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Just a codex, battleforce and... which one's the HQ? Hive Tyrant?

EDIT: Trollface? What do you mean? And why would I have one?

Hive Tyrants are awesome. Great model (requires pinning to put it togther though) awesome abilities, Lash Whip and Bonesword combo, ability to take Tyrant Guard, etc.

And this is a trollface



It is a gak-eating grin made when one does something cheesy/over the top/rediculous that results in other people flipping out/getting mad/facepalming, etc

Sorry I go to 4chan too much

Good to see soldiers able to relax.

Thanks for your Service. I really appreciate all you Army guys do, us Air Force guys really appreciate.



-A1C

Looks like lot's of fun there! Thank you for your service gentlemen.

We've been super busy the past couple of days. None of us have been able to get much painting or gaming in.

I was sitting down with the XO yesterday, and I realized that towards the end of next month, I'm going to have to start packing everything up and sending it home. Which is a little depressing, because finding a new group to play with back home will be tough. I'll be sending all of my models to my fiance's house as I spend about a month and a half getting out of the army in another state. I know the guys back in Georgia will want to play some 40K while I'm there, but I really don't have a place to send them to.

I guess I'm going to have to start buying Foam Trays so that I can pack this stuff up. I guess I'll be generating some ad revenue for the site when I click on the banner to search for a website selling carrying cases.

Thanks for the well wishes, everybody.

Which is a little depressing, because finding a new group to play with back home will be tough.

If you don't mind me asking, where is home? You might be suprised to find out where gamers live. Like on forward operating bases... :p

That's kind of a hard question to answer. For the first two months, I'll be in Georgia. After that, I'll be getting out of the Army and move to South Carolina. As a child, my father was in the Navy, so that had us moving all over the place. And as a teenager, I grew up in the mountainous countryside of Missouri. That's where I spent the largest chunk of time in one place, and I think of it as my only real home, though the idea of home itself is kind of absent from me. Now, my siblings have all moved out of the house, and my parents have moved to Wyoming to pursue a job opportunity.

I know there's been a huge lack of visual content lately. We've all been really busy the past several days, and getting everyone together to even spend a couple of hours painting or playing has been impossible. Just today, though, we've gotten back into the groove of working on our models, and spent 3 or 4 hours. My immortals are nearing completion, and along with them, I will definitely be posting pictures of one player's Space Wolves, particularly their chapter master, as well as the XO's current project, the "Emporer's Champion," modded to have the Sanguinor's wings on him. It looks really awesome so far. Just bear with us as we start churning out some more eye candy!

By the way: I also finished Flight of The Eisenstein the other day. I need to pick up Fulgrim one of these days...

Two games going on in one day! I played against Early's Space Wolves, and E played against Lt. Krick's Chaos Space Marines. I won against Early (but I'm learning how to play against Assault-based armies and am getting close to mastering Necrons) and E and Lt. Krick tied.

Pictures were taken, but E borrowed my SD card so that he could upload and post his own batrep, so you guys will probably be seeing that soon. And after my SD card is returned to me, I'll be posting the batrep from my game, as well as pictures of Early's Space Wolves (if E doesn't post them first!).

My Tyranids have shown up today and I've been working my way through the codex, and it does seem very fascinating! The fluff is very fun and I'm eager to get a crack and playing the army, but I've still got some necrons to finish, and I think we're out of plastic cement (thanks for always leaving the caps off of all of the bottles overnight, E).

So, big posts will be coming within the next 24 hours! Hold on to your hats!

From one new Tyranid player to another, here's some inspiration for your 'Nids. Hope it helps

Warrior


Hive Tyrant

I am probably... probably... going to paint mine black/green with gloss, like the bugs from Aliens. I'm a HUGE fan of those movies.

EDIT: Rules question... do drop-pods and mycetic spores prevent you from scattering off the table, the same as with impassible terrain and models?

I'm not sure about the Spores, but as far as I know Drop Pods can still scatter off the table; they'll count as being put back in reserve...

I'm assuming that as Drop Pods and Mycetic Spores can be killed after they land, they count for kill points?

Anyway, here's some batrep pics and stuff from yesterday for you guys.

Early and I had a kinda small, 1200 point match. I wasn't too familiar with Space Wolves (and I'm still not), but I knew Space Marines. Regardless, he was a new player, so I thought I'd go a bit more experimental on him. With all of the rules he had to look up for his new army, however, the game took hours, and I also hand to field dozens of questions for the other game being played by Lt. Krick and E.

We played Ahnillation because it's a straightforward game type and I didn't want to throw too much at Early at once.




