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Hello all,

I used to be a regular Dakka-ite back in the day- 3rd edition days that is. I took a 5 year hiatus from the game, and now I'm back, and ready to start up a new (and much improved!) army!

To follow my progress, I've created a blog, and since I don't know many gamers around here (and won't until I've got the army painted, since I'm not going to play it naked!) I thought I'd come back on here and see if anyone might be interested in seeing how I do

I've already put up 6 posts chronicling (is that even a word?): 1) The kind of army I want to do 2) The first model 3) The process of purchasing Everything at once (already done!) 4) Setting up a painting corner 5) The color scheme (3 models completed!) 6) And the army lists I'm working towards

So if all of that sounds interesting to you... come and check out the blog! I'll be posting on here every 2-3 updates or so, particularly when I've got more model pictures up (as you'll see, there's some other miscellaneous information sprinkled throughout the blog as well!). Enjoy!

Phew, that was a bit of a journey.
Cheeers for putting in the effort, hope to see some progress soon.
Good luck and keep us posted!

Ok, for those of you who want to skip right to the chase here are the pictures of the first models. They're to try out the paint scheme, and I took the pictures in three different lightings: artificial, natural, and then halfway in between. Enjoy and let me know what you think These are the first models I've painted in about 6 years!!!







I've figured out how to host bigger pictures (photobucket), so I'll post the larger ones here for critique, and if you want all of the "wit and humor" included, then you can go to the blog

One note: these models will not be used in my army, and every model in my army has at least one pair of scything talons, which will be black... so hopefully they will look tri-tone, not duo-tone like now. I also have no guns in the army, so that's why I didn't bother with the termagaunts guns. Last thing- I didn't get to blend the claws on these guys (and I didn't notice the white thumb on the genestealer until now) but I plan to!!!

The paint scheme is (over a white primer):
Skin- basecoat Iyanden Darksun, wash Orgyn Flesh, drybrush Sunburst Yellow / Iyanden Darksun mix
Scales- basecoat Mechrite Red, highlight Red Gore, highlight Red Gore / Blazing Orange mix
Claws- (soon to be) blended from Skull White / Codex Grey / Chaos Black

Next up will be a squad of hormagaunts, hopefully in one week. Monday and Wednesday are my painting days, so tomorrow is assembly, then Monday and Wednesday for painting!!!

OK, until then

One thing that always bugged me about gaunts is that left hip joint. It has a large gap that really should be filled in. Try using some green stuff to smooth that out.

Yeah that bugged me too- what happened is I had a few primed up black, but realized I wanted to base the paint scheme off of a white primer, so I assembled these really quick. They're also the simple two-piece ones from one of the box sets, and probably an older mold. Hopefully the ones I'm doing this week will look MUCH better.

I'll definitely fill in some GS if I see a similar gap on the ones I'm about to assemble.

Any comments on the paint job? Criticism is welcome and advice about blending would be perfect.

They look a lot like mine. You might considering giving your figs a light drybrushing of bleached bone/white to highlight some of the high points

Sweet I'm sure that's a good thing!

Well, I actually decided I liked everything about the "kraken" scheme in the codex, except the white/bone look. I really wanted "yellow" skin. Also, I'm going to make my highlights fairly obvious, especially on these foot soldier guys. In the store I was originally trying out Mechrite Red / Red Gore / Blood Red, but the red gore was so similar to the mechrite red that it blended right in!

Thanks for the feedback, more pics to come soon!

Here's what mine turn out looking like:



I used the mechrite red on the carapace and then washed the entire figure in a Raw Umber. I used some Blazing Orange to edge the carapace.

Wow, those look good! Did you prime white? Also, for the teeth, how'd you get them so clean? Just skull white with a badab black wash?

Another question about the earlier comment- if I want to put GS on the hip joint, should I do it before gluing the joint together, or after? I've never used the stuff... but I'm not sure if the gap is going to be too ugly on the hormagaunts I'm doing.

Taking them ALL (all 96) off the sprue this morning, then getting mold lines off today and Wednesday (maybe longer... that's a lot of mold lines). Then assembly! Also, I'm not using slotta bases... so I'll have to get creative with the bases to make these guys stable (I'm cutting off everything except the bottom talon). Hopefully this also means I can pose them more vertically... I never liked how low to the ground most of the poses end up being.

