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I wouldn't really call myself a competitive player, since I don't go to tournaments, however i do tend to face players who do and thus my list are rather... "efficient" (without using the usual trick of unit spamming).

You have a great balance of playing to win and fun. You definitely don't play WAAC from what i have seen.

The recent list on your other thread: Did you have models for everything? I'm assuming you just had stand ins for the Spods?

Yup, I had models for everything but the pods. The only way I could everything I have is by playing Apoc or 2 Force charts.

What I ended up doing is using the large flyer bases as proxies. As it turns out, those bases are now the standard MC base in my army thus far. Except for Carnies, every t6 creature in my list is setup on those and frankly, it works perfectly for their size.

I've already got a full-size sketch figured for the basic shape and some guide lines drawn on foam. Oh darn, the inspiration bug bit me good this time.

My concept idea for spods (which I haven't had a chance to model yet) is essentially Giant Squid like creatures (probably like you on a large oval base). I haven't decided whether the Nids will burst out of the side of the body, or come out where traditionally the mouth of the Giant Squid is... but I suppose I'll just see how it goes... I think the tentacles will fit in well with the overall Nid theme - just need to draw something up and then start modelling!

@ slice: Sounds like a cool concept for the pods. You should post up the sketches in your P&M blog. Love the colour scheme on your nids btw, it looks both familiar and unique and it definitely stands out.

I have some good and some bad news (well not entirely bad, read on to see what I mean).

The Good news: Vacation pay came in but since I only took 1 week of vacation instead of 2, it turns out that this cheque into a summer bonus which means it's finally time to buy some new models.

The (not really) Bad news: No new Nid models... instead, I'm starting a new army, something to obliterate my Nids... Dark Eldar.

Rest assured I'll still be working on the Nids as they are the best, if not the only, army for conversion addicts like myself. For the next week or so, you'll be seeing more progress in a new P&M blog, advertised in my updated sig.

Dark_Gear wrote:I've already got a full-size sketch figured for the basic shape and some guide lines drawn on foam. Oh darn, the inspiration bug bit me good this time.

Me to! Have you thought of using polystyrene eggs as a base for the spore? Or have you been put off by the HQ problems and have given up on spores?

slice'n'dice wrote:My concept idea for spods (which I haven't had a chance to model yet) is essentially Giant Squid like creatures (probably like you on a large oval base). I think the tentacles will fit in well with the overall Nid theme - just need to draw something up and then start modelling!

Sounds like a great plan, very apt considering the art for the Tyranid bio-fleets. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can get together!
Also, love your Tervigon concept!

Dark_Gear wrote:The (not really) Bad news: No new Nid models... instead, I'm starting a new army, something to obliterate my Nids... Dark Eldar.

I can't decide if i'm enraged or overjoyed...

Dark_Gear wrote:Rest assured I'll still be working on the Nids as they are the best, if not the only, army for conversion addicts like myself. For the next week or so, you'll be seeing more progress in a new P&M blog, advertised in my updated sig.

I've had a look at your blog, i'm looking forward to seeing your Dark Eldar stuff. I'm sure you will do the new models justice as always! Did you catch the bug from Jon and Finnan per chance? I'm really feeling Eldar at the moment but i've thought of a way to quell my ideas in a cheap way! I really need to get myself a camera soon so i can set up some plogs of my own!

Have you thought of using polystyrene eggs as a base for the spore? Or have you been put off by the HQ problems and have given up on spores?

I'm not giving up on spores yet, I just need to work out some deployment kinks. Why use eggs when I have the following stock and tools?



Shouldn't take too long to get going once I sit down and fire up the cutting tools.

Did you catch the bug from Jon and Finnan per chance?

Most definitely! Seeing their work, both with paint and conversions really made me yearn for something new. There's 5 major factors that sparked the purchase.
1. Like I'd mentioned in some circles, I feel like I've got a solid understanding of Nids now so, to mix things up a little, it's time to go back to first grade with a codex
2. One of my friends has Nids and Chaos but hasn't been playing the gribblies since we met as Nids on Nids is not a fun match up and he needs a switch from Chaos.
3. Noone else in my play group has this army yet, so it's a new opponent for everyone.
4. Choosing Grey Knights, never gonna happen. I'm a Xenos player.
5. Had the money and the time was right.