This is how we started off. Early went first and scared me pretty bad, because I knew his twin-linked lasguns on his land raider were going to go straight for my monolith. All I knew of Space Wolves otherwise is that they are murder in close combat, so I did what I could to avoid them. I used my monolith and ran instead of shooting if I didn't think it would do me any good. Only the combines firepower of a monolith and a Destroyer Lord was enough to take down his Terminator Squad.

I played Destroyer Lord, 3 destroyers, Necron Lord, 2 squads of 10 warriors, 1 squad of 10 immortals, and a 'lith.



End of Turn 1.

For some reason his scouts had no sniper rifles. He drop-podded in his terminators and ran everyone else as close as he could, using his lascannons on the Land Raider to harass my Monolith.

As for me, as soon as his drop pod landed, I particle-whipped the drop pod to get a quick kill-point and possibly take some terminators with it (and it did), and combined fire from my two other squads of troops took a couple more down. My immortals fired at his scouts, and they fell back.



End of Turn 2.

While he continued to advance his troops and fire the handfuls of boltguns his squads had, he didn't roll particularly awesome and I saved most rolls. His terminators assaulted one of my squads of warriors and dropped several, but they were in rez-orb range.

My Destroyers break off from the destroyer lord to harass and slow down another advancing squad, while my destroyer lord goes after the terminator squad with it's warscythe, attacking the terminator whose target was warped out by my monolith. It's Gauss Flux Arc did nothing, though.



End of Turn 3.

He was trying to get his guys even even closer, and was a hair away from assault range with most of them. He dropped all of my destroyers with plasma and melta shots, and a few random shots dropped one or two of my other necron models, but nothing to really worry me other than how close his guys were getting.

I manuvered my monolith around my necron troops and moved and ran them back to buy them some time from Canis... or at least get Canis far away from everything else - particularly my immortals. My particle whip scattered off the land raider, and my leftmost warrior squad fired at the oncoming troops. Meanwhile, my immortals are laying waste to the squad closing on them.



End of Turn 4.

Two squads converged on my leftmost squad, and my necron lord took the brunt of one attack. Fortunately, he rezzed next turn, but anyway, his other squad who were previously advancing on my immortals are falling back here from a failed morale check last turn. Canis looks like he's trying to make a move for my immortals, after he closed and wiped out the other squad of troops, but he's got to cover a lot of terrain to get there. I'm getting a little close to phase-out so I'm erring on the side of caution. His landraider has still been making horrible rolls against my monolith, and tried to tank-shock my immortals, but all that did was scoot them further away from Canis.

I use the monolith to warp my squad on the right (the last one standing) to get them out of close combat, and my monoliths' facing makes them a hard to reach target. My immortals chase down the retreating squad (since SM's always regroup), shooting, assaulting, and then consolidating, *all to get far away from Canis*. My warriors fire at the Lone Wolf, not realizing that he only grants me a kill point if he's LIVING at the end of the game.




End of Turn 5.

Lined up and trying to take shots and the squad warped to the monolith, the two of his squads left out on their own are funneled and blinded by terrain. Not many get shots off. Canis is still hauling straight for my immortals and I'm trying to buy time. Still, his landraider's lascannons do nothing.

I move my warriors into the forest to give them cover saves, distance, and keep them alive longer. Meanwhile my immortals shoot at Canis, and give him all but his last wound. I fire the particle whip at Canis and miss.



End of Turn 6. End of Game.

Canis can't quite close the distance and what's left of his two squads give little damage to the squad of warriors in the forest. My immortals and warriors unload on Canis, killing him, and my particle whip destroys his landraider. The die is rolled to end the game, me with 4 kill points (if you count Drop-Pods) and him with 2.



Here's a picture of his Chapter Master:


And E should be posting a Batrep *eventually* ...

diesel7270 wrote:I am probably... probably... going to paint mine black/green with gloss, like the bugs from Aliens. I'm a HUGE fan of those movies.

yeah the gloss is a really good idea. I glossed the carapace plates on mine heavily and it gave them an awesome shiny/slimy insect look

*Almost* done with the immortals. Just got to do some touching up, varnish, and glue in the green rods.

Can someone explain to me the cover system when you're getting shot by ordinance and your troops are in the middle of area terrain with cover and concealment? At what point do they get cover saves from the blast or ordinance? At any time, even if it landed right in the middle of your squad?

its a cover save no matter what unless the rules state other wise, for example the collosus siege mortar and nova eradacator tank negates all cover saves where others allow a cover save as normal

So much for E's batrep. They've all been extensively busy for the past couple of days and will continue to be so for the next several.

