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Hey Dakka,
For years now I've been slowly trying to collecting every non-imperial army that my gaming group doesn't really get to see, all these different flavours of Marine realy bore me so I thought I'd do my bit to mix things up! At the start of the year the only candidated left open to me were Necrons, Tyranids and Tau (as I already have CSM, Daemons, Eldar and Dark Eldar under my belt) and there is only one other Xenos player in the group that has been representin' for the greenskins. Tau are probably my least favorite Xenos and the new 'Cron fluff irritated me so much that my choice was clear.

I spent the last month or so looking around on Dakka, finding out that the internet sure can moan about how much the Nid's suck, so I figured that a "only take what I think looks cool" hordey build would be better than trying to go for a proper face melting list. After my full mech DE list I've been playing for the last year and a bit, hopefully this will yet again give me a completely different play style to have fun with.

I looked through a lot of stuff on Hulksmash's blog and his MC-Free builds to get an idea of what, roughly, might work, then I stripped a lot of the useful stuff out and spammed a butt load of Gaunts in their place

I've never (In over a decade of WH40K) managed to field a fully painted 1500 point army, and that's something I'd really like to remedy. So with that in mind I hopped onto the Army Painter website to look into a way of getting a half decent, fully painted army onto the table ASAP.


Anyway... That's enough rambling from me for now. Here's what arrived on my doorstep last week, tonight I'll have a look at getting some of it glued together

I like the name
Going with what looks cool is probably as good a policy as anything else with Nids, the 'competitive' builds are fairly limited, and once you start playing you may find yourself working towards that anyway.

Have to say i've never played a game with a fully painted army (that I've painted) either, already given up on the idea of getting my CSM painted for a tournament in a week and a half because I paint too slow, so am borrowing my step-dads painted army That pile of Nids looks pretty good already, you seen the new models coming out next month?

MC free, but have you seen the new beasties!

Either way, looking forward to seeing this progress

Something I took for granted has been working for me on painting AND assembly. That is the assembly line style. Get one color out and hit every model with it, then the next color. even if you paint slow this will progress you farther than you expect. and even after the base coat and a few colors the army starts looking better and better. I sometimes do one color per day, but get every piece that needs it, then after a week or so the army is done!

I really suggest what Kerrgrim said I individually paint each one of my ork boyz. I just got stuck in that way and it is hell to paint.

rodgers37 wrote:I like the name
Going with what looks cool is probably as good a policy as anything else with Nids, the 'competitive' builds are fairly limited, and once you start playing you may find yourself working towards that anyway.

Have to say i've never played a game with a fully painted army (that I've painted) either, already given up on the idea of getting my CSM painted for a tournament in a week and a half because I paint too slow, so am borrowing my step-dads painted army

Thanks My problem is that I seem to have very little time that I can dedicate to regularly sitting down to get painting, That's why I started the blog up, to try and motivate myself. I wouldn't say I actually paint that slowly when I find an hour or two to sit down and paint, its just finding that hour that's hardest for me

Vitruvian XVII wrote:MC free, but have you seen the new beasties!

Either way, looking forward to seeing this progress

Yeah, the pic's and confirmation came up a few weeks after I shelled out for a set of chapterhours boneswords! Thankfully the GW version are also expensive, and I think the swords on the swarmlord look a little weedy, so I think I'll still be happy with what I've ordered (when they finally arrive!).

Kerrgrim wrote:Something I took for granted has been working for me on painting AND assembly. That is the assembly line style. Get one color out and hit every model with it, then the next color. even if you paint slow this will progress you farther than you expect. and even after the base coat and a few colors the army starts looking better and better. I sometimes do one color per day, but get every piece that needs it, then after a week or so the army is done!

sam0 wrote:I really suggest what Kerrgrim said I individually paint each one of my ork boyz. I just got stuck in that way and it is hell to paint.

Thank's for the advice I think I paint one model up competely just so I can get an idea of what I'm aiming for and any little changes I might make, but once thats done, I'll try and do them production line style.


Okay.....So I spent a few hours scraping mold lines off last night (dear god Genestealers are a pain in the ass!) and sticking together. I managed to assemble all of one battleforce except the warriors (waiting for the aforementioned boneswords), 6 Raveners and 2 Hive Guard.

It turns out that the first Hiveguard I assembled was quite badly miscast (two of the legs were joined together by a tonne of flash so severely that I just assumed that they were meant to be one piece) so I had trouble getting the first one together, It wasn't until I opened the second one that I realised what the model should have been like The second one went together really easily though. You can see a few patches where I had to crack out the liquid green stuff on the first model, but (conjoined limbs aside) the cast wasn't that aweful, especially compaired to the fiasco I've had with my Dark Eldar in the past.



