Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Alrightly, then, let's get this done...

My name is Dysartes, and this isn't my first rodeo here - in fact, I've had a number of different PLOGs here on Dakka during my tenure here. Unfortunately, something tends to happen that disrupts my focus, and I drift away for a while before returning.

The latest disruption ties into the demise of my Twitch stream in the summer of 2019 - I was helping at a local miniatures show, setting up to record a panel discussion, when I managed to delete all my stream set-up within OBS. When I realised, I didn't think too much of it, but I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to get everything set up again - and after nearly two years on the platform, usually streaming three times a week... nobody seemed to notice I wasn't there any more. Which was somewhat demotivating.

Aside from building assorted bits of scenery from Conquest and the Command Edition starter set for 9th ed 40k, I haven't really achieved a great deal since then. Even in the depths of Pandemic Season 1 I couldn't really motivate myself to paint. Still, recently I've made steps to be able to do so. My desk, which had become a bit of a dumping ground and looked like this:


Has now been brought mostly to heel. It could probably be a bit better, but I figure I can work with this:


I've even got two small projects ready to get started on, to go with my Imperial Guard. As the picture below shows, I may have a few too many of the 3rd edition metal Storm Troopers, painted up as =][= Storm Troopers:


There's four ten man squads there - two with four of a special weapon (plasma, melta), and two only with three (flamer, grenade launcher). I think Nork Deddog is in there just as somewhere to put him, but I digress. I've picked up the remaining flamer and grenade launcher dudes I need to take each squad to four of their special weapon, so they're on deck to start with.

Mind you, I'll end up with three guys with hotshot lasguns left over - guess I'll have to think about what I want to equip squad #5 with, though I don't think it'll be volley guns - maybe I need to compare parts to sculpts, and see if I think I can manage that one...

In addition, I want to convert one of the Sergeant sculpts to be a =][= Storm Trooper Officer with Storm Trooper Command Rod - he won't technically be WYSIWYG, as I'm not removing his pistol, but the choices in an army list will reflect that fact that the hotshot laspistol is merely someone's hallucination...


From what I can see, taking both arms apart around the elbow should allow me to pin the plastic arm to the metal body - might need a little light GS work to tidy up, but it should work. He's effectively project #2 - and if he works, I'll need to make a second Officer.

Step 1 for all three is to find where the last 20mm plasticard strip I had was to mke a start on their bases - that, or cut another one.

You may also have noted the Thunderer and ruins on the desk - I need to bend the front panel of the tank back into shape slightly before I attach it and the top hatch, then it is ready for an undercoat. The ruins have been undercoated with Wraithbone for a while, so in theory they should be good to go - I may just need to check paint coverage first.

Finally, before I add a spoilered block to link to things I complete, I've been trying to write up what I've got that needs painting. It's a long list, don't get me wrong, but having some form of structure may help - if I don't run away screaming, anyway. I've been using the Pile of Potential website to make a start on this, though I'm sure there's a bunch I need to add on to this. 95% of a Conquest subscription, for one thing.

Ooooh, metal stuff! I like metal stuff. I shall watch keenly.

If you like metal stuff, Fifty Three, I'll try and get you a breakdown of what is lurking in the kitchen towel in the "tidied" desk photo - quite a few metal figures which had been through the Dettol a while back, but haven't yet either been bagged for storage or prepared for painting.

I should probably also do something with the models which have been in various stages of being stripped since mid-2019 too, but that's another story entirely.

A plog, eh? Alright, I'm on board..

Thanks, Siggy - I'll try not to disappoint

Some progress has been made on both projects A & B - I've been through and cleaned up the little bits flash from all three models, and given the mould line on the inside of Flamer Dude's leg some attention. I've also built the custom urban bases for all three guys, so they've gone from how you see them in the first post to this:



The two special weapon guys are now ready for undercoating, if/when the weather behaves enough for me to spray them - unfortunately we've dropped into yet another cold snap, with more snow, so I'm not sure when that'll be - I'll see if warming the can is enough to get a reasonable coat on them, but I don't fancy my chances.

If you're interested in how I've built the bases, I've put a quick run-through below.


Oddly, having not used my bottle of PVA for some time, I found it had almost split when I came to use it - shaking it seems to have recombined the elements, but I'm sure it is now a lot runnier than it used to be, which is weird. Has that happened to anyone else?

