Necron Time - 1 Tomb World - 3 Overlords

So this coming Saturday sees the return of the Necrons.

Now my good friend Stu is very happy about this as he has been emailing me almost daily with new rumours/pics/updates - you can tell he likes them. He of course is going to be playing them again and he in the past few weeks has had a couple of good games with them for nostalgia sake.

Between Stu and myself we have a lot of Necrons already, all the basics and a few toys from the previous run. Well with the release of the Necron pics a couple weeks ago then the official release over the weekend I myself are liking the looks of the too. I was planning on buying the codex straight away but I do that with all the 40k books, now however I am going to be buying some models too and we have Cody also getting ready to open his wallet for the ancient empire.

Yesterday we had some usual Sunday gaming with some 3 player 750 point games for a laugh then it was 1850 Dark Eldar vs Blood Angels with Cody playing DE and Stu and Womble using the BA. Throughout all this dice rolling and name calling we discussed the results of 3 of us buying Necrons and decided it is a very good thing.

I have wanted a 'house' army for a while now. My regular gaming mates leave all their toys at my place anyway as it's where we game. They have their own shelves and draws for their armies they commonly use so any of our gear is free to be used amongst us. I have wanted to take this a little further and all pitch in for an army that anyone can pick up and play with a variety of options. We made a few second hand Ork purchases and I have quite a bit of random Imperial guard models but we never really got inspired to create this communal force... until now.

New Codex, new models, good large base of models to use which two of us own already. Yesterday I decided we need a nice paint scheme which we can use across the whole range, Stu is happy for normal metal Necrons, Cody doesn't care as long as they 'look cool' and I of course want to do something a little different from the codex standard. This results in me painting a handful of Necron Warriors in test schemes we all agree on. Yesterday I painted a black bodied/orange head and shoulder plated warrior but he was too 70's apparently ;) so moved to standard boltgun metal with a green wash but with the green tubing was going to be 'too green' so now have a boltgun with sepia and devlan mud wash to be looked at tonight while we play D&D. We did agree to go with black/dark green armour plating like the GW ones for Stu so the worn washed metal is my contribution and it should look good. I suggested a spot colour of individual choice to denote who 'owns' particular units and Stu suggested painting the heads/faces in the chosen colour which will work well without detracted from the overall unified look.

So I'll get a pic of the test mini we are happy with after tonight and then it's the wait until Saturday when we descend on GW Wellington for new toys. The HQ models have already been 'baggsed' with Stu claiming Imotekh, Cody the new Overlord and me being left with old man Trazyn - I'm ok with that though as upon closer inspection he has an Eldar rune he has poached on his belt so seems fitting.

So as Saturday approaches and we get to see what Mr Ward has done to the Necrontyr... ahem please share any suggestions you may have for the Tomb World's awakening

Cleatus the Cultist?

Got your attention?

Had a fairly productive weekend painting wise even if I didn't actually play any games.

Got another 10 Sisters of Battle done so painted this inbred little fella. I have plans for him and his 'kind' as they make great cultists/warrior acolytes for an Inquisition army or whatever you'd like to count it as.

The model is an old GW chaos cultist which I have a few of thanks to Gromm/Emmett giving me his Thousand Sons army many moons ago. He used the cultists as Sorcerer thralls in the old chaos codex, y'know the good one ;) The cultists have been sitting in the box of random imperial and character models with a simple coat of scorched brown the only thing on them. Being partially inspired by the washed out tones of the locust in Gears of War(which after not playing all week I finished yesterday - now they can look forward to tomorrow). The ragged cloth is Tausept Ochre and Iyanden Darksun with Devlan Mud washes. Quite like how he turned out so when I get another batch of SoB complete I may paint another to break up all the red armour.

In RPG news the boys start on the next chapter of Shackled City tonight with the Demonskar Legacy - once they get their xp from last week they should all be 8th level or very close and what has made life easier for them is the return of Womble/Aaron a longtime bud who has been off gaming for a few years because of work hours but hes back and rocking a drunken master Monk which balances the party nicely - welcome back Womble!

Reasons not excuses!

I have not posted for a couple weeks and the above is part of the 'reason' why.

After my original Xbox 360 suffered from the RROD a few months ago I have been patiently waiting for the right combo to be released for its replacement. With the release of Gears of War 3 I got the wonderful limited edition set as pictured above. However it is not GoW3 that has caused my blogging and painting to suffer but the fantastic Space Marine by THQ and Relic.

I like a lot of other 40k players I know have thoroughly enjoyed this game. I liked pretty much everything about it. They captured the 40k experience so well, the setting, graphics, story and music. I played it through solidly on Hard and finished it a while ago. So that would be the end of it right? No I then started multiplayer and other than being able to chat away to my mates in Auckland while playing I have really enjoyed it. I don't even mind the lag which maked the slow Thunder Hammer a bit arse. I have tinkered with the customizer a lot and settled on a gold armour with 'blood raven red' trim just like my custodes while my chaos skin is alpha legion.

But I really must get back to some serious painting, Wil is settled in Ottawa and I need to get his Sisters of Battle off to him. I have many many Orcs and Goblins to repair and paint so I can actually have a fantasy army done and Space Marine itself has inspired me to have a marine army of some sort for myself... sigh... So I shall do my best to ration my spare time better, I still want to finish GoW3 but that can wait a little bit until job1 - SoB are done.

To think that mid November Assassin's Creed Revelation and Skyrim are coming out Jebus. Alison tells me I'm forbidden playing Revelation unitl she finishes it first, something about not wanting the ending spoiled for her pssh! She did come home with the official Space Marine guide for me on Friday though as after flipping through it thought I would like the concept art section - she was right. Hmm Marines, traitor guard, Grey Knights, more Eldar... what to do... hard life this gaming carry on