Saturday, November 5, 2011

New Necron blog up at Craftworld Lansing

Go over to craftworldlansing.blogspot.com and check out my first impressions of the new Necron Codex.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

New Necron post

View my (very short) article over on Craftworld Lansing about the upcoming Necron release.
More to come when I get my hands on a Codex!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Midterms are cruel and unusual punishment.

Ugh school is kicking my ass... and it's only getting worse. Two massive research papers to do this term, and my hobby table is collecting dust and cobwebs.

I finally made it over to DFG to take a look at the new Necrons... and I must say I am impressed. Imotekh will be by army leader... Seeing as he is my namesake.

All of it just makes me realize how much I miss doing all this. I talked before about trying my best to devote 1/2 hour a week to hobbying, but as we can all see that hasn't gone so well.  Any suggestions from anyone out there in the blogosphere on how to create more hours in the day?

Updates to follow, hopefully soon.


-Stormlord

Friday, August 19, 2011

Falling off the hobby horse.... and getting back on.

I'll admit it. From time to time, we all take on too much.
I think I may have burned myself out a bit with my massive painting challenge, then coupled with a summer semester at school and a complete lack of fundage, I've completely fell off the hobby horse.  Sure, I still have done some hobby stuff... I've so far painted 1 Night Goblin Spider Rider. 1. Oh, and I played one game of 40K against SeerK's Eldar. Which I might add, he totally spanked me from one of the field to the other. Moral victory though, no phase out!

Falling out of the hobby isn't the hard part, it's getting back in. I've pretty much determined that I need to set aside some time each week to devote to hobbying, even if it is only a 1/2 hour. That's still some progress.  Especially with a few of the 40K gamers moving away soon, it is even more important to dust off the cobwebs and make an effort to get back into the swing of things.

Thoughts about some recent releases:

Storm of Magic? Maybe it's because I haven't sat down to read the rulebook (or because I don't have a spare $70 bucks to drop on another book...) but it seems to be fairly pointless. Sure, let's add big monsters to the game. All these new models are dropping, Vampire Counts, Chaos, Dark Elves... but not Bretonnia love. From my understanding, some of the monsters can be added to any army. For that I say cool, but I'd still like to see some Bretonnia specific new models, likewhat the Vampire Counts are getting.

New Vampire Counts models look sweet. I look forward to getting my hands on the Zombie Dragon and the Garden of  Morr. If Games Workshop screws the pooch on the Garden like they did with Witchfate Tor, I'm totally done buying any of their scenery. We will see how this one goes.

From Forge World:

This is a thing of beauty.
The Praetor Armored Assault Launcher. This is SO screaming to become part of the Krieg army.

Now that my brain is back into the game, I think it is time to rededicate myself and push forth to finish some of these projects I have yet to finish. I've been working of a scenery piece for my Bretonnian army, a "Lady in the Lake" piece with a sword being raised from the water, so look for a tutorial on working with water soon. Hound me. Keep on me. I need the motivation. I also NEED to start assembling the Krieg army, as the Necrons are just getting spanked too hard recently. They will be competitive soon with the new Codex, I know, but until that drops, I still can't hold objective missions... and that needs to be fixed.

All right, that's it for now. Let's do this.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

... which I talk about the end of an era.

Well folks, sadly I will be bringing the 40K portion of this blog to a close. SeerK has invited me to become part of his Seer Council.

But do not despair! I am not going anywhere! All of my 40 related posts will now be located over on Craftworld Lansing.  Whenever I post a blog over there, I will post a link here to help direct people.
 

Chaos Kingdoms will still remain, as the primary focus of this blog has always been modeling, painting, and war gaming as a hobby. Fantasy Battle will still be at the forefront, as well as my personal thoughts about the hobby.

Hope to see all of you on Craftworld Lansing, and hopefully see all of Craftworld Lansing here!

Friday, June 3, 2011

... in which the Necrons give SeerK a run for his money!

Damn! So close to victory, yet so far away.

Yesterday I took on SeerK's Dark Eldar Webway list out at the FLGS. I ran the exact configuration that I talked about in my last post, but let me recap it real quick:

10 Warriors (Reserve)
10 Warriors (Reserve)
2 Monoliths
5 Pariahs
2 Heavy Destroyers
5 Immortals w/ Necron Lord, loaded with a Res Orb and VoD
The Nightbringer

Where things went wrong for me, was the mission type... Capture and Control, coupled with a deployment of Dawn of War.

