All-Genestealer Tyranid Army conversion help.

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.

**MechaEmperor7000**

Last night my nids almost won against my eldar foes, however I faltered due to my gaunts doing absolutely nothing (they didnt even manage to slow the enemy down, nor provide a cover save, so needless to say it was 250 points wasted). In the end, what had allowed me to salvage the battle were the Genestealers, The broodlord of which managed to hold off an Avatar for three turns due to Hypnotic Gaze. In fact the Genestealers managed to kill more than their point cost and thoroughly destroyed my opponent's army before they were obliterated. Knowing that I basically wasted almost half of my army's points on the gaunts and partly on some Tyranid Warriors (who, like the gaunts, got no kills, didnt stall anyone, and ended up dying anyways), I've decided to go for an all-stealer army. I own at least 50 of the little buggers so this wasnt a problem. However a competitive army Genestealers alone do not make. What I wanted to do was to field my actual Metal Broodlord as a Tyranid Prime, Giving him Rending Claws and Count-as Twin Boneswords (to represent his former Inhuman Strength rule and to give some MC killy power). For his retine I wanted to make some Warrior-count-as Genestealers, Uberstealers, that physically looked like gigantic, mutant stealers. Other ones I wanna do are: a Hive Guard-count-as stealer, a Zoanthrope-Count-as stealer and a Tyrannofex-count-as stealer.

For Uberstealers, I have a few unbuilt 4th ed genestealers that I was thinking of bulking out and perching on rocks to compensate for the height difference. Since I have 5 min squads of Stealers, I can make 3 "Uberstealers" and use the remaining to convert into Broodlords to lead the Stealer squad. The "Uberbroodlord" (Prime Count-as) will lead the Uberstealers and grant them the Alpha Warrior Rule. However, aside from that, I am unsure of how to go about the other conversions. While I can use other nids as the basis, the Genestealers to have a rather unique look to them, namely the spiney Carapace Plates in contrast to the beetle-like plates other nids have. Any suggestings would be welcomed.

**Leigen_Zero**

May I suggest here basing it around the old genestealer cult list,

Tyranid Prime = Genestealer Patriarch
Tyrant Guard/Warriors = Broodlords (so your patriarch is guarded by broodlords)
Hive Guard = Tyrannofex = Genestealer Hybrid weapon teams/ artillery
Zoanthropes = Genestealer Magi
Gaunts = Genestealer Hybrids
Genestealers/broodlords = genestealers/broodlords

**MechaEmperor7000**

For a GS cult I'd rather go with Guard (although I'm doing a LotD army for that one). I have considered the option, but I wanted to go a different route with the Genestealers (largely in part due to Dead Space, where the necromorphs somewhat resemble Genestealers and nids in purpose).

**Fallenbourne**

How about tryinig Lictors? I know warpshadow had some cool lictor conversions. Run them as a type of assassin genestealer or even use them for the warriors (Rending claws, scytal, with the feeder tendril head).

Maybe run some sort of baby-stealer and use them as count as hormagaunts? Use as a meatshield/shocktroop.

Either way goodluck with the army. I am interested to see how it turns out

**MechaEmperor7000**

I saw a Hive Guard conversion using warriors and gaunt heads, with a large piece of carapace from the Carnifex kit for the back. What I was thinking of was using the same basic concept, but instead of the gaunt head, use one of the extra GS heads that came on the sprues as well as giving it more human-feet. My general problem is that most nids have Hooves and Beetle-like carapce, while Genestealers have humanesque feet and more rib-like carapace. For the Tyrannofex, I'd go with a larger version of this based on the fex, with a head composed of multiple GS heads, ala the Brute from Dead Space.

**ghosty**

I like this idea, my tyranis themselves have a distinct genestealer flavour to them (I have about 50 of the guys as well - Space hulk was a life saver!)

Now, I see one problem. If you don't like your current army, due to it's weakness, how does counting new miniatures that resemble 'stealers as the same weak units that failed you before going to prevent failure?

Of course for a modelling point of view, it's the most delicious idea ever!

**MechaEmperor7000**

Actually, it's mostly due to a theme change. Before Genestealers only made up a small portion of his army, largely being there as a support unit to outflank problematic campers. However, given the devastating effectiveness they had on my opponent, I swapped out all of the gaunts for them. I was also considering dropping the Warrior squad entirely and counting the Broodlord as the Prime to lead the army, as well as bring in some Hive Guards (which I dont actually have any of yet) to round out the force. Given that just about every single model in the army will require new models (bar the Biovores, who look like Ork Genestealers anyways), I thought this be the best chance to make the switch over to an all-stealer themed army. I've been collecting nids so long, I actually cannot legally field all my models in a single army (I have over 10 full Troop Choices, not to mention HQ and Heavy Support) so the Genestealers migrating to their own army wont hurt anyways.

