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Greetings! Welcome to the start of a new project.

TLDR: I'm gonna be building and painting scenery for my FLGS, Necrons, and Deathwatch, plus random hobby goodness.

Grimdork here, back with another hobby blog! The other one was getting kind of bloated and I'd gotten into the bad habit of neglecting it over the years.

The general direction for this blog:
I fell off the hobby radar for a few years but with a new wargaming friendly FLGS opening up in town, I'm dedicated to getting back on the hobby horse! I'm gonna build a warhammer 40k army up from scratch to finish and play a got dang game with it before the year is over. No model count, no painting improvement metrics, no specific gameplan... but I bought some models and I'm gonna build 'em, paint 'em, and get in at least one fricken game. The hobby dream, as it were.

Where did Grim go?:
Where did I go? Waning interest in GW games kind of had my participation level here flagging. Other systems became easier to maintain, and I wasn't really doing a lot of buy/build/paint in general. A few years ago, I shifted focus to D&D but most of that was hurried and "good enough" and not the kind of thing I cared to barf out onto the forums. Facebook groups also came onto the scene and were a little easier to manage which also led to my going AWOL.
So now we come to today. Sure, I've been playing D&D consistently nearly every week for the past 2-3 years, but that's not wargaming. I'm still doing that, and it still eats up a good portion of my processing power and spare time, but this isn't the place for that stuff. If I start building/painting/etc for D&D in the future (all digital ATM), that's probably a different blog. What we're focused on here is that there's a shop in town, FINALLY, that caters to wargaming and I wanna get in some games. I've only every truly played a few games of 40k, I've spent a lot more time faffing with the models and making lists and planning to play, but rarely ever doing it. I wanna change that this year. My time is more limited than ever, but I have determination and focus (I hope!). So I'm back baby, and we're gonna 40k to die trying!

So, expect to see some Necrons, some Deathwatch to fight them, and some scratch and scraps Scenery going forward.

-------The Beginning---------

So I started working my way back into the hobby when I learned that the gamestore opening in town was interested in selling wargaming stuff. First stop? Buying an Indomitus off of amazon... whoops. But, hey, they didn't have access to it and I've bought plenty there since then! My goal has been to build up their stock of scenery while working on my necrons. I've also settled onto the Deathwatch for the indomitus+ marines. I'll go more into that decision later, I think.


If not collecting 40k was sobriety, I fell off the wagon and it ran me over!

Of course, I didn't get all that at once, and a good chunk came from birthday windfalls (may have been a couple driveway shovelings in there too!).

Before I really had any minis together though, there was scenery. Time for a big blob of that to be followed up by spotlights on the necrons and marines in the future.


Project 1, quick and easy fencing inspired by Wyloch's Armory!


Also inspired by Wyloch, classic soup can fuel depot.


Much better with rust and hazard stripes, no?

I built this up on a large concrete platform so it would fit in with whatever board. Classic project, minimal details, but playable.


I didn't keep a lot of WIP for this next one, but so be it:



This item is ruled by the concepts of breaking up line of sight and having playable space more than making sense!
The main bit is a fun computer fan I've been dying to use. I love how you usually just leave the lettering and icons on computer parts, becomes an added feature honestly!


Next up is my knockoff GW style pipe system.



I apologize for the scarcity of photos, but I've been dropping the scenery off at the game store as I make it.


Most recently, I combined a couple of the other techniques and the style I intend to implement for my bases with a mushroom tub. The result? A comms bunker!


In the rough


Brave space marines defend the crucial comms array from vicious alien raiders!




Quick and dirty painting, but I think that's just the ticket for scenery!

I've got a couple-three more scenery projects in progress at the moment, with my eye on some big honkin line of sight disrupting obscuring terrain.

I'll be back soon to dump the necron and deathwatch stuff.

Necrons!

So let me tell you the long and sordid history between me and Necrons...

It all started a long time ago... way back when I realized they were incidentally included in the Indomitus box with my rulebook and all the cool spesh mahreens.

I mean, they were a bonus.

But then I got the box and saw them staring out of it at me with their dead little android eyes.. and I fell in love. I can't say I love the oldest or first plastic necron warriors, but nearly everything that's currently out has me by the heartstrings. They're neat! Higher tech and more ancient than the eldar, and basically a bunch of pissed off old space Egyptians furious that all these kids are on their damn lawn.

