Hive Fleet Chimera, 1-4 New years old excuses.

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**1-i**

The Chimera, in mythology, is a Greek monster with the body and head of a lion with a snake for a tail and a fire-breathing goat head coming from its back. Different versions of Chimera mythology have slightly different descriptions, such as wings on the back or the back legs of a snake, but most follow the description above.

No matter how you describe it, the Chimera is the daughter of Greek monster gods Typhon and Echidna, which means its siblings include other famous Greek monsters such as The Sphinx, Cerberus, and Ladon.

Merely seeing the Chimera was a bad omen. The Greek monster regularly appeared before disasters such as shipwrecks, violent storms, and volcanic eruptions. Chimera print

The most famous moment involving the Chimera in Greek mythology is when the Greek hero Bellerophon, with the help of his trusty winged steed, Pegasus, killed the Chimera with a bow and arrow from the sky above.

Beyond mythology, the term "chimera" is used in scientific research to explain an animal that contains more than one set of genetic codings. This is a clear nod to the Greek monster, in that the monster itself is a combination of three different 'normal' animals.

The use of the word "chimera" as a way of describing a hybrid "monster" of sorts seems to be the most lasting element of the Chimera mythology. In later medieval usage, the word was used to describe any hybrid monster combination, and had a deep connection to the evil and demonic. There are many hybrid monsters, even if you just look at Greek monsters alone, so it's somewhat interesting that the Chimera was the one of all of them to end up defining a term that is still used in multiple purposes today

From
http://www.gods-and-monsters.com/chimera-mythology.

Tyranids, small bug like critters that like to eat you and everything you own and care about. Then they crap it all out sort of eat it and make more 'nids. All in all they are every form of eating disorder that we have currently acknowledged. So for my take on them it will be diverse.

The group of us have all pitched in and with ebay we have amassed a force that tests the limit of my kitchen table. 600 models and counting right now about 300 are various gaunts and at least 150 of genestealers, 6 tyrants, 9 carnifex, 30is warriors, a bunch of gargoyles, 9 lictors, 2 trygons, 2 real trygons and more. Yup Apocalypse came out at a good time for us.

So why are we calling it Chimera? Well as this is army is from ebay, friends and other sources they army scheme doesn't match and as our fluff for a campaign we have going on goes the chimera is the best option for name. Easily we will have four dominate colors and with our representatives of Behemoth, Kraken, Hydra, and 'Fourth" along with some other variants of gaunts. Fluff will be explained as this blog is worked on. This will be a long process to fully complete but the early stages will be plenty of conversions and model builds as we are actively needing more bugs for the meat grinder of play.

To get things started I have some pics ready of the "Fourth" hive, other work will be coming along shortly.

So tune in and with luck things will roll along nicely with slightly regular updates.

**1-i**

Well it looks like all the previous pictures I had on this computer for the tyranids is either missing or just buried in files. So fresh pictures it is.

Now no fleet of any large size is worth having unless it has a Swarmlord to lead it. (du-duh-dun-ches).
This guy came to me with a nice full coat of red spray paint evenly applied. Add some black to the carapace and then go at it with a purple to white edging and drybruh and then a quick dip in some gunstock Minwax and this is what you get.

I am not satisfied with how his blades have finished up and I need to highlight the arms and underbelly of the beast.

I have a few pictures ready of the serpent portion of the hive that will wait for now as 1am is feeling later than it normally does.

**1-i**

Yippie, kids are back in school and I now have more spare time, I think. So on the work bench right now would be 6 original tyrants that I plan to count as Primes. And yes as soon as I can figure out how to make one look like Optimus I will probably try to make it work. The paint stripping process on a few of these guys has been heartbreaking. I am pretty sure that one of them was primed in superglue and boy did that make the paint stick. (Pun intended) So a long soak in Simple Green then another soak in nail polish remover and lots of time with a needle pick and lots and lots of glue removal. Kind of a new experience with the way that much glue gels and peels off. Amazing that the model was not damaged in the process.

So two of the old tyrants will remain in their vintage glory with original arms and setup, I think these have always been one of the best tyranid models made. I was so pleased when the current tyrants reflected the old builds.
Now enough about work I am doing lets look at others work that I purchased. This part of the beast was a great purchase, Two full painted squads of gaunts, three carnifexes, two zoanthropes, some painted genestealers with lots of unbuilt ones to work with plus other spurs of bugs.

Presenting the Serpent section of Chimera

Now I normally hate this style of edging the carapaces with color but it is something that I can blend and I didn't have to do any of the current work and it does work well on the battleboard. The Zoanthropes are my favorite of this bunch and with the one unpainted one I have remaining I will replicate the look.

**1-i**

The 6 Lords of Prime. No, not the transforming kind but the bug kind. All of these are original Hive Tyrants. I have already stated my love for these models. On the models with the non traditional lash whips I took that arm piece from the early tyrant guards.