I can't decide if i'm enraged or overjoyed...

Easy, be overjoyed, as you'll now another set of conversions to drool over. Speaking of which, how about those Daemonettes?

All sounds good to me, yep the Deamonettes are yours to have. I have a few other things which i posted up on my list page. Once you've had a look, pm me.

The thing i wanted to ask: Ever considered building a norn queen? Not for gaming, just for being awesome. Just wondering.

What? Forge World makes one of those?

If only!! No i refer to your crazy ass skills, i.e. scratchbuild it. I've thought about it myself but what a job it would be, i don't have the resources these days. Worth considering?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Did a quick search. Lots of big talk about building one but very few backed up by pictures, those that have been are good but don't do the girl justice. I see a much different beast in my minds eye.

As I saw it, in regards to the evolution of my conversions, the plan is to keep on working on increasingly tough projects, such as the Flyrant and Harpy until I work up to making my own Bio-titan. The plan has changed to include a Tervigon and some pods before I get to there but so far, I'm still on track.

LostSoulCasey'sLaw wrote:Did a quick search. Lots of big talk about building one but very few backed up by pictures, those that have been are good but don't do the girl justice. I see a much different beast in my minds eye.

Dark_Gear wrote:As I saw it, in regards to the evolution of my conversions, the plan is to keep on working on increasingly tough projects, such as the Flyrant and Harpy until I work up to making my own Bio-titan. The plan has changed to include a Tervigon and some pods before I get to there but so far, I'm still on track.

Don't get me wrong i wasn't meaning you! I was searching online for Norn Queens.
Anyway, i like you overall plan. How about slipping a Norn in before or after the Bio-Titan? Depending on the scale you want it to be.
As one of the few people who could do it justice you are pretty much under obligation to do it! Haha!

I'm using your rending claw feet idea, friend! Hope you don't mind, it's a compliment really! Flyrants starting to come together. Any new bugs at your end?

Also, hope you don't mind but i've linked your blogs for people to see on the Space Marine forum that i'm moderating. You've had a very good response!
http://blacktemplars.clanteam.com/showthread.php?tid=196

Wow. Your work is amazing. Hope you don't mind but I'm stealing your ideas for the harpy and tervigon. I also have some ideas on kit bashing in the black dragons neck and wings for a harpy. Wondering if you have any exp with the compatability size wise of the trygon and black dragon?

Thanks for the props Darth though looking at your Dark Eldar Wraithlord it seems you're not one to shy away from extensive conversions either

As for my experience with the Black Dragon, I've never seen the model in person so I can't say for certain, however, I did stumble upon a very inspirational project on Eye of Error, a 40k blog. Seeing as how you seem to like Dark Eldar I'm sure you'll appreciate the work that went in transforming a Black Dragon into a Proxy for a Ravager...

Looking at the dragon's wings in relation to the kabbalite warrior, I'd say they look similar in size to the Balrog Wings and thus they'd be more than adequate in size for a Harpy conversion. Let me know how that turns out.

Hope this helps and stay tuned,

On November 26th there is a 40k tournament which means I finally have a reason to... put paint to my models <gasp!> I know, shocking.

That wip was actually a revenant Titan from FW I turned to the dark side. Not my best work and I'm currently repainting it, but it's more a side project since I've started the bug army. To date all I have is a warrior box, but I'm going to expand that with a flyrant, a tyranid prime and a bunch of gaunts. After that I'm probally going to tackle the tervigon using your arachnid spider idea. I'll be sure to do my own wip blog and throw you the props when I do.

Do you have a specific kind of list in mind or are you just building the models for gaks and giggles since Nids are currently the champs for conversion potential?

Regardless of which path you're following, I look to seeing the progress. Keep me informed.

Thinking of doing a flying / warrior theme. So lots of gargoyles, a flyrant, harpy, shrikes, and warriors,tervigon etc on ground. Haven't played any games yet so Im just working on core units. Any advice on a list would help a lot!

edit:

did some crunching and heres an idea for a list... what do you think?

