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I like what AZ said, try it at least. But black carapace and orange bits.

That Pointy ear bunch look amazing, beautiful and awesome all at once. Very nice.

The Nids, well I agree with everyone else the Black on top with the Orange below. Going to be doing some nids soon myself and I will be going all pearly metalicy insect type thingy on them. I really like the idea of the yellow spots, sounds very interesting. Got to do a test on it anyways.

I will be running a test run on some termagants for my colour scheme soon. But we have had an interesting day in the life of my Wife and I which could have far reaching consequences in the medium future and on top of that I am back to work officially tomorrow. So I expect to be exhausted this coming week. But since I want to be a part of Az's tale of gamers I will try to solider on.

But as tradition dictates, here is the list for the upcoming Tyranid horde:

Hive Fleet Acidica

HQ
Mother of Contamination - Tervigon with Toxin Sacs, Shreddershard Beetles and The Norn Crown
Mother of Poison - Tervigon with Toxin Sacs and The Miasma Cannon

Elites
Harbingers of Venom - 3 Venomthropes
Bringers of Poison - 3 Venomthropes

Troops
Heralds of Contamination - 4 Tyranid Warriors, 1 Venom Cannon, 3 with Deathspitters
Bringers of Rot - 3 Tyranid Warriors, 2 with Devourers, 1 with Barbed Strangler
Poison’s Envoy - 3 Tyranid Warriors, 1 with Venom Cannon, 2 with Death Spitters
Leaders of Corruption - 3 Tyranid Warriors, 2 with Spinefists, 1 Barbed Strangler
Lords of Decay - 3 Tyranid Warriors, 1 with Venom Cannon, 2 with Deathspitters
Poison’s Consorts - 3 Tyranid Warriors, 1 with Lash Whip and Bonesword, 2 with Rending Claws

Heavy Support
Father of Contamination - Tyrannofex with Toxin Sacs and Acid Spray
Father of Poison - Tyrannofex with Toxin Sacs and Rupture Cannon
Contamination of Worlds - Toxicrene

So you may have noticed the running theme of Toxins and Acid. The idea behind the army is that the Hive Fleet only seems to attack the most polluted and toxic of worlds and this has started to show disturbing effects on the creatures as a whole. Only the largest beasts seem able to withstand the pollutants on some of these worlds for any length of time and therefore the only Gaunts seen are those birthed from the Tervigons and they usually expire from the harsh environments quickly anyway. Hopefully the theme comes through in the list.

Thanks for reading.

So I have made some more painting progress and would appreciate some thoughts on the colour scheme before i launch full scale into far too many Termagants. Let me know your thoughts.






So I am happy with the carapace and the mottling and I like the orange skin tone. Obviously if they pass muster I will neaten them up a little. But what freaked me out is my Wife insists she can't see a difference between the yellow speckles and the orange body. Now its genetically impossible for her to be colour blind, so is she right and should I choose a different skin colour (I am not going to change the carapace, I like the effect).

Or is she crazy like I keep telling her and I should forge ahead with my Hive Fleet?

Thoughts and comments are encouraged and appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

Carapace looks great! I think the orange body could do with being a little darker and more 'natural-looking' to contrast with the striking, alien carapace.

I *am* somewhat color blind but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between the yellow and orange. It's one of those light on dark and light on light things... making them blend a little. But I still see two colors.

I agree with GrimDork. I can see a pretty clear difference between the yellow and orange. I would say go full steam ahead and use the scheme for the whole army.

I am moving forward on the colours and have decided to break up the termagants with the big beasties to save my sanity.

I have 86 termagants that I am painting for the tervigons to spawn "just in case". Which in turn allows me to play in larger games if I ever felt like it.

I will try a brown or flesh wash over the orange to see what that does compared to the neon orange and see which one I prefer.

Thanks for the comments. I will pass onto my wife she is colour blind ;-)

I think they look great, because of course I do. There's also a clear distinction between the yellow and orange.

Your wife might have some kind of very specific colour processing/adjustment thing with those specific shades on that specific background, like "The Dress"


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress_(viral_phenomenon)


I (incorrectly) see a white dress with gold bands. My wife (correctly) sees a blue dress with black bands. I was able to change my perception of it (temporarily) by printing it out, seeing the blue/black, and then the image onscreen changed as I looked at it - freaky!

Yeah I think I always saw the white/gold.

So inspired by Azazelx's tale of 33 Gamers I have made some good progress on the Tyranids after a couple of false starts on the colour scheme. But i am happy with the look now and hopefully I can keep the momentum into February. Without too much fanfare I give you the start of Hive Fleet Acidica.


