6,000 NetEpic Game: Necrons vs Squats at No Man’s Land
If you follow me on Twitter then you may have seen me live tweet a game of NetEpic played at my local gaming store, No Man’s Land. It was 6,000 points of Necrons and Squats played over a city table: I was very pleased to be able to use a load of new terrain pieces including some GameCraft fortress walls and the finally finished Kibri cathedral.
Epic Necron Tomb Structure Finished
Every now and then you have one of those days when a load of stuff that seems to have been work-in-progress for months all gets finished in one day. Today has been one of those days for me!
First up is the large tomb structure that I’ve featured in the last two posts. It was initially sprayed black. I tried a number of different techniques to give it an aged stone appearance, including stippling and airbrushing, and I even got out my old airbrush to give that a try! In the end I used an old bath sponge to apply successively lighter shades of gray. Then I just needed to texture and flock the base and apply some decals from Games Workshop’s Necron Transfer Sheet.
Epic Necron Necropolis
Epic Necron Necropolis
At Cavalier last year I picked up some resin Egyptian obelisks. I necron-ified them by filling in the hieroglyphic writing on the sides, and then sanding them smooth. They got the same paint job as the Necropolis, and some decals as well:
Necron Obelisks
Necron Obelisks
Next up is an Exodus Wars Khazari Droid Controller painted up to look like a Necron Abattoir (I previewed this miniature in a post last year:
Epic Necron Abattoir
Epic Necron Abattoir
Epic Necron Abattoir
I met Tom Webb of Steel Crown at Salute earlier this month and he’s a very nice chap. Go buy his stuff!
Lastly there’s the board I used to take these photos with. This is one of six Ziterdes modular gaming table modules that I bought a few years ago and use for Epic games. They were originally painted using car body sprays, but I’ve never been very keen on the shiny finish that they picked up, so I made up a texture paint using brown craft paint, aquatic sand and PVA glue (similar to the “concoction” used by Beasts Of War), which gives a nice flat muddy finish, and is flexible as well. I then applied some of the same flock I use on my Epic necron model’s bases.
Ziterdes Modular Gaming Table
Epic Necron Tomb Structure – Update
Thought I’d have a go at doing a video:
Download Video from YouTube | YouTube to MP3: Vixy
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
Moving on from summoning cores, I’m working on a large-scale Epic Necron structure, using a cheap vacuum formed “redoubt” from Amera Plastic Mouldings:
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
The original piece is a 28mm scale defensive wall, so I cut out a square of plasticard and placed it on top of some balsa wood supports that I glued to the inside of the walls.
The roof is a bit featureless, so a while back I started making a huge great obelisk to sit on top, but I think it might be a little over-the-top:
Large-scale Epic Necron Structure
What do you think?
Epic Necron Summoning Cores
In my last post I wrote about how I created some epic-scale Summoning Cores for my epic Necron army. Here are the finished cores:
Epic Necron Summoning Cores
I wrote some rules (for the NetEpic Necron codex here), which you can download from this link.
Epic Necron Terrain Pieces
Summoning Core
This is the method I came up with (it took a couple of attempts). First, the ingredients:
- 3mm plasticard
- 1mm or 0.5mm plasticard
- Liquid poly cement
- 5mm drill
- Razor saw
- Clothes pegs
The first thing to do is cut out two 15mm x 24mm rectangles from the 3mm plasticard. I decided to score on the design while they were still attached to the main sheet. You’ll almost certainly want to use a razor saw to do this.
3mm Plasticard pieces
Then cut a 12mm x 22mm piece of 1mm or 0.5mm plasticard. This is a spacer that goes between the other two pieces, making a sort of sandwich. It’s smaller than the other two pieces so that a gap shows. Glue them all together with liquid poly and use some clothes pegs to clamp them together.
