Posted 9:59 AM by Tim
Modeling news, as always.

On Saturday morning, before the bring-and-battle, I managed (with a little bit of overtime) to finish off the Slaaneshi Lieutenent. Glued together and set and everything. He looks good, I think. I'm thinking of getting some pictures taken of him to get a little bit of criticism on the mini from a forum I read.

With the Lieutenent done, I was open to the idea of buying more Slaanesh troops. Kind of the same deal as I had with the Necrons. I'll buy stuff, but they become the paint project, and nothing else gets bought until they're done.

The local store that has lots of cool second-hand stuff had some chaos minis in the shelf, so I picked them up. I was hoping to exchange my loyalist stuff for my chaos stuff, but that didn't work out in the long run - the guy who does the buying wasn't there.

I picked up five marines, including an old style noise marine with blastmaster. The new blastmasters are significantly larger than the old style, so I'm thinking of using it as a sonic blaster. I'm kinda torn between the idea of mixing old and new sonic weapons, or just sticking to the one type and hoping I can either find or bitz the parts I need for the army.

So, I'd picked up two guys with power fists, and a couple other marines, and this noise marine. After taking a look at them, and cleaning them up a bit, I noticed that one of the guys I had bought was not chaos. He was painted to look chaos, but he was still in loyalist armour. I didn't yet have a force, and already there was a spy in the ranks! He was stripped of his arms and all other useful bits, and re-assigned to join his waiting loyalist brethern to be sold and replaced with either Chaos or Necrons.

Along with the marines, there were four Daemonettes available. I scooped those up as well.

After fiddling with the bodies, arms, weapons and backpacks for a bit, I decided that the thing I was missing most for them, was a consistent army badge of some sort. I want to make sure that every single model in my Slaaneshi force has a shoulderpad with a Slaanesh mark on it. On Sunday I went to the local store that carries all the bitz, and dug through a couple thousand shoulderpads looking for the right ones. I found two. And needed three. The old sonic weapon shoulderpads already had Slaanesh marks, so they were fine. The store guy pointed out a chainsword in the other bitz box, which also bore the Slaanesh mark. I had hoped to have all the rank and file have the shoulderpad on the same side, but such consistency doesn't seem to be a trait of the chaos powers. Still, I had enough to make sure everyone had at least one properly marked shoulderpad.

I had one of the boyz by yesterday to do some painting. He's working on an Ultramarines force, and trying to get them painted so they'll be playable. I've issued a bit of a challenge to him and another of the boyz. Get 500 points painted. They've agreed (more or less), and I've made a quick list:

Lieut (Dark Blade, Plasma Pistol)

5 Marines (2 Sonic Blaster)
+ Champ (Power Weapon)

5 Marines (Sonic Blaster, Blastmaster)
+ Champ (Power Fist)

6 Daemonettes

I left the timeline open, but the Ultras player has suggested the end of November. Since I don't even own the required number of miniatures (I need 8 marines and 2 Daemonettes), and I'm writing all this month, I'm rather concerned about my ability to stick to this as a hard deadline. I'm making an effort towards it though. I figure I can probably (depending on what kind of time I give myself) end up with at least a couple of the marines finished by the end of this week. Far too slow to actually finish for the end of the month, but still quick enough to keep me working towards it.

So, in case you weren't paying attention, the current project is the four marines I've got. They're a rather mixed bag of marines too. I've nominated the old noise marine as the Power Weapon wielding champion, and one of the other marines have been given a power fist. I found (amongst the other bitz) the same backpack as the old noise marine has, so I've pretty much decided to keep this as a mark of rank. All Champions will be equipped with this backpack, or some other suitably ostentatious pack.

The arms of the old noise marine (the sonic weapon) have been given to a rank and file, and I've got one marine with a bolter and chainsword.

For the power weapon guy, I've built him an all plastic weapon from several bits, and added a little bit of green stuff for cabling and am thinking of putting on an extra detail or two to add to the overall coolness factor of the model. Besides all that, the original pose of the model is horrible, but he's all metal so I can't do too much modding to him without ruining the very cool detail work on his legs. I'm trying to overshadow the ugly pose with interesting painted weapons and his base. Anything to distract attention from the way he's walking.

I'll be putting in updates here as the models progress, of course. As they stand right now, the rank and file guys have both been primed and gotten the first armour colour on. The whole group of them had custom greenstuff bases made for them, just like the Lieut had. I can see now (and probably could have guessed then), that needing to make a complicated base like paving stones for every model means adding a significant amount of time to the assembly process. Still, when you see how it looks, it seems worth it.

