For Sale...

I'm pulling the trigger on selling/trading my Tyranid models. I put them up on Bartertown last night, and figured I might as well toss them up here as well.

Here's what I have, and the general asking price. Prices are negotiable, and let me know if you think anything is outrageously priced.

Set of Forgeworld Shrike Wings ($25). New, never used, straight from FW.

Set of Forgeworld Flying Rippers ($30). New, never used, some knocked off of the sprues, but all intact. I got these from someone on Bartertown.

Space Hulk Broodlord ($40). New and unassembled.

Old, metal Hive Guard with lashwhip and shield ($5). Painted a dingy yellow. No base.

Incomplete, metal Lictor ($10). He's missing one leg. Head is glued into the torso, and one of the talons is from the limited edition army box Lictor. No base.

Eleven prior-edition Warriors ($110 for the whole lot). All are new on sprue, or new off sprue. Includes eleven of the core body sprues, and the equivalent of four of the biomorph upgrade sprues. Bases not pictured, but I will scrounge up enough to fit the whole lot. Remember, these are the previous edition Warriors, so they don't have laswhips and boneswords, and whatnot.

One Carnifex body with a ton of weapon and head sprues ($30). No base. What you see in the pics is what you get. The largest set of scything talons is missing. I bought the body as bitz, and had intended to cobble together a full fex from the sprues. It'll make a perfectly playable Fex, I just want all the sprues gone with him, hence the bundle.

Two pairs of wings from WHFB Crypt Horros/Vargouls ($3). I'd planned to use these to make some Shrikes.

Genestealer lot ($22 ). Same deal as the Fex, I bought various parts and was cobbling together some models. You'll be able to build a dozen Genestealers from the bodies and heads, and enough arms to outfit them all in some manner. I'll scrounge up enough slotted bases to outfit the dozen unbuilt models. I'll toss in the five partially built models in the last pic for free to anyone who buys the lot.

Gaunt weapons lot ($4). WYSIWYG on this lot.

Ripper lot ($5). Seventeen of the little buggers, no bases.

Misc Nid Bitz bag. ($best offer). This is a standard sandwich bag full of various weapons and biomorph addons. Honestly, it's a significant number of spinefists and some other junk mixed in.

Limited Edition Army Box Lictor ($50). This guy is currently sitting in a stripping solution, but is clean and unaltered. no base. If you need a picture before buying, let me know and I'll be able to grab on in a day. He's just got a couple small spots left to clean of stubborn paint.

I'll let the entire lot go for $310 if you want it all.

The Templar Experiment

I was able to make it to the monthly tournament at the FLGS on Saturday.
I brought a Black Templars list, built using my Ultramarines. As I may have mentioned before, I'm working on playing at least 3 games with each Chapter Tactic, just so I know what they all do and to test some theories.

The list I brought was:

Captain - artificer armor, plasma pistol, power sword
Command Squad - power axe, power sword, apothecary, two plasmaguns
Razorback - Dozer, TL Assault Cannons

Crusader Squad (10) - sword brother with power sword, heavy bolter, flamer, one Marine with pistol and chainsword, Rhino
Crusader Squad (10) - sword brother with power axe, missile launcher, meltagun, one Marine with pistol and chainsword, Rhino
Crusader Squad (5) - sword brother with power axe, meltagun, one Marine with power fist, Razorback with Lascannon/TL Plasmagun

Assault Squad (10) - veteran sergeant with power fist, two flamers

It's very simple, and suboptimal. I simply don't have the pistol/chainsword models to do Templars correctly. I wanted to see how a full-on Rhino blitz worked out, and wanted to see how useful the reroll and Rending benefits to challenges worked out.

My first game ruined the day for me. I faced a Tau/Space Marine list that consisted of Farsight, some other Commander in a suit, two 10-strong Kroot Squads, Tigurius, a 5-man Scout Squad, and six Devastator Centurions with grav cannons and amps.
We were playing Bomb Sweep.
The mission didn't really matter, because I didn't really participate in this game. Tigurius, Farsight, the Tau Commander, and the Centurions were all joined in one big unit. It was simply a matter of using Tigurius to Gate the unit 24" away, not scatter at all due to Farsight, point at one of my units, and have me remove it from the board. The Centurions were all twin-linked every turn die to some piece of wargear on one of the Tau models, rrolled failed AP and wound rolls, and had Ignores Cover from another piece of Tau wargear. I tried locking them in melee, but...they have Hit and Run from yet another Tau wargear item or rule.
This list illustrates everything that is wrong with 6th Edition.

