Back in the Groove

Well it has been a while, but since my step back into work I have finally found some time to get painting again.

Since I sold my Sisters of Battle Army for a nice large lump sum, I have invested it in adding to my existing forces.  My plan is quiet simple:

• Bring the Necrons up to date with the new release.
• Enhance my Tyranids into a force that can be deployed in a variety of ways, not just based around the Swarmlord.
• Have enough Orks to face Nick or Nathan at a 5,000 point game...... and that is a lot of orks.

So with those plans in my mind, I have started work on multiple fronts.

After a couple of bargains, I have 60+ ork boyz to paint, plus another 30 burnas/lootas etc and another 30 grots :)  Oh and an ork flyer!

Then I landed an exceptionally painted Nid army, which means to keep a consistent these I need to repaint a number of models to keep them all the same - not much work but it will keep me busy!

You can see the light blue of a necron test figure - I need to acquire some new Blue wash to finish that and the same blue on the pilot of the barge.  I hope you can see the rust weathering on all the necron vehicles (done using the hairspray technique).

Tyranid Test Infestation

As you all know I have an inability to keep away from starting new armies; during an email chain today I worked out that I have 11 painted armies totalling around 25,000 points. So that's enough right??

er no. A while back I swapped my Guard that never happened with my son for his Nids that never happened. I put them on the back burner. Then I managed to acquire a cheap Trygon and suddenly I fancied trying a paint scheme out on the Nids.

But not just any old paint scheme. Oh no. Not for me. I set myself a challenge: is it possible to create a paint scheme entirely using the Citadel Washes? Well judge for yourselves because the Genestealer pictured here is just that.

Spray Skull White. Then a layer of Thraka Green. Then 2 layers of Gryphonne Sepia over the skin. A 2nd coat of Thraka Green over the armour. Finally a coat of Leviathan Purple over the claws. Done. He took longer to dry between coats than he did to paint.

What do you think?

More Nids!!

The big push is on now as the GoG weekend is looming.

Managed to finish the basing on my rippers, the Tervigon and my new Zoanthrope.

This just leaves me with some **TOP SECRET** to finish painting and a **TOP SECRET** to build base and paint.

Can't give everything away now can we.

;-)

Getting in on the Nid Fun

So where to start.  Firstly, I love the Nid codex, it's a hard hitting well written codex and gives the gamer a chance to develop their own models.  My army needed some decent anti tank fire support, and what is better than a Tyrannofex.  So I purchased a carnifex model to base it on.  Then inspiration took over.

We went to Cuba about 2 1/2 years ago and whilst there we purchased for $5 a wooden crab that came to pieces.  This has lived in various cupboards, including Mr Artillery's as it was the size of Bio-Titan, and we had planes to make a Hierophant titan out of it. 

You can see the wooden legs in this pic.  After a few practice assemblies I realised this was too big for T-Fex with it spanning 12" across in all directions.  Using the Carnie body I thought it was slightly too small.  Time for a hybrid!  Out with the wooden legs - not enough detail and to big a 'footprint'.  For the legs I used the MC Scything talons from various boxes.  I then placed two heads on it (to fill two strategically placed holes meant for crab claws).  I acquired a few lictor arms from an old Maelstrom auction on Ebay of nids bits in a bag when I first started a Nid Army many moons ago.  These were perfect for the outside of the rupture cannon, and there are some barrels from Venom Cannons and Barbed Stranglers in there as well.

The last issue I had was weight (the model not me!).  The MC Scything talons were never going to be strong enough to support the weight of a mahogany crab body.  So underneath it, and carefully hidden by CityFight terrain pieces, is a stack of foamcard to take the main weight of the body.

So here we go - my first ever scratch built Monstrous Creature.  It may not be as good as some you see on BolS etc, but this one cost me pennies

The Pods have landed!!

I've finished the pods!

Quite pleased with the general overall look. Probably could have had more details on the top 'arms' but don't think they look to bad.

Just need to bring my Nid army upto date to use them.

Eddy

Rippers

I was always miffed that you were expected to put three rippers on each base but the Nid sprues has so few. To get around this I have detached the rippers I had and have mounted one on each 40mm base. To fill the base up I've added Nid eggs. I had a little space in the mycetic spore mold and a little Nid egg fitted perfectly! I've also added a couple of little spines to the bases as if spore towers were starting to take root and grow.