Posted 10:41 AM by Tim
I've had to push painting aside the last few days. Evening out on Wednesday, and yesterday, and tonight, and tomorrow too. Just to much social life going on to get the painting on.

Saturday should be both a gaming day and a busy as all-get-out, day. There's the Black Templar Codex pre-release bring and battle. I'm thinking, I'll bring the Necrons. A fair size Lord, with a good glob of Warriors should hold the fort nicely - or at least smash up other people's forts.

I'm still very much wanting to get the Lieut. done, it's just taking me time to do him up. Maybe Saturday morning?

Posted 9:44 AM by Tim
The nightly painting routine seems to be working for me overall. Things (painting things anyway) are getting done.

The Lieut's backpack was the main focus last night. It worked out to be easier than I thought it might be. Just some Tin Bitz, highlighted heavily with Shining Gold, and occasionally set off by Boltgun Metal, highlighted with Mithril Silver. That covers all of the speakers and pipes, anyway.

The rest of the backpack is pretty standard, so I went with the usual armour colours, Liche Purple, edged in Blazing Orange, covered by Warlock Purple, and highlighted in Blazing Orange again. It looks good.

The flagstones for the base were done too. More trouble than I thought they'd be, but they look good in the end, so I'm happy. I also took some time and drilled the body for pinning. Put the pins in too, so I should have somewhere neutral to hold on to (if painful to do so). I drilled out the arms as well, so when the body's ready and sealed, I can just go straight to assembly.

I figure that if I had some time tonight, I'd finish the body off and get him assembled by Thursday morning (my mornings are the best time I have for doing epoxy work. I've got time to sit and wait usually). I'd love to show him off to the boyz before we get to playing.

I don't think I have any time this evening though, so he's just gonna have to wait.

While I'm thinking about being done with the Lieut, I might as well think about the next mini to get done. There's several options open to me. I have units in the Guard, Dark Eldar, Witchhunters, Harlequins, and Marines that need doing.

Well, I can eliminate the Harlequins, Marines and Witchhunters from consideration for now. I've got a very specific idea of what I want for the marines, and I don't think I have the models I need (likely, the entire force will go up to the store for recycling into Necrons). The Witchhunters still don't have a finalized colour scheme, and I don't feel I'm good enough to even attempt the Harlequins yet. Soon, maybe.

So, either DE, or IG units. On the DE side, I've got those 9 guys I wanted to do, and I've remembered that I've got the Talos to paint also. I started pre-assembly some time back, and it's been waiting as parts for a while now. No reason not to get back onto that.

For IG, the main item would be the Commissar. I did the conversion so long ago, and he's been primed for ages now. I really should get started there. Trouble is, I'd need more skin tones than I've got right now (some of my paints are horrifically bad). There's also the Orgyn, or even just getting more of the rank and file done.

I think, just given the successes I've had with the Necrons, I'm in the mode to work with the Talos. That's assuming I don't do the Marine -> Necron exchange this week. If I do that, then they will take precedence.

Posted 9:36 AM by Tim
My wife bought me a lamp for doing paint work many months back. It's one of those lamps with springs that hold the light in just the right position. It also has a little magnifier on it, so you can see details up close. I never used it, simply because it was broken on one spring. I kept meaning to fix it, but never quite got around to it. Last night, she fixed it. It's very good for providing the extra light I've been missing.

Progress on the Emperor's Children Lieut continues. I got around to the left arm last night, which has the plasma pistol. I'd done the armour plates, shoulderpad, and the chains on Sunday, so they were done already. All that was left to do was the plasma pistol, really. It's a fairly small piece out of the whole model, but something that people will notice. After all, it is the main firing weapon for him.

I asked one of the boyz for some colour suggestions on the pistol. Usually I do the casings of plasma weapons in Blood Red, regardless of the army, to give them all a nice unified feel (and most people seem to do this also). But, the lieut's armour is purple, so red won't really stand out. I want the weapon to be visible, so that people know right off that he's got something dangerous in hand. The suggestion I got was to make it blue. Well, I think they meant the power cell to be blue (I usually do power cells in blue, to contrast the red casing). So, I figured, why not just switch my usual colours around. Do the casing in blue, and the power cell in red?

It looks sweet. Wish I could take a decent picture of it.

