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 JordySteve wrote:
Wow, that’s a huge collection of nids, and will be looking more impressive now with more of them painted!

I might be a little jaded, as someone who’s been collecting minis forever, but it does not strike me as “huge” It might be due to the other massive collections we sometimes see showcased, or the fact that my Ultras can out-horde my nids, probably 2-to-1. I just did an update to my tally, and when I finish what’s on the bench should have 4,710 points. Roughly. Painted in my scheme. I do have more that came to me pre-painted that I’ve not stripped. And some odds and ends still unbuilt, either on sprue, in blister, or damaged needing to be fixed.

But I’ll survey that pile later.

Off to be based, last 4 gaunts down and have their grey seer base down. After them it’s just the Zoes left.

Those nids are really coming along! Luckily we've hit a warm spell, so the driveway is taking care of itself!

Nev your Ultramarine army is massive (must be close to half a chapter by now at least) so, as impressive as it is, can’t really be used as a comparison for anything!
A couple of thousand points of an army is quite an achievement thou. And a nice sight to see.
I do agree however that if you’ve been collecting for a few years (20+) the models do tend to add up quite quickly…!

That is quite the shaky start to the year. Steve's right in that is comes in threes - you've had yours, onwards and upwards from here. When it's cold and dark out, it just exacerbates it. Winter is almost though, nicer times are ahead!

I'll echo another vote for a Nid collection picture - it'll be great to see, when you have the time to set it all up. A 3 year old pic is definitely dated!

Is it safe to assume you're clearing the decks for 11th drop in the Summer? Will you get the starter box? (Do we know what's in it?)

Gitsplitta wrote:Those nids are really coming along! Luckily we've hit a warm spell, so the driveway is taking care of itself!

Heh. Warm being relative. We might see the mercury hit 40 this week if we are lucky. I’ll take it. And also maybe more snow. We are in the first false spring up here. It seems like we might be near the end of winter, but are about to get sucker punched. C’est la vie...

JordySteve wrote:Nev your Ultramarine army is massive (must be close to half a chapter by now at least) so, as impressive as it is, can’t really be used as a comparison for anything!
A couple of thousand points of an army is quite an achievement thou. And a nice sight to see.
I do agree however that if you’ve been collecting for a few years (20+) the models do tend to add up quite quickly…!

Depending on how we count the 30k stuff, and models that have been updated, I am on the far side of half the chapter. Which is insane, but time and persistence will do that. The nids also snuck up on me, as a chunk of them came to me second hand. Which is an oddity, as I normally stick to NIB.

Zambro wrote:That is quite the shaky start to the year. Steve's right in that is comes in threes - you've had yours, onwards and upwards from here. When it's cold and dark out, it just exacerbates it. Winter is almost though, nicer times are ahead!

I'll echo another vote for a Nid collection picture - it'll be great to see, when you have the time to set it all up. A 3 year old pic is definitely dated!

Is it safe to assume you're clearing the decks for 11th drop in the Summer? Will you get the starter box? (Do we know what's in it?)

Fingers crossed.

The clearing the decks is more to make space for the necrons, and less for 11th. When I started the project it was really intended as a “build a roughly 2k list” and just kind of escalated from there. Over twice that now. Some of that is to blame on one of my supply dumps, and also on the Leviathan box. And while a project with an end goal, I’m sure I’ll keep tossing units that I think are cool at it periodically.

I’ve not heard any solid rumors on 11th backed up with pics. Just the normal “trust me, I know a guy” level (some of which might be legit). BA (just painted, not sculpted) vs. Orks. I suspect we’ll find out more in a month-ish at adeptecon.
There are things that could happen to keep me away from the 11th box. I’ve skipped them before (5th-7th)
One would be if my finances take a drastic turn. Although even if I get laid off, I’ve got enough of a nest egg set aside I still might grab it, just to keep some fun in my life. But that was why I never grabbed the 5th starter. (and 4th, but I got that as a gift).
If they chapter lock the marines. They did this in 6-7. And I passed on those. That said, if the chapter was Deathwatch, I’d grab it. And maybe BA. OK, this one is fuzzier.
If I don’t like the sculpts, or the unit selection is things I dislike. Using the 3rd ed HH box as an example; I’m not a fan of that armor mark, the saturnine terminators, or the need for a big static gun emplacement in a marine army. Or if they lean heavily into redone versions of existing units. I’ve got a lot of marines on the shelf. Shiny model syndrome is a hell of a drug, but it’s got limits. I mean I’d probably take a new squad of intercessors, because you know if they re-cut them they will include a new must-have upgrade. Once you start getting too “meh” on too much of a box, the value starts to go down swiftly.
Rumors have the OpFor as Orks, which is not one I play. But generally the launch boxes are such a good value that even if you only want one half of them, it’s still worth the money to grab. Even if you just dump the other half in the trash. (Which I’d never do. If I can’t find someone to split the box, it goes to hide in the PoS until the time is right; like the necrons)

