Thursday, 20 October 2016
Mechanicum Cerastus Knight-Atrapos Showcase
This model is pretty done. I'm open to tips and pointers, but it looks great to me.
Mechanicum Cerastus Knight-Atrapos WIP
At the Warhammer European Open Day in Amsterdam I picked up a Knight-Atropos as an implus purchase. I really like the model's look for a Mechanicum LOW. I also count it as a plus that it doesn't toss around multiple pie-plates.
Be that as it may, I have a tendency to let big Forgeworld models sit for a while after reaching a milestone. That isn't necessarily bad, since I find myself wanting to redo models before I finished their army, since my skill improved and I don't really want to see the previous result anymore.
Friday after work I saw a YouTube video by Moggy displaying a Knight-Atrapos. I loved the paint job. I had also picked up the new Horus Heresy themed Forgeworld Master Class book, which has a red candy-paint Knight on the cover. This pushed me to get started on the model, so I washed, trimmed and sanded the parts. Then I assembled the torso with epoxy glue. I hesitated when looking at the legs. Four toes, two parts for the foot, then the lower leg, upper leg and hip joint. I did a quick and dirty pile of cork and hot-glue with some plastic pipe and I beam sticking out before slapping the first foot down. That got me going to where I left the model with the legs glued up to the hips overnight. For that, I wedged them in and used a metal strip to hold it up by the magnet I had put in the hip for the torso.
The next morning saw me happy that the glueup had gone as intended! I reinforced the hip to leg joints with 2mm brass rod and did the same to firmly anchor the lower leg through the feet in the base. Then I merrily built on until I arrived at the model fully built - with the armour plates only placed, but not glued in position.
As soon as I got there, I primed the model and all the armour plates black with Vallejo Airbrush Primer. I had to get something else done, but continued in the evening with Vallejo Gumetal all over the metal parts and a highlight with Steel, following Moggy's scheme.
Next, I followed the Forgeworld book and preshaded the armor panels with blue and a little bit of green.
Today, Forgeworld offers more hobby materials. Back with the previous Masterclass books, Tamiya Clear Red is still used instead of the now available FW product. So - did a test piece for that. Based on that I just use the thick Tamiya paint as is - without thinning it - and applied it pretty much in a single coat, maybe a coat and a half. I have a habbit of using higher pressure than you find recommended, in this case 60psi through a 0.4mm needle.
After that, I went after the trim and painted that with steel, which then got knocked down with Drakenhof Nightshade, which I thinned a lot. I liked the blue tint, so I liberally applied it to the metal parts. This turned out to have one nasty sideeffect. This mix dried pale yellow in recesses, so instead of a deep blue shadow there is a little light spot. I followed up with a clear coat and oil shade, which took care of any shadows nicely.
I went over the base with primer, then used dark red followed by a heavy Zamesi Desert drybrush. Then I started messing about with pigments, a sand colour and a darker brown at first, later also adding a black/oil pigment for machine bits.
While I was really happy with the result, the armour plates are darker than the FW approach left them which makes the whole model relatively dark, considering that I also washed and dulled all the metal.
I figured that attaching some decals would brighten it up some and contacted a friend who has a bunch of Knights as support for his Space Wolves. He was kind enough to spare me a transfer sheet from a plastic knight.
Be that as it may, I have a tendency to let big Forgeworld models sit for a while after reaching a milestone. That isn't necessarily bad, since I find myself wanting to redo models before I finished their army, since my skill improved and I don't really want to see the previous result anymore.
Friday after work I saw a YouTube video by Moggy displaying a Knight-Atrapos. I loved the paint job. I had also picked up the new Horus Heresy themed Forgeworld Master Class book, which has a red candy-paint Knight on the cover. This pushed me to get started on the model, so I washed, trimmed and sanded the parts. Then I assembled the torso with epoxy glue. I hesitated when looking at the legs. Four toes, two parts for the foot, then the lower leg, upper leg and hip joint. I did a quick and dirty pile of cork and hot-glue with some plastic pipe and I beam sticking out before slapping the first foot down. That got me going to where I left the model with the legs glued up to the hips overnight. For that, I wedged them in and used a metal strip to hold it up by the magnet I had put in the hip for the torso.
