Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi folks,

About 12 months ago I joined a project at my local GW store called "A Tale of Many Gamers". I was supposed to paint a 1500 pt army in 3 months, which didn't sound too bad at the time. I have been collecting Tyranids since 3rd Edition and they were due for an overhaul anyway! I came up with a paint scheme that was very quick to apply, as it didn't require much brush control. It was inspired by a snake we have in Australia called the Fierce Snake (or Inland Taipan), which has a black head in winter to help it absorb solar radiation. It's venom is the most potent of all the snakes, though they are apparently quite placid.

Anyway, my Dad had a heart attack a few weeks into the project and, understandably, I dropped everything for a couple of months (he has recovered by the way ). Soooooo, I kinda blew the project's deadline. I still like the scheme though, so I have been slowly building up a new Hivefleet, which I am hoping to share with people in this blog.

The steps for the paint scheme are here, if you are interested:

All done correctly, they come out looking like the following miniatures. I'll start the blog off with some troops choices and the Scythed Heirodule I recently finished. I am really looking forward to trying the scheme out on some of the new critters

Cheers
M4cr0

Hi folks,

Here are my Trygons, which I lovingly call "the twins". They were a pleasure to paint, even if they did take a little longer than expected. I am going to try and use the snake-like designs as much as possible in my collection, including some snake conversions in my HQ slots.

Very cool. I love the glowing eyes, and I never would've thought metallics would look so good on Tyranids. Keep it up!

I clicked on this thread out of sheer novelty of the idea, and honestly I expected some ultra-shiny attempt by a novice painter. I admit it, I was a bit prejudiced. But what's surprised me is just how dark and sinister you've managed to make these bugs. The combination of different metallics has really worked here, and the shiny black carapaces on those trygons was the icing on the cake. Well done!

Mate these look awesome! If I didnt have 4.5k of stuff painted already I would give it a whirl on my own models.

Thanks for the kind comments, I've got a few pics of finished critters to put up before we hit work-in-progress. My eye twitches every time I look at all the unpainted Nids in the garage

 bossfearless wrote:
I clicked on this thread out of sheer novelty of the idea, and honestly I expected some ultra-shiny attempt by a novice painter. I admit it, I was a bit prejudiced. But what's surprised me is just how dark and sinister you've managed to make these bugs. The combination of different metallics has really worked here, and the shiny black carapaces on those trygons was the icing on the cake. Well done!

Yeah I get that a lot. As I said in another thread, one of my mates has joked that the Fleet ate some Necrons and decided to keep the colour scheme. In nature, you see some sinister metallics, so I figured I could use that to my advantage. The black armour on the head really does become a focal point (thanks for the idea Fierce Snake!), so I generally spend a whole hour getting the look of the head and eyes right.

Thanks for the compliment barit. If you ever do give it a try, send me a pic

Cheers
M4cr0

Man, I have to see the full army!

The 'Nids look awesome

These do look cool. I too never thought a metal nid could work but it totally does.

Looking forward to more, especially the new kits that are coming!

i like these a lot, my own test model used a bit of metal and looked ok, obviously for full awesome you have to go full metal

Sorry to hear about your dad, glad he's making a recovery. These nids look great. The head on the mawloc looks especially awesome. I've always been a fan of the idea that nids could be metallic as they absorb all useful materials from a target world, but I've never seen it pulled off as well as your's. Great work! Looking forward to seeing more.

Thanks for the comments folks! I am hoping to get some time to paint tonight or tomorrow, depending on how late my daughter can manage to stay awake to watch the Christmas carols. I have some Zoanthropes and Tyranid warriors lined up, at various stages of the painting process. I have been using them in games already, but after taking some quick photos I saw ALL of those mould lines I missed when I was rushing to paint them during the project. An hour or two of fiddling and they will look heaps better, I think. I even dug up an old 2nd Edition Hive Tyrant to use as a Tyranid Prime!

Thanks Warboss_Waaazag, he's a tough nut to crack. That is an interesting idea, that their absorption of metal elements may have effected their colouration. I may try and weave that into the backstory, as I haven't addressed their appearance yet, even in my own personal musings. Cheers!

Hi folks,

I finally got a chance to finish off my Zoanthropes, though painting conditions have been tough in Sydney the past couple of days. It is 38 degrees in my lounge room at the moment (or 101 degrees for our American friends), which makes dry-brushing quite difficult. The second you wipe most of the paint off the brush the rest dries solid in the bristles!

I have used these critters in my army every game and I have had some great fun with them. I have heard a lot of rumours about how their rules will change in the new Codex, but I'm not too worried. As I mentioned before, I have been through quite a few rules changes. It will be sad if the Doom of Malan'tai doesn't make it into the Codex this time around (for me, anyway... not my long suffering friends!).

The single miniature is my Doom of Malan'tai conversion. It is based on a 3rd Edition Zoanthrope model, with 250% more greenstuff brains added. The design philosophy behind 3rd Edition Nid models was to explicitly show which races have been absorbed to make specific critters. Tyrant Guard were supposed to look a bit like Space Marines, Biovores like Orks (~ugly ) and Zoanthropes like Eldar. When I was looking for a model to use for Doom, the 3rd Edition Zoanthrope was an obvious choice. As you can see by the WIP pic, I had to cut it back quite a bit last night to get rid of that mould line. There's a lesson in that: clean up your mould lines before you spend 4 hours painting a model. Honestly, what was I thinking last year? Painting wise, the scheme works well because of the large helmet of armour on the head. It is weird not having any eyes to paint though.

Anyway, enjoy the pics. next up I have some Tyranid Warriors and a Prime to paint. If I don't get it done before Christmas, I'll see you on the flipside.

Merry Christmas,
M4cr0

Hi folks,

Here’s a quick update to show some progress on my Tyranid Prime and Lictor. With Christmas being such a busy family time, and some Battletech projects that couldn’t wait any longer, I haven’t quite finished the Prime yet. It is based on the 2nd Edition Hive Tyrant model, which I still love to bits. You can see my old Genestealer Cult paint scheme in the WIP shot, from a time when this model was my Genestealer Patriarch. It has since been moonlighting as a Broodlord, but those days are obviously over. Painting-wise, I still have to paint the eyes and the area around them. I also have to snaffle a pair of boneswords from the Prime I have been using. Putting them on this model will take some modelling, as the arm sockets are very different.

I have had some pretty good success with using a Tyranid Prime in my games. I have even taken Vulkan He’stan’s head a few times . Lictors, well… Lictors have been pretty useless for the past 15 years . Back in 2nd Edition they were almost as hard hitting as an Imperial Assassin, with some really neat tricks up their sleeves (chitin?). Still, at some stage during 5th Ed. I ended up with 3 of the things, including a Deathleaper. I am hoping that the new Codex gives these guys a fresh start. They need to either have far greater survivability or be able to kill more things very quickly. At the moment, my regular Imperial Guard player is quite happy to face a Lictor. That is just plain wrong.

So, here are some pics of the WIP Prime and the finished Lictor. Hopefully I get a chance to finish the Prime over the next couple of days. Happy New Year!

Cheers
M4cr0