So the plan was set. Before the end of the year, I'd build and paint both ~1000 pt sections of Indomitus. A big project coming out of a relatively cold start... but I could manage... Of course... then came the Eradication legion.


Look at that. Ooof. 27 minis, and I love 'em all.

You've got your warriors and scarabs, noice, Immortals, heck yeah, Lychguard/praetorians holy crap, Triarch stalker wtf is this thing I NEED it, Spyder holy god adorbs, Flying death croissant, and a cryptek with an attitude. What a box!

I did still have to talk myself into it... but this checked a lot of boxes for me.

And so the plan was changed, to building a necron army and *probably* getting to those space marines eventually. More on that later, though.

I started working on the Necrons when I started on the scenery but the weather has, until recently, been horrible for priming. I did get some vallejo surface primer in for my airbrush (or painting on, in a pinch), but Things have kept me busy anyway. But don't take my word for it, pictures!


The first experiment was attempted magnetization of the two warrior options. I'm pretty sure I like the reapers better than flayers, especially with a gang of Immortals to hold backfield objectives... but I wanted the versatility of choice.

flayer

reaper

synaptic disintegrator!?


The cruelest cut? Nay! Rather, a really useful spacing that allows for all of the options!


Another view of the cut and left handed magnet. It's a wee one, but combined with the big one on the guns and added friction from touching the right hand, they've been reasonably stable.


Bigger magnet fits great on the gun side and gives just a wee bit of wiggle room for the connections. Pretty much any gun can go to any warrior so far, though I've only got two fully built.

The flayer/reaper thing worked out really smooth, I love that I was able to get the arms to stay on the model and swap out just the guns. I was also able to get the Deathmark synaptic disintegrator to fit into this mold which enabled me to make some "warriormarks" which are just the regular magnetized warriors but with an extra magnet to swap out the mono-occular head and the ball on the tip of the deathmark spine. They'll blend in seamlessly with the other warriors, until I need them to be deathmarks, and then nobody who doesn't already play necrons will be the wiser

I'm hoping to do the same for some triarch warriors to skip magnetizing the lychguard. Apparently there is an argument for scytheguard, but the shieldy bois are largely considered better and most folks will suggest staffs for the praetorians. I love magnets, but doing that kit as a 4-way magnetized fiesta was gonna be taxing.

Right, we were talking about immortals though, and how I only had to magnetize two options now thanks to the warriormarks.



Here we have the long ranged gauss blasters, which let these big skelebois reach out to 30 inches and cost effectively guard homefield objectives.


Back in 8th, tesla was king (or so I hear). It isn't the bees knees at the moment, but I wanted the option. There's a strat for mortal wounds and if you're going to play power level ever, they're free then.

The magnet is set at the left arm socket and where the ball is on the power cable hookup with the gun. The right arms have all just happily socketed into their socket with no extra help needed. The angles make everything fairly solid and I'm happy with how elegant these turned out to be, given how much trouble they were to get there!

The biggest and most unnecessary magnet-related time sink had to be the Reanispyders. What, you say? Well, the canoptek reanimator out of Indomitus is too expensive and has to be horribly exposed to do his job in most cases. They dropped the points, but it's still really hard to get work out of one of them without your opponent simply killing it first. Anyway, I'll end up with a solitary one to keep stock just in case, and because they look cool. But I got an extra one to go with the original from my Indomitus and converted them into canoptek spyders. I like to call the conversion Reanispyders. They didn't need magnets. I mean, maybe for their guns? But I wanted them fully articulated... for no real purpose. I was successful, and I think they're super neat... but it was a lot of work haha.

Flexibility in-progress shots:



They have quite a range of motion!

In order to keep myself honest during games, I installed flying stands to keep them locked in position and at the same height. No crouching under cover or over it for better line of sigh!


Here're the two reanispyders with their squad leader, an actual canoptek spyder! Their guns are temporary placeholders, I'll be able to rob some legitimate particle beamers off of tomb blades, and they're so good I'll inevitably have to get some.
The proper spyder is only magnetized to his base, the limbs are set. The guns do come off, though, and the bigger fabricator claws can be removed for when I'm playing without vehicles.
You'll notice a couple of its extra little dangly manipulator bits have found their way onto the reanispyders to help strengthen the visual appeal.