So I have managed to get 22 Termagants, 3 Venomthropes and a Toxicrene painted. I think the Black and Orange works quite well and helps the green stand out. Its a simple scheme, but the more I paint Tyranids the more I realize the lack of "equipment" like belts, pouches, holsters etc. makes them actually pretty basic models to paint. Really lend themselves to drybrushing and washes.


It's quite a creepy army with all the tentacles floating around. I need to still get another three of these slimy fellows.


The spots on these guys are a little larger and more washed out as I tried a slightly different technique. Will go back to the original for the rest of the army as I don't think it looks as good.


Seems like such a waste to be painting heaps of these little guys in the hope they get spawned onto the table. But rather have them if I need them and unlike many of the other armies they will allow me to have larger games if I needed to (especially as Tyranids seem to have a hard time allying, something about trying to eat everything I guess).


Really happy with how they have come up in the end. Was well worth doing a few test runs to select a paint scheme.


I have gone with a fairly basic basing scheme, but have tried to indicate a toxic environment with nasty puddles of who knows what on the bases.


The first big ugly of the army and he is pretty damn ugly. But with the tentacles and all he is a pretty impressive model and I really enjoyed painting him. Did start to consider if I should dump one of the Tyrannofex's for a second one of these guys but decided against it.


The green areas showing through his armour plates really does a good job of breaking up what would otherwise be a fairly dull model.


The aerial shot, possibly one of my favourite models to paint so far. Not sure why.


A nice size comparison, I will do this again when I get a Tervigon, Tyrannofex and Warrior finished to really show off the size differences.

So there is my start to the Nids. Pretty good considering I took so long to get that Dragon finished. So the end of January and I have finished 27 models. Running at almost a model a day which think is pretty good progress. Hope I can keep it up, just need to stop looking at the rest of the Termagants (shudder).

Thanks for reading.

Very speedy work! Not sure I've seen one of those big tentacley fellows before, he looks terrifying!

Looks brilliant, love the scheme, just spot on for bugs, makes them look stunning as a collective.

And yeah, never seen that big fella before, really like him, terrifying and ugly, but going to have to get one.

Man the 'nids got all cthulhuy since I've been away, not bad.

And your scheme is freaking awesome, really gross, excellent work

The green bits on the big gross dudes are especially awesome

Love that scheme. The mottled yellow on orange flesh looks wicked.

EDC

Thanks guys. Really appreciated. The Toxicrene was a "second wave" release from GW. His rules came after the codex, in white dwarf.

I think it was a sort of an admission they had stuffed up with absences in the codex so this guy (which is a dual kit) came out after and so did the drop pod thingy (also a dual kit). This guy is super poisonous and can even tear tanks to pieces due to some strange rule about attacking weak points. Think he would be great for sorting out a wraith knight in close combat.

He looks very cool Archer, your Tyranid army is progressing very quickly. I really like the scheme you ended up going for.

Archer, great work on the nids. I'm still not a huge fan of the orange and green scheme personally, but I think your execution of it is good. The slimy brain bits on the toxicrene are superb!

Also as a side note, I am not surprised some posters have not seen the toxicrene before. As a nid player I've had a couple experiences running it. While the attacks and ID are great at killing MCs and GCs, the problem (as always for nids) is mobility and armor. The toxicrene only has a 4+ AS, and no rules to help it move more than on average 9" per turn. The only transport that we have to get it across the board is a spore pod, which means that the toxicrene wont be able to assault until the turn after it comes in.

In my experience, it is deadly against opponents who have never faced a toxicrene before. But once they realize what it can do, it gets shot off the board relatively quickly with all the high S weapons that are in 40k nowadays. Which is a shame, cause its such a beautiful model.

Back on topic, keep up the great work mate

Thanks for the input. I figured that he would have a hard time surviving once people were aware of what he can do to things with a toughness value. But I am hoping that along with the 4 other big beasties that high strength firepower will either get spread around meaning they all get a chance to do something or only one big big buys it a turn......

I really like that shocking orange coloration, mixed with the black and green. Excellent 'nids.

That's one hell of an impressive start to the year, Archer. The scheme has come up really well, too - kudos to whoever came up with it!
Actually, that almost-luminous green pops really effectively against the ruddy orange and the black as well.

 Archer wrote:
Thanks for the input. I figured that he would have a hard time surviving once people were aware of what he can do to things with a toughness value. But I am hoping that along with the 4 other big beasties that high strength firepower will either get spread around meaning they all get a chance to do something or only one big big buys it a turn......

