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This, is getting very interesting! i'm intrigued as to how you'll tackle this project now! but I bet it'll be done as well as everything else you've managed to produce in this thread! I think you should take some time off work 'sick' and work on your models for a week!.....or two :-)


nerdfest09

You're right about the numberts being a bit low. I've been experimenting with trying to get the right balance of MC's to gribblies and I think I'm getting close. One of my opponents at the FLGS runs both Nids and Chaos so I used him and his CSM as a test subject (with his consent) while experimenting the "Flying List". The premise was, using his knowledge of Nids, to build a list tailored to face my horde.

The "Flying List" was an attempt to fit as many flying units as possible in an all-comers list and it looked like this:

Hive Tyrant | Brain Leech, Sword/Whip, Old Advesary, Adrenal glands, Wings
Hive Tyrant | Brain Leech, Sword/Whip, Old Advesary, Adrenal glands.

Hive Guard | x6
Zooanthrope | x3

Tervigon | Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Catalyst | x1
DevGaunts | x 32

Shrikes| Sword/Whip, Adrenal Glands | x6
Gargoyles | Adrenal glands, Toxin sacs | x20
Harpy | X1

Biovores | x6

Whereas my opponent's had the following:

2 Lash Princes, attached to squads, in rhinos.

Large squad of Plague Marines x2
Khorne Berzerkers x2
Infiltrating Scouts

Obliterators x3
Predator x1
Details are hazy as it was about 2 months ago but all in all he had about 48 models and 5 vehicles in a 2500 game.

Terrain was setup with a river cutting off one corner. Deployment was table quarters, mission: objectives.

The way I ran the list was basically treating it like 2 armies. The first was the flying army weighing in at roughly 1100 points, the second was the foot list, slowing creeping forward yet throwing focused shooting wherever it was needed. One of the objectives was in my zone, another in the center and the third in the "island" where Chaos established a fire base.

It was a textbook fight. Biovores softened up everything they could, causing one unit of plague marines to break and run off the board. Harpy stun locked the predator while the whole flock of flyers raced up the middle straight for the firebase. One key to making the Gargoyle screen survive a bit longer is to throw Catalyst on them in Turn 1. By the time I reached the CSM line, I still 14 Gargoyles, 5 shrikes and the Flyrant so I managed to tie up the Oblits and another squad of marines in one assault. Both evaporated. I consolidated the remaining flyers in cover, claiming the objective and bracing for a counter attack that never came. Meanwhile back in my creeping firebase, the Tervigon had pooped out 23 more gaunts, thereby bubble wrapping two objectives, the remaining 20-ish devilgaunts, most Hive Guard and all the Biovores. Wounds had been sprinkled throughout the force but everything was still at effective fighting strength by the end of turn 4. We were shocked at how quickly CSM's folded in the face of the Flying swarm and were left to ponder where Chaos could find enough firepower to actually kill enough gribblies without going far down "Tailoring Road". The following weekend I tried a tweaked variant of the list against Orks in a 3k game (adding venomthropes, 2 dakkafexes, foot warriors and dropping the Zooans). Pretty much the same thing happened. I retired the list after that, filing it under the "fun for me but noone else except in a tournament environment" category. Now I'm back in experimentation mode, trying to see what new ways to play Nids I can find, which don't use Stealers...

Really, really enjoying this blog. Your greenstuff work is fantastic, inspiring even.

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote: I have a limited workspace though. :(

Don't we all though? My dear wife is really starting to despise "the office room" in our apartment as it's looking more like a paint and modeling studio than a second bedroom these days. It's why I placed a sheet of glass on the desk a few weeks. Helps with the cleanup for when we have surprise guests, especially since I'm close to phase 2 of airbrushing.

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote:I got to 48 and started crying when i was doing mine. Haha! (

I love building gaunts at this point but genestealers... God I hate those models. So many arms, so much flash in nasty places. I've got a last batch of 20 to build which have sitting on a cutting mat ready to go for the past month and a half, all sorted and ready to go but I'd rather file rippers than work on Stealers. Probably doesn't help that I can't seem to fit them in any of my army builds.

