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Welcome back to the hobby! I only just got back in April of this year after not painting/playing for the last 12 years. I completely understand what you're going through, most of my older armies are pretty rushed... and, like you, I also chose Necrons and wanted to paint up a complete army to a decent tabletop standard, finally. So I can tell you how I got to the below scheme for my army, paint wise anyway.

It's fairly similar to doing that destroyer you point out but I use more washes to give it more contrast. To do the destroyer it looks as simple as one coat of boltgun metal, a little badab black

Also, the current Necron Codex shows several painting techniques and schemes...



Paints are always watered down 2:2:1 water / paint / matt medium. Washes have a few drops of dish soap added.

Chaos Black primer
Boltgun Metal base coat
Badab Black Wash on everything
Botlgun Metal wet drybrush
Devlan Mud Wash
Another layer of Boltgun Metal, same as before but leaving more brown this time
Gryphone Sepia Wash in recesses
Mithril Silver highlights

When you're applying the wash to the shoulders, apply black to the areas you'll want darkest then blend your way out with each wash and drybrush a little boltgun metal if a little wash gets out of hand. I also normally dab off the wash from my brush when doing the shoulders for a lil more control with the application.

Would it work the same if I didn't use the devlen mud?
-40k Ninja

When I started painting this necron army I started with the foot slogging Necron Warriors. This gave me plenty of test models to play with so I could figure out exactly which colors I wanted to go with for the army. You can use whatever colors you want. I use those 3 washes to achieve the colors I want in the models but you can use more or less... the sky's the limit!
-You can try out using green / purple washes - they don't appear as green or purple as you might think, especially combined with another wash of brown or black.
-You could paint the entire model in tin blitz, highlight with gold, bronze, or even boltgun metal, mix some hawk turquoise with matt medium, water (more than you normally dilute your paints) and some soap to create a wash then make a bronze statue looking necron...

I suggest trying out different combos until you find a method you're comfortable replicating. Again, the codex shows some great examples of Necron Schemes and the basic colors / techniques they use to achieve them.

That said, I could still use some advice on the Monolith! (Please!)
-whigwam

I haven't painted a Monolith yet but if I were going for the look on their website then I'd probably go about it using the following:
Airbrush would be ideal but since you don't have one: Mix Boltgun Metal, Water, Matt Medium (this thins the metallic paint while providing more consistency than water) and Pearl Pigment (this will give it the rougher looking texture along with a metallic sparkle while letting the black show through). We'll call this Monolith Wash.

-Obviously primer this Chaos Black
-Monolith Wash on entire model. Apply this in very thin coats building it up slowly until you get the metallic black look you want. Thin coats will help achieve a nice consistent coat and color for this. Your first coat will be really hard to notice. Try using a blow dryer if you want to speed this up but let each coat dry before applying the next.
-Wash along cracks with Badab Black Wash
-Drybrush Boltgun Metal
-Highlight with Mithril Silver
-Devlan Mud wash applied only in the areas you want that dripy rust look to come from

As for applying the decals. Look up techniques using Micro Sol and Micro Set to get rid of that foggy film look you can get when just using water. Try this site to start, it's a great PDF tutorial (LINKY)