The next morning saw me happy that the glueup had gone as intended! I reinforced the hip to leg joints with 2mm brass rod and did the same to firmly anchor the lower leg through the feet in the base. Then I merrily built on until I arrived at the model fully built - with the armour plates only placed, but not glued in position.
As soon as I got there, I primed the model and all the armour plates black with Vallejo Airbrush Primer. I had to get something else done, but continued in the evening with Vallejo Gumetal all over the metal parts and a highlight with Steel, following Moggy's scheme.
Next, I followed the Forgeworld book and preshaded the armor panels with blue and a little bit of green.
Today, Forgeworld offers more hobby materials. Back with the previous Masterclass books, Tamiya Clear Red is still used instead of the now available FW product. So - did a test piece for that. Based on that I just use the thick Tamiya paint as is - without thinning it - and applied it pretty much in a single coat, maybe a coat and a half. I have a habbit of using higher pressure than you find recommended, in this case 60psi through a 0.4mm needle.
After that, I went after the trim and painted that with steel, which then got knocked down with Drakenhof Nightshade, which I thinned a lot. I liked the blue tint, so I liberally applied it to the metal parts. This turned out to have one nasty sideeffect. This mix dried pale yellow in recesses, so instead of a deep blue shadow there is a little light spot. I followed up with a clear coat and oil shade, which took care of any shadows nicely.
In retrospect, I find that I didn't take pictures documenting what I did to the base.The base is cork, hot glue to attach the cork and also the toes to the base and cork respectively, plastic parts sticking out from the cork and as fence posts. I liberally applied hot glue to the flat area of the base, because I like the wobbly, muddy effect this gives, expecially when combined with the regular PVA glue with sand/gravel mix.
I went over the base with primer, then used dark red followed by a heavy Zamesi Desert drybrush. Then I started messing about with pigments, a sand colour and a darker brown at first, later also adding a black/oil pigment for machine bits.
While I was really happy with the result, the armour plates are darker than the FW approach left them which makes the whole model relatively dark, considering that I also washed and dulled all the metal.
I figured that attaching some decals would brighten it up some and contacted a friend who has a bunch of Knights as support for his Space Wolves. He was kind enough to spare me a transfer sheet from a plastic knight.
Saturday, 2 January 2016
Battle Report: Imperial Knights vs Necrons 2500 Points
A fellow player my local tabletop club wanted an opportunity to field his Imperial Knights. He has been encountering reluctance or refusal from other players to face these warmachines. Granted, I cannot come up with many lists made up with commonly used units that has reasonable odds against these things. AV13 with ion shields, loads of ordnance with strength D and Stomp in Melee isn't easily brought down with shooting or melee.
Since I recently picked up to piles of Necrons, I decided to use the Gauss rule to my advantage. A decurion detachment with 4x 10 Warriors in Ghost Arks, 2x20 Warriors on foot, a Monolith, 2x3 Tomb Blades, 5 Immortals and a vanilla Overlord and two Harvest formations was my force. This was my first time playing Necrons.
The Imperial Knight force was a detachment of five knights led by a Cerastus Knight-Lancer with a Cerastus Knight-Castigator, a Cerastus Knight-Acheron and two plastic knights. These all had their BS and WS improved to 5. A sixth knight came along vanilla. All knights were equipped with the weapons as modeled, except for the carapace weapons, which were all 8/3 missile launchers.
Deployment
Turn 1.1
Turn 1.2
Turn 2.1
Turn 2.2
Turn 3.1
Turn 3.2
Turn 4.1
Turn 4.2
Victory (by points) 9 : 7 for Necrons.
The Lancer had 1 hull point left, the lone other remaining knight was at 4 hull points iirc.
Three decimated warrior units, a unit of tomb blades, two ghost arks and a unit of immortals were remaining of the Necron force.
The Imperial knights had no achivable objective cards, the necrons did.
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