The Raveners were a delight to put together, There wasnt all that much variety for different poses ect, but they went together well and are a realy nice kit IMO. I did find that they looked a little cluttered with all 3 pairs of arms however so I decided to just go for the rending claws and one pair of stabby arms (mind has gone blank, cant remember what they're actually called ). This meant more green stuff had to come out to fill in the bottom arm sockets. They ended up a little something like this:



After then came the monotonous job of de-mould lining nearly 40 gaunts and half a dozen genestealers. nothing exciting or different here, just 2 hours with a file, bottle of super glue and the cast commentary of the fellowship of the ring



Not sure where the other half of the Termagaunts got to when I was taking this this picture.....but they are around here somewhere. By this point it was gone midnight, so after a full day at work, an hour at the gym and god knows how long doing this, I'll forgive myself for 8 Gaunts going awol

That's all for today, hopefully I'll be able to find a little more time this evening. Thanks for reading

Subbed, need some inspiration, dont fizzle out on me!

Horray my first subscription

I'll try and update as often as possible, knowing there's at least one person out there following this will give me more incentive to keep things going! Thanks Norn King.

Haha! You do realise anyone who posts here is also subscribing, right?

ooh god, I forgot Dakka does that! I turned that off years ago so I didn't just get a massive list of introductions threads come up in my subscribed list

Right, after looking like a bit of an idiot, Here's a rough idea of the list I'm working towards. As I said before, I dont aim for it to be competitive. But I though it might be interesting to share

Tyranid Prime - Deathspitter, Boneswords
5 Warriors - Deathspitter, Rending Claws, Toxin Sacks
16 Genestealers
30 Termagaunts - Toxin Sacks
20 Hormagaunts - Toxin Sacks
20 Hormagaunts - Toxin Sacks

6 Raveners - Rending Claws

1 Zoanthrope
2 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard

This should come in just under 1500 points. As its all been purchased already I obviously can't make any massive changes, but if anyone can think of any minor tweaks I'm all ears

If yo can fit in a broodlord theyre always cool, also more stealers is awesome. Looks cool though, i always run at least 50 hormies and 30 stealers in any of my nid armies as well. Gotta love a hungry swarm

Cant wait to see some painted. Any particular paint schemes in mind?

Nice King Tango there, defo worth the wait

Vitruvian XVII wrote:If yo can fit in a broodlord theyre always cool, also more stealers is awesome. Looks cool though, i always run at least 50 hormies and 30 stealers in any of my nid armies as well. Gotta love a hungry swarm

I had 60 points left over when making my list and was trying to decide between a the Zoan and a Broodlord. Being used to playing a DE army with 18 Darklight weapons at 1500 points I felt really light on anti-tank, hence the Zoanthrope > Broodlord. I may get a Broodlord as well so I can do a straight swap to mix stuff up at a later date though.

Norn King wrote:Cant wait to see some painted. Any particular paint schemes in mind?

It might be a week or two before I really crack on with the painting but I sprayed up some test models last night to see what the colour looks like. You might be able to see the base colour lurking in the background of the pics below

GoDz BuZzSaW wrote:Nice King Tango there, defo worth the wait

Thanks Rhys If we ever get round to organizing a Dakka meet up then I think it will be these guys that I take. Kicking your ass with Dark Eldar is getting repetative



Well I didn't have quite as much time last night so it will be a slightly shorter update today. I got the last two Hive guard put together, like last time there were a few little defects (bubbles ect) that I had to spend a good 20 minutes fixing up. It's a bit of a pain that I had to do that to a £15 model, but at least THAT one was fixable. Then I went onto the Zoanthrope.....I've had a lot of crappy finecast models so far, but I think this one takes the title of "worst cast I've ever seen".



This piece is completely hollow, missing almost all of the top portion and riddled with holes throughout, the part that is meant to be glued onto the main body isnt there at all


This one is (apart from the huge bubble at the bottom and the 2mm deep trench all the way down the middle) is what the first piece shoud have looked like. The tail and head were both covered with the usual air bubbles, but nothing as catastrophic as what is shown above though.

After getting suitably annoyed at myself for continuing to buy this finecast crap I decided to have a quick go at assembling more Hormagaunts, I got half a dozen done before getting bored an deciding to go outside to play with some spraypaint

I haven't got any photos specifically of the stealers that I sprayed up, but you can sort of see them in the pics above. I'm going for a pale blue and bone colour scheme using the "Crystal Blue" spray from here, I will be doing their "armour" in Dheneb Stone and the eyes/toungues/details in Liche purple then I'll use strong tone quickshade to help finish them off.

Over the weekend I'll aim to get the rest of that box of Gaunts built, and maybe try and paint up a test model so you can actually see the scheme

Am I the only person to have never had a poorly cast finecast model? (although to be fair, i've only had 3 ICs)

Options for Nids is what you need, i'll think you will find once you start playing, you will need to tinker your list to get it 'right', random lists can actually work quite well, albeit not against top lists, but still it can be fun.

