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Hey guys, I ended up staying up REALLY late last night while playing a game against Erickson's IG. But I took pictures and will upload them when I get the chance. Just bear with me!

This post comes a little bit later than usual. I ended up playing a game against Erickson's IG last night, and since he never bothered learning his codex, it took me and the XO a while to get him through the game.

Well, at least I finally truly won a match. Granted, Erickson's IG didn't have enough Infantry to fill out two Troop Platoons, but we played a 1400pt. game of Annihilation. I recommended Seize Ground so his numerous, weak squads wouldn't become a liability, but that's what he wanted to do. I think that was mostly because he didn't want to try out a new gametype until he learned how to not play horribly.

I also managed to snag a pic of a (mostly) finished Flayed One. There are some details I forgot (like the gold joints, ect), but you get the general idea. Also, bear in mind I didn't have any gloss to make the skin look wet, or a really clear picture to bring out special details. Anyway, here you guys go:



My flayed one. It's kindof hard t tell with the poor lighting, but there's Bronzed Flesh with an Elf Flesh Highlight and Blood Red on the edges. One coat of gunmetal over a black basecoat makes the gunmetal look darker and marbled, perfect for the ancient machinery look. And Mithril Silver for the claws.



The game starts with me going first, and my monolith is going to take the point. For some reason he wanted to put his Valkyries in reserve for Deep Strike. Between my Particle Whip and Heavy Destroyer I managed to take out his hellhound in the first turn, but everyone else but my destroyers are out of range for a decent volley.



By the beginning of turn 2, his Manticore Missle Launcher had dropped half of my right squad of troops (who I put behind that rock because for some weird reason I thought we were still going to play a seize ground game). My closing wraiths and scarabs take a few shots from his squads. Not much else happens in this turn. He's not playing too aggressively, but he doesn't know the rules that well. He's staying put and using the barricades for cover saves. A Particle whip on his Manticore Missile Launcher gives him a weapon destroyed roll, so he lost one of his missles.



By the beginning of turn 3, My scarabs had closed with one of his heavy weapons teams on the left and wiped them out. My wraiths attacked the command squad (I'm not sure why I did that) and rolled a little badly and died. His two valkries came in from Deep Strike and dropped their Stormtrooper squads and Commissar Yarrick. Between his manticore missle launcher and the weapons on his gunships, I lost a few more Necron Warrior models. I launched a particle whip shot at one valkyrie, and it exploded, but the XO and Erickson argued with me that the radius of my particle whip couldn't affect the troops on the ground. Time was passing quickly so I let them have it (though I disagreed) and moved on.



It's the beginning of turn 4, and by now My scarabs have assaulted his command squad, causing them to flee off the board. The Manticore's rockets hit my destroyers and dropped one who didn't make his WBB roll. I had used my 'Lith's teleport ability to try to save a few more models, so no particle whip was fired. But that squad did get to shoot at the advancing stormtroopers. Erickson's Heavy Weapons team tried taking out the destroyers but failed to cause any wounds. His remaining valkyrie fires a lascannon at my tomb spyder and fries it. The half-destroyed squad below gets a few shots off at the valkyrie and performs a glancing hit that take out one of it's rockets. My scarabs finish off his last heavy weapons team and start to move in to take down the manticore missile launcher and use their disruption fields on it.



This picture was taken at the end of turn 5. After my destroyers advance and my troops try to put some distance between them and commissar Yarrick, they all shoot at the remaining stormtroopers and drop what's left of them, leaving only the Commissar. The scarabs damage the Manticore to "Immobilized." His snipers shoot horribly and he tends to forget Rapid Fire rules when he moves his units. Too bad...



Commissar Yarrick's final stand...



Turn 7 and end of game. Commisar Yarrick gets dropped by the Staff of Light on my Necron Lord for the past two turns (he made his WBB roll on turn 6), and also on turn 6, my particle whip and destroyers wiped out the rest of his other squad. By the end of the game, all that remains is the Commissar waiting for a WBB roll and a severely damaged Manticore. What you see here is the remainder of all units.

Well, it was fun. Erickson wasn't partiularly pleased, but at least I won one. I told him all of his large blast templates and heavy weapons teams and grenade launchers were ideal for dropping orcs, but not well suited to high armor saves on things like Necrons or Vehicles.

Erickson plans on buying a new Battleforce set for his IG so that he can make another platoon and be correct on his FOC. We might get another guy in here with some Eldar... he played Dawn of War a lot but is hesitant to spend the money.

