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For the current Dark Eldar Project, click here to jump ahead: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/536745.page#9801185

Alright, well, I tried to set up a blog on another Necron specific forum but it appears that no one really frequents it. So, instead I figured I'd hit up good ol Dakka and see what was going on here.

Recently I was playing Grey Knights. I had 1750 points painted and was able to play a game that was at a comfortable points level for what we like to do. But, as time went on I found myself becoming less and less interested in the fair Knights Grey, and wanted to play something else.

Enter the Xenos. I began my search for an army that would suit me reasonably well. The choices came down to Orks, Tau, Necron, and Eldar. My usual game buddy plays Eldar so Eldar/Dark Eldar were out. Orks are amazing but I didn't want to embark on painting that many models again. It came down to Tau and Necrons. One of my friends who has not played for many years decided he would pick up Tau and the choice was clear. Necrons it was!

I then scoured our local trade boards and found a pretty awesome deal. I traded my (relatively) pristine Grey Knight army for around 3000 total points of Necrons. They were battered, broken, and in some cases painted horrendously. But there was hope. So, I embarked on this project. Here are the results over the last few days:

So, I've been debating on what to add to a 2000 point list. It seems that Lychguard and Praetorians aren't all that good (which is a shame as I have 10 of each of them).

Does anyone know how good Destroyers are? I can run a max of 10 of them with a destroyer lord or two.

Simple and effective Like the color of those shoulders pads a lot!

Lychguard are interesting for those games with lots of points. Just resist the urge of fielding them with Warscythes. They would destroy anything in their path but their survival rate is very, very low that way.

Destroyers aren't that good. They are excellent anti-MEQ but that's it. I think they carry our only AP3 weapon. Considering your friend has Tau with suits with 3+ saves, it's a nice counter.
What I really like are the Heavy Destroyers. Expensive, but one of our few AP2 36'' weapons. Together with their fast movement, it's great to destroy vehicles or 2+ saves at a distance (we really, really lack AP2 weaponry).

Agree with DraconicLord on this one.

Something which began to deter me from furthering my crons was just how the units available to you almost pigeon hole you autonomously.

Sure, you will dablle with Praetorians and Lychguard but after seeing some bulky and heavily overcosted units just not make their points back, you will fall into simply duplicating your lower points force when crossing the 2000pts mark.

Praetorians feel very marmite to play with. Occasionally they will roll well and murder a few Terminators with their RoC before assaulting, however they are just horribly inefficient at gaining their points back unless you pair them with a Destroyer Lord to make best use of re-animation protocols and the re-roll misses (which at average weapon skill and low attacks is just about required to ensure you land those RoC power weapon hits)

Voidblades just seem pointless unless you went tank hunting with them, however there are much more useful options than spending 200pts on a jump infantry squad.

Lychguard just make so little sense unless you can get them into combat with some TH/PF Initiative 1 peeps if they have the Warsctyhes. With the Hyperphase Sword/Dispersion Shield you do get the nice added effect which to be fair is only useful I have found against someone stupid enough to Overwatch you when you charge them. As you can't really place Lychguard in any form of vehicle you can assault out of unless you fancy doing some crazy turn 1 transport swapping, they just tend to suffer too many wounds before hitting CC and unlike their MEQ relatives such as the TH/SS Assault Termies, they have no assault wagon to get them there in high probability safety.

End of the day, it boils down to that both units simply offer you nothing you couldnt extract from adding more Immortals + Warrior/Ghost Ark Combos and in 10 immortals and a Lord, you will still have points in the pocket.

Yay replies!

So, after a long weekend off of painting, I'll be back at it tonight (and subsequently should have pictures to post for tomorrow).

I think I've settled on my 2k list for now. I wanted to add in a couple boxes of immortals but I don't think I'd be able to buy them before my personal due date. I intend on having this 2000 point army done one week from today.

