New Anarchy Models Kickstarter!

So the Summer Of Gaming Outside is over (had a good few games in the garden and tremendous fun, lost all of them but the final one, yes I’ll post about them someday).

In the meantime, Brian from Anarchy Models is at it again! With flexible, washable, semi-transparent and fully re-usable stencils for airbrushing! The project is already funded, and we’re now into ‘more stencils and freebies’ territory as the overall funding increases.

The campaign is over here, and update #2 has a nice demo of the stuff.

 

Filla-Glu's Powda and Wicking glue

Still no battle reports, I know… I did have a game planned for today, but the weather was quite dodgy this morning so, being cautious and all, we decided to cancel. In the end it did not rain in the afternoon, and I managed to squeeze in a bit of hobby. Among other things, I magnetised my canoptek acanthrites (still a work in progress, paint-wise) and my recently acquired Screamers of Tzeentch to their bases. The goal being for them to be easier to store. Plus, magnets.

As these models have balltop flying stems on their bases, and so nice large holes on the models themselves, I decided to have a go with Filla-Glu’s Powder and Wicking glue kit.

It’s all quite simple. Below is an acanthrite, with the hole for the base’s stem in its chest. 

 Step 1: pour the powder into the hole.

 Step 2: push the magnet in. It’s powder, so it’s easy to push it in.

Step 3: add a drop of wicking glue. The stuff is super thin, and binds everything together instantly. 

Step 4: use regular super glue to add a magnet to the base. I flattened the stems first (using a Dremel because I am lazy, but clippers and files should do just as well). The one below is slanted, as an horizontal one resulted in a seriously nose-diving acanthrite.

 Finished!

And here is the same on a screamer: 

Updated objective markers

I do have a number of stories on how I’ve been smashed by all comers recently – be they Eldar, CSM or Tau, but this will have to wait for a bit. In the meantime, I have updated my objective counters for 7th edition. A quick preview is below, and they can be found here. Previous notes on the topic are here, here and here, but in summary:

As I wasn't entirely convinced by GW’s Munitorum battlefield objectives, I built some. They're large (40mm), and have the effects written on them. Download the file, print the sheet (important: print at 100%, do not scale), cut and glue onto 40mm bases (I use the plywood ones from Fenris Games), and you're set. They're not fancy but should do the trick.

Nick from IDICBeer posted a video on YouTube about them.

Evil and fluffy thoughts

I don’t know about you, but even though I do not play them, I’ve accumulated quite a lot of Space Marines over the years. Never let good minis go to waste though, and with the release of the fall of Orpheus last year, I came up with a cunning plan: my Necrons, having triumphed over the Minotaurs, have now enslaved them (thank you, mindshackle scarabs), and use them as a meat shield when going to battle. All of this to be done during Apocalypse games, of course.

So last winter, when all was grim and dark outside, I started painting some minis. I did not go very far, but the intent was there.

Now with the new rules coming out on Saturday, I might go a bit further. I don’t know about yours, but my Necron are nothing if not pragmatic. We don’t have psykers, but the Space Marines certainly do. And what does it matter if they die horribly? So, I think I’ll add some librarians to the fold, and when in battle convince them nicely of giving themselves to possession. Whether or not they perish while trying to summon a daemon, I see it all as a win.

Plus, it should be fun painting a few daemons after all that metal…

Blast that weather

So the weekend wasn’t great weather-wise, what with the rain on Saturday and the excessive wind on Sunday. No airbrushing then, but I did manage to do a bit of work.

Deathmarks, finished last Monday:

My first cryptek. Not sure I like what I’ve done with it, but it will have to do.

And that guy’s been happening:

 

 

Starting with the airbrush - Anarchy Model's stencils

Last week I attended an all-day airbrush training session, organised by the good folks at SnM Stuff and taught by airbrush maestro Brian Best from Anarchy Models. The morning was spent on the basics: how to set things up, what to do and what not to do. It became very clear very quickly that practice, and lots of it, is the way forward. The afternoon concentrated on using Brian’s stencils.

Forward one week, and as the weather was nice outside it was time to train some more (for reasons that I do not pretend to fully understand, the practice of airbrushing inside the house is frowned upon by my lovely wife).

I could have done some more basic training painting dots and lines, but that’s boring and I went straight to the stencils (very important note: I do need to do the dots and lines exercices, many times over!).

