Phandaal's completed projects: Necrons + Space Marines (2026)

[phandaal]

Edit: Now including Space Marines! https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/385834-phandaals-necrons-space-marines-2026/#findComment-6151025

 

 

How do you do, fellow 'Crons?

 

Most of you will no doubt know me as the owner of the fifth-most viewed thread on the Votann subforum (yeah, kind of a big deal), but that is not my only army!

 

Since the beginning of the year, I have been working on a small Necron force, and finally got to a nice stopping point to share with my fellow Necron Enjoyers. As usual, pics in spoiler tags to save your bandwidth. The very first unit is a classic take on an iconic unit:

 

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Can't have Necrons without scarabs!

 

Up next, my proxies for a unit of Flayed Ones (because who wants to paint skin in a robot army):

 

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Next, we added some mooks fodder warriors: 

 

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Next, a Cryptek to keep the mooks and canopteks in line when the Overlord has more pressing matters to attend to (which is all the time):

 

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And another unit of mooks:

 

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Group photo of the growing army:

 

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With the core in place, the Overlord and his Royal Warden came next:

 

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And a pic with the Cryptek:

 

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Up next is a box of Wraiths I got as a present (these are really cool models!):

 

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And a size comparison picture:

 

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Since the Royal Warden looked bored without his own set of mooks to boss around, next up is a unit of Immortals:

 

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Doesn't he look much happier now?

 

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More pics in the next post!

 

Edited January 11 by phandaal

[phandaal]

After the Royal Warden got his mooks, we moved on to another piece of Canoptek hardware:

 

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This guy was actually a proxy print, and you will see in the army pic that he is way bigger than a normal Reanimator!

 

After the big guy, I found a special weapon upgrade for a unit of Praetorians:

 

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"Indeed." After that, one thing led to another and the final model arrived - the... Webway gate:

 

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The Necrons have to come from somewhere, right?

 

Last but not least, the completed army:

 

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This was a really fun army to work on! Necrons are not a difficult army to paint, but there is a lot of room to make the models interesting with the accent metals, weapons, tesseract glow, and the basing. Thanks for looking!

[N1SB]

7 hours ago, phandaal said:

"Indeed." After that, one thing led to another and the final model arrived - the... Webway gate:

 

The Necrons have to come from somewhere, right?

 

This was a really fun army to work on! Necrons are not a difficult army to paint, but there is a lot of room to make the models interesting with the accent metals, weapons, tesseract glow, and the basing. Thanks for looking!

 

WAAAAHAhahahahaha.

 

YEAH!

 

You made it fun.  I love it.

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, N1SB said:

 

WAAAAHAhahahahaha.

 

YEAH!

 

You made it fun.  I love it.

 

Thank you! I listened to the Stargate theme more than a few times while painting those last models.  

[crimsondave]

Gotta love Necrons.  Good call proxying the Flayed Ones.  Awful to assemble the official ones.  Szeras model is rough too.

 

Outside that, they are sooooooo easy to make look decent.  Definitely my easiest and most fun army to paint.

[phandaal]

New year, new army project! Decided to start the year off with something unusual - Space Marines! These are my own homebrew chapter, the Steel Talons. First up, we have the test Marine that I did to make sure the color scheme works:

 

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And a shot of the Chapter insignia:

 

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Once that was settled, it was time for the classic. One squad of Tactical Marines:

 

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And one with the special weapons front a center:

 

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Decided to go for the good ol' Rocket Launcher + Grav Gun combo from the 2013 refresh.

 

Up next - some heavy metal!

[Firedrake Cordova]

Nicely done.

 

I like the basing, with the use of multiple types of tufts to give a more natural image.  

[phandaal]

3 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Nicely done.

 

I like the basing, with the use of multiple types of tufts to give a more natural image.  

 

Thank you! One thing I like about arid environments is the way some foliage will be dried out while other plants are green and flowering. That is the effect I was going for here.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I too really like your mixed use of foliage and rocks on the bases.  One thing to keep in mind, though, is do you want to make it look more natural for each model, or across the whole squad together?  On a per model basis, having one of each on each base looks more natural, but across the entire squad that kind of equal distribution looks artificial.  So, if you are going for a natural look across the squad, probably best to mix up the distribution between bases some.