HQ

Vargard Obyron
Nemesor Zandrekh
Royal Court Lord - MSS, Res Orb
Royal Court Lord - MSS, Res Orb
Destroyer Lord - Warscythe, MSS, Sempiternal Weave, Res Orb

Troop

10 Immortals (Gauss)
20 Warriors
19 Warriors

Fast Attack

10 Canoptek Scarabs
10 Canoptek Scarabs
5 Destroyers - 3 Heavy Gauss Cannons

Total 1992 Points.

I realize it's not as ideal as it could be, but as it's composed of things I own, I won't have to buy anything else to field this. I have a game to play on Monday the 8th, so that's why the deadline is set. Fortunately, with the troops on their way and about 3/4ths done my goal is pretty attainable I think.

What would you change in this list for the future? I intend on blitzing my (Eldar) opponent with a couple of surprise teleports and the destruction of a few of his vehicles. I will be adding on to this Necron army progressively. I'll paint up everything I have and then start acquiring more stuff. I currently own around 3000 points worth (maybe more), and my goal is to get to a healthy 5000 points of things I want to play.

Everything looks very nice

Wraiths are your friend. A unit of 6 wraiths + D. lord is a wrecking ball of destruction.the D. lord soaks wounds with his 2+ save, Wraiths cover him with invulnerable save when it's really needed, wraiths give fearless, D. lord gives prefered enemy (everything!)

Annihilation Barges!!! They are one of best things of 40k. I can't say enough times how ABs are just 90 points of Tesla awesomeness. They are useful against infantry, vehicles (except AV 14) and flyers!

Night Scythes for quick transport if you don't want to rely only on deepstriking around.

Tesla Immortals. I see you have plenty of warriors, should be enough to wreck those pesky vehicles Tesla is just fantastic.

I was planning on adding some tesla immortals. Though I don't know how many I'll end up wanting. 10 to start, more later?

So you figure:

+2 boxes of Wraiths
+2 boxes of Immortals (Tesla)
+3 Annihilation Barges

To start?

Falhurk wrote:
I was planning on adding some tesla immortals. Though I don't know how many I'll end up wanting. 10 to start, more later?

So you figure:

+2 boxes of Wraiths
- Oh yes, you need a minimum of a 5-unit for wraiths to be effective, 6 is best.
+2 boxes of Immortals (Tesla)
- Yes, Tesla Immortals are great against infantry and flyers. Most flyers have AV11 somewhere so you still have a chance to bring them down too.
BONUS: It's very easy to convert warriors as Deathmarks. If you can get a box of immortals you'll easily convert them to at least 10 Deathmarks. If you still have the bits from the previous Immortals you got, you can convert up to 12 with a single box of warriors. They are Deepstriking Snipers with 3+ save that always wound on 2+ when they shoot their marked target.

+3 Annihilation Barges
Yes, oh YES! ABs are your friend. My advice is to not glue at least one. Either magnetize or blu-tak it, all you need to do to switch between AB and CCB is removing the big cannon. You also get 3 plastic Overlords, so much better than the finecrap one!

To start?

Alrighty, well all of that stuff has been added to my "to-purchase" list. I actually have 12 warriors on sprue AND the deathmark bits. I suppose I could try and mod those up. Though, one of my concerns is that the chest cavity for the warriors is smaller than the deathmarks (if I do recall). Or, were you just talking about mounting the gun and head on warrior bodies? I hope you reply to this TheDraconicLord because I am very interested in what you think the best approach would be (and subsequently I'll just go ahead and do those up after I get these troops done).

Also, just finished a painting session. Initially I was not going to paint up the warrior guns and was just going to use the green inserts. But, after gluing all of the rods in, I didn't really dig the look. So, afte rmuch work tonight, I present coloured rods lol.

I have one decent sized pic of the current force. And a close up of some models to give a better idea of the blends. You do make a good point about the annhilation barges. I actually have a command barge, but it's in pretty terrible shape. To be honest, a lot of these models were in terrible shape and I've spent a lot of time cleaning them up. Some of the warrior models, you can tell are missing bits, or the paint looks a bit more chunky than others.. This is due to the condition I received them in. I was lucky to be able to salvage what I did.