So there are a few cases where I’d just hit up ebay to cherry pick the few things out of the box I want. But it’s unlikely. Once you start grabbing more then one thing from secondary sources, you start doing the math on just getting the damn big box in the first place. I’ve had this happen a few times (Shadowspear box, the latest AoS starter come to mind)

--



So stuff getting painted and stuck on the YTD shelf. Which considering we’re only halfway through February is kinda impressive. I still need to mag the bases of some stuff from last year, and a few repairs. Probably wait for the end of month.

Got the purple down on the 4 guants, and tidied it up on two. Moving along. Also put the blue ink on a marine, not to be forgotten. He needs a bit of cleanup and his edge highlights.

Enjoy your weekends all. If you have a valentine, be sure to pamper them. Which you should be doing every day, but will catch more flack for if you skip today.

Hit the FLGS yesterday. Got in half a game of KT vs. space wolves. Had to call due to time, so called it a draw. Both of us were pretty rusty on the rules. Need to knock the rust off. Picked up the rulebook to actually have the full thing (and the counters) Spent some time cleaning up necrons while waiting for a game. I’m so used to my magnifier it was odd to work without. But cleaning mold lines is basically muscle memory at this point.

The gaunts got up to their red stage, so need to grey the rocks on the bases and then black wash. After that it’s eyes and teeth. Almost done.


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Thinking of army pics, here is the Eldar:



I had boxed it all up for the demo work in the basement, just getting around to putting it back up in the cabinet.



I moved a few things down to the bottom shelf. The odds and ends that would not make full squads, stuff with no rules, etc. Helped to deimpact the active shelves

Last of the gaunts off to be based. Zoes down, got one basecoated w/ grey seer on my morning break.

Love the eldar in the cabinet!

Thats a great looking cabinet of Eldar, how many more cabinets do you have filled in your basement? I’ve just got the two in the office at the minute which are slowly filling up.

Re 11th, I’m hoping it’s a good mix of units and nothing too specific, no static gun and a vechile would be nice. I’m guessing it will be some assault, a veterans squad and something else. Orks, I’ve managed to collect a few but as long as there aren’t any boys in the box I’ll be happy.

Thanks

I’ve got 2 of those glass cabinets in the basement. One is dedicated to the Eldar The other had Soulblight/Nighthaunt/Deathwatch/and the SoB combat patrol. The DW has not made its way back there yet, and their space might be taken over by the undead. Or the SoB might head back to their cases.

Also in the basement is my old glass fronted bookcase. It’s half empty now, but holds a lot of odds and ends. The only “active” army is part of the Tyranids that don’t live in the boxes. Like the flyrant, gargoyles, some warriors, the SK. Maybe more, I’d have to check. But a lot of the square based WHFB stuff, old RT/2nd BA, Guard, and misc minis. D&D stuff.

While we mostly just see the top of the YTD shelf, there is some random stuff stored on it as well. More D&D, retired 40k stuff, siege engines.

And there are a number of flat cases with more old stuff tucked under one of the tables in my hobby room.

Upstairs, there are of course the Ultras living large in the china cabinet. Slowly winning the war vs. the stemware.

Unpainted/non-primed stuff in the PoS is tucked out of sight in boxes.

Old Pics

Very spiffy!

Brown just put on the nids, red next. Marine is getting cleaned up, probably needs to be edged next. And another hopeful for his blue clean up pass.

Cleaning up more parts for the dread. I think I’m going to have him stepping on a nid carapace. Legs are in a zillion parts, going to be fun to pose. And by fun, I mean a massive headache.

Good looking nids. I need to get to work on my nids, but I just can't find a color scheme I like.

 Tommygun1918 wrote:
Good looking nids. I need to get to work on my nids, but I just can't find a color scheme I like.