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote:
6. Re-usability

Sorry, the grain doesn't cause any problems at all, it's only visible due to the semi-transparency of the material. I worry that as it loses the grain it may become less responive. I just did a part where the Oyumary is botched together from cut offs, the colour is much darker and less transparent but the mould is perfect.

Awesome! Glad you cleared that up. So the grain that you see in the material is really just visual and doesn't actually affect the surface. Can't wait to find the time to get started with it all and start cranking out boneswords.

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote:
I would suggest putting a pin through the Oyumaru on either side of the component while it is being cast. This should make it easy to line up later, hell! use even more pins if you're doing something important.

When... you peel back the two sides of the mould and cut the closed edge the Oyumaru tends to curl outwards.

Right, so pin the parts of the moulds so they register properly. Have you tried 3 part moulds yet? Would placing the parts of the mould in the freezer first help stiffen them. I'm totally new to casting but I guess the flexibility of the material is key if you want to be able to remove the object within yes?

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote:
Tyrranofex is looking great man. I wasn't quite sure about the gun the first time i saw it but every time you work your magic on it i find myself admiring it more and more.

Thanks again and TBH, I was having major doubts too as the proportions seemed way off compared to the rest. That all went away when I did that sketch. From that point I was more confident that once the piping and veins were added it would connect the gun to the model and bring it all together. Glad I stuck it out and kept working on it.

@Haonn: Thanks and welcome to the Spawning Vats.

I'm so close to finishing the Tyrannofex and the Trigon it just feels great. Next step is to finish the wings on the Tyrant. I'll just have to dedicate a whole day to it most likely. Following that, the Harpy is still stumping me design wise with it's guns.

Work has picked up in the last few days so hobby time has been non-existant. In the meantime, I found another review/demo of instamold over on "Here Be Geeks" that shows another great use for Oyumaru type moulding material.

http://www.herebegeeks.com/games/instamold-review-and-quick-urban-basing-tutorial/#more-4146

Enjoy.

Damn really wish I could take a few days off just to catch up on modeling. Can't accomplish too much with 3 hours a week.

At least I've managed to solve the problem of how to join the tervigon to it's base. Turns out the posts of flying bases also work well with ground based models too. By magnetising the post the model is now supported off the ground, meaning it's no longer the 3 spindly legs holding the weight of the model.



The magnet is strong enough that the model can be picked up, base and all. Solving the issue of moving it while gaming.



Although the base needed some extensions to fit the dynamic stance, at least I got it to fit on a standard sized large flyer base which is now my defacto base size for monstrous creatures.

It's so disgustingly beautiful! I may... No, I AM going to steal this idea! Amazing work all around.

Happy to hear you're inspired by this. If I may give a word of advice before you go out and buy the whole arachnorok kit, I suggest you look on ebay for the bitz. Hoard O' Bits seems to always have 2 or 3 torsos up for grabs and they start the bidding cheap. Case in point:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/WARHAMMER-BITS-ORC-ARACHNAROK-SPIDER-HUGE-SPIDER-BODY-/320716317920?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aac2ea4e0

You could get the parts that I used for this conversion for a measly 12$ or less (including shipping). I'm not associated with this seller but I suggest you go through him as he's very professional and quick to deliver.

How many tervigons do you typically run in your list?

I wasn't actually running any at all. I lean more toward genestealers and zoanthropes for the bulk of my army's muscle.

So the stealers are working out for you? How do you run them? I've only ever used them once in the past year and although they did their job well (by clearing an objective of 20 ork boys in 2 turns), I'd much rather have another squad of warriors or 21 more devilgaunts and drown my opponents with shooting.

Zooanthropes have also been dropped completely from my list lately, as in my area many players run psychic defense (as they should) and thus I've found that a mix of biovores, venomthropes and hive guard are much reliable. I really miss the brainy bugs but their short range and low toughness has quite often seen them die to a torrent of fire long before they're even able to shoot. So I wonder, do you pod your Zoonthropes in?

Lovely conversions, looking forward to seeing more.

