Another ‘Nid Flyrant

Have you ever had a model that you were really enthusiastic about, but never managed to make any momentum on and ended up being an absolute chore? That’s what this guy was for me...

I originally decided to build a Flyrant about 2 years ago when I bought my first Tyrant model (still metal back then...) and one of the torso pieces were missing. GW were great and immediately gave me a replacement kit no questions asked and let me keep the original one. I then managed to pick up the missing piece off a bitz store for about £3 – so win!

Although in 5^th Ed Flyrants were prone to being shot to hell Turn 1, I always liked the idea of having one, so I picked up some WFB Dragon wings to make a simple conversion.

I then decided to completely repose the model as if it were just landing and was flaring its wings. I cut apart all of the leg joints and changed the angles of the shoulders with GS, but I could never get it how I wanted and the sheer weight of the model kept breaking the pinned joints. I quickly gave up and remodelled it based on a standing position which annoyingly looks exactly like the stock model. Oh well.

It got armed with a pair of Scything Talons and a single pair of Devourers primarily because I didn’t have the extra set of Devourers to make it a Dakka-Flyrant. Ironically enough, after a few games proxying weapons with my FW Flyrant, this is actually my favourite configuration; the Devourers give 6 S6 Twin-Linked shots (re-rolls to-hit) and Vector Strike or psychic Witchfire count as my secondary shooting attacks. The Scything Talons allow for re-rolling 1’s to-hit in combat. With all those re-rolls and the fact the Flyrant is often away from the rest of the army, it makes the need for the Old Adversary upgrade (grants the Flyrant and units within 6 inches Preferred Enemy) redundant and saves me 25pts!

The thing then sat in my “back-up WIP box” for around 18 months waiting to be painted until 6^th Ed came out and I had loads of fun playing my FW Flyrant.

Painting seemed to take forever and the model weighs a ton, but needs to be held at weird angles so you can paint everything. I would constantly paint one colour and then go off and work on something else...I think I’ve been painting it for about 6 months now... and to top it off, the Purity Seal frosted slightly around the top of the model (luckily most of it was covered by a gloss varnish on the talons).

Overall I'm really not a fan of the model, but I'm hoping to pick up one of the new Tyrant/Flyrant kits to magnetise and make a better job of it.