An ancient evil stirs (Necron Showcase)

Welcome back our faithful followers to Nurgle. Now I thought I would continue where O'Shashar left off and dust off my small Necron army with the pleasing news they are due to be updates tomorrow (let's face it, we all know its happening) and its about time aswell! I started my Necron army shortly after getting back into Wahammer about 2 years back. I thought they would be an easy army to paint and build up and the plan was to use them when I got bored of my Spiky Marines.

Needless to say in 5th edition Necrons have been nerfed pretty badly, so I am hoping the update with bring them back in the competition. However, I don't want Games Workshop to carry on their trend of making each new army overpowered like the Shiny Super Marines as I don't want to dust off my Necrons only to find that everyone has decided to be them as they are the best thing out there. Rant over. Anyway, back onto my cold, merciless killers from the stars. Below are a few snaps of my army (about 850points) in all its glory!

I decided not to go for the standard paint scheme of black dry brushed with a bit of silver and a few details as I thought it was too sloppy. I looked through the codex and decided to bring a bit of colour to the scheme. There where a lot of nice examples of alternative ways to paint Necrons. I really liked the ceramic effects on some of the schemes as well as the old and rusted. In the end I ended up doing a mix of two or three of the schemes in the book. There a few more photos of my models below for a closer look.

I started by basecoating the entire model in Tin Bitz and then dry brushed a layer of Boltgun metal over the top. Followed by a lighter dry brush of Chainmail. I then did two washes on the model. On the metal areas, I gave a light was of Gryphonne Sypia to give the metal a rusted look. To achieve the metallic purple I gave the model a wash of Leviathan Purple. The gold trim was done by starting with a base coat of Dwarf Bronze with a Layer of Shining Gold, followed by a highlight of Shining Gold.

The face mask was done to mimic bone and I did in the same way many people would do ice. The idea behind this was that the face mask would strike fear in the Necrons enemies and I thought doing the same method as bone wouldn't look right. I wanted it to look more artificial and so I went with a cold ice white. I started off with a base coat of Fenris Grey I then gradually added Space Wolf Grey in dry brush layers and then finished off with a highlight of pure Skull White.

Anyway that's it for me this week our companions of chaos. I am currently finishing some more models for my army in our tale of three gamers and I hope to have some pictures up soon of those. In the mean time continue to spread Nurgles blessings.

My Finished Justicar Finari

Good evening children of the Plague Father and thank you for making the perilous journey through the warp to join me in giving reverence to our lord.

Tonight my humble offering is my completed Justicar Finari from Reaper Miniatures and follows on from my earlier work in progress post. After the issues I had I was going to leave her as she was and hand varnished with gloss coat for two reasons, firstly I had become completely paranoid I was going to damage her again when I played my first game and secondly I didn't own any brush on matt varnish.

This made the armour look a little too reflective compared with how tarnished it was suppose to be, as well as her cloth, skin and hair looking unnatural. I decided I would pick up a pot of matt varnish and hope it evened out, the trouble was I had a very busy week at work and couldn't find the time to walk up to my local store. After I took some photos of my Necrons last weekend I was filled with motivation to paint and Finari got a little more work. I decided to work on her face, hair and to highlight the cloth.

So without further ado here is my Justicar Finari.

In the end I redid the sword as well as found it disappeared into the armour. It also gave me an excuse to use my Vallejo Gun Metal Blue, which I bought for no other reason than I thought it looked funky. I used it as a base then gradually added Mithril Silver, building up the colour with a mix of thin layers and dry brushing.

With her hair I added streaks of a darker brown to the recesses as they had been lost after the second repaint. For the cloth I mixed Hawk Turquoise with a touch of Enchanted Blue and used broad highlights. I then added gentler highlights using a 1:1 ratio of Hawk Turquoise and Enchanted Blue.

The base I was torn between adding a skeletal arm or some red lichen used sparingly. After speaking with my fellow adventurers during our first Warhammer Quest dungeon, they seemed to like the base as it was and thought that anything else would take away from the feel of the stark dungeon floor.

Now I know I am not going to be winning a Golden Daemon any time soon, I am however happy to have this model done and to a better standard than I was planning to leave it at. For my first attempt at highlighting I am pleased with how it turned out and I have learnt a few things, mainly I need to take my time, keep a steady hand and practice as much as I can. As without practice I will never improve and there is a lot of room for improvement judging by the quality of work I have seen others publish on their own sites.

On the subject of improving my painting abilities I welcome any criticism that you may have.

On a final note this will be my Bretonnian Knight stand in and will go by the name of "Sabriel la mort d'argent" which should be the "Sabriel the silver death" however if any of you speak/write French and this is incorrect please correct me.

Until next time remember you are never alone as long as you carry Papa Nurgle's pestilent blessings.