While I was painting the Necrons, I consciously restricted the number of colours I was using. Firstly, I had a lot of them to do and wanted to actually get the finished. Second, the 'cron just don't seem like the overly decorated type to me. Other than the 'cron lords and the Flayed Ones, the total colour palette was: Chaos Black, Boltgun Metal, Blood Red, Snot Green, Shining Gold and Ultramarines Blue. Quite a small selection for me. The Lords really only added about two or three other colours, and those were all used as highlights for their weapons and equipment.

The Lieut's plasma pistol though, used way more colours: Chaos Black, Boltgun Metal, Mithril Silver, Tin Bitz, Shining Gold, Dark Flesh, Scab Red, Red Gore, Blood Red, Blazing Orange, Sunburst Yellow, Skull White, Bleached Bone, Bronzed Flesh, Snakebite Leather, Hawk Turquoise, Lightning Blue, Ice Blue, Snot Green, and Warlock Purple. That's just the plasma pistol itself. The arm adds on Liche Purple to that list. I know, I'm totally going overboard on this guy now, and well... like I said earlier, it looks sweet.

While I was waiting for the sealant on the arm to dry (it's been raining, so I've been sealing minis in the garage), I decided to work on the model's base. I've been mulling this for a couple days now. I've got sand, grass and a yellow dirt flocking at the house. I don't have a lot of cash to get more flocking elsewhere. My 'cron are based with sand. My Dark Eldar are based with the yellow dirt, and the HPL are based with the grass. I want the EC to have something different. An idea struck me for them. I have green stuff, I can make floor tiles and have them as if they were indoors!

So, last night, I tried my hand at getting the green stuff to look like large floor tiles. I've found a use for the larger dental tool I have. It worked really well in getting the green stuff to flatten out over the entire base, and was also very good at cutting into it to set up the tile edges. I was thinking about maybe trying to putty on a slaaneshi symbol, but I now think that I might just paint one on instead. I basecoated the tiles in black this morning, and I figure I'll get at working up the colour range on them tonight.

Posted 10:16 AM by Tim
With the 'cron all done, I figured it was time to move on to the next guy on the list. The Slaaneshi Lieutenent.

I managed to work out a colour scheme that sounds hideous, but doesn't look too bad in practice. Liche Purple base, with Warlock Purple and Blazing Orange highlights. Generous amounts of other colours accent everything.

I'm trying, as much as I'm able, to blend things, and highlight things nicely. No idea if I'm managing it, but I'm giving it a go.

The right arm is done (and sealed so I won't mess it up by fiddling with it later), and I've started work on the right. I'm doing him bit-wise, so each piece will be finished seperately, and he'll be assembled all at once - possibly pinned if I can figure out a good method for it. I've never been good at pinning.

At the rate I've been doing him (quite slow), I figure he'll be 4 or 5 days of work, and should end up being tabletop playable. I'd love to do him up in such a way that he'd look really nice, but I just don't have that kind of skill. Especially not with Marines.

Once I've got him done, though, I figure it'll either be on to the Dark Eldar Warriors, or maybe back to the Imperial Guard. Both forces have been crying out for attention.

Also, I finished the accounting yesterday. I've gone through every army and miniature I own. The numbers are both encouraging and also shameful. I own a total of 413 minatures for Warhammer 40K, spanning 7 races, and providing a total of 9500+ points of troops. I have two armies that are not tournament legal (not enough required units), and one force (the Dark Eldar) that have too many unit choices to be fielded as a single list.

Just as an FYI, I own (in order of points):

Emperor's Children
Harlequins
Space Marines
Necrons
Imperial Guard
Witchhunters
Dark Eldar

I was quite surprised by the number of points Witchhunters I have (nearly 2000), as I didn't think I had anywhere near that many. Maybe I should start making them the next force to be tackled? Maybe not.

Posted 1:15 PM by Tim
Finally!

I took some time on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and this morning finishing off those last two Necron Flayed Ones. They are completely done. This means that the entire army is done - at least, everything I currently own. I have to say, this is the first army I've ever finished. And the only army I've managed to keep up with as I bought it.

I need a minimum of three more Immortals to fill out the army, and that will give me about 1300 points of Necrons. Not a bad starting force really. Then, I'll just need a couple of other guys to give the force some extra variation. Somehow, I'll need to save up for a Monolith. That's gonna take me a while I think.

So... next up on the painting block: The Slaaneshi Lieutenant.

The Lieutenant's got the power sword, plasma pistol and the huge backpack modeled, which I will take to be the Dark Blade, a plasma pistol, and Doom Siren. I'm giving him Daemonic Resilience too, to make him toughness 5. This makes him 115 pts. Not massive for a Lieutenent, but not too tiny either. Should be a decent points cost overall. He'll be somewhat cheaper if I end up using him as an Aspiring Champion.

