Suddenly, Little Plastic Men (40k)

[Vanas]

So, there I was, minding my own business and listening to a friend going on about how awesome his 'nids are, when he mentioned that he needed someone to play against. Having recently given up smoking, drinking, heroin, eating and having started working 160 hours a week, I decided I should do something with all that money.

So, I decided to pick up a collection of Necrons, under the logic that painting silver can't be all that hard and with any luck half my guys will get up again after my opponent's lolnids tear through them like a chainsaw through a tin can.

First question, though; what's the best camera settings to use? I've been fiddling around, but nothing seems to work better than the thumbnail below.



My first little group. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Roger as well as one marine from the Marines Expendable there because I got bored of painting silver. His squadmates will be used to decorate the Flayed Ones later. I'd stress that these are the first models I've ever made and painted so any advice painting-wise will be appreciated.

If I can get a better picture, I've tried to go into some detail on the Marine and Roger and would like to actually show it in photos.

[White Haven]

So I see four Necrons, one Space Marine, and Lord Recluse. That's an...interesting...combo.

[Samuel]

What? Marines fall to Chaos on occasion- why not a few switch to the service of the Necrons? On the plus side you get really good weaponry, technology and some fun toys to use against the Great Enemy. Plus your frequent flayer miles start to rack up.

[Vanas]

Nah, the Marine's there because I got bored of painting Necrons. His squadmates are going to be distributed amongst the Flayed Ones as trophies, but I like the way he turned out.

The Necrons are the starters of the army, I haven't painted any more of them yet, so they weren't worthy of being on screen. That and there's only so much variety in Necrons.

As for Lord Recluse, if Lord Recluse wishes to be in a Picture, so shall it be. Than and the Necron Lord is still in pieces.

[Keevan_Colton]

Does your camera have a macro setting?

[Vanas]

I think it does. Little flower icon, certainly. The manual's not to hand and I'm certainly not a photographer.

I was using that setting, perhaps I wasn't using it right.

[Vympel]

Bah. LEGOs are way cooler little plastic men that those things. Star Wars LEGOs, to be exact.

[Darksider]

Does anyone know if it's possible to buy pre-painted 40K miniatures anywhere? I've often considered getting into the tabletop game once I win the lottery or find a job that pays well enough, but the painting aspect of it turns me away. See, I suck at anything art related, and I suck hard. I can color inside the lines and that's about it. If there were a place I could get pre-assembled, pre-painted figures, I might start up an army of my own.

[GuppyShark]

Second hand is your best bet there, there's a sizeable secondary market for miniatures, since people will often decide they want to drop an army and collect another etc.

[Tanasinn]

What? Marines fall to Chaos on occasion- why not a few switch to the service of the Necrons?

Maybe because the Necrons' only known goal is to kill everyone.

[Raxmei]

Does anyone know if it's possible to buy pre-painted 40K miniatures anywhere? I've often considered getting into the tabletop game once I win the lottery or find a job that pays well enough, but the painting aspect of it turns me away. See, I suck at anything art related, and I suck hard. I can color inside the lines and that's about it. If there were a place I could get pre-assembled, pre-painted figures, I might start up an army of my own.

eBay. If you pick a very generic army such as necrons or one of the famous space marine chapters you'd even have a decent chance at getting the same color scheme from multiple sellers. You might even get it cheaper than list price. I consider that to be missing out on half the hobby, but if you really are only interested in playing a mediocre wargame go ahead.

[Teleros]

Maybe because the Necrons' only known goal is to kill everyone.

Except for the human pariahs, but they don't tend to become space marines in the first place .

