Whether you are new to Warhammer, or even wargames, or you’re interested in starting your second or fifth new army, getting started in Warhammer 40k can be confusing. We’re here to help get you started, and show you how to get your new favorite army on the table with our new series: The First 2,000: Necrons.
In Part 6, the painting begins!
Necrons are some of the most deceptively complex models to paint in the Warhammer range. At first glace, you think they must be easy. A bit of silver, black on the gun, hit it with a wash, and Roboute’s your gene-daddy. Then you buy a bunch, build them up, and realize it’s not exactly that simple.
Let’s take a look at the humble Necron Warrior. There’s a lot of detail in the model. The chest piece, the tubing under the rib cage, the gauss flayer, all need some work beyond just a spray of silver. Depending on your color scheme, you might need to pick out armor panels. Unlike a space marine, necrons are thin, with odd shaped panels and surfaces. They require attention and care to paint well.
I am building mine to roughly follow the Nihilakh Dynasty. Happily, that means I can use a bit more silver on the core troops than some other dynasties. Nihilakh features gold and turquoise heavily. Unlike many Warhammer factions, and even other Necron dynasties, Nihilakh is brighter, and often a bit cleaner than the norm. My silver can be bright, along with the gold and turquoise, and give my army a more regal look, fitting the backstory of my chosen Dynasty.
I like Army Painter’s Fanatic line, so I’ve decided to use as many of those colors as I can. I’m starting with an Army Painter Plate Mail spray primer. Typically for machines, I like the Army Painter Gun Metal primer. It’s a bit dark, and has a nice used silver look right out of the can. With some shade over top, it can make a nice, simple metal for most Necrons. But, Nihilakh is bougie, so I decided on the Plate Mail primer. It’s brighter and pops a lot more. Additionally, I’ll have to shade it, then build the brightness back up.
Army Painter Greedy Gold is the gold I’m choosing. It’s a bright gold, and contrasts well with my turquoise selection. Army Painter Hydra Turquoise fits really well, and over the silver looks more blue than the bottle would have you believe. It’s a very nice color, and it makes the Necrons pop on the table.
After selecting my colors, I decided to put some basic colors down on a Warrior and make sure that I liked how they look. I choose to paint a Warrior, because I have lots of them, and if I need to do a bit of work changing the colors up, one of 40-60 Warriors is a lot easier to hide than something like a centerpiece model.
I also didn’t fully paint the Warrior. I wanted to test out the turquoise and gold combination, and see those colors on the mini. I also did a bit of testing after that initial color test with some other colors, which we’ll discuss in more detail later.
This mini was my proof of concept for the colors I plan to use. Not only was a I checking for how the colors would look, but also how easy it would be to paint with these colors. I’ve used them before, so I was confident they would work, but I still wanted to see them on the mini and be sure.
I did make one adjustment from the lore. The official Nihilakh scheme uses gold shoulders, and features more gold overall. My previous Necron army was gold like this. I liked it, but the longer I played it, the more I wished I had made the shoulders turquoise, and used that color a bit more throughout. So, this time, I wanted to see how I’d feel about leaning into that color more. Ultimately, I’m much happier with this scheme than the old one.
Now I can start working through the detail and accent colors. I’ve done some of that work already, but there a few more colors that I need to decide on. We’ll take a dive into that next time.