Posted 9:29 AM by Tim
Started into the Flayed Ones last night. They were much like I figured they'd be. Sort of like painting two models each. The first is a straightforward (if awkwardly posed) Necron Warrior. The second is a draped-like-fabric, man thing. All streteched and bloody. Fortunately, I made it easy on myself and went with a quick method.

The flesh was pre-painted by the original owner in what looks like Elf Flesh. So, I painted over that (roughly) with Dark Flesh, letting a little of the lighter colour show through. Drybrushed Dwarf Flesh over that, trying hard not to get any on the already painted Necron bits. I was pretty hasty with this too, just trying to make the skin look a little lighter. I know the Flayed Ones are supposed to look like they're covered in fresh skin, but I'm going for something a little bit older and ickier.

I wanted to do the edges in a dried blood colour, so I tried Scab Red. Of course, I'd forgotten that Scab Red and Dark Flesh are very close to each other in colour. You couldn't tell the difference under normal lighting. So, I thought about Blood Red, but that seemed too light overall. I went with Warlock Purple. Which worked great. I hit most of the flesh edges with Warlock, then went back around and put Blood Red highlights on a lot of them. Looks good to me. I even went and added a few blood drippings and stains in Blood Red to the Necron Warrior underneath, and added a copius amount of spatter to the flensing blades, and drippings on the base.

Given the amount of individual attention these models need (I have 4 models, and each of them are different from each other in pose and flesh layout), I wasn't able to finish more than one. But! I did get that one completely done and sealed. Only 3 to go, and the entire force I have will be done.

All that will be left then will be to buy enough Immortals to make up a proper squad. I've got 2 and need 5 in total.

With some work, I figure I can get another one or two Flayed Ones done tonight. I should have the squad finished off by the end of the week.

Posted 9:50 AM by Tim
I decided it was time to get those last few Necrons sealed. I've been talking about getting them done for long enough. There was only 9 left to do... so I did 'em. Finally. I'm left with only the Flayed ones.

Looking at the flayed ones last night, I can see a lot about them I don't like. First, their fingers (the flaying blades) are huge. Way too large really. Second, they're modeled like they're broken! Like they are regular Warriors who've ripped their guns off and mangled themselves so they can stumble around slashing at things. This strikes me as really odd behaviour for the 'cron.

The difficult part about painting them will be getting the skin done. They're normal warrior models (which means Boltgun and Ultramarines colours, with white death mask), and then happy, more or less alive (but bloody) flesh tones. It's not going to be quite the same as painting clothes on them. And there's a lot of flesh on them It's drooping all over.

At least they've given it some thought though. Their bodies have a number of added spikes on to jam the flesh on and keep it in place. I guess I'm just going to have to try them against some guardsmen.

Posted 1:49 PM by Tim
I had a fit of activity last night while procrastinating on my writing. The Necron footie Lord and the Immortal were needing their plastic rods installed, and they were very, very close to being finished as it was.

The footie Lord got a bit of a conversion done to it, partly because I wanted him to have a Resurrection Orb. So, a bit of putty and some time working with the placement of the fingers of one hand, and he's all set.

There's an odd trend with the Necrons that I've noticed. First, there doesn't seem to be any consistency with the size of the hands. On models like the footie lord, the left hand is reasonably sized to hold the War Scythe, but the right hand is huge. And not just because of the talon-fingers. The hand itself is larger than the left. You see the same thing on the Destroyers. They have huge hands.

Oh, while I'm ranting about models, let me say this: The left arm of a destroyer has probably the most limp-wristed pose you could get in the entire 40K line. Seriously. Somehow, after painting, it doesn't look nearly as bad, but for a while, I was thinking I'd have to make some sort of Necron interior decorators squad or something.

Anyway, to bring things up to date. The Necrons are all painted (9 still need sealing) except for four Flayed Ones. They need some serious work. The previous owner started in on them, but didn't seem to get very far. I'm torn between stripping them (they've already been based), and working from what's there. I think it's going to have to be a quick file and re-paint job really.

So, the full force at this point is:

1 Destroyer Lord (warscythe, res orb + a scarab on the base which I use as either chronometron or phylactery)
1 Lord (warscythe, res orb)
2 Immortals
30 Warriors
1 Heavy Destroyer
7 Scarabs
4 Flayed Ones (in progress)

I've been proxying in a Monolith and 4 more Immortals instead of the Flayed Ones. This pushes the list to about 1600 points or so. Quite solid.