I happen to own a number of Imperial Guard tanks, which I’ve never painted. The trouble was, I’d decided a long time ago that I wanted to use an urban camouflage pattern on them, however I never had the energy to deal with all the tape handling (or manual stencil cutting) this would have required. Skip a few years, and Brian does his stencils KickStarter. I had no excuse anymore.

 I picked the shattered stencil, and got started on some bits from my super-heavies. I wanted to check the quality of the stencil, especially how well it would stretch and stick around detail - can you say rivets?

I am a lazy git, so my scheme will be 3 colours only: black, grey (Vallejo US Grey) and light grey (Vallejo USAF Light Grey).

Below is what I did:

Step 0 - airbrush black primer on all the parts (they had already been primed with Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray, but as I expected to have to do retouching down the line, I wanted to make sure to be able to match the blacks).

Step 1 - place the small-sized stencils on the parts. The idea is that what’s covered will end up being black in the finished model. I made sure I half-covered some rivets and aquilas with the stencils, again to check the stencil’s quality and the potential bleed. Brian’s tip: use your thumbs to press the stencils down firmly. Brian has the strength of Hercules in his thumbs. I don’t, but I did try hard. It will become very clear that the more care is taken at this stage, the better the final result will be.

(note: after a first try, where the parts flew all over the place under the airbrush’s air pressure, I had another go, this time with everything Blu-tacked to the board)

 Step 2 - airbrush the first grey, basecoat style. No subtlety here.

Step 3 - after the paint has dried, stick on the large-sized stencils on. It’s fine to overlap on the previous ones. Again, make sure all are pressed down firmly. I must admit I wasn’t as careful this time as I was in step 1.

 Step 4 - airbrush all again, this time using the light grey.

Step 5 - once dry, remove the stencils carefully, and admire the results. 

So, how did it all go? Well, not bad at all. As I’ve mentioned above, it is essential to take care when applying the stencils but it you take the time, the results rock: just look at the details below, all without unsightly bleed (note the picture is a bit crappy as I had to enlarge it).

 This one shows how it all works nicely, even with the stencils’ border running across rivets: 

If, however, the stencils are not stuck carefully enough, or allowed to kink, this is what happens:

 Not a major issue (and certainly one entirely of my own doing); a few quick patches with a regular paintbrush should sort these out.

Here is a quick look at the result so far:

And in final news, I currently have a non functioning airbrush, which will happily blow air but no paint. No idea what’s wrong. I have been told that taking a hammer to it is not the wisest course of action, but it might yet come to that.

Leigh and the Insaneorium

 Leigh, he of recent Apocalypse “Red Mist” fame, has started a blog at The Insaneorium, where he unashamedly exposes to all comers how far off he’s gone. If you want to see what extreme hobby can do to you, or your loved ones, go have a look before the men in black catch up and it all gets disappeared. You have been warned.

And in other new, tomorrow is Salute, and so it is time to get the orange shirt out again…

 

Quick magnet tip

 

I have started (at long last) assembling my 4 Necron Ghost/Doomsday Arks. They will be fully magnetised of course (thank you Nick Beer for the tutorial).

 A quick tip for glueing magnets in series: use a larger/different magnet as a reminder of which side is not to be glued.

1. Glue magnets to the first series of components in one go (in my case the gauss flayer’s supports).
2. Put the “magnet handle” on the other side of the magnet stack (or, if using another type of magnets, plop them onto the other side of the handle).
3. Glue the magnets to the second series of components (in my case the gauss flayers).

This solves the problem of mixing polarities and having to fix things later. Been there, done that, did not like it one bit.

  

Airbrush training

I will soon be learning how to properly use an airbrush (about time), and Brian Best of Anarchy Models gave me a nice tip on the topic last week: train with cheap toys! I went to the bargain bin of the local toy shop and picked a couple of plastic planes, and grabbed the tanks from eBay for a few quid. They look quite presentable after a grey undercoat. Now I’m all ready for the course!

Brian is the brains behind the HD Stencils System (recently reviewed by Mad Fez-man here), and offers half-day and day-long airbrush courses in association with SnM Stuff.

