally daubed/dabbed(!) the model in Army Painter Dark Tone (8 hours)...and here is where the fun begins...silver highlights and chipping across the entire model and man, that Gorkanaut is biiiiig. I am predicting that this stage will take a further 8-10 hours alone. Absolutely crazy to think of spending so much time using one colour on one model isn't it? I'm 2 hours into this stage so far and I have to say it is a positive feeling to see him start to come to life. Usually this stage comes much later in my Ironjawz painting, but where it is the main bit of the job with just a few little bits here and there afterwards I think it's the way to go. Not sure whether logging time is going to serve as a positive or negative overall yet, we shall see!! I've also given him a name; Vegnagun, The Fists of Krunk I probably won't share any work in progress photos of him now, but hopefully he'll be complete by this time next week....giving me a weekly to hopefully paint the Krunkasaur. If this doesn't come to fruition I have a couple of other things I could use for my Hunter, so not really the end of the world. Chris

You dirty Doggers ain't fooling anyone!!

@Jimbo did you take mine of Twitter mate? I @'d you. @Paul Buckler and @Tom Hewitt enjoyed it.

Hi guys, Finally it's time for me to post my Facehammer GT reports. Apologies for the delay in doing so and once again for them being a bit brief and lacking on detail, I've had a fair bit of holiday at work of late so I've just been slowly catching up on things. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to really respond to a lot of the chat around list choices for the event beforehand as it was all a bit of a whirlwind. As I revealed in my recent post with the photos of the new stuff I painted, I ended up all night and then didn't even use a few of the models!! Madness. Not like they'll go to waste though, they are some of my favourite Brutes and are super cool! You've probably all seen it, but here is the list I went with in the end; Megaboss on Maw-krusha - General, Ironclad, Sweet Dabs Weirdnob Shaman Warchanter Warchanter 10 Brutes 5 Brutes 5 Brutes 3 Gore-gruntas 3 Gore-gruntas Spear Chukka Spear Chukka Think it ended up at 1,980 points iirc. I will say straight off (and have already said so elsewhere) that this is the strongest Ironjawz list I have ever used, even better than my Masters list, which I previously felt was the pinnacle. The last minute change to drop 5 more Brutes for a pair of Warchanters was a must IMO and I really felt their worth over the cost of the weekend. I'm not sure we can leave home without one. Really smooths out that reliability on the damage curve I feel. I'm genuinely not sure if I prompted @Sangfroid to make this change, or if he prompted me, or if we came about it independently (it's pretty obvious looking at it now!), but however we got there I know we were both very pleased with the decision. As for the Daubing of Mork Sweet Dabs, I was basically heckled by @Sangfroid and @Pano on the Friday night whilst drunk as they told me it was rubbish. So in my defiant stupor I scrawled it down on my army list. Truth be told I probably would've ran with it anyway. I'm not trying to tell anyone it is the best option, I would just like to help convince people that it at least is an option. It's semi-reliably an extra couple of wounds on your tank, which really does help. Also the amount of times over the event I popped a tasty dab to keep him under a damage threshold...those Mighty Fists hitting more reliably is vital to the models damage output. So yeh, it was good. I wish I kept track of how many times I dabbed. I think I will run another event with it before perhaps trying one of the others. The Spear Chukkas where absolutely brilliant, they really were. Anyone saying they are not worth the points is simply shooting the wrong things. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the way I see it. They really offer something different to the list allowing you to apply pressure at range. They went some way to making it feel like a more balanced all round army, which is something we've not had before. Anyway, let's crack on with some brief results to see how I did; Game 109 - Facehammer GT - Round One vs Matthew Arnold @Arnie (Flesh-eater Courts) Me and Arnie had agreed a grudge as we'd never played or even spent that much time together, despite being at a number of events with the same people. This was Knife to the Heart (which instantly told me they weren't going to run Scorched Earth and would dodge the call on whether to house rule it! Clever TOs!). Arnie's list was a King on Terrorgheist, a Haunter Courtier, a Necromancer and maybe a couple of other characters, 40 Ghouls, 3 Crypt Horrors and a big 9 pack of Horrors as well. Juicy. Now I feel kind sorry for Arnie this game as early doors I sat off very defensively and was able to take down to Terrorgheist with Spear Chukkas backed up by the Cabbage's scream (Arnie failed about a million saves, giving that the Terrorgheist had 3 different ones). He then went all out for the Major win, push his 9 Crypt Horrors around to my flank. It became apparent that there was no way I was going to be able to deal with these *and* take his objective. So Arnie's aggressive play was good in that it made the likely results either a Major to him, or a Minor to me. Fortunately for me, it was the latter as the Cabbage went to town on the Horrors with a bit of Brute back-up. Even with him raising 5 back, I was able to wipe them all back with very little damage received in return. Ironclad or not (they don't have rend), those Horrors just couldn’t get through my 2+ save. @Paul Buckler can attest to my ability in making those saves as well. Nice casual game to start and a pleasure to hang out with Arnie and have some drinks to get myself back in the game (was feeling a bit worse for war after a trip to Satan's Hollow