The nightbringer is coming along slowly. I want to make it look totally awesome and take my time. I haven't bought more models, because I still have a full squad of Flayed Ones to do, and another Necron Lord.

That's all for today guys! I'll see if I can post another update again tonight.

Kudos on winning your first game If Erickson doesn't have enough foot soldiers to fill out two platoons he should just run them as veteran squads to still fill the FOC.

I'm not sure about the ins and outs of Imperial Guard. I know he beefed up his squads as much as he could with the points he had, and assigned them to the bare minimum models per unit. I haven't studied his codex but I know he at least needs a command squad and two troop squads to have a platoon.

Yeah, but he can take a squad of Veterans as a Troops choice instead of a Platoon. It has BS 4 and more weapon options, thought they cost more points. They're a nice choice particularly if you have a limited number of models.

Thanks for the updates! Very cool thread. Let us know if you have any tactical or rules questions, too.

The Nightbringer is going to be a wrecking crew when you start using him. He'll walk through that Terminator squad like they aren't even there.

Very cool Batreps.

The SM one was just plain bad luck.. Turn 7 bah.

The IG one was a victory.. Hooray.. Too bad Necrons can't smile.

XO and Kehrer (Tau) did a match today, and the XO won handily. It probably would have been totally one sided except for his "Drop Pod" (The bottom half of a water bottle) didn't come out until turn 5. Which rose the rules question: If half of your drop pods come out at turn 1, what happens if you only have one drop pod?

They took pictures but without a detailed batrep I thought it wouldn't be prudent to bother posting them. I myself spent the bulk of the evening working on finishing touches on my wraiths and getting back to work on my 'lith.

Which reminds me, today a package I ordered from WarWeb came in today. I got a 36 pack of Chessex green dice and a bunch of Vallejo paints, to include Gloss and Matte varnish, and mettalic medium. I'm gonna put in another order today to cap-off my squad of Flayed Ones and order another Pariah squad... and maybe the Road terrain peice.

Quinn ordered an Eldar army, so now we've got two new players waiting on their armies to arrive and join with us. It's getting big. I never new when I started playing that it would turn this popular. In fact, I was worried. I wondered if I had spent this ungodly amount of money on game pieces that would be painted and assembled, and just sit on a shelf. Perhaps when we get these two other players in, people will look at how popular it's becoming here, and more people will buy armies too! We do have a lot of visitors who seem interested.

I'll bring up the veteran squad to Erickson. I think he had one out there the last game, but I don't know. I'll have to ask him.

I was waiting on putting my monolith together until I got some gloss varnish to work on the Gauss Flux guns before I put the walls completely together, but I am running into the problem of the cracks in the walls being pretty noticable. I could fill them with Green Stuff but I'm wondering if there is a better, cheaper way. I'd rather not use all of my modeling epoxy on one models' gaps.

I am getting rave reviews from the other players here on my Necron paint job, particularly my Flayed One I showed you guys, who now has a coat of gloss over the wet, flayed skins. I also took some people's advice and put gloss varnish and then matte varnish on, to have a thicker coat to prevent chipping. I started this because I dropped a wraith I had applied just a matte coat to, and it chipped pretty badly. Now that my 'lith is ready to be finished, I'm wondering if I should gloss it. People are impressed though. It's nothing close to the pro jobs you see in the galleries here, but amongst amateurs it's pretty good. The Flayed Ones are basecoated and waiting for assembly-line painting. I'll be sure to post some pictures of all of this stuff once I start getting these models finally done.

So it was a good day. Thanks so much for the comments, guys. Your feedback keeps my going with this. I'm glad our efforts over here give you guys something cool to read about.

EDIT: I ran into a problem when varnishing my flayed one. Maybe I put the stuff on too thick, but it came out kind of milky colored and obscured it's teeth line and eyes. I might have to settle with that for now. Maybe I put too much on. We'll see on the others.

Which rose the rules question: If half of your drop pods come out at turn 1, what happens if you only have one drop pod?

Half, rounding up. So if you have an odd number, a majority come in. 1 pod, 1 pod turn 1. 3 pods, 2 turn 1. Etc.

A Particle whip on his Manticore Missile Launcher gives him a weapon destroyed roll, so he lost one of his missles.

You lose all the missles.

Thanks for your service. Hooah.