In terms of the =][= Storm Trooper Officer, I think I'm now ready to move to the cutting stage. I've tried to illustrate below where I'm thinking of cutting, as well as why this particular Sergeant is getting promoted. I think I'm going to keep the elbow pad from the plastic arm, after initially planning on removing it. Not sure yet whether I'm going to keep the Scion Control Panel on the forearm, though, or file/GS it away.


I'm also starting to look at projects C & D, both from the M2O release of the models from Dark Vengeance. In particular, I'm looking at the Hellbrute and the Deathwing. I've removed all the parts from the sprues, and bagged them. I need to clean them up with a file, then the Hellbrute is ready to have a base built and be assembled - I'll be painting him for my Death Guard, and probably adding a couple of Nurglings if I have any suitable spares kicking around.

For the Deathwing, I need to straight the Sergeant's sword, as it is a bit wavy - in theory, the hot water, cold water approach should work, right, just like with a resin model? In addition, I need to drill out a few gun barrels. Question there - what do y'all use to mark where you're going to drill when doing this step? I tend to find the pin vice bit squirms when I'm going it, often leading to an off-center hole, which always looks a bit awkward.

And finally... I mentioned in my reply to Fifty that I'd take a look at what was in that heap of stripped models, given it is all metal stuff. When spread out, the selection looks a bit like this:


On there we have: Arbites Judge & Arbites with Shotgun; Wyrd Pyromaniac & Wyrd Telepath; 2 Valhallan Flamers, 2 Valhallans with Lasgun; Catachan Missile Launcher, Lieutenant & Captain; Steel Legion Plasmagun & Sergeant; Mordian Grenade Launcher; 2 Praetorians with Lasguns, Praetorian with Meltagun; Long Fang Sergeant, Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour; Catachan with Meltagun; Shiv from the Last Chancers; Battle Sister with Boltgun.

I'm not sure when I'll get to any of these, but I do need to get them bagged up appropriately.

Dang! I'll have the Telepath and the Arbites boss, please.

Yeah, cutting the arm above the elbow probably is the better choice. Better than having to making the forearms fit properly below the elbow.

Good luck mate! Great old sculpts to start off with, excited to see what you do with them. Arm swap looks promising.

Welcome back Dysartes.

Sorry to hear about the Twitch Stream.

Some nice models have come out of the cleaners there...I am especially jealous of the Arbites Judge, Arbites with Shotgun, Wyrd Pyromaniac, and Wyrd Telepath.

As for the 3rd Edition Storm Trooper Sergeant, what about removing the pistol hand and replace it with a fist (like the Catachan Lieutenant's)?

Cheers,

CB

Welcome back Dysartes, good to see you back with the hobby blog and I am sorry to hear about the Twitch stream as well.

That pile of potential website looks like a great and easy way to list a pile of shame. It's cool to see others' piles as well. Might give my own a go as I'm just using my notes app on my phone.

Big fan of the stormtroopers and keen to see them painted up!

I usually use the tip of my hobby knife to provide a pilot hole for barrel drilling. Where that isn’t accurate enough, I’ll score across in two directions to form a cross first.

@Siggy - They're mine! My precious... I've got the Telekinetic kicking around somewhere too, but none of the Beastmasters. I think I was planning on using them as Psykers in my IG army at some point, though they seem a little beefy for the Wyrdvane role these days.

@tzurk - Cheers, dude. Now I just need to work up the courage to make the cuts

@Captain Brown - If I pick up another of this Sergeant, with a reasonably straight blade, then I'm actually considering swapping out the pistol for a banner instead, to start forming a Command Squad. The datasheet for the Storm Trooper Officer (or Tempestor Prime, in nuSpeak) is very restrictive on what you can give the guy, and even keeping the pistol means he isn't WYSIWYG. I'd actually forgotten he can have a melee weapon, though, so a Fist or Power Sword is actually an option. I'll have a think on it, as that would at least make him WYSIWYG, even if a little over-equipped for a dude whose job is to yell at two squads a turn

@Tyranid Horde - Aye, the Pile of Potential site seems pretty flexible, and they're continuing to add features to it, like the option to split your Projects between categories, which is cool. It was brought to my attention by another streamer on there, and I think is built and owned by a third, which is also cool. I'll admit to not being a big fan of these Storm Trooper sculpts back in the day, but they look good in an =][= scheme, especially in a big group.