- flyrant with devourers
- 2x2 hive gaurd
- 2 zoanthropes
-2x3 warriors with deathspitters / scytals, adrenals
-2x10 termagaunts w/devourers
-2 tervigons w/catalyst, onslaught, toxins and adrenals
- 15 gargoyles
- harpy w/ hev venom cannons
- 3 shrikes w/ deathspitters, adrenals
- 3 carnifex w/2 devourers each

total is 2410. i figure i either need to trim to 2k, or pad up to 2500. any suggestions for either?

Funny you should ask about a flying list as they are one of my favourite themes for Nids.

From my own experience with said lists, you need at least 2000points to run them effectively as your Flying Wing can run up to about 1140 points, depending on its composition. Typical setup would look something like the following:

Flying Tyrant | Wings, Old Adversary, 1 Twin-linked Brainleech Devourers, Sword/Whip,Adrenal Glands, Paroxysm.
3-6 Shrikes | Boneswords and Lashwhips, Adrenals, Toxin Sacs.
15-20 Gargoyles| Toxin sacs and Adrenals

Seeing as Shrikes have to choose between shooting or melee, I strongly suggest you go with melee. They do it so well it's hard to use them any other way. I've seen just 2 of them wipe out 10 man marine squads by themselves. If all 6 show up to a party even a full sized squad of Obliterators don't stand a chance.

For added power, feel free to add a Harpy in the mix. Although it's not quite a CC monster, by staying close to the Tyrant it will benefit from rerolls to hit, while striking models at WS1.

I'll finish this rundown later as I have to head out to work.

Stay tuned

*** Warning | Wall of text incoming. ***

Further to what I was saying this morning regarding the deployment of a Flying list I've been looking at the rough total for winged part of your list. With a few tweaks you'll be looking at:

Flying Tyrant | Wings, Old Adversary, 1 Twin-linked Brainleech Devourers, Sword/Whip, Adrenal Glands, Paroxysm.
3 Shrikes | Boneswords and Lashwhips, Adrenals.
15 Gargoyles| Toxin sacs and Adrenals
1 Harpy | TLVC, Adrenals.

... for a total of 990 points. Now you see why 2000 points for a flying list is quite tight as you still have to buy all your troops and your ranged anti-tank.

This brings us to the point where I just have to bring up the most important detail about running this type of list. You have to run your army as though you have 2 different forces, 2 tendrils if you wish. 1 forward element, 1 rear guard. Do not split your assaults unless you are certain you will win, e.g. 15 Gargoyles multi charge 2 IG heavy weapon teams while the Harpy charges a nearby Chimera. Also, keep in mind that the Harpy's Sonic Screech is one of the few grenade equivalents in our codex, frag spines being the other one.

Your flying wing, while extremely potent, is also quite fragile to massed firepower if they split up. To keep the group safe you need to practice moving them in such a way that the Gargoyles mask the Shrikes, the Shrikes mask the Tyrant and the Tyrant masks the Harpy. Extra shenanigans you could use to keep them alive in the first 2 turns of the game would be to run 2 venomthropes behind the group while also stringing out the Gargoyles so they always have one model within range. Bonus points if you also manage to get Catalyst from your Tervigons on any of your flyers. When and if you can make all of these synergistic powers gel at the same time, your opponent will hate you for it.

As for the rear guard, the best way to deploy them will depend on:

mission type
spawn rolls with the Tervigons
force composition

What I advocate for this group is as much cheap ranged firepower as you can muster. Considering an effective DakkaFex costs 205 points (frag spines and adrenal glands to get Initiative 4 on the charge). 20 devilgaunts in cover and with Catalyst will be even more durable (20 wounds vs. 4) and will also provide a lot more shots in the same range (60 vs. 12). Granted they're not S6 but any infantry coming in range of your Devilgaunts will have to roll a ton of saves. If at all possible, keep a venomthrope nearby to make your opponent roll for dangerous terrain and wrap you Devilgaunts with a bubble wrap of spawned gaunts. Keep all of these units with range of a Tervigon and thanks to counter-attack even a full mob of boys will think twice before charging in.

