Monday, August 27, 2012

Necrons for NOVA: Finished 2k!

Ta-da!  The finished displayed army of my Necron force for NOVA.  Here are a bunch of finished pictures of the army.








As you can see, I always like to make custom objective markers for my army.  I picked up some necron looking bases from Puppet Wars Miniatures, they make perfect objective markers.  I also made a necron looking homing beacon out of a necron shield and wraith weapon.


Tuesday I'll be creating a "pretty" looking army list to print out for the con... only a few days away.

Here's the final list I'm taking.  I just need to stay away from that damn harlequin archon eldrad death star.

HQ: Destroyer Lord with Weave
HQ: Destroyer Lord with Weave
Troop: 5 Immortals
Troop: 5 Immortals
Troop: 5 Warriors
Troop: 5 Warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 Warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 Warriors in Night Scythe
Fast: 6 Wraiths with 3 Whip Coils
Fast: 6 Wraiths with 3 Whip Coils
Heavy: Annhiliation Barge
Heavy: Doom Scythe
Heavy: Doom Scythe

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Display Board for NOVA

As my previous portable display boards have proven, I preach the mantra of sturdy and light.  It needs to be functional (I have an elaborate display board for my "local" rolling display cart).  Since it also needs to fit into my large suitcase, my portable display boards work out to 24" by 18".  Because of this, I can't put too many things on it. 

Here's the structure of my board.  I forgot to take pictures before this step but basically I cut wood trim into a box and put a 1/4" base.  All was glued together with a hot glue gun.  I then put pink insulation foam in and hot glued that to the bottom and sides.  This creates a very sturdy and light base.  I then took Spackle and filled the gaps.



After letting this dry, I decided it would be easier to put my brown house paint down before I added sand.  That way pink foam wouldn't show through any missed spots. 



A storm was brewing outside, so luckily my wife was around to help me put a layer of glue and sand down.  I first sprinkled some course rock down then added playground sand.  Dusted it off and quickly brought it inside before the rain. 


I then went back over with the brown house paint.  Since I didn't want to wait around forever I used a hair dryer to speed things along.  Since it has been 15 years since I had enough hair to even blow dry my hair (or let alone comb it) it's good have my wife around for supplies!


The next step was a drybrush of a desert yellow style house paint, then finally a bleached bone color.



I then did two coats of a high gloss black paint around the sides.  Just like my miniature bases, I prefer doing black rims around the bases.  The high gloss allows me to handle the sides better as well.  The added benefit of the trim is that it is curved allowing me to easily pick it up off of a table.  Finally I'll add in felt pads on the bottom to protect the gaming surface.


I'll be posting pictures of the final army in its finished glory!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Necron Flyer Wing Finished!

Cue dramatic flying music... theme song from "Top Gun"... RIP Tony Scott...

The 5 flyers are finished.  Here are my 3 Night Scythes and 2 Doom Scythes.  To help identify the Doom Scythes (outside the big prism gun) I painted their main fuselage blue. 

I snapped some pictures of them on the sanded (but not painted) display board I'll be transporting to NOVA.  As you can see, I alternated which panels were turquoise in which were metallics to add some variety.








They have been doing great, I just need to keep practicing which flight vectors to go to get maximum carnage.  I'll be running 4 instead of 5 on this weekend's 1,750 tournament.  I would love to get rid of the aegis defense lines and the communications relay, but I don't want to take any chances.  It's really good to have them all in at once to overwhelm the opponent.  I hope I can get at least one game against another full flyer list to practice between now and NOVA.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Destroyer Lords and Space Prawns Painted

I just wrapped up decals on the Destroyer Lords and am happy the way they turned out.  The best thing is I was able to create them with all plastic parts.  The arms and head are from the plastic lord in the Annihilation Barge.  To help distinguish between which is my warlord, I put some decorative scarabs on the base and raised the arm slightly higher.







I also finished up 7 more prawns (they do look like shrimp, don't they?).  Now I have two squads of 6.



This weekend I'll be playing in a 1,750 tournament. I think I will drop 2 prawns, one 5 man warrior squad and one of the doom scythes to get down to those points.   It does suck to run a solo doom, they really come in handy busting heavy armor. 

Monday, August 20, 2012

Aegis Defense Lines Painted

I've been flying through the painting the final steps of my NOVA army and here are my defense lines in my necron colors.  I may end up putting some of the gold decals on them to add that extra touch.




I've also begun working on the display board and will start putting up pictures over the next few days.  I can't believe NOVA is only 10 days away.  The list is locked, I've been doing pretty well with it.  It had a really hard time against the eldrad / vect / harlequins combo combined with the fire exarch dragon on the quad gun... but other then that, it has been doing great!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Preperation for Nova - Necron Evolution of Flyers

It has been a crazy month, and I apologize for not working on the blog.  I started a new job at the end of June and it has been pretty consuming.  Now it's time to get into hobby crunch mode and prepare for Nova!



I've decided I will be running necrons for sure.  I've been play testing and theory-hammering a ton over the last few weeks and ultimately I think I'm going with ally-free pure necrons.  The core of my flyers for necrons have been doing very very well which comes in at 845 points plus the 70 points fortification:

Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe
Aegis Defense lines with Com Relay

This is the core of my flyer side.  With the Com Relay, I can make sure it all hits at once.  The challenge  I had been facing while trying different lists is that if I presented the rest of my army too early, it would get beat down before my flyers arrived. After a lot of testing I found that hiding my army for the first turn or two behind the defense lines allowed me to do a couple things.

1. Protect it by going to ground or even being out of range of any weapons (for sure if night fight was in play)
2. Speed up the game so I could always get 5 turns in since my first and my opponents first/second turns go really fast

I started accomplishing this by putting two big immortal squads with veils and attached "super-overlords" that would teleport from behind the lines mid game to start busting skulls.  Ultimately the mega squads just didn't do enough damage and I am not comfortable enough with the randomness of deep striking.  I also spent way too much points on overlords and crypteks. 

After a lot of debate thinking of whether I should ally in some grey knights or orks (again), it was brought to my attention to try the hard/fast hitting punch of wraiths and destroyer lords.  It will still allow me to hold my army back the first turn or two until the flyers arrive, then the big fast combat squads and take on units that get busted out of transports.  Additionally the destroyer lord can soak up missle shots for the wraith units and eventually split off to crunch heavy armor or even tackle small squads solo (with a 2+ save and toughness 6). 

Here's my new list for 2,000 points that I need to frantically assemble and paint!

HQ: Destroyer lord with scythe, 2+ save, mindshackle scarabs
HQ: Destroyer lord with scythe, 2+ save, mindshackle scarabs
Troop: 6 warriors (creep up on objectives)
Troop: 6 immortals (haven't decided if I'll run telsa or gauss)
Troop: 6 immortals (haven't decided if I'll run telsa or gauss)
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Fast: 6 wraiths with 3 whip coils
Fast: 6 wraiths with 3 whip coils
Heavy: Doom Scythe
Heavy: Doom Scythe
Fortification: Aegis Defense Lines with Com Relay

Here's what I need to still do to get ready for Nova:

- 7 Wraiths
- 2 Destroyer Lords
- Finish my portable display board
- Creative army lists

This means a lot of painting for me during a pretty busy next few weeks but I think I can do it.  I also need to make sure the wraiths will fit in my travel bag, since Battlefoam doesn't have the custom cut templates for wraiths on their composer yet.  Plus I doubt I could get one produced and shipped to me in time!

It'll be a fun few next weeks. I'll be updating with pictures on how I'm progressing as well as how the test games go. 
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