O'Shashar

Progress, Injuries and Distractions

Greetings followers of the Plague Lord. Today I thought I would talk about my last month's hobby activity which brings me to the title, 'Progress, Injuries and Distractions.' So first of all I would like to share with you a couple of photos of 'Progress' towards my 1000 point Skaven list.


So above are 20 Clanrats which I will mix into my Slave unit (and pretend they don't have shields). I will be mixing in some non-rat members as well as more poor looking wretches to the unit shortly in order to boost it to 40 strong.


The above are another 20 Clanrats, this time with spears and shields, so another 19 to add to this block and I will be getting somewhere with my ever daunting list.


Above is my 2nd Standard Bearer and my first attempt at a very simple freehand banner design, which I am fairly happy with.

Now onto the 'Injuries'. A few months ago I broke my toe while kickboxing, which allowed me to spend a fair amount of time painting. However this month I injured my hand while doing a much less extreme sport (washing the pots haha) and was unfortunately bandaged up for a week. However it was around this time that the idea of doing Warhammer Quest started cropping up. Which leads me to the 'Distractions'...



Here is my Warrior Priest that I have painted up for Warhammer Quest. I'm really happy with how the model has turned out as I have always wanted an Empire army from the Ostermark region and this model can be my first step towards that aim. Now if only I can find enough free time to get to one of these Warhammer Quest meetings...

Next post from me I will hopefully have some Stormvermin painted up and will have played some Warhammer Quest, so until next time friends enjoy the pestilent gifts of the Drippy One.

A Tomb World Awakens

Good evening children of the Plague Father by now I am sure you have all seen the stir about the Necrons being put on preorder at the end of this month and I for one could not be happier about this ( providing they don't get crippled in 6th that is ).

Now instead of recycling the pictures you can see everywhere at the minute I decided instead to start awakening the sleeping warriors of the C'tan I have collected ( yes that's right I have another old xeno race up my sleeve ).

I bought the Necrons after having my first game of 40k with a few friends and loved the idea of an unstoppable wave of robots killing indiscriminately with their gauss weapons stripping their victims to nothingness atom by atom and feeding the survivors to their cruel Gods. So after one whole game I went out and bought two battle forces, two Monoliths, a couple of lords and a Tomb Spyder.

Over the course of a long weekend I built and painted my Necrons ready for the next game and the look of shock on their faces when I put my painted army on the table to face off against the sea of grey miniatures is what set in my mind that I wanted to always use painted models ( I am the first to admit while I still strive for this I have fallen short more often than not ).

These are not the best painted models as these were the first models I ever painted. I remember the Necrons being quite forgiving to a new painter and letting me feel I was getting a force I could be happy with without selling my soul to the Devil for painting talent. These days they are desperate to be rebased with the crystals never fitting on any board I have ever used.

First up are five of my fifty six basic warriors. I like the basic troops and hopefully they will be given a decent buff so I can make the most of these happy little bringers of death but with new Immortals and Flayed ones supposedly having a way to become troops I am not too sure how many I will need.

Scarabs have always proven to be a good unit to tie up small squads and with their 2+ cover save when turbo boosting they are difficult to remove without templates. The proposed buffs they are rumoured to be getting may mean I have to expand their ranks though currently they are only in the warrior boxes so unless sneak in more boxes like Ripper Swarms or get their own there could be a problem I'll have to address at the time.

 

The Tomb Spyder was my first attempt at magnetising a model and turned out better than I expected. Through trial and error taught me a lot about using magnets and the importance of using the right sized magnet for the job not just the ones you have to hand.

My Wraith Lord which I ran as a Destroyer Lord with War Scythe along side two squads of three Wraiths was my first conversion using a standard Wraith and Destroyer Lord kits. It was less finesse and more force as I used a combination of clippers and bone saw to "lovingly" join the two kits and Lord Styx was born ( originally Lord Sticky as he stuck to my fingers more than himself while building it ).

Now being a true Yorkshire man and not liking to waste any thing I salvaged the head off the Wraith body and used the rest of the Destroyer Lord kit to make a Destroyer Lord with Resurrection Orb & Staff of Light. He is pictured with two of my Destroyers as he did like to sit with them in the back field to let them keep on getting back up.

And lastly the group shot which if you click will give you a larger picture if you desire a closer look.

Now I expect most of these models won't get that much use in the new codex as all the new models don't have the green plastic rods, which I have to admit I am going to miss. The plastic wasn't great with bubbles and very obvious join lines on the large crystals but it gave a nice contract to the metallic scheme.

Until next time may you enjoy the blessings of life Papa Nurgle grants you before the cold unfeeling wrath of the Necrons cleanse this universe of all organic life.

O'Shashar

Justicar Finari - WIP

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Who are you calling short!?

