A while back now, Charlie wrote the excellent Fury of the Swarm expansion for 40k. I think it's fair to say it left an impression, because not only have we continued playing it to this day, but I was left with the overwhelming desire to finally do an army I’d always looked at and admired, but never wanted myself. Tyranids.
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| SCREEEEEEE |
Conception - Why not sooner?
Because the line infantry was mid (until they refreshed the gaunts, which helped push me into it because they're just SO GOOD) and I'm very character focused when it comes to an army. I'll have a definite protagonist character through who I view the army and its exploits, and tyranids can't have that. Their whole schtick is the faceless swarm, and that was a waterline hole in how I invest myself in a project.
So the new gaunts came out, and I had a reason to want an NPC army that didn't need a strong character, thanks to Charlie. Let's get it.
...And then Charlie and I got talking, and we both realized we had the same exact hang ups, and the same exact motivations to do some. The plan for a joint project was born.
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| screeeeee |
Gestation - A joint project?
A joint project. We sat down, hashed out the miniatures we were excited about, and figured out a rough concept: two swarms with a shared colour and basing scheme, each able to run a game of Fury of the Swarm solo, but without many frills or extras, that combine into one near-exhaustive Tyranid collection.
The idea has several advantages: It keeps costs down, it doubles the speed at which the army comes together (thus halving the time before any of them can actually see a table, painted and based), and perhaps most importantly it gives each of us another hobbyist to bounce ideas and enthusiasm off, hopefully increasing the time before either of us gets too bored.
In the other hand, we had to actually agree on a colour scheme, which took a little while. The entire thing could have died in its infancy at this stage had we wanted wildly different finishes, but thankfully we both had similar watchwords we wanted to hit: biological, organic, gross, and most importantly, not looking like a plastic toy.
We settled on a scheme halfway between the 3rd edition codex cover that we both remember and love, and hive fleet behemoth (which may actually be what's on that cover, but in modern times has become more vibrantly red and blue). Ours is a fleshy red, with a muted black carapace and other hard bits like claws and teeth for added organic grossness (and Alien vibes, let's be real). The scheme is below:
- Wraithbone spray
- Fleshtearers red all over
- Drybrush cadian fleshtone, focusing on the cranium and tail
- Drybrush kislev flesh lightly all over
- Overbrush black over the hard surfaces, deliberately leaving red in the gaps between chitin plates
- Drybrush chitin with stormvermin fur
- Drybrush chitin with bone
- Clean up flesh
- Paint in teeth and eyes with black
- Paint in any fleshy soft parts with sigvald burgundy for some added visual interest
- Dot any gun blisters/eyes with averland sunset
- Hand gloss varnish all over
- Base with Armageddon dune
- Drybrush base with bone
- Rim with brown
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| My favourite part of the scheme is the red showing through the chitin plates, it really feels organic and gross |
Birthing Pools - The First Units
I went for hormagaunts first, a large batch of 30 followed by 7 warriors (following the philosophy of eating a large chunk of my greens all at once) while Charlie painted up 10 termagants and a psychophage to get his eye in on the bigger stuff. I really like how they've come out, and I wish I could show you them all... But it turns out the scheme is a real devil to photograph well. Charlie's camera in particular struggles, all of his miniatures looking distinctly pinker and bluer through a lens than in person.
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| Some of my favourite Tyranid miniatures, the new sculpts are just excellent |
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| Some of my middest Tyranid miniatures, but its not a swarm without warriors - I've got 6 |
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| By way of demonstration - forgive the whatsapp crunch. We're pretty sure its just lighting issues, its the same damn scheme. |
The Hive Fleet Descends - Next Steps and Thoughts so far
I've got a Tyrannofex coming up, continuing to focus on the essential capabilities a swarm needs to be playable in Fury of the Swarm, while Charlie is currently blasting through some barbgaunts. We're making good progress, with some pit stops on the way for personal projects to cleanse the pallette, which again should keep the juices flowing longer.
I'm loving them. The idea of group work isn't new to us, at the point we've got several terrain projects under our collective belts in our roles as Sisko and Quark (I'm Quark, objectively the best character and hero of that show) in the Deep Space Nein terrain doing chat, but this is the first army. It might be the last, but it sure is working so far. Interesting news for future narrative stuff...
Get swarmed. Get absolutely double swarmed.
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