Category: art

Next time I’ll do it myself!

Five lions are always better than one

I was going to write about some of the books I found at my parent’s house today but I have all sorts of books and I’m getting more and more all the time. So a blogpost about books didn’t seem to be that interesting. Then I was going to blog about the state of education in California and how the Legislature intends to deal with the problems in the upcoming year but, that takes a lot of research I haven’t quote done yet (I might do it someday.) So, I was kinda at a loss as to what to make today’s post about… I could do another picture diary of Ninja Turtles or video game manuals or some other random thing I have in my closet but I wasn’t feeling that either.

So what is a blogger with writer’s block to do? Oh it’s February and my Let’s Play of King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne starts!  I can write about that… Except I haven’t started it yet. Hrmm. Hrmm. I got my W-2s and I can do my taxes now and get a fat tax return! No, that is boring… I know!  I’ll talk about how I was ripped off last night by Dimple (They bought out part of Tower Records.)

Dimple is a one-stop music/movie/video game store that also sells vinyl and objects usually found in a Hot Topic. I’ve never shopped at the store all I knew is that they bought used Movies, CDs, and Video games. I recently needed to make some money and after putting numerous items on eBay was slightly burned out making auctions and wanted something simple. So I forego the internet and head over to Dimple with the entire American Voltron cartoon collection, the kind that came in these nice fancy tins. Now prices for these thing seem to be all over the place on-line. Amazon has volume four for just over five dollars, volume one for sixteen, and volume two for over thirty… Ebay’s prices are just as erratic with brand new copies costing $9.99 and used ones in good condition for over thirty. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding and some of these are in the tins and others are not. I don’t know. I do know though that all Dimple gave me was $16.  Yup, if I had wanted to buy a CD (and who does that anymore) I could have received $20 in store credit. It doesn’t matter how cheap these things are now I would have made more money if I hadn’t saved myself the minor trouble and sold the things myself.

Dimple isn’t the only store that does this. Gamestop is notorious for its used game policy. Gamestop will give you less than half of what a game is worth in store credit, even less for cash and then put it back on the shelves for just under the price of a brand new copy. The margins they have on used games are criminal. This is why I always sell my games on-line.  Even if I don’t get much I’m guaranteed to get more than I would from Gamestop and the person buying from me is likely to get the game cheaper as well!

Laziness is expensive I guess.  Here are some more cool pictures of Voltron:

JPRart
lastscionz
Mborkowski

Old Stuff: Necron Heavy Support

So here you can see the the Heavy Support models from my Necron army.  I don’t really use the Monolith that much (as it is an immediate target and the Monolith is no good at taking on Mech lists), got to love that model though, big and intimidating.  Actually Necrons aren’t that great in 5th edition, their troop choice is limited in usefulness, as are the Flayed Ones, and Pariahs (absolutely useless).  So, until the codex gets updated, showing up with this army puts you at an immediate disadvantage.  That being said, they are still numerous people who don’t quite understand how 5th edition changed the game (I’m still learning new things) so if you play well and exploit your opponents ignorance/weakness you can still pull off some great wins.  Anyway the army list will be posted at a latter time as it is in major flux as I update it to deal with 5th edition (total re-write).  Lets get to the models!

Necron Monolith - Laser Bait
Necron Monolith - Laser Bait

Heavy Support fist and we start with the Monolith.  This is a very large model!  About the heights of a Land Raider if you put it on its end.  I used the same paint scheme as was on my warriors: bolt gun metal, with scab red.  The model was base coated black and then the base of the model was given a number of layers of tin bitz to make it look worn as if, partially buried, before dry brushing over with bolt gun, and then a sparse brushing of mithril silver.  Considering it is one of the first models I assembled and painted I think it turned out pretty well.

Heavy Destroyers - Not Great but all You've Got
Heavy Destroyers - Not Great but all You've Got

Heavy Destroyers are the closest the Necron player has to a melta-gun which is absolutely necessary in 5th addition as tanks and transport vehicles come into their own in this iteration of the game.  While very powerful with a strength  9 AP 2 weapon in a full squad that is just 3 shots.  Again the same palette as used through-out the army with the white on the head to draw attention to the face and the blue on the chest for a little variety.

Tomb Spyders - The 'y' makes them Alien
Tomb Spyders - The 'y' makes them Alien

I have a third one of these that isn’t yet painted.  I was getting bored with the palette so I put in another tone of red on the legs.  The one on the right has a particle projector, which is useless as the BS of  2 and can not hit the broadside of a barn.  I haven’t been using them but are including them now as they help keep my warriors coming back.

Necron: Infantry

Necron: Command

Necron: Fleet

Old Stuff: Necron Command

Pictures and thoughts on Necron HQ units

With the bill load at work hitting maximum this week and next I don’t have the time I’d like to write up a few of the things that are on the back burner…  I don’t even have time to get out of the office and record the goings on around the Capitol.  I’ll be going in this weekend in order to have everything I have to turn in done and ready for session Monday morning.

Since I’m not able to create content right now, please enjoy some additional older content.  My Necron HQ units…  I have two Necron Lords one with a Staff of Light and another with A War Scythe.  I also have both of the special characters for the Necron Army:  The Deceiver and the NightBringer.  I never use these two because my opponent either complain or just sink everything into killing them which makes for a boring game…  I’ve found that the most useful HQ unit in a Necron army (with a standard point value of 1500) is a Lord with Resurrection Orb and Veil of Darkness.  This set-up allows you to zap a squad around the table taking pot shots at units, the orb lets them stick around longer than they usually would.  if you’re going to use the Veil to get close combat units to the enemy closer, it might be worth it to pay the extra 10 points and get a Warscythe, though the staff of light is just as good (with one extra attack) if you’re just fighting troops.  Besides I’ve never been able to make Necron close combat units pay off…

Oh, look at that... the green bit is coming out...
Oh, look at that... the green bit is coming out...

If your opponent does let you use either of the C’tan units they can be a lot of fun.  The Nightbringer can chew through entire units, I’ve used him to take out an entire Tau army actually!  The Deceiver is a more subtle unit and using him successfully depends on how well you can exploit his special abilities…  I’ve head people talk about doing it but never seen him used in such a manner successfully… I’d have to dig up the rulebook to be more clear on this… and it’s in the other room… If you’ve had great success running either of them, I’d love to hear how you go about doing it.  The next Necron post will have my army list with it, so you can get an idea of how I play them.

Anyway enjoy the pictures!  New content coming next week…  The first post in this series is here.

Old Stuff: Necron Warriors

The nice thing about Necrons is that a very simple paint job can look really good on these guys. I painted my entire army in a couple of days because it took so little to make them look good. These were base coated in chaos black, drybrushed with boltgun metal and then various parts were painted over with scab red.

Necron Warrior

Warrior HordeNecron’s are technically my second army.  I was still building up an Ultramarine force when I bought the old army box that Games Workshop released when the Necron’s were given a codex in 2002.

The nice thing about Necrons is that a very simple paint job can look really good on these guys.  I painted my entire army in a couple Necron Warrior of days because it took so little to make them look good.  These were base coated in chaos black, drybrushed with boltgun metal and then various parts were painted over with scab red.

These would be tournament worthy If I based them.  I left them black because I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I feel, at this point, that trying to base the figures would require me to clean-up the actual models.  Also, there isn’t any kind of base I want to put on there that wouldn’t require extensive painting and/or modelling.  I don’t want flock grass or even sand/gravel.

Warrior Clos-upI apologize for the photo quality… If you have some tips on taking detailed pictures of tiny things with a simple digital camera, I’d love to hear from you!  I already know I need a stand, but what about diffusers and reflectors?

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