My second game I had originally drawn Thor over at Creative Twilight, but since I was tied at 0 points with another player and Thor and I had played one another last month, I asked to swap for the bye round and instead played the swing player.
He was using loaned models for the day, running Black Templars as well. Chapter Master with artificer armor and thunder hammer, one Tactical Squad in a pod, a multimelta Dread in a pod, a Vindicator, two Landspeeder Typhoons, a Hunter, five bolter Scouts, and a 5-man Devastator Squad with 4 missiles. We played Target Priority, but forgot to nominate a unit for the double kill points. Oops!
The board we played on was VERY open, with all the line of sigh blockers in corners and no really obscured sight lines. My transports weren't going to last long.
I mucked around trying to keep units alive and kill off the large squad that landed in my backfield as well as the Dread and the scouts. We pointed out Assault Marines at one another and decided to have a punch fight, which was entertaining.
I also completely forgot to have my Captain and Command Squad get out of their Razorback when it was wrecked...which was sort of huge. But we didn't realize that until after the game was over. I laughed about it, because I didn't really care.
We learned that in a Templar versus Templar fight, NO ONE ever leaves combat until they're dead. Seriously. The Assault Marine versus Assault Marine fight was a six-turn battle of attrition. I'd lose by two, and make morale. Or lose by one and fail, but be caught in the Sweep due to the Crusader rule and fight on.

Third game was against the same third round opponent from last month, with his Blood Ravens. He'd made some good progress on painting models. He'd brought a Chapter Master, two Tactical Squads with las/plas Razorbacks, two Dreads with las/missile, a Mortis Contemptor with Kheres Cannons and a missile launcher, and a Stormtalon with missiles and assault cannon.
We played King of the Hill.
The board we played on was pretty diverse with some WHFB buildings scattered about, tree stands, and a massive LOS-blocking tree near the mid-left. It also had a river running through it diagonally, which happened to be the no-man's land between the Vanguard Strike deployment zones. My plan was basically to ram a couple units forward in their transports, block the bridge with hulls or wreckage, and hold on tight. It didn't work out. I faced too much S6+ fire from multiple angles to hold up. Tabled, to a man, but it was an entertaining game.

So all in all, a very mediocre day. I brought a suboptimal list to try some things out, and it wasn't as fun a day as I thought it was.
What I did learn was: the challenge mechanic for Black Templars might work better when you're not blindly trying to get it to work purely for the sake of shits and giggles. I was issuing a challenge any time I could, like having my power fist Assault Sergeant challenge a Templar Assault Sergeant carrying a power sword. Stupid idea, but it led to an entertaining moment later in the game. Honestly,  if I hadn't been knocked off my horse by that first game, I'd probably have played smarter and harder.
Crusader is a very useful USR. I found lots of chances to roll two Run dice (take the highest), and the +d3 to your Initiative during a Sweeping Advance all but guaranteed you were sweeping or at least staying in combat with models you can't sweep. Adamantium Will didn't help at all in the first game (the only one in which I faced a psyker), but it would probably be much better in a larger sample size.
You can't force Templars to run like regular Space Marines. Arming everyone with bolters just doesn't cut it. My guess is that you'd want at least a 50/50 split between bolters and chainswords.
Also, Rhinos are shit for Templars. Total shit. For standard Marines, they work just fine because you have other rules to make up for the inability to charge out of a Rhino. Rerolls, bonuses, etc. Templars simply cannot walk across a board, no matter if you have five men or twenty. But they also cannot roll up, jump out, fire, and survive the replying fire. You need something with the Assault Vehicle rule. I really wanted to add a Land Raider Crusader to this list, but felt that at 1250 points, it was simply too much invested in a single model.
Drop pods might be a better choice for Templars, but you'd have to mix your unit with some bolters in there to make full use of the delivery method. Eight to ten pistol shots isn't worth much, and you're only packing one special weapon per squad. The lack of mobility post-landing is somewhat mitigated by Crusader.

Anyhow, despite the lackluster day I was energized to get some more painting done last night. I got the fin assembly of my drop pod edge highlighted, and now I have to go back and do the cleanup on the messy areas. That was a lot of work! Over an hour to get all five fins done.

I also packed up all of my Tyranid models and put them away. My enthusiasm for the army is at zero. When I first started planning for them, I was excited by the prospect of painting something that wasn't power armor, and I really did enjoy painting my Hive Tyrant and Genestealers. But then I got bored, because there's no real variation in the Nid models. Posing is minimal without extensive recuts and sculpting. So, I've put it all away until I either get reenergized about it, need room and sell it, or find someone who wants to buy it all in one go.

