Forging a Dynasty

Well, despite best laid plans, no games of 9th ed 40k were played while it was manageable, and therefore no games were played when it got unmanageable.  The advent of 10th edition sparked action.

Two games in against my brothers Blood Angels and it was clear that my guns were plinking off anything with armour.  I had the Doomsday Ark in kit form, so it had to get built asap!

I have to say that I am enjoying 10th ed so far.  It is still no small undertaking to get into, especially having missed all of 9th.  All the unit rules, and special rules feel brand new as a result.  That said, with some homework, and a couple of learning games it does feel manageable and the game plays really nicely.  Soooo many dice as there always has been, but that’s 40k – love or hate it, it’s part of the identity.

There are a number of features that seem like a big improvement to me.  Gone are the days of twiddling your thumbs for half an hour while your opponent has their turn.  There are all kinds of reactive stratagems that are actually key to winning games, and the mission rules and victory conditions are more fun than they have been.

So far so good, I am excited about my Necrons again so I am going to ride that wave for a bit!

It’s been a little while, but 2023 is the year I want to focus on, and progress, my passion projects. This is one of them.

I recently saw a model that was from Warhammer Underworlds that looked decidedly Necrony…Mir Kainan from Kainan’s Reapers. He’s also draped in the flesh of some poor being that got in his way. That sounds a lot like Flayed Ones…

So I think we may have a candidate for another member of the band – Kimtayl the Slayer. I might modify that to Flayer given the Flayed One connection.

I’ve never been a massive fan of Flayed Ones (and I’m even less of a fan having suffered the pain of building these little buggers), but once the idea got in my head I had to do it.

So off I toddled to eBay to pick up the separate sprues for Mir Kainan and a unit of Flayed ones.

Mir Kainan built really well, the only issue was that the bases for Underworlds models seems to be giant plinths and look really out of place next to 40K bases. So the sandpaper came out there. No issue.

The flayed ones however…horrible little shites to build. Never again. There were more expletives than Gerry watching Liverpool.

Glad to see the back of the build, and get some primer on. First black then silver.

The paint job is exactly as per the previous posts where I set out the method with the exception that these particularly creepy Necrons are dripping with flayed skin!

That was achieved simply with two oil paints – Italian Terra Rosa and Brilliant Yellow Pale – both from the Williamsburg brand.  The two colours mix together perfectly to create a skin tone, and the beauty of oils is that you don’t have to mix all the various shades on your palette  – you blend them together on the model and get a nice smooth finish.  No laborious glazing here!

This weekend I finished up the models which will form a starting roster for a Crusade campaign. You need 50 power for a roster, taking about 25 power to the first game. I’ve added a Hexmark Destroyer as I got him for Christmas and wanted to paint him up, but without him this comes in at 48 power which is spot on.

Hopefully in the coming months I’ll actually be able to get a game on!

The weapons are based out in Black Templar (about 3 coats) and then all the pipes and glow are done in the colours above. Aside from that there is some gold (Scale 75 Negro Gold) with a thinned Druchii Violet wash and that’s about it. On the larger models I’m doing a black oil pin wash here and there but nothing hugely noticeable. Pretty simple, pretty quick.

For the carapace on all the models  I’m using oil paints to get the effect I want. I’m imagining an alien material that is rock solid but infused with ethereal energy. Kind of marbley but more inky with the illusion of depth.

I based out the carapace with Incubi Darkness acrylic from GW, then used oils over the top.

Having used the paints above to get a black, a green and a light green ready, it’s just a case of dotting each on in turn and then feathering it into the surface with a clean brush, working back and forth until it looks right.

So we’ve done acrylic, we’ve done ink, now time for oils! This is a heavy wash of Payne’s Grey oil paint. Just a tube of artists oils from the craft shop, mixed with some white spirit to make a thick goop. Then just slop it all over so that it looks a right mess. As long as it goes in all the recesses we don’t care about surfaces, we don’t care about pooling, the messier the better. Fun stuff!

We need a bit of the white spirit to evaporate and the paint to dry a little bit. For a batch of models, once you’ve gooped up the last model you can pretty much start the next stage on the first model. When painting a single model you can either leave it for half an hour, or blast it with a hairdryer. You can even go have lunch or dinner and come back to it later. The oil stays wet for hours.

This is a reductive technique, so the next step is to remove the oil wash from the surfaces. This is simply done with a dry cotton bud, dabbing very gently. You’ll noticed I haven’t varnished between stages. This is fine but it is necessary to be gentle as the airbrushed layers underneath are thin. You don’t want to scrub too hard, but it’s more robust than you might think.

I tend to grab a dry cotton bud to clean the upper surfaces ( so they look highlighted) but I don’t mind working with a dirtier bud on the lower parts as this works some of the oil onto the surface and creates a nice inky, oily sheen.

