What a thoroughly enjoyable day!
I headed over to Alchemists Workshops to catch up with the guys there and play Dave from Errant Wolf fame. He was heading up to see a friend and we'd loosely agreed to play a game at some point this week so why not link it all together and also pick up a couple of bits for my Necrons - more on that later!
The game was talked about and agreed weeks ago when I was 'persuaded' to enter Armies on Parade, something I'd never heard of and took a while to understand. If I have it right it's a collection of hobbyists showing off their armies at their local Games Workshop store. I still don't know if there's any awards going but I have agreed so a themed army idea had slowly formed over the last few weeks. The 90 power list consisted of some Tomb Blades, Destroyers, Destroyer Lords (one of whom was the subject of the last blog post, and may just pop up again later in this one!), a C'Tan and some Praetorians. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise they all have the FLY keyword, something that I thought as an army would look particularly striking on a 2' x 2' board at Armies on Parade.
Thanks to Alchemists Workshops, the rest of my army was delivered last week and I carefully got them together to assemble over the weekend in time for this game today.
Destroyer assembly line laid out
and the same with the Praetorians
All neatly cleaned up and assembled and packed loosely on a box before heading off up the M6. Yes, I need a carry case but that conversation is for another time!
Cannot WAIT to see all these chromed, detailed and based!
This was the first game of Warhammer 40,000 I will have played since third edition, so it was likely to be a lot of rule checking and flicking between data sheets but I was comfortably excited about rolling some dice and putting my fast, all flying Necron force on to a battlefield. But what was I facing? Seven Dreadnoughts, that's what. I was attacker in a Fate of Konor Mission and promptly set about trying to destroy three objectives defended by two Leviathan and five Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Errrrrm.
Serting up the chrome force as Dave started hiding all his Dreadnoughts. You can just make out his first one deployed in the ruin at the far left
The game mostly consisted of me flying around picking on one or two Dreadnoughts at a time and by turn five had managed to whittle them down to two.
The dilemma of turn three. Split fire on the two Dreads on low wounds or concentrate fire and guarantee one kill. I split fire... and failed!
By turn five the last two Dreadnoughts were hopelessly out numbered.
The game was a first victory for the Necrons under the leadership of Overlord Tarkeoch but he needed some attention. You can just about make him out on the right hand side of the photo above flying around with no head or arms. This is where he was left at the end of my last blog post and one of the boxes I needed to pick up while I was Alchemists was an Overlord blister pack.
This guy needed a Warscythe!
I had teased you with a half finished photo last time but here're some more of the details I added. The flowing cloak was from the Lord model from the Command Barge. Added a little heat from a cigarette lighter so it would bend and flow out behind him and help cover up a lot of the flat featureless Destroyer body.
The cape was added to with some Lychguard 'loincloths'. I was able to make it both longer and wider covering up even more and adding some invaluable detail.
Once I was happy with the robe/cape/cloak I turned my attention to the head. A few options were blutac'd on and the pic sent out to the Twitterverse for some feedback. Which one?
From left to right, Lychguard head, Necron Lord head and Destroyer head
Typically the comments were a combination of number one and three, but I was sort of leaning to those anyway, never the easy route!
A little patience and...
I'm hoping you agree that that is definitely a Destroyer Lord head
Now you're up to date the blister pack from today's trip could be butchered for the benefit of Mr Tarkeoch here.
Destroyer Lord and Overlord Sprue ready to be merged
First up I needed to make an upper arm to fit the Warscythe forearm from the Overlord sprue. This is just a spare Immortal arm cut off and shaped to fit the elbow joint
And assembled
All the parts were blutac'd together to check the pose and balance of the arms and head before glueing
Warscythe glued on and supported while it dried
Now typically at this point I decided to make the build even more awkward. Just in case the Necron Codex came out and had some reeeeeally cool wargear options I decided to magnetise his left arm. The Ressurection Orb (or watermelon as it is now affectionately known) is cool but I didn't want to have a none WYSIWYG Overlord that I had to explain what wargear he had in the future. I knew he'd 99% have a Warscythe as the army is having a little themed nod towards the C'Tan Nightbringer throughout the whole army so black cloaks and scythes are very much 'in'!
A 3mm magnet glued in to the Destroyer Overlords' shoulder and a smaller 1.5mm ish magnet on the left arm that's holding the Ressurection Orb
That left arm is now perfectly ready to be future proofed against any awesome wargear that comes with the Codex. Maybe a Shard of Phalanx that allows him and <Dynasty> infantry within 6" to shoot twice once a battle for instance. If such a piece of wargear should turn up it'll be an easy swap!
And that's where I think I'll leave it today. That's a hell of a lengthy post and if you're still here I thank you for reading my ponderings, reasonings and general modelling madness with my Necrons. It's been a very VERY fun journey back in to the hobby and 41st Millenium so far and I'd like to thank all of you who have been involved in that; you've all made it so enjoyable and putting up with my undoubted tiresome enthusiasm has been very much appreciated. I'll aim to get all these chromed by the end of the week and an update when that happens will no doubt be pencilled for you.
Thanks again, and I'll speak to you all anon!
Chris
Placed on his 60mm base to check for size
Stand hole drilled at an angle to give him a little more of a dynamic pose. Now let's get him painted!