I managed to get a lot of work on my immortals done, and did some other work with the XO. My immortals are just a hair away from finished. They just need a second coat of sand at the base. Though finished will continue to be a loose term with those models, as putting and keeping the green rods in the weapons was murder... the barrel ends kept snapping off and in some cases the beams outside the weapon weren't wide enough to support two rods. It was crazy. Perhaps I should have dryfitted it all first, but I had no idea it would be that tough. The decals on their small, curved shoulders was also difficult, and a few broke while I was glossing them. Oh well... we'll chalk it up to the beat-up necron look, because the gloss is on them, now.

Anyway, when they're done, I'll post a picture of the squad.

I put together a hormagaunt (if that's how you spell it) today just to see what they look like, and what to expect. Sort of visually planning the painting and finder touches in my head. The idea to paint them like the xenomorphs in Alien and the other Aliens movies will be tougher than I expected, because it's kinda hard to give depth to a solid black creature. Though I have seen some artistic interpretations of the xenomorph that made them more scum-greenish or greyish. We'll see.

What is on my mind the most, however, is how I'm going to base them. I've got a few ideas. I want to toally avoid the whole "just put sand down" like I did for the Necrons. Sure, it was easy, but it made sense as they were designed to be somewhat Egyptian in style and world. With the Tyranids, I've got the dense foliage that would be expected of a planet they're starting to invade, the blasted rock of a planet scoured by them (which would look like the base of my Nightbringer, really), or an idea I had to make them look like the floor-deck platings of a space hulk or imperial ship. Any ideas?

If you're going for the xenomorph look, the space hulk/starship decking sounds like the most fitting idea. Bonus points for putting bits of dead guys (Guard, Eldar, Spehss Mehreens, etc) on a few of the larger bases

Any idea how I would make that?

Also, anyone know where the best deals on foam tray carrying cases are? I need to pick up one for at least my pewter models so they don't break in-transit. The plastic are a bit more hardy, so I'll probably bubble-wrap them, but I at least need something. At least one with 30 slots, for my immortals, flayed ones, and fragile pariahs, and one custom or large one for my nightbringer. If it happens to have more slots, great.

Battlefoam are usually rated as the best quality foam trays, however I'm not sure about their prices, reasonable IIRC.

As for you attemping to do Aliens, would a Dark Grey undercoat with a couple of black washes work at-all?

Good Luck with the Nids, loving the blog - keep up the good work.

Here's my finished Immortals!



Between my remaining scarabs and flayed ones, destroyer lord, and other destroyers and heavy destroyers on the way, I may not be able to dive too deep into the Tyranids until after I get out of the Army. I am only a month and a half away from packing everything up and shipping it to my girl's place. I may leave the Tyranids largely undone just so that I don't have to pamper them in transit. I'm sure the remaining necron models will keep me occupied until then, and I still have to concern myself with getting them back home without breaking all of them. I had intended on calling Battle Foam last night, but the internet was down all evening and night. If I can't manage to get a solid answer as far as what I need out of them by payday (6 days) then I'll guestimate what I need and fill any gaps with a plethora of Styrofoam and other foams that the guys have found.

If you look through the last edition codex for Tyranids and not the current one, there is a painting example of tyranids that is black and red. Take something like that, with the red being green and much less prominent and you've virtually got what I'm shooting for.

Unfortunately, with the exception of my Destroyer Lord, all of the other unpainted Necron models are nothing you haven't seen me do before, so with all above understood, that leaves little artistic displays for you guys before my time here draws to a close. Hopefully E and the XO will post stuff in my absence, but they often do not have the kind of free time in the evening that I do. And if they do, and they're not playing 40K, they would rather play video games.

On the bright side, and this is a longshot as well, my girl has expressed interest in learning to play and loves the pictures I have sent home of my army, so that may develop into it's own set of experiences as I get her involved in the hobby. OR... she may spend half an hour trying to grasp the Byzantine rules and give up. The rules system properly reflects the bureaucracy of the Imperium.

The immortals are looking good mate

Well, I figured just to give it a shot, I would try to paint a Hormagaunt tyranid like a xenomorph from Aliens. Minus the ship deck floor, as I don't know how to make that. But Basically I just basecoated it and did some light drybrush shading with Space Wolves Gray. This lil' guy is sitting on my desk in my room while I ponder over how to do those internal riblet sections better. I also had a hell of a time getting the toxin sacs to fit on the arms.