Plasticard Sandwich
Once the glue has set, use a 5mm drill to drill a hole through the middle. The hole should be 7.5mm from the top, and on the centre line. I drilled a pilot hole with a pin vise to make the drilling a bit easier.
Once you’ve drilled the hole, take your razor saw and cut grooves over where you’ve previous scored. If your razor saw is a thin one like mine, you may need to make two parallel cuts and carve out between them. A round file can be used to chamfer the edges of the grooves.
Mount on a 24mm base and you’re done! Here’s the finished piece.
Summoning Core
Here’s another terrain piece I made. You can get quite nice effects with just a few bits of plastic.
Summoning Core and Something Else
Update: after I made the first protoype I was able to make a couple more. Definitely easier second time around!
Summoning Cores
More Epic Necrons
Just finished: a group of Epic Necron Obelisks:
Necron Obelisks
Necron Obelisks
You can see the rest of my Epic Necron army here
2010, a year in gaming
It’s a new year and so there’s the inevitable “2010 in review” posts on all blogs and news sites. I hate the bloody things, but that won’t stop me from doing one of my own!
2010 was a great year for me (in Real Life as well as in my Gaming Life): I feel that my painting and modelling skills have improved a great deal: in basing, in my use of washes, and in the techniques and tools I’ve learned to use. I have the great gaming blogosphere to thank for that: many of my favourite blogs are linked to in the links on the right.
I played a lot of Space Hulk in 2010: it’s great for time-starved veterans like me and my friends. You can have a great gaming experience in a couple of hours, with none of the preparatory work required for a game like Epic.
I also managed to get my 15mm SF soldiers into battle, albeit only once, using a gaming system of my own devising. It’s the first time I’ve ever written and used a set of gaming rules, and was a great experience. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some more games in during 2011, and refine the rules, perhaps even publish them!
The thing I’m most pleased with this year has been the creation of an Epic Necron army. This is mainly thanks to the brilliant chaps on the Tactical Command forums: creative geniuses who have, purely for fun, created very impressive proxies for many of the Necron units. It’s also due to the excellent miniatures produced by Steel Crown Productions for their Exodus Wars game: their Edenite miniatures are great quality and value, and are very good proxies.
The army isn’t finished: I have some Wraiths to assemble and paint, some Obelisks that have been troublesome (they’re resin and I didn’t wash them before undercoating, so the paint’s flaking off, grrh), and I need some more Monoliths, as I found out when I took the army out for a test game (the only game of Epic I managed this year). Playing against Squats, I was narrowly defeated because of the lack of fast close combat troops (ie Wraiths) and the need to keep the Monoliths in unit coherency. Having another group of them that is free to move around will give me more flexibility. I’ve also got another super-heavy monstrosity that still needs painting.
I’ve been meaning to take some photos of the complete army, and I finally managed to do it today. Here they are. I hope they inspire you!
Epic Necron Tomb Stalker
Time for a confession: I’ve been working on an Epic Necron army! Just because there are no official models doesn’t mean it can’t be done: there are a number of miniatures from other manufacturers that work excellently as proxies.
Necrons don’t use Titans per se, the closest thing to a Titan on the Necron Epic army list (a fan effort) is the Tomb Stalker, which is described as an oversized Tomb Spider. This makes it very easy to create one: all you do is take a 40k scale Tomb Spider and mess around with it a bit:
One of the things I’ve learned from painting this miniature is how to produce “seamless” decals: I’ve had some very bad experiences with decals in the past which has put me off using them. I decided to bite the bullet this time and am very pleased with the technique I came up with (which is probably worth a post of its own).
I have a few more miniatures to show you from my epic Necron army: keep ‘em peeled!
Work-In-Progress: Epic Scale Super-Heavy Monstrosity
Here’s a current work-in-progress: an Epic scale super-heavy unit for my epic Necron army (photos will be forthcoming shortly). It’s based on an Exodus Wars Khazari Droid Controller and some resin terrain pieces produced by a certain aquatic mammal man:
