How I Met Your Tervigon, Episode 5: Saludos Amigos

By the end of our last episode, I'd already had my one required weekly match in for the league's fourth week; unfortunately a win due to a default but hey, one shouldn't say no to a win if it's handed over.

Team Chaos continued to pretty much smash everyone else's faces in.

Now with snazzy art to go with it! Had to crop and rearrange just to fit it properly.

Last week's weekdays were uneventful for the WH40K side of my life, because certain...things happened that I had to attend to. (And before anyone asks, no I'm not telling in this blog entry because everyone else who should know about what happened has already been told.)

That aside, Saturday was slated to be quite the experience because of a scheduled painting workshop. After all, painting my models was the one thing I really should've started doing ages ago.

My brother keeps joking that WH40K has made me really domesticated. First wall putty, now a painting workshop.

As an added bonus,  a challenge came in (bringing me up to the allotted two challenges).

I knew beforehand that his squad was holed up in a tank; it'd be an interesting match to say the least.

Saturday morning saw me beginning the whole painting process with primer; after all, one of the requirements for the workshop was to bring primed models for the whole 'hands-on' bit. It was time to finally bust out that Bosny I'd bought weeks past.

Not wanting the potential distraction of our dogs in the garage, I opted to set up a table back in the kitchen.

I definitely wasn't going into this one blind: I'd been getting painting advice from various sources and of course, I'd also seen others in our playgroup at work with their own models. I decided to set up the models to be primed in the old Netrunner box I'd been using throughout my WH40K journey so far. My method of choice would be to essentially pass over the whole bunch twice: lie 'em down, one pass, 10 minutes to dry, turn 'em around, second pass.

The comedy came in when I miscalculated the distance at which to spray.

SPOILER: They were originally arranged in straight lines.

See, what happened was that I sprayed a bit too close to the box which in turn caused my neatly-arranged columns to fly apart. This in turn changed the angles on most everyone in said box, and in the spur of that moment I suddenly ended up spraying even more than I should have to try and hit the areas I'd missed (pretty stupid since by then I already knew that any spots missed by the primer could simply be touched up with the initial base coat). Some of the models, as you can see in the photo above, had suspiciously thick-looking layers of primer but hey, everyone knows that it thins and 'clings' to the surface once it dries...right?

Ten minutes later, it was time to turn the boys around for their second spray.

I got the distance better the second time around and there was no AoE-esque spreading around of models. Several spritzes later I'd primed my infantry models: Warriors, Immortals, the Necron Overlord and the converted models that'd serve as either the Overlord's Royal Court or specialist units for Kill Team.

With a Tomb Blade cameo since my priority is to get my Kill Team units painted first.

Eventually it was time to make my way to the shop. Thanks to Filipino time I arrived way before the proceedings actually started.

Quick shot of the table. I got a corner seat so no "everyone" shots or photos of the whole setup, unfortunately.

DISCLAIMER: I'm no recorder, so I'm going to skimp out on a lot of detail when it comes to the workshop. There are ways to learn if you want the nitty-gritty of painting your plastic (or resin), and this entry'll only be a summary of what I learned at the workshop.

The difference between reading up online (via links to guides or from advice through chat) immediately became obvious: Here was a person speaking to us face-to-face, actually showing us what he was teaching. The first part of the workshop involved a detailed explanation of the tools of the trade: brushes, paint, the works; most interestingly, he introduced us to the concept of a wet pallet -- instead of the usual plastic pallet wherein paint dries quickly, one uses a combination of baking paper and an absorbent surface (his involved some sorta cloth...thingie, I forget exactly what it's called but it can be bought at stores like Blade). The benefit of wet pallets being that one's mixed paints last far longer, to the point of you being able to store it away for a bit to reuse later on (extra-good if there's a specific color mix you're trying to preserve).

All throughout, our speaker never failed to stress that as always you should go with what works for you. For example, he might prefer a 500-peso sable brush that's lasted him four years (and is still going strong), but others might roll with cheap disposable National Bookstore brushes like mine or something in-between.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ian Siongco.

Before moving on to the actual painting, he also made sure to discuss cleaning up the models: The arduous process of taking care of the mold lines. Here we learned that aside from allowing the acrylic paint to 'cling' to the plastic, primer's other job is to show you where you missed some mold lines on the model: which of course you're probably going to take off, then paint over the 'affected' area with the incoming base coat.

It pays to also mention that in this sort of hobby, you can paint for simple gaming or for competition: pretty much the painting equivalent of casual vs. competitive. You don't really need that much detail for game painting (a.k.a. you're after just enough effect so that your model looks good when viewed from afar on the tabletop), but competition/display painting involves several added levels of detail, shading and whatnot.

That in mind, the speaker made sure to tell us to take your time with painting: enjoy the process, experiment, do over the models whose paint jobs you don't end up liking. It's a hobby.

 With all of that 'briefing' done, it was time to move on to the hands-on stuff.

Long before the workshop, I'd decided that I didn't want my army to look like your average Terminator-esque Necrons. I wanted to give 'em a creepy robotic look, and my initial mental peg was the Phyrexians of MtG fame. I'd realized while poking through every Magic card with "Phyrexian" in its title that there wasn't really a common coloring scheme, but Phyrexian Unlife's art always struck me amidst the others.

When I posted it on Facebook and started discussing how to handle the paint job, a friend pointed out that a good peg for my army would be the Therians. I've never played AT-43 but some of the Appraisery group used to, and I remember really liking the Therians' aesthetic when I saw them.

People say they look very Phyrexian anyway. 

I decided that I'd go with a black base, with the main bodies of the Necrons done in 'metallic black' (essentially I'd mix the main black with a silver/steel metallic color). White heads for that cool 'deathmask' effect, with bronze on certain details instead of orange.