RE Zoanthropes. I pod them in for Apocalypse games where there's definitely going to be something worth shooting. For most games, my meta just doesn't have enough AV14 to justify them. T-fexes do the trick against the occasional Russ or Ironclad, and Hive Guard just do so much more damage against light and medium armour due to rate of fire, greater endurance and being more easily protected.

The main reasons for my army choice were based on opportunities to model. For true game purpose, I love the hive guards. They do a much better job of clearing out light to medium armor and most times for me it keeps the enemy back a bit.

lindsay40k wrote:Lovely conversions, looking forward to seeing more.

RE Zoanthropes. I pod them in for Apocalypse games where there's definitely going to be something worth shooting.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to work on drop spores. I've got some sketches done and the foam for the basic shape, I just need to finish the core of Monstrous Creatures before I start something else. I'll scan and post them sometime this week for comment and review.

lindsay40k wrote:For most games, my meta just doesn't have enough AV14 to justify them. T-fexes do the trick against the occasional Russ or Ironclad, and Hive Guard just do so much more damage against light and medium armour due to rate of fire, greater endurance and being more easily protected.

tony_nids_10 wrote:The main reasons for my army choice were based on opportunities to model. For true game purpose, I love the hive guards. They do a much better job of clearing out light to medium armor and most times for me it keeps the enemy back a bit.

Indeed, as you both say, Hive Guard are such a good mid-field shooting unit it's hard not to deploy them. The only time that a unit of Zooanthropes impressed me with their firepower was the time some jump marines landed close to the flank that had the brainy bugs. As the poor power armoured buggers were still grouped up from their deepstrike, I managed to place 2 out of 3 blast markers on them and got really lucky with my wounds. The eight man squad simply melted away. Other than that one time, my Zooans have been more effective at committing suicide via failed Perils tests than killing opponents.

One of these days I'll have to try something completely different with my Nids by dropping the tervigon and just go for a Warrior/Stealer list instead, just to see if Nid CC can ever compare to Nid shooting. I'm not sure it can but it's certainly worth a try.

Awesome work! I was actually starting to sway from my nids, but I think you may have brought me back, thankyou

You're welcome

If you start a P&M Blog about your Nids, let me know. I'm always looking for inspiration with Nids.

Speaking of which, here's my usual source when I run out of ideas.

http://album.warpshadow.com/v/Hydra/" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://album.warpshadow.com/v/Hydra/

Enjoy

ahm...ohmy

Dark_Gear wrote:So this box finally came in.

As did mine!



As soon as I saw this thread I found Hoard O Bitz and ordered 2 bodies. They arrived last Thursday. After much messing around with clippers and greenstuff there is a great new centrepiece to my army:

Thank you for your excellent thread and great ideas. It's nice to see the upside having holes in the GW range results in unique projects like this.

xttz wrote:

As did mine!



As soon as I saw this thread I found Hoard O Bitz and ordered 2 bodies. They arrived last Thursday. After much messing around with clippers and greenstuff there is a great new centrepiece to my army:

Thank you for your excellent thread and great ideas.

Awesome work and glad to see I could help! Really love that you're using the traditional Carnifex legs on your project. Unique

xttz wrote:It's nice to see the upside having holes in the GW range results in unique projects like this.

I can only agree with you there too. Without these gaps in their model range imagine how much more money we would actually spend just to get the "required" and "official" models.

Sorry i haven't been around much. R/L got fun when all my pals came home from Uni for summer. Dying down a wee bit now.

xttz, thats some nice work there!

Dark_Gear, what happened? You taking a wee break yourself? You've not been your usual quick update self while i've been away.

It's good to be missed but I was starting to wonder about you too.

Much like you, RL and summer have kicked in over here. What with: mountain hikes, beers on patios by the beach, planning a trip to Vegas, working on a new website for work and being given a copy of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, modeling time has been much non-existent.

The highlight of the last week was 2k game against Chaos Marines which just happened totally by surprise. Basically a gaming buddy who lives close-by called just when he was walking out the door and asked what I doing? Although I wasn't intending on going to the FLGS that day, I invited him over and next thing you know, a 2nd friend calls for pretty much the same reason. So even though I was going to curl up with a beer and the sculpting tools that day, I ending up having a great time enjoying what this hobby is really about - playing with some friends.

