Planning a Necron Army

Dear all, this post shall serve as an introduction to my new Necron army blog. For those who are not so familiar with the subject, Necrons are a race in the fictional Warhammer 40 000 world, created to support the tabletop minitaure game made by Games Workshop.

To be exact, Necrons WERE a race and they were wiped extinct, but have now returned to hate all life in forms of immortal soulless machines and robots, controlled by their gods. But so much for the background story before I get sued by the Games Workshop who made the whole Warhammer 40 000 storyline and the game itself.

Games Workshop released recently a new edition of the Warhammer 40 000 rules, and this was a big setback for Necrons, so some of you may feel that starting a Necron army right now seems like a waste of time. However, firstly, the hobby for me has never been about power gaming, but more about painting and having fun. Secondly, as I happen to play now in Kuala Lumpur's power gaming environment, I feel more than thrilled to face the challenges with a sub-par army and quickly upgrade my sub-par understanding and maneuvering skills to a better level. If one wins all the time, one can't learn anything. Of course Necrons are way beyond that good level of learning - but I still claim I can pull off some wins in the future. Especially if my army is painted in a good way. You may not buy it, but the better your army is painted, the better it plays. This is simply because you don't want to lose any of your beautifully painted models but want them to pose proudly and well painted on a war torn battlefield instead!

Initial Army List

At the moment, I don't possess a copy of a Necron Codex to plan my list exactly, but the initial configurations could look like this;

2-3 Squads of 10 Necron Warriors
- Min. troops in 5th edition ain't good, but Necrons won't excel without risky playstyle, so I think I'll end up with 2 squads actually

1 Necron Lord with Resurrection Orb
- He could support the troops, and help them survive to hold the objectives

4-5 Destroyers
- The models are damn nice, full plastic (quick to paint, light to carry - although I like metal a bit more, plastic still has it sides), and provide good mobile firepower

3 Heavy Destroyers
- They are damn expensive in points, but I still feel they're needed to drop at least some of the vehicles more easily. People underestimate these now because they only have 1 wound, but I still think they're worth because of their mobility, and Str9 Ap2 can't be bad.

1 Monolith
Monolith is large, difficult to destroy, and can unleash devastating firepower against troops. Of course additional WBB and teleport tricks help too. I'm thinking about 2 actually, but they cost so much in points that I still need to think about it. And that would mean I need to put my Heavy Destroyers just in one group which is not very flexible.

10 Immortals
These are must. They absolutely demolish all troops, and furthermore, can buy time with those glancing shots at vehicles.

1 Squad of Flayed Ones
I don't think Flayed Ones are particularly good, but still, they could offer some flexibility due to infiltration possibility. These are, however, the biggest question mark at the moment

Many Scarab Swarms
Sadly, scarabs are the best Necron unit after the monolith. Luckily, I like them. They are good at tying troops, and preventing assaults to your warriors, along with other tricks of similar nature. I like Scarabs.

Well that's about the initial list. In general, I may want to avoid buying too many point expensive elements, because losing them would mean earlier phase out.

I will proceed this project by buying the units randomly, but I won't buy another unit before the previous one is finished to keep my motivation. I aim to paint two units per week, but Necrons are fast to paint, so I won't see that being unrealistic. However, likely I will end up painting only one unit per week, because I have my Grey Knights in the work as well and I also need to work. Let's see.

Paint Scheme

Most people paint their Necrons fully metallic, but I don't feel like going the traditional way here as it is boring, albeit fast. Firstly, I never liked metallic paints very much, and secondly, I want my army to look good and personal. I thought about the paint scheme for weeks and was googling daily some examples of 'different' Necrons, but managed to find very few good looking ones.

However, I recently discovered a very appealing way to paint with metallic colors from Sotavasara.net, a Finnish miniature hobby forum. One user there had painted a Dark Elves Bolt Thrower crew's armor in a very neat way with metallic colors , and I stole his recipe right away. I didn't want my Necrons to end up being like everyone else's, but I wanted to use the metallic technique so much. I thought and thought again, until I came across with another Sotavasara.net user's personal gallery, where he had painted his Tau with Dhenb stone, and there was it! I've always actually dreamed about of making a 'ceramic' looking Necrons, and the new Citadel Foundation Dhenb Stone allows a good solution for this. The color is a bit like Khaki, but not quite, and it covers well and makes an even finish even on top of a black undercoat, where the Foundation series was actually planned for.

So the result was (I use Citadel paints only by the way, call me a log head, I don't care);

Necrons

Chaos Black spray undercoat on the whole model

Necron skeleton
- Boltgun Metal basecoat
- Badab Black wash
- Chainmail highlight
- Devlan Mud wash

Necron armor
- Dhenb Stone basecoat
- Dhenb Stone covering layer
- Dhenb Stone + Skull White highlight
- Skull White fine highlight

Weapon
-Watered down Shadow Grey edging on a Chaos Black undercoat
-Watered down Space Wolves Grey fine highlight

Details
-Dark Angels Green basecoat
-Catchan Green layering
-Camo Green highlight
-Camo Green + Skull White fine highlight (if necessary)

I also may add sometimes Dwarven Bronze and Burnished Gold for some details, but as I'm aiming to go relatively fast here, yet trying to create an impressive and contrasted color scheme, I'm NOT gonna paint those green 'Lego' pipes on Necron guns. I happen to like them. Monolith I still have to think about, as I don't feel that Dhenb Stone fits it actually. Flayed Ones are another issue on my thinking list, but I'll come back to that later since I'm not yet sure if I ever buy the bastards anyway.

Bases

I'm not so much into basing (or conversions) , as I like to keep the focus on the model. Thus, I will go forward with a very simple, but functioning, basing solution.

1. Glue some sand in the base, but leave some empty spots
2. Add "none-few" larger stones
3. Spray the whole base black with Chaos Black undercoat
4. Fortress Grey Highlight (trust me, one layer is enough)
5. Scorched Brown basecoat on the edges
6. 2 layers of Bestial Brown on the edges
7. A coat of Matt Varnish
8. Grass Flock on the empty spots (sand partly, remember?)

That's about it for this time. I'm getting back into this after I've finished my first Necron miniature, which is a Necron Heavy Destroyer. I aim to finish it by monday. See ya!