 

A relaxed Apocalypse

Yesterday was Military in Miniature - Military Modelling & Wargames Show in Guildford. I have attended the show for the past couple of years, running small 40k demo games with friends. This year I was supposed to help by working the door for a change. So I was just a little bit surprised when I got instead asked on the Friday evening to help run a 40k demo game the following morning. Not to worry, my co-demonstrator Leigh and I quickly agreed on a Necron vs. Chaos Daemons 5,000 points Apocalypse game. At which point I went to bed, as the work week had (once again) been interesting.

(As I have been painting a couple of Transcendent C’tans recently, I briefly entertained the idea of finishing one, as one really ought to do the night before a big game. Unfortunately my army is all in the Shed of Hobby at the back of the garden, and just then it started hailing like mad. The Transcendent C’tan was not to be.)

6AM on Saturday found me building up a list in Army Builder. I went with a variety ForgeWorld models, as the point was to get people to come and talk to us rather than play a sensible army. After a trip to the Shed I ended up with 5,010 points of Necron goodness:

• 3 Gauss Pylons
• 3 x 10 Immortals in a Night Scythe
• 1 Triarch Stalker with Heat Ray
• 5 Deathmarks
• 1 Destroyer Lord with all the trimmings
• 1 Overlord with all the trimmings in a Catacomb Command Barge
• 1 Doom Scythe
• 1 Canoptek Tomb Sentinel
• 2 Canoptek Tomb Stalkers
• 2 x 5 Canoptek Wraiths with Whip Coils
• 1 Tesseract Ark
• 1 Night Shroud Bomber
• 2 x 5 Destroyers, 2 x 2 of which Heavy Destroyers 

I arrived a little bit before Leigh and set up the terrain. An Imperial industrial city having seen heavy fighting would provide plenty of cover (not that it matters that much with Strength D weapons).

 

Look at all those nice buildings that have gone boom…

Leigh, true to form, arrived with 5 models only (but what models!):

• Aetaos’rau’keres, Daemon Lord of Tzeentch
• An’ggrath The Unbound, Daemon Lord of Khorne
• Scabeiathrax The Bloated, Daemon Lord of Nurgle
• Zarakynel, Daemon Lord of Slaanesh
• and a Chaos Reaver Battle Titan to round things up (see some pics here)

Total: 4,780 points.

At this stage there is a little bit of a point imbalance. However (and I only just realised this while typing this note) I completely forgot that I had put a Doom Scythe in the list and so it never even left its box. Down to 4,835 points for the Necron, now we’re even.

What a bunch of jokers we all are

The game was a blast. We kept things straightforward, with no finest hour, strategic assets or unnatural disasters. We’re simple folks, Leigh and I. I hadn’t played with the new rules before, but my initial impressions from reading them were confirmed: it’s brutal. Strength D is now horrifically powerful. 

So, a few notes:

Turn 1

I deployed little, as most of my army could deep strike or outflank. I won the roll and started first.

After deployment

The very first casualty was the Tesseract Ark. As I realised that I had not brought the rules with me, back into the box it went. D’oh.

The Triarch Stalker was deployed inside difficult terrain, and would spend the next five turns progressing veeery slowly towards the centre of the board. I am grateful to Leigh for paying token attention to it by targeting it as part of an Apocalyptic barrage. It lost two hull points and can at least claim to have seen some action.

The Pylons did their work, blasting off the Reaver’s void shields and starting to take down Hull Points (I have played with the previous Apocalypse rules for too long: I’ve just only realised that I could have deep struck a bunch of Strategic Reserve models close to the Reaver on Turn 1 and killed its void shields with them instead of having to waste strength D shots on the task. Oh well, live and learn, at least I did do that from Turn 2).

Turn 2

I was a bit worried about those four Daemon Lords trudging across the board, but then Leigh gave me Christmas in early spring: An’ggrath The Unbound, Guardian of the Throne of Skulls, Most Favoured of Khorne, Lord of Bloodthirsters, The Deathbringer, took flight. A quick shoot with a Pylon resulted in three hits. I rolled the dice of the Destroyer Weapon Attack Table: with two sixes, An’ggrath (7 wounds) was already dead.

An’ggrath The Unbound realises he should not have taken to the skies

Leigh did insist for me to roll fully for damage and so it is that, having suffered 22 wounds, An’ggrath got to add ‘The Red Mist’ to its long list of titles.

