Necron Basics #2 Working Towards 1000 points

Nick speaking,

Now that you have your compulsory Necron units organised, what's next? How do you start expanding your army? What models do you start spending your hard earned cash on to get the best from the Codex?

In this video I try to give my take on what core units would be good to start building your Necron army up to 1000 points...

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How to paint Eldar Aspects?

Nick speaking,

This is something that I have been thinking about ever since I started doing my IDIC Eldar! What colour scheme to use for the Aspect Warriors? Stick to the original colours in the Codex? Stick to the colour scheme in the Codex but add some colours from my Craftworld? Or paint them the same as the rest of my Craftworld?

Well, I can see good points for all three arguments! Painting them the same as my Craftworld would give the army a nice consistent look, and painting with the same technique and colours would make it an easy job! But then again, painting them like the Codex would give the army some contrast, plus give me something new to paint in terms of colours and maybe take the edge of painting fatigue...

Of course the third option of painting them like the Codex, but adding in my Craftworld colours on things like tabards and head crests, sound like a good compromise, but what about a forth option?

What about not painting them the same as my Craftworld, and not painting them like in the Codex? I have seen some great looking black Fire Dragons on my travels of  40k blogs (sorry, I can't remember where I saw them to link them back)

So what do you think is the best option? What have you done that works well? What would be best for my purple and white IDIC colour scheme?

Please give your thoughts below, or vote on the poll to the left.

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Hyperpod Nids Vs Green Skins

Nick speaking,

2011 saw my Stinger Hyperpod army take on some green skinned Orks for the first time...

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Bringing the broods to life - Ripper Swarms

Nick speaking,

Tyranid Stinger Ripper Swarms! Probably the least enjoyable and most tedious unit I have painted so far! So many teeth, so many eyes...

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New Eldar Announced

Nick speaking,

Forge World announces new stuff for Eldar...
  

ELDAR WARP HUNTER:

The Warp Hunter, perhaps the rarest of Eldar tanks, sacrifices the transport capacity of the Falcon chassis to mount the terrifying firepower of a large D-Cannon, a weapon capable of tearing open the very fabric of reality and engulfing its target in the dark energies of the Warp. Complete resin and plastic kit. Model designed by Stuart Williamson.
Rules for the Warp Hunter can be found here.


ELDAR SHADOW SPECTRES ASPECT WARRIORS:

Disguised behind shimmering holo-fields, draped with gossamer-thin robes and wraith-like in appearance, the Shadow Spectres were believed long lost by Eldar Seers. Armed with prism rifles, each a potent anti-tank weapon, and equipped with jet packs, their mobility allows them to hunt down their chosen targets with the implacable patience of the dead, materialising seemingly from the very air to unleash their overwhelming firepower. This kit contains 5 full resin Aspect Warriors including scenic bases. Models designed by Simon Egan. Please note that the wire stand shown in two images is not included in this kit. Some careful conversion work will be required to acheive this effect.

Experimental rules for the Shadow Spectres aspect are available to download here.

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Necron Basics #1 Compulsory Units

Nick speaking,

Starting a Necron army? New to 40k? Just got your first unit of Warriors built and painted? I know that some people reading this are new to Necrons, and are looking to know what direction they should go in when starting a Necron army! Just how many Warriors, Destroyers or Monoliths do you need?

One of the key things to remember when starting a new army, is that it is best to start with the units that you will be using often, rather than occasionally. If you buy the core units first, your army will quickly start to build into a solid foundation of units, ready to be expanded on...

In this first video, I will take a look at the core compulsory units needed for a Necron army...

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Tips on painting boring units

Nick speaking,

Well maybe not boring units, more like tedious ones! I'm sure you know what I mean!

I recently painted a brood of Ripper Swarms, ten bases with forty five Rippers! That's ninety eyes, and a hell of allot of teeth to paint, especially when I'm doing three colours on each tooth! So the question is, how do you make painting something as tedious as this not so boring?

Up until painting the Rippers, I had been really enjoying putting paint to my bugs, but half way through the Rippers I realised, these little guy's were not going to be easy to paint. I have come across this before with other units and knew exactly how to deal with it...

I immediately went into my case box and picked out something I knew I would really enjoy painting, in this case my Eldar Jetbikes. Not that I was going to abandon the Rippers, these Jetbikes were going to motivate me to finish the Rippers!

With my 'fun' Jetbike unit sitting next to the Rippers, it was time to set myself some rules. Paint one hour of Rippers and get one hour of painting the Jetbikes for free. Having something to look forward too makes getting through the boring stuff easy, and takes away what feels like a massive task ahead of you. One hour at a time will soon get the job done, even if it takes me a bit longer than normal, it's much better than giving up on them totally!

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How to Magnetise a Rhino to Razorback including Las/Plas!

