18 Aug 2010

The Beginnings of Hive Fleet Thorn

So its been decided that the Tyranids are going to be my weapon of choice but as much as I was looking forward to returning to my ‘Nids, my experience with them in the 2nd Gen era filled me with dread (but that could just be the Shadow in the Warp…) – namely buying and painting the same Termagaunt models 50 times over.

Luckily the advent of the plastic multipart boxes and eBay has made this a lot less painful than I first thought.

My general tactic for ‘Nids is to overwhelm the opposition with sheer numbers (no duh…), so after recapping what units I would need to create a usable 750 point list, I hopped online to begin putting together a swarm of gaunt broods with a light smattering of monstrous creatures.

Whilst the army is smaller than 1000pts, I would be running with a Tyranid Warrior Prime as my HQ unit of choice. Coming in at half the cost of a Hive Tyrant and giving a nice WS & BS boost to its Warrior brothers, I felt the Tyranid Warrior Prime was going to be more effective in the first few skirmishes whilst I was re-learning to play.

I have always been more of a painter than a player, but being over a decade out of practice, I wanted to keep my Hive colour scheme simple, yet effective.

What I have tried to go for is an organic look – with a mottled green flesh effect to make all of the units appear slightly unique (this isn’t uniform armour after all) and a dark carapace that goes from black through purple to green with yellow highlights. All this is topped off with a gloss varnish coat for an extra wet effect.

The carapace didn’t go to plan – my original vision was to reproduce the oily effect of a Scarab Beetle’s black carapace, but for some first attempts, I am generally pleased with the final results and it gives me something to work on.

Now I just have to get my WeeNids into a game.

4 comments:

  1. awesome looking models! I'm going to steal the colour scheme for my dead nid's on my Ultramarine bases and banners!!

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  2. This little bugger (pun intended) looks like he can inflict some serious pain despite his stats. I love it. Looks pretty realistic and the oily effect just adds to the effect. Can't wait to see more.

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