I then take a cotton bud dipped in some white spirit to “highlight” the model by making sure the very upper parts and edges are completely clean of oil with the pure silver showing through.

Wash and highlight in one step – pretty neat!

Time to paint Overlord Kor’Nell! This section will be about creating the Necron ’living metal’ – the unique Xenos material from which their bodies are forged.

I’ll cover the steps in some detail.  Partly because, you never know, someone might be interested… but also so that I can remind myself how I did it when I inevitably forget!

The basing material is a mix of polyfilla, pva glue and sand, blobbed on thick to create texture.

For a primer I use Molotov black which is designed as a refill for acrylic paint pens. Incredible stuff, you end up with models that look like they are made from black plastic.

Then some Vallejo Steel, thinned with airbrush thinner and sprayed all over. Not worrying about getting it in the deepest recesses but that’s more for speed than any difference it makes.

Next I mix Magenta and Payne’s Grey ink in a 6:1 ratio (because the Magenta is transparent and the Payne’s Grey is opaque so the latter is much stronger). This is sprayed from the bottom, like a reverse zenithal, to tint the silver with purple. This looks crazy now but we’ll make it much more subtle.

I airbrush silver again, this time a 45 degree top down zenithal. This re-establishes the silver as the dominant colour and pushes the purple into the very lowest surfaces. The idea here is not to make the metal look purple, but to provide a very subtle colour contrast with the green that will come later. It’ll be almost imperceptible unless you look under the model bit it will create movement in the scheme and visual interest. You can see here the difference between the top down and bottom up views. It’s invisible from top down:

Wow, I wasn’t expecting a Golden Button for this project, certainly not this early, but very happy to be featured on this week’s Community Spotlight – thanks OTT crew!

As well as the musical influences, this project has painting influences, so before I outline my method I need to give credit to two significant sources of inspiration.

Firstly for the general colour scheme. I was wanting to do something a bit different, and considered an Egyptian, sandstone kind of thing. Also considered a really grimdark horror kind of thing. However when reading the current fiction the Necron forces are being continually reforged into new living metal bodies so whilst they will suffer battle damage, it didn’t feel right that their bodies would be crusty, rusty and corroded. Sure you could force a story but it might get harder to force the upcoming models into that story.

But it was browsing on Instagram that I came across Darren Latham’s necrons. His are very clean, and I want a tad more grimdark, but his general scheme of silver with a blue- green glow had me sold. Kind of conventional and recognisably necron, but a bit different.

In terms of method, a big influence on me at the moment is Marco Frisoni. Yes his results are amazing but it’s more that his painting process is very freeing and very painterly. He uses mixed media including inks and oils, especially when speedpainting, and I am finding the style very liberating. So I want to use oils and inks to create a fun painting process in order to get quick results with a bit of individual character and a soupçon of grimdark.

Take a bow, Darren and Marco!

Given this project has a good dose of musical inspiration, it seems a good time to reveal the origin of my username. Being a 90s grunge fan, as has been noted, I’m also a fan of Screaming Trees. Their singer is called Mark Lanegan. My name is Dan. So a bit of a mash up and there you have it @DarkDanegan !

The grizzled rocker himself (not me!) Dust is an incredible album by the way!

I’m still working out the scheme and the method so I will document that soon and take some better photos but as a placeholder…there are some models coming along!

Better start thinking about some models now then I guess!

So the idea formed whilst listening to some music.  Grunge music.  I love me a bit of Soundgarden, and one day (a while ago I can’t quite remember) it occurred to me that Soundgarden’s song “Limo Wreck” from their album Superunknown could easily be spelt “Limorekh”.  Limo Wreck is very present-time Earth, but Limorekh is altogether more 40k and very Necrony indeed!

And it gets better.  On their post-comeback album “King Animal” they produced a logo.  A logo that couldn’t be more Necrony if they tried.  I mean seriously, are these guys Necrons in disguise?!

So now that we are decided this is to happen, a few more details will help before we think about models.  Can we Necronify the band members sufficiently so that they can be the generals of the army?  Helpfully in the latest lore for 40k, the Necrons are very focussed on restoring themselves to their previous ‘flesh lives’ and flashbacks to their flesh based past are common.  This can allow us to link alien metal characters to something more familiar and, well, fleshy…

Chris Cornell (vocals) = Overlord Kor’Nell

Kim Thayill (Guitar) = Kymtayl The Slayer

Ben Shepherd (Bass) = Beinn The Shepherd

Matt Cameron (Drums) = Kam’Ron The Noisebringer

And finally, from the song Limo Wreck itself, these lyrics will be the mantra for Overlord Kor’Nell and his war on the galaxy:

And the wreck of you
Is the death of you all
And the wreck of you is the break and the fall
I’m the wreck of you
I’m the death of you all
I’m the wreck of you
I’m the break and the fall