The Horror in the Dark

My first set of five Genestealers is complete! Here's proof:

 

 

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with these guys. They're not as intensively blended as my Hive Tyrant, and the lack of armor plates makes them much more monochrome. One thing I do not like about them is the bases. The sand and such is good, but in order to use all parts of a given model and eat up some slotted bases, I cut the slotta tabs off of the models, then glued them into the bases. I left the little decorative pieces on the bases. Each one includes a little rock and some sort of Nid-flesh spike or growth. At first I thought they'd look neat, but after I painted them up to match the green I use, they looked like crap. For the next batch, I'm just going to trim those off and throw them in the bitz bin.

You'll also notice that all of the models (except one, see below) use Hormagaunt talons instead of the humanoid secondary claws Genestealers normally use. Something about those hands bothers me, so I decided not to use any. But because I only had four spare sets of Hormagaunt talons, I needed another set of arms. I blatantly stole an idea I saw over at Warpshadow. I cut the hands off the arms and attached Daemonette claws in their place. I think they turned out pretty well.

Genestealers are my favorite Tyranid unit and model, so I decided to make up another batch of five to bring this to a respectable brood size while also giving me the option of a super tiny playable force when combined with my Tyrant. The next batch will also have one model with Daemonette claws, as well as one of the biomorph heads (the toxin sac head aka "Ballchinian"). I ran out of the normal heads, and didn't feel like waiting to trade away the biomorph heads I do have for plain ones. Before the new codex dropped, I had planned to turn all of the old implant attack heads into Ymgarls with custom-made Green Stuff tendrils (another idea blatantly stolen from Warpshadow). I'll probably still do that at some point, but the strong incentive isn't there any more. Instead of full broods, you'll see one-offs here and there.

I'm also still slowly picking away at my drop pod. I put the first few licks of paint on the fin assembly last night, so I'm inching forward on the Marine front.

 

The Shadow in the Warp Arrives...

At long last, I have pictures of my Hive Tyrant! Yeah, after a year of working on this guy, he's finally been photographed.

And there you have it. Effing FINALLY.

I did a quick inventory of the piles of Nid stuff I have, and realized that it's not as much as it used to be. I ended up counting 11 or 12 Warriors, 9 FW Sky Slashers, one Limited Edition metal Lictor, one metal Lictor missing a leg, an OOP metal Tyrant Guard (saw a great Broodlord conversion which I was going to steal, based on the body), 27 Hormagaunts, 20 or so Genestealers, 3-4 Termagaunts, a Carnifex, a ton of Rippers, and piles of the weapon bitz that everyone has (venom cannons, deathspitters, spinefists, blah blah blah).
It was a nice reminder that I'm not as heavily invested in Tyranids as I thought I was. Thank goodness. I'll be able to download the new codex Friday or Saturday, and then decide if the Hormagaunts will find a new home or not. There is word that Deathleaper can be an HQ, which would be HUGE for me, as I have wanted to run a Lictor+Genestealer force from the get go. I also have enough Warriors to carry a core bulk of points (plus a set of FW Shrike wings, and a set of wings from WHFB Vargheists for more Shrikes). Actually doing the inventory helped me distress about how much crap I'm sitting on.

I made the decision last night to purge all of the codexes I do not plan to use. I'm also halting my encyclopedic collection of codexes. So, when new books come out in the future, I won't be picking them up purely to have them (and thereby enter into rules debates regarding armies I don't even play). It's time to spend my time and money on other things!

Next post will be the five Genestealers that I'm nearly finished with. I puttered around with their bases some last night, so they're nearly done.

Picture time!

As I promised, here are some pics I took over the course of a couple projects, but that never panned out into anything resembling the tutorials I wanted them to.

First up is a series of WIP shots of my Hive Tyrant's base.

This one is the base with the materials glued down. It's gravel and washdown material from the end of my driveway, resin tree stumps and a doric column chunk from Secret Weapon, and some Greenstuff mushrooms.

Then the same base primed white (very exciting). It took quite a few spritzes from the can at various angles to get all the rocks covered and gaps primed.

After that it was a few coats of Reaper MSP Stained Ivory on the dirt and exposed wood. When that was dry, it got a thinned wash of Gryphonne Sepia on the ground and Thraka Green on the wood. I wanted the wood to look soggy and decayed, and it was the one thing i feel I didn't pull off well. I was generally unhappy with the end result of the stumps, which you'll see in a future post.

