Tyranids project

Good day chaps, time for the first post on my brand new blog!

After several games with my current 2000 points list of choice I recognized that this style of play ain't really my thing. I played a mechanized Space Wolves force for several years before moving to GK so I changed from mech to 100% shock army to get some variety - it just made no real fun.

Since I was always on the look for some bargains on the bay I more or less accidentally bought a nice Tyranids starter army for some cheap money. It included an old Hive Tyrant, Mawloc, 3 Warriors, Carnifex, 12 Gaunts, a custom Lictor and some ripper swarms.

Without any real intention I started painting the Carnifex, I really liked the look of the model and it was pretty perfect for some airbrush action. In the end it was a real blast to paint. At first I thought it would take ages to get things right but it only took around 8 hours from priming to purity seal.

I then went on a 9 days holiday trip and packed all my painting stuff incl. the compressor and airbrush equipment to get some paint on the Mawloc. After some critics about the low contrast between the carapace and the flesh parts of the Carnifex I tried a darker brown on the Mawloc. Again, after 8 hours I was able to finish this dude who is around double the size of the Carnifex, yay! The painting quality is a bid behind that of the ‚fex but should still look impressive on the tabletop.

Since I was pretty pleased about the fast painting process I got my hands on the custom lictor (counts as deathleaper) and his 3 standard buddies to try out how fast I could go without suffering too much quality. The deathleaper took me less than three hours and it was the first time I thought about switching from GK to 'Nids.

One week went by and I expanded the Hive by, guess what, some additional cheap ‚Nids on the bay! Here‘s a small list of what‘s in the queue right now:

- Hive Tyrant on Foot

- 3 Tyrant Guard

- Winged Hive Tyrant

- around 40 Hormagaunts

- 6 Warriors

All minis except the Gaunts will be painted to a similar standard like the models shown above. I will use Army Painter with some fast and sloppy painting for the Gaunts because anything more complex would give me a sad face.

Here is the first finished test mini of the Gaunts. I gave the first batch 4 different carapace colours to keep them visually seperated during game play. The base colour is vallejo model air sand, teeth are skull white and the blades were made with a tri-fade airbrush gradient. I will paint them in batches of at least 10 so it will take only about 10-15 minutes for each gaunt to be ready for the tabletop.

My winged Hive Tyrant is another model bought at good ol' ebay. Not much to say about him as it was the same process as the other bigger tyranid critters. I struggled a bit at working on the wings but after several (8?) layers of different shades I finally found the right colour combination.

I was also able to finish his counterpart on foot, incl. his tyrant guard buddies. This is one of my favorite minis as it was a blast to paint and I was able to finish him off in under 5 hours.

Last but not least here are some pictures of my last batch of painted tyranids - the famous hive guard.

I have to admit that I did a kind of sloppy job on their weapons but all in all I'm pleased with their look.

After posting some of my nids on the official Games Workshop flickr pool I was pretty amazed that my Carnifex made it on their official facebook page and received lots of rewarding comments. And this was topped just one week later as my Trygon was posted on the international Games Workshop page, YEAH!

That was the current status of my upcoming Tyranids force – I hope you liked it!