Sunday, December 4, 2011

Artist in training...

My little one learning the basics of base coating. She's actually pretty good! :)



Sunday, November 6, 2011

Distractions

I knew it was coming. I told myself that I wouldn't let it bother me. Of course that only lasted until 11/5 at about 12 noon. Like many of you, I ran down to my local hobby shop and picked up my spanking brand new, pre-ordered copy of codex Necrons. Doh! I tried. To be honest, (and if you haven't figured it out yet) 40K is my favorite game. Necrons are my largest army at present, and after my adventures (misadventures?) at NOVA 2011 a few months ago I was itching for a little update to my old friend Psemtekh and his followers. I posted a few pics of the models I intend to keep. The army is over eight years old but as it turns out they fit right into a current codex group, the Atun Dynasty. That will make painting future models real easy. I'll get some new models pics up soon. Enjoy.




Psemtekh with some upstart Autarch's head.


In the old days, the only suitable bodyguard for a lord, replaced by the awesome Lychguard.




My first attempt at lighting effects.

Rank and file Necron warriors. To make them look a little different I actually put plastic rod rivets in the heads of all 40 of my Necron Warriors. Yeesh!. Yes, I was insane back then. Don't want to have to do that again.

Buggers got a nice upgrade in the codex. I'll be gettin' more!



Friday, October 28, 2011

More to come...

Just wanted to get a few Ogre pics out. It's been a busy month for me but there's more to come.



WIP Hunter and Battle Standard bearer




Saturday, September 10, 2011

NOVA Open 2011 results and reflections :Part 2

Finally got the time to finish this. So..where was I? Oh yeah, I just got creamed on the first day and was looking for the door. Lol! Truth be told I was really tired that day. Having stayed up until about 3am the morning before, then having to be ready to go at 8am and playing for about 10hrs can do that. Need sleep. Always better in the morning. So day 2 started like this....

Round 5: Blood Angels. Vehicle spam (again). 3 rzbks w/ las/plas. 4 predators: 3 las/autocn and 1 Baal. All asslt sqds: 2 jump, 3 on foot. 2 SanPriest, Chap, and Libra. 1 term sqd. Table quarters game. This battle was close. We fought well considering the opposition. Pretty even on KP's and VP's. Table quarters lost simply because he was faster (and had transports). Good game. I felt more confident with the army than the day before. My opponent went on to a 5-3 record winning his bracket with a 4-0 day. Good job Dave!

Round 6: This round was weird. After scaring away my next opponent (he quit the tourney, lol) it took about 30 mins to find another player. Imperial Guard. Heavy vehicle list. 3 Manticores (YIKES!), 3 Vendets (DBL YIKES!), 3 Vet sds, 1 Mech Inf plt. CC HQ squad w/ Chimera. Kill points game. The 3 manticores scared the crap outta me. I just knew I was dead but my Monolith and scarabs were the heroes of this game. Almost all of the heavy fire was placed on my Monolith. 3 turns of shooting from str 10 and 9 wpns and nada! WOOT!. While the heavy guns scratched the paint on my floating step pyramid, my scarabs proceeded to destroy 2 Vendets and 2 Chimeras with their Disruption fields. The last Chimera had the CC HQ and after immobilizing it, they surrounded and destroyed it with the HQ inside sealing my victory. Woosa!

Round 7: Black Templars. More vehicles. 3 Rzrbks w/twn-lnked las, 3 las Preds, 3 Typh spders. 2 term sqds, 4-6 man crusader squads (that actually fit in the rzrbks!) Emp's chump (champ), and chap. Objectives game. Almost pulled this one out. 3 to 2 on objectives. Damn vehicle spam is crazy!. This must have happened pre-heresy, lol. Pretty close game. Really cool player, rare for a BT player for sure.

Round 8: Grey Knights (finally). I was looking forward to this. I wanted to see how the Necrons would fare VS a recent list. Fortunately, I found the only GK player who reads the stories and didn't bring 5 damn Dreads with str 8 autocans. 2-10 man GK term sqds, 2 Dreads with said autocans, 1 tech marine, 1 librarian. Mordrak and ghost GK!?. No vehicles, Wow!. Table quarters game. This game went kinda quick. Because he had no vehicles he opted to DS the term squads. They didn't come in till turn 4! By then I had dismantled both dreads, killed the Librarian and pinned Mordrak and his ghost in 1 quarter. He came in hoping to free up Mordrak but ended up getting bogged down fighting 30 warriors, tomb spiders and scarabs. On the last turn I used the Monolith to port a squad to another quarter and brought my 1 DS unit on the board in another. Game over.