SeerK had Initiative, so let's delve into the game:

I chose to keep all my troops off the board, and walk them on during turn 1.

Turn 1: SeerK moves his 2 Raiders across the board and deploys a squad of Wracks, and opens the webway portal close to my edge of the board.

I move my army onto the board, leaving my 2 units of Warriors in reserve. Directly in front the Raider that deployed the Wracks, the Nightbringer and the squad of Pariahs come on and open fire, wiping out most of the squad and sending them fleeing. Monoliths flank them to the right, while the other Raider gets to deal with the Lord and his Bodyguard of Immortals and 2 Heavy Destroyers. The Heavy Destroyers open up on the Raider and wreck it.

Necrons move on the board

Wracks get the warscythe welcome


Ohhh.... where did all your fiends go? So sad.

Turn 2:
SeerK gets 2 squads of Wytches and his Beastmaster and pack to come thru the center webway. One squad of Wytches goes into the difficult terrain to control the objective. I found this a little lame, because, yes they were within 3 inches of the object, but there was a wall of impassable terrain inbetween them! Oh well, rules are rules. The Beastmaster pack runs for my Lord/Immortal squad. The other squad of Wytches opens fire on the Nightbringer, landing 3 wounds with their poisoned weapons.... The remaining squad of Wracks forgets to open the second webway... Assaults!: The Beastmaster pack hits my Lord/Immortals, taking down 4 immortals. The Wytches assault the Nightbringer and Pariahs failing to even inflict 1 wound. In return, they cut down 5 Wytches, Insta-death style. Now, the Soulless Pariahs do their thing. Wytches leadership is reduced to 7, minus the five casualties... SeerK needs snake eyes to stay in the fight. The Wytches break, and the Nightbringer cuts them down.


Beast pack attack!

What Wytches?
My Turn 2:
Move the Pariahs closer to the remaining Wytch squad and open fire, killing 2. 2 Immortals get back up, and the Lord uses the VoD to warp away to his objective, opening fire on the Wrack squad that has only 2 men remaining. The Heavy Destroyers bug out (Turbo Boost) to the other side of the Raider. Monoliths drop particle whips on the Beastpack, inflicting only a couple of wounds. Nightbringer makes a beeline for the Beastpack. The Pariahs assault the Wytches in difficult terrain, and thier powered/poisoned weapons take out the 5 Pariahs.

 
Whats left after the Nightbringer's demise
Turn 3:
 The last squad of Wytches and the Talos pain engine emerge from the webway. The beastpack turn on the Nightbringer. The Wytches also move in on the Nightbringer, laying in some heavy fire. The Nightbringer takes his last two wounds and explodes with a S6 AP2 5" radius, taking the bulk of the 3 squads that were surrounding him. The squad of two wracks fire on and then assault the Lord/Immortals with no effect, but losing another Wrack. The Wytches assault and take down one of the Monoliths.

Bottom of 3:
Reserves unit of 10 warriors come in, entering from the edge of the board. The Heavy Destroyers lob some fire at the Raider with no effect. The warriors fire on the Wytches, taking one or two out. The monolith continues to move toward the other objective, dropping a particle whip on the Talos pain engine. The Lord/Immortals finish off the remaining Wrack.

Turn 4:
The pain engine lays into the Warriors. The full squad of Wracks move in on the Heavy Destoryers, firing, but not doing any damage. The Raider moves in on the 2nd objective, blocking the Monolith's path. The Wytches move in with the remainder of the beast pack to secure the 1st objective. The Wracks assault the Heavy Destroyers, killing both. The Talos pain engine assaults the warriors, taking 5 down.

The monolith continues around the Raider. Three warriors rise, and they remain locked in combat with the Talos, making no progress. The Immortals fire into the Wracks.

Turn 5:
SeerK's Wracks consolidate and move towards the 2nd objective. The raider parks in front of the 2nd objective. The Talos takes 2 warriors down during the assault phase, while the rest of his troops hold.

And here is how I lost:

At this point, I honestly thought I had SeerK. It was a gamble, but I thought for sure I could pull it off. Alas, the dice disagreed.

