On hold

With just a few models left to build and paint, things have been put on hold for a couple of weeks due to the need to use the kitchen table for more mundane things like eating dinner at.
After the break I plan to get the last few models done, including the undisclosed model. Then I will be doing a small project for the shop. Once that is done I'll be making a start on the Island of Blood Skaven for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
This time last year I had to take a break from another painting project, it doesn't seem like a year since I was painting Dreadfleet. If all goes well with the Skaven I may have the rest of the Tau models painted just in time for the new Tau codex release next year.

I always look forward to a new codex, even if I don't play the army concerned. I like to see what has changed for the army, plus a new codex usually means new models, and that's always nice to see. I look forward to new models particularly I generally see at least one model from the new range that I would like to paint. I am very keen to see what is done with the Tau for the new codex, there are some interesting rumours, but there was quite a few interesting rumours regarding the Necrons, a fair few of those turn out to be somewhat inaccurate.

Anyway that's about it for 2012, hopefully I'll be able to get back on track with everything in the new year, assuming that we're still here, I do have a December 22 post ready to put up to annoy the doomsday believers who will either be a bit red faced on Saturday morning or they'll have some bonkers explanation as to why the world didn't end.

All that's left for me to do now is to wish you and yours a very merry Christmas a prosperous 2013

The time has arrived

As I write this I am sat on a bus heading to Hythe for the penultimate gaming evening of 2012, with me are two cases containing Necrons. Although all the models aren't finished I have enough to put together a sizeable army and can probably pull together a 3000+ battle force. The one thing I really want tonight is a win, it would be such a shame if four months of painting ended up with a loss for the new army. So wish me luck, cry havoc and let slip the murderous robots of war.

The end is (almost) nigh!

With the last of the Lychguard complete, save doing the bases, all of the plastic Necron models are now done. All that is left to do now are seven various Necron HQ models, five Finecast Flayed Ones and a Finecast Shard of the Nightbringer. For the Flayed Ones I can work to the standard colour template which is fairly easy except that it’s been a while since I painted skin tones, but I’m fairly confident that I can do them well. For the HQ models I plan to paint them as close to the way they have been painted for the GW website, there may be a few deviations because there’s a couple of techniques that have been used that I can’t do but oh well.

The worrying one is the Nightbringer, I have a metal one that was painted by a friend who painted it exactly how I wanted it painted and I’ve convinced myself that I won’t be able to replicate the colour scheme. I know I could just continue to use the metal one but it’s very fragile and so well painted that if I continue to repair it every time it falls apart, it will eventually be ruined which would be a great shame.

Once all the Finecast models are done there is just one more model to do, more on that when work on it starts.

Here’s some pics.

Three down…

Yup, three models are finished. Three of the Lychguard have been given warscythes so that they can stride across the battle field cutting down any infantry and slicing through the artillery that dares to stand before them. Warscythes ignore saves of any kind, and since their wounds cannot be saved that also negates this whole namby pamby eternal warrior rubbish. In fact the only thing that stands any chance of getting up from a wound caused by a Necron warscythe is another Necron that has reanimation protocols. The only tank that poses a problem to a Lychguard armed with a warscythe would be the mighty Baneblade and, perhaps, a Space Marine Landraider. However the likelyhood of running into either of those is slim as only one player in our group has a Landraider and the Baneblade is an apocolypse option. They should make for some very interesting close combat rounds especially when combined with Canoptek Wraiths equipped with whip coils.

Anyway, here are a few photos of the newly armed Lychguard.

Halfway(ish)

Five Triarch Praetorians and ten Lychguard are almost complete. Bodies and heads are finished and put together all that I need to do now is paint the arms and weapons and they will done.