My list:


2000 Pts - Necrons Roster

HQ: Lord (1#, 200 pts)
1 Lord, 200 pts (Gaze of Flame; Phase Shifter; Phylactery; Resurrection Orb)

Elite: Immortals (7#, 196 pts)
7 Immortals, 196 pts

Troops: Warriors (20#, 360 pts)
20 Warriors, 360 pts

Troops: Warriors (10#, 180 pts)
10 Warriors, 180 pts

Troops: Warriors (10#, 180 pts)
10 Warriors, 180 pts

Fast Attack: Destroyers (5#, 250 pts)
5 Destroyers, 250 pts

Fast Attack: Scarab Swarms (10#, 160 pts)
10 Scarab Swarms, 160 pts (Disruption Field)

Fast Attack: Wraiths (3#, 123 pts)
3 Wraiths, 123 pts

Heavy Support: Monolith (1#, 235 pts)
1 Monolith, 235 pts

Heavy Support: Tomb Spyder (2#, 110 pts)
1 Tomb Spyder, 110 pts (Particle Projector)
1 Tomb Spyder (Particle Projector)

Composition Report:
HQ: 1 (1 - 2)
Elite: 1 (0 - 3)
Troops: 3 (2 - 6)
Fast: 3 (0 - 3)
Heavy: 2 (0 - 3)

Total Roster Cost: 1994


So my adventures at NOVA 2011 came to a close on a high note. My Necrons performed admirably for an old list. With the drawbacks that I mentioned before, I expected much worst. Two phase outs isn't bad. With the new codex we will see a few changes I'm sure. Until then I think I'll give 40k a little rest. I've been meaning to post some of my other interest and now is a good time to do that. Next time FOW and Warhammer.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

NOVA Open 2011 results and reflections :Part 1

WOW! What a great weekend of gaming NOVA 2011 was. Big thanks to Mike Brandt and company for putting on a great event. I will definitely be attending next year, despite my record...ehm. My record you say?..Oh..well...it was respectable, considering what army I played. I ended up 3-5 using my Necrons of all things. Not only were they not tournament ready but the list is so outdated I didn't really stand a chance. But for some unconscious reason I really WANTED to play with them. I can't quite put my finger on it. But I still had a blast the whole weekend anyway, so now I'll give a few details.

The tourney was 8 games over a 2 day period, 4 games each day. First day was really a feeling out period, second day things were more serious. All of my oppenents were great sports and there were very few "disagreements" between players on the whole. In 3 of my 5 losses I won the victory point win condition, unfortunately that wasn't the primary condition of those games. I ended up with about 10000 VP out of a possible 16000 VP. Not too bad for Necrons if you ask me. Biggest drawback IMO to the Necron army is no transports. In all the games that I lost, my opponents had at least several troops with transports and a few more vehicles under heavy support options. Again my list wasn't tourney ready, which is my fault, but I was under no delusions that I would win anyway. I'm way to casual of a player to beat most of these guys. The top 10 or 15 guys live this stuff, so I expect them to trash most of us "army collectors" any day of the week. That being said, I think the best player I played ended up 6-2 and in the top 25 (Space wolves. GH and LF spam list) but only managed to win against me on the last turn of the game. Necrons are tough to kill but rarely put out enough damage to win against the newer list. New codex should see that issue resolved, along with a few others (PHASE OUT!!!!!!). Overall, I had a great time and look forward to doing it next year. Maybe even with some new and improved Necrons. Below is the game break downs for my weekend.

Round 1: Space Wolves. GH w/ Rhino spam. 3 LF squads and 2 WS squads. WG in all squads and a WG term squad. Objective game, went down to the wire but I lost with a phase out. Curses!!!

Round 2: Tau Empire. Battlesuit army. 15 suits w/ 3 heavies. 2 Flanking Kroot squads and 2 FW w/ DF. 2 HH tanks and 1 PTHF squad marking up stuff. Table quarters game, I doubled his VP's and tied on Table quarters. He won with Objectives by using the 2 FW w/ DF and flat outted on the last turn. Nothing I could do....sigh.....

Round 3: Blood Angels. Dante list with 3 SanGurd units with SanPriest in 2 and Dante in 1. Two 10 man asslt and two 5 man vangaurd squads. Kill Points game. I tabled this guy. His biggest mistake to me was making the 10 man asslt squads 5 man combats!? In a Kill Point game...bad decision. This guy had bad luck throughout the tourney. Real nice guy though and nicely painted BA.

Round 4: Ultramarines. Got to play a friend here, Jeff Wallichs. Any of the old GW crew will remember Jeff back during the Glen Burnie bunker days. Objectives game. Jeff's army was as fancy as they come (typical Ultramarines), complete with a laminated army list with background on characters (..as if we cared who they were) and pics and all the trimmings (kinda sickening if you ask me. LOL!) Jeff's army was also really heavy on firepower. 2 las/plas RB w/ tac sqds, 2 Sniper scout sqds, 2 TF cannons, landraider and vindicator. Oh yeah, and 5 attk bks and typhoon spder. Librarian and termies. Everyone played the back the whole game (more typical Ultramarines). The only ones to step up (and get thoroughly squashed for it) were the Termies. Basically shot me to pieces and then grabbed objectives. Phase out, again. Not good. (Jeff you still owe me lunch buddy. See you in Chi-town next year.)

1-3 on the day. Yikes! Next post will be day 2 and my list. Things get better. :)