Necrons: The Lazy Man's Force

Imagine this but, more awesome!

When it comes to starting up in the Warhammer: 40,000 hobby the first major choice that you face is which army to field.

It's obviously important to choose a force that appeals to you but, what often gets overlooked by newer players is just how manageable is that force?

For example, the idea of playing as Orks may appeal to you but, are you prepared for just how many models you are going to have to assemble and paint?

Let's face it, it's not uncommon for new players to throw in the towel half way through painting up, what is a small army but a hell of a lot of models. So, to save wasting money if for no other reason, it's important to choose your army wisely based on your abilities and level of patience (and I can be quite impatient!)

The chances are that if you're reading this, you're quite impatient too. So what do i suggest?

Necrons. Necrons all the way! But why?

Well, for a start Necrons have always seemed to have an edge over all of the other armies from the word go, so if winning is important to you, choose Necrons but, that's probably a topic for another post.

What we're interested in here is the fact of just how fast you can get that bulk of a Necron army to the table, and when I say fast, I'm talking in hours, not days, to the point where it is conceivable to have the better part of a Battleforce rendered to a good tabletop standard within a day!

Something that I consider unthinkable with most other armies.

This is made possible by just how little you can get away with and, how many lazy mans tricks you can pull to get you there quickly. You thought Black Templars where a cinch, you haven't seen anything anything yet!

All you have to do is follow these few simple steps and you'll be rising out of the sand with the best of them:

Step 1: Prime your models.. Spray them black.
Step 2: Paint them all with a quick coat of watered down chainmail or boltgun.

This is a personal shortcut of mine. Metallic paints don't mix well with water as you may know, so the end result of applying this mixture will produce much the same effect as if you had painted the model silver and washed it black... Just in one step, saving you time and saving you money!

Step 3: Whilst your models are drying, paint their bases brown.
Step 4: Once your models are dry you may want to wash a little black into the deep recesses but, this is totally optional.
Step 5: Detailing. Pick out the chest emblem and eyes with a touch of green to compliment the Gauss Rifle and, optionally the piece of cabling on the rifle itself.
Step 6: Assemble the model.
Step 7: Base the model with sand and you're done!

All in all, that should take you about an hour and a half for a ten man squad the first time around, which should get quicker as you get into the flow of things. You can also apply similar methods to your other models, switching the green for red with the scarabs for detailing and, possibly line-edging your larger models.

Be warned though, line-edging takes time (lots of time if you want to get it right) so be sure to make it one of the last things you do to bring your models from tabletop - good, to tabletop - awesome. For a lazy mans approach however, this simple guide should see you well on the way to marching across scorching deserts and apocalyptic wastelands.