I wasn’t planning on starting the new year with a new army, but I wanted to test out a colour scheme before I started work on the Hierotek Circle Kill Team and then Games Workshop went and teased the rules for Boarding Actions. Thus I found myself gluing together the Necrons from the astonishingly good value Warhammer 40,000 Recruit Edition and picking out a colour scheme which started out by selecting the shiniest of metals to really push the Terminator vibe.

I’m pretty happy with the result, which took me about a week of short bursts in the evening and then a chunk of my Saturday (which was mostly devoted to edge highlighting). Here are the paints I used:

• Army Painter Speed Paint – Fire Giant Orange
• Citadel Contrast: Apothecary White
• Citadel Layer: Flash Gitz Yellow
• Citadel Nuln Oil
• Citadel Technical: Armageddon Dunes
• Liquitex Pro Acrylic Ink – Titanium White
• Vallejo Gloss Black Primer
• Vallejo Metal Color Chrome
• Vallejo Model Color 838 – Emerald
• Vallejo Model Color 906 – Pale Blue
• Vallejo Model Color 950 – Matt Black
• Vallejo Model Color 951 – White
• Vallejo Model Color 976 – Buff

I started by priming using the Gloss Black, and then base coating the entire mode with Chrome. I used an airbrush or both of these stages. It’s a tool that lets me prime indoors and without fear of problems from temperature or humidity, and apply the Vallejo Metal Color range as a base coat quickly and smoothly. Substitute your preferred rattlecan or brush on black primer and then brush on the Chrome if you don’t have access to an airbrush.

Next up, give a light coat of Nuln Oil to the whole model to give it some depth. You can skip over the gun and other parts where the metal will be painted over.

Paint the gun Black, then gently dab White Ink into the recesses where the orange glow will come from. This is to give a bright colour to apply the orange to. Ink flows very easily so you can use capillary action instead of carefully painting the tiny gaps. Just add more ink until it flows into the next chamber. Do the same thing with the recesses between the ribs.

The various bits of wiring (such as the connection between the gun and the body and some damaged cables hanging from some of the torsos) also needs a white coat as do the scarabs’ central balls, but they don’t lend themselves to the ink method; use the regular White paint instead.

Once dry, apply the Fire Giant Orange to the white areas. It’s a speed paint, so use the same capillary action method for the guns and use a generous amount elsewhere. Finally use a tiny dot of Flash Gitz Yellow to create a point highlight.

Use Emerald for the face masks, the scarab wings, and the shoulder plates as well as the panels that make up the Royal Warden’s cloak (take care to leave the connectors in plain metal). Apply a tiny amount of Nuln Oil to the masks to shade the eyes and mouths so they have definition. Then go in and edge highlight with the Pale Blue. Use the Pale Blue to paint the stripe up the Royal Warden’s face too.

All the remains are the bases. I used Buff to base coat them, then applied Apothecary White to the rocks before covering the surfaces with Armageddon Dunes which I then highlighted by dry-brushing with Buff. Watch out for the single, tiny scarab that one of the warriors has perched on their tactical rock. Use the same paint scheme as the rest of them for that little fella’.

Add your preferred varnish to protect your paint job, and magnetise the bases for storage and transport if you are so inclined and you can call these Necrons done.

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