With the codex containing the Parasite character it seemed to me that a ripper style army could be fun!

;-)

The pods are coming!!!

Righto!

You can see from the photos one of the 'halves' demolded. I stick the two halves together with a hot glue gun and then use super-sculpy to fill in the join between both sides. After a quick bake to set the sculpy I added small spines to represent the spores weapons.

The first pod is nearly finished. Just need to finish the basing and spray the whole thing with Matt varnish (Testors) to take the sheen away.

Pods! Pods! Come get your pods!

They new Nid codex has a lovely new addition to the army......

MYCETIC SPORES!!! Huzzah deep striking Carnifexs!!!!

Ummmm.....no model release from GW. Off to the drawing board we go!!!!!!!

I decided to do a two part construction to A) reduce the number of castings B) make putting the pods together easier. I drew one side of the pod on a piece of folded card and them cut it out (old snowflake making styleeee!) This gave me a silhouette that if I kept the master to those boundaries then both sides would match during construct.

I used a core of screwed up tin foil covered with super-sculpy. The super -sculpy is great for this sort of thing because you can sculpt then bake that section dry before sculpting more. Means that you can get a lot of the sculpting done in a short space of time.

After the master was made it was a simple matter of creating a mold from RTV silicon. I'll shove some more piccies up soon.......!

The Hive evolves....

Meiotic Spores to you and me.....a while ago, while building my 'Nidzilla army, I bought 6 Carnifexes from Gaming Figures, with their discount and great service I was encouraged to go the whole hog! After constructing said monsters I was left with a vast amount of spares! What to do with them, well we're blessed in the GoG's with guys that have a phenomenal amount of talent, one even lends his hand to making models from scratch!
So over to Eddie they went, I thought no more of it. Recently Eddie posted his creation of the Tervigon using various bits from said collection, so they are all going to great use.
You can imagine my surprise when out of the blue he turns up with this superb looking model....he offered that he was grateful for all the bits and that this was a thank you...well Eddie THANK YOU!
It's magnificent!

It's detailed in Forgeworlds Imperial Armour Volume IV "The Anphelion Project" a great book as ever. It covers a lot of Tyranids bio gribblies and a new chapter for Space Marines "The Red Scorpions as well as the Imperial Guard Regiment the "Elysian Drop Troops".
Basically it's a fast attack choice that has two altitudes for movement and deployment and delivers a huge payload of Bio-acid St 5 AP3 large blast, it also gives 2D6 + 5 against armour....ouch!

A great addition to my revitalised 'Nid army, just need to look at the new codex and work on the rest, my poor 'Nidzilla army is far too expensive as it stands for a 1500 pts army, still....from what I read, there is a host of other options to take now, time to dust off the rest of my 'stealers me thinks!!



Well this is another project, that must go on the list, I need to finish my Chaos Terminators first, nearly there, just touches to the bases and I'm done. Just 1 more Obliterator and a 10 man squad of Raptors including Lightning Claws and 2 Meltaguns........fwaaaaaooooooor!

TTFN

BFG.

A brand new bullet magnet!

New Tyranid codex = New Nid Gribblies!!

Huzzah!

I am loving the new codex. It has lots of new interesting bit and bobs, seems to have fallen in well with the USRs and presents a range of choices that you have to model yourself!

Brilliant!

One of teh 'Ooooh shiny' units that grabbed my attention was the Tervigon. It will make the capture bases scenerio particulary difficult if it sits on the objective 'pooing' out little gribblies. Oh Yeah - Thats why I want one!

Quick job really - a banana shape of tin foil coated in Supersculpy and before I dried it in the oven I pressed the Carnifex spares into the soft clay after I'd worked out where I wanted them. This meant that after the banana shape had been fired in the oven for 15 minutes, the plastic parts could be quickly glue-gunned back in place. Obviously I didn't put the plastic in the oven!

After that it was just a case of adding detail with green stuff or making small separate pieces from Supersculpy and gluing them on after they were fired in the oven.

Easy eh?