Now, at some point, I must have gotten fed up of taking WIP shots. I'll get back into the habit but here's the first ~500 points of the army in all their unpainted glory:


I've added 9 swarm bases of canoptek scarabs, and the technomancer from the Eradication Legion. Scarabs don't need magnets outside the one in their base (like the whole army), but the technomancer gets one on his back and foot so he can switch between his canoptek cloak (back right) or just walking. There's a good wargear item that is mutually exclusive with the cloak so magnetization was mandatory (for me).


There he is with the cloak. Much more majestic, but that other wargear is really useful too!

I'm gonna knock out 20 warriors, a custom catacomb command barge, and two cryptothralls for the next batch of minis. Stay tuned.

More on the Deathwatch soon too!

Great scratch builds. Are those diamond art beads for the rivets?

I'm not sure if that was the exact name, but yes, they came like 3000 to a sheet and have a little adhesive backing.

Subscribing to more awesomeness . Will have to read tomorrow

@Theo fair enough

See, with Indomitus I kept arguing with myself “do I build Necrons or Space Marines?” I should have known that I would answer like I answer my wife all the time when she gives me two options....YES! I started painting marines, but honestly......I love the look of the Scythes of the Emperor, but it is tedious, so Necrons became a good option, and the printer is helping with that.

I look forward to you progress. Whichever side of the box you work towards.

Nice start on the necrons. I quickly stuck mine back into the box after pulling the marines out, knowing that if I gazed too long upon them, I might be ensnared by their cold malevolence.

Someday the tomb will awaken, hopefully (for my budget) not anytime soon.

I need to get more terrain built myself, Never enough on the home table, and some looks phoned in. You are doing great stuff here with found object basis. <takes notes>

Theo- yeah, I got it for the Marines but the necrons got me! I'm hoping my choice to do deathwatch doesn't bite me on the painting. I'm pinning my hopes on the black Templar contrast paint.

Nevelon- That's what's nice about necrons you can always tell yourself and they aren't in your pile of shame, They are merely sleeping and biding their time until the day they shall rise up. It's guilt-free and lore-friendly .

I am a big fan of having lots of scenery, but it can be a pain to make and store when there are so many fun models to paint. I'm really enjoying getting to make this stuff and then Marie Condo it to the game store... though if I ever want to play at home I'll have to start from scratch lol.


Speaking of scenery here's what's currently on the crafting table:



First, a couple of barricades made out of dollar store toy cars, bottle caps, and a couple of my dead zone bits (but just a couple). And then a classic right of passage in junk scenery, building something out of a drink can. I like the 24-oz and 12-oz slim profile cans for projects like this because they look less like a soda or beer and your mind can slip into believing they are what they are portrayed as a little easier. Didn't go ham with this one, I wanted it quick and simple so I added some detail to the front and two platforms and called it a day.

I still need to spotlight the death watch but that means dragging out a bunch of space marine bits and I need to be cleaning my work area not cluttering it...

For now, suffice it to say that I managed to find this sweet out of print relic and my boys in black with the silver arm should be well on their way:



I never realized quite how cool the new death watch armor looked with the gorgets and all the other markings. I think they get to rock the newest mark of power armor below 10. It will almost be sad including my regular Marines with these guys but I'm sure the death watch uses all kinds of armor marks, I'm sure some of the warriors are unwilling to trade out everything of their past identity. This kit, and a little upgrade sprue that comes with it, are going to be largely responsible for the death watchification of all of my other marine holdings. I mean, it's actively difficult to get the shoulder pads outside of the $140 patrol box, so I will definitely be replicating some of the shoulder details with oyumaru. Like the practice or not, there's basically no way around it at an affordable rate, I saw plenty of Templar pads being 3D printed but the death watch ones seemed a little less likely to come by.

Anyway, I will get back to the death watch eventually. I hope to start in on my necrons with the vallejo surface primer shortly.


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Boy, some days I fire up the airbrush and I wonder why I own one and some days... I remember why.

I had to throw a little lubricant on it but, the airbrush did a pretty good job today. I still have is very little in the way of airbrushing skill but for applying base colors it's a nice change from the brush.


