Necron Obelisk

Look at that.  The Imperial Knight’s finally done and now I’m being super-cutting edge for the first time in... well, almost a year.  And, well, almost cutting edge. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a long time Necron fan.  I had a Necron army that went with the old Chapter Approved army list, when all the models were metal and damn near indestructible.  In all ways.

But I wanted to talk about new stuff.

The Necron Tesseract Vault.  Even before the new rules (which, arguably, just made it better) the Tesseract was popular with Necron players.  Past that, the next best part of this kit would be the Transcendant C’Tan.  Some folks might argue it’s actually first choice and the vault is second.

Why do I bring this up?  Well, since everyone wants either the C’Tan or the Vault (which is the entire kit) the non-C’Tan parts tend to be very cheap.  And all those parts add up to the Necron Obelisk.

As it happens, I found all those parts online for around $45—about 60% the price of the kit.  And that’s a bargain for any super-heavy vehicle.

Now, granted, there’s a strong argument to be made that the Obelisk... well, sucks.  Overpriced,  underpowered, and poorly armored.  But you know what? 

Change the rules. 

Talk to your gaming group about making the Obelisk cheaper or better armored.  If the people you play with on a regular basis have any interest in a fun game, they’re not going to let a cool model sit on the sidelines.  With the new corporate guideline of no models=no rules, most of us probably have a few Apocalypse-level items that have been left in the dust.  Make up some new rules that you can all agree on and forge the narrative, dammit!!

All that being said... here’s a few quick tips on how to put your super-cheap Obelisk together.

The Obelisk is kind of unique as a Games Workshop kit in that it really is put together with leftovers.  Because of this, a few things don’t go together... well, like they normally would.  For example, once the core’s together, you actually need to cut one of the tube/hose sections apart to get the pieces that stabilize the support arms.  Which means buying those component just to cut off a half inch piece.

Or... I cut some scrap plastic down to 3/16” and it worked fine.  They aren’t perfect rods, but the braced the support arms and made them solid inside the core.  And all of this is going to be hidden inside the Obelisk, anyway.

That’s the weirdest part of assembling this model.  The only other unusual thing is how a lot of pieces interlace rather than butt up against each other or fit into simple grooves.  It’s not a completely alien mechanic, but it’s kind of new for GW (I’ve never seen it before, anyway) and it’s probably worth dry-fitting a lot of the components together once or thrice—especially the top and the big side panels--to get a sense of them. 

I assembled the four sides individually and then the top.  I made a corner of two sides, building it right onto the support arm.  Then I added the top into that corner.  Once that was all solid I added a third side, making sure everything lined up, and then the fourth and final side went on.

Helpful Hint—The side panels on this thing are a pain to put together.  As I mentioned above, even the slightest bit of warping means some really bad joins.  I wrestled with it for almost an hour before I realized I could use my big clamps and stretch them diagonally across the entire Obelisk rather than side to side.  It meant I could only work on one seam at a time, but it let me get those seams rock solid.

After this was just final details.  The four arches/ prongs went on top.  Some of the “particle” pieces went on the bottom, all angled to hint at a bit of movement.  The tomb spider heads and claws.  And finally the gauss arrays.

There you have it.  The Obelisk.  A Necron super-heavy for under fifty dollars.  And, yeah, I got the flying stand with that, too, I just hadn’t assembed it when I took the picture.

Also, shameless plug, check out Corrupts Absolutely?-- the new anthology there on the right.  It’s tales of superheroes and superpowers gone bad, and I’m proud to say I have one in there called “Bedtime Story,” about parents trying to explain the new world order to their young son.  Plus there’s cool stories by authors like Joe McKinney, Cat Rambo, Tim Marquitz, and many more.