Modelling tips
1. Pariahs are evil. You need to make sure that you can fit the transluscent green stick into their warscythes after painting their weapons, which means actually sticking the warscythe blade onto the rest of the model can be... fun. I've also found them to be some of the more fragile pieces as well, so take good care lest you end up having to scrape off the old superglue and repair them a lot.
2. Wraiths can also be a pain to make: not having anything like a vice I've tended to stack everything from paint pots to other models so as to let their upper bodies rest on something whilst the glue between the upper body & tail sets. Being such tall models you should be careful they don't overbalance (also check that the peg designed to go into the model's base isn't too long). If they do tend to overbalance, weigh down the base with something heavy (modelling putty terrain for example).
3. If you decide to go for a Monolith then be sure to assemble the components and paint them BEFORE sticking the whole thing together. Those little ball turrets and the moving steps & portal cover on the front will tend to get stuck in place if you build it completely and then paint it. This also applies to some of the metal models as well, as you may find you need to (for example) paint your squad of Immortals & glue their gun muzzles on after putting the green barrels in.
4. For Flayed Ones, consider getting a small pot of varnish & painting the fleshy / bloody parts with it.
5. The most recent Ciaphas Cain book had necron warriors covering the green barrels of their weapons with some sort of metallic veil to hide the glow. If you're looking to do a more interesting squad or two (massed ranks of faceless warriors can get a bit dull after a while after all) then this might be something to consider.
6. I can't remember having any real problems when putting together Destroyers (and their variants) or Immortals. Tomb Spyders I can't really remember, so they probably weren't too bad .

Painting tips
1. Get the spray gun & lots of boltgun metal (or whatever colour you're using). Just be sure to use it in a well-ventilated area & on something you don't mind getting covered in paint (lots of old newspapers for example). Trying to wash the stuff off your patio is, I can say from experience, not something you want to have to deal with. Anyway, once that's done the highlights should be done fairly quickly & easily, then you can just spray on a varnish if you want, as it can help protect the paint from repeated contact.
2. If you get a Monolith & want it to look like the green-black ones seen in the Necron codex then one trick I found that worked well was to spray the model black and then to use a lot of green ink on top.

Tactics
Not having played much with my Necron army (I've tended to use my space marines actually), your best bet is to have a look online for tactics and how best to tailor your force to a specific tyranid enemy. A couple of general pointers though:
1. Beware the Phase Out rule. Lots of units with the "Necron" special rule are a must.
2. From what I've seen, most people tend to prefer bringing additional Necrons to a C'Tan. It really depends on the size of the battle: the larger it is the more likely you can afford to sink a few hundred points into a single C'Tan. Note: this doesn't apply to Monoliths as much, as they are incredibly tough, deep strike, can teleport units and have lots of big guns on them, whereas C'Tan tend to work best in close combat but move slowly and can't deep strike.
3. The Tomb Spyder's scarab-creation ability does not have a limit per turn (unless you roll a 1). I believe a Chapter Approved article stated this was an illegal exploit or somesuch, but be sure to mention it just to see the look on his face when you tell him you can potentially outnumber his army .
4. As you are facing tyranids, feel free to use a Monolith to teleport warriors out of melee, try failed "We'll Be Back" (WBB) rolls and then use rapid fire gauss flayers on the squad just fighting them.
5. Similarly, Monoliths often tend to act as gigantic fire magnets... leaving your massed ranks of necrons relatively untouched... which in turn means Phase Out is less of a threat.

[Tolya]

As a side note on photography:

First of all, forget about the macro setting, I've never seen an amateur camera with a macro setting that actually does anything good. It would be best really to lose all automatic settings, but if you set it to auto shutter speed and manual aperture it should work just fine. If you can't, then you will have to deal with the automatics, which sometimes work good and sometimes are annoying. Depends on your equipment really.

First of all, set your camera to manual focus. Secondly, there is a minimal range at which your camera's lenses can keep focus - if the subject of the photo is blurry (like in your photos), then stand a bit further and just zoom in.

Thirdly, if yoy have a tripod, use it, that way you won't have to worry about your shaking hands. Even the small plastic ones will do. (shouldn't be a problem really for a photo with good exposure, but fyi at shutter speed below 1/15 of a second even your heartbeat can fuck up your focus in some cases).