Oh, hey... can anyone link me to a place where I can get something like the Urban Road from GW or some other good/cheap road system? Apparently GW's road is discontinued.

EDIT (for the fourth time): I asked a question about the manticore's rules to help define it for Erickson, and I found what I needed online. So my edits were erased here. Still, the above question about the road still plagues me.

A good fiend came back from Iraq a couple years ago, he walks (barely) with a cane now. I wish He had something like this to do over there. Keep it up guys.

Congratulations on the win!

Here are some roads http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_list&c=1393 and here http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_list&c=876

If you can infiltrate the offices for a color printer here is a link with a printable surface for you. In that web page you also have access to some cool and easy papercraft terrain.

http://www.toposolitario.es/principal/index.html

M.

It's been a slow couple of days, work-wise. I'm in an out of the bunker between tasks, assembly-line painting my Flayed Ones, and working a little bit at a time on my NightBringer.

I think what seems to cause so much problems with the varnish turning milky for some people is too thick of an application, or perhaps poorly shaken mixture. Anyone have any comments on this?

I bought a BUNCH of stuff since last night. A full squad of Pariahs, another two Flayed Ones to max out my squad, GW's moonscape craters (I don't have the supplies for the CD trick out here), a bunch more Vallejo paints and another set of Chessex dice. I bought the plain color ones because they're 6 dollars cheaper a box, and the marbled and nice ones on websites like The War Store and WarWeb often have conflicting pictures and descriptions, or sometimes no pictures at all. I also bought some more Necron Troops to cap off my squads.

I'm eager to see the new two players' armies arrive and get put together, but it takes about three weeks for anything to get here from mainland U.S.

I am really aching for some better terrain, but I loathe looking around the cheaper websites, because their descriptions tend to be a little vague and I want to make sure I'm not buying a piece of garbage. But regardless, since most generic terrain is set for the 40's or the civil war, I may have to just get more creative with my scrap materials.

you need to invest in more Destroyers. That way you wont have to worry as much about them dying right off the bat. Also you can overcome bad dice rolls with volume of fire.
I would also recommend a Destroyer Lord with a Warscythe. Fast, 3 wounds, 4 attacks on the charge that allow absolutely no saving throws, and that also have the ability to count as anywhere between Strength 7 and Strenght 17 against vehicles.

Well, today was a lazy Saturday and I got a lot of painting done. I thought I'd share some pics with you guys.

A note before I start. It seems this forum is chewing through my allotted bandwidth. So I'm going to start posting my pictures in thumbnail format so that you can click on them if you want to see them. Going back and editing all of the other posts would be a tremendous hassle.



Erickson did some more work on one of his Valkyries. I think it looks pretty neat. Erickson is as dedicated to painting his minis as I am, and he's very good at modding. I should have took a picture, of him and the XO taking some bits and making a Teleport Homing Beacon.



I'm doing the Flayed Ones right now, and a little bit on my Nightbringer (it needs a lot of work!). You can see here how one is glossed on the skin and claws, and the other is not. I've gotten the second skin undercoat and gunmetal on the rest of them, but Flayed Ones are incredibly hard to paint. It wasn't until I was almost done with one that I realized that among the myriad of lines and details, what I thought was the edge of skin on the necron's head was a very prominent molding line! I decided it wasn't worth it to strip it, so I continued to paint it up as a layer of skin.



Here is the little bit I have done with my Nightbringer. I'm conflicted on what to do where, because I don't have a huge variety of colors. I try to mix colors if I have to, but I'm really bad at getting it right, and I waste paint doing that. GW does a relatively simple shading effect on it's featured models so I didn't want to go crazy, but on a model this epic, you need to do it right. There's no way I'm going to get it like it is on the box... in fact, I wonder if that picture was edited, because I don't know how anyone can get teeth on that guy. I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle his face and mouth. But I will add a little more color definition to his torso and virtually everywhere else, but this at least gave me an idea of where I want to go with this guy. I know the blue is too bold. By the time I'm done, most of it should be gone. Like I said, I just don't have the variety I need in colors, and if I order paint it takes three weeks to get here.

I have a really nasty habit, by the way, of catching my clothes on models and dragging them off a table that way. It's frustrating, but it became downright embarrassing when I did that to Kehrer's Devilfish yesterday. Argh!

I bought some Zap-A-Gap thinking it was more true to it's name, I.E., a modeling gap filler. No. It's just superglue. At least I'm never going to run out of that out here.