The last reserve of 10 Warriors emerge from the portal on the Monolith, surrounding the 2nd objective, contesting it. They open fire on the Raider with 20 shots, getting only 2 glances by the time everything is said and done. I needed that Raider gone to not contest the objective, so the Monolith unleashes a particle whip on it. Direct hit. Pens. Flicker Fields reject the hit. Damn. 21 shots into the Raider, and it is still there. That is where victory died.  The best I could hope for now is  tie. The Lord/Immortals use the VoD to teleport over to the 1st objective. Unfortunately, I could not get close enough to the objective because of the 1" rule. I literally was 3 1/8" away. They fire are the beastpack, but I don't remember if they did anything, as I had mentally conceded at this point.

SeerK rolled to see if we go to turn 6, and no. Game Over.

So close! I learned a lot during this game. I feel pretty good that I didn't phase out, and I wiped out more than 50% of his army while keeping more than 50% of his. I believe I would have been ahead in kill points, but I can't say for sure, since we weren't really paying attention because it was a capture/control. SeerK has put a lot of time and play testing into his webway list, and I feel like my Necrons went the distance against it.

If this is any indicator, I think my list will hold up well at the tourney on Saturday. I have no illusions of winning (I am running Necrons after all), but I think I have a solid and competitive team that will be fun to play.

That's it for now, kids. Report on Saturday's tourney to come next!

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

... in which I am defeated by the holiday weekend, and I prepare for a tournament this upcoming weekend.

I was right to throw in the towel. Power for us came back on shortly after it went out, but some of the other outlaying areas of Lansing are still without power, and not due to be restored until Thursday.

I found myself getting sloppy toward the end anyway. My normal attention to detail got really distorted when painting 20+ miniatures in a sitting.

The biggest lesson I can take away from this is enjoy what you are doing. It doesn't pay to rush, and it also doesn't do you any good to sit on tons of minis either.

So here's some photos of what I've done:






Forgive the quality, I had to take the pictures with my phone, as my camera was left in the car. I will take better close ups this upcoming week, now that I can put this behind me and get back to what this blog is about: Gaming.

So, this upcoming weekend is OST's tourney out at Fowlerville. Click HERE for details.

I have settled on running my Necrons for the 1850. I'm going to keep it simple, and focus on refining my tactics, seeing as Necrons are not exactly a competitive army.

Here's my list:

10 Necron Warriors

10 Necron Warriors

5 Immortals
Necron Lord
-Veil of Darkness
-Resurrection Orb

2 Heavy Destroyers

5 Pariahs

2 Monoliths

The Nightbringer

Here's the skinny on my strategy:

Keep everyone behind the monoliths.
Keep the Warriors in reserve, and hopefully keep them off the board as long as possible. I know I'm losing some firepower, but I refuse to be phased out. 
The Lord and his bodyguard of Immortals use the Veil of Darkness to warp around the board, hitting weak units in the rear or flank.
The Nightbringer is pretty self explanatory... Keep him behind the monolith to get him close and then let the carnage begin.
The 2 Heavy Destroyers lay down supporting fire, focusing on tanks and snipers. Run the Pariahs behind the Monoliths until they are close enough to use those Warscythes of theirs like can openers.

Hopefully by the time the monoliths collide into the opposing army is when the warriors would flood out of the portals. And, if anyone gets dinged a little too hard, pull them thru the monolith to keep the numbers up.

I'm planning on trying out the list at out FLGS tomorrow night, hopefully against OST, Vogrin, or anyone else in the DFG crew. I'll post results and pics after.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

... in which I think I am forced to admit defeat.

Well, as it stands right now, I have 142 completed.

Unfortunately, Toranados are rolling thru the area and have knocked the power for a loop, so no more progress can be made until the power is restored. :(

I could continue, but let's face it, painting by the light of an iPhone and candles just isn't going to cut it.

I am throwing in the towel for tonight. I'm not sure how much I can accomplish tomorrow, as I have a BBQ to attend, and that will eat up a bunch of my day.

Still, I feel 142 is a very respectable number, and I will be sure to post pictures as soon as I am able to light them and use the desktop. We will see what nature has in store between now and 5pm tomorrow.

... in which I give another update!

A little over 28 hours remain. Things are coming together well, but I still feel very much behind the ball. Let's see where this goes.

I'll be updating periodically over the next few hours. I'm hoping to bust the 190 mark by the end of the day. I have a huge batch that just needs to be flocked, so once I got those done, I think the 206 mark will be in reach!