I wanted some shadows and a moist soil look around the stumps, so I went with Devlan Mud wash around them. I then added a few more areas of Devlan, Ogryn Flesh, Leviathan Purple, and even a few dots of Thraka Green. I mostly concentrated on the areas where grass and reeds would be, figuring they'd retain and grow in the moist areas.

This final shot shows where I started basecoating the stone grey, and added some purple and brown washes to the stump bark.

And that's where I stopped taking pictures because I was short on time.

I grabbed these two shots of my WIP Devastator Sergeant in order to start a tutorial on how to shade red. Here's the sergeant with a basecoat of red on his helmet:

 

And then again after washing the red with Thraka Green, which is the proper color for shading red. I abandoned this tutorial because I was painting my ass off for the Standish Standoff.

 



Then I have this shot of my drop pod being assembled, using slide clamps to hold the fins in place while glue cures. I was going to do a whole article on these and other clamps, but I assemble models far too slowly for that.

 And finally, a shot of one of my Genestealers after I had put a Sepia wash on the basecoated talons. The green skin is complete in this shot.

So, that is make-up picture day. I'll have some more shots of the finished Tyrant and Genestealers next time.

In Which My Attention Wanes

It's been two weeks since I have posted anything besides Sergeant Series articles. I've been busy with life in general and not overly motivated to work on 40K stuff. I'm in the middle of a months-long project of refinishing a toy box my wife had as a child, in order to give it to my son for Christmas. I started stripping the paint back in JULY, and just last night reprimed it in preparation for new paint. Yes, every project I tackle seems to take forever, it's not just 40K!

However, I did sit down and prime my first Drop Pod last weekend, and picked away at Genestealers and the early painting stages of the pod this weekend.

The pod feels like it's going to be a major pain to paint, even though I built it in subassemblies using the From the Warp tutorial. It's a pretty simple model, but the sheer surface area of the interior and exterior is staggering. I need to make sure I have backup bottles of my preferred metallics on hand.

The Genestealers have been much more interesting to work on. I've moved beyond the greens and browns, and am chugging along on the talons and blades now. These models go faster, as they don't have that whole armored carapace brown process to go through. Just some little plates on their heads. After the talons are done, it's purple under-flesh and bases. I'm not sure which Nid model I'll work on next. Maybe a Lictor or Warrior. I'd like to do more Genestealers, but I think I'll jump around a bit. I have no immediate plans to run anything out of the upcoming Nid codex, but I'd prefer not to hop in wholesale on a completely new unit. Maybe the Lictor would be the best bet, as those rarely get a wealth of options.

My attention on 40K projects has been flitting around quite a bit the last week or so. I keep having this urge to pick up an Ork project. I'd like to do a looted trukk conversion or something like that. Maybe even a Deff Dread or a unit of Kans. The new kits for those look great, plus seeing the Kans in the Space Marine video game multiplayer co-op levels makes them look crazy fun (though they aren't as fun on the table).
This is a problem, as I have so many thing already started. Drop pod, Genestealers, a Company Champion in bits in a bog on my desk, a Biker Chaplain in bitz in a bag, etc. This wouldn't be starting an entire Ork army. Just a looted vehicle or something ramshackle.
The other obstacles are that I don't really know much about rough conversions like this. If I were to do this project, I'd likely take the existing tank, drill a couple pilot holes, and use wire cutters to snip away sections. I think that would make things suitably rough for my vision, but am not sure it would paint up well. Painting Ork vehicles also looks like a big undertaking. I'd have to learn paint chipping and weathering techniques. It's a good project to learn on, so I'm not sure. Maybe after Xmas when life settles down some.

Little Things and Talky-Talky

I took a much-needed break from worrying about the hobby for the past week. It's necessary after a long build up to a big event. I've gotten over my general malaise about the Standoff, which is good.

Instead of drafting up lists or planning the next, big unit addition, I'm building and painting some stuff that I think I'll enjoy because they're fun models or projects.

I've made some very minor forward progress on my Genestealers. These guys are nice and simple to paint. I'm using the same general green recipe from the Tyrant, but applying it much quicker and with less minute attention to detail. They lack any brown chitin, so they paint up faster. in fact, the only brown you'll see on them is their little head plates. I think they'll turnout quite nicely for basic troops models once the ivory on the claws and talons and the purple of the ribbed flesh is done.