Now you're thinking like a nid player

That's really the strategy that I use when I play. Whether I play huge swarms of the little guys or MC monster mash, I try to keep everything as cheap as possible. If you put enough models on the table, some of them will eventually make it to enemy. One thing that helps a lot is having multiple waves of threats. For example, when I run big swarms I cover my side with tons of cheap troop choices. But I also keep things like trygons, mawlocks, raveners, and spore pods full of angry MCs or devilgants. When they start coming in turn 2, it forces your opponent to have to choose what to shoot: the immediate threats in front of him or the scary things at midfield.

Just a quick cheeky update. Wondering if anyone out there has any Tomb Kings they are interested in offloading? With Games Workshop discontinuing the line I always wanted to do a second tomb kings army. But unlike the other one I have done this one was to have a lot of Ushabti, Bone Giants and Necrotect. So, if anyone has any of those three unit types I would be interested to have a chat to you. Not picky about condition.

I have none of the new things and shipping would be brutal anyway Good luck on your goal!

I would definitely check out ebay. I check about once a week to see if there are any good deals on armies, and it seems like a lot of people are still trying to unload their TK armies. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for.

So I have had a pretty good February on the hobby front. Thanks largely to that looming deadline of Azazel's monthly painting challenge. Such an awesome motivator to keep things moving. So I have a group shot over on his challenge page, but the closer shots will continue here as normal. I have been pretty quiet on the forum front as is becoming a tradition as life seems to be very up and down at the moment, looks like enormous changes are afoot for me so could be interesting.

But onto the models, again this month has been about pushing Hive Fleet Acidica towards the finish and alas I won't be able to finish off the Nids as quickly as I had hoped. Mainly due to these guys.......


What's frustrating is that in a 2,000 point game (or smaller) they aren't officially in the list. They are there to cover the Spawns of the Tervigons. I would only put them in the list proper for bigger games. So I am spending a lot of time on models that may never see action......but if I don't have them the Tervigons lose a massive advantage. Ah catch 22 and all that.

So I decided I would break up the Termagants with a couple of the Big guys so first up is the leader of the Swarm a Tervigon with the Norn Crown.


Which gave me a suitable excuse to play with some green stuff and change the head of this Tervigon to be pretty different to the standard which you will see when I get around to painting the other one........


I tried to make the nasty, pulsating sac stand out without being too garish and am pretty happy with how it turned out. It is actually a pretty horrifying model when you look at all the detail up close. My Wife is certainly not impressed by this army.


I am pretty happy with how the colours have come out. Although I did start to rush the model a bit to get it done by the end of February which was perhaps a mistake. I had an epic painting session with a good friend and didn't end up getting home until 4am which helped a lot in the painting progress stakes.


The first of the big hitters. This Tyrannofex has a rupture cannon and will hopefully be my main anti armour go to. Will probably mean he is going to by the farm early, but that just means another big, horribly gribbly is going to get a little closer.


I think the Cannon came up better than the actual bug as the Black and Orange doesn't scale up as well as I had hoped. But enmasse they look pretty good regardless.


Still need to acquire this guys partner in crime and have begun to think of ways to make him look different so I don't have two identical bugs (apart from different weapons that is). The second Tervigon is quite different as the head is stock and its in a more "dynamic" pose if that is possible for something so big, so may do something similar to the second Tyrannofex when I get it.


A final group shot, they are truly huge compared to the Termagants, have enjoyed painting them a lot, in fact I am really enjoying the Tyranids, although I am chewing through paint like nobodies business. Almost makes me want to get a spray can.......

On a side note to the painting I have been slowly, but steadily acquiring the Tomb Kings models I need for the second army. Probably not going to be able to get the exact total I wanted originally, but beggars can't be choosers and I will modify the army list to suit what I end up getting. People so far have been pretty generous, but damn is eBay getting competitive for Tomb Kings stuff at the moment. If anyone comes across some Ushabti (especially with Great Bows) I am all ears.....

So that is my February, I will be aiming for another 20 Termagants and a stack of Tyranid Warriors next (just need to get a few bases). Not sure how many Termagants I should paint up. I have 80, but am wondering if 60 will be enough to cover the spawning rules......anyone have an idea?

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Looking very good, fast progress too!

Great work on these Tyranids. I'm loving the Godzillas! I'm feeling your pain on the TK front. Just a few models I really want to get hold of, but doing so is going to be a bitch.

Bugs are looking great. Nice work.

EDC

Fancy buganids, I like how that scheme has come together.