And that blue in the background, looks like a interesting base colour for Nids.... (presuming thats what it is)

GoDz BuZzSaW wrote:Nice King Tango there, defo worth the wait

Thanks Rhys If we ever get round to organizing a Dakka meet up then I think it will be these guys that I take. Kicking your ass with Dark Eldar is getting repetative

rodgers37 wrote:Am I the only person to have never had a poorly cast finecast model? (although to be fair, i've only had 3 ICs)

Options for Nids is what you need, i'll think you will find once you start playing, you will need to tinker your list to get it 'right', random lists can actually work quite well, albeit not against top lists, but still it can be fun.

And that blue in the background, looks like a interesting base colour for Nids.... (presuming thats what it is)

I wish I had been as lucky as you so far I've had to return 2 boxes of Wracks, 2 Haemonculi, 2 Succubi, Urien, an Ur-Ghul, a Medusae and now a Zoanthrope The only things I've ever for perfect 1st time are the other two court of the Archon models. The Hiveguard were by no means perfect, but they were useable as least.

I don't often play against top lists, my regular gaming mates are pretty laid back so this list wont need to be perfectly tuned. I was trying to find a way to get Toxin Sacks on the Stealers but it always ended up with an arkward number of points left over that I couldn't use.

Yeah that blue will be the base colour. After Black Legion CSM's, Ulthwe Eldar and dark purple DE I really wanted to go for a brighter colour!

I know that feel bro. As an Eldar player practically 60% of the army is Finecast.

Good luck with your future purchases.

I havnt had any problems with finecast, spose im just lucky.

i think there finecast techniques are actually getting better, or at least the Q&C is anyway

Looking forward to seeing the life being drained from the planets of the galaxy

The new nid models are on the GW site now, you getting any? there freaking amazing.

Awesome thread, I love the complete start to finish style showing the assembly and mold line removal, following this one closely!

Swordwind wrote:I know that feel bro. As an Eldar player practically 60% of the army is Finecast.

Thankfully I got all of my Eldar when they were still using metal, I can only imagine how awful it would be to replace my 10 banshee's, 15 Fire dragons 5 Dark Reapers, 5 Warlocks and 3 farseers with finecast. I'd never start up an Eldar army now unless the new codex comes with plastic kits for the aspect warriors.

Clumpski wrote:i think there finecast techniques are actually getting better, or at least the Q&C is anyway

Yeah, the first few months were utterly awful in my experience but since then things have looked like they're improving. The Zoanthrope is proof they still haven't quite fixed the process completely though :(

SilverMK2 wrote:Looking forward to seeing the life being drained from the planets of the galaxy

Yeah, I want to see if I can get the majority of this project done ASAP. I normally end up getting distracted and taking far too long to get a job done, but so far everything is going great! Thanks for the comment

Norn King wrote:The new nid models are on the GW site now, you getting any? there freaking amazing.

Yeah, the Tyrant looks much better than it did in the WD photos, I'm really tempted. I really wanted to avoid MC's in this army, but I might treat myself when I get all of this done!

King Thor wrote:Awesome thread, I love the complete start to finish style showing the assembly and mold line removal, following this one closely!

Thanks! I post most of these updates when its really quiet and I have nothing to do at work, so that probably explains why I bother going into so much detail




Okay! I don't usually get much time for hobbying during the weekend but I've surprised with how much I've been able to do since my last update. I got all of those Hormagaunts built (bringing the current total up to 28/40), assembled the second battleforce's Genestealers (now all 16 are built) and sprayed the lot and I've built all that I could of one box's warriors. I was really annoyed to find that one battleforce only gives you one set of Warrior's rending claws, despite the fact that the codex lets every warrior take them as an upgrade. So I've currently got 3 warriors built, two of which are missing a pair of arms I had a quick look on bits and kits and bitz box but they are both sold out of the claws as well If anyone knows of a good place (preferably, but not necessarily in the UK) that I could find some I'd be mega grateful!

As well as all that, I sprayed up and fully painted a Ravener, to give myself (and you guys!) a better idea of what my Hivefleet will look like when its fully painted up! Hopefully I'll have time to post that step-by-step walk through tomorrow, but tonight it's all about the Genestealers!