I also threw down an interesting gauntlet to my opponent. For our next game, I'm swapping my Nids for his Chaos force and we'll see what he could do to improve his odds against the hungering swarm. I'm complicating things further by making sure that I design an all-comers list rather than a tailored list to take on my build. Army lists and Battle Reports will be posted here when that happens.

Sounds like your having a great time too. As we say in Scotland, "Buckfast Wine, aw the time!!" You probably won't gt the meaning of that in most countries outside the UK, that's probably a good thing...

Sounds like you'll have an interesting report to make soon! I'll update info on the Golden Dakka soon and pm you about any info i don't post up. Happy drinking gaming!!

Any new work on the bugs or are you like the rest of us enjoying the summer way too much

This hobby pretty much goes into hibernation in the Summer doesn't it! Haha!

It sure does go into hibernation! It's going to get worse before it gets better because I'm going to Vegas for 5 days next week.

Things have been busy here at work as well so the hobby time has been cut further. I have been working on 2nd terrain commission in the last week however so all is not lost. As it turns out a friend had been sitting on a treasure of bitz and he's finally decided to get it built. Anyone remember when the Cities of Death bundle came out a few years back?



On top of that mountain of bitz, he also has an Imperial Strongpoint, all parts still on sprues. In exchange for having free reign with to assembling all of this terrain, giving it my own spin, I get to keep some city bitz for my own projects while creating terrain I just couldn't typically afford.

Thus far, I've completed a 2 Administrative building, a Factory and 3 parts of a 5 sectioned Cathedral. Both of the multi-part structures are built in such a way that they can be built either as closed structures or as bigger ruins.

Pictures incoming when some decent progress has been done.

Whoa! What a treasure trove to get your hands on! Don't let it get in the way of your gribblies though! I need inspiration!

Funnily enough i went through what was left from my 'Nids recently... Definitely 500pts worth at least, i never realised because its mainly unbuilt. What would you recommend for 500pts of Tyranids Dark_Gear?

Option 1)

If you don't have them already, 6 Hive Guard and one extra Tervigon (with the right upgrades) should get you to 500pts right quick.

Option 2)

If you already have those indispensable units, then the next choice (for my very shooty playstyle) would be 6 Biovores and 230 Devilgaunts.

Option 3)

And most fun to really mess up armies that typically don't expect to deal with a lot of troops to push them off objectives in the mid to late game...
2 squads of 20 Devilgaunts in a pod with cluster spines.

P.S.: Vegas was fun and I finally found the perfect tokens to help me keep track of various game effects... A 100pack of 10.5 gram clay chips for 16$

Ooo.. Lots to thing about! I actually meant a 500pt army though, nevertheless i'm going to have a look at these options.

Dark_Gear wrote:Option 1)
If you don't have them already, 6 Hive Guard and one extra Tervigon (with the right upgrades) should get you to 500pts right quick.

I can imagine Hive Guard would be great for 500pt games. TEQ and tanks would really have trouble with them. The main problem is that they will have to move about with a synapse to keep them in range at 500pts and that puts them out in the open, imho they do best when they are behind something.
Tervigons are pricey at that level because, even with 6 wounds, everyone will be shooting at it. Then again for 200pts it'll soak up a lot of fire which will hurt MEQ and give some free Termagants with Toxin sacs which, at the least, can soak up more fire.

Dark_Gear wrote:Option 2)
If you already have those indispensable units, then the next choice (for my very shooty playstyle) would be 6 Biovores and 230 Devilgaunts.

Biovores are a great shooty unit and i don't have to worry about synapse in mid to late game because of the range... i think. Then again a close combat unit will go through them like a hot knife through butter and that's a lot of point to lose. And a Prime is an expensive deterrent.
Devilgaunts i imagine are too expensive for 500pts.

