Indomitus Necrons Done!

I have a confession to make. It's very rare for me to actually finish an entire half of a starter set for Warhammer or 40k, but I've recently finished all of the Necrons from the Indomitus box! Clocking in around 1,000 points, it's pretty much half an army too. 

When I say it's pretty rare for me to actually finish an entire half of a starter set I mean it. There have only been three times in my life that I've completed this. To start with, let's do a quick count of which starter sets I've owned. There was the 3rd edition 40k, 6th edition Fantasy, 4th edition 40k, 1st edition AoS, 8th edition 40k, 2nd edition AoS, and now 9th edition 40k. Of those I've completely painted all of the Space Marines from the 3rd edition set (to be fair, that was just 10 marines and a land speeder), the Nighthaunt from the 2nd edition AoS set, and now the Necrons from Indomitus.

As you can see I haven't owned all of the starter sets either. I stopped buying them for awhile because, well, I never finished painting anything in them! The other day I was looking through some of my old hobby boxes and found some of the 4th edition 40k starter marines, each painted in a different color scheme. I had used them as test models. I think there was only 10 marines in that entire box and I still couldn't finish them. 

The Nighthaunt Starter plus 2,500 points or so

Hopefully this helps explain a bit why I'm so happy that I've finished my Necrons. It really just takes an army that grabs me to get it done. Having an easy to paint color scheme helps too. I think another big thing for me is momentum. With both the Nighthaunt and the Necrons I built and painted all of them pretty much in one unbroken stream. No side projects, no getting distracted. I got them all painted before my attention burnt out. To be fair, the four Grimghast Reapers from the Nighthaunt waited awhile until I painted up a whole unit a few months later, but the only things I painted in between those things were more Nighthaunt, so I still think it counts.

With the Necrons I knew I wanted to do them quickly. They, like the Nighthaunt, are an army you can knock out fairly quickly and still have really good looking results. Equally, they're also an army you can lavish attention on and really take your time with. For my Necrons though it was all about speed. You can find my step by step tutorial for them on the Warhammer Community site here. My main thought with them was to utilize a lot of the techniques I had practiced with my Iron Golems for Warcry. Mainly, contrasts over metals and sponging for some quick weathering and highlights. I also ended up going in and doing a bit of line highlights, and even more so on the characters, but in the end it was pretty fast.

My first Necron Warriors unit took about three days, while the second one took closer to a week. Characters were just a handful of days, and even the Canoptek Reanimator, which I thought would take the longest, was only about a week. From start to finish, taking out the time I was on vacation, I painted all 1,000 points of it in about 7 1/2 weeks. I'm pretty happy with that. I already have some Immortals ready to go, as well as a C'tan, and then in October all the new goodies come out. I expect it won't be too hard to get this army up to a full 2,000 points.

It's really satisfying actually getting half a starter painted. There's a sense of accomplishment that I don't quite get from finishing off a unit I bought on its own. I think some of it comes from the dreaded backlog of projects most long time hobbyists have. How many boxed sets of stuff have we bought and then only gotten a little bit painted, or even none at all? Actually getting half a box done, an entire faction's worth of models from it painted just feels freeing in a way. It's one more thing I know won't be joining my backlog. Now, those Marines might be, but who ever actually gets an entire starter done? (I know some people do and I applaud you). 

Now I have my first 40k army in years that's playable on the tabletop! Some of you have asked how I painted the blades on my Necrons as well, which I didn't cover in the tutorial since the Royal Warden didn't have one, so here's a quick tutorial on that as well. You can also use White instead of Grey Seer if you want a lighter look for the highlights, which is what I did on my Overlord because I forgot which color I used on the previous ones.

While I was getting these Necrons done I walked by my Stormcast from the AoS 1st edition starter, which are about 2/3 of the way done. Sadly, I'll probably never finish them since I've moved on from the color scheme I painted them in. I lost the momentum on the project and went onto something else. All I need to finish is the Lord-Celestant and five more Liberators. Hmm, maybe I'm talking myself into finishing those too.

What starter sets/boxed sets of models have you either completed one faction's worth of models from or even the entire set?!

Until next time,

Tyler M.