I mean it would take forever and a day to paint that orange over black the traditional way.


And then I can pivot to blue like it's nothing. You can also see some examples here of the Vallejo plate mail surface primer.

I mentioned the plate mail, because it is going to be my base color for my necrons if all goes well. It's a nice muted silver.

I definitely need to get out my more precise airbrush and start working on my control you probably can't tell from the pictures but there is rampant overspray, and I should have done the bases last to get that free weathering... I'll have to go back over it later. The baby has awakened and so now I must quit but, it's a good start.

Here's a quick shot of those three pieces after they received the sealer. I want to make a couple of tall obscuring sceneries soon, but at the moment I have literally nothing left to paint but these necrons. I mean nothing left of the current project, obviously I have a crap load of models I'll have to get to someday... But regarding the subject of this P&m blog... Spraying the necrons comes next so here's fingers crossed on that.

I got a rare block of time so I finished those terrain features and still had enough time left over to crack out the Vallejo black surface primer. of course, it was warm enough today that I could have primed but it's been raining so it was awful humid and I got the stuff and felt I should try it.

let me see what it looks like tomorrow, but right now I am tentatively very impressed. It went on smooth and dried with a nice flat sheen. And I can tell it's more than just paint based on the way it was trying to cure inside the paint cup, should make for a nice durable surface to apply other paint.

I guess my silver color is a surface primer too, but I will probably stick with black undercoat for the necrons.

Three pieces of scratch terrain. DUMP!

Classic drink can fuel/etc container with platforms:



Dollar store car, bottlecap containers, barricade.



Another car, several tires from others, more bottlecaps, and some deadzone scatter in another barricade.



A few group shots for fun since I'm not keeping these:



Some more short stuff for basic cover and one that blocks *some* line of sight. I need to build them some taller scenery that they can apply the obscuring tag to. Some ruins, I think. Or maybe a large intact fortified structure.... depends on which one has the inspiration strike first I guess!
Pretty simple stuff. The cantainer is especially sparse but it should serve a purpose even without the frills. I'm focusing on getting a lot of stuff done as quickly as possible. Once they hit a certain critical mass of scenery and can cover enough tables, I can shift to making nicer stuff, or nothing pending their needs. We'll see.

Almost have the first 500 pts of necrons primed, chipping away at the subassemblies for the spyders right now, and the immortals' guns. Still trying to decide what to build for the first 500 points of my Deathwatch. If I dither too long, I'm just gonna slap together then next 1k of necrons!

That's a nifty set of terrain.

Thanks

I really need to make them some bigger pieces but smaller ones have been easier to get into.

Looks cool so far. Starting small means you can build a larger collection of good scatter terrain. This creates more variety for your battles. I think you're approaching this correctly.

These are brilliant!

Thanks guys

I'm really finding the smaller pieces easier to jump into. Plus the ruins I want to make will require measuring and cutting straight lines... which is OK I guess... but not my forte at all.

I like how the shop owner is playing ball and helping out with my scenery drive. Here's a supply dump I picked up the last time I dropped off scenery.

Somebody gets through a SERIOUS volume of Hollandaise sauce! Some great scenery you’re producing Grimdork, the orange car in the last set came out great. The Indomitus Necrons really are great minis, and you’ve set up some great versatility in yours. Have you chosen a colour scheme for them?

Yeah, that's what I said. They must really like this stuff!

I really like the orange car too, especially given that that was from a black undercoat. I enjoy the airbrushes ability to do that even if I'm not particularly handy with it yet.

I'm planning on starting with a dull metallic silver, highlighting with storm host, probably painting the weapons black, with gold as an accent color. To play off the gold and lean into the Egyptian color is a little bit I'm thinking blue for the glows, Even though classic green is pretty great. I'm hoping to get my gold by putting agaros dunes over the silver directly, but we'll see!

Yeah, the coverage that airbrushes seem to achieve is really impressive and much smoother than most mortals can achieve with brushwork!

The Necron scheme sound cool, another of the joys of Necrons is the speed you can paint them. Contrast on the golds should help in that regard. The blue should contrast well with the warmth of the gold I reckon too

Here's hoping. I'm down to just a few bits that need primed out of my first batch. My wife works tonight, so if I can get the kids to sleep on time I may have a good window to finish the prime and start the silver. Once they're silver it's back to brush work unless I want to try my other airbrush to help with the glowing parts. Brush work is a lot easier to pick up and put down than the airbrush so I'm anxious to get them into that state.