Also, experiment with your aperture settings (aperture is how big the "hole" that allows the light to reach the sensor is when you press the trigger). Set it to a "big hole" (the aperture value would be around 2,8 - 4,5 depending on your camera) so you can have a good depth of field effect (blurry background and sharp subject). Alternatively, set it to high (7 should do) to lose the depth of field again and have a sharp fore and background. But remember that with higher aperture setting the shutter will need more time, so you need a steady hand.

Of course, depending on what type of camera you have, you may not have the possibility to manually adjust any of what Im writing above. In that case, to make a sharp picture, stand a bit further than original, aim the camera's center at one of your figures and hope the automatics of your camera are smart enough. Oh and the more light you have pointing at the subject of your photo, the better it will be.

If something is unclear, then let me know. Im not a professional photographer, but I really like do taking pictures in low light conditions, which forced me to get the basic know-how on photography.

[Vanas]

Thanks for the camera advice, I think I'll take a look over the weekend. I've just dug out the manual for my little digicam so I'll see if I can't get any better pictures up at some point.

Now for the main event:

1. Pariahs are evil. You need to make sure that you can fit the transluscent green stick into their warscythes after painting their weapons, which means actually sticking the warscythe blade onto the rest of the model can be... fun. I've also found them to be some of the more fragile pieces as well, so take good care lest you end up having to scrape off the old superglue and repair them a lot.

At the moment, I'm not sure on Pariahs. I may get some as reserves. For the moment I'm leaning more towards Flayed Ones due to the fact they can get back up again and their infiltrate/deepstrike lark. Oh, and if I have a Veil o' Darkness on the Lord, I can TP the Flayed ones, but not Pariahs.

2. Wraiths can also be a pain to make: not having anything like a vice I've tended to stack everything from paint pots to other models so as to let their upper bodies rest on something whilst the glue between the upper body & tail sets. Being such tall models you should be careful they don't overbalance (also check that the peg designed to go into the model's base isn't too long). If they do tend to overbalance, weigh down the base with something heavy (modelling putty terrain for example).

Mercifully, I've got a few things to hang them on, they shouldn't be too bad for the moment.

3. If you decide to go for a Monolith then be sure to assemble the components and paint them BEFORE sticking the whole thing together. Those little ball turrets and the moving steps & portal cover on the front will tend to get stuck in place if you build it completely and then paint it. This also applies to some of the metal models as well, as you may find you need to (for example) paint your squad of Immortals & glue their gun muzzles on after putting the green barrels in.

Woah, woah woah. There are Necron armies without Monoliths? As for the painting, I've pretty much started painting most of my plastic models before assembling them anyway. They may be more due to the fact I'm quite enjoying the painting though.

5. The most recent Ciaphas Cain book had necron warriors covering the green barrels of their weapons with some sort of metallic veil to hide the glow. If you're looking to do a more interesting squad or two (massed ranks of faceless warriors can get a bit dull after a while after all) then this might be something to consider.

I was thinking perhaps some cotton scraps with the ever popular boltgun metal applied liberally.

6. I can't remember having any real problems when putting together Destroyers (and their variants) or Immortals. Tomb Spyders I can't really remember, so they probably weren't too bad .

I hope so. Started Destroyer #1 tonight, Spyders and immortals are the weekend's job.

1. Get the spray gun & lots of boltgun metal (or whatever colour you're using). Just be sure to use it in a well-ventilated area & on something you don't mind getting covered in paint (lots of old newspapers for example). Trying to wash the stuff off your patio is, I can say from experience, not something you want to have to deal with. Anyway, once that's done the highlights should be done fairly quickly & easily, then you can just spray on a varnish if you want, as it can help protect the paint from repeated contact.

Spray gun's the next purchase. This crap is taking far too long at the moment. was alright for initial prototyping, but now I need industrial boltgunning. The ever useful cardboard box may be deployed to keep the spray from going everywhere.

