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Eldercaveman wrote:

 Reeno wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:
This all looks awesome so far, would be wicked to get some break downs of your paint scheme, obviously it is a little late for step by step guides as you have painted most of it already, I find stuff like that is what makes a really good blog.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for that.
I will aim to knock up a step by step the next time I start something from scratch. It wouldn't take too long to do that for one lonely gaunt.
I shal do my best Eldercaveman, and thanks for dropping by.

No worries, also the hormagaunts before you primed them the creamy bone coloured ones any idea what colour they were primed with?

No idea I'm afraid, they were bought like that off eBay. I'm pretty sure it was just bleached bone or something similar from the army painter spray range, but that's just an educated guess. Sorry I couldn't be more help. I just spraid over it in black anyways.


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Eldercaveman wrote:

 Reeno wrote:

Eldercaveman wrote:
This all looks awesome so far, would be wicked to get some break downs of your paint scheme, obviously it is a little late for step by step guides as you have painted most of it already, I find stuff like that is what makes a really good blog.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for that.
I will aim to knock up a step by step the next time I start something from scratch. It wouldn't take too long to do that for one lonely gaunt.
I shal do my best Eldercaveman, and thanks for dropping by.

No worries, also the hormagaunts before you primed them the creamy bone coloured ones any idea what colour they were primed with?

Well as they were purchased from eBay I couldn't be 100% sure. My educated guess would be 'Skeleton Bone' Primer from 'The Army Painter' Range
http://shop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=2

They arrived primed on sprue, and was definitely done using a spray can.

Back to the Prime.

So here we have my Prime complete with head.
I used the back of a tyranid warrior and cut away the lower layer of it's exoskeleton.
I then popped it on a ravener's head using green stuff to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Then to make it a little more ornate, I stuck a spike (that I think came from the carnifex kit) atop of his crown.

Painting of Mr Prime has begun.

Still using the last generation (and earlier) of GW's paint range I'm afraid, but...

*Undercoat [Chaos Black]
*Base Coat [Custom - Chaos Black + Talarn Flesh + Graveyard Earth ...I think]
*Dry brush [Graveyard Earth]
*Mid tone for carapace [custom - ?Brown? + Bleached Bone]

A little more done this afternoon...

*Wet Brush Fleshier Bits - Tallarn Flesh
*Claws/Sword etc. - Chaos Black
*Ground of Base Dry Brush - Fortress Grey

 Reeno wrote:


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So the 500 point hive fleet will roughly consist of ...
* Tyranid Prime
* 3x Tyranid Warriors
* 15x Termagants
* 20x Hormagaunts
* 20x Hormagaunts

Might need to bump the army up by 250 points against a bunch of marines that have added a dreadnought to the ranks.
Any suggestions as what to counter this addition with?

Oh and i will update on my Prime's progress tomorrow.
Didn't spend much time on him tonight as I had the pleasure of unboxing zomicide!!
... Can't wait to play this game on Friday with the lads.

Some Hive guard would complment this list nicely, squad of 3 is only 150 points, and it will make mince meat of your friends dreadnought, and maybe conisder the extra 100 into more synapse

Hive guard aye?
Can't say I've paid too much attention to this unit.
Well at a glance, I'm seeing that you may be onto something here,
that Impaler cannon looks like a handy bit of kit to have lying around.
I really want to squeeze that tervigon in there but I just don't have enough termigants as yet.
Time to have a poke around on eBay, or pop in GW to see how bad the finecast stock is of these hive guard.

That's again for you input cave man.

 Reeno wrote:
Hive guard aye?
Can't say I've paid too much attention to this unit.
Well at a glance, I'm seeing that you may be onto something here,
that Impaler cannon looks like a handy bit of kit to have lying around.
I really want to squeeze that tervigon in there but I just don't have enough termigants as yet.
Time to have a poke around on eBay, or pop in GW to see how bad the finecast stock is of these hive guard.

That's again for you input cave man.

No worries, I was going to suggest Tervigon but I assumed you would be short on Gants,in my Nid list, Tyrants, Terv's, Hive guard and gants make up the core, no matter the points cost

Just a quick one, i'll list the paints i used next time i'm online.
I know he's looking a bit all over the place at the mo, but i'll tone him done the when i attack him next.
This stage of the production line always looks a little ropey, so bear with me.

That Warrior Prime looks great! I love your colour scheme.

In addition to my fleeting update last night regarding Mr Prime here are the next painting stages for the previous uploaded picture...
*Armour Highlight - Bleached Bone
*Face/Cartilage - Baal Red Wash
*Spikes/Claws/Sword Dry Brush - Mechrite Red
*Spikes/Claws/Sword Texture Base - Blood Red

Dude, this army looks awesome, how dare you patronize yourself so shamelessly?
The paint scheme is awesome, and I really dig the "striped" looks on the chitin (my GF plays 'Nids, so I have done plenty chitin myself to help her out so I know it can be extremely tedious...)
I love the details that even the littly guys receive (seeing gaunts with no eyes just break my heart, and that is the norm I feel with Tyranids)
Overall, really looking forward to seeing more! Consider me and my GF subbed!
(Oh, and the name of the Hive Fleet is epic... Although the behaviour of the 'Nids kinda lands them more towards "fagocyte" in my mind )

Done!!

Well there he is, the last part to achieving my 500 point goal has been completed.
I CAN finish something after all!

I don't think there were many painting stages left to add after my last post. but here it goes...

*Complete wash - Badab black
*Face/Cartilage - Baal Red Wash (again)
*Spikes/Claws Extreme Highlight - Fiery Orange
*Wet Flesh/Carapace/Claws etc - Gloss Varnish

This is really impressive and they have turned out really well. Give yourself a pat n the back.