@Arakasi - Good shout with the knife, especially on plastic. I take it you'd file back an excess knife lines after you've drilled the hole?

+ + + + +

So, progress... well I got the bases painted up for the two Storm Troopers. Thinking about it, I should've set up the Officer's base and painted it at the same time, but there you go.



Basecoat with P3 Cryx Bane Highlight (twice), drybrush with P3 Trollblood Highlight, lighter drybrush with P3 Sickly Skin, pick out the brick with P3 Skorne Red, wash with Agrax Earthshade, tidy up the edge with Citadel Abaddon Black. Technically which greys you use don't matter, as long as you're working up a couple of layers of highlights, which will then get tinted by the shade.

I thought I should also illustrate why I should look for my wet palette - here's a side-on shot of the tile I've been using for, well, years at this point. The paint on top is easily thicker than the tile in places. Should probably get that in some Dettol at some point...



I've also spent some time cleaning up and putting together the Dark Vengeance Hellbrute, so that I can paint it for the Death Guard. It's currently in four parts - main body, left foor, melee arm armour and chest armour/tentacles (note that the foot is plugged into place in this picture, but not glued on.)



I did consider swapping the face out, but left it for now. I'm not sure about the Eye of Horus symbols on the two pieces on the left - I'm pretty sure I want to remove the one off the arm armour, and possibly the one on the chest piece. I'll probably leave the rest of the trim, though. I need to remove the two pegs from the feet, then I can start to make one of my urban bases for the Hellbrute - I'll glue the seperate foot to the base, and mark around that concrete slab that's attached to the other one. This should make it easy to attach it to the base once I'm done. I also need to find my box of spare Nurgle bits from the Plaguebearers and Nurglings I've previously assembled, so I can see if there are any elements I want to add to the model.

Tomorrow should see temperatures heading back up a bit, so hopefully I can start actually painting the Storm Troopers then.

 Dysartes wrote:
@Arakasi - Good shout with the knife, especially on plastic. I take it you'd file back an excess knife lines after you've drilled the hole?

Only if the scoring ended up greater than the hole - which with practice shouldn't happen . I find it just as good on metal - you only need a very small indent for the drill bit to bite into.

Post six thousand, aye? Not a bad run so far, I guess.

+ + + + +

@Arakasi - Ah, I was thinking scoring lines across the whole frontage to establish the right spot, as opposed to just scoring a pilot dot for the pin vice. My bad.

+ + + + +

OK, so what progress has been made since Saturday? Well, I've spent some time on the Hellbrute, planning out how to make it a bit Nurgle-y, ready to fit into the Death Guard. At the start of this process, I removed the pegs from his feet and cut some plasticard to shape for the start of the basing process, though I've only glued the foot without the "tactical rock" down so the main body can be removed:



My first step in the Nurglfication process was to look through my spare bits from a box of Plaguebearers and set of Nurglings. If you've dealt with either kit, you'll know that you end up with a whole bunch of Nurglings you can use, a couple of piles of maggots, but not many other bits, unfortunately.

Still, I was able to find a couple of the little fellas who could be of some use, but not without a little modification. Some of the Nurglings have bases molded onto their feet, which is a pain if you want to do anything more than add them to a base. As it happens, on of these Nurglings was a perfect fit for an airborne pose on the Hellbrute, while another might work on the base with a better contact surface.

So, a plot was formed - I broke out my rustiest modelling knife, coughed a couple of times to get Grandfather's blessing, and went to work...



Not exactly a before/after shot, as I grabbed the wrong Nurgling to pose the before shot, but close enough for you to get the idea - cutting at the knee joint allowed me to glue the legs back together in a way that looks fairly natural, though the one now on the base needs some post-surgery care (aka, Liquid Green Stuff, probably) to get the knee looking quite right again:



What do these changes allow me to do? Well, firstly we get to show off the playful side of the Nurglings by adding this little fella to the chains below the power fist arm:



He isn't stuck there you, but I like the look. The other fella will go on the base, as he's accidentally ended up echoing the Hellbrute's pose - as above, so below, and all that...



