Infestation - part 2.

 

The second batch of Tyranids are now finished, after roughly a week of modelling and painting with them. This is boding well, not only for the to-do list, but also as I may have a game planned against Cardboard Fortress at the end of the month before I go back to work after my convalescence period.

Enough waffle, you don't come here to read about my trivial matters, you come here for miniatures!

For the second batch I picked three bits out of the box, a unit of 20 Termagants, a Winged Prime and a Screamer-Killer:

We'll start with the numbers, so the Termagants. Not much can be said apart from the new models are nice, but they're Termagants. Numbers and chaff:

Some close ups:

Next we have the HQ choice from the Leviathan box, the Winged Prime:

Basically a roided Tyranid Warrior with wings.

I will have to go back and make that marine helmet on the base black again to make it stand out, it's a little tie-in to my friends new Iron Hands army he's working on:

Now let's look at the big guy, the Screamer-Killer:

This was the model which generated the most hype from the Leviathan reveals and rightly so in my opinion. The model itself is quite imposing when you see if amongst it's smaller cousin's.

I took some pains to get some interest into the back plates of the creature, something which could have become a large, fairly flat colours area:

As for the base, as well as doing the urban basing scheme across the Army, I wanted to try something a little more with this as I had a few things lying around.

A series of sandbags from an old tank kit of a friend's, and some spare sentinel weapons created a multilaser position which has been abandoned before the Beast got to it.

Showing a WiP photo on a group on Facebook to ask if it took away from the creature, I was met with a lot of praise, that it added to the mini.

It seemed that I had created the story of a couple of Guardsmen who had decided that they had to be somewhat else at that moment, and the piece was christened "Sound Tactical Decision" by one member:

Here we have everything which has been painted fully in the last two weeks, the force is rocketing along:

Last time I mentioned that we were going to use the 5th edition* rules and simply "counts-as" or create out own rules for the newer units.

Organising a potential meet up at Element Games at the end of the month yielded the need to create an army list, so half hour later after flipping through the codex I had this:

HQ:

Hive Tyrant - 300.

(Bone Sword, Lash Whip, Wings, Adrenal Glands, Toxic Miasma, Regeneration).

ELITES:

Lictor Brood - 130.

(2 Von Ryan's Leapers).

Lictor Brood - 130.

(2 Von Ryan's Leapers).

The Doom of Malan'tai - 90.

(Neurotyrant).

TROOPS:

Termagant Brood - 100.

(20 Termagants).

Termagant Brood - 100.

(20 Termagants).

Hormagaunt Brood - 120.

(20 Neurogaunts).

Ripper Swarm - 40.

(4 Ripper Swarms).

FAST ATTACK:

Shrike Brood - 80.

(2 Winged Primes, Adrenal Glands).

HEAVY SUPPORT:

Carnifex Brood - 195.

(Screamer-Killer, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration).

Mawloc - 215.

(Psychophage, Adrenal Glands, Regeneration).

1,500 points, exactly.

A lot of the force makes sense when you look at the models, as I said before Von Ryan's Leapers are basically Lictors and Neurogaunts are baby Hormagaunts.

The Screamer-Killer is a genus of Carnifex, so that made sense and the Shrikes make use of the two Winged Primes I have, but the Warrior Prime cannot take wings as an option in 5th edition...

Neurotyrant as the Doom of Malan'tai made sense as it looks like a different type of Zoanthrope anyway, I just won't take the the floating little brains with it.

And as for the HQ, you have to have a Hive Tyrant, I don't care what anyone says, so onto eBay and I found a cheap on going for £16, click-click and it's on it's way to me.

The biggest thing I had to look for was the Psychophage as there is nothing like it in the book, however, after having another read through I figured it could very easily "count-as" a Mawloc for the time being.

It's a big monstrous creature, could easily be imagined to burrow**, and has the extendable jaws like the Mawloc, so I felt it was a better fit them anything else.

So there you have it, for the third batch I am going to get the other half of the Neurogaunts, the Psychophage and the Ripper Swarms finished, and as I wait for washes to dry get about building the second Shrike and unit of Termagants.

I have other things on the paint station as well at the moment, as we're hoping to get some other games in, rather then just 40k.

Until next time, have nice day...

*Our favourite edition.

**Look at the Tanker Bugs in the Starship Troopers movie for what I was thinking of with this thing burrowing.