247: Necrons vs Space Marines and Eldar

Not only do we have a new contributor here on the blog, but he's roped me into a bit of a local league/tournament kind of thing.  You can read about it on the Astronomican forum.

I got my first game of the tournament in against none other than ColonelFazackerley (CF) and his absolutely brilliantly painted Iron Knights (Space Marines) and Eldar.  You can see the full battle report for CF on the forum here:  CF batrep.  I thought I'd repost it here, and give my take on the game.

We were playing Forge The Narrative missions, this one being modified Kill Points as a primary, Linebreaker as a secondary, The Relic as a tertiary, and Hammer and Anvil deployment

The Setup
We were both nice and aggressive, getting right up to the lines ready to go at it.

  

246: A Cork Tor Hill

Hills made from foam seem common. I think cork is a good material. When the edges are torn, it has a nice rocky texture. It's more robust than foam. Creating a landscape with visible rock strata is a good way to walk the line between looking natural and having some flat surface to put a model on.

- That's 9mm plywood. 6mm or maybe thinner would do, but I had an offcut. I bevelled the edge by variously hacking at it with a file, a surform (wood grater thingy) and a dremel.
- Toilet rolls cut to random lengths.
- 6mm cork sheet ripped up. I bought mine from amazon.co.uk. You can get it in craft shops. hacking up an old cork noticeboard would probably be a good way to go.
- (hot) glue gun and lots of it. I filled the inside of the toilet rolls around the edges to stick it good and proper.


I used caulk: mastic gun tube, used to squirt around top of skirting board, and paint over. I built this up in layers. and poked extra bits of cork in occasionally. I put the whole thing in a fan oven at 50 degrees to speed things up. This is still several evening's work. Not that long each evening, but it took a few days.

I flocked it with cork dust.
- coat with PVA
- chuck on cork
- shake off excess
- wait for it to dry
- coat with dilute PVA to bind up any loose bits.
This was repeated 3 or 4 times (with oven acceleration).

I added more random battlefield debris (ork, marine, eldar, ...). Painted and added some sickly looking grass.

Done!

245: Lighting a Rhino

Rebuild the searchlight. It needs a little more space to accommodate a standard LED.

I left one wire looking like a cable, and used the brass rod forming the pintle mount as the other connection for the circuit.

 I put the LEDs in brass tubes. This mostly stops light scattering through the plastic. I suggest that getting a pipe cutter (maybe from a plumbing supplier) is best for cutting brass pipe. The bevelled ends on the headlights are a bit trickier. I drilled out a scrap of wood so that the pipe fit in the hole. Then used a hacksaw. The wood stops the pipe collapsing as you saw it. There is still a fair amount of clean up required with needle files afterwards.

The bevel on the headlights helps to hide the LEDs from some angles of view, and helps them to project light cones.

I used the whole interior of the Rhino as a battery and switch compartment. The back door and top hatch are magnetised for access.

The paint on this model came out insufficiently metallic for Iron Knights.

Third Company Tactical Squad Cygnus can see where they are going.

The searchlight gives a high angle, which casts decent shadows.

244: Introducing a new contributor

I'd just like to introduce the newest contributor to this humble blog.

ColonelFazackerley will be bringing his considerably better painting and modelling skills to you all, as well as the gaming exploits of his Space Marines and Eldar.

We hope that between the two of us we can bring a bit more regularity to posting and up the content.