What I've found to be a good balance of Devilgaunts is 30 or 40, split into 2 squads. I never field them in squads smaller than 14 as I've found that if I take a smaller squad their effectiveness drops too quickly. Once your output of shots drops to less than 30, you're only really killing 1-2 marines a turn which isn't so hot. Putting out 45+ shots a turn (ideally 60+) is often enough to kill more than 25% of a unit, thereby causing to test for morale at -1 to leadership. Marines run. Quite often off the table.

To round out your anti-infantry, I strongly biovores in preference to Carnifexes. Assuming you keep them well bubble-wrapped from Drop Pod Dreadnoughts, biovores will be firing well into the final turns. Field them in 3's. Always. The key to their success is mass wounds. For example, 2 hits to a small unit of Long Fangs will cause about 8-9 wounds, 2-3 of which will end up not being saved. Said unit usually runs. On large units of tightly packed models, such as orks or IG, 21 wounds is not an unusual amount. Even if said units are in cover, the torrent of wounds either pins them or makes them run. When facing mech guard this might be a problem as you won't have many units to shoot at first but once Chimeras start blowing up, you'll pretty much kill or break one squad per turn, per unit of biovores on the table. I run 2 of 3 models each but that's what seems to work best for my local meta.

Regarding anti-armour, if you muster the funds and the points, bump your 2 units of Hive Guard to 3 each. Much like Biovores, they work best in 3s. Their toughness is legendary and best of all, due to their size they can actually grant your MC's a cover save, even if your Tervigon conversions are quite large. To top it all off, their high strength gun will insta-gib multi-wound Terminators. Zooanthropes on the other hand I've dropped altogether. For their points I'd expect them to be better on all fronts, especially range. The only way to get them to be used properly would be to drop them in a spore but then you still end up spending 40 more points on a suicide unit. The fact that many of my opponents have psychic defense hasn't helped bolster the usefullness of Zooanthropes either. 2 Venomthropes are slightly cheaper and, over the course of a game, will be more beneficial to your overall performance. If you don't care for the models they are actually quite fun and easy to convert from Warrior sprues. Ymgarls also have their place as they are fairly reliable and would end up meeting with your Flyers by 2 or 3, providing extra rending power near the front of the lines.

In closing, what you could be looking at for your rear-guard would look something like

2 x Tervigons | ScyTals, Adrenals, Toxins, Catalyst, Cluster Spines
2 x 2 Hive Guard
5 x Ymgarls
32 x Devilgaunts (so one box of Gaunts) | in squads of 16
3 Biovores
3 Carnifexii | 2 x Brainleech

This rounds out your force to a perfect 2500points without having to buy too many models.

If you don't mind getting a few more models to make what I feel from my experience would make for a more balanced force you could run the following:

Flying Tyrant | Wings, Old Adversary, 1 Twin-linked Brainleech Devourers, Sword/Whip, Adrenal Glands, Paroxysm.
3 Shrikes | Boneswords and Lashwhips, Adrenals.
20 Gargoyles| Toxin sacs and Adrenals
1 Harpy | TLVC, Adrenals.

2 x Tervigons | ScyTals, Adrenals, Toxins, Catalyst, Cluster Spines
2 x 3 Hive Guard
32 x Devilgaunts (so one box of Gaunts) | in squads of 16
2 x 3 Biovores
2 Carnifexii | 2 x Brainleech, Frag Spines, Adrenals (Charging into cover at Initiative 4 is so worth the 15 points per model).

Hope this helps steer your force selection in a direction that you'll enjoy. Keep the questions coming.

seems like solid advice. having not played any games yet and as im still working on purchasing models (my wallet needs time to heal from the 9000pt dark eldar beating) i think it will be a while before i get a game in, thats not vassal. right now i have a box of warriors and a fex i managed to salvage repair and get functional from when i first attempted bugs 5 years ago. for some reason i couldnt locate the gaunts i picked up, but in truth all i grabbed at the time was a tyrant, fex and 2 gaunt boxes (back when they included both gaunts) the tyrant is unfortunitly beyond salvaging, and the gaunts or most of them are MIA, so thats not much help. i plan on picking up another fex this week, and im going to order black dragon and arachnid bits later as well.

totally off topic, but was reading your DE thread, and i would humbly suggest you might get more mileage out of your trueborn if you change to units of 4 with 4 blasters, and take a venom. lances and blasters dont mesh well... usually one of the 2 is not shooting. so instead, optimize and take all the same. i like the blaster setup because it allows pretty good speed and agility in movment, while still popping tanks and gaking up hev infantry. just a thought
: )

Whoa! 9k of Dark Eldar?! Is all of that assembled? I can see how that would kick the wallet in the teeth.