In other news, the local store is going to be doing a bring and battle for the new Black Templars codex. I just need to bring a troop choice and an HQ. At present, the best plan seems to be the footie Lord with War Scythe, Res Orb and Veil of Darkness, and 17 Warriors. That gives me 18 total, and means I'll need to be down to 4 guys total before having to worry about phase out. They might waive the phase out rule, which would be pretty sweet.

I just love the idea of being able to teleport around the table, playing clean up on anything wounded or isolated. Of course, as a bring and battle, there's bound to be a lot of people, a lot of confusion, and a general sense of anarchy. Really, long run, should be fun.

I'm hoping to convince the boyz to join in. They've got a few weeks.

Posted 7:02 PM by Tim
Well, the Necron army has drawn me in. I'm not even following my own rules anymore.... I bought a new model. I knew the store had a second hand Heavy Destroyer, and I've been lacking in the heavy firepower in my games against the Khornates. The thought, of course, was that a Tomb Spider might cover the difference in firepower, but it's shooting and combat stats are horrible. Even if it is one of the few models with power weapons. I'll consider it for the full force, but I think the Heavy Destroyer is better at this point.

Anyhow, as a way of making up for breaking the "no buy" rule, I've been putting all my efforts into getting the Heavy Destroyer completely painted and sealed. And, it's done! Completely re-built (you should have see the shape it was in, not horrible, but far from complete), painted and sealed. It'll hopefully be a good addition to my army.

One of these days, I'm gonna have to find a place to post pictures.

Posted 1:08 PM by Tim
No painting last night though I could have done. Probably should have done. But, I had other things on my mind at the time. Work's stepped up to make my evenings rather short.

I played against the Khornates again on Tuesday. Another loss, but this was at least closer than last time. I made it to round 6 before phasing out. I'm still learning how to use the force. The lesson this time is that it's better to have a couple of res orbs than just one. Also, if you've got a veil, use it.

I keep getting my veiled Lord into combat and forgetting that he can and should leave at the earliest opportunity. Getting stuck in is what's getting my warriors all ground to shavings. That, and the veiled Lord isn't carrying an orb. That's gonna change really quick.

There's a hope that I'll face off against the Daemonhunters soon. Should be a rather cool battle if I can just get it on. Maybe this weekend.

Posted 10:12 AM by Tim
The Necrons have taken me longer than I wanted to get done. Regular life has hopped into the way, and it's slowing me down something fierce. I'd forgotten why assembly line painting always drove me bats. It's boring! 19 guys, each getting an identical treatment. Working with a single colour, and leaving the fixes to later. Guh. So annoying.

Anyway, at the start of last night, the 'cron were needing green, gold, white, and red. With touchups on blue and black. I finished the green, gold and red, and did the blue touches. I figure I can live without the black touches if I need to. After all, painting on the sealant this time around will be the suckiest part of it all.

I'm hoping to get the white and black touches done before 8 tonight. I'm really hoping to go by the boyz place and hang out/play. Though... if I do that, I'll probably get the sealed and unsealed models confused... hmm.. maybe I"ll mark the unsealed ones with something first...

Anyway, what's left to do is the footie Lord, the Immortal, and the 4 Flayed Ones. Honestly, it's the Flayed Ones that worry me. I'm just not sure what I should do about them - skin tones are hard, so they're going to take a fair bit of effort to do up right. They're definately going to take me more time than they're worth. Might as well give them individual effort. Then they might look like something.

Posted 12:20 PM by Tim
The Necrons basing got done, it just needs to be blackened. I ran shy of Chaos Black, and went out to the nearest store to get some. I was surprised. They had moved into a bigger space, and now had gaming tables. I'm going to have to go there more often.

Now, for a quick rant about the local Warhammer scene.

There are three stores in the area I live. That should be more than enough to satisfy my gaming craving, right? Wrong.

One, is rather far away. They have the most stock, carry second hand models, and are generally a friendly place to go. They have a gaming table, but it's almost never in use because it needs to be signed out, and can only be signed out for certain days, depending on who's manning the store at the time. Technically, it could be used if nobody else was using it, but then you'd have to get the store guys to move the excess stock off of it (they use it for a sort of ad-hoc storage most of the time). It's just inconvenient to use. I like going there because they have the best selection of used models. They're also rather picky about models being fully painted and based, which up unitl recently has been a major hold-back.