2. If you get a Monolith & want it to look like the green-black ones seen in the Necron codex then one trick I found that worked well was to spray the model black and then to use a lot of green ink on top.

See previous Monolith comment. Yeah, I was planning to go mostly black and then involve a lot of masking tape or similar to get the lines.

Not having played much with my Necron army (I've tended to use my space marines actually), your best bet is to have a look online for tactics and how best to tailor your force to a specific tyranid enemy. A couple of general pointers though:
1. Beware the Phase Out rule. Lots of units with the "Necron" special rule are a must.

Oooh, yeah. Stocking up on Warriors after I've got through this batch.

2. From what I've seen, most people tend to prefer bringing additional Necrons to a C'Tan. It really depends on the size of the battle: the larger it is the more likely you can afford to sink a few hundred points into a single C'Tan. Note: this doesn't apply to Monoliths as much, as they are incredibly tough, deep strike, can teleport units and have lots of big guns on them, whereas C'Tan tend to work best in close combat but move slowly and can't deep strike.

My preference from what I've read is to stick with the normal guys. If I were to use a C'tan, I think I'd consider the Deceiver over the Nightbringer both for a lower cost and added dickery. (Though slightly more painting than a spray of black.)

3. The Tomb Spyder's scarab-creation ability does not have a limit per turn (unless you roll a 1). I believe a Chapter Approved article stated this was an illegal exploit or somesuch, but be sure to mention it just to see the look on his face when you tell him you can potentially outnumber his army

Kekeke. Well, the Codex won't be patched for a while. Any complainers will be fed to the Outsider.

4. As you are facing tyranids, feel free to use a Monolith to teleport warriors out of melee, try failed "We'll Be Back" (WBB) rolls and then use rapid fire gauss flayers on the squad just fighting them.

That was the plan. With the added idea of throwing scarabs at the bugs to tie them back up.

5. Similarly, Monoliths often tend to act as gigantic fire magnets... leaving your massed ranks of necrons relatively untouched... which in turn means Phase Out is less of a threat.

I'm quite tempted to get 2 at some point in the future. Helluva lot of points, but added versatility. Re-deploy 2 squads per turn and generally rape anything stupid enough to get too close. And who wouldn't shoot the Monoliths in that case?

Finally,

See, I suck at anything art related, and I suck hard. I can color inside the lines and that's about it. If there were a place I could get pre-assembled, pre-painted figures, I might start up an army of my own.

Now, see that's the main issue that I had. But I'm finding it a pretty good time sink. Sure my work's not exactly earth-shakingly awesome, but I'm happy enough and have invested enough time in it to consider showing you guys and getting some advice about it.
First hint, get an easy-to-paint army. Still, I spent about 3 hours on one space marine and one warrior. I think it was worth it and still spot bits I want to re-paint.

[Raxmei]

Tyranids have few things capable of putting meaningful damage on a Monolith. The models that can destroy it are assaulting Carnifex, warp blast Zooanthrope, and warp blast Hive Tyrant. Shooty Carnifex with venom cannon or barbed stranglers can hurt the monolith but would take forever to destroy it, and in the meantime can not shut down the power matrix.

[open_sketchbook]

There are actually options for playing Necrons without Monoliths. My redcoats got absolutely taken to pieces the other day by a force comprised primarily of destroyers and heavy destroyers. The ability to move that fast and hit that hard is somewhat unique.

[Vanas]

After a detailed analysis, I don't think my camera is going to let me manually focus, so I'll go for the 'hope it works' method.

I was looking at Destroyers and Heavies as a sort of roving tank/carnifex hunter unit, so I'm certainly going to have some of those around with the added bonus they count as necrons and thus get up again.

The guy encouraging me to take up the game has a trio of meléefexes that look rather unpleasant. Hence the heavies mentioned above.

[Tolya]

I don't believe that your camera doesn't have manual focus. What make and model is it?

