Mr. Oddity's various hobby works - Newcrons, Oldcrons

[Mr. Oddity]

Thanks to the 12 Months of Hobby Challenge (and being done with higher education), what has been sixteen years of planning and collecting has finally become an active participation in the painting and modeling sections of the hobby! I first got involved in Warhammer in 7th grade when my art teacher showed me his Space Marine army. The minis caught my attention, the setting had me hooked since I was big on sci-fi, and my imagination ran wild with plans for armies and conversions and all that good stuff. I've amassed a pretty good collection of models since then and while not all of my early plans ended up panning out, I've developed a core of four armies that will be the cornerstones of my Warhammer 40k forces. This thread will end up being my main chronicle of work - musings, lore, drawings, conversions, modeling, and painting will all end up here at some point.

 

And as with any project thread, I'm also preemptively reserving the right to reformat this initial post as updates happen to better organize the work I do and make it easier for any readers to filter and catch up on specific projects.

[Mr. Oddity]

The Adeptus Astartes were my introduction point to 40k and the T'au were my first loved faction, but it's the Necrons that will be my first playable force. Having completed a couple of test minis as part of Grotsmasha's challenge series, the simple metallic looks of those ancient murder bots (specifically the 3rd edition codex and Dawn of War look) is my end goal - with a few embellishments and twists. Below is the first Warrior I completed in February of 2024, which set the look I'm going for with my army:

 

 

Simple metallic body? Check. Black shoulders, brass weapon details, and red wires for some color variety? Check. Desert-adjacent base (presumably on a Tomb World scrubbed of life aeons ago)? Check. Old school green rod? You'd best believe that's a check!

 

As part of both the 12 Months challenge and an extremely last-minute entry to the March for March challenge, this Warrior will be joined by a full Combat Patrol force - with a few twists. By now it's probably apparent that I'm a fan of the older Warhammer aesthetics since they were the formative images of what the armies looked like when I was getting involved. So for this force in particular, there's going to be a lot of design and coloration callbacks to the mysterious Necrons of yesteryear while still carving out a spot in the modern lore for My Dudes. The tenets I've laid out for myself are the following:

1. Metallic bodies with black shoulders and guns - this is pretty much the quintessential Necron look, but with some variety of color added to break up the silver and give things a bit more of a personal touch
2. Green rods in guns - cheesy as they may be, I've always loved the look of the Gauss rods in older models. Everything that can have a rod swapped for colored plastic will be getting one (either original sprue or modern replacement stock)
3. Blocky Vehicles / Moving Buildings - the eventual centerpiece of the army will be a modified OOP Monolith, with additional vehicle units like the Combat Patrol's Doomstalker reimagined to fit the same general slab-sided appearance. It'll look more interesting than you think, I promise!
4. Simpler is Better - While a lot of the newer designs are fantastic and have really added a lot to the range, I'm not looking to add a lot of them to the army. It's nothing against the units or their looks, just a measure to keep things getting out of hand with what's intended to be my "basic" army. Newer stuff like Skorpekhs, Ophydians, Lychguard, and so on will be tied in to the looks and designs of the older line of minis to keep a cohesive appearance across the force.

 

Now that all that is said and done, actual modeling! I spent a couple of hours last week assembling my first unit of the new push-fit Warriors and I'm impressed. The level of detail on these is spectacular, the variety in heads and bodies is great to see and gives some personality to the hordes of troops, and despite some finicky moments assembly was quite smooth. Basing will be next up for these fellas, followed by priming once all my infantry are built. Rods will be clipped and replaced after painting so I don't have to worry about the guns breaking.

Edited April 15 by Mr. Oddity

[Firedrake Cordova]

Sounds like an interesting project, and you're off to a good start. The green rods is an interesting bit of retro  

[ShadowCaptain]

8 Years ago I sold off my Necrons to another Necron Player in my local 40k club. Same thing, black shoulder pads, green ray guns and sandy base. 

They had a simple yet stunning look. These Necrons had been the 1996 Original Metals. I even had a Necron Dreadnaught made from the Body of an Epic Scale Eldar and Imperial Titans. Used the old vehicle design rules. 

Edited April 15 by ShadowCaptain
Got the years wrong, how time flys

[Mr. Oddity]

@Firedrake Cordova Thank you, and indeed they are! It was a unique detail on the original plastic models that I absolutely loved, so being able to bring them back in is a nice feeling. There's also the side benefit of minimizing the green glow I'll have to do as well

 

@ShadowCaptain The old metal "Chaos Androids" had a lot of character, and it's interesting seeing how those original details got translated into plastic. It's funny you bring up the OG metal models though - I've got 27 of the metal Scarabs that will be representing my swarms in this army! There's an old Destroyer kicking around in my bits box as well that I may go back to for inspiration at some point.

 

Continuing the planning sessions, all Combat Patrols require a leader for the force. In the case of the Necrons that's an Overlord with Tachyon Arrow for those pesky heavier foes that Gauss and Doomsday blasts can't quite deal with (...in theory). I have the actual model for this guy, but while the sculpt is fantastic and has a great balance of detail there's something about it that felt off to me. While looking at other leader units across ranges it hit me - the motion and the pose don't line up right in my head.

 

 

Looking head-on at this guy highlights what felt off to me. He's in your classic Tactical Rock pose surveying the battlefield... but the motion of his decorations doesn't match his sense of motion or the flow of the rest of his body. I'm setting aside the obvious explanation of wind coming from behind him for this by the way. With how much the tassels are moving it almost feels like he's stopped from a dead sprint instead of surveying a battlefield. The lines of his lower body also emphasize a clean lower left to upper right line with the straightened leg and upraised staff arm. Fortunately, I also have the old Voidscythe Overlord model as well. His pose is effectively a mirrored image of this chap, so some creative cutting and limb replacements should result in the following:

 

 

The angle of the Tachyon arm is off (can only do so much in Paint 3D), but the general lines of both models are preserved. The sense of motion in each body now lines up better in my eyes. As my Tachyon Overlord will be the leader of my Tomb World and occasional Imotekh proxy, maintaining the higher level of decoration was important. Cutting the waists should be easy, but the loincloth on the scythe Overlord will be interesting to work with. Expect to see some progress on this later this week!

[Mr. Oddity]

After a delay, work on my Overlord is complete! As expected it involved some finicky cuts and adjustments. The first step was to remove the loincloth bits from each set of legs as well as cutting each body at the waist (only one picture of this unfortunately, I got caught up in the work).

 

 

I then reattached the loincloth from the Arrow Overlord to the legs of the Scythe Overlord. The Tachyon Arrow arm was cut loose from the neck joint (which is still one of the oddest moldings I've seen even in a push-fit model) and cut at the elbow to repose it in a straight out aiming pose. The arm was pinned at the elbow and shoulder for extra strength, and the original power cable bent to fit the new pose. I had planned on replacing the cable with wire to have an easier time posing it, but that didn't end up working and I had to glue the original cable back on. Lesson learned - sometimes the simpler idea is the better one! When I went to attach the Arrow Overlord body to the Scythe Overlord legs, I realized that I somehow lost a vertebrae during the original cuts. A piece of styrene rod fit the bill, with another pin added to help strengthen the waist.

 

       

 

A bit of plastic glue later, and he's ready for basing and priming! I'm quite happy with the end result here, it feels more imposing and the lines of motion I discussed in my previous post line up a lot better in my eyes.

 

       

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's a really nice conversion