... 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.

... 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....

Thoughts about army boards.

First, my frustrations with Witchfate Tor continue.  Painting is going slow, I ended up cutting a few brushes so I could actually reach in to do the detail work on floor #2. I ran into another issue with floor #1, There are 4 pillars that surround the tower, and extend up to floor #2. Thankfully, they did mention to only glue the pillars to the base, so you can take to floors apart.... Wonderful. Too bad that the pillars do NOT fit on the base, I had to add some green stuff to make them butt up against the wall, then secure them with a very loose glue joint, because there was no real area for the glue to hold...Once I got all of that worked out, I went to put on the second floor, and....Yup, the pillars are now too tight, and didn't fit around the tower... all because that one wall was warped and the base of the tower is not circular... OY.  I did get it resolved, but this is seriously turning out to be the most frustrating model I've ever built. One of the reasons for that is the thickness of the pieces. It is not like other models, where add a little heat and/or pressure and presto! The walls are seriously over 1/4" thick, and heavy duty.

Anyway, I should finish floor #2 up this weekend, and I'll try to post some pics. This is a real labor of love at this point. I am really putting a lot into this.


ONWARDS!

Last night, Old School Terminator, Vogrin and the Judge from DFG and I went out to dinner to celebrate SeerKarandras' birthday. Over dinner there was much booze and gaming talk. Good times. Anyhow, with all of the terrain I've been building lately, SeerK had asked me to assist with an army board sometime in the future before next year's adepticon. I must say I am totally on board for this. 

Army boards are a new concept for me, I only just recently found out about them from the tourney circuit. (Yeah, I know.... I'm a little behind the times) But, I have always enjoyed doing terrain and scenery, and doing something like an army board really appeals to me.

Just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, an army board is, well, a board decked out like a piece of terrain to show off your painted army. Here's a couple of images I stole off the web so you can see what I'm talking about.

I've seen some amazing boards, (Like Bob-Tan's) and I've seen some incredibly lame ones. (Sorry, SeerK, a flocked piece of styrofoam? Really? LOL!)

My brain instantly goes into how to build one of these.  Not bout the terrain, that's the easy part. I'm talking about the board.  What type of features do I want it to have? Do I want a frame around it? Should I cut out places for bases?

For my first attempt, I picked up two foam boards from the office supply store. What I think I am going to do is lay out my army on one board, and outline where the units will be. I'll cut those pieces out, so that when the model is placed in the hole, the top of the base will be flush with the board, looking more like an actual army, rather than a bunch of miniatures. Past that, glue both boards together, and prime it. I think the added stability of a frame would be great too.

Another idea I've been toying around with is magnetizing the army board. With the depressions already cut in, it would make it really easy to do, and also really stable and secure. The downside to this, not really conducive to army expansion... Where as if it was a flat board, you could always add to it. Hmmm.... I wonder if I get a thin sheet of metal that the rare earth magnets would be strong enough to adhere THRU the foamboard... and if not, could I paint and flock the metal??????? Hmmmmmmm.....

Just some ideas I'm tossing around now... feel free to chime in with any input or advice. :)

Now, back to Witchfate Tor.....

... 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!