I'm particularly anxious about sticking the scheme on the first try because I've had entire armies derail due to flailing around on the scheme

Ok, real quick as the baby is not having my shenanigans...

Got everything finally primed. Got 9 scarab swarms and two immortals silver before I ran out of pressure in my compressor (and didn't want to risk waking baby by kicking it back on!).

It was the right call as she slept for another hour or so allowing me to do some really low pressure glow tests on some scarabs (show em later) and do some brush work on this immortal.

I did some things out of order and the next one will fix a couple of my issues on this one, but there's still a couple things I have to consider.

I like the silver, I think it came out well. THe platemail base coat was deliciously dull but a heavy handed overbrush of stormhost silver did away with that. The gloss nuln oil brought it back down though and I like the overall look.

The shoulders got edged with stormhost on this guy instead of the overbrush so.. you can see the janky edge highlights and the "gold" is darker than it should be. The second immortal should have this autocorrected.

I think the weapon glow is solid, it isn't stellar but I think I'd be happy with it army wide.

The gold needs to be brighter or a different color, but I think it will be by default.

1 layer of BT over the silver seems to work well enough, its kind of a dirty look but that's my painting style and these guys are ancient so why should they be shiny and smooth.

I think I'm gonna paint the tubes black, with a darker and smoother coat of black than shown, I never got why they were glowing the same color as the weapon energy, a conduit should be passing the energy from point to point without bleeding out out the sidewalls yeah?

The eyes are a little heavy handed but I think I can refine it as I go.

Very quick overall, I think I can work with this.

Need to do the base too obviously.

MOre later angry baby


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So, anyway I think between being in the hurry and doing a couple of steps out of order (That was fussing with the complicated stuff before doing the dry brush and wash), this one was a little shot in the foot but I think overall he's tabletop acceptable after a few touch-ups.

I think the next one will be better by default.

And if the next one passes muster, this is going to be a very easy scheme to go forward with.


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I think another thing that might help the weapon glow by default is me applying it with a brush instead of an airbrush. they're brushed us some awesome things but given my skill level with it I think I will get more depth of color on those little dots if I use the stuff as a wash as opposed to a spray.


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Still think the black templar over silver may work for the deathwatch. Go back with silver edge highlights as if the black paint were wearing down. May cheapen the silver left arm though...so testing is required.

Sidenote: if they deploy the Lion as a character for dark angels this edition...I'm gonna be hella salty for saving dark angel parts for approaching a decade only to shave them off a month or two (for DW) before they unveil him and make me regret not going DA lol. Would be the first big name character I'd buy lol.

DA are probably still cooler tho, it's just neat to be in the lore spotlight lol.

The silver and gold work well. Certainly has a bit of an Egyptian vibe like you were after. The blue glow is cool too. Even better that it’s a quick recipe! Good luck with getting the little one to sleep!

Everything on these guys is easy, and that's exactly what I wanted.

I repainted the shoulders solid storm host silver and then went with a very slightly watered down coat of the aggaros dunes. I've had the local shop put in an order for contrast medium which will hopefully let me approach the gold in a consistent way, but the testcron is looking much snazzier imo.

Looking at the picture I took, which helps highlight some of the faults, I really think the contrast medium will be a superior way to add the dunes and should help it be a little more even. But the color / tone is right what I was after.


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Neat, phone stealth rotated it... But you get the idea.

Jobs a good one , I think that Aggros Dunes really works well with the rest being contrast too.

I really like the gold shine on your necron. Looks awesome.

Thanks guys I went from unhappy to pretty happy with the second approach. I think it's going to work out.

Scarab test.

Easy airbrush blue, but all silver is too boring. Gold faces didn't really fix it.

Second image with the black carapace, improvement?

Would have to translate to spyders and other canoptek but not necessarily other units in the army.

Thoughts? Breaking the theme too much?

I don't wanna do gold shells atm because I'm using the quantity of gold kind of like rank/priority markings.

Gold head and black body look great and not too much of a divergence. Will they be getting the blue glow too?