My time frame is pretty tight, a full 2000 point army painted in under 2 weeks total (one week remaining). I'm still pretty confident I'll get there though.

Falhurk wrote:
[b]Alrighty, well all of that stuff has been added to my "to-purchase" list. I actually have 12 warriors on sprue AND the deathmark bits. I suppose I could try and mod those up. Though, one of my concerns is that the chest cavity for the warriors is smaller than the deathmarks (if I do recall). Or, were you just talking about mounting the gun and head on warrior bodies? I hope you reply to this TheDraconicLord because I am very interested in what you think the best approach would be (and subsequently I'll just go ahead and do those up after I get these troops done).

Well, that's pretty much it! The Warrior's torso is smaller than the Deathmark's one so the end result is a much more slim sniper. Problem is, the arms won't reach the barrel of the gun well enough. That's when GS comes in. These are pics from some of my warriors that were turned into DMs. As you can see, I filled the arm socket with GS so it could hold the gun. Sawed off the headpiece from the DM torso and added a cape for that "awesome" factor.



Here's some funny stuff I did when converting the guys:

I have one decent sized pic of the current force. And a close up of some models to give a better idea of the blends. You do make a good point about the annhilation barges. I actually have a command barge, but it's in pretty terrible shape. To be honest, a lot of these models were in terrible shape and I've spent a lot of time cleaning them up. Some of the warrior models, you can tell are missing bits, or the paint looks a bit more chunky than others.. This is due to the condition I received them in. I was lucky to be able to salvage what I did.

I understand your pain I have done some salvage work myself!



Keep up the good work!

Thanks again TheDraconicLord!

If I have enough time to do everything I want tonight, I should be able to get these guys ink washed and cleaned up, then based. If I still have time I'll try to build up some deathmarks. Although if I do that and add them to the list, I'll have to cut something from my list. How would you recommend changing the list to fit in 10 deathmarks and the appropriate Crypetc? (I think the Storm one?). If it is Harbinger of the Storm, I believe the total unit cost would be 215 points. So, I'd need to cut about 210 from my current list.

I did have to use some of the arms from the deathmark sprues to make my immortals, hopefully I can scrounge up enough arms to get together some Deathmarks. I'm sure I do, it'll just be some hacking if it comes down to the giant bag o' bits.

I think the only REALLY time consuming part left for these guys is going to be the basing. Typically my bases involve 4-5 steps. So, doing 50 of them in a night is a challange. Still, I need to get this stuff done, so we'll make it happen . I should have pics tonight or tomorrow with how that's gone.

Alright, well, I didn't get as much work done as I wanted. It turns out that my bases take longer than anticipated. So, here's a couple of WIP photos of what I got done tonight. Something like 42/50 that are 4/5 steps done my basing process. Thoughts?

Looking good, but a bit too empty for my taste. is the final step adding some stuff like rocks, dried grass, other thing to brake the monotony?

And this is again personal taste, but I like to paint the rim of my bases a different color than the main base color to achieve a higher contrast as well. My snow bases for example, it's mostly white so I painted the rim light gray.

Just my 2 cents! Overall they are looking pretty good!

If you want the Harbinger with the Deathmarks you will want the Despairtek. Basically mark a really tough squad, deep strike in and then enjoy using a Template AP1 weapon that wounds on a 2+ !

This is especially hilarious if your enemy lines up behind and aegis and you deepstrike in perpendicular causing a rapid instakill of a tough squad like Sternguard

Remember that the Synaptic Disintegrators are rapid fire so they tend to do the most damage under half range. I've always tended to use Deathmarks in a semi close range offensive manner with the Despairtek anyway. Award points I guess for using a Stormtek for the haywire staff for some anti-vehicle but it's not what I think is the most efficient way of dealing with mechs that Necrons have.