A quick note about the Fex. If you assemble the kit in the standard fashion, you will that they are severely hunched over and quite short, to the point that the middle of their jaw will just about at the same height as a Terminator. To simple trick to give them a taller pose is to get the pin an the tip of the ball joint for the tail section and the file off the first 2 bony bitz that stick up from the tail plates. Once that's done you're Carnies can be given a more upright pose that truly dwarfs Terminators. Who knows, you might also get bonus points for modeling for disadvantage. hehehe

Ragarding your Tyrant, what do you mean by "beyond salvaging"? Is it badly painted or just mangled from aborted attempts at converting?

As for the Trueborn, I hear what you're saying, sticking to one type of gun per squad would definitely have some benefits. For the way I play them however, the current mix suits me just fine for the following reasons. The Venom is basically a gun chariot which moves somewhat minimally in the backfield, using the long range of the 2 Dark Glances in concert with the Splinter cannons unitl it either gets shot down or other units get close to it. At that point, one of 3 things happen. 1) They zoom away to fight another turn. 2) The Venom gets immobilised and everyone just stays onboard, using the chariot as a fragile bunker. You'd be surprised how many people don't finish off an immobilised paper chariot, which means the Trueborn can't be picked off or charged. 3) The Venom blows up, wounds get allocated to the Dark Glances so that I can at least have mobile blasters left to run and gun.

With the current setup I can uses the unit right from the start, even if only partially, whereas with 4 blasters, I lose the first turn of shooting and I must run to within 18". Based on my experience thus far (only 11 games), deploying Trueborn in that range, due to the Dark Eldar's lack of an armour save, pretty much offers 2 KP's for very little in return. Don't get me wrong, I fully expect my Trueborn to die. I just hate seeing them die as quickly as Fire Dragons. lol

The tyrant is an older metal version, and has been banged up, bent missing bits and so on. It's at. He point where I would need to rebuy most bits, and since the paint is crap might as well start over, and do one proper. Plus fine cost is easier to convert with plastic bits.

Yea, all 9k is assembled, although that incudes my titan and 2 fliers. Not all is painted however and thats the never ending project. To each his own with the trueborn, I usually take 3 units of 4 on venoms with cannons, plus 5 man warrior teams on venoms. And a neat trick is move the venom 12", disembark 2" then shoot 18" giving you a 32" range with the. Blasters. Also keep in mind if you. Stay on board, your blasters can pop a tank, then the venom can target and shred the occupants providing you only move 6. The same is true for the. Warrior unit. 5 warriors 1 Blaster and a venom is 125 points. Ad it's crazy efficient. Especially with 6 of them, along side the 3 true born, and 3 ravagers. People won't like you, but I have not lost a game yet using that list and I'm coming up on 30 games with that particular build. It's so crazy in friendly games I provide list. And rundown before hand and ask if it's ok to bring a hyper competitive tourney list. Mst say ok the first time, then request a different one the second time they play me.

Awesome advice on the fex! If not for the simle fact ilike to convert models and that's a huge attraction for the is the great room for conversion and custom beasties that just look super bad ass!

I have started working on a set of Flyrant wings, I plan on casting them in resin once finished. They are designed to fit into the top are slot on the tyrant like the forgeworld warrior wings do. The first version will be scything talon wings, with the follow up being a set with a biogun mounted like the FW harridan. I plan on the guns having the ability to swap the barrels out to be able to WYSIWYG tyranid weapons.

My blog has the first wip shots. http://warfrog.blogspot.com/2011/10/custom-hive-tyrant-wings-feedback.html

@unicorn: looking good. Posting my opinion on your blog as my alter-ego, Saed.