The next nearest store has a ton of gaming space. If they open that floor. It is open on specific nights, and they do tend to have a lot of gamers up there on those nights, so it's good that way. They've got good selection, but not so much for used models. They're absolutely anal about models being painted since they're an official Rogue Trader, but that's not the worst of it. They're also just not very friendly towards customers. They had a long bout of shoplifting, and now they're paranoid that every person into the store is going to either steal from them, or break something. They're rather hostile towards children too. They do run tournaments, though, which, if they were a little less expensive would be a reason to get things painted.

The nearest store to me, has just recently gotten some gaming space set up. They're small, and their selection sucks. They've got some second hand models too, but the selection still sucks. The store itself carries a sort-of elitest feeling to to, since it's a hobby store first, and a GW store second. I think they're trying to change that though - the call of profits from the GW merch is just too good to pass.

I'll be making a bit more of an effort to go to my nearest store. Not only to support it's continued existence, but also to actually get to play on a more frequent (or at least monthly) basis. I like playing at the boyz place, but it's nice to have some different opponents now and then.

Posted 3:25 PM by Tim
The Accounting

I mentioned the idea of going through every army I own and working out the precise details of what I own, and how many points it's worth. I think it's a good idea. Then I'll know just what I have, and what needs doing. My collection has grown a little out of hand lately, and well... it needs some reigning in.

The lists will appear here in the blog, for full perusal by any who might have an interest. I'll be profiling my armies one at a time, but the whole collection will come up here at once.

Posted 2:20 PM by Tim
The Dark Eldar have been retouched, finalized and sealed. I'm gonna have to buy a couple cans of sealant - one to replace the one I borrowed, and one for personal use.

So. I've got 400 points (in two list variants) of models finished and sealed. I'm ready to play whenever the boyz get their stuff done.

I wanted to get a start on the rest of the Necrons, but didn't get past basing them all. I'd been putting that off for a bit, as there were so many that needed basing (12 Warriors, and 4 Flayed Ones). But, I also needed to get their bases done since the legs were finished on all of them (just Boltgun and Ultramarine).

So, I've got 19 Warriors in need of completion. They need white faces, red eyes, black guns, red and blue hoses, green energy chambers and blades, and gold chest icons. Then they'll just need the bases done. It's honestly less work than it sounds. All the parts needed are small.

A friend of mine suggested that I try using a paint on varnish instead of the spray, since these guys have their energy rods glued in already. I'm going to finish one of the Warriors and make a test run of it to see how it turns out. If it comes out bad, it'll only be on the one guy out of the whole army. If it works good, then it'll be the process for these Warriors.

I've decided to paint the Emperor's Champion model after the Necrons are finished and away. This will technically give me two fully painted armies. I only own the one EC model after all - so it should be simple to declare them finished.

Ultimately the goal is to chug my way through the unpainted legions of Imperial Guard and Dark Eldar models I currently own. I've been meaning to make a list of every army I have, just so that I know just how many point of whatever I could put down if I felt like it (although, it'd be one weird looking alliance force).

There's not going to be a time limit on getting the army done. I know that if I do that, I'll start getting bogged in other things and stressing about the whole painting thing, so I'm going to stick to the way I've been doing them so far. Pick a unit, work on that unit, finish it, done. If I can cycle that a few dozen times, I will get through everything and I will have some playable (and fully nice looking) armies.

Posted 3:16 PM by Tim
Painting plans update:

Here's the current plan for painting stuff.

I want to finish off the sealing for the Dark Eldar. They just need a very quick once over and touch-up paint, then they get sealed and set to go. Should be able to do that tonight barring interruptions, etc.

After they're finished, I'm going to continue on with the Necrons. I didn't paint a single one of them last night, so I've still got 19 Warriors, the Lord, the Immortal, and 4 Flayed Ones to do. And I wanted them done this week.

Third on the list is a toss up between the Commisar, and the Emperor's Children Aspiring Champion model. In a way, I'd like to get the Commissar done, as a spur to getting back to the HPL, on the other hand, getting the EC done would mean I'd have 2 armies officially finished and done (though I only own the one EC guy).

Once either of those are done, I'll do the other. From there, it's open again, though I'd love to get the Talos finished before bothering with anything else.

Posted 9:59 AM by Tim
Necrons versus Khorne last night. 1500 points. The lists, in brief:

Necron Lord - destroyer body, res orb, phylactery, warscythe - 195
Necron Lord - veil of darkness, phase shifter, staff of light - 195
30 Warriors (3 units of 10) - 540
6 Immortals - 112
7 Scarabs - d. field - 168
Monolith - 235
Tomb Spider - particle cannon - 55

I don't know the points or stuff on the Khornies.