EDIT: This is NOT a finished product. Just looking to see if the base color scheme that will fill the bulk of the body even looks remotely good.

Comments? Suggestions?

Gaunt looks good. I would recommend giving it some sort of brightly colored eyes or toxin sacks, something to make it stand out.

Yeah, I had intended to paint the toxin sacs, eyes, and other parts a brighter color and stuff. I just wanted to see if the grey on the chitin plates was going to be good to go.

Looking nice with the grey chitin. I find it hard to paint grey myself. Nicely done

Just Dave wrote:I'm not sure about the Spores, but as far as I know Drop Pods can still scatter off the table; they'll count as being put back in reserve...

Uh, they still roll on the mishap table if they scatter off the board.

diesel7270 wrote:I'm assuming that as Drop Pods and Mycetic Spores can be killed after they land, they count for kill points?

I do believe they count for kill points, if I remember correctly I think dedicated transports are the only thing that don't count (or one of the very few anyway) and drop pods and spores aren't dedicated transports. I could be wrong though, I'm just trying to remember off hand from playing against my buddies BT.

Kevin 949 wrote:

If I remember correctly I think dedicated transports are the only thing that don't count (or one of the very few anyway) and drop pods and spores aren't dedicated transports.

If someone could confirm this, that would be great.

Well, me and the XO painted all evening. I finished up three sets of scarabs that were left over from my Necron Warriors sprues, and I did some assembly work on my Destroyer Lord, but what I plan on showing you is my Hormagaunt so that I can get some honest opinions.

But first! The XO finally finished his Chapter Mavster "Andreas" and it's looking gooooood!

Pics:



Here's the two latest achievements from the XO: His Chapter Master "Andreas" and Chaplain "Scrotor" (We just nicknamed him that, with the running gag that he thinks it's Latin for power and masculinity).



Same models in reverse. Sorry about the blur, but you can make out what he did with them.



Aaaand the close-up. I think the XO did a fantastic job on this model. I love the wings. He made this model with parts from the Emporer's Champion model and the wings and pack from the Sanguinor. He'd love to see what you guys think about it. He looks at the thread often, he just doesn't post because not much is said about his SMs.



Here's some more work on my Hormagaunt. It's funny how the camera catches everything you missed with the naked eye, but I highlighted the chiten with Wolf Grey from Vallejo paints, as well as some hues of their Cayman Green. I washed a Dark Green in it's maw and Wolf Grey drybrushed the teeth and vent-holes, and didn't know where to go with the eyes without looking wierd for this color scheme so I just applied a line of wolf grey around the eye rim and left the eyeball itself black. I also painted the venom sacs but wasn't sure if it was too different from the rest of the model. I also am wondering if there isn't enough variety in color for this guy. Keep in mind, again, this is not a finished model, and is largely based off of the xenomorphs from the Alien and Aliens movies. I would like to hear as much constructive advice as you can hand out, or anything you think I am doing well thus far. It's harder to do this guy than my necrons because it's a new type of army I'm not used to painting with different details. "Happy accidents" can be afforded less with these guys, because with Necrons you can chalk it up to their beat-up look.

Again, let me (and the XO) know what you think!

Corvus wrote:From one new Tyranid player to another, here's some inspiration for your 'Nids. Hope it helps

Warrior


Hive Tyrant

These Nids look awesome... nicely done

Kevin949 wrote:

Just Dave wrote:I'm not sure about the Spores, but as far as I know Drop Pods can still scatter off the table; they'll count as being put back in reserve...

Uh, they still roll on the mishap table if they scatter off the board.

diesel7270 wrote:I'm assuming that as Drop Pods and Mycetic Spores can be killed after they land, they count for kill points?

I do believe they count for kill points, if I remember correctly I think dedicated transports are the only thing that don't count (or one of the very few anyway) and drop pods and spores aren't dedicated transports. I could be wrong though, I'm just trying to remember off hand from playing against my buddies BT.

Correct about spores and drop pods, if they scatter off the table it is a roll on the mishap table. However, you are wrong about dedicated transports. Drop pods and spores can ONLY be taken as dedicated transports, and yes they do count for kill points. In some missions, they are an automatic 1/2 of their KP because they start the game immobilized!

Also don't forget that pods count as moving at cruising speed the turn they arrive, so no shooting and it takes a 6 to hit them in CC.

For spaceship corridor bases, try gluing some plasticard with a design on top of the base. Evergreen has diamond and corrugated metal plasticard sheets available but when you are back in the US I don´t think it will be hard to find alternatives.

M.