Nick speaking,

OK, so time to build my first Space Wolves Razorback/Rhino! And with inspiration from 40k Battle Report, I am going to make one tank that I can have as a Razorback or Rhino, with as many interchangeable part as I can, after all, who knows how GW will be changing things in the future! Just in case you didn't know, never buy a Rhino! Always get yourself the Razorback, as you get all the Rhino bitz in the Razorback box, plus the Razorback turrets.

First up, and just to get this out the way, I am not painting anything Space Wolves at the moment! All my painting time has been allocated to my Eldar and Tyranids, so expect to see plastic and metal models with any of my Space Wolves posts, except for my already painted Fenrisian Wolves.

With that all said, the first thing I knew I would do is not glue my tank together, after all I will be painting the inside of the tank at some point, plus the wheel/track areas seem to need to be painted before gluing as well! No problem, out comes my trusted friend, the Blu-Tack. First of all to put together the tank without the top section and tracks...

With two magnets glued inside the tank at the front and two on the supplied dozer blade, I immediately give myself the option to take the dozer on and off, If you make sure the magnets go on the opposite way, it will also be impossible to magnetise the dozer blade on up side down. I get all of my magnets from the UK supplier Guy's Magnets Ltd, and the magnets I used are 3x0.5mm and 1/8x1/16"

 

Next, I magnetised the top hatches...

And the Storm Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile launcher...

Next is to put a magnet on the small hatch cover on the left of the tank. By not gluing the hatch cover you can use both sides of it depending on the build...

At this point it is worth noting that if you want to have a Multi Razorback/Rhino, do not glue the Rhino top hatch doors in place! Both the Razorback and Rhino top hatches sit perfectly well into place without gluing or magnetising!

So that's the Rhino done with Storm Bolter, Hurricane Launcher and Dozer blade options...

Now onto the Razorback version. Although I knew primarily that I wanted to go for the Las/Plas turret, which is not supplied in the box? Again I wanted to make it as interchangeable as I could. Both the twin Las and Heavy Bolters work fine without gluing or magnetising them onto the gun holders, so that makes life easy. From then on, I just put a few magnets here and there and it's job done for the standard guns...

Next was the Las/Plas. Get two Plasma guns that you have left over from only using Melta guns in your army (or get some from GW or eBay), and glue them together with a few trims here and there...

Make a hole on the base area for a magnet...

This twin Plas will then magnetise nicely on the previously made Bolter holder...

Of course, taking away one Las gun is easy, but it does leave a bit of a gap that doesn't look that great. To fill the gap I used the double oil can accessory that came with the kit and cut it about a bit. With a couple of magnets it fits into the gap nicely...

I also have the added bonus of being able to magnetising the Plasma guns up side down next to the Las to make room for the Storm Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile launcher at the front if needed, and of course, don't forget the dozer blade! OK, that's it pretty much done...

Now all I have to do is battle damage it and make it into a space Wolves tank with some extra icons, side hatches and fur...

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Advanced Order - Bjorn the Fell-handed!

Nick speaking,

Games workshop release Bjorn the Fell-handed on 22nd January 2011! Not a total surprise, but what is surprising is that it's not a new model? It seems like the original metal Bjorn is making a come back!

Interesting as I have recently posted a 'What Bjorn Model' Poll (found on the left), but does this really change things? Does the original Bjorn model look like he is the oldest warrior in the Imperium? Or does he just look like an old out of date metal dread compared to the current range?

What do you think?

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New Necron Codex Review - Phase Out

Nick speaking,

So onto my last New Necron Codex Review post, and after fourteen reviews, what better way to end with, than talking about Phase Out!

So as it stands at the moment, if you lose 75% of qualifying 'Necron' models, your whole army phases out and disappears. Great for gybing your opponent, as your Necron army never really dies, but not so great in gaming terms, especially with the many limitations of the current Codex that we have previously discussed.

Basically, there are three options for Phase Out in the new Codex...

1/ Ditch Phase Out altogether

2/ Keep Phase Out as it is

3/ New Phase Out criteria

Although ditching phase out seems like the obvious choice, if you can imagine a new improved well done 5th/6th edition Codex, would phase out be that bad? I don't know about keeping it as it is, but I am happy to have it if it gets a bit of a tweak somehow. But what tweaks to give it? Reducing the percentage of loss to 80%/85%? More units counting towards Phase Out? or a different penalty for when you do phase out rather than your whole army disappearing?

So what do you think will happen to Phase Out in the new Necron Codex?

The Soulless Necron Lords holds back the phalanx as they patiently wait for a new Codex...

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Hyperpod Nids Vs Tau

Nick speaking,

Time to get my recently painted Zoanthropes, Carnifex and Mycetic Spore on the battle field against Tau...

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Space Wolves Prepare plus Battle Report

Nick speaking,

With only one Rhino to my name, and knowing that I had some Rhinos/Razorbacks coming my way for Christmas, I decided I had better get a few test games under my belt with the units I already had from my Eye of Terror 13th Company Wulvenkind army, in readiness for my 2011 Space Wolves project...

Here is a video with a quick look at some things I wanted to try out, plus a battle report against Blood Angels that I did just before Christmas...

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