Khorne Lord
8 Berzerkers - power fist
8 Berzerkers - rhino, power fist
8 Berzerkers - rhino, dark blade
Defiler
Predator - las cannon sponsons, las cannon turret.
8 Hellhounds
8 Bloodletters

We managed to actually play on the big table. 4 x 8 space. Was a nice change from the usual 2.5 x 4 space we tend to play on. Table had three big buildings, and wreckage from the IG across the mid-field.

We rolled up Alpha level Recon (we don't usually play missions, so this was kinda cool).

My deployment was pretty simple. Scarabs opposite the Defiler, Immortals opposite the Predator, Monolith in the center surrounded by the Lords and Warriors. Across the table, 2 Rhino, 8 'zerks, and the Lord.

Khorne took the first turn and ran more than halfway across the table at me. The Defiler fired and missed, and the Predator unloaded into the Monolith, glancing it. The glance reduced it's weapons by 1.

I teleported both Lords and 10 Warriors behind his lines, hoping to fire onto the Defiler and throw things off on his side. They ended up further away than I wanted, and could not fire on the Defiler as I had planned. The Scarabs sped up towards the Defiler, looking for the attack next turn. He hadn't seen the Scarabs in action before, so he didn't know how easily they'd saw through a vehicle.

Weapons fire was pretty good for my side. We killed off a number of 'zerks and ground a Rhino down to nothing. The Immortals managed to shake the Predator, so the guns would be slower. The 'lith blasted nearly a full unit of 'zerks into atoms. This is where I discovered that the Tomb Spider would be an utter waste of points and my time. BS2? Why give it a good gun if it can't shoot?

Second turn, the daemons came into play. The hounds rushed the Lords and Warriors, the Bloodletters marched towards them to get there in the next turn, and the 'zerks piled into my Warriors, slaughtering many. The Lord crashed into the Immortals, mashing 2 with his power weapon.

The 'cron Lords fought well, killing off a couple of hounds and making another unstable. The Warriors with them were chewed up pretty good.

On my side of turn 2, the 'lith ported the Warriors out of combat, pulling a few extra back together in the process. Shooting in earnest went against the 'zerks, felling far fewer than I'd like. The Scarabs assaulted the Defiler. The Defiler smashed two bases, but the other 5 glanced it and immobilized it. The Lords continued to beat on the dogs, saveing everything thrown at them, and most of the Warriors in their unit were back in action and helping to smash the dogs down. All but one of them went unstable. The Immortals lost another to the Chaos Lord, his own armour preventing him from being hurt in response.

The 'zerks re-assaulted the Warriors, hacking and smashing them utterly, and consolidating into the 'lith and the other Warrior unit. The Bloodletters mashed into the fight with the Lords, and beat the Warriors and the Lords down. The Destroyer Lord fell to their fury, and the Phalanx Lord was wounded twice. Two of the Bloodletters were beaten down in response. The Defiler could not get a grip onto the Scarabs, who quickly finished dismantling the machine and leaving the assorted parts for scrap. The Immortals and the Chaos Lord fought to a draw.

The Destroyer Lord recovered 1 wound, and the fallen Warriors on both sides of the battle recovered and rejoined the nearest units. The Scarabs moved into position to provide bodies and attacks against the daemons. The 'lith fired the particle whip against the Predator, but could not hit. Combat was messy. More dameons fell against the Lords, and the last of the Warriors were beaten down. The Immortals and the Chaos Lord fought to a draw again. The Warriors fighting the 'zerks fought back, but were losing the battle. The Power Fist 'zerk tried to grab onto the 'lith, but couldn't touch it.

Turn 4, the Predator fired into the 'lith again, glancing it but only managing to shake it. The fighting went poorly, the Warriors were getting crushed, and there was very few Necrons left on the table. The Chaos Lord bashed another Immortal. The Bloodletters were dying against the seemingly untouchable Necron Lords and their masses of Scarabs.

The 'lith ported the Warriors out of combat hoping to bring the numbers of Necrons on the field up over 9 - the minimum number I needed to keep from phasing out. Enough came back on the field to give me 13 necrons in total. The Warriors fired onto the 'zerks, finishing off the last of the Power Fist unit. By now, I was wishing that the Tomb Spider had been three more Warriors instead. The Necron Lords beat the last of the Bloodletters, and moved towards the 'zerkers, hoping to get across the table quickly enough to assist. The Scarabs moved off towards the remaining Rhino and the Predator, planning to chew their way through yet another vehicle. The Chaos Lord smashed the last two Immortals, leaving me with only 11 Necrons on the table. 2 more losses would mean the game.

