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...