Thanks for the feedback! Keep the advice coming... I need it

Your test models look pretty okay to me. I like the yellowish skin tone.

As for suggestions, um.....perhaps a bit more contrast on the carapace would be good. The deepest cracks might be straight black, with the edges going all the way up to Blood Red. That'd be closer to the "official" Kraken style too, if that's what you want.

Man, you bought 2000 pts. all at once? I'm starting them up too, and have been getting a little at a time. I'll probably be needing suggestions too. That must've been a fun purchase though.

Yes, I bought it all at once! It was a big purchase... but I am enjoying it

Right now just working through removing all the mold lines... I'll have some pics up of a few assembled soon!

Wow, those look good! Did you prime white? Also, for the teeth, how'd you get them so clean? Just skull white with a badab black wash?

I primed them almond (Rustoleum High Heat, Almond). Teeth are just Skull White over a Badab Black wash.

Because the hormogaunts and genestealers lean so far forward, I cut up some pennies and glued them inside the bases to make them more stable.

Thanks!

Well, this guy certainly isn't going to have a problem leaning too far forward . I present to you... the prancing gaunt!





I'm planning to have the whole army standing upright. It's going to go with their fluff, and also hopefully make the army stand out on the table from other similar swarm armies (although I haven't seen any true tyranid swarm armies around here yet!). I pinned the back foot into the base. I also took the advice mentioned above about putting GS on the hip joint, I also put some on the joint at the front of the jaws and the back of the head, and the tip of the lower claw that used to be attached to the slot for the slotta base.

I do have a question (besides what you think of it!)... I had trouble smooting out the GS covering the seam on his chest. It's a large seam, usually facing the ground obviously, and between all those legs it was really hard to get in there and smooth it out. It's my first time using GS... I just made a really small log of it, smushed it in there with a modelling tool, and then tried to smooth it out as best I could. Any suggestions on how to do it better / make it smoother?

Thanks!

Sweet prancer! What is the fluff behind it?

Gaunts, meet the Rockettes. Rolling into battle to this....

"Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, get down tonight." -KC and the Sunshine Band

LMAO, seriously though......

HaLLuCiNaTiOn wrote:Sweet prancer! What is the fluff behind it?

When the Tyranids use Eldar DNA, they get especially "festive" nids.

Okay, first you have to promise not to laugh. I'll wait here a second while you think about doing that.

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Okay, promised?
The fluff is going to be that this is, obviously, a splinter / breakoff group of tyranids separated from the main hive mind. In the codex it says that some tyranids have been found that have changed to adapt to their environment when separated from the hive mind.

So, this is going to be a small group of bugs, rather than a single, that were separated. They were stranded on a planet with few animal lifeforms, and so were forced to learn how to... farm!

This would involve them standing up on their hind legs and using their front claws to till/plow/harvest with. Obviously they need some brains behind this operation, so they still depend on synapse with a few larger creatures. However, they have no need and no way of sustaining such large creatures as carnifexes, and so their biggest will be the tyrant, raveners, warriors, and lictors.

The tyrant and warriors will have wings (for scouting around for resources), the raveners would be useful for digging canals, and the lictors would be good for any heavy lifting / removal of rocks /etc.

Of course in this sort of "utopian" bug society, there is no need for guns, so that is why there will be none in this army.

This might sound a little lame to some, but I like the "bad guys misunderstood" approach more than the mindless evil idea. Of course, invaders come to their planet and they're forced to rise up (like peasants in the middle ages) and use their "farm tools" to defend themselves

So that's why the army's almost all scything talons, small, and fast. The better to grow carrot with

More pics of some test models incorporating advice I've received on here and elsewhere, and an update on the assembly progress on these 96 gaunts soon!

I didn't laugh, and I'm giving myself a medal for it. Interesting idea though, looking forward to seeing more. Do nids use John Deer?

cool, thoughtfully written fluff. Cool poses. only problem is, they would eat each other before farming like oomies. heh heh, im an ork player as you can tell

That's probably true and that's why utopias never really work, right?

But it's a fantasy, so I'll just pretend