Deathmarks are pretty solid at removing 1 excessively hard squad from play and giving them the Despairtek with the Veil makes them incredibly mobile thanks to re-deep-striking them each turn.

For extreme lols. Start them on the board with a Despairtek, a Timetek and a Lord fit with a Staff of light/Res Orb/Phase Shifter and you basically have the most annoying squad we can put together that for the most part will soak up incredible amounts of heavy fire. Place the Lord and the Timetek at the front to soak up hits with their invulns (one of which will get a re-roll thanks to the Chronometron) and then feel free sit there for as long as you can spewing out angry fire from the Deathmarks. As soon as something gets too close, deep strike across the board

@TheDraconicLord the bases aren't actually done, they'll have some static grass glued on to them tonight. Just a matter of having so many to do. Each base takes a while with this method. I assure you, they'll look a bit less monotonous tonight.

The lip of the base is actually painted a different colour than the top. In the pictures it's kind of hard to tell but it's quite a bit more clear in person. I suppose until I get some better photos you'll have to take my word on it.

@Jedziah Thanks!! I forgot what the combo was and will alter my list accordingly. I forgot the Dispairtek had the template weapon. Unfortunately I can only take one veil though, the other Dispairtek was intended for Zandrekhs unit and the immortals so I could DS them into my opponents face, and then DS Obyron and his unit immediately next to them for a one-two punch combo.

Tonight I will need to get the bases done, the oil wash on, and then the whole lot of them matte coated. I covered quite a bit of ground last night and don't imagine this to be too big of a challenge. Though, I really did expect to be done last night. Because of this one day set back, I may have to alter my plans for the destroyers as I don't think I'll have time to paint them up as I initially wanted. Fortunately, I can make that a project for another day as I still have quite a few destroyers that don't need to be painted up so immediately.

More comments and concerns are greatly appreciated!

Alright, so I was up until 3am painting and was too tired to post last night. Here is the progress from last night.

The bases are done, the warriors and immortals are done, the deathmarks are built and there's a total army comp shot (also displaying the condition of some of the models before I got to em').

Based on time constraints I will not be painting the destroyers as ornately as I wanted to. However, I still have 8 more on the work bench that I can afford to put some real time in to after this project reaches 2000 points. I've also decided that I will be adding a lot of warriors (approximately 70) along with 10 lychguard and 10 praetorians. I know they're over costed and not terribly effective but I do have the models and I think they might be fun to try out in a much larger game.

The plan is to grow this army to 5000 points of stuff I'd want to play with often. So, that's probably 5000 points + 2000 points of chaff that I would only take for a laugh.

Holy sheet you have alot of necrons. think about basing with gw texture paints. it saves alot of time and comes out great.Just aply the paint, give it a wash ,and a drybrush. Also how could anyone ever afford to keep a warhammer army growing with the ridiculous prices in Canada?? its the reason i didn't play when i lived there. Anyway great stuff you are doing here.

Yeah, actually, I did a tally earlier today.. If everything was built and together there's probably near 5000 points already.

In terms of buying stuff I'm not actually buying these. At least, not so far. I traded a smallish grey knight army for a big sack full o' Necrons. The Necrons were in pretty bad shape but I've been able to recover a considerable amount of them.

So far, I haven't spent any cash on this army. I do intend on buying some things but I'm in no hurry and will not be spending full retail at Canadian prices.

The bases are done using the textured paint from GW. The recipe is:

Astrogranite, Athonian Camoshade wash, Tyrant Skull drybrush, and Steel Legion drab around the rim of the base.

Wooaaa, you have been busy! The bases really look much better now

I applaud your idea of 10 lychguard and praetorians. They won't be very effective, but the models are beautiful and you'll be happy to add some variety to your more casual games. It's the sole reason I got myself some lychguard as well. Unfortunately I'm a very lazy builder. I can spend hours painting but oh God-Emprah help me, when it's time to cut bits from sprues and remove mold lines I die a little each time.