Me, the XO, and Erickson have been tossing the idea for a campaign around but we don't know where to go with it, especially if I'm not going to leave all of the other players' out. And with two new additions to the "club", our spacious bunker is going to get a lot smaller. Even now, we're running out of flat surfaces to put models, and had to take down some cots to place the Tau and Ork army, since they don't get played that often. We were thinking something sort of along the lines of Dark Crusade's campaign, or perhaps a table layout is per planet. I dunno. It's kind of hard to imagine that wood texture to be anything other than a desert, and if we paint a color over it, it's not coming off. I was wondering if you guys had any ideas as far as how to make a good campaign that other players can feel welcome in, and not be losing if they can't play as many games as some because of their mission schedules?

There are tons of ways to do campaigns, but an easy one is just a standard grid pattern with different colored squares to represent different terrain or objectives. Have people pick a spot and expand from there. To expand you have to win a challenge match against any other player in your gaming group, and only one game per week counts towards the campaign and any extras are just for fun. Expansion sizes could be like 1 square for a draw, 2 squares for a minor win, and 3 for higher score. Special squares could represent Hive cities, Manufacturing plants, space stations. Each of these special places could have their own special benefit to your over all army.

Another way is have everyone make like a 5000pt master list (even if they can't field 5000) that you can't change anything on through out the campaign, and you play out smaller battles at like 1000 or 1500 but when a specific model dies it's out of the campaign for good (making every model count). You can cycle through your units or leave half strength ones in but make sure you scratch it off specifically who dies. Once someones 5000 points are gone they drop out of the campaign or they start over if you want it to go a long time. If it gets to where they can't feild a true FOC thats okay just have them try to fill it out as normally as possible. You can do this kind with an experience bonus, where for every game a unit takes place in it gets experience to get cool abilities like tank hunters or infiltrators.

Hope this gives you a jumping off point for your own camaign good luck man.

I like what warwizard described. I have done a campaigns like this, but we used the GW tiles. I would have cities or factories that would give bonuses to the army that controlled it. Good luck and keep up the fight. I would like to know what the IG players has and see if Ican help.

I see the urban road on the gw web site under scenery. Been thinking about getting that one myself. For campaigns I'd do the planetary empires. It's nice and simple. Just paint up the tiles and fight battles. Upgrades give minor benefits. Games can be of varying sizes. Simple victory conditions.

Ringarin, the Urban Road is discontinued. They just have it on their website still, for some reason. You can't order it from them.

They bring it back every so often, normally around Christmas with the Cities of Death boxed deal.

Well, a short post tonight because not a lot happened on this thread or in the bunker.

Progress on my flayed ones ground to a halt after trying to water down my gunmetal and putting in waaay too much water. However, my nightbringer is coming along slowly, and beautifully. I'll no problem stripping it if I want it to come out right, because I'm taking my time with this guy.

The monolith still stands half-done. I am leery about attempting to tackle is in the midst of two other projects. It's a monumental task in itself and it's depressingly beyond my skill level, I think. Though a lot of people have complimented me on it... I'm also still at a loss of what to varnish it with. Gloss? Matte? Satin? Any suggestions anybody?

By the way, if you guys want to see pictures of stuff, feel free to ask away. I can't give you detailed stuff of FOB Echo, but I'll take what I can, and that includes the 40k stuff. If you have any requests of any kind, I'd be more than happy to try to do them. It's the least I can do for you guys' support.

Well, after 24 hours with zero feedback, I'm starting to wonder if I'd be wasting my time posting anything else on this little forum blog. You guys' comments motivate me to share more with everyone. Hopefully it's just a fluke, but if this becomes the norm from here on out, I'm probably going to end posting to this thread in a day or two.

But I do have more stuff for you guys, so here it is:

The afternoon and evening were pretty much just me painting. The other platoons stayed very busy, and everything just got even more hectic when rockets were shot at our FOB.

I'm almost done with all of my flayed ones, but my gunmetal is still out of comission and if I don't let the watered-down soup I made out of it dry out into a functioning paint, I'm going to have to wait until my second order of Vallejo paints come in. But I did what I could with them up to that point, and did a lot more work on my nightbringer and the monolith.

I'll post pictures if you guys seem interested, but I've assembled a few more parts on the 'lith, and have been using Green Stuff to fill in the huge gaps. Now that I have had some experience with other models, and some more tools of the trade, I'm pretty confident I can make at least a decently made 'lith model.

