WIP: Necron Army - Part 2: Creating immortals from warriors

This week we discuss how to get both immortals and deathmarks out of the battleforce box. Let's have our cake and eat it too.

Last week, in part 1, we covered how to convert the warriors so that they look much cooler than the basic pose. I also mentioned that you could get both deathmarks and immortals out of the set, despite there not being enough legs and torso fronts on the included deathmark/immortal sprue. Let's talk about that in detail.

The starter comes with a single deathmark/immortal sprue that allows for five of either. BUT, it also comes with twenty warriors. Simply put, a squad of fifteen warriors is more than enough to sit on an objective and be hard to move, thanks to a 5+ reanimation protocol. (Add a lord for a 4+ reanimation protocol, and it's even better) Lets take five of the warrior legs and torso fronts to make some immortals.

Here's the front of the torso included in the sprue. We're gonna use those to build deathmarks next week. The warrior torso fronts don't have any shoulder armor, but trust me, the immortals will look completely normal without it. Did you notice in the header image above?

To make the warrior torso front fit the immortal back, however, we have to do a little shaving. Using an exacto, shave away the parts circled in red. These are preventing the warrior front from making a clean fit. Once these are removed, attach the two halves.

You'll notice a small gap, as shown in the image above. Doesn't matter. When the figure is standing, you can't see it. I had to turn this model upside down, and shine a light in there just to take a photo of it. On the tabletop, no one will notice.

BUT what about the backs? We're going to use the spine from the sprue on our deathmarks next week - we don't want these guys to look like they're missing parts! No worries, as mentioned last week, I've also purchased a box of Praetorians/Lychguard to make Lords and Crypteks. We'll just use some extra spine bits from that box. On the right you can see part of the Praetorian spine - it fits perfectly!

Here are the warrior legs. Remember how we spent countless hours last week, chopping these apart and reposing them so they didn't look crappy? Not gonna worry about it here! In fact, because the immortals carry those huge tesla carbines or gauss blasters, it actually looks appropriate to have them in a wide stance to brace the weapon. Look. Cool, yeah?

With our immortals assembled, we are going to base coat them with black. I use vallejo airbrush primer. Any black will do.

Once that's dry, we apply vallejo gunmetal in a forward and down spray. this leaves the underside of the model black, and begins to emphasize the shading. Then we spray vallejo silver in a top down pattern ONLY - again to exaggerate the shading.

When that's complete, we wash the model using GW agraz earthshade. Then a layer of GW nuln oil. The model is then dry-brushed using a combination of gunmetal and silver, to bring the highlights out.

Just like we did with our warriors, we're going to add a splash of color to our army by painting the shoulder pads yellow. You can do this with a brush, but I find that light colors like white or yellow take many, many thin coats to look proper. Ain't nobody got time for that! I masked them off using poster putty, then sprayed vallejo gold yellow.

Notice that they're a little sloppy. There's some yellow overspray on the legs and I purposefully sprayed the heads to get a stripe. No worries - we can touch that up with a little brushed on gunmetal and silver, as shown below.

Once that was complete, I painted all the areas that would be green with an undercoat of white. We need that green to snap, and a white undercoat is best.

Once the white was dry, I painted the vallejo scorpion green, hit it with a GW Bieltan green wash and then finished with black over the weapon. I still haven't decided how I'm going to base this force yet, so finish yours as you see fit. Be sure to use GW steel legion drab on your base rim! Nobody likes green bases - that's WAY out of style! :)

Next week we will build our deathmarks from the sprue.

-trip