[Ryan Thunder]

Tyranids have few things capable of putting meaningful damage on a Monolith. The models that can destroy it are assaulting Carnifex, warp blast Zooanthrope, and warp blast Hive Tyrant. Shooty Carnifex with venom cannon or barbed stranglers can hurt the monolith but would take forever to destroy it, and in the meantime can not shut down the power matrix.

Carnifex shouldn't be too effective as the Monolith is a skimmer, so you'll only be able to hit it on a roll of a 6 to hit. Then it ignores the extra dice for armour penetration because they ran out of ways to make it tougher without turning it into a superheavy vehicle. Even if you give it, say, a Venom Cannon or some such, your chances of doing significant damage are low. Zero, in fact, under the new rules, since you don't have anything that can get a penetrating hit on it outside of melee combat.

On the other hand, even though it handily outclasses the likes of, say, a Land Raider for points efficiency, the Monolith is still a massive points sink for any Necron force. Makes your forces alot easier to Phase Out.

Warriors are your best bet, since there isn't really much they can't kill and there isn't much that can kill them with any sort of efficiency. I recall playing a game against a Necron player once with my Tau, knocking out nearly an entire squad of 18 or so, only to have them all get back up at the end of the turn. I gave up at that point because I knew he'd just grind my troops into smoking bits of meat when his turn came around.

[Raxmei]

Carnifex shouldn't be too effective as the Monolith is a skimmer, so you'll only be able to hit it on a roll of a 6 to hit. Then it ignores the extra dice for armour penetration because they ran out of ways to make it tougher without turning it into a superheavy vehicle. Even if you give it, say, a Venom Cannon or some such, your chances of doing significant damage are low. Zero, in fact, under the new rules, since you don't have anything that can get a penetrating hit on it outside of melee combat.

The skimmer thing is 4th ed. In 5th ed being a skimmer doesn't matter in assault. A monolith can only move 6 inches, so it gets hit on 4+. What a venom cannon can do is stun or immobilise the Monolith, which stops it running away and lets you hit automatically in assault.

Warriors are your best bet, since there isn't really much they can't kill and there isn't much that can kill them with any sort of efficiency. I recall playing a game against a Necron player once with my Tau, knocking out nearly an entire squad of 18 or so, only to have them all get back up at the end of the turn. I gave up at that point because I knew he'd just grind my troops into smoking bits of meat when his turn came around.

The weakness of warriors is assault, particularly when facing Tyranids. Anything that can beat tactical marines in assault will beat Necron warriors even worse. Then they're likely to fail the morale test because of the penalty equal to the amount they lost combat by, then get run down in the sweeping advance because they're only I2.

[Vanas]

Knew I'd forgotten something. My camera's an olympus Stylus Verve micro-mini digital. Or so the manual says. It certainly doesn't mention manual focussing.

The guy getting me into the game is very melee heavy, which worries me a little. Still, as long as I can get shooting in and employ the Monolith(s) and Destroyers well, I hope to be able to grind most of his forces into a reddish vapour.

[Ryan Thunder]

Carnifex shouldn't be too effective as the Monolith is a skimmer, so you'll only be able to hit it on a roll of a 6 to hit. Then it ignores the extra dice for armour penetration because they ran out of ways to make it tougher without turning it into a superheavy vehicle. Even if you give it, say, a Venom Cannon or some such, your chances of doing significant damage are low. Zero, in fact, under the new rules, since you don't have anything that can get a penetrating hit on it outside of melee combat.

The skimmer thing is 4th ed. In 5th ed being a skimmer doesn't matter in assault. A monolith can only move 6 inches, so it gets hit on 4+. What a venom cannon can do is stun or immobilise the Monolith, which stops it running away and lets you hit automatically in assault.

Warriors are your best bet, since there isn't really much they can't kill and there isn't much that can kill them with any sort of efficiency. I recall playing a game against a Necron player once with my Tau, knocking out nearly an entire squad of 18 or so, only to have them all get back up at the end of the turn. I gave up at that point because I knew he'd just grind my troops into smoking bits of meat when his turn came around.

