Why, you may wonder. And rightly so. The whys and wherefores are what drive human exploration.
And my reasons can be easily summarized as follows:
We're running a 40k campaign (as in, someone's running it, and I get to play games) and I wanted a new army, since the organizer favours escalation style campaigns. I've also grown heartily tired of my old GW participation, and felt a fresh breeze might rekindle old love.
I already own Space Marines, Tyranids and Orks. So those were off the table.
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| Yes, today's pictures are all of my Necrons. Enjoy. |
Which leaves Imperial Guard, two flavours of Eldar, Tau and Necrons. Tau and the slightly-less-evil Eldar are old, and while I do espouse a fun-before-victory kind of approach, I do like to occasionally win games. Neither army would help me there, and my utter aversion to auto-includes would more or less prevent me from playing either with any chance of success.
I've tried painting Dark Eldar. And failed. The models are lovely to assemble, and I could probably learn to play them reasonably well. But I cannot paint them. I simply cannot. They are, as far as I'm concerned, unpaintable. Somehow, they clash with my painting style in such a fundamental way that they are simply not an option.
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| I said enjoy! |
Which leaves Imperial Guard and Necrons, and since I have already painted an Empire Army, and detest painting Imperial tanks, the former are not much of an option. A hundred infantry and a dozen tanks? Not gonna be able to paint all that without going insane.
So Necrons it is.
I'll make it clear: this is my third attempt at Necrons. I once got a box of Warriors, and another once upon a time a single Pariah. Both times I had the notion of starting an army. Both times, I was thwarted by that the most evil of GW ideas: the transparent green rod.
They are not pretty. They are, at best a fun but dated gimmick. At worst, they're Lego. Aesthetically, I'm not a fan.
Engineering-wise, I hope whoever designed the things steps on a Lego. Seriously. You do not introduce a material that cannot be glued with either plastic glue or super glue into a model. And if, for some reason you do, you do not make that component structurally integral. The Warriors were an utter pain to assemble, and they broke very soon. The Pariah never got fully assembled. I tried. I failed. I blame the design.
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| Is this one blurry, or is it my glasses? |
So, anything with a transparent green rod is out. Nothing thus encumbered is welcome in my army.
This introduces a few limitations:
1: The army can include none of the following (barring new models): Warriors, Destroyers (both kinds), certain Lord models or Monoliths.
2: The army will contain a very limited amount of Scarabs, since the only way GW sells these is as part of the Warrior box.
3 The army will contain no Ghost Arks (as they can only be bought for Warriors).
So, what does this mean?
Well, Scarabs being few and far between removes one of the most popular choices. Warriors and Destroyers being big no-nos mean the primary platforms for massed light Gauss and mobile heavy anti-tank are out.
It also means I will need Immortals in considerable numbers, as they are the only Troops except Warriors. The fact that the new Immortal sculpts are really nice means this is much less of a chore than it might have been (as shown by the pictures, ten are done - the next ten are primed and partly assembled ready for painting).
The absence of Destroyers and Scarabs will leave me a little on the weak side against vehicles. Especially those with some sort of defense against suppression (Death Company Dreadnoughts, Grey Knights, Daemonically possessed Chaos thingies, etc.), as my primary anti-vehicle strategy will (so far, at 500 points) rely on Gauss and a single Annihilation Barge (which is AP-). I expect many heavily penalized rolls on the Vehicle Damage table, and a correspondingly large number of Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned results, but little in the way of more serious damage.
Lastly, I've chosen Trazyn the Infinite to lead the force. Why? 'Cause I love the dude's fluff is why. He's a bit sub-par for his points, and will have to be written out of my low-points lists in favour of a cheaper Overlord, but in the end, his background is enough for me to include him.
As the force stands right now (before the removal of Trazyn) it's at these 500 points:
Trazyn the Infinite
5 Gauss Immortals
Plus one Harbinger of detstruction
5 Tesla Immortals
Plus one cheaper Harbinger (not fixed which one...)
1 Annihilation Barge
And that's that.
Hopefully, the second instalment in my Fluff Series will be up during the weekend.
Ta.