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So I finally decided to start a blog about my Tyranid army.
I figured it coud help to motivate me to paint more and maybe encourage the community too.

So I actually started playing warhammer about 15years ago, Tyranids being my first army but I quickly changed to fantasy (Vampire counts, Chaos army of Khorne and then Wood Elves when the codex came out)

I then turned towards Confrontation from Rackham since the models where so gorgeous and the idea of a skirmish game was very appealing (10-15 models for an army instead of 50-100 models, why yes please.) I played mostly confrontaTion for many years and had a lot of fun

Then as life will do to you sometimes I got distracted by jobs, girlfriend, ect and almost stopped the whole world of miniatures, but a friend of mine decided to start 40k again and I decided to restart my army of Tyranids to be able to play against him.
this was about 3 years ago.

The biggest question when I started was obviously, whats gonna be my colour scheme?

I wanted something with strong contrast but that didnt seem too cartoony, I wanted to used Gold and black as a base and figure the rest from that on.
I started with a trygon since hes a big guy which would allow me to test out the colours I had in mind and see if it worked.

this is what came out of it.

I know my best friend and whos also a tyranid player would approve of it and i do too. Oh i like your layering with the gold thats what stands out so far.

I liked the feel of the Trygon so I decided to keep on going with a Flyrant
I did some pretty big conversion on this guy, I really like the big head crest that the old tyrant that I had lying in one of my old boxes had but didnt like anything else about him so I cut it out of his face and added a bio plasma Carnifexe head to it with a few horns and I had a great tyrants head, the issue was that with the big crest the head wasnt fitting on the body so I had to greenstuff a much bigger and longer neck, this ended up being a lot of fun and I added a few more conversions to him (placing the wings on his back to allow him to have 4 arms and giving him a double lashwhip and adding a extra chunk to his bonesword.

Damn nice stuff there.

Thanks guys

still satisfied with the colour scheme (I decided to make all psykers with blue eyes and cranium while non-psykers would have red eyes)
I kept going with a second flyrant as they are awesome in every possible way.

I gave this one the enhanced senses from the carnifex box again and the same extra things my other tyrant had, (wings on on the back, double lash whip and extended sword)


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more to come soon

Very cool

The colour scheme works really well.

What are you planning for the bases?

I love the way you've painted that carnifex head. I think it's one of the harder pieces to get looking good. The colours you've chosen make it look great.

thx guys, I do really like that carnifex head, Im happy it came out good.

The bases are something I might never do, I like the way good bases feel but not that much better then just plain black bases (theres always the issue of having "Grassy" bases but playing on a "snowy" board and then it look out of place).
Basicly I dont know if they are worthwhile since I have SOOOOO much stuff to paint I prefer putting my energy toward getting new models painted instead of working on bases for guys which I feel are entirely playable.

maybe at one point I'll just do a bases blitz when im tired of painting actual guys, I know my friend want me to base my guys.

after this I started on a the Zoanthropes since I just love the idea of brain bugs and the models do look very good, I did some conversion to make some of them look like they are going forward.
I kept on going with the blue brains with them
I also made my own conversion for a Doom of Malantai, I used a venomthrope body, some genestealers and hormagaunts arms, a Mawloc head crest, the regeneration Carnifex head to represent that the doom used to regenerate rifdiculously, and a lot of greenstuff for the brains and slithering body.
I was very disapointed that a few months after I finished the doom the new codex came out and the doom was gone forever, but Gamesworkshop gave me a little pick me up later on, I can use him for a neurothrope now

Then came the tervigon

Awesome job, really love the scheme. Blows phil kellys black yellow away.

Then I made another Trygon/Mawloc, he is comming out of the ground, I'll be adding some broken up rock on the base.

I really like this one, its probably my favorite

Nice bugs!

I then converted a big&bad Swarmlord from a carnifexe body.
It was pretty heavy as far as conversions go, I used the feshborer hive arms since regular arms looked too punny.
Each of his 4 swords are actually two swords each (one shaved short tho) so hes really kinda holding 8 swords.