 

I do love the old models, but I had forgotten how skiny their thighs were - yours are beautifully painted, though.

Edited January 13 by Dr_Ruminahui

[phandaal]

2 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

On a per model basis, having one of each on each base looks more natural, but across the entire squad that kind of equal distribution looks artificial.  So, if you are going for a natural look across the squad, probably best to mix up the distribution between bases some.

 

100% agree. It is hard to tell from just a couple of picture angles, but they actually have different numbers/sizes of brown tufts and different numbers/sizes of the flower tufts on each base. I have considered mixing it up even further and having some with only brown, or only the flowers, but I like the overall color mix by having a mix of both on each base.

 

And yes, apparently the OG Codex Astartes was missing a section on Leg Day. 

[phandaal]

Next addition - a Razorback. Plain and simple! Standard disclaimer about my lack of photography skills:

 

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Up next - some dudes to ride in this thing!

 

Edited January 18 by phandaal

[kabaakaba]

Simple and nice. Good job!

[phandaal]

Veterans disembark from their transport!

 

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They also get extra blinged-out backpacks:

 

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Up next - more heavy metal!

[kabaakaba]

Darn, I don't really like marines but this looks great in their simplicity and glory!

[Firedrake Cordova]

The simplicity of the scheme works really well for those marines, and I really like the basing.  

 

Nice conversion on the Razorback too.  

Edited February 2 by Firedrake Cordova

[phandaal]

13 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

The simplicity of the scheme works really well for those marines, and I really like the basing.  

 

Nice conversion on the Razorback too.  

 

Thank you! Like most guys with work/family responsibilities, my hobby time can be cut short at any moment.  Simple color schemes suit my schedule and give me something I can be happy to put on the shelf or table.

[Brother Christopher]

Oh, they're great. It's such a rare instance to see oldschool Marines that are painted as nice as these. I miss these guys being the standard...

[phandaal]

10 hours ago, Brother Christopher said:

Oh, they're great. It's such a rare instance to see oldschool Marines that are painted as nice as these. I miss these guys being the standard...

 

Seeing how great your stuff is, that is high praise! This whole army will be "oldschool."

[phandaal]

As promised - the heavy metal arrives!

 

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Sergeant for scale:

 

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Your eyes do not deceive you with that base. 1 - it is the same shape as the vehicle, which simplifies things, 2 - it lets me carry over the full color scheme including base, and 3 - it helps the scale a bit so the vehicle is a little bit taller on the table.

 

And yes, I did it for the other one too:

 

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The Warhammer cops will never catch me!

 

Up next - we've had heavy metal, yes. But what about heavy ceramite?

[Mithrilforge]

Been away from 40K for a while, (the Old World called me over) been a while since I've been here too  Getting Nostalgia vibes from your work here to simpler times and probably happier times (40k wise, not life) great work @phandaal loving it. 

11th Ed may see me come back perhaps, didn't play one game of 10th so perhaps 11th ed may suprise me .

 

great hobbying bud, looking forward to seeing more.

 

Cheers, Mithril 

[phandaal]

26 minutes ago, Mithrilforge said:

Been away from 40K for a while, (the Old World called me over) been a while since I've been here too  Getting Nostalgia vibes from your work here to simpler times and probably happier times (40k wise, not life) great work @phandaal loving it. 

11th Ed may see me come back perhaps, didn't play one game of 10th so perhaps 11th ed may suprise me .

 

great hobbying bud, looking forward to seeing more.

 

Cheers, Mithril 

 

Thank you for the compliment! And yes, I have a droid army for a different far away galaxy and an undead army for fantasy that call me away too every once in a while. 

 

Nice to see you back!

[W.A.Rorie]

Excellent Job on the Marines @phandaal

[Brother Christopher]

I don't have much constructive to say here - keep up the great work. I'm loving these. And your minis hit all the stronger in my current nostalgia phase :D I wish things in the current 40k were more like they used to.

 

And I've always loved that extra armour kit for Predators - I've all but forgotten about it existing. I should try and recreate it with plasticard. Predators were sexier with it.