Stay tuned!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

... in which I give another update!

25+ more base coated.
23 Flocked
12 more assembled.
206 minis sit on my desk. Now just to paint and flock them all by Monday. Game on.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

... in which I update again!

Whew!

I finished off painting another 23 miniatures today, and after the ink dries, I can flock them, and call them completed.

It really will be a race to the finish line, as I assembled and primed an additional 74 miniatures today.

If my math is correct, that would put me at 194 if I finish all of what I have primed over the next week. That puts me 12 shy.... sounds like I need to find a quick squad to paint!

PS: Forgive me for not taking pics. I prefer to spend my time painting, rather than uploading pictures. The pics will follow after the completion of the challenge.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

... in which I give a quick update.

Well, here it is, heading into the weekend.

I just finished flocking the 97th mini, and I look at the timer and realize I only have a little over 9 days to go. I haven't even cracked 100 yet. Things are going to go into another slow patch. I need to assemble and prime another batch.

So, I think I am going to be totally busted here. Realistically, I can't do 109 minis in 9 days.

... I won't give up though. I say we let the timer go, I'll post how many I have done at the end of 30 days, and then I'll stop it when I complete my 206th.

Now it is late, and my eyes are a bit blurry from speed painting an entire Dwarf army.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

... in which the numbers lie... my desk has been invaded by goblins!

Fear not, loyal reader, for I have not abandoned you.

I numerically look pretty far behind in my painting challenge. However, this challenge is not just painting. This is assembling, priming, painting... The whole shebang from start to finish.

Over the past week I have been working on my goblins from the Battle for Skull Pass. 43 are ready to drop, with another 21 primed and ready to go. The entire dwarf portion of the box is also primed and assembled. Meaning, I'll be over the 100 mark probably by the end of the week.... No promises tho, I still need to pace myself. Lately I've been gluing and assembling rather than painting, but now that my desk looks like an invading army, I'm ready to get to some serious work.

More updates to follow!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Testing out the Necron list

Well, I got in a game this evening with Mr. O. We both tested out our tourney lists. I was fairly pleased with how my army worked, though I did find a few holes. Everything operated fairly smoothly, no bad mistakes.

I didn't take any pictures since this was a friendly test game, and I didn't take notes on what happened either.

The high points of the game:
Snipers took out the Nightbringer
Necron lord and immortals wreaked total havoc.
Pariahs went the distance with assault marines
Monolith deployment worked like a charm.

I ended up losing the battle, 3-1
I lost my Nightbringer and monoliths, but I took out a marine squad. If we would have went one more turn, I honestly feel I would have caught back up.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

... in which I reveal my army board, and give my first painting update. (WARNING*** LOTS**** of pictures)

 First, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


 Tombworld deployment. Above is my 1850 army I would like to run on June 4th.




Here's how I did it, start to finish:

I started with a piece of regular foam board. Now, I wanted to magnetize the board so the minis would be secure, but not glue a ton of magnets to the board. I wanted to be able to use the board for multiple versions of my Necron army, not just this incarnation. So, after a quick trip to the local hardware store, I picked up a piece of steel duct panel. Be careful, this stuff is sharp on the edges. Trust me, you only make the mistake of handling this stuff without gloves ONCE. It was only $4 for a 20"x30" sheet.

I tested the paint and the flock, to make sure the magnet would hold thru the multiple layers.

Pretty successful, don't you think? Worked like a charm.

After using rubber cement to glue the metal to the foam board, I masked off the edges of the panel so that the metal would not be exposed.
Afterwards, a quick coat of black primer.





Next, I began working on the mountain. While the mountain was drying, I would switch off to flocking the board. This step took forever... Not much work for a lot of results, but a lot of time waiting for glue to dry.
I started with some spare foam I had laying around. It is actually the foam that gets pulled out from army trays. I just used Elmer's glue, Popsicle sticks and some brass rods to hold the foam in place while it dried.

Next, I used some plaster cloth to cover the foam form. You can pick up plaster cloth at your local craft store. After about a half an hour, I was able to mix up some more plaster to fill in the gaps and flesh out the base. Here's where I had to switch gears because it had to dry over night.

Next, a layer of black primer.

I took my Dremmel and cut the Necron symbol into the rock face. Drybrush a layer of rust colored red, and then a heavy coat of black ink. Here's the result.