Dark_Gear wrote:Option 3)
And most fun to really mess up armies that typically don't expect to deal with a lot of troops to push them off objectives in the mid to late game...
2 squads of 20 Devilgaunts in a pod with cluster spines.

10 Devilgants in a pod with cluster spines is steep but would do well at securing late game objectives. Although, 150pts for a squad that have a very specific task may not be well spent points.

Okay so first of all i have, from memory, 3 Zoanthropes, a box of Gargoyles, 1 or 2 boxes of Hormagaunts, 2 boxes of Warriors, a box of Raveners(Partially assembled into two Primes) and a load of monstrous creature bits from my Hive Tyrant conversion. I think all my Genestealers are gone.
A few ideas i had for 500pts were;
A multi-purpose unit with a Prime, probably Warriors for the buffed BS and WS. If only i could have a Prime Shrike, real death from above!
Zoanthropes in a Mycetic Spore, although i couldn't guarantee when they would arrive.
The Doom of Malan'tai in a Mycetic Spore. It would reek havoc against horde at 500points though probably die quick against anything powerful. I could make one and swap it in for horde games i guess.
Genestealers would be great although i don't know what would be the best way to get them to combat early game. Not all tables have a lot of scenery like buildings. Mycetic Spores are expensive for 5 man squads and i think the more units/targets the better.
A Tervigon as HQ sounds interesting, maybe bare bones but the idea of making all those 'Gants is repulsive. Anyway i won't let that stand in the way.
A Mawloc would be very powerful but expensive, also can it still burrow while under the 'Feed' rule?
As modeling goes, i think it would be pretty cool for me to do an entirely floaty army like the Zoanthropes, like the Doom of Malan'tai was holding them up or something? Anyway it's all speculation right now. What do you think?

Dark_Gear wrote:P.S.: Vegas was fun and I finally found the perfect tokens to help me keep track of various game effects... A 100pack of 10.5 gram clay chips for 16$

Really good idea! Glad Vegas went well, were you up or down at the end?

Ooft, just realised i'm totally hijacking your plog. I should set up a chat thread so we can bounce ideas around! :/
Sorry man, peace out!


EDIT: Moved to here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/386653.page

A long overdue post (but hey it's summer so what can you expect?).

First things first:

Ooft, just realised i'm totally hijacking your plog. I should set up a chat thread so we can bounce ideas around!

Don't worry about. It's a great discussion to have right here since it is about Nids after all no? I'll address the finer points of your list after some pictures <drumroll>

Second: Didn't really gamble that much when in Vegas. Only went to the Blackjack tables twice, 5$ a hand. Each time I practically doubled my money within 3 hands and cashed out. Ended up being up by 37.50 in the end.

Third: Some modeling pics. Remember that Cities of Death box? Well, it's 90% assembled and I'm quite happy with the results.

Here's a group pic of the 8 modules.



From left to right:
2 halves of a Manufactorum, a smaller manufactorum structure, back left corner of a cathedral, front entryway of cathedral, back right corner, 2 flanking towers of the entryway.

Rather than go with the typical method of building tall ruined walls, I opted to create open structures that could be put together either has closed buildings or individual ruins.

Looking at the Manufactorum structure for example, It can either be deployed, as above, individually, or as below, as one square building.





The cathedral expanded on that approach. The doorway is built to stand alone or be tucked in between the 2 flanking tower sections to create a much grander terrain feature.



The two corner sections for the cathedral are built to match the width of the building's front so that all 5 elements can be placed together to create a large building.

Finishing up the set of buildings is the small generator building.



In spite of its diminutive size, it's a great LOS blocker because of it's lack of windows. One can easily hide a Trigon or a Harpy behind those walls.

And now, some army list critique.

Ooo.. Lots to thing about! I actually meant a 500pt army though, nevertheless i'm going to have a look at these options.

Had I known you were looking for a list rather than a 500pt addition to an existing force, my suggestions would have been different. I should have asked for more info before launching into advice mode but at least it gave us a starting point.

What are the FOC requirements for that point cost? Is it 1 HQ and 2 troops or 1HQ and and 1 troop.