Since he was the most known of my Necron models, Dave would be my first painting experiment.

I forgot to take a close-up of primer-only Dave, so have a shot of the speaker's sample models instead.

I didn't have paint of my own but everyone at the table was essentially sharing a collective paint pool. Instead of going into the details of this one and taking down all the little revelations and mishaps, let's bullet-point the main pointers I picked up while painting Dave:

• A black base (or primer) can be hard to deal with if you're painting something bright over it. In the case of the head I had to layer on a bit of white, wait for it to dry and then add another layer until the white looked as 'opaque' as I wanted it to be.
• Similarly for the bronze, putting it directly over the black would've looked way off. For those parts I had to put some silver on first, let that dry and then layer on the bronze.
• The models create no light or shadows of their own, so it's the painter's job to make an 'illusion' of it. For the metallic black parts what I was taught was to put it under a light and literally paint only on the parts the light hits.

I pretty much spent the rest of the workshop painting Dave.

My brother's phone has a far better camera than mine, so we got some decent photos the Sunday morning after.

Not quite done yet since there's some further detail to be added, and the base still needs to be worked on. I'm thinking of snow-themed bases for my army.

All in all, I can see why a lot of hobbyists I know are really into the painting process. It's drawn-out but you really do get to enjoy breathing proverbial life into your uncolored plastic -- and half the fun is learning from your mistakes.

Sometime during the workshop my opponent arrived, and it was time for some Kill Team action after I'd finished up with Dave.

"Aw, here it goes."

My "Immortals featuring a Tomb Blade" (with my one painted model fielded as the Immortals' leader unit, and two of the converted Necron Warriors as specialists) were up against six space marines in a Razorback. The mission we rolled was Forward Push, a decidedly basic mission that involved having three objectives on the map for us to capture (accomplished by having one of your dudes within 3" of an objective without any enemies within 3" of it, by the end of the game).

The Razorback immediately made an impression by simply rolling through the terrain in its way, coming to a stop propped up on everyone's favorite map centerpiece.

Just like parallel parking. IN SPACE!

I couldn't really predict when the marines'd be disembarking from their transport to start shooting at us personally, and all I could hope for was to roll 6es against the tank to try and glance it to death (remember, regardless of how tough a vehicle is, Necron gauss weapons always score glancing hits on a roll of 6). The Tomb Blade sped off to try and cap an objective, only for the random objective roll to reveal that it was a sabotaged objective that could blow up in anyone's face any minute; one less VP for me as the Tomb Blade zipped off to try and be of more use elsewhere.

The firefight came into full swing as the Razorback came into range, its guns earning my opponent a point for first blood. As it came closer and closer, the riders finally decided to come out and play.

BLUT BLUT BLUT!

It was pretty much mayhem from there with the marines and their tank vs. my dudes, everyone just blasting each other to bits. By the time the last turn rolled around, we were at equal VP's: each had earned a point for killing their opponent's leader units, and I closed the gap by getting a point for breaking his forces (not that hard since we far outnumbered them).

By the time the mission ended, we were at a solid draw. 1-0-1 for the week; far better than the 0-2's that came before it, but I really should bring in another 2-0 like the very first one for the league.

Sunday didn't see any actual WH40K gaming done at our weekly out-of-Appraisery meetup, so I ended up assembling the Canoptek Spyder. Not exactly a unit I intend to field anytime soon (maybe in higher-point games beyond 500), but might as well finish up assembling the contents of the Megaforce box. 

It wasn't particularly difficult to assemble (especially considering the previous 'horrors' of putting together that Doomsday Ark), and the only real highlight was the fact that the inside of the Spyder has little scarabs inside; the underside's sorta grated so that even after you glue it together, you can still see the widdle baby scawwabs. 

D'aww!

The true highlight of the night came when it was time to meet up for a transaction: I'd managed to arrange for some of my old cards to be traded in for a box of Necron Destroyers. Since the meetup was at Centris, I decided to finally check out the Neutral Grounds branch there I'd been hearing so much about.

I'll just let the photo do the talking.

That would be the sound of my wallet begging for mercy.

I'd yet to see so many Warhammer boxes in one place in my entire life, you see. Time seemed to stand still as I ogled the shelves while resisting the urge to find some way to buy every single Necron product I could see. Hell, it even reminded me of the high school days when I'd window-shop Warhammer at the NG in Galleria (much like the flashback scene from Ratatouille).

In the end I decided to give in to my EQ failure quota by just leaving with some paint.

Hilariously I forgot to get the white, as well as a brown for turning that metallic red Bell into bronze.
The Celestra Grey's there to make it easier to paint the white heads, as taught by Josh.

The rest of the night went into assembling the Destroyers, just in time to start fielding 'em for the regular opportunity to change Kill Team rosters.

Jose, Panchito and Donald.

I can't wait to try 'em out in my Kill Team matches for the week!

Brian was born in Marikina but swears that Katipunan raised him. On weekdays he's pretty elusive thanks to his night shift job, and on weekends you'll generally find him at the Appraisery on Saturdays, and wherever his WH40K crew has decided to converge on Sundays.
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Updating the expenses list:

Necron Megaforce - P9975
Side Cutter - P320
Mighty Bond - P50
Nail Files - P30
Plastic Container (Japan Home Centre) - P66
Bahco Extra Slim Taper Saw File - P99
Bosny Spray Paint (Flat Black) - P95
Necron Immortals - P1377.50
Mighty-Pid Pack - P149.75 (contains 2 Mighty Bond 3g and 1 Mighty Bond Xtreme 3g)
Faber-Castell Tack-It Multipurpose Adhesive - P56.76
Elmer's Glue - P34.75
Citadel Paints x4 - P700
Necron Destroyers - P2250 TRADED!