I also built and magnetized my first drop pod using the From the Warp tutorial. It took several days to get everything glued properly and assembled. Unfortunately, I somehow leaked glue into the pivot disc for the interior gun mount, so while it is magnetized, it no longer rotates. Bah. I've been using Testor's Liquid Cement instead of the usual plastic glue, and it has a capillary flow that is sometimes maddening. Lesson learned. The magnets I used for the doors help them stay shut, except for one. I'm not sure what happened, but one door just flops over without the magnets working. I triple-checked the polarity, so that can't be it.
Overall, it's a really neat kit that is a bitch and a half to put together. I have two doors that keep making contact with those little binding struts near the top of fins, though that does help them stay shut. My concern is that it'll chip off paint with repeated use. I also wish they'd included five of each chapter symbol for the doors, instead of four, but I understand that the sprues were crowded already. I'm pretty sure I already have a couple spares from past bitz trades anyways, and they're plentiful enough on eBay and Bartertown that it's not a huge issue. I was actually a little surprised at how hefty a model the drop pod is. I'd seen them on the table a hundred times, but never actually lifted and held one.

Forgeworld sent out an email about the revised Imperial Armour 2, and while it would have been a good idea for an XMas present from the wife, I went ahead an bought it for myself. There's just so much great stuff in there. I'm hoping the updated rules for the Deathstorm Drop Pod have been fixed to allow them to fire on landing.

Of course, all of this rambling is pretty pointless without some pictures. I need to sit down and take some properly-lit shots of the Tyrant and the Genestealers (maybe just one). It's been a while since I took any shots of anything! I'd tried to do a step-by-step on the process I used to make the Tyrant's base, but got so caught up in trial-and-error that I stopped taking shots a third of the way through.

The List, The Paint Desk

I figured it would probably be a good idea to share the army list that inspired my last entry. It's 1500 points, and designed for a composition-friendly event I'm attending down in MA this coming Saturday. It's hosted by the DorkaMorka gaming club. I've attended two or three of their past events, but had not been down there for more recent tournaments, wither due to family stuff or the bitter taste of being worked over by comp-bender lists the last time out.

Anyhow, here's the list:

Chaplain Cassius
6 Sternguard, Sergeant w/combimelta
5 Terminators, 2 chainfists, 1 assault cannon
10-man Tactical Squad in Rhino (non-veteran sergeant with chainsword, pistol, and meltabombs, missile/flamer)
10-man Tactical Squad in Rhino (non-veteran sergeant with chainsword, pistol, and meltabombs, plasmagun/multimelta)
7 Scouts, 6 snipers, camo cloaks, missile launcher
10 Assault Marines, veteran sergeant with pistol and powerfist, 2 flamers
Land Raider Crusader with extra stormbolter

Pretty tame list. It's got lots and lots and lots of bolter shots (seriously, I added a stormbolter to an LRC). It should be a challenge to play against Tau, Eldar, TauDar, etc. I'd originally wanted to use a full 10-man Dev squad in place of the Terminators, but won't have the required bolter Marines painted in time.

Speaking of which, that is what is currently on my painting desk. I just finished my sixth Sternguard member (fifth if you don't count the one with combimelta I painted ages ago). I'm planning to take some shots using the proper lighting tonight. I am now working on bolter Marines to get to the point where I can run a true half-company of 3 Tacticals, 1 Assault, and 1 Devastator squad. I'd always been three bolters short of that goal.
I'm also still working on the base for my Hive Tyrant. I bought a bunch of Secret Weapon kits to spruce up the base (tree stumps, broken Doric columns, grass, turf, etc). I'm waiting for some small mushrooms I made out of Green Stuff to cure, and then it's on to applying sand. I filled an empty GW static grass tub with some of the wash down material from my driveway. Sand, pebbles, and rocks. I think I need to sift it a little though, as the larger rocks are a little large for my tastes. I'm still struggling with exactly how I'm going to glue the Tyrant to the base, as he's got that stupid little sculpted rock section under his tail. I can't glue him down and then sand, as I won't be able to prime the base with him on there. I think I'm going to have to trace around the connection point, apply sand/gravel, then fix up the edges of the hole before spray priming. Any major gaps can be lightly covered with grass or turf. It's the best option I can think of. With Marines, I just put a little section of plasticard where their feet go and sand around those. But doing so with the Tyrant would mean the little rock he's attached to would "hover" over the sand. I should have removed it when I started. Lesson learned.

I also primed and put a first coat of base color on five Genestealers. I'm pretty excited about getting on with these guys. They've been sitting on top of my paint rack for a couple months now.