Nids are hard to pick a color for. You not only have all the canon examples from GW, but you can also go to nature and look at all the bugs and lizards out there. Good luck picking one!

--



Rocked and tufted. Just need to flock them and the nids are done. Barring some magnet work on the bases. I should do something about transporting the gargoyles at some point. I should also take stock of my boxes. Right now I swap around as needed for some, but others just have bugs living in them full time. I should go one way or the other. Either make sure all the bugs have space in a box, or get them some shelf space. Which would probably require a new cabinet.

Dread is in parts, but should be just about ready to pose. I wanted to make sure all the subassemblies were ready before I start adding glue. After that will be the arms, which will need some magnet work.

Enjoy your weekends all.

Hit the FLGS yesterday, got in a game of Combat Patrol vs. and EC player. It was kinda ugly. The only shooting he had was some pistols, and despite him being real fast, I was able to get the fights I wanted, when I wanted them. Like heroically intervening my fights first VRLs into his vanguard unit, and then charging my flying prime and psychophage into the rest of his army my next turn. Did not help that his dice were not in a good mood. It was ugly. I think I lost 4 wounds off my warlord and maybe 10 gaunts? Tabled him. He was a good sport about it, and it was fun to push some plastic around, but it was not a good matchup for him.

--

So what remains in the PoS for the nids? Let’s look:

So the top half is mostly just bits that need to be clipped and sorted. Remenints of the warriors, zoenthropes, 2 flyrant sprues that were built on foot, a bunch of gaunt gun sprues with the rippers clipped out.

Middle is mostly not Tyranids, but GSC. Bag of old metal/plastic stealers, cultists, arm/gun sprues, and a pair of battered chimeras.

The bottom row is the legit nids stuff that could see life, but probably won’t.
3ish old plastic warriors, quite damaged. Salvaging them would be a lot of work, for minis I’m not in love with and don’t fit the modern aesthetic.
8 metal gargs. Need to field in squads of 10, so I’d need to source 2 more. That’s a lot of work. I’m more likely to just grab another box of plastics if I want more of them in my army. Doomed to collect dust unless I ever get around to selling stuff.
Some base bits. I’ve got more of the little ones in my bits box. Might see paint on an UM base. On that note, I was thinking of putting a nid head on the base of the dread I’m building. Might toss a few of these on as well.
Old metal tyrant, with gun options. More like a warrior prime scale these days.
4 stealers still on spure, minus ripper. I’ve got 25 modern (and 6 old) painted already. I say modern, but they came out with another version since these. How many does one swarm need?
A handful of gun sprues still with their rippers. Enough for another base of them if I needed it. Which I don’t.
New in Blister gaunts of stupidly old vintage. And 2 loose. I painted some old metal ones that were closer to modern, but these guys are way back in time. Might be a fun project at some point, but they don’t fit the rest of the army. And I don’t need more gaunts.
One old plastic gaunt, clipped from his sprue to save space. Didn’t need him to make nice round numbers for squads, so he gets to sit in the PoS.

Do I want to strip it and start over?

These came to me painted when my friend Ben gave me his old nids when he moved out of town. Some might have been 2nd hand when he got them,
More genestealers? Most are old school Space Hulk plastics, but there is one that matches the rest of mine. He and the 4 on sprue would round me out to 30 matching ones. Might happen.
I can imagine the amount of fiddly work it would take to strip and repaint rippers. Which I don’t need more of.
Could I use another carnefex? Maybe. Enough to strip and rework this one? Meh? I’d be more motivated by the fact that he’s sitting in his own colors on my finished nid shelf with the rest of my hive fleet, as the box he came in is no longer storing his chonky unpainted friends. All the rest of the pre-painted guys fit nicely into 2 flat tackle boxes I can stash away and forget about.
More gaunts! Who doesn’t need more of this little gribbly guys? OK, there are some gems in here. 2 eacch metal spike rifles and stranglewebs. Also 6 plastic guys that bridge the real old metals and modern aesthetic. Besides that just more fleshborers and a pair of spinefists and lone devigant in the back. Which I’m pretty sure I have more then enough of.