With these two prepped, I've started work adding bits to the base, as you see in the above pic. Since then, a couple of skulls and some bricks have joined the large lumps of "concrete." Once the green stuff on the Nurgling knee has dried, I'll glue him in place and will add the ballast, sand and - after popping the Hellbrute back on the base temporarily - the Sandy Paste.



I think I know what I'll be doing with the CCW forearm armour, but we'll save that for another time.

In other surgical news, there may have been a little progress on the =][= Storm Trooper Officer - a combination of modelling knife, saw and clipper have gotten us to here:



I'm still considering what Captain Brown said about the other arm, but I'll need to find where I've put my unbuilt Scions to look at suitable parts. Still, I can go in with a file now before doing some test fits, and see what else I need to do to make the Rod side work.

Finally, I've thrown a little paint at the two =][= Storm Troopers with Special Weapons, but I think I may have reached for the wrong grey. I applied a basecoat of VMC Basalt Grey to both of them, but it looks too light - I suspect I should actually have gone with VMC German Grey instead. I'm hoping a couple of coats of Nuln Oil will bring it back down, which I'm testing on Grenade Launcher Guy's boots - if not, time to re-basecoat with German Grey, though I'll leave the cloth areas which'll end up being red alone.



This is the downside of trying to match a scheme, from memory, that you last painted before Christmas 2018...

That’s some great fun with the nurglings. I like the idea of the one at the front thinking he’s dead scary, but it’s the gruffalo hellbrute everyone is running from

Agreed. The nurglings are really fun, partially the one swinging on the chain. Creates a nice little narrative.

 Dysartes wrote:
This is the downside of trying to match a scheme, from memory, that you last painted before Christmas 2018...

This is why my Dark Eldar remain unfinished in a box...

Thanks gobert - the second one is more accidental than the guy that's just hanging around. I didn't realise what I had with him until I glued him to the spare leg and went, "Hmm..."

Thanks Denny - the other advantage of the Nurgling on the chain is that he should be fairly safe from getting knocked off the model under there, as the Hellbrute's arm and body offer some protection from rogue hands, etc.

+ + + + +

After leaving the Nuln Oil to dry on Grenade Launcher Dude's boots, I was able to confirm that my confusion over the greys looks to have been an over-reaction on my part, which is a relief. Rather than repainting the grey with German Grey, I went in and applied a coat of Skorne Red to the cloth sections on the two Storm Troopers:



With the red dry, I went back in to basecoat some of the other non-metallic areas - grenades with Caliban Green, Flamer Dude's face with P3 Midlund Flesh, and the the bedroll on Grenade Launcher Dude's backpack with P3 Battledress Green. I'm not certain the latter is correct, but it should be close enough.



After a touch-up pass, it was time to go in with the Shades - Reikland Fleshshade on Flamer Dude's face, Agrax Earthshade on the red, Nuln Oil on the grey, and Athonian Camoshade on the green bedroll. With that done, the metallics and details are next.



Metallics are fairly straightforward - I'll be using five in total. First up was a base coat of Vallejo Air Metallic Steel to all the silver areas, followed by GW Warplock Bronze on the bronze/brass areas. These then got a coat of Brass scorpion over the bronze, and then a general tidy-up pass.



(OK, that picture is more out of focus than I expected)

These metallics needed a bit of Shade throwing at them - the Brass was hit with Agrax Earthshade, grenade pins with straight Nuln Oil, while the main silver areas were washed with a 1:1:1 mix of Lahmian Medium, Nuln Oil and Drakenhof Nightshade.

Final stage are certain lenses and lights - I basecoated these with either VMA Aluminium or GW Retributor Armour, depending on whether I was going for green or red. Once these were set, I went over the top of them with Waystone Green or Blood for the Blood God, respectively. With that, these two were finished off - the first couple of models finished this year:



I've also finished stripping another batch of models - I had a bit of an odd system, where things would have an initial Dettol soak, then a scrub, then a secondary Dettol soak, then another scrub, then into washing-up liquid before getting the final rinse in warm water in the sink. I'm sure there's a more efficient approach, but this one seems to work for me - though there are some second-hand Valhallans which may need another trip, due to a very stubborn primer.