For the time being, I'll assume the restrictions aren't too stringent and start with following list and follow it up with my reasoning:

Tervigon x1 | TS, AG, Catalyst, Cluster Spines | 200 points
Hive Guard x2 | 100 points
Devilgaunts x 100 | 110 points
Biovores x2 | 90 points

Contrary to popular belief, Nids are not a CC army, they're are a shootie army that uses CC units to keep assaulters at bay until things can get in range to shoot them. Or at least that's how I play them. This is why I never field fleshborer gaunts. Devilgaunts, at double the price, are about 4 times as effective due to a) the volume of shots, b) the increased range. Therefore, taking 11 of them is the same as buying 33 fleshborer gaunts. Thanks to the Tervigon they'll be getting counter-attack which makes them a pain to assault as well.

Tervigons are pricey at that level because, even with 6 wounds, everyone will be shooting at it.

The Tervigon in this case is your standard force multiplier and back-up artillery piece thanks to the cluster spines. Some people would cry foul because of the possible large amount of bodies you might get from your Tervigon but by the same token, they have 35 point rhinos... By placing the Hive Guard and biovores in front of it, it's going to be obscured and thus get a cover save meaning it's even more survivable.

Hive Guard are there for 2 reasons, the well-known anti-tank role but also the lesser known instant-deathing of characters. Crisis suits, Obliterators and other mean t4 units will get insta-gibbed by the delightful Hive Guard. Plague Marines also don't get FNP against them

Biovores are a great shooty unit and i don't have to worry about synapse in mid to late game because of the range... i think. Then again a close combat unit will go through them like a hot knife through butter and that's a lot of point to lose.

And finally Biovores. Although I quite loathe to not field them at full unit strength, I've yet to find a single game where these spore lobbers haven't caused major carnage to my opponent. IG hate them (that's a given) but even MEQ, due to the amount of casualties small units usually take in a single turn of shooting, will typically break and run. Their susceptibility to assault can be somewhat mitigated by placing them in proximity to the Tervigon as they'll be able to benefit from the gaunt bubble wrap.

At 500 points, I'd stay away from CC only units such as Stealers or Hormogaunts. Remember what I said earlier about nids being shooty. Time spent running after your meal is time spent not killing your opponent. This isn't to say that we don't have any stellar CC units but I prefer the ones that can tenderize opposing units as they get closer. Dev/Whip warriors or Spitter Raveners epitomise this approach. A second list that would use these units to great effect might run like so:

Tyranid Prime | Twin Boneswords, AG, TS | 110 points
Warriors x3 | AG, TS, LW/BS | 165 points
Raveners x5 | Rending, Deathspitter | 225 points

The Doom of Malan'tai in a Mycetic Spore. It would reek havoc against horde at 500points though probably die quick against anything powerful. I could make one and swap it in for horde games i guess.

I feel Zooeys or Doom in a pod at this point range is a waste of 40points (for the pod). As you pointed out it's an unreliable delivery method, especially without a Commander Tyrant.

A Mawloc would be very powerful but expensive, also can it still burrow while under the 'Feed' rule?

That's a good question about burrowing when out of synapse. Mind you, it's also why I prefer the Trigon Prime. He shoots very well the turn he arrives, is a synapse creature and is much more effective in CC as well.

As modeling goes, i think it would be pretty cool for me to do an entirely floaty army like the Zoanthropes, like the Doom of Malan'tai was holding them up or something? Anyway it's all speculation right now.

The all floaty concept would be very cool, especially if you find a way to make floating variations of all the units that typically wouldn't be, such as gaunts and such. For example a floating Tervigon could be based off the Starcraft Overseer. Food for thought.

Hope this helps as it's time for me to stop this wall of text. Let me know what you think of the new list options and we'll see what else we can come up with to refine your list. BTW, is this diminutive list for an escalation type campaign?

Holy Crap...

I Love your nids!

They are Awesomley amazingly weirdly freaking COOL!!!

I Love them...
Its a shame i've already done my 2 Tervigons...
Otherwise i would have copied your idea straight away!

Thank you for the praise, glad you find it inspiring.

If you really like it, why stop at 2 Tervigons?