Tale of four gamers. Kraken rising

Greetings reader(s). I’m guessing you’re here to see the latest of my conversions, painting and gaming. You have? Excellent! Well read on.

First things first, the tyrannofex is built. I did pretty much everything I said I would in the last blog so I’ve got the 6 legged, hunched over heavily armoured form that the fluff talks about. For the thorax swarm I went for devourers mounted on the front of the thorax near the head, with toxin sacs as ammo feeds. I had to mould some extra ribs onto the front of the thorax both to give extra size and accommodate the thorax swarm. Over all I’m pleased with how he’s turned out, it looks like it should do from the fluff and although it does look a bit carnifexy at first, a second glance will make it clear it is a tyrannofex. I’ve got some WIP shots bellow and will get some painted ones up when it’s done.

As for painting, well the Ymgarl genestealers are pretty much done just need some final work doing on the bases of some of them but I’ve also stuck up some pictures of the finished one. As you see I’ve gone for the more dramatically posed space hulk stealers as the base model to show them emerging from terrain as per there special rule and then given then tentacles in place of mouths. The fluffs shows then morphing different upgrades mid battle so I’ve modelled them with different options such as extended carapace, slashing claws (multiple scything talons on each arm!!!) and tentacle limbs (loads of green stuff) to show this. To further set these blood drinking, genetically unstable killing machines apart I’ve given them blue carapaces as they are not actually part of any known fleet and can also colour shift (if you confused read the fluff). I did the blue with an astronomican gray base coat and then an asurmen blue wash, Simples! They’ve done me proud in recent games emerging from nowhere to kill such things as chaos marines on an objective or inquisitor lord’s retinue with ease.

I’ll talk more about games at the end of the month but for now I’ll leave it as since my last blog I’ve played 4, won 3 (Vs Orks, Chaos and witch hunters) and drawn one (Imperial fist with Kantor, technically drew on objectives, but I was soooooo getting whopped on damage). Can’t really complain out that sort of results.

Got some more games later today hopefully and need to finish that tyrannofex.

Fair ye well.

tyrannofex plan

As those of you who were paying attention last week will remember I said I’d post my plans for a tyrannofex conversion up here soon. Well here we go.

I’m starting with a carnifex and using mostly just that kit to build it with the following list of changes.

-Sitting the sine bank carapace over the regular one to add bulk and show cluster spines.
-Breaking and pinning the rear legs then adding green stuff in the gap to make it more hunched over.
-Mounting a pair of modified stranglethorn cannons on the chest to show a rupture cannon
-Using Scything talons for the middle and front legs
-Bits of extra armour and green stuff in various places for effect.
-Something clever for thorax swarm (TBC)
-Stick it on a large oval base

Have already started some of the build and will have W.I.P. shots up soon.

Tale of 4 gamers Month TWO

So another month down and it’s been an interesting one; cool conversions, Adam changing his army and battle missions providing a whole new tactical challenge. Only finished 4 models this month; 1 warrior, 2 tyrant guard conversions and a broodlord for my unit of ‘stealers. I’ve already talked about my tyrant guard conversions in my last blog so I won’t bore you with the details, but I have put some photo’s of then fully painted below.

As I said Adam has changed his army. For various reasons he’s had to give his orkz a break for a while and has gone for the evil, malicious, cruel (not to mention fast and deadly if played correctly) Dark Eldar. See his blog for more details on that and his plan to torture and enslave his way across the galaxy.

For me this month has been more about gaming than modelling (at least in terms of what is finished enough to put up here). Been using some of my very unfinished Ymgarl genestealers to make my list up to 1000pts and had some very challenging games, particularly with the new battle missions. (Note that I’m not going to go into detail about test games at home that were extensively proxyed) I’ve had a couple of goes at the “infestation mission”, firstly against an imperial fists army lead by Pedro Kanto then against Adams heavily mechanised Dark eldar. The fists stole the initiative and massacre all my 32 gaunts in one turn thanks to his vindicator and sternguard. Thankfully my tyrant stunned his vindicator and my warriors tied up his sternguard long enough for my stealers to show up. Once they were there they chomped through most of his army and then the tyrant guard chased kantor off the table after he killed the tyrant in an assault. Nids one, biomass nil. Against the dark eldar thing didn’t go quite so well. Adams speed caught me out and killed my warriors early on with his archon and incubi. My stealers and tyrant did manage to hit back and kill them but then my tyrant died thanks to two perils of the warp in two turns. Although we technically didn’t finish the game it was clear that he would have won. Infestation is a fun mission but I think at 1000pts the armys (cirtainly my nids) are too small to have the flexability for battle missions. Finally I had a straight up annihilation against Jonny’s guard. A close fought game that thanks to cornel shraken and three squads of deepstriking storm troopers felt like an uphill struggle all the way. But I did manage to pull out a 7 / 7 draw.

What of the future? As I mentioned above I’ve already started work on some converted Ymgarl genestealer using the space hulk stealer models and loads of random bits and green stuff. Time and availability of certain hobby supplied have got the better of me this month, but rest assure that they will be included next time around. But they aren’t the biggest planned conversion for next month. That would be the TYRANNOFEX. Going to convert him out of a carnifex and have a general plan which I may divulge in another blog. Several reasons for including him. Firstly the rupture cannon gives me some much needed ranged anti tank, secondly six wounds 2+ save he will be able to shrug off loads of fire, which he needs to be able to do cos once the rupture cannon starts blowing stuff up he is going to attract a lot of attention, which is a good thing as all that fire bouncing off his armoured shell won’t be directed at more vulnerable parts of my swarm. Thirdly, my army is starting to get themed around the fluff on the battle of ichar IV fluff in the codex which speficaly mentions tyranofexes (along with loads of stealers) so he fits their nicely and finally, he should look awesome.

