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OK, so after much consideration about my next 40K project i have decided to return to one of my older loved armies: Tyranids. I just love the scope this faction offers in terms of potential diversity as more of the hive fleets encroach on the Galaxy, but one of my constant niggling issues with the Tyranids is how dated their basic (and arguably best) troops look, specifically in this case the Termagant models. The head is an ancient two piece design and their tails just look entirely too perky for me to be entirely satisfied with them, and to me the tails are far too straight arrow/perky where as I had always imagined them uncoiling from darkened corners before setting upon their prey.

I intend to keep the main body/gun from the GW kit to ensure aesthetically and functionally it is still a termagant model, but with my own unique twist on it.

So step 1 in the tyranid project is BUILDING A BETTER TERMAGANT, after some browsing I have settled on using the Forgeworld Ripper model as the basis for my heads (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Tyranids/TYRANID_RIPPERS.html), they have a hungry, feral look that I want to carry out throughout my hive fleet and the mandibles will look great on the termagant model. The plan here is to remove the tail at the point it reaches the head and set that aside for later, and then round out the back of the skull enough to look like a smooth headpiece. I can use GS and my drill to secure an appropriate mounting point for the head onto the gaunt body, and then rebuild the neck of the model around it.

For the tail I will be removing the rear 3/4 of the tail (after the vents) and placing a pin in place at the rear of the torso in order to mount my new tail sculpt on. Here I hope to re sculpt a more serpentine, curved tail as though either coiled or springing into action, and mount the remains of the forgeworld ripper tail on the end to form a nice pointed tail. This will need to be done in staged to ensure it has the integrity not to droop in on itself but if successful should help form a fantastic looking new gaunt model.

Finally to provide scope for these models to be appropriately posed I will be opting to use the new larger 32mm base size and removing the slotta element of the lower part of the gaunt. This way I have far more room to model the gaunt (and new tails) on the base without the previous limitations on posing/modelling..

As one of my completed Termagants I'm loving the new look:



To me its more primal, has a better sense of movement and in a horde you get a real array of poses:



Moving onto my biovores I am less thrilled with my end results but they will suffice until I have the funds to revisit the attempt. Here they are made from a squad of hiveguard:



Again they provide the opporunity for multiple poses and with an array of heads to use in the hive guard kit it beats having a triplicate of the same finecast biovore (who looks ugly to me).

Moving onto my hive tyrant I ended up using bits from the carnifex kits to personalise a new head and crafted some mean looking manibles out of the spare FW ripper legs to give him a wicked maw. Scythes are attached to the bottom of the devourers courtesy of the Hive Guard, and he is mildly up armoured using spare chitin plating.





The Carnifex's will be done in three seperate broods of one model a piece. Two with two sets of devourers, one with stranglethorn and scything talons, the fire two a pretty standard affair with very little conversion whilst I wait on the third:



Aaaand finally the exocrine on steroids, bigger meaner looking head with a tad of acid damage from his own weapon, bigger talons to provide additional stability when firing, resculpted neck to accomodate new head!



I have left to build:

2 x 3 Warrior Squads
1 x Tyrannofex
1 x Carnifex

At which point I will have my 1500 point list assembled and can get onto the more fun painting aspect!

I like your conversion: They keep a good balance between new details/look, yet succesfully avoid trying to re-invent Tyranids completely

Cool conversations, adding a sense of movement to the gants is a much needed improvement. The heads look more like the old heads imo, definitely more bestial.

And your tryant just looks plain scarier, nice.

Very nice. I've resisted doing Tyranids for a while just because of the sheer amount of models, but yours look a lot like what I had envisioned for the Termagants. The sculpted tails definitely add some much-needed movement to the swarm.

Inquisitor Hein wrote:I like your conversion: They keep a good balance between new details/look, yet succesfully avoid trying to re-invent Tyranids completely

Thanks, I like to put a decent amount of conversions into my army however the first time I did nids it was all stock models, eventually it got boring painting exactly the same model repeatidly and having it look the same as everyone elses, hence a more unique revisit to the experience.

scuzz_bucket wrote:Cool conversations, adding a sense of movement to the gants is a much needed improvement. The heads look more like the old heads imo, definitely more bestial.

And your tryant just looks plain scarier, nice.

Thanks! The grinning gaunt head and rigid poses were my two main gripes with what is essentially quite an old model, switching the two up I think he holds up pretty well against other armies troop choices.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:Very nice. I've resisted doing Tyranids for a while just because of the sheer amount of models, but yours look a lot like what I had envisioned for the Termagants. The sculpted tails definitely add some much-needed movement to the swarm.

yeah weight of numbers was a real concern for me too. However at 1500 I will have:

1 Flyrant
2 x 10 Devourer Termagants
2 x 3 Warriors
3 x Carnifex
3 x Biovore
1 x Exocrine
1 x Tyrannofex

Split between a Living Artillery Node, a Bio Blast Node (and then a flyrant and 2 termagants as a CAD)

I will be reusing my old nid scheme as I'm still very much in love with it, this was my old Flyrant:

Nice subtle conversions! I'm also impressed by your dedication to converting the Termagants - between the new heads and tails, I'm reminded of the older Termagant models. Looking forward to seeing how they turn out with paint!