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Nice, Fenriswulf! He has shown that he is open to feedback. I just need some wave 1 models by end of February... really hoping to see Host pledges going out soon.

Yeah, nice job, FW. My eyes usually just glaze over at this point when I get Ed's updates (much like Tre's updates) but I felt a need to say something about that sculpt, because the proportions just looked awful. After seeing the concept art you linked and realising that's what it was supposed to be, I'm both grateful to you and at Ed.

I'm not a huge of any of the humanoids, but the wyrms and hounds are incredibly awesome. Can't wait until I get these some time next year.

So, what are people going to be using their miniatures as? I have just checked the Tyranid thread and I am curious what people will be making their Troll Forged miniatures proxy for. There are a lot of large beasties coming out, and it looks like a lot of this kickstarter should take care of proxying for them. The Harpy/Crone for sure. Any other ideas?

Monopoly and Sorry! pieces.

You got it, nids

I am not 100% sure of what the exact kinds of Nids are going to be out there. Not exactly sure what miniatures I am going to use for each.

Grubs for Termigants, Hounds for Hormagaunts, Swarm Adults for Genestealers maybe? I dunno. Then I kind of trail off...

I think the Cannon Drone is likely to be Exocrine sized? Haruspex might be proxied by the Carnage Hound.
Swarm Masters are probably Tyranid Prime.
Overlord can make a Harpy/Crone.
Drone proxies as Tervigon.
Stealth Swarm Adult might be Lictor sized, but I am not so sure...
Swarm base are Ripper Swarms.
Swarm Warrior I hope are good enough to be Tyranid Warriors, though I don't think they'll be big enough.
Alien Wyrm is a Venomthrope? Maybe? I dunno.
Queen is a Hive Tyrant?
Sky Hunter could also be used as a Harpy or Crone?

I don't have a clue what else there is which needs to be fit in. I am hoping Mashaaf from the Bones II kickstarter will go in nicely as a Tyrannofex or something similar. Filth Beast is something else which would be proxied well, depending on how big it is. I am hoping it's Carnifex sized personally, but we'll see how we go.

Still excited about this KS. And really glad Ed is open to feedback. If Mantic has of been the same for the KoW one we could have got some really well done pieces. As it was, I sold most of it off.

New pictures are up!







As you can see, a marked improvement. Looks really good, and very insectoid in nature. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. As I thought, I knew Ed could get these down from the concept art to reality and have them look good. Now I just need to figure out what the heck I will be using them for...

Much better than the previous one - which despite being nicely sculpted on a technical level - was awful.

And yeah, probably 'Nids. There was a thread when this was still an active KS with people working out what kind of an army you could get for the Queen level, etc. Of course, by the time these come out there'll be a new Tyranid book anyway...

Agreed, looks much cooler for warriors!

You have a Zarg in Here??




Needless to say, I like the changes.

I hope the Swarm Warriors turn out to be Tyranid Warrior sized. That'd be excellent. And yeah, I think the whole piece comes together much better.


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From Ed's facebook page -

Ed Fortae wrote:I reculpted the warrior thinner as requested by backers. I'm going to make the heads and arms socket. He is big close to 40mm at shoulder pads.

Awesome. Tyranid Warrior replacements here we come!


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New photo's!






Looks good!

Another little update:

Looking good! I am wondering what the old abdomen is going to be used for though. I think he was talking about another model or something being used with it, I don't know. In any case, loving the different heads you can get for it! Might extend the claw or scythe parts on the arms a bit though, to give it extra range.

New update of a master cast of the Queen... looks awesome!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/131182444/assimilation-alien-host/posts/711255?at=BAh7CDoMcG9zdF9pZGkDV9oKSSIIdWlkBjoGRVRpA9U7KEkiC2V4cGlyeQY7BlRJIhgyMDE0LTAyLTA0IDE3OjI5OjExBjsGVA%3D%3D--72df783e8e98294e2636856aa13ecdc773be52fd#comments

Note in the first pic below the zoanthrope looking model and the grub are not part of this campaign, just models he had in there to help show scale. The sprayed black Fiend behind it is a part of this campaign, of course!

That figure's not really doing much for me. Luckily Ed seems to be pretty good about trading in models for others, so I'll swap it out for something of equivalent value.

I like it, looks all alien and gribbly. Could even turn them around to be more ant looking if you wanted. I think there are some great conversion options for this model.

Didn't realise the bigger grubs are ones which were already on the store, knew the Zoanthrope version was up there.