Assault murdering crew, Swarm Prime and Ninja Prime. Yes those are swarm lord arms one the one. All it took was a little cutting of the shoulder joint and it lined up perfectly.

From Melee we to got shooty bang bang.

Now Old School Glory

Painting will wait on these guys, I have plenty to assemble for games coming up. Next on the list is tyrant guard from original carnifex.

**1-i**

"Up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane? Its a..... a... AAHHH!"

Its a Harpy.

Constructing this guy was fun. The short list is as follows. Tail- Tervigon, Torso- Trygon, Wings- Hive Tyrant, Head- bits bash.

For the most part the assembly was straightforward. The tail goes to the torso and the wings go in the arm slot. The head took some thinking and ultimately I need to work on its neck and placement. The base of the head is a tervigon. I lobotomized the frontal lobe and then filed down a malwak skull piece in an attempt to mimic the codex pictured head.

Hey look pictures of the head!

Yeah I did just shove those random parts in to fill the void.
As the overall model looks now I have two choices with the go forward plan

Now if I leave the model in the pose of the first picture then I will leave the neck alone but I like the overall look of the second picture but as the head sits now it leaves the Harpy looking straight down at the base and that just doesn't cut if for me. So if I stick with the second pose on the base then I will be greenstuffing a neck.

Now for some of the new viewers that just looking at the pictures let me remind you I did not paint the black and green ones but I do intend to touch them up a little later.

**Ratius**

1-i!
Hissy like this flying Beassst.
Hissy want in Hissys Hive. Hissy think it look like Sissy but with wings and claws?!

Hissy like colours too, Hissy tell Ratius to make Hissy Hive better, better like 1-is Hive!

I like 1-is color too Hissy!

QUIET RATIUSSS! - Hissy talk to 1-i alone.....

Okkkk Hissy.
1-i, talk to Hissy if you like!

**1-i**

Well the first major delay has happened and now I HOPEFULLY will get back to regular updates for a time.

Lets start with current work, no pics right now. The original carnifex to tyrant guard is going slower than expected but now things seem to make sense, once I finish one up then pics will be had. Should be this weekend.

In other updates I have a new tyrant package in route. This will give, of course, one winged tyrant and with the other parts I should be able to work out a tyranofex with parts from the kit and other leftovers.

Paint is still a distant goal to start but patience is a virtue.

**1-i**

Well this is a conundrum, My Tyrant turned into a Trygon whilst in the mail. Guess its time to do the ebay contact buyer mess. Not that I couldn't use another trygon, come to think of it I haven't assembled a single trygon model yet. I guess I will have to see what happens.

yes I planned to have pictures by now but SCA armor came up and I have diverted my attention to that.

**1-i**

Dead not I am. Slow be the last month or so when it comes to playing with glue.

The ebay misship is all over with and both sides are happy once again, I got what I ordered and they got a good review.

This is the second flyrant for the swarm. Simple and currently overplayed flyrant conversion but I always liked the concept and recycling of the arms.

This may be something I think of doing on a carnifex body I have laying around latter. I will see how the tyranofex works out.
Yes I have a tyranofex concept in the works but that might have to wait till the new codex comes out, sadly the upcoming release has me reprioritizing some work. This is why the tyrant gaurds are not only unfinished by shelved for a few months. At least I have one completed and the other two far enough along.

As you can see they are original carnifexes with some tweakings. The plan was to do one each with the biomorph options, standard (completed), lash whips, boneswords. With the possible change up to the rules in the near future this part of the project can wait. In fact most of the fun conversions I had planned are on hold for now. The good news means that I have no excuse not to work on the boring masses of 'stealers, gaunts, gargoyles, warriors, shrikes, raveners, and objective markers.

**1-i**

It has come up in another, and probably the most fun, tyranid thread. Mostly about how lame the old canifexes and zoanthropes were. Well one thing of the old I do like is the heads of the old zoanthropes just not as a zoan head. So some years ago, long before I got the house and kids and barely had the wife I took the old head added some parts noticed they hive tyrants got new arms and swords and then I got to work. After some glue and paint and a 35mm picture that was later scanned regret hit, mostly because the pic sucks and the paintjob needs some rework but I continue to avoid doing anything with it.

So as you can see I had an idea and I think it still works. Hopefully with the new codex I can give it some more psychic powers and have a nice true Psyrant.

The near future for this guy will be a rebasing.

**1-i**

Happy 2014, I have done nothing in a month or so. Well I did pre-order the new codex and cleaned a corner of the hobby room. Not really anything exciting to go on about but in short time I get to decide if any major re-works are in order.

In other news is bloody bleeding cold outside and the holiday was good for my spawnlings.