Progress

Ten Lychguard are under coated with torsos fixed to legs, Praetorians are in two halves with the torsos built and the legs have been under coated. The torsos have been left off the Praetorians so that I can paint detail on the legs and torsos that won’t be reachable when the two halves are put together. There’s one part of the Praetorians that has really puzzled me, they have tails, yup you read that right, TAILS! WHY? What possible purpose can a tail serve on a soulless killing machine? I’m sure that when Stan Winston was designing the Terminator endo-skeleton, which the Necrons bear more than a passing resemblance to, he looked at his concept drawings and thought “What this really needs is a tail, that will make it really menacing!” I bet he was really going with that until James Cameron said “Lose the tail Stan, it’s stupid!” So my five Triarch Praetorians have a menacing tail that serves no purpose at all, it’s not even prehensile! That would be a neat trick, going hand to hand with a deadly robot, disable it by grabbing it’s wrists only to have it stab you with a tail. That’d ruin your day! So despite the fact that the tail is for decorative purposes only and I think they’re stupid, I have put the tails on. Oh dear!

The Lychguard don’t have a tail, instead they have a nancy sporran, I’m sure it has a proper name but I have no idea what it’s called but at least it’s not pretending to be something useful like a tail and it’s purpose is clearly decorative to make the Lychguard look a bit more fancier than their Immortal and Warrior minions. When a Lychguard strides across the battlefield he quite openly claim that he’s better than the lower orders because of his fancy sporran thing.

Anyway, enough of me moaning about tails and sporran type things, here are some photos of what I’ve done so far. Some of them aren’t particularly good as the black undercoat kind of hides all the detail, once the detail has been done they should photo better.

The latest addition to my collection of strange modelling tools is the spraying club, surprisingly it works very well. of the ten Lychguard that were on it only two of them didn’t get a full covering of undercoat, although they didn’t get a full cover the area that didn’t get covered was so minimal that you’d have to look really close to spot the area and once it’s been basecoated it won’t show at all. So yay for the spraying club.

Yup, they’re in the wrong order, the two photos above this text are of the Praetorians front and back, hasn’t it got a long, if somewhat useless, tail!

And the winner is…

After spending the last few hours wondering what to do with the fifteen models that are about to be built and painted, I’ve decided to go with ten Lychguard and Five Triarch Praetorians. The Lychguard will be split into two squads of five. One squad will have the default weapon of warscythes, the other will have hyperphase swords and dispersion shields. The second squad will benefit from the 4+ invulnerable save and the chance of a saved wound being reflected at an enemy squad that is within 6 inches. The Triarch Praetorians will be armed with the default Rod of Covenant. A strength 5 AP 2 weapon that may have a six inch range but with an AP of 2 they should be able to slice through Terminator armour quite easily plus with the added bonus of the RoC being a power weapon anything that is still standing after the enemy has been blasted to a sticky goo will soon fall under cloud of slashing and hacking.

So there you go that’s how the last remaining plastic models are being put together, once they’re done it’s onto the finecast models. (uh oh!)

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

 

With almost all of the plastic miniatures done, just sixteen to go, I have got to a stage where I’m not sure what to do with fifteen of the models. I have three boxes of Lychguard/Triarch Praetorians. Both variants have two options for the weapons and I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to build them. I could do a 5/10 and split the ten into two units, but what I can’t make my mind up on is what the ten should be. Ten Lychguard or ten Praetorians? Splitting the ten into two squads will allow me to build each squad with different weapon options. I really like the look of Lychguards armed with Void Blades and Dispersion shields, so I’m fairly sure that five of the models will be built as that variant, so what to do with the other ten models? Take a look at the GW website under Necrons – Elites - Necron Lychguard / Triarch Praetorian and let me know what you think in a comment.

 

Ta muchly

Oh they are serious butt kicking machines of death

ten Immortals have now been added to the Necron collection, with the way things are going I could get my first game in with them before the end of the year. If I forego the addition of Flayed Ones then there’s a chance that I may get a game in with them as early as the next gaming evening. I have fifteen plastic models to paint, five of those will be made as Lychguard the other ten will be Triarch Pretorians.
Here are the photos of the Immortals

Way back at the start of this project when I listed everything that was needing to be painted I mentioned that there was a secret model the was going to be included in the collection. Without wanting to give too much away the model will be a conversion of a non 40k model, but as a treat for the followers of this blog I can give you a sneaky peak of a part of the model.
TA DA!