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Hi Dakkanauts,

In my FLGS, a guy is wanting to sell his Necrons to me, as he isn't really feeling the army any more, and he enjoys the Imperial forces more (he's always been a IG player, so he's gone back to them!)

So, I'm thinking of buying his models, as he's willing to sell 25 warriors, 9 scarab bases and 2 ghost arks for £70, which is a good £40 saving. He's been more of a player than painter, so his miniatures are simply painted with one thin coat, and mould lines not removed. The build quality is very good, so I'm not worried about that.

I'm wondering how easy it would be to remove the most glaring mould lines, repaint the miniatures (he's gone for the standard Necron colours, as am I, but with a few little changes) and base them.

Stripping them with dettol or acetone shouldn't be too hard. There are many tutorials for it on the web, and once they're stripped the rest should be fairly simple.

Also since it's one thin coat the stripping process should hobby smoothly with no snags.

Don't reach for the paint stripper automatically. Depending on the model and how thin the paint job is, you might be able to get away with just clean-up and touch-up.

I just stripped (Biostrip) and painted a load of old skeletons. When I was nearly finished I found another couple of models that hadn't been stripped. They just got a touch-up paint job and now I can't tell the difference between them and the stripped models.

On the other hand, removing the mould lines might leave an uneven surface that needs to be sanded down. Then you'll need to re-prime the exposed model before you can paint it. At that point you're looking at a full strip and re-paint.

DO NOT USE ACETONE!!!!

It will melt plastic into a puddle of goo.

If you are going to clean up the mold lines you may as well start from scratch and strip with Purple Power or Simple Green. Dettol also works well.

If the basecoat he has done is thin enough, just go in and redo the basecoat.

That said, the beauty of an airbrush (in my case) is that I can lay down colors without the worry of obscuring any details.