in Manchester on the Friday night). I think the Ironjawz vs Flesh-eaters matchup is an interesting one, it's likely neither side worries about it too much as there's not much in either army to stop you play your own game plan, which is nice. That said, I do think it's a good match up for us for precisely this reason. We saw James do so fantastically well at the GT Final this weekend with victories over 3 FEC players, which reinforces my point. Result - Minor Victory Game 110 - Facehammer GT - Round Two vs Will Philpott @Superpotts (Disciples of Tzeentch) Next up I was against Will, who used to live in Weymouth. He moved to Reading a while back, so it was really nice to catch up with him here. Last time we played was round my house where my Ironjawz were just too much for his compendium High Elf build (this was the game where Krunk killed 4 heroes!). We were playing Duality of Death and his army was a bit stronger this time around! He had Kairos, the Changeling, Gaunt Summoner and a Fatesworn Warband with some more characters (Lord on Daemonic Mount, Thaumaturge, Sorcerer Lord), 2 units of Chaos Warriors, Knights, Marauders, a Chariot and some Marauder Horsemen. Pretty cool army! This game had one of the most epic beginnings ever, with him out dropping me he took the first turn and promptly had the Changeling steal Foot of Gork from my Weirdnob Shaman, cast it with Destiny Dice and promptly stomped my Cabbage for 12 mortal wounds (2 of which I dabbed away). Wow! Literally the best Foot of Gork at my table ever haha! He later realised he could've used Kairos to make the failed 4+ to carry on a success, for another D6 mortal wounds. We rolled it out for lolz, he would've done 1 mortal wounds (which I dabbed!) and then he failed the next 4+, so it's almost like Kairos knew it wasn't worth wasting that precious dice alteration rule on!! But yeh, what a strong start from Will. The Maw-krusha is absolutely crucial to my army in this battleplan and here he was crippled before we'd even started. He then compounded this by charging the Changeling into one of my Spear Chukkas and again using destiny dice to ensure he killed all the crew. Another great play from Will as even the one I had left did great work this game, popping wounds off characters all over the place, having a second (which in turn would cause both to reroll) would've been devastating. So yeh, this left me pretty rocked. He'd also walked up and claimed one of the objectives with his Chaos Lord. Now I was very much on the back foot here and knew I couldn't hang about. Fortunately, Will had needed to move a number of his units up to swarm the objective the Chaos Lord had claimed, this meant I'd be getting some combat. On the downside, that pesky Changeling had one last trick up his sleeve (before 5 Brutes destroyed him) as he reduced the movement of my unit of 10 Brutes. The Maw-krusha thankfully triggered Mighty Destroyers and had to use this on himself if he was going to reach the right hand objective and claim this due to his reduced move rate. Everything else marched up, the Chukka hit the Chaos lord for a few wounds and the Cabbage was able to scream off a couple of Chaos Warriors. My subsequent charge and combat phase was meant as I was able to use Smashing & Bashing to kill the Changeling, the Chaos Lord on mount, the Chariot, the Chaos Warriors and badly damage the Knights. Very impressive and this was the counter turn I needed. Will felt he'd made a mistake afterwards by not using Kairos to make the Brutes fail their charge into his Chaos Lord and Knights as I was able to squeeze the Brute Boss within 1" of his Lord thanks to the dips in bases, like @Paul Buckler's Nomad Prince all over again (cover those gaps kids! I am constantly using multiple combat gauges to measure these kinds of spaces, both offensive and defensively) and with the Gore Choppa behind him they were able to do the required work. He also could've used the dice to make one of the final saves on his Chariot to stop the Cabbage getting to trigger next on his Chaos Warriors...but yeh, not a huge one. It was fun actually watching Will consider all the possible uses of this dice alteration as its potential applications are so widespread. Anyhow, I'm going on a bit here (it was genuinely one of my fav games ever), but the game was super close throughout. The Cabbage managed to stick around until T3, so scored me 3 points, which I was super happy with given the first turn. I didn't win a single priority, if I had I think I would've gone out of sight, as it was I was having to throw a Warchanter or my Shaman onto an objective after killing his heroes and basically exchanging points back and forth. Will did later use Kairos to make my 10 Brutes fail a charge (which would've seen them kill the Thaumaturge and Kairos, so was a great call). Right at the death of the game it was 5-5, I was able to charge my final Warchanter (who had been hidden behind a building) into Kairos, the Brutes were already fighting him and he was greatly wounded so they easily finished him off and then I showed Will a rule he didn't know...that you can pile in on the turn you have charged, even if there are now no enemies within 3". So, the Warchanter piled in to within range of the objective and as the battleplan states, a pile in move allows you to claim the objective...so I took it 6-5! What a game...even though this report is slightly longer it's still a bit all over the place and doesn't do the game justice, a proper turn by turn would've been better. Really was awesome and I easily could've lost it and would've loved it just as much. Had I not been able to take the Major, I would've still won it on a Minor, but I was pleased that after taking some time to consider my options I solved the puzzle and saw the route to (major) victory. Result - Major Victory Game 111 - Facehammer GT - Round Three vs Stewart Callander @Ralphy99 (Seraphon) This was my first time playing Stewart, so I was looking forward to the game as we always see each other about at Tournaments and he’s a big Final Fantasy TCG fan as well (we will get that game next time!!). He's previously been a prominent Destruction player, but I let him off abandoning us as he’s swapped over to Dinosaurs, which I'm cool with! We were playing Total Conquest and his army consisted of a Slann, Astrolith Bearer, Engine of the Gods, 2 Bastilodons, 40 Skinks, 40 Skinks, 20 Skinks and a Salamander. He had the Thunderquake Starhost as well (think I've got the name right). This was my first time playing this battleplan and it's 100% something I need to practice as my deployment was utterly awful. Didn't get my head around it at all, definitely should've marked off my deployment zone properly. I actually thought this was a pretty decent match up, providing the Bastilodons didn't go mental...as it was, Stewart took the 1st turn and promptly rolled a natural triple 6 for the Engine of the Gods!! Game over. If you don't know what this does, it gives him an extra turn! So if we discount the two rounds of shooting I had to take before putting any buffs up (horrible, but bearable tbh), let’s just talk about how this complete breaks the matched play battleplans. I appreciate this warscroll was written before any of the battleplans were written, but they really don't interact well with objective scoring. Stewart scored 3 objectives on his first first turn, on his second first turn he got a further 4 meaning I was 0-7 down before starting! The way this battleplan works with scoring 2 points when you flip each one back meant I couldn't win as although I was able to pull it back to 9-11 at one point, he was able to just take them back and constantly remain ahead if that makes sense. I suppose the fact I suffered some pretty catastrophic casualties before my second turn didn't help with my ability to defend the objectives. I still killed an awful lot of his army as the Spear Chukkas were insanely good this game and the few Brutes I had left did good work. The Cabbage was eating Skinks all day but in this battleplan it just wasn't enough. We made a game of it but I truly believe it was game over when he rolled that extra turn. It didn't help that I lost all 4 priorities...rolling a 1 for all 4 of them!! Urgh. Not my game! Still, it was really nice to hang out with Stewart and I have zero ill feeling towards him, it was a fun time at the table and I still enjoyed the game as it was an interesting challenge trying to find a way I could overturn the odds. I was more annoyed afterwards when I was thinking about that warscrolls interaction with matched play, I think if you didn't score in the extra turn it would be fine. Still really hard, but fine. Stewart has never got it before so fair play to him, makes for a good story if nothing else. Shout out to @Lhw, who had this happen to him 3 times in one game!!! WHAT!?! Result - Major Defeat So that's day one in the bag! Strangely the results pattern was identical to last year’s FHGT, which saw me finish 9th, so I was more than happy with it overall. The list was working nicely and Engine of the Gods aside, I may well have lost that game anyway due to the Seraphon teleports (he had two I should note) and my terrible deployment!! Saturday night was good fun and I managed to get to bed at a semi sensible hour (at this point I was on 0hrs sleep Thursday night and 4hrs sleep Friday night!). *I've decided to cut it there for now and at least get something up, I will have the final two reports up by the end of the week* Cheers for reading! Chris

Hey guys, Thanks for the replies, sorry I've been slow to come back to you. Trying to get back on top of work this week. I am slowly getting there with my FHGT write up and should have it posted by the end of the week. Hobbywise I've been working on my Rogue Idol of Gork / RAW Leviathan as I'll be using my Gorkanaut to fill both roles. Got 5 hours paint into him on Monday night (thought I'd actually log hours spent for a change), however it is all just very basic stuff at the moment. I'm confident he'll come together and look pretty awesome in the end. Hey, it does sounds like you've either been particularly unlucky or are shooting the wrong things. Presumably you are keeping them together for the rerolls? What kind of things do you target with them? It doesn't sound like they have been totally ineffective though...do not underestimate the power of forcing your opponent to deploy to counter you. If you can stick to your plan and manipulate your opponent then they will already be on the back foot. This is exactly one of the reasons I really like them. They instantly apply pressure on your opponent to react to a huge area of the battlefield. Get your 36" out and wave it around just to really intimidate them!! I'm not actually sure on the value of 3 though. I do have a 3rd conversion so will run with all 3 at some point, but I suspect you are well into the territory of diminishing returns at that point. Cheers Paul! Give 'em a go. Yours look sweet as well. Thanks man! Yeh I find the whole concept of themed allies are really cool and exciting one. Definitely one of my fav bits of the GH2017. As well as my Gorkanaut Rogue Idol I have considered Deff Dreads for Gargants (had originally thought about the FW Gundabad Trolls...but now they are my number 1 candidate for an Ironjawz Troggoth Hag). How are you handling your Gargant (wahey!)? And no worries if my Brute Crossbowmen um....inspire...you haha. Tbh a fair few other people have said the same. I'm fine with it and take it as a compliment that my models must be cool! Just try to credit your source Cheers mate, glad you like them I'm sure you can pick up the bits from a bitz site or something? Thanks for the congrats, was really happy with it! Check back later this week for my FHGT coverage. Chris