That all for now. Updates on themeing my army and tyrannofex plans will follow soon.

Conversted Tyrant Guard

Just a quick update on this month tale of 4 gamers project. I’ve been converting some tyrant guard out of tyranid warriors for two reasons, conversions look cool and add loads of character to the army and I need something to keep my hive tyrant alive.

Starting with a standard tyranid warrior as the base for the conversion I first tilted the body further forward to give a sturdier, hunched over appearance and replaced the head with a spare genestealer head from last month’s models. I used the head with the carapace completely covering the eyes because the fluff states that tyrant guard are blind. For the arms I used the warrior scything talons on the front limbs and the rending claws from the monster arms sprue for the second set. I positioned these so the guard are walking on their knuckles like a gorilla. Finally I added loads of armour plates from the hive tyrant, monster arms and biomorphs sprues and made a scything tail from off cuts of warrior head carapaces and armour plates sculpted from green stuff.

I’m still painting them up, but for now enjoy the work in progress photos

Tale of 4 gamers Month ONE

I did it! Finally finished painting that battleforce. Finished the last termagant today in my lunch hour. Over 40 models in a month, made possible thanks to the citadel washes. I highly recommend these for getting nice shading effects for minimal effort. One thing I would say is to make sure you use a wash that is significantly darker than the base coat, eg. baal red works over orange but not over blood red. As I said in my last blog, I really like the cohesive look I’ve achieved so far and was surprised to find I didn’t get at all bored painting all those gaunts. Quite the opposite, I can’t wait to paint more nids.

Managed a few games this Thursday against Adams orkz and the guy whose name I always forget’s necrons. Won the first one (500pts, capture and control vs orkz) with a massacre thank to out flanking stealers coming in, getting a change the turn they arrived and then chomping through most of his army, supported by my tyrant. In the second game (annihilation, dawn of war) the speed of his truck boyz and the fire power of his bikes left my army wiped out before the hormaguants I reserved even got a chance to show up. Finally I beat the necrons in a close seize ground mission (650 points, allowing me to use my warriors). It tuned into a big brawl around one of the objectives between his warriors and necron lord and my tyrant and warriors but when my reserves arrivedthey turned the tide of combat and left him to phase out.
Hive Tyrant

The tactic of giving my tyrant the “Hive commander” upgrade so my reserves get +1 to arrive and my hormaguant brood can out flank is working very nicely, especially when my genestealers support the hormaguants. This is giving me the idea that as my army grows I’m going to build a vanguard themed army with stealers, supported by gaunts, gargoyles and lictors. Weather this is what I will end up doing remains to be seen, but it’s an idea. As for next month, I want to toughen up some of the units I’ve already got, so maybe some tyrant guard and perhaps a broodlord for the ‘stealers.

See you next time and don’t forget to check out the other guys blogs.

My army just one month in

tale of fou gamers part 3: panic!!!

While I wait for the sand on my tyrants base to set and my girlfriend to call me I may as well update the old blog. Just over a week to go and it looks like I may not hit my deadline. I have finished 8 stealers, 6 hormagaunts, 12 termagants and the tyrant. 3 warriors and 5 hormagaunts are in progress and 5 hormagaunts and 4 termagaunts are still to be started. And too make matters worse I’ve run out of my main colour, gryphonne sepia. AAAAHHH.

Panic over. I can buy paint tomorrow and do have some quite evenings this week and my painting is speeding up.

I’m really pleased with how the nids are looking, the scheme has given them a very cohesive look, like they are all one single minded organism and a few scenic bases (most notably the tau battle suit parts on the tyrant) have added some character.

Haven’t had a game with just my nids yet, but on Thursday me and my mate Dan teamed up to make 1500pts to take on a guard army in our local GW. Why I saw three leman russ’ I thought we were going to get pulverised, but Dan’s trygon prime and deathleaper took them down before they did too much damage while my hormagaunts and genestealers ate his gun line. When his valkyire and veterens showed up on turn 4 and killed my tyrant it was too little too late and we scored a crushing victory.

Anyway, back to painting

Tale of four gamers part 2; progress

Two weeks since I accepted the challenge of tale of four gamers, how am I getting on? Not bad but there’s still loads to do. Up till today I had built the whole battleforce and painted 12 gaunts. To get the painting done quickly I’ve chosen a simple but effective colour scheme, based on making the most of the new citadel washes. Working over a white undercoat I started with 2 washes of gryphone sepia, this give me instant shading and highlighting for minimum effort and is all the colour that the fleshy part of the nid’s need. For the carapace I start with blazing orange and then apply 2 or 3 washes of baal red, followed by a wash of devlan mud, this gives a really strong shade effect while keeping bright highlights. I also used baal red in the breaks in the skin to make them stand out, before finishing with a few little details in badmoon yellow, charadon granite, badab black, chaos black and skull white. I’m hoping to have some pics of the finished result with my next blog.

Today my final model for this month showed up in the post, The Hive Tyrant. I’ve spent all evening building him and I have to say it’s the hardest model I’ve ever built. Despite that I’m pleased with how he has turned out and I’ve even managed to have a go at magnetising some of the weapon options. I glued the lash whip and bone sword in the top 2 arm slots and magnetised the bottom pair to have either a heavy venom cannon or a pair of scything talons.

I just so happen to have the next week off work so hoping to make a big inroad into all that painting and maybe get my first game with my nids.