In this batch we've got: two Sisters of Battle; a Sister Superior; two Inquisitorial Acolytes; a Praetorian Guardsman; Steel Legion Plasmagunner; top half of a Praetorian Heavy Weapon Gunner; two Valhallan Mortar Loaders; Valhallan with Flamer; Sly Marbo; SM Terminator Hero.

I've recently moved another batch to the washing-up liquid stage, and am about to move a batch on from the initial Dettol stage to a clean intermediate batch of Dettol. This is also a very good time to replace the Dettol itself, given how long things have been sat in there for...

Okay, that Nurgling dangling from the chain is really good. Overall GW did good stuff with the plastic nurglings, from the release of the Nurgling horde bases up to now really.

Sigur - Thanks, dude. Yeah, there are a lot of characterful Nurglings in the Death Guard and Nurgle Demon ranges. If it weren't for the bulk of the modern Nurgling base, with them stacking ~3 high, I'd probably have enough spare Nurglings to make a base or two now. Oh well...

+ + + + +

Having wrapped up the two Storm Troopers last time out, I've been tinkering with both the Storm Trooper Officer and the Death Guard Hellbrute, but neither of them are ready for undercoating yet.

Instead, I went to a box that I had to crack open to grab a Nurgling for the before/after picture earlier in the thread - Plaguebearers. I painted a unit of ten of these guys, including command group, back in 2019, but ten is a bit small for a Plaguebearer unit, so expanding it makes sense. Here's what the rest of the unit looks like:




I'll be painting the bases of this next group in one batch of ten models, before breaking them down to two units of five to paint the demons themselves. One upside to working on these guys in 2019 is I can raid an old thread for a rough write-up of how I painted the old unit, which should help with matching the colours.

One thing I have been doing with plastic models in recent years - especially if I've been building these urban bases, as they make the model a bit higher and therefore raise the center of gravity a bit. I've taken to supergluing some of these lead fishing weights on the underside, then sealing them in place with a second layer of glue which is then sealed with baking soda:



So, I guess I make a start on painting the bases for these guys today:

Well, that lasted a long time, didn't it? Started to get moving, then lost motivation again.

Time to dust thing off and try again... again.

Founding a Dynasty

It has been said before, and will no doubt be said again, that it can be easy to find yourself accidentally getting the core of an army together, especially when that army shows up in starter sets. It happened with the death Guar din 8th, and it has happened with Necrons in 9th.

In neither case is it something I'm immune to, and I really need to crack on with both - given the extent of my painted Death Guard are 28 Poxwalkers and an undercoated Miasmic Malignifier, I've obviously not done the best with that side of things just yet.

I picked up a copy of the 9th Ed. Codex: Necrons the other weekend, both to help me get the Black Templars coin, and so I could look at the sample paint schemes for the named Dynasties - I don't want to directly replicate one if I can help it, if only so I can try them out easily, or even go with a custom Dynasty. That's something we'll come back to later, when I actually have some stuff painted.

In terms of what I currently own for Necrons, we're looking at Indomitus, plus a Command Edition and Recruit Edition starter, a box of Immortals, Kamoteph the Crooked (who I think is a Cryptek) and (on order, at present) Lord Hasmoteph the Resplendent. I'm probably going to sign up for the Imperium magazine, and I might pick up a couple of bits that aren't stocked in my local GW later in the month, but that's my starting point. What does that translate to?

- Necron Overlord (2)
- Necron Royal Warden (2)
- Necron Plasmancer
- Necron Skorpekh Lord
- Necron Warriors (40)
- Necron Cryptothralls (2)
- Necron Skorpekh Destroyers (6)
- Necron Canoptek Plasmacyte (2)
- Necron Canoptek Reanimator
- Necron Canoptek Scarab Swarms (12)
- Necron Immortals/Deathmarks (5)
- Kamoteph the Crooked (Cryptek?)
- Lord Hasmoteph the Resplendent (Overlord?)

Of these, I've assembled the Necron contingent from the Recruit Edition starter - a Royal Warden, 10 Necron Warriors and 3 Canoptek Scarab Swarm bases, though I need to sort their basing and glue them to the bases. This seems a reasonable amount to pause on assembly and look at the paint side of things, though.



For those who are curious, the first ten Warriors have been built with gauss reapers - I think I'm going to go with 20 of each weapon for the first 40, but haven't decided beyond there yet.