Back to the board. I cut up some of the leftover gauss rod sprues, and chopped up the pieces that didn't look like crystals. I glued the chopped up pieces on like patches of rocks, and made little outcroppings of the squarish rods like crystal formations. I also used some clear casting resin and some rock molds to cast the large green clear rocks.

Here's the first coat of flock. I used rust colored ballast to simulate the rocky "martian" like landscape. I glue things on in patches like this for a good reason. I use a mixture of 1/2 water and 1/2 elmer's glue to hold the flock. When I let a section dry, and then go back over the edge of it at a later time, it gives a second layer and a "windswept" appearance.







Now you can see the landscape coming together.









My son, Finn






As for all the mess of the flock, I employ slave labor to clean up my mess behind me.

Some glue under the mountain, some flock around the base, and some clear green rocks and some Necron rods on the mountain.

I decided to make a frame for the board. All I did was pick up moulding from the hardware store, cut it at 45 degree angles, glue, clamp and nail it together. If someone requests it, I'll go into more detail about the frame another time.

After painting the frame black, but before I gloss coated it, I decided to put some Necron glyph decals on around the boarder of the frame.

One complete army board.
Now for the painting update....

3 down! Yes, I am aware that is not quite the 21 I should have done by now, but finals are this week... priorities and all. I do however, have 14 with paint on them very close to completion, and 12 more built and primed today. I would have done more, but I ran out of primer.... again. So, 3 down, 203 to go, and a chuck of about 20 that will be done shortly.

Now I bid you all goodnight, it is after midnight, so please excuse my posting if it is erratic... I'll edit and clean it up later.. sleep now...

Saturday, April 30, 2011

... in which I inventory my workload.

I am resolved now to hit that 50%, and to do it quickly. The first step in this challenge is to take inventory of what I have, and come up with a plan.

I'm just waiting for the glue to dry on the frame for the army board, then it will be 100%. I'll post on that probably later tonight or tomorrow.

Here's where I stand, all models included, even those partially done:

1 Witchfate Tor - top floor
1 Bretonnian Damsel on Horse
1 Hook Mountain Ogre
1 LotR Ent
52 Greatcoat Troopers
10 Vampire Counts Skeletons
1 Necron Destroyer
1 Araknarok Spider
3 Leman Russ Tanks
4 Discworld minis (nobby, Death w/guitar, Carrot, and Moist)
4 "Fighter" Knights
1 Pegasus Knight
31 Knights of the Realm
11 Archers
6 Battle Pilgrims
6 Grail Knights
2 Questing Knights
14 Men at Arms
21 Mouselings
1 Chaos Death Knight
4 Bretonnian Lords
1 Battle Standard Bearer
1 Succubus
3 Orcs
1 Warlord Crom
1 Storm Lord
1 Prince Altharin
1 Warlord Spinetail
1 Chupacabra
1 Zomie Hitler
1 Xanthos Mech
5 "Old" Knights of the Realm
1 Wolflord Marraig
3 Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Pestilence, and Famine)
2 Phoenix Hawks
1 Construction Mech
8 Scout Cars
2 Tanks
9 DnD Heroes
1 Wyvern
1 Rotpatch
1 Space Captain
1 Action Jackson
4 Trebuchet Crew
1 Mantis Assassin
1 High Elf Prince on Griffin
1 Elf Mage
10 Sea Guard
10 sword masters of Hoeth
5 Reavers
1 Skaven Warlord
1 Warlock Engineer
40 Clanrats
1 Master Moulder
2 Rat Ogres
1 Warfire Thrower
1 Poison Wind Mortar
12 Dwarf Warriors
10 THunderers
8 Miners
1 Thane
1 Dragonslayer
1 Cannon
3 Crew
40 Night Goblins
20 Archers Goblins
10 SPider riders
1 Big Boss
1 Shaman
1 Troll

*AND* 1 Custom Bretonnian Lord Mod

For a sickening total of:













wait for it.........













412!!!!

Sheesh. I see her point. That's a bit more than I expected. Let's see.... 1/2 of that would be 206.... and if I do that over 30 days, that's an average of 6.86666~ a day... Just to get to my mods.

Let the challenge begin! Painting will start at 5 pm, April 30th. I'll post regularly my progress.

Friday, April 29, 2011

... in which I seriously have the best ideas!

