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So I started working on a batch of tyranids to make a living artillery node. 3 Biovores and an Exocrine. Biovores are expensive and Pyrovores (often used in place of Biovores) are a little too big to be real proxys (and I am trying to stay with the correct base/sizes). I found a thread on here where a guy used a Tyrant Guard kit to make a batch of 3 Biovores for next to nothing. They come out looking awesome and they are all the correct size.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/580829.page

I plan on doing something based on that.

In comes the Exocrine. Since the Exocrine is basically just a really big Biovore with different ammo I wanted to try and maintain a general look and feel from the smaller Biovore to the massive Exocrine. Here lies my problem.

Is it just me or does the Exocrine just look goofy with how bulky he is? I have been looking at pictures of it a lot and I think I narrowed down what is causing the look to 3 things.

1) The scything talons on the front are WAY too small for the body.

2) The walking arms are HUGE. I was thinking the walking talons from a Tervigon might work better to reduce that massive bulk. But I am not sure yet.

3) The head seems really small and set far back into the body.

I have a bunch of spare bits from a bunch of things. Some extra shells from Carnifex kits I can use to build a "top shell" over the cannon if I mounted it into a different model and lots of other stuff. Lets assume anything not forgeworld is on the table.

I am not sure if the Exocrine kit is really right for this. Maybe only pieces of it I could get online or trade for ( the bio-plasmic cannon). I want it to be more bulking from the shell pieces then it's actual body being so bulked out since pretty much every other Tyranid model follows that pattern.

Does anyone have any suggestions or have any pictures of something they might have done that heads in this kind of direction? I am really open to any idea that might help me narrow down what I need to buy to build my Exocrine to fit more inline with my Biovores.

Some food for thought:

1) A specialized artillery organism wouldn't need large scything talons. Just something minor to defend itself from enemies that would try to cut into its soft underbelly/head from the front, since the tail and armor protect its rear. The talons perform this function.

2) Again, it's an artillery organism. It needs those huge arms to stabilize itself when it fires that gigantic gun on its back.

3) Perhaps the head is a little small compared to things like Carnifexes or Tyrannofexes, but I think it's proportional to the model.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, but I think it'd probably be easier to base the conversion on the Exocrine kit. A Carnifex will likely be too small, unless you bulk it out a lot.

 Darth Bob wrote:
Some food for thought:

1) A specialized artillery organism wouldn't need large scything talons. Just something minor to defend itself from enemies that would try to cut into its soft underbelly/head from the front, since the tail and armor protect its rear. The talons perform this function.

2) Again, it's an artillery organism. It needs those huge arms to stabilize itself when it fires that gigantic gun on its back.

3) Perhaps the head is a little small compared to things like Carnifexes or Tyrannofexes, but I think it's proportional to the model.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with, but I think it'd probably be easier to base the conversion on the Exocrine kit. A Carnifex will likely be too small, unless you bulk it out a lot.

I agree, the Carnifex is too small.

It's less about how practical the scything talons it has are and more about how the tiny scything talons next to the over sized massive walking arms help lend an air of disproportionate bulk to the model. The thing is big, and I want it to be big. But I want it to look like everything belongs there. The scything talon legs of the tergivon positioned right could be like "Anchors" it stabs into the ground to fire. Especially with a little modification to them themselves.

I remember when they were slugs big enough to count as titans...

I found a thread on here where a guy used a Tyrant Guard kit to make a batch of 3 Biovores for next to nothing.

Blimey.

I agree that the exocrine ST do look a bit weedy and odd compared to the bulk of the thing. I think that if you could switch those with the walking arms, so that the latter were the forelimbs and the former the mid limbs, it'd make a big improvement. Kind of mirroring the smaller mid limbs of a gaunt, or other nid creatures with certain loadouts. Alternately, see if you can slot a carnifex's crab claws, or a trygon's larger - but short and thick - ST, into the front sockets.

Personally, I think the problem with the head isn't that it's too small, but it's not 'underslung' enough, if you understand me. The main mass of the neck is set pretty low on the model - almost sprouting out of the inside surface of the ribcage - and then sticks up and out. I think it'd look better if there was more mass behind the head rather than below, like the biovores you're trying to emulate. Might be relatively easy to sculpt, with a little bit of niddy texture.
Otherwise, not sure. If you want a bigger head, what are your choices from the range? I dropped out of 40K before all these bigger-than-a-fex kits were released, so I don't have much frame of reference.

+1 to swapping the 'walking' arms (which are there mostly to steady and point the massive torso weapon) and the ST arms. In fact, if you're going to do that, you could use even smaller ST arms, representing the atrophied pair or limbs various Nids have. Or change/repose the ST arms so that they too are steadying the torso weapon. (Some of the old FW models did this, with ST arms half-embedded in the ground.)

The other modelling option would be something like the Plasma Bugs from Starship Troopers, which shoot out their asses (as various real-world insects do, on a far smaller scale ) That could perhaps be done with the Exocrine kit, i.e. moving the head to the on-the-ground end. But I don't know how difficult such a conversion would be...

So I have been thinking about this all day. Looking at what is and is not cost effective and what would be cool.

Anyone know what has the same size base as a exocrine? Toxicrene the same? Tervigon?

The more I think about this the more I think at least part of it built with a carnifex would work.

This is what I am thinking.

Toxicrene rear legs since they are basically bulked up fex legs with either a tervigons tail or a fex tail I bulk up with some armor plates and make longer. Fex torso. Cut out the front top before adding the top front plate. Insert the gun. Cover sides of gun with extra armor bits from hiveguard kit and place a modified fex top shell on top of that. Tervigon walking claw arms or just some really big scything talons on the middle limb angled forward at about 45-30 degree angle from the body to give it a wide forward stance. Fex scything talons on the front limbs pointing as much strait forward as I can get them. Add other bits of armor plates collected from tons of kits to arms, shoulders to add a little more bulk. Green stuff gaps and such.

I am unsure on how well the rear legs will work out at the moment. Don't own that kit, just looking at bits and models online. Any thoughts?

Less a bulky tank. More a longer (bigger limbs longer tail) more heavily armored fex with a cannon sticking out of it's back.