@Darth: That list does sound pretty brutal indeed. Have you faced IG with it yet? If so, let me know how it went. One of my old gaming buddies now plays a brutal MechGuard list and I just figure how to knock them down. At 1000 points what he brings to the table was bad enough but now that he's looking at 1750, with some Hydras and Vendettas, well, I just refuse to play him. Not worth my time to unpack the models for 2 turns of play. You'd think GW knew exactly what they were going to do with Dark Eldar when they designed the IG codex as it is the perfect "scissors" to the Dark Eldar's "paper", pun intended.

Regarding the Ravagers, have you had any issues with their Dark Glances not doing too much per turn or do you face adversaries who still figure that AV14 is fine against your army?

Why not just strip the Tyrant or is it actually so mangled that it would be more than actually dealing with Finecost? After my experience with the Incubi's fragile blades and a Haemonculus that took 2 hours to file and scrape, I'm not really trusting the new material. It's either plastic or metal for me. Speaking of which, I'm hoping I win a bidding war for a metal Urien Rakarth on Ebay. Fiddly as he's going to be, he's not going to bend in sunlight like his resin counterpart.

Stay tuned for more.

I have purchased 3 metal tyrants on feeBay over the past few months all under $28 including shipping. All were ugly and in bad shape, after a quick run through the ultrasonic cleaner with SuperClean they are in like new condition. Strip that puppy down and reuse it. Blog will be updated within the next 18hrs or so. I went with option 2 on the small talon, the general consensus was that would be the best layout. The only people that said option 1 were myself, Dark_Gear, and an artist friend of mine Neverness on my blog.

lances srent meant to kill tanks.... as DE stun locking is good enough. as long as that tanks not shooting all is well, and move on. i have played vrs gaurd both the mech gaurd and infantry platoon spam... and those are the best games ive played to date. in those games, i try to take advantage of the speed factor, since gaurd have pretty much none, unless they go valks and vets, in which case focus on those, and stay out of LOS from his other guns, and play the objectives game. if its kill points, makes stuff harder but ninja strikes and crafty deployment can work.

picked up a carnifex box today - but havent started work yet. i got a crazy inspiration for a space marine flier, so im currently kitbashing a pair of stormravens, 2 valks, a land raider and a baneblade into this monstrosoty. ill post pics ina WIP blog later once i figure it all out : )

@ Unicorn: I'll keep on your blog and see how things go. And yes, ebay is just an awesome source for models and bitz. Easier to deal with than Craigslist too.

@ Darth: I'm in the process of testing the viability of a Hellion swarm list supported by Wyches, mostly to deal with IG. Your setup does sound sound awesome but as much as I can appreciate it's strengths and efficiencies, I'm not a fan of the level of redundancy. I'm not a fluff player by any means it's that when it comes to list building, I like to make things harder for myself by trying to find unusual combos that require much synergy to work. Kinda like with Nids or Tau. When 5 units get to work together the effect is always so worth it. I don't know whether to call it masochism or generalship. Either way, the extra challenge is rewarding enough in the end that it's worth losing the first few games as the tactics get refined.

For example, even though the current trend in Nids is to run lots of Genestealers, minimum Fleshborer gaunt squads and 2 Tervigons that stay in the backfield, I run no small assault units, nearly maxed Devilgaunt squads and charge in with the 1 Tervigon. It's unorthodox and it really throws opponents out of balance since they can't picture Nids being a shootie army. Heck, sometimes I even run units away from my opponent's units just so I can keep torrenting them to death.

As for that flyer idea, are you going to make a stretch limo version of the Stormraven? With all those parts I can easily see a model being roughly 3 times the size of a Valk just bristling with sponsons and a massive carrying capacity. Maybe even C-130 sized multi-vehicle deployment capabilities whereby 4 Dreads could charge out from the ramps.

Yea working on something like a super stretch storm raven.

The venom list I use is redundant I suppose but it also makes super efficient use of points.

In my experience hellions are better then bikes, but still pretty fragile. The lack of power weapons makes them iffy in CC and they are only average at shooting. The biggest benefit is the speed and hit and run ability, combined with the separating of IC. Hellions can work well if supported properly with other close combat units, and if they can advance without taking too much fire. Adding the baron and teaming with beast masters can help a lot

Done some more work and I've almost fi usher my first warrior brood. Pics hopefully this weekend.