**Clang**

Warriors or Raveners certainly make reasonable counts-as Ymgarl Genestealers - the bulkier look helps justify the 4 armour save. For my own Ymgarls, I converted normal Genestealers by adding warrior-style backplates made of greenstuff and plastic.

Squeezing Warriors or Raveners etc onto a standard 25mm Genestealer base could be hard.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I think you got it backwards Clang, I want to make a Genestealer that counts as a Warrior, not the other way around.

**BloodWulf**

See if you can eBay some of the stealers from Space Hulk? Might be something there.

**MechaEmperor7000**

I think I saw some Space Hulk minis at my local FLGS. I'll see if I can pick them up.

**poda_t**

if you take no gaunts, what then, i ask you, will be your canon fodder?

also, consider taking a tervigon with your gaunts, its not great in a killy-killy game, but if the tervigon parks its fat but on an objective, and is ringed with one squad of gauns, its ging to be hard to dislodge.......unless, of course, your oponent is dark eldar......

**MechaEmperor7000**

given my opponent prettymuch shrugged off their attacks and ignored the unit/shot it with a single plasma frag round, I really dont think their absence will be missed. If I had another squad of Genestealers the game would have ended very differently.

And this thread is largely for conversion talk, not tactics. Normally I wouldnt have a problem with some tactical advice, but really I'm trying to go with a theme here.

**poda_t**

Alrighty, if you are basing this off a genestealer army, I think it's already been mentioned; run it as a genestealer cult. Ork nobs could easilly make up the basic/starting point of your warriors, assuming they are big enough, been a while since i seen an ork. Alternatively, kroot would be another good option, as you could probably convincingly convert a the bg monsters to tyrant guard--assuming you intend on fielding them--or with a bit of work could do as a carnifex.

You've got a fairly ambitious project set out here, one that can't really be done without extensive use of greenstuff. The liberating bit is that genestealer cults have random mutations, more or less, so an ammount of error is forgivable

**MechaEmperor7000**

I am trying to avoid the whole "Genestealer Cult" look, as that borders on Chaos a bit much. Instead, I want each of these creatures to look like offshots of the Genestealer species, similar to how Kroot offshots all resemble the stock kroot in some way or form. The Hive Fleet has a preference for the basic Stealer form, and will base it's resulting creatures off this, rather than them being GS offsprings. I'm just looking for good a good base and possible suitable pieces for conversions. I might use the Ork arms since they're huge and burly, but nothing random.

**poda_t**

hmmm, kinda stumped thre then, because they do only come in two sizes, regular and brood lord. The alternative could be to modify the basic genestealer toward the look of the core tyranid genus. Alternatively, and you wont be happy with this, go for a completely different look from both. Suppose you drifted toward the alien look, though, again, this would be GS heavy, but its a solution since Genestealers really are the odd man out for their appearance with respect to the rest of the army.

You could most definately use whatever broodlord models there are to flesh out your warriors and tyranid primes, but I'm still at a loss as to how you might replicate a carnifex. The current picture I have in my mind sees something along the lines of a mix between a spider and a genestealer, having issues properly visualising what the legs would look like though.

Love to help ya but this is kinda stumped

**MechaEmperor7000**

I'm gonna wait till the Tomb Kings get released. As I mentioned the Stealers have a sort of spine-type carapace as opposed to the beetle one other nids have. Tomb Kings should be a good source of gigantic plastic spines, especially since I heard rumors of plastic Screaming Skull Catapults and Bone Giants.

**Lord_Osma**

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:I saw a Hive Guard conversion using warriors and gaunt heads, with a large piece of carapace from the Carnifex kit for the back. What I was thinking of was using the same basic concept, but instead of the gaunt head, use one of the extra GS heads that came on the sprues as well as giving it more human-feet. My general problem is that most nids have Hooves and Beetle-like carapce, while Genestealers have humanesque feet and more rib-like carapace. For the Tyrannofex, I'd go with a larger version of this based on the fex, with a head composed of multiple GS heads, ala the Brute from Dead Space.

I made Hive guard like these and used GS heads because I was trying to make them looke somwhat like turtles for my aqatic themed Nid army. Came out very well and they only used bits I had spares of. No real torso or anything that you only get enough of to make the number of models that the kit was already suposed to make. They were like free hive guard.