Tyranid Test Bases

Here are the two test bases I did up relatively quickly. The first is Liquitex Resin Sand mixed with an equal amount of craft paint. I then dry brushed it up through different shade of a brownish-grey, and added a bit of GW static grass:

The second is just craft sand painted in the same colors, again with static grass (but under different light):

 

For fairness' sake, here they are side by side under the same light:

I like them both, in their own ways.

The resin sand version comes out lighter due to having less small texture. It also provides a more three-dimensional look, depending on how much of the material you use, and how you pile it up. Little clumps of resin sand in one area make those little peaks and valleys you can see in the pictures. The valleys are where I intend to put static grass and small plants. It seems to be a pretty durable finish as well. I believe I can glue small plants right to the painted base in those low areas and make them look convincing.
However, the resin sand method is imprecise. I had no idea what the base texture would look like when I applied it. The binder in the material evaporates and shrinks as it dries overnight. I'm not sure how this would translate to a 40mm or 60mm base. I can try it out on a 40mm spare, but I don't have any 60mm junk bases to play with.
I'm also not sure how I could sink rocks and other items on these bases. The resin sand medium is sloppy and goopy. If I placed a cork rock in the middle, would I be able to make it look convincing?

The craft sand version is darker because I essentially soak the sand in the darkest color, and then dry brush those tiny grains up to light grey. However, plenty of the dark color still shows through. I can dry brush more of the lighter colors to reduce or eliminate that, but I've found that it tends to look smeared and shitty when you do so.
There is much more control with the craft sand, as I'm painting on white glue, and then covering it with the sand before painting. I can glue rocks and other items right to the base before glue and sand and it looks nice enough. I'm positive that I cannot glue small plants to the sand. I'd have to attach them to the base before applying glue and sand, which would require precision to avoid sanding the leaves of the plants. No one likes sandy leaves. The alternative is drilling holes in the base after sanding, poking the plants through to the underside, and then gluing them in place.

Affixing the models to either base is about the same. Add a small piece of plasticard to the base where the feet go, apply basing, then scrape away the paint and sand from the piece of card. Glue as needed.

What do you folks think? Resin sand or craft sand?
Does the grey color stand out enough from my green/brown Tyranid scheme, or should I consider another color set?
Obviously, these are quick mockups that I threw together. A finished base will have static grass and various scattered small plants to break up the grey. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to make the plants, but my first though is to grab some cheap silk plants from the craft store, and then cut my leaves and stems from those, using the appropriate scale. Then I'd bind it all together with floral wire (I already have a reel of it from past projects) and glue to the base using that coiled wire. I think I could also break out the airbrush to quickly spray the leading edges of the leaves another color like a light green, teal, or crimson.


In slightly related news, there was a list of interesting rumors online regarding a new hive fleet "Karkinos." That's my fleet name, dammit! The rumors talked about how Karkinos focused on poison and gas. However, the rumor set was debunked this AM as fake, but it did get me thinking.
What if I wanted my entire Hive Fleet to be poisonous? Every Nid kit is packed full of toxin sac bits, and you can buy them by the hundreds from bit sellers for a song. Adding a toxin sac to every melee claw/talon/blade arm would be some work, but it would also give me a chance to break up the monotony of green with more little purple sections as I would paint the sac-looking pieces of those bitz to match the ribbed flesh I already use.
On the table, I'd simply require every model to pay for toxin sac biomorphs, even if it makes little game sense. Toxin on a Carnifex with crushing claws? Go for it!

Speaking of painting, I have gotten all of the base blue colors down on my fourth Sternguard model. I just need to line highlight his armor and I'll be ready to move forward to the details. I'll try to get a WIP shot up early next week. The new book is out tomorrow morning as well. Huzzah!

 



At Long Last!

The painting of my Hive Tyrant is complete! Well, except for his base, that is.

Here are some assembled shots under terrible light:

Overall, I think he looks nice. He's not as stunning as I wanted him to be, as I skimped on reposing, resculpting, and conversion. As others have said, I should have started small with troops bugs instead of a showcase model. That would have allowed me to get my paint schemes down before applying them to a centerpiece model. I'd wanted to hack apart his limbs and repose them into a more fluid and dynamic pose, but was simply too logjammed to do so. It was a "if you don't start now, you'll never start at all" situation.

Despite that disappointment, I'm pretty impressed with what I've done, as he's my first fully painted non-Marine model since 2007. I had this crazy idea to start a WHFB Orc and Goblin army a few years ago, and finished the skin tones on ONE Orc before abandoning the idea, hence the "fully painted" qualifier.