So where does that leave us for nids moving forward?
Those gun gaunts might get stripped and painted, as in 10th they are free upgrades. But honestly, kinda sidegrades half the time. Still, one of the few things I “need” out of the pile.
5 stealers might see the light of day just to round out the shelf with uniform bodies.
Not pictured, but with the move of ravegers to 5 man squads, I might take some spare heads and claws and make 2 more bursting up out of the snow to join the 3 old ones I have. Big maybe. I might also just grab the KT box and build a squad of new snakes. (and the spare bits from there to make the two extras)
When the prime with lashwhip drops I might pick him up. Or more likely balk at the price.
With the way characters attach to units, a unit of Tyrant Guard might be nice. They are also in the latest Combat Patrol (which game wise looks to be a dysfunctional mess, and would require me to get a new biovore)
I do like the new Lictors, so might want a modern plastic one of some flavor.

Maybe more. We’ll see if anything else seems to be a gap when I get my army together for the final pics. But will probably wait to see what new stuff looks cool when a new codex drops in 11th.


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Edit:
...And based. Just magnets to go.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Close up and commentary to follow. But spent a few hours getting this done:

So I did take some close ups on the big table, but also moved sections over to the lightbox. All are in my gallery, but just posting the group shots in this thread. The overall army plan was to have a small/medium/large represented in each of the general categories of the swarm.

Brain Bugs:

So the recent finish of the Neurotyrant and Zoenthropes rounded out this catagory. The tyrant is here as the large, although I could have picked up Maleceptor. But when the Leviathan box gave me an out to fill the slot, I took it. Also gave me the little gribbles with the Neurogaunts. With the way 10th is structured there is not much use for the lone finecast Zoe, so he’ll probably float off to the back of the shelf to collect dust with the Zoats.

Vanguard:

So many Genestealers. The blue ones are probably the oldest painted nids in my collection, being used as chaos spawn in 5th ed WHFB. I had preemptively built 20 of them with extender rings to take their bases up to 32mm. They were always horrible on the small bases. I left 5 “new” ones on the original bases, just in case it was required by someone being fussy. I should probably print more rings for them now that it’s official. 10 of the stealers have extra stabby claws from when that was an option. Helps differentiate between squads. Smattering of acid maws from when upgrades were a thing. Which in their case I’m glad is no longer an option. It really didn’t add much to the game, and was just another thing to track. I like upgrades when they are relevent, but having superfluous rules for every bit in the box was too far.
Also present is an old metal Lictor. His flesh hooks did not get to me, but you hardly notice they are not there. And the new kid VRLs keep him company infiltrating in camoflage land.
Broodlord watches over all of them.

Wings:

Fly my pretties! So the winged tyrant was the first model that got me to the podium in the Dakka Challenge. And is nominally in charge of the swarm (although the Swarmlord probably pulls rank) The winged prime and parasite offer some winged synapse, and the gargoyles are there to clog up the table. So much volume for so little effect. I need to find a better way to transport them. Right now their flight stems are magnetized at the body. Seriously tempted to just glue the magnets together up there, rebase from the transparent 32s to normal 32s, and flock and mag them like the rest of the army. That way they could just ride in the boxes like everyone else.

Stabbing:

So the big guy here is the Swarmlord. Although the SK and OOE also work in a pinch. One eye is maged, and can swap his head/arms to be a more general purpose ‘fex. 31 Hormagaunts fill out the stabbing side, ready to bound forward for snacks and hugs. 20 old ones, and 11 new. Free mini of the month extra screws with the squad size a bit.
And a special callback to before I started the army project, and just painted a few old odds and ends for the painting comp. 2 zoats, and Tippy, the Loneliest Hormagaunt who was for the “3 color maximum" challenge back in may of 2018.


Core (large/medium)

So here are the big bugs in the general core. A modern foot tyrant, and old 3rd? ed one, another magnetized carnafex, and a half dozen warriors. 2 of which came to me pre-built, 3 I made myself, and the RT tyrant who is filling in as a warrior prime in the squad. Scale creep is a heck of a thing...

Core (small)

You want seething masses of Termagants? We have seething masses. Plus one more not pictured who is at the FLGS waiting for the end of voting for the free mini of the month contest. Total of 104 of the little buggers. 51 fleshborers, 30 devourers, 20 spinefists, and 3 special guns. Most are from the previous plastics, with about 30 of the new ones, and a few older ones, either metal or maybe some from the 4th starter. Not sure. But don’t let it be said I’m not doing my part to carpet the battlefield in little gribbles.