The weakness of warriors is assault, particularly when facing Tyranids. Anything that can beat tactical marines in assault will beat Necron warriors even worse. Then they're likely to fail the morale test because of the penalty equal to the amount they lost combat by, then get run down in the sweeping advance because they're only I2.

Oh, well, that's all news to me. I didn't realize just how drastically they changed the combat system. It would've worked in 4th, I swear!

[R.O.A]

Does anyone know if it's possible to buy pre-painted 40K miniatures anywhere? I've often considered getting into the tabletop game once I win the lottery or find a job that pays well enough, but the painting aspect of it turns me away. See, I suck at anything art related, and I suck hard. I can color inside the lines and that's about it. If there were a place I could get pre-assembled, pre-painted figures, I might start up an army of my own.

eBay. If you pick a very generic army such as necrons or one of the famous space marine chapters you'd even have a decent chance at getting the same color scheme from multiple sellers. You might even get it cheaper than list price. I consider that to be missing out on half the hobby, but if you really are only interested in playing a mediocre wargame go ahead.

Ive heard some people on the board that think 40K is mediocre, but why? I play 40k and am mildly into Battlefield Evolution, if 40k is mediocre then what would you recommend as an alternative?

[Setesh]

The weakness of warriors is assault, particularly when facing Tyranids. Anything that can beat tactical marines in assault will beat Necron warriors even worse. Then they're likely to fail the morale test because of the penalty equal to the amount they lost combat by, then get run down in the sweeping advance because they're only I2.

That can be overcome pretty easily by fielding the Necron Lord with the Resurrection Orb. It negates the 'no armor save' effect of a lot of close combat weapons and Instant death attacks, returning them to a 50/50 chance they get back up even if killed.

Granted against tyranids I would field extra Flayers and Destroyers, at least 2 heavy destroyers along with the Necron Lord with Res Orb and Veil of Darkness. Tomb Spiders with Scarabs can be useful but have mixed results, if your going to bother keep them with the monolith.

Normal tactic here use the Veil to move the Lord and either Flayers, Immortals, or a Destroyer/Heavy Destroyer close the big synapse creatures and attempt decap strikes.

My way: Hold the Flayers in reserve then deep strike Flayers with Disruption Fields near the synapse creatures except for the Hive Tyrant/Zoanthropes, Field the Lord as above with a Pariah unit, Veil them next to these Psyker units and take them apart. The Monolith's particle whip is a good counter to assault carnifex but is more useful at breaking the swarms of lesser units.

[Raxmei]

That can be overcome pretty easily by fielding the Necron Lord with the Resurrection Orb. It negates the 'no armor save' effect of a lot of close combat weapons and Instant death attacks, returning them to a 50/50 chance they get back up even if killed.

The problem I mentioned is independent of WBB. Casualties that are eligible for self repair still count against you for combat resolution, so a res orb will not stop you from breaking and getting run down. Then unless you have another line of warriors within 6" of that one (or a Tomb Spyder with looser restrictions, but that's pretty uncommon) they all stay dead.

My way: Hold the Flayers in reserve then deep strike Flayers with Disruption Fields near the synapse creatures except for the Hive Tyrant/Zoanthropes, Field the Lord as above with a Pariah unit, Veil them next to these Psyker units and take them apart. The Monolith's particle whip is a good counter to assault carnifex but is more useful at breaking the swarms of lesser units.

Skip the disruption fields. There isn't a single model in the Tyranid army they apply against. Pariahs can't veil because they aren't Necrons. You could do basically the same thing with Immortals and still get results. You can't initiate an assault the turn you deep strike, which makes it harder to get good results out of deep striking Flayed Ones.

A Veil Lord is good, especially with Immortals. Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers are good. You really need as much mobile firepower as you can get.