I got hit with the creative billyclub hard this week. Now that all the pressure is off from school, I'm finding more time to relax and do hobby stuff.

Unfortunately, I'm also the most forgetful person in the world, I meant to upload some pics of my army board as a WIP, but I left the camera out in the car.  Basically, I finished off the third floor of Witchfate Tor, and put it on hold while I did an army board for my Necrons. It went relatively quick. I am putting the finishing touches on it as we speak. I'll post a big "how I did this" when it is completed. I really put forth a lot of effort and multiple techniques, from carving, sculpting, casting, painting, and even carpentry. (I made the frame for it myself) and I am really proud of the results.

I had 3 ideas floating around in my head today for custom minis and mods. First, since I now have experience with casting clear resin now, I want to do a couple of Gelatinous Cubes for my DnD game, cause I think it would be hilarious. Next, I had a great vision for a custom Necron Lord. Let's just say I am super anxious to get to that one. Finally, I had an idea for a completely over the top pimp daddy mod. I don't want to go into it too much before its finished. I seriously think it is so good that some of the trollers out there may steal the idea and beat me to the punch. I will keep my ideas to myself for now, but I WILL be finishing that up by the end of May... well maybe...



The caveat with all of this is that my unpainted minis are getting out of control. I made a promise to my wife (and to myself) not to buy any more minis until I have 50% of what I have painted. So, I have to paint roughly 150 minis before I get to my mods. Heh. Maybe I'll actually go thru and inventory what I have so I can track my progress over the blog. Maybe have a few "Iron Man" painting sessions with SeerK, Mr. O, and the DFG crew and record a podcast while we paint the night away.

Time to kick it into high gear!!! Yippee Kai-yay MF!!

Friday, April 22, 2011

... in which I continue Witchfate Tor, and ruminate more on army boards.

Thank god the end is in sight!! A few more details and then the third floor will be complete. That's on the slate for tomorrow morning before work. Here's some WIP photos, mostly to show off what I've done so far, and to complain a little bit more about the model.

The pieces so far...

Top of the tower, only base coated

The first two floors that are totally finished. Notice the gap between the pillar on the right and the tower. If I take it closer to the tower, then I can't get the second floor off and on.

Another angle

Opposite side

Last angle

Tower base

Another angle of the base. I included this so you could see the detail in the eye in the wall.

2nd Floor

3rd Floor - WIP

Tower, mostly assembled.

Men-at-Arms next to tower for size comparison

M-a-A on top of tower

If you look closely, you can see by the staircase where the wall just doesn't line up right. This is the piece I had to reshape.
It's definitely coming together, but it is taking a lot more effort than I expected.

So, I spent my "painting" time tonight cleaning up my hobby area rather than actually painting. I put away all the minis SeerK snagged for me from Adepticon and all the miscellany I've picked up. While I was doing this, I really got to thinking about doing an army board for OST's tourney in June. 

I'm kicking around the idea of magnetizing the board. I like the thought of the pieces being that much more stable. However, I think I decided against cutting out impressions in the board. This would mean that I could not modify the board easily if I changed or expanded that army.

I started experimenting with rare earth magnets for this. I have some sitting around that I use for making parts of minis interchangeable. They have a really strong pull, and stick to metal really well. The magnets I have are only 1/8", so not ideal for basing purposes, but enough for me to get a feel for how this is gonna work. I put the foam board up against the duct work in the basement to see if the magnet would be strong enough to pull all the way thru the board. Unfortunately, it wasn't. I'm not sure if it was because to the tiny size of the magnet, or because it wasn't close enough to the metal.  I'm gonna take a trip to the hardware store to see if I can find a piece of sheet metal. I'll also have to see about getting some larger magnets, and if they can pull thru the foam board. If they can't perhaps I can just paint and flock the metal. I can get some plaster cloth from the art supply store, and then I can craft a full piece of terrain.

I started considering what to do for a good Necron board. I think I'm gonna go look to see if I can find some green crystals, and cut up some left over rod sprues to make rock outcroppings. I'll cut some foam up for some larger crystals... maybe run some lights underneath the clear crystal parts so that they flicker and glow. I'm also contemplating about making holes in a hill for the Flayed ones to be clawing their way up out of.. Just thoughts right now, I don't want to start another project until I finish at least 3 of all the WIP pieces I have going.