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Hi all, decided to finally bite the bullet and get on with this project.

I’ve previously had 2 epic tyranid armies (pure GW models) and stupidly sold them due to lack of games and money at the time.
Recently epic has taken hold again in my area and I wanted to get back to it.
I have a marine and squat army, while also working on a titan legion for epic too, but I wanted tyranids again.


With this I jumped onto eBay and noticed that the scalpers had gone mad with prices.
I kept an eye on it for a few weeks and it was just getting worse, so I placed an order with vanguard and picked up some smaller critters.
While waiting for these though, I’d been speaking to a friend who was getting into printing, this proved to be insanely useful.

Army wise, I have no size in mind yet, I just plan on growing the swarm and seeing how it works.
Due to limited models and STLs available, it means I can also convert some stuff or design conversion parts to make use of.




Here’s currently what I have painted:







Finally settled on a scheme I found in an older tyranid codex.
This seemed great at first since the “Harridan” was my test bed for paint.
This proved to be closer to stupidity though as I also followed the carapace patterns onto the smaller critters.
I love how it looks, but it wasn’t quite the quick scheme I’d planned on.


However, this is what’s lined up as in progress and just started.
Got tons to get on with so it’s going to be a fun project.
Am however waiting on vanguard to restock epic bases and for GW to get some 100mm rounds in stock.
















There’s what I have to work with for now.
I’ll likely expand that as I’m painting though.
I do have another Dominatrix but it’s currently being kept in the dark so it doesn’t cure properly, I need it to stay fairly soft as I need to chop it apart to pose it differently.

Went a bit mad with the number of exocrines I made, but that was due to there being no other big bugs with files (or ones that look right anyway)
Luckily I was in the mood for hacking things apart, so I decided I needed a unit of Haruspex and the exocrine was a good enough base model.

So I went from 3 of these:



Cut the gun off, smoothed the carapace, cut the head and raised it, sculpted a mouth, tentacles and added a tongue and claws.
Turned out ok for my first attempt at them I’d say.
Please note they all have horns, I just added those in later as I’d forgotten to add them.













With that done I decided to start getting some paint on one of the dominatrix.
For now it’s just some quick layers, I need to block in the colour to be a bit brighter then start edge feathering for a bit more texture.
Then I can add the patterns.












Need to let the varnish settle now.
Being resin the paint isn’t great for taking hold, even over the primer.
So once it’s dry I can add more.




And now, a quick army shot of what’s assembled so far.
Got a few other bits laying around that I’ve not started yet though.







So, that’s where it’s all at so far.

First time in ages I’ve actually had a quiet weekend with plenty of painting time, so I made the most of it.

Managed to get the dominatrix done, just waiting on the varnish to set now.

















As a friend plays iron warriors I really couldn’t resist the urge to use a few marines as “scatter terrain”

Also, I have got some dead grass effect static grass on its way.
The usual stuff I use is far too big and stands out like a sore thumb.
I can use it as patched of bushes and that’s about it, but the new stuff should be ideal.

Just a small update really.
Started to work on one of the biggest bugs in my swarm now.
Figured I’d get the bigger stuff out the way first as it’s far more time consuming than the little guys.









Only got its skin done and just thrown in the rough shades of the armour.
Now have to start work on each of the carapace plates bringing them up to white.
Slow progress, but it’s moving along.

Had to put the heirophant on pause for the time being.
A friend decided that with restrictions in the UK being lowered we could start getting in some games again.

We agreed on 2,500 points and everything has to be painted.
The big guy sadly isn’t in my list until I hit 3k though as he uses a large chunk of points.


Instead though, I finally got a couple of these guys and some fex’s sorted.
Plan is that the heirodule will have its place in my list so I had to get him painted up.

With this done, that’s the big bugs in the 2,500 done, next is the pair of trygons plus some smaller bugs.




Here’s the smaller of the big bugs though, just letting it fully dry so I can give it a coat of varnish and it’s golden.














And here’s a pic of the little guys.
Got 6 in total to get painted up and I’m actually looking forward to it now.