Completely random point - has anyone managed to get the "How to paint" info on a GW webstore page to actually give them the paint names directly? I was looking at the Necron Warriors one earlier, for the classic method, and the only way I could ID paints was to open the little swatch in a new tab to get the name from the URL...

Might flag that to WarCom on Twitter, if they answer my question about what a Neopyte is from the BT sample army list article

I'm also sure people will be shocked and appalled to note that my painting desk/table is in a state again:


There are various part-completed assemblies or part-based models on there, including the base for the Hellbrute from earlier in the thread, the semi-converted Storm Trooper Officer, a Spoilpox Scrivener, a Plague Surgeon and (I think) a Sloppity Bilepiper in need of basing. Some of the undercoated parts of the Miasmic Malignifier show up in the bottom right, though the main assembly and base are off-screen at this point. Should probably start painting that at some stage...

Anyway, back to the Necrons.

I'm currently thinking my little Dynasty will be the Zarkhasm Dynasty, headed up by Overlord Ironikh - the sole (at the moment) Skorpekh Lord will probably be Limerikh, and we'll figure out other characters from there.

I'm having a little trouble with a colour scheme for them that doesn't duplicate one of the schemes for the existing named Dynasties. Cloaks like the one worn by the Royal Warden will probably be a bronze of some description, but I need to look at the metallics I've got to figure out what's going to work best for the main chassis - I've got a silver with a hint of blue, for example, that might work. Hmm...

I did start doing one of those hobby bingo cards that they've been going on about in the back of White Dwarf, but currently only have two "Any Model" boxes checked off for 2021 (for the two =][= Stormtroopers) - I'd like to complete a row or column before the end of the year, which seems a small-yet-achievable goal.


Looking at the card as it stands, I think I should be looking to complete the top row. The Storm Trooper Officer would cover the Kitbashed model, there are several "Hero" (or character, at least) models kicking about, which just leaves a 2+ model unit to sort out.

Am I gonna make it? Who the heck knows... but it's worth a shot, right?

Two models at a time Dysartes, two models at a time. I follow that and slowly get through my projects/backlog.

Good luck with the project.

Cheers,

CB

Nice names for the Necrons, if you go for something that can be achieved with contrast your soon smash through that lot too! I’ve not done any hobby bingo cards, but I could get behind that one, if only because I’ve nearly done the middle row!

Captain Brown - Thanks, and I've certainly heard worse plans. I suspect I'll use Q4 to clear that row on the bingo card and do prep for a stronger start next year.

gobert - Hadn't considered Contrast yet. Were you meaning over a metallic for an effect, or just a Contrast over the usual undercoat sprays? I quite like the idea of the Hobby Bingo card, even if I've not been very good at motivating myself to complete it.

Got a little work done on the Storm Trooper Officer today. I cleaned up the join on the Rod of Command arm and pinned it, with a little Liquid(ish) Green Stuff in the join. Need to tidy it up a bit, but it looks OK so far:


You may also notice that he's lost the pistol and hand from his other arm, and I've cleaned up the odd little support bit from his wrist. I think I've figured out the cut I'm going to make on the Scion power sword arm to get that part, probably like this:


Might need to do some clean-up on the outside of the arm afterwards, but we'll see. The Officer's base is already prepared, aside from some Sandy Paste once I glue him to it.

I also took a look at a couple of the models on the desk that need bases sorting. These two look the furthest along:

Spoilpox Scrivener


Daemonhost

I might add a skull or two to the Scrivener's base, but aside from that we're mainly talking ballast, sand, a sealing coat of thinned PVA and a dash of Sandy Paste as required, which may make fun a reasonable series of steps for a Sunday.

I also identified the Plague Surgeon and Sloppity Bilepiper on there, as well as the base for the Hellbrute.

I was going to pick up some Caliban Green spray from GW when I was in town yesterday, as a quick way of dealing with the Dark Vengeance Tactical Squad, but apparently that's been discontinued for a while. Back to the drawing board in that regard, I guess.

I think I have an idea for the unit of 2+ models, though, but they need building - and a blood-soaked stick throwing a long distance to keep them distracted...

Re your earlier question about getting the GW site "how to paint" to show the colours, click on each recipe and it'll show what each paint used is.