2D6 + 12 wounds…

I had never played with the Outflank rule before, and I was quite excited to see that Leigh had deployed his Big Bird close to a table side. With my Canoptek Tomb Sentinel and Stalkers able to re-roll the die if the results did not suit, I was quite confident that I’d get where I wanted to be. Which I did. Only to learn that one cannot charge when arriving from Reserve anymore. Bother.

I was also soon to learn that the Tomb Stalkers and Sentinels are definitely not equipped to engage Greater Daemons. They went very squish very fast. Those extra D3 attacks for the Stalkers are only granted when outnumbered. Well Big Bird is very scary, but there is still only one of him (thank the Gods!).

Turn 3

Leigh had by now blasted 2 Pylons, with a single one remaining with a single Hull Point. I got lucky dice however, and managed to finished the Reaver before it got me.

I also deep-struck everything I had left, with no mishaps apart from the Deathmarks, which only got delayed.

I managed to engage Zarakynel with a unit of Canoptek Wraiths. Leigh started grinding his teeth as the whip coils moved Zarakynel’s Initiative from 10 down to 1. The Canoptek Wraiths remain a powerful assault unit, even against a Daemon Lord. They managed to keep Zarakynel engaged long enough to allow the Destroyer Lord to assault as well in turn 4. It took a while (and the second unit of Canoptek Wraiths), but Zarakynel, by now joined by Scabeiathrax (who had been barely slowed down by an outflanking Canoptek Tomb Stalker), finally went down.

Turns 4 and 5

The remaining Pylon pulverised Aetaos’rau’keres (a.k.a. Big Bird), with 12 Wounds inflicted in one turn. Mind you, I also had every other available unit ready to shoot at it: 2 units of Destroyers, the Deathmarks and 2 Night Scythes. Not that all of them combined would have done it much harm, but at least they were ready to try.

After 4 turns of trying to fly over one of the daemons, the Night Shroud Bomber finality passed over an unengaged Scabeiathrax and did a bombing run. Which is when I discovered that bombs always scatter, and so are not much use against a single creature. Scabeiathrax escaped unscathed.

We stopped after Turn 5 as the show was closing down and it was time to pack and help clean up. Only Scabeiathrax was left on the Chaos Daemons’ side, engaged in combat with the last unit of Canoptek Wraiths, the Destroyer Lord and the Overlord. If he happened to win the assault he then let himself wide open to 3 shots of Strength D from the remaining Pylon, so Leigh declared a Necron victory.

I had lost very little in all: 2 Pylons, 2 Destroyers, the Catacomb Command Barge, and 8 Canoptek Wraiths. It does say something about both Leigh and me that I never bothered to disembark the Immortals, and he did not want to deploy his cultist meat shield around his Reaver (which would have been useful for trying to assault the Destroyers that kept its void shields down from Turn 2). Puny minis are not for us, at least in Apocalypse.

The state of things at the end of Turn 5

And now for the Triarch Stalker, which I voted the lamest unit of the game (then again, my fault for deploying it in a stupid location in the first place):

The Hull Point markers are from Laser Cut Card.

So in conclusion:

• Strength D is horrible. Try to quickly kill anything that wields it
• So are the Canoptek Wraiths. Shoot them before they can assault
• These Greater Daemons are certainly no picnic. Without Strength D there was no hope for the Necrons

It was a good game, with a very sporting adversary. The show itself was super cool, with plenty of traders, demos and a great painting competition. The atmosphere was very friendly, with a good number of (well-behaved!) children. In the words of one of the most famous robots of all: "I’ll be back”.

 

Playing with magnetite

As much as I like magnets, sometimes they’re a bit annoying to use. I have been assembling a fleet for Dystopian Wars (Vive la République!), and fitting magnets to the tiny gun turrets looked like too much hassle. Enters magnetite. I bought a bag of it on Amazon a while back, and today I put it to good use:

Step 1 - drill a hole.

Step 2 - add magnetite (yes, I am just as messy when I brew coffee).

Step 3 - press down, and gently remove excess using a paintbrush.

Step 4 - add superglue and wait for it to dry.

It holds! Result! (obviously, there is a magnet fitted inside the hull, but that one was easy enough to install).

Immortals with Tesla carbines

5 immortals with Tesla carbines, speed painting at its best (or worst, really).

Tesseract Ark

Another model “good enough to put on the table”. I’ll have to find a sturdier base…