As I previously said, these guys were a real pain in the ass to de-mold line so I really wanted to get them out of the way first. After an hour or so of scraping (this time watching the cast commentary of LotR: two towers ) I was finally finished! As you probably noticed in my second post, I'm not sticking the bases onto the models yet. As I'm using the army painter spray as the main colour for the models I needed to make sure that I was able to get that spray can in at every possible angle, as there isn't an exact match for a GW colour, I wouldn't be able to touch up the base coat if I missed any patches. Therefore I devised a slightly different (and really helpful) way of spraying these guys up! All you need are your models, A big ball of blu-tac, a bunch of scabby old pencils and a drinking glass.


stick a model firmly to the end of the pencil with the blu-tac, I really need to emphasise that they need to be on there firmly, one or two of mine fell off after/during being sprayed and it made a hell of a mess!


You can then freely move the mini about (holding the other end of the pencil so you don't get your hands covered ) so you can get into all of those parts that would otherwise have been obscured by the base. Sorry the pic is a bit out of focus, but it's meant to show you how I got into all of the fiddly bits!


Once sprayed, you can leave the model to rest in the glass to dry off whilst you spray the rest of the squad. Normally I'd just leave them resting on their base, but as thats obviously not possible here, this way still makes is possible to let the mini's dry without having to rest them on anything when they're wet. I found that after doing maybe 4 or 5 of the 'Stealers, the first one was already dry, so if you don't have enough pencils to do a big unit in one go (I doubt I will have when I get round to doing 40 horma's!) you could probably do them in batches.


Once they were all dry I was then able to get them into their bases. This is the full squad together, They're slowly starting to look like a Warhammer unit, and less like a mountain of grey plastic!


Here's a close up of one of them to give you a better idea of the colour. The colouration is a little off because I took the pic right in front of my lamp, bit IRL its sort of half way between GW's Ice and Enchanted blue's. The more I use it, the more the colour is growing on me.




As I said, I'll try and get the step by step Ravener pics up tomorrow, but it would be great to hear what Dakka thinks of my work so far

It does look pretty cool - looking forward to seeing your colour scheme.

It looks like I forgot to rotate one or two of the pictures that I uploaded for this thread, so they've been purged by Kid_Kyoto

Annoyingly that means I wont be able to post the next update until this evening :(

Looks really nice mate, Looking forward too taking your fully painted army off the table Also you can't do Hive Fleet Kraken though, that's the army i want to do if i ever do 'Nids

Ah, genestealers and mold lines...remember those -.- Good job doing all 16 of them.

I'm liking your progress so far, can't wait to see what scheme you choose. Have you thought about adding a venomthrope btw?

With my photos re-uploaded and rotated I can finally show you guys what the scheme will look like



First things first, here's the model I decided to test the colours out on. I really like the Ravener models and they seem to have a fairly even skin:chitin plate ratio, so I can see how the colours work together. Here's step one, much like the stealers from yesterday, it's just a few coats of the blue spray. I actually assembled these before I finished the genestealers so hadn't thought about leaving him off the base before spraying, it made the spray take a little longer, but I got it all covered in the end




This is after a few, quite heavily diluted coats of Dheneb stone on the armour plates (3 or maybe 4). At first I was considering using red gore for the tongue and other details but it didn't quite look right IMO, I should have really got a pic before I went over it, but I'm much happier now its purple.




I cant begin to describe how wrong it felt just dunking a miniature into what just looks like a tin of skanky old muddy water. This is the first time in over a decade of wargaming that I've ever (or even seen somebody else) dipped a model but after watching the little video guide on their website I proceeded to take the model out side and shake it around like a madman (this also felt bizarre after spending so much time delicately painting every other mini I've ever owned ). I then proceed to ruin one of my paintbrushes whilst removing some of the really big pools that had formed. The guy on the website suggests washing your brush with turpentine, and I really have to agree with him now, I tried cleaning mine thoroughly with plain water and it's still clumped together in one unusable blob Note to self...never ignore advice from the people that develop a product when they tell you how to use it, it wont "probably be fine my way".




After waiting the full 24 hours for the quickshade to dry (I didn't feel like going against their advice again ) the mini was still REALLY shiny. At this point I was a little worried, thinking that no amount of varnish would stop the Ravener from looking like it had a ceramic glaze all over. However they proved me wrong again, the mini is now completely matt, even more so than if it was done with the little pots of Devlan mud. I'm really starting to love this Army painter stuff! I've only done one model and its already saved me aaaaages of painting time

I think I might have gone a little OTT when spraying the back of the mini. You can probably see in the last shot that the paint has gone all weird and crinkly, its still completely hard and I cant imagine it flaking off though. This isn't anything I've come across before, I've seen spray varnish make models go all cloudy before but never anything like this. Has anybody seen this happen before? and if you have, does anybody know how to fix it/if its fixable/a link to somewhere showing how to sort it out? I'm fairly certain it was just me being too heavy handed with the spray and I'll work on that in the future, but if anyone can help me sort this one guy out it would be much appreciated

Thanks for reading guys

That looks awesome Gorechild, good job I wish i had thought of that colour scheme!