Eldercaveman wrote:
This is really impressive and they have turned out really well. Give yourself a pat n the back.

Cheers mate.
I'll try and get them together for a group photo.
...As long as I can get them all within synapse range.

I had some new additions arrive in the post this morning,
Just a bit of transport but looking forward to assembly.
I'll return with more info in the morning.

These are some great models mate Love the dark gritty look of them. Keepup the good work

Good morning folks, as I mentioned last night I had some goodies in the post.
As we all know GW don't supply mycetic spores amongst their Tyranid range, so anyone out there who wants one has to look elsewhere or scratch-build something.
I searched the web (mainly eBay) and found a fair few but nothing that I liked.
The oop forgeworld 'hive node' looks great but has negatives,
*It's out of production :(
*It's only practical for little gribbles (model its self has hormagaunts popping out)
*Oh yeah and it's f**kin' oop. Why oh why did FW discontinue these and their capillary towers? Oh well best get over it aye!
*Is it even meant to by a mycetic spore, or is it used as terrain/objective marker???
(seriously anyone know?)
Anyways, despite my rant I managed to get hold of one from eBay, also this is probably why I'm annoyed I cant get it directly from FW.
Got it for about £22 off eBay, but when it arrived It's quite clear that it is a re-cast and suffers from many little defects.
Here is a pic so anyone that follows in my footsteps can see what they are potentially buying...

Back to the hunt for a mycetic spore...
As I couldn't find anything I liked I came here to browse the gallery so see if I could find any scratch built inspiration.
You people have come up with some great ideas, but one caught my eye in particular.
An image was posted it turned out to be a bought kit and not scratch built at all.
"Sweet!" I thought.
So I found the Web site...
http://puppetswar.com/product.php?id_product=21
...and placed an order. It took about three weeks to arrive but yesterday I received a knock on the door and signed for a small box containing two of these models.
It came in a regular cardboard box with all the components for the two models just thrown in together.
I'm not complaining, they both seem completely undamaged and of a good quality. See for your self...


They came with a little bag of magnets too, so you can magnetise the four ...
departure ramps? atrium flaps? pod peelings? (you know what I mean)
I would launch straight into the assembly but I started cleaning and basing three Zoanthropes and want to get them primed before I move on to anything else.
I might even assemble a Tervigon first, but have no fear I will return to them.

This warrior prime looks quite badass.
I really like how it turned out.

Had lots of fun with my Tervigon kit this afternoon, it's a very nice model to assemble.
Saying that, the kit is quite restricting when it comes to posing the model.
Unless you cut the legs up and do some green stuff work you kinda stuck with the one stance.
I still love the model, plenty of load out options.
A good 30% of the kit doesn't even get used. Into the bits box you go.
Next time I get the chance, I'll finish him off and get the basing done.
Then into the loft I go and out comes the airbrush to do some base coating.
The zoanthropes are ready and waiting.

Nice, you have some Zoanhropes. Realiable in the save department (3+ invun) but my firneds ones never really do anything attack wise. Either fails the psychic test or doesn't damage anything.
Looking forward to some paint on these guys!

P.s. Will you be making a Doom of Malantai?

I just had to have a few of these, if only to paint them up. I think they are great models. Doom of malan'tai will have to be done but its not high on my list of priorities at this moment.
I just want to get these thropes, a tervigon and maybe another brood of termigants made up. Once they are built and based ill get them primed and base coated and won't do anymore modelling until they are finished.
...Oh, other than the mycetic spore pods I got from puppets of war.

A quick update to my Tervigon progress. She's nearly there.
Didn't know what to arm her with so I decided to go down the magnetised route as I was fairly successful with the Prime.
I had to re-do the magnets as they were located awkwardly and made the arms rub against the body.
I hope they are spot on this time as I have to let the green stuff cure overnight, don't want to be wasting more time.

Magnets are always a good thing to do if you have a great kit like this and you cant decide what to equip it with.
Looking forward to more updates

Updates will probably be few and far between for the next week or two.
After assembling my Tervigon, I thought it would be such a shame to get him complete and not have a sizeable swarm of termagants for him to squeeze out and command.
So I'm going to bite the bullet and plough through another sizeable production.
It might take some time and I know I'll be sick of it far from finishing them, but it has to be done.
If I can get these out the way then I can treat myself to more elite choices.

Thanks to everyone that has been leaving comments.
All helpful hints, tips and constructive critics are most welcome.

...You could even check out my gallery and vote on my pics!

Man, this is taking forever!
40 Termagants assembled!
In hindsight, I should have bought ready built second hand models off of eBay to save on time.
Still... I thought as these would be the last of there kind for a long time
that I would treat them to a bit more of a thorough cleaning.
I would also like to put a little more into the basing but I'll cross that bridge tomorrow.

Maybe you could of got push together ones? (I think they exist?) Either way the horror of building them all is over. Just painting to go

Exciting stuff in the post this morning.
A slight delay in the painting of my next batch due to newly acquired airbrush knowledge.
Should have some time to photograph and report in more detail tomorrow.

Wow them nids are just sick. Love the dull, fadded colours and the way you put the red on top of it.
Very good.
Oh and some friendly advice, read my signature.

Nice colorscheme, and great looking carapace!

As I mentioned last night I was very pleased to receive my post yesterday morning.
I finally got hold of some oop FW capillary towers.
They cost me just over £30 from cadwallon.com. I had never placed an order with them before but they seemed legit.
I thought with such a low price for such a long oop product they must be recasts, but I thought for the price and the fact that I've had no joy hunting any down on eBay I'd just place an order and see what I got.
You can probably see from the pic why I was so pleased with what I received and if they are recasts they are bloody good. In my opinion they are easily FW standard.
Hardly any cleaning to do on them either so will be priming them asap.
Needless to say I have placed an order for more!!!