There is something about the queen that doesn't quite sit right with me either, but I can't figure out what it is. Maybe the legs?

I am kind of wondering wether it balancing on those tiny spikes for the feet isn't all that great, but I don't mind it that much for it to be a problem.

I am wondering if I should go for a lower torso, turn it around and have it more like an ant as I said above. I think that could work quite nicely. Would also fit on a 50mm base, so easily made into a carnifex style creature. I'll have to have a think about that one.

I thought of that, but the thorax section makes it look like way too much work to do so.

Hrmm. In that case I could always either remove a few sections from that part to shorten it, or make some kind of new fiendish creation using other parts from the miniatures that get made.

The good thing about all of these creatures is that they'll be highly modifiable, while still looking creepy. I'm going to have to wait and see exactly how it all turns out before I can adequately determine what will be used for what exactly.

I also now see the problem with the legs. The original artwork had them being more articulated to move in the direction the abdomen is facing. These are more ant-like, which is fine but don't look like they are made to move in the specific direction the creature is facing. Might need a re-modelling from me. I am tempted to see if I can sculpt the bottom chitinous type ribcage the artwork has, and change the legs to the original style, as well as have long stabby insect arms. The worry then though is how much do I need to do for everything to get it how I want it to look. I will need to check them when they come in and decide then what the best course of action is.

If they're the same "price class" or whatever, I'll "fix" mine by swapping out for another one of the ones that are primed black in this pic.

This is crazy talk, I absolutely love the queen!

But it should be easy to swap- you do so via credit. The queen is $15, the fiend (primed black) is $20. So not hard to make work, just swap something else out with it when the time comes to submit the pledge manager for your pledge level.

Sounds good. I'll sort out the details in October or so when this thing will finally be wrapping up...

New update is up!

Here are the new pics of what work has been progressed;






It's not what I had hoped out of the arms and head to be honest. Here is the original artwork;



I prefer the artwork for reasons I stated on the kickstarter page -

"The reason the artwork works so well is that the gun is part of the forearm, which would make it easy to shoot in a from the hip stance. The long insectoid left arm also works really well, as the spike is an extension of the forearm, which would easily be able to be extended to skewer enemies, while having a small grasping hand part along the length. The other excellent part is that the head, rather than being positioned above the shoulders like a human's, is telescoped forwards, and looks very Mantid in appearance, which again lends itself to a more alien look. If you brought some of the boney back plates forward like in the picture, I think it could work quite well."

I'd rather he follow the artwork closer than improvise, as the sculpts begin to deviate a little too much from what was originally offered as a concept. He's great at sculpting (the head might need a little work), but the original designs are just fantastic, and the closer we can get to that the happier I will definitely be.


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With the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Tyranid thread, I am not so sure I want these guys for 40k any more. I think I will hope that Mantic makes an alien bug type list I can shoe-horn these guys into. In any case, the delays to these miniatures isn't so bad if the Tyranid list is so poor no one wants to play it.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that one (but loved the art). Hope he reworks it like he did the other one people weren't thrilled with... if you have any sway on this and feel the same way make sure to let him know!

That's just an awful model. I made sure to communicate that with Ed as well. Looks like I best start paying attention to his updates to feed back that this kind of sculpt is sub-par.

It seems that most people are on the same line when it comes to the model, and that is staying as close to the original artwork as possible.

I don't know whether or not the mandibles on the head he showed were the final product or not, but they were less defined than I would like or expect (they looked like they were just cut from the blob of greenstuff used to sculpt the head with less other work).

I do hope he follows through as closely to the art as possible. I dread having to try to make my own versions which match the art, I would rather it be done right the first time. Which is why I was so disappointed with the Kings of War kickstarter, the art provided did not match nearly close enough to the end result.

Some of the sculpting is technically fine to an extent, but it seems that what I suspected initially quite awhile back might be true - that Ed can't actually sculpt very well, and gets around it by sculpting gribbly creatures that still look good, and don't have all of that annoying "proportion" stuff to worry about. For example - in my youth I knew an older Warhammer player who played Orcs and Goblins because in his own words "I can't paint human skin - it always looks awful, but painting goblins with green skin it always looks fine."

Now the worms still look pretty good, but these humanoids aren't exactly lighting my world on fire...

Yeah, I think a few of the parts, such as the heads and arms, really need to be detailed better. The artwork head is absolutely spectacular, but I have a feeling we aren't likely to see the kind of detail it has for the main miniatures themselves. I am hoping we eventually get there, but I don't know.