Good day my friends of the decaying one. First of all a big apology for being off the radar. As O'Shashar has mentioned I have had a busy 4 weeks. I was on holiday for 10 days and I have been distracted with the new Space Marine game and the release of Gears of War 3. What can I say I have a weakness for visceral gore!

OK, as you may have heard from my esteemed colleague we are starting up Warhammer Quest with some friends. The last time I played this game was about 12 years ago when I was back in school at a local gaming club. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I will be needing a miniature to take play in this Quest, which we are starting tomorrow. I decided to go for the stout dwarf for my character and I just finished him last night. I picked up Avatars of War Dwarf Lord on Ebay to represent my character (and to use in my future Dwarf army as a Lord). I have to say he turned out rather well for my first Dwarf.

The model itself was full of detail and I was extremely happy with the casting. It only cost £9.40 including postage and packaging, which admittedly isn't the cheapest, but they are very nice models. You can see there range here.

After some deliberation I decided to name my Dwarf Lord Hrothgal Thundergut. I was going to have Lohrek Foesmasher, but I think that suit a Slayer more. Now that Hrothgal is done and If I can manage to drag myself away from Gears of War 3 I will start painting another 5 Gobbo's that I have undercoated.

There should be another update from Dorn's Arrow about his Skaven army and a very nice Warrior priest soon. However O'Shashar is spoilt for choice on what to offer up for our loyal followers. Until next time my pestilent friends.

Tale of Three Fantasy Gamers Monthly Round Up - September

 

Good evening children and welcome to the first monthly round up of our Tale of Three Fantasy Gamers challenge between Mighty Simo with his rampaging Orc & Goblin horde, Dorn's Arrow and his nightmarish Skaven and myself with my eternal servants of the Tomb Kings.

So far all three of us have managed to create our 1000 point lists which can be found at the links below

Dorn's Arrow's Skaven
Mighty Simo's Orc & Goblin
O'Shashar's Tomb Kings

Looking over the progress made it has been impressive for me to see how quick the other two have jumped into painting their respective armies.

Ork Boyz will even go into the past for a good scrap

Firstly we have the Orc & Goblin horde which is a clan of his own design called "Da Red Skullz", which so far is comprised of ten funky looking Night Goblins, five fantasy Orcs and the five converted Assault on Black Reach Orks shown above. Now he is back from his get away in Cleethorpes ( taking in all the sights of the local pubs & takeaways ) I expect he will ramp it up again.

Rat Ogres still look like Mickey Mouse on steroids to me

Next up we have the Skaven and I am please to tell you that Dorn's Arrow has not been slacking either. He has managed to paint up a lovely looking Rat Ogre and thirty five Clan Rats, which are a mix of hand weapons and the spear wielding varieties. This also includes a rather nice standard bearer to join his full command spear block. Rumours from Mighty Simo suggest he has been busy since his last post and has finished off more painted vermin to offer up to Papa Nurgle in the near future.

Hopefully the shopped cuteness will temper your anger towards me

While I am sure you have guessed it by the tiny cat in place of skeletons, I don't have any painted Tomb Kings to show you. I did paint up a test model using the paints I picked up especially for this project and I have to say that the bone itself came out just how I wanted it to. Unfortunately that was where my luck ran out. The green I used was too green, the red/brown was too brown and the gold was a bit too pristine for my tastes. So as usual this means I am having colour scheme issues, I should have worked out the scheme before starting the challenge but I was confident in my choices ( I always am at the start and should have foreseen this as it isn't the first time ).

So I have picked up a few different colours and had planned to retry my test model before I wrote this post ( it is sat on my desk at this very moment). However changes in my work life have meant I now have a much more time intensive job which while I am enjoying it has encroached on my limited hobby time.

If that wasn't excuse enough ( I am just full of reasons not to paint ) I keep hearing whispers about Warhammer Quest being ran in the next couple of weeks. This was the inspiration for stripping my Justicar Finari model that was in my last post. She has had my attention this Sunday as I had an afternoon to myself. I have managed to sort the base and make a start on her, all being well I will have a post about her up this week if I finish in time.

So at the end of the first month the standings are as follows:
  
Dorn's Arrow has completed thirty six models out of a hundred and eight
Mighty Simo has completed twenty models out of ninety two
O'Shashar has completed zero models out of fifty seven

Now I know this is painting me in a very bad light and I will be the first to admit it does. My only saving grace is I now have the majority of the models I will need in my possession along with my Tomb Prince stripped back to metal so all being well this month will be more productive on the Tomb King front. Though I have got my copy of Dread Fleet begging me to open it at the minute and if Warhammer quest does take off again I might dust off my Fiametta I picked up to use as a wizard last time round.

Until next time may you spread his blessings to every corner of your world.

O'Shashar