The only obstacle left for this guy is a base. Last night I mixed together equal parts craft paint and Liquitex Resin Sand medium and slathered it on a spare 25mm base to see what it would do. This morning, it was dry but very glossy. I didn't get a chance for a picture, but it basically looks like shiny mud. I'm sure Dullcote would bring the shine down, but I'm not sure the effect would carry to a 60mm base, or even a 40mm base. Originally, I'd wanted a loamy, fertile earth base with tufts of grass (easily done with static grass) and some random stumps and plants. I don't want to use resin bases because I don't want to sink the money into them for a Nid force that may end up containing a lot of small models. Plus, I've not found anything so far that I felt really hit the nail on the head for a convincing jungle earth look.

Some Google searching shows some poorly done jungle bases where gamers have simply glued tufts of tall grass, aquarium plants, and vines all over the base with the model planted squarely in the middle. I'm thinking that less is far more in this situation. I'm not sure I can get plants and grass to look right on these muddy bases, but will have to give it a try. If that fails, I will probably have to go back to the basic sand bases I use for my Marines, but with a different color and more liberal use of rocks, grass, and plants.

I put half a second coat on my Sternguard Marine last night as well. The rumors regarding bikes as troops in the new Marine codex are contradictory. Some say you only get one unit, some say you get as many as you like. I'll wait the two weeks to see, and then decide how to proceed. Regardless, I'd like to finish this 5-man Sternguard squad as soon as I can.
The rumors are that Kor'sarro Khan and the White Scars chapter tactics will be spectacular for running a Marine Bike force. On one hand, I'm thrilled that Marine bikers will be getting a small shot in the arm, but I'm also dismayed that it's a chapter tactic. When I first saw the chapter tactic rumors, I swore I'd only every use the Ultramarines tactic while fielding my Ultras, regardless of build. The idea that I can run better bikes by simply selecting a different tactic makes that vow very hard to stick to. I've railed against people cherry-picking chapter tactics in the past, though my beef is/was more with Blood Angel and Space Wolf armies being run under the new Marine book rules. But, the opposite happened when those two books were released (Marines run as BA/SW), so I guess it wouldn't be totally hypocritical of me to use the White Scars tactics when wearing blue paint.
It's a decision I'll make in a couple weeks.

So Close!

I have been silent on the blog for these last several days because I was away on vacation. I did find time in the first couple days of my vacation to get some painting done, and again in the last couple nights. I am pleased to say that the Hive Tyrant is nearing completion!

The carapace is complete, as are the talons and hooves. As of this writing, I'm in the second stage of painting the purple ribbed flesh (the Leviathan Purple wash part), though the pictures below were taken before that.

Here is what the Tyrant looked like as of abut 8pm last night:

 

The first shot is of his thigh plating. The spikes on the plates of current Nid models add a ton to the model's overall look, but are sometimes challenging to properly blend into the surrounding plate. Because of the size of this model, I found I was constantly rubbing the paint off of the tips of the spikes when I was handling it. Thankfully, it never wore past the primer coat, or I'd have had an odd flat ring around each spike tip.

 

The second is his back armor. The streaking is a little more stark than it was on his talons, but I think it works. I'm really interested to see how the streaking and blending I did reacts to Dullcote. A spray of Dullcote tends to flatten down all of the layers on my marines, and I lose a bit of the transition
from one color to another. My fear is that the Dullcote will wipe out some of the more subtle layers.

The final shot is his hoof and toe talons. I like the brighter ivory colors for talons when lined up against the green and brown of his flesh and armor. I also wanted to show off the deep rings I apply using a Gryphonne Sepia wash in order to create that line between claw and flesh.

I want to get some more work in on the purple tonight, but I have about six pounds of beans to process through the canner tonight. Seriously, I'm drowning in dragon tongue beans from my garden! Hopefully, I can get some coats in while the canner is heating up.

I also sat down last night and gave the model a very thorough looking-over for errors and mistakes, and I wrote each thing down on a slip of paper. That way I don't think I'm all done, seal the model, only to realize I'd left a dot of brown on the green or forgotten to clean up a transition line.

No movement on the Marine front. I'm still staring at the same base coated Sternguard model. I do need to ramp up my Marine work soon, as the new book is due out. You can read all the rumors and confirmations over on other blogs. I'm excited about the new book. It sounds like a lot of fun, but one big hit I'll take personally is that I can no longer run an all-bike force. While that sucks from a modeling and painting perspective, it's not all bad. I may try to move some of my collection of bikes and switch over to a drop pod force. I have a diverse enough collection that a wholesale change like this is easy enough for me to pull off, but I really feel for those poor White Scars players who either have to change play styles, or sit and wait for a codex supplement to play their army.

