Necron Warriors: A Tabletop Miniatures Review

I have completed my initial Necron troops for a Kill Team squad! Games Workshop (often abbreviated as GW) published Kill Team as a skirmish counterpart for their larger-scale Warhammer 40,000 space opera war game, and it gives me the opportunity to dabble in a few armies other than my usual Orks. As with most tabletop games, assembly and painting are at least as much a part of the hobby as actually playing the game, and players may choose unique color schemes and make unique modifications to their models so their armies are more personalized.

For my Necrons, I decided to use the typical silver color scheme with green details. I have seen some really neat models made with different paint jobs, but it just felt right to go with the classic Egyptian Terminator aesthetic. I primed them in silver first. A black ink wash brought out the details, and I painted the guns black. Then silver paint dry-brushed over everything tidied up the works. Two shades of green brought out the special icons and gun hoses. It's not going to win any awards, but it's a good tabletop standard paint job. The bases will eventually all get styrene stripes as an homage to stark Necron aesthetics and iconography.

Proper customization is limited to my Flayed Ones. I made them using Milliput for skin, Gauss Flayer bayonets, bits of sprue, and some 3rd party pieces. The tentacles were made by rolling some Milliput on comb teeth. Because these guys are supposed to be insane robot zombies, I used a sepia ink wash instead of black to make them seem a bit more decayed and rusted. No one else has Flayed Ones like mine, and I didn't spend an absurd sum on the official models.

Left: sprue claws. Right: bayonet hands.

Left: Mantic claw and Milliput tentacles. Right: heads and other body parts, mostly Mantic.

Oh, and about that odd extra warrior... I plan to include an Ork kommando in all Kill Team squads I build because I find it amusing. I used a standard shoota boy and added a styrene tube to extend the barrel of his gun, and then cut a choppa from a spare melee weapon arm for the bayonet. I also used actual copper wire for the barrel band. Some spiky bitz on the muzzle completed the look I wanted. The armor is silver and the gun barrel is green because some Orks do understand camouflage.

As you can see in the picture above, I dry-fitted the weapon arms and glued them as a subassembly for painting the Ork. On the Necrons, the ball-and-socket joints required painting the body assembly, the right arm assembly, and the left arm bit separately before putting it all together.

How do these guys compare to other sci-fi robot warriors? Pictured above, to the right of the Necron Warrior are two Super Battle Droids from the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Miniatures Game. To the left are two Terminator Genisys Endoskeletons. Either could be used as proxy soldiers if glued to the right base size, although some gamers frown on using an army composed of unofficial models, and non-GW minis won't fly in any official tournament. I say if they look the part and fit the scale reasonably well, play what you want in a friendly game. If you want actual Terminators, do it. Just make sure people know what they represent. But the price for Necron warriors isn't bad by GW standards. The models are old, and the layout of the frame is clearly not as optimized as newer releases, but the kit is well made. Since they come in a set of twelve, I still have four unbuilt models on their frame in my trades box at the time of this post, too.

As for how they play, that remains to be seen. My schedule doesn't work well with the game nights at my local game shop, and the word "local" is a bit of a stretch here. Necrons are resilient, though. Their special rule gives them a chance to heal completely when they take damage, so they are a frustrating foe to take down. This makes up considerably for their poor movement and average combat stats.