Bent on destroying the necrons utterly, the Predator's guns were turned against the Warriors, vaporizing 2 of them. The game was won, but the bloodthirsty (or, in this case, oilthirsty) Khornates assaulted them anyway. The Tomb Spider was smashed by the Chaos Lord, and the last few 'zerkers tore the Warriors apart. Only the Scarabs, the Monolith, and the two Necron Lords (with 1 remaining wound each) remained.

At the beginning of my turn, with no chance of repair rolls, the Necron army phased out.

Not too bad a fight. The Khornates were left with a Rhino, a Predator, 4 Berzerkers and their Lord. All in all, only one scoring unit. Of course, phase out means they get a total victory, but meh, it's a for fun game.

Looking at things I did wrong, I can see that I spent too much time stuck into combat against the daemons. The Lords needed to hop away once they'd done their thing on that side of the board. Specifically, once the Defiler had been smashed, or at least, engaged, they needed to Veil back across the board to get the Res Orb near the units that were being smashed up by the Berzerkers. Had I done that, the Warriors there would have kept on fighting and coming back, instead of being slowly whittled away. We'd have lasted out the turn without too much incident. Also, I'd have been able to port the massed unit far away, making him run back and forth across the battlefield a few times trying to catch us again. It was my first game with a new army, and learning how to use it is going to take some time. I think I've got a solid list (aside from the Tomb Spider), I just need to learn how to use it.

Posted 1:02 PM by Tim
I did not, and have not yet gotten the Dark Eldar sealed. My plans of "just quickly touch these up and then spray" fell through. Life intervened, and it hasn't happened. Then, there's these pesky Necrons.

I've been rather good about sticking to my rule of painting every Necron within a day of purchase. But it's always been a reasonably small number of models to paint. Not more than 10. Given my tiny army size, I knew I'd be in for some trouble when I found out that a friend of mine was looking to get rid of his necrons.

He had 19 Warriors, a Lord on foot, 5 Scarab bases, an Immortal and 4 Flayed ones. Plus a couple of assorted bits. Oh, and the codex. I needed/wanted all of it, so... we worked out a price and I scooped the whole lot of them this weekend. I spent the evening I got them just fixing them and accounting for parts. They weren't too badly built, but there were about 5 of them that were misassembled, and 2 which had sustained some pretty heavy damage over time. One in particular had a broken leg, mismatched arms, the torso had come clean off, and, while in repairs, the head came off. That's a lot of quick-style fixing to make right.

Of course, I knew that even with a full day available, there'd be no way I could possibly paint 30 full model (5 of them bases of little guys, 1 a character that needs more time to do right, and 4 of them needing some detailed paint work). But, I did figure I could get the Scarabs done, and maybe work my way through a full unit of Warriors.

The Scarabs got done, the Warriors, however, got as far as being Boltgun Metal and Ultramarines Blue. At that point, I figured it would be just as easy to keep on with the other 9 guys, so I'd have a full 30 looking more or less like they're supposed to look.

As I was on a roll with making them look like they fit into the army (the original scheme was metal and gold with green accents), I cleaned up the Lord, and the Immortal and applied at least some of their blue armour also. This pushed them enough that they look like a part of the force (though they're both severely lacking in detail work).

I've been challenged to a battle too.... for far more points than I should have been able to field. I think one of the boyz found out about my purchase and is trying to get me to fail at my "paint in a day" rule. Well... I technically have, but I'm willing to let it slide, because I'm taking the set of miniature as if they were seperate purchases. Warriors + Scarabs, Lord and Immortal, and Flayed Ones. I figure... that's a minimum of three days, and if I get it done within four, all the better.

Tonight, the plan is to play 1500 points against Khorne. Should be interesting. I'm taking both my Lords, all 30 Warriors, 6 Immortals (I'm proxying 4), all 7 Scarab bases, a Monolith (proxy), and a Tomb Spider (also proxy, and only being taken to check out the Particle Cannon effect).

After the game(s), I'm hoping to get everyone painting again. Of course, I'll be focusing on getting the Warriors done. They still need Skull White faces, Chaos Black guns (they're all different colours), Goblin Green and Blood Red accents, and then they need to be based and have the bases done. All 'round, about an evening's work.

If the boyz don't know about my purchase (and they may not know unless they talk to the seller or read this), I think they'll be quite surprised at the size of the force I'll be fronting. It's more than doubled since the weekend. :P