I am holding off on any more matches with the XO until I get my Nightbringer and Flayed ones out on the table. Other guys are fine - in fact, I do much better against them. But for the past couple of days the operations tempo has been pretty high, so it's hard to get them in here long enough to finish a match.

Hopefully in time when my other models get here, I'll be set. The most I can see myself buying of Necrons is perhaps another squad of flayed ones, another 'lith, The Deciever, and some more Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers. But the Necrons are a pretty small race, so there's not much to diversify with for collection's sake. Which is good... they're expensive. ...if I get to the point where I'm pretty good on everything, I'm going to probably branch out to Tyranids or Space Wolves. I don't know if they play well - I just think they look interesting.

Like I said in the above post... if you guys want more details or photos or something specific, let me know. As long as I keep getting positive feedback, I'll keep posting.

EDIT: Why is there an Iraq flag on my post? Wierd.

Hell yeah man keep the posts coming! I wanna see pics of your monolith! If you want I can post a pic of mine if you need any inspiration. I had the same problem with gaps when I put mine together. A lot of it comes from warps in the plastic, my buddy and I got rid of most of them by heating the plastic and bending it back into shape, and then we filled the gaps by gluing them and holding them together with duct tape till they dried.

As a fellow Necron player, I would highly recommend investing in Immortals. Get as many as you can, because they kick major ass and are much better than Flayers and Pariahs. They are harder to kill than Warriors and they get a Str 5 Assault 2 weapon with a 24" range. Seriously run two ten man squads of them and the only way you enemy can reliably kill them is if he gets into CQB with them and uses power weapons.

Keep up the good work man!

People are still viewing your little blog, troop, just look at the "viewed" column for your thread. Me, personally, I don't get too thrilled by battle reports, but I've been skimming and viewing the pictures. Sorry if I don't have much to say, but just like a just-cause, you have to keep up the fight even if nobody thanks you.

It is always good to hear from a fellow soldier and a fellow gamer, and anything to keep yourself occupied over there is worth the time. Weekends are usually slower on Dakka (people do other things than the internet you know!), and you have posted a lot recently (which discourages some people to replying, due to an over abundance of information. Odd concept, I know, but that's usually how it goes), so maybe keeping things KISS might be better.

P.S.: The little flags show the flag of the location they are logging on from (each country has a special IP). For a while guys in country were showing up posting from K-stan, Germany, Saudi, Kuwait, and others, where ever the info was being re-routed from (since coalition internet wasn't funneled through Iraqi systems).

I hardly ever post on dakka, but do I really enjoy your thread, I admire what you guys are doing out there and still have time for the hobby.
I really like your flayed ones, they are coming along nicely, so if there are any more pics I'd love to see them.

Please keep posting because it show no matter where you go you will find a 40K game going on somewhere. Ilike reading your batrep. cool your XO is playing. keep safe.

sir mongo wrote:Please keep posting because it show no matter where you go you will find a 40K game going on somewhere. Ilike reading your batrep. cool your XO is playing. keep safe.

QFT
When you take on the XO please do another batrep so we can witness your crushing victory.
Keep up the good work.

Great thread, glad you guys are having fun getting into the game. Thanks to all of you for being there, stay safe and come home soon!

You folks are making great progress, it's good to have such a self-contained group, really keeps motivation up. I really like the terrain you've made - pre-made is nice and easy, but homemade is cooler and more satisfying (and tons cheaper!). Masking tape is good on cardboard buildings to cover up the exposed parts, and spackle or paint w/sand in it is good to give extra textures. Paper mache will also give you some rock-solid stuff.

For roads you could just cut up some wood or cardstock into various road shapes and lay them down in the desired pattern. Same for rivers and such (could do roads on one side, river on the other for double duty).

If you're looking for some premade terrain, I can recommend Amera - http://www.amera.co.uk/product.php?range=z - very lightweight and thin but strong plastic. I got a bunch of their trench pieces years ago, they have quite a variety. Tell them where you're at, the size of order you want and ask about shipping. Back when I had it sent to the US they were very reasonable. Trenches, roads, rivers, buildings, wrecked buildings, bunkers, etc.

Hey great stuff - not sure how I missed this thread up until now - but after reading though the whole thing its awesome. I especially like where you are going with the Nightbringer. You familiar with drybrushing? You might try that on the face.

After my recent tour and ETS from the Army (couldn't get anyone into 40k) its awesome to see such a thriving group playing over there. Stay safe and keep us updated.