Too bad hes been nerfed on the new codex tho.

Oh well, maybe next codex I can use him competitively or I can always pull him out in a friendly game.

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Oh wow :3
Your scheme is perfect, this makes me want to do bugs T.T I never felt attracted to tyranids because of the cartoony colours used, but yours are grim and very 40k with all the gold. Yet the blue keeps them alien and mysterious, as do the red glowing eyes.
And was thinking before about how such a dark red for organics would look like, and it looks amazing

Are you building/painting all of this right now by the way? Because it's a nice rate at which you are finishing all of it^^

Thanks, I did try to go for a Grim look

Ive been painting them across the last 3 years, I have a fair amount more to show and some work in progress im currently finishing but Im posting them slowly to build up a momentum.
So stick around and I'll try to blow your mind.

Then came the Venomthropes, these are ok but really dont measure up to the Malanthropes, I dont really see myself using these which is sad since I have 3 painted but maybe I'll play place where forge world isnt accepted and then I'll need it.
I am currently working on painting 2 Malanthrope, I'll probably post some WIP a bit later

If you ask me the Venomthropes should be 5 pts cheaper and the Malanthrope should be 5pts more with a 4+ArSv instead of a 3+ArSv, this would make them both worthwhile without being beiing Must-Have.

At this point I needed to get some Troops, I had some good HQ, Elite and Heavy Support but no troops yet.

so Gaunts were where I needed to go since I had a tervigon, I wanted lots of flesborers but also some devourer wielders

So I managed to paint 20 fleshborers wielders and 20 Devourer wielder.

Beautiful paint scheme, you pulled it off so well.

Thx, its a relatively simple scheme and quick to paint (kindof).

I then worked on getting some Tyranid Warriors.
I prefer them with no shooting instead of crap shooting so they have double scytals or some with rending claws.
I painted 10 plus converted a Tyranid Prime although Primes are relatively crap now so I can still use him as an eleventh Warrior


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Great work as always.

At this point I was satisfied with my troops, I know I need more termagaunts and even want about 30 hormagaunts plus 20ish genestealers too but troops are so long to paint so i started on the fun guys again.
I got started on 4 Carnifexes, I really want all of my models to be distincly individual, and the carnifex offers a lot of options so I bought the forgeworld screamer killer upgrade pack and split it up in between 3 of them and got some actual TL devourers upgrades

second carnifex I used the FW Crushing Claws but they didnt allow too much flexibility and took both arm so couldn't have guns with it, so I chopped them off of their arms and made new ones. and then added the TL devourers

I'm really digging the gold. I don't think I've seen metallics used on bugs before. I like it very much!

Dark AND Shiny???!!!!!!
You gotta be kidding me, thats umpossible!


Blam Baby!!!
I give you Dark and Shiny Carnifex #3, he is my favorite Canifex.
That Living mace is super sick, the model has been crafted so well, I frankly feel I didnt manage to do credit to this mold enough, kinda wanted to slice some blue in it but its not really part of the scheme..
The finess that Forge world models can reach is so obvious in this piece.

And the last Carnifex is a little more boring since he doesnt have any forge world bits.

but hes still one of my babies so I love him nonetheless

Then I did 2 Exocrines, the first one is pretty standard, the only conversion I did was giving him bigger scything talons

Subscribed.

Really striking theme overall, works very well.

Love the carapace work, and those red glowing eyes in particular.

And lastly is my second Exocrine, I used the acid maw Carnifex head (which I added a longer neck to make him look out on the side, I lke the idea of the Exocrines as a bit of a turtle with a retractable neck.
I painted his gun with blue since its bioplasma and I even added some blue to the beast controler head links and eyes to make it seem like the gun was controling the Exocrine and shooting at the same time.

I really do like the blue and Im considering using it a bit more, maybe Ill start using it on all thats synapse, that woud just require me to add some blue on the Warriors. It could make it a bit easier for my friends who don't know Nids that well to know what to shoot down first.
what do you guys think?