Artillery

Big guns never tire, as long as you keep them fed. The Exocrine’s head can be swapped for a haurspecx if he wants to join the feeding side of things. Biovores were the first full unit to join the swarm, and are woefully out of scale these days. Barbgaunts and spore mines make up the gribble side of the shooty wing of the swarm.

Hungry Snakes

So some of these guys are vanguard, and some are harvesters. But I mostly grouped them because they are snakes, and tossed the Psycophage here because he’s a harvester like the rippers. I really like the Trygon, one of my favorite minis in the swarm. Rippers are squad coded by how many are on the base. 6 each of 3 and 4, and 3 5 ripper bases.

That's a whole lot of nids man . The winged group shot is probably my favourite.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
That's a whole lot of nids man . The winged group shot is probably my favourite.

Yeah. A lot of the old nids are fairly static poses. They are a bit better these days, but the winged ones have a lot energy the rest of the swarm lacks.


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Edit:


And just to show I’m still painting Ultras, finally did the edge work on this guy. Just decals and basing left. And the rest of the squad...

Wow - thanks for the tour round casa del Nev! It must have been a real pain moving those cabinets and all the models for that construction work!!

The full tyranid army looks immense, really impressive laid out in all its glory! I think my favourites are definitely sub-group is Wings, although your hungry snakes and vanguard are both good as well (tbh they all look great but we are talking best of the best now!)

Your marine cabinet looks a thing of beauty, although the mirrored back does make it look deceptively larger. But the glasses have definitely lost the cabinet battle!

 JordySteve wrote:
Wow - thanks for the tour round casa del Nev! It must have been a real pain moving those cabinets and all the models for that construction work!!

The full tyranid army looks immense, really impressive laid out in all its glory! I think my favourites are definitely sub-group is Wings, although your hungry snakes and vanguard are both good as well (tbh they all look great but we are talking best of the best now!)

Your marine cabinet looks a thing of beauty, although the mirrored back does make it look deceptively larger. But the glasses have definitely lost the cabinet battle!

To note: The last pic of the 3 I posted was from 2 apartments ago, not my current house. But I don’t have a good one of the glass fronted bookcase in my current place. It’s just to the left of the gaming bookshelf from the second picture.

The slow conquest of the china cabinet:


As for the tour of my current place, I can try to piece it together.

That’s all the indoor spaces that are fit to post on Dakka. There are a few exterior shots, but mostly bad out of focus blurs from when I’m priming.

That's a lot of Ultramarines.

 ShadowsAndDust wrote:
That's a lot of Ultramarines.

It’s only a little over half the chapter, by headcount. And way lacking in vehicles. Hardly a blip on the galactic scale.

Ok, I may have a problem.

(A storage and transport one)

Looks like a great place Nev.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Looks like a great place Nev.

It’s mostly is. But a house is a hole in the ground you throw money into. And while not a fixer-upper, this one is aged enough to have issues, and the proor owner seemed to have more faith in his DIY skills then he should have. Not that I’m perfect.

But a big step up from the days where the little folding table my primed pile is on now was once my main workbench. And shared the space with my computer.

—

In hobby news put the cleanup blue pass on another assault intercessor. Next up is his ink. And 2 buddies.

Ink down, clean up started.

Looks like a great place Nev, awesome hobbying area!

The Ultras have certainly grown and are taking over, who knows how they will expand next!!!

I love how that photo looks Nev. Not to lessen your paint job, but I just find the composition really interesting.

JordySteve wrote:Looks like a great place Nev, awesome hobbying area!

The Ultras have certainly grown and are taking over, who knows how they will expand next!!!

I do need to at least figure out what I’m painting for them next month. None of the 3rd Co stuff will be built painted, so it gets to be something random. Reivers? Phobos KT? Scouts? Sternguard? Terminators? Tiggy? 30k? Random stuff? Need to pick something by the end of the week. Thoughts?

Gitsplitta wrote:I love how that photo looks Nev. Not to lessen your paint job, but I just find the composition really interesting.

I was actually thinking of the framing when I was snapping the pic. Normally it’s just “everyone in frame, primary thing in focus, click” But I wanted to convey more here. The guys in the back got put back on their stands, but I decided I didn’t just want to cluster the 3 together. They were literally waiting in the background, ready to go next.

I’d like to get them done by the end of the month. We’ll see.

Do scouts, there's never enough scouts. Also they're a little bit a step aside from standard tacticus marines. On other hand, paint armor type you have the lest.