... 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!

... 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.

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.

... 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...

... 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.

... in which I come out to play.

 

 I managed to squeak out after work last night to go meet up with SeerK, Old School Terminator, Farseerrerolls, and Mr. O out at the FLGS. I witnessed one of the bloodiest games ever between SeerK and OST. By the bottom of turn 2, about 70% of both armies were annihilated. OST's 'nids came out swingin', and SeerK's Dark Eldar didn't stand a chance. OST didn't get to table him, I believe SeerK had 1 unit left on the board when turn 5 ended. One of the most amusing games to watch, I'm glad I got to see it.

After, we journeyed out to the local watering hole like normal to discuss game, strategy, and modeling. I got a much clearer concept of what to do for SeerK's army board, and I probably will start working on it soon. I got a year till next Adepticon, and I promise it will be sweet.

OST mentioned that he was going to be running a Tournament out in Fowlerville. I don't know any of the specifics yet, check darkfuturegames.blogspot.com for details. It's still a ways off, June 4th in fact. But, I am actually considering bringing the Necrons out to play. Now, I am realistic. A Necron army is not exactly tourney winning material, but I love to play for fun. And this sounds like it will be pretty cool. It sounds like most of the crew will be there, so I couldn't imagine it turning out poorly. Mr. O and I started bouncing ideas off of each other, and we are going to draw up tourney lists this week to throw down against each other next week. Last time I threw down with Mr. O's Black Templars we ended up tying, so I think he'll be ideal for playtesting and fine tuning a list.

Right now my biggest concerns are if ForgeWorld is allowed (I still have yet to REALLY get the Tomb Stalker to come out and play), and I absolutely hate running Destroyer spam. I don't even have enough destroyers to run that type of list. I am curious to try out my Heavy Destroyers and Pariahs. I'm still iffy about Destroyers, but I may pick up a few so I could field a minimum squad. Then again, maybe not. I'd have to buy 2... and I reeeaaaallllyyy don't want to do the Destroyer spam thing.

I think I came up with a fairly solid list, I'm anxious to try it out and see how it fairs...I think strategy will play largely into the list, just as much as the pieces. I am definitely working with a handicap here, the new Necron codex needs to hurry up and come out.

Anyway, just a few thoughts while I procrastinate on working on Witchfate Tor. Floor 3 is going, and the end is finally in sight....

... in which it has been too long since my last post, and current projects.

It's been too long since my last post, but "Spring Break" will do that to you. I saw "Spring" because we had a snowstorm yesterday, nothing major, just enough to be obnoxious.

The other day I couldn't help myself. I bought an Araknarok. I'm still in awe of the sheer size of the thing. I'm very anxious to get at it, but I am using it as motivation to knock out some of the other projects I've been working slowly on.

The Araknarok's base, in comparison to a Questing Knight

I blame Old School from Dark Future Games for making the Araknarok so appealing. He did quite an awesome conversion of one into a Tervigon for his 'nid army.

Other than that, I've been knocking out scenery like a champ. I used some variation to do a fall and winter piece. I don't want to go into much detail about them here, as I want to write a full article on building custom terrain. Still, here are the finished products:

I have also began work on Witchfate Tor, pics to come as it is completed.

On the painting side, I finished off the Necrons I picked up before Xmas, and now have that 100% ready to go.

What I put the most energy into lately has been my Bretonnian Trebuchet. I put a alot of detail into it, including rust on the riveting and bronze statues. There are so many tiny pieces to this, my camera can't do it justice.

I'm going to do a custom base for it as well. While it can stand just fine without one, I think I'd like it there to protect the bottom of the model from wear and tear.

Well, back to work on Witchfate Tor! My glue has dried and I am ready to prime. See you all soon for an article on doing custom scenery and effects!