I've tried a few of the product pages - and this is in Chrome on my laptop, for transparency - and clicking on individual paint icons doesn't do anything other than sort-of activate the name of the recipe, and clicking on that doesn't appear to do anything either.

From an accessibility perspective, those paint pots should have ALT text at the very least, and they don't appear to.

What are you using where they do work, Gwyn, or can you point me to a page where you found they worked so I can take a wee gander?

That's strange. I'm on the GW page for Necron Warriors cuz you mentioned that was the broken one. On the UK version of the site because your little flag say's you're a Brit. Clicking any part of a recipe replaces the part of the page that says "The Citadel Colour System breaks down painting your models into just a few easy steps" with a list of the paints, including price and a quick "add-to-cart" button.

I checked using Chrome on my PC and it worked there too.

Gwyn - OK, I'm thoroughly confused, then. Weird, weird, weird, but I will see if I get a different result if I try on Firefox or Edge.

+ + +

Some little progress has been made over the last couple of days.

First up, I finished the conversion of the Storm Trooper Officer:


Cutting the sword hand off at the wrist turned out a little easier than I thought it might be, and once I'd filed both sides of the join smooth & flat I was able to pin it reasonably cleanly. With that done, I glued him into the base I'd already put together, then added some Vallejo Sandy Paste to the plasticard piece he stands on.

As I had the day off today, I undercoated him as well - need to touch up the bits the spray missed, so that's a quick job for tomorrow morning:


In a similar vein, I built up the bases for the Spoilpox Scrivener and Daemonhost this morning, and have undercoated them this evening. Not sure what degree of touch-up is required, given white over grey makes it tricky to tell where you've missed. I'll take a look in the morning and see what needs doing.



I'll probably paint the bases for the three at the same time, then focus on the Officer.

As an aside, am I right in thinking that Daemonhosts are still CHARACTER models?

Seeing this project makes me nostalgic for the old style of stormtroopers. I used to have a squad or two. I was kind of disappointed when the militarum tempestus or whatever they're called now didn't turn out to be plastic versions of the same. You're doing a great job with them. The sarge conversion looks pretty flawless.

Welcome back.. Good start to a Necron Army. As a Necron collector ( I say collector as I haven't had many games in the last year; so just working on collecting and Painting ) the Necron range is pretty good in the 9th edition. There are lots of unique units and options on how to play them.

Really cool stuff so far, good luck with the Necrons!

@brushcommando - You might be interested in the below picture, then. I've painted four full squads of these Stormtroopers, each squad having four of a special weapon. I'm considering converting hot-shot volley guns for a fifth squad, as well as a command squad or two (with medics & standard bearers), but haven't gotten there yet, though I do have a couple of spare grunts painted at this point. Oh, and converting a second version of the Officer with a power fist.


@Solar_lion & Olthannon - Thanks guys. Amazing how much of an army you can "accidentally" accrue from starters. Still need to work on working out a scheme, but for now I need to get back into the painting groove properly.

+ + +

It's been a few days, but there has been progress - both with paint, and with assembly.

I've put together a unit of five Flesh Hounds as the week has gone on, as well as Caramac, The Hound of Vengeance (though in the case of the latter, I need to glue him down to his base, as well as decide if I'm leaving the upper head off for painting purposes). I figure I'll work through these two at the same time, and the Flesh Hounds will serve for the "Unit of 2+ Models" entry on the ol' bingo card, while Caramac can pick up a Hero/Character box in case I lose inspiration for the Scriviner or Daemonhost (or if the Daemonhost isn't a CHARACTER model these days).

First job was to paint the bases for the =][= Stormtrooper Officer, the Daemonhost and the Spoilpox Scrivener. The method I used was the same as described in this post earlier in the thread, so I won't repeat the steps here. When done, they looked like this:




I'll need to touch up a couple of bits on the Scrivener before I start to paint it, but that's a minor thing.

With the bases all done, I moved on to working on the Officer. I started off with an almost-all-over basecoat of VMC Basalt Grey, followed by a coat of Nuln Oil shade. With that dry, the fatigues were picked out with P3 Skorne Red, the grenades with Citadel Caliban Green, the bedroll on his back with P3 Battledress Green, and his face with P3 Midlund Flesh, though that may need a second coat. Once his face gets that second coat, it'll be time to go in and start picking out the metallics.