And that was one heck of a deal. A smallish GK force for what, over 5000 points of necrons?! glorious

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
Wooaaa, you have been busy! The bases really look much better now

I applaud your idea of 10 lychguard and praetorians. They won't be very effective, but the models are beautiful and you'll be happy to add some variety to your more casual games. It's the sole reason I got myself some lychguard as well. Unfortunately I'm a very lazy builder. I can spend hours painting but oh God-Emprah help me, when it's time to cut bits from sprues and remove mold lines I die a little each time.

And that was one heck of a deal. A smallish GK force for what, over 5000 points of necrons?! glorious

Hahaha, yeah last night I got some good progress in too. I'm actually usually more of a lazy painter than I am a lazy builder. The thing is, I now have a no-grey model policy now. I will not play any more games with unpainted models. The models don't have to be painted to the best of my ability, but a cohesive army on the tabletop with a decent scheme really adds a lot to our hobby. So, the fact that I traded away my only painted army, and have a game to play on Monday is a real motivator.. I kind of wish I didn't commit to 2000 points though. It's a lot of work.

Last night, I got a good amount of work done. It may be hard to tell but on all of the remaining models (except Obyron who has been abducted by a friend who wants to paint it) I completed the following steps:

Finished fixing/modding the destroyers/deathmarks
Primed everything
A dark-silver coat
A lighter-silver highlight (gun metal)
The first actual colour as a part of my green shoulder/armour plate tint. (This is actually a four step process utilizing 3 different shades of grey and then the green tint).

You can see that first colour on the destroyers the easiest. It is the Coal paint from Minitaire.

Pics!!

With enough motivation anything is possible (took me quite a while to convert all my deathmarks... Aaah, me and my building laziness)

That heavy destroyer on the left... Wow, now that's one heavy gauss cannon. Simple but very cool looking conversion the one next to him is cool too. Were they already like that or did you have to improvise?

I improvised a little. I have two of the real heavy gauss cannons, I just really don't like them. I think they look flimsy and bad. The regular gauss cannons on normal destroyers look better.

ok I only just started painting necrons, not trying to encroach on your blog or anything but would you be ok with me posting I pic or 2 for your evaluation, your models are painted great!

the shrouded lord wrote:
ok I only just started painting necrons, not trying to encroach on your blog or anything but would you be ok with me posting I pic or 2 for your evaluation, your models are painted great!

I would be happy to take a look at your stuff. Typically I won't comment on the quality of paintjob (as it just takes practice) but I can give you my 2 cents on where I think you can improve and maybe some techniques I think would help. Please, post away!

cool.
here are the pics
I have not mush experience painting necrons, im slightly better at tyranids, and my grey knights are (in my opinion) pretty good.

Wow, that's quite a bit of stuff. It seems like you're on your way.

I really do like what you did with the first guy where the insides of his arms are painted blue. I wouldn't have thought of that. What you want to do is keep trying different interesting things like that. Try to do stuff that no one is doing and build on that.

What I would recommend you do is try using some washes on your models. Start out with the really basic ones like a black or sepia wash (black for metal/blues and darker colours, sepia for basically everything else) and then start trying to highlight up.

What you're doing when you try these things is to reinforce the models as a 3D item. If you take a look at your cryptek, because his blue armour plates are all one colour and there's no shading and no highlighting he looks kind of flat. This is because our eyes aren't very good at determining these things on this kind of scale.

HUGE update time! I'll have to do this over a couple of posts but I have a lot of stuff to cover and my force is well under way. Tonight I was able to highlight up the next 2 colours and get the tint on to each of the models. This includes:

6 Destroyers (including a lord)
2x Cryptek
1x Lord
Zandrekh
Imotekh (will be used as a lord).
10x Deathmarks
10x Scarabs.

Oddly, the hardest ones were the scarabs as getting the shading right on the small little guys was a pain in the butt. Still, I'm pretty happy with tonight's progress.

Now for the pics. Be sure to read the captions as they'll explain things better.

And a couple more.

Forgot to post the Destroyers.

Also, continuing work on the army NOW!