Picture Friday: I'm a Zebra?

I sat down last evening, determined to make visible progress on the Hive Tyrant. In the last couple weeks, I was content to slap a single coat of thinned paint on the carapace per night and call it good. Not so last evening. I wanted visible results!

So, i plonked down and spent an hour and a half putting two coats of a 2:1 mix of Faded Khaki and Stained Ivory as my first "streak layer." I have to interject here and say "thank goodness I blogged this process before," because I'd forgotten at what point I'd started streak colors on the claws! I was able to go back in blog posts and find where I'd talked about it. I keep a paint recipe book, but I'd forgotten to annotate where I switched from full carapace work to streaking.

Here's the results:

 

 

One of the things I struggled with was how much of each plate to apply streaking to. GW does only a little on the very edges. I've seen others who streak the whole thing. I decided to go for about a 70% coverage, working downward. The plates on his talons are actually a little higher percentage, but I felt less might be better on these large plates in order to still allow you to see the base color.

I think it's a good start, though there are some too-thick strokes in certain spots. Thankfully, the technique is forgiving in the early stages. Those overlarge strokes will be broken up by the next layers of color, which get progressively thinner and shorter.

I'm hoping to have plenty of time at night for the next three days to keep pushing forward on this guy. I think once I get past the carapace, things will absolutely fly by, as all I'll have left are the claws/hooves, purple flesh, and then cleanup. I have some spots of brown on the green I need to fix. Then comes basing, which I'm dreading. I know what I want it to look like, but can't see in my mind how I'm going to pull it off.

I think I spotted a cork bottle of wine in the grocery bag yesterday, so hopefully my fifth Genestealer will have something to stand on soon. I can't decide how to paint them, though. There are two main schools of Genestealer painting, it seems. One paints the core of the body in the army's carapace armor color, and the other paints it int he flesh color, with almost no armor plating color at all. You either end up with a monochrome Genestealer like GW's current website examples, or two-tone Genestealers like GW uses for the Space Hulk painted examples or the third edition box.

I like the two-tone look because it's more interesting from a visual standpoint. But, I dislike it for two reasons: it lacks continuity with the rest of the army and it takes longer to paint.

Every other Nid model in the range has clear delineations between flesh and chitin. Genestealers do not. The only plating on them is on some of the heads. To me, painting non-plated parts of a Genestealer the same color as the plated parts of other models is a little jarring.

Of course, the monochrome version is a little boring, as they all just blend into one mass. It is MUCH quicker and simpler to paint, though. In the end, I think it's all about what you can pull of with either technique. My leaning is towards monochrome, as there's no armor on them (because the scuttle around in crawlspaces and air ducts), and I think I might be able to make them pop with the small spots of purple and ivory on flesh and talons.

On the Marine front, still no painting progress. That poor Sternguard trooper is just sitting and waiting. I will have to finish him and his last compatriot before I move on to anything else. This new book might push me toward drop pods, instead of bikes, but we'll see.

If It's Brown...

...it means I'm making progress! Or it means you were raised in a water-conserving household.
The green on my Tyrant is done, and I've moved on to the brown carapace. Here's the washed-out photo to prove it:

 

This is just the basecoat color, which will be shaded and brought up to match the arms. If you forget what those looked like:

 



It may not look like the greens match, but that's because I'm terrible about setting up my lights. The first shot was taken right under my OttLight, and that gives it a blue tint. The second was a little out and to the right of the light.  

 

I think the best, most motivational time in the process of painting a model is when you finish the "main" color. For these Tyranids, it's the green. The process of painting the green body is long and tedious. For my Ultramarines, it's the blue. As soon as I get beyond those two colors and start hitting details, the process becomes far more interesting. I think it might be because when you're going from primer to body color, there's not much to look at. You have some nicely shaded and highlighted blue or green, but little else. Once you start hitting detail colors, the model really starts to take shape as an actual [I]figure[/I] instead of just a [I]model[/I].

 

I foresee my work ramping up on the Tyrant as a result of this extra little bump of motivation, at least until I hit the base building stage. Still stumped on that one, and really need to do some experiments with it. I've just been too tired or busy lately.

 

I'm going to try to have a photo of some kind of work in progress every Friday from now on. The blog has a lot of text-only posts, and those are pointless, especially when I'm talking about painting!