Finally, More Tyranids

I haven't been doing much painting recently, but over the holidays I managed to get some more Epic scale Tyranids done.

To get some tougher command units I painted these old-fashioned hive tyrants. They've always looked kind of goofy to me, but they actually have a lot of detail.

I converted these biovores from Warhammer 40k rippers and fleshborers. They are around the same size as the original Epic scale biovores. In Epic rules, these are a very handy artillery unit.

I also used 40k rippers straight up as raveners. They certainly look the part.

This is a closer-up view of the rippers.

I also painted my original trygons. I'm not convinced about these conversions, but they'll do for gaming.

The same trygons from the back.

My painted Epic Tyranid collection is getting pretty big now. I'm working up the courage to paint the excellent French exocrine and haruspex proxies...

Poor Attention Span

Sorry that I haven't been posting more about my epic Tyranids, but I've been distracted by some other projects such as my Kings of War dwarf army. However, I did work on some more epic, Eldar this time. I always liked the look of the newer epic Eldar revenant titans, the ones that look like giant thin Eldar with pulsar lasers for arms. They were so much more graceful than the old "walking eggs."

This is a well-painted example from CoolMiniOrNot. To make something like this, out of old 40k bits of course, I had to think about it a bit. I took some inspiration from examples on Tactical Wargames forum and came up with the following.

This is made from various guardian, dire avenger, and wraithguard bits. I tried to maintain a similar build and style to the metal epic version, with a bit of action to  the model.

Another shot from the front.

The side and back, showing the back fins and the jump jet.

This is a size comparison with a first generation epic phantom titan. It's a bit shorter than the metal epic revenant, and is up to around half the height of the phantom to the head.

I have several more on the work table with my available bits, so this can probably form of the basis of an Eldar titan army?

This does show though that my attention span is quite poor, and I really need to concentrate on finishing something before taking on other projects.

New Acquisition

It just goes to show that you never know what you're going to get. Just this Sunday, I went to a bits swap at a local game shop where I tried to sell my old Warhammer 40k Tyranid army. Possible deals for the Tyranids fell through, but I noticed something interesting among one of the bits piles being sold...

Yes, I found one of those elusive epic scale Tau Mantas! The little gun turrets were all missing, but otherwise the ship was assembled and in great shape. Those things are always broken off Forgeworld models anyways, being incredibly brittle, so it wasn't that big of a deal. On top of all that, the model ended up costing just $15 Cdn. Considering that last time I saw it on eBay, it was $100 US and being bid on...

Here's a comparison with an Orca dropship (right) and a Devilfish APC (middle). This is a pretty big model. I'll have to think about how to paint it properly - there are lots of panel lines. Anyhow, this will be a great centerpiece for my upcoming Tau army.

Year End and Some Tyranids

As this year ends, I'm finally able to catch up on some painting over the holidays. Overall, this year I didn't get as much opportunity to paint as I'd liked. The last couple of weeks gave me a chance to finish at least some of my plans.

I finished some of my long-running Epic Tyranid projects, but it only reminded me of how much more I have to go.

These are the flying component of the army, 12 stands of gargoyles and 2 harridans.

These are the harridans from previous posts that I built out of 40k bits. The colour scheme is based on my old 40k Tyranid army.

These are the command/synapse stands I have so far, 10 stands of warriors and 4 zoanthropes, again converted from 40k bits.

These zoanthropes are made from rippers and Tyranid warrior heads, to give an impression of giant floating brains. They're quite a bit larger proportionally that what they should be compared to the other Epic miniatures, but they're around the same size as the original GW Epic zoanthropes with legs.

Some of the cannon fodder, 20 bases of termagants. The zoanthrope shows the size of my converted miniature.

I don't have nearly enough original GW termagants for a proper Tyranid army, but I do have some of Onslaught Miniatures' proxy bugs that can be used as a substitute. This is a comparison with GW plastic termagants on the left and Onslaught stalkers on the right. The Onslaught minis are quite a bit smaller, but they should fill the need in separate units.

This is my Epic Tyranid kanban board as it stands at the end of the year. With the above units near completion, I still have a ways to go for the rest of the army, mostly larger models.

To everyone reading this, have a great New Year! Happy painting!

Bio-Titans

Continuing on with my epic scale Tyranid kit-bashes, I created some bio-titans, again from 40k bits.

These will represent barbed hierodules, the ones with barbed strangler launchers.  They are small bio-titans and are made from 40k termagant bits.

A couple of close-up shots showing the details of their guns.

These are scythed hierodules, with two large scything talons and optimized for close-combat.  They're made from 40k hormagaunt and termagant bits.

 

More close-ups showing details.

These are a couple of trygons, made from gargoyle bodies, ripper heads, and gaunt scything talons.  The talons look a little too "busy" to me, so maybe I'll change them around a bit for later versions...

I also put together something larger - an attempt at an hierophant, the largest of the bio-titans.  This is made from a warrior body and various large creature bits.  I like most of it, but it still sort of leaves me cold.  Maybe I can try a different design.

This is the same creature from the side.

Now I just have to start doing some painting.

Harridans

To create some enemies for the Tau from my previous post, I started putting together some Epic Tyranid kit-bashes.  The good thing about Tyranids is that you can use Warhammer 40k bits to make larger creatures for Epic scale.

I made a couple of harridans from left-over Tyranid gaunt, warrior, and gargoyle pieces.  These are quite imposing in Epic scale, being the size of very large flyers.  In Epic Armageddon, these are war engines with 3 damage capacity.

A close-up of the first one - the wings are from Dark Eldar ravagers, which are slightly larger and seem to be more fitting than gargoyle wings.

I used a slightly different pair of ravager wings for the second harridan, to give it a different position in flight.

Here's a harridan next to one of the Tau Orca transports.  It's suitably menacing air support for the Tyranids.

I have a bunch of Onslaught games Tyranid proxies too, for all the smaller creatures, and I've got some ideas for other Tyranid bio-titans.  More to come soon...

Something Epic?

I recently bought some old Forge World Epic scale Tau aircraft from a wargames forum I visit.  This is a game I played years ago, and I've always loved 6mm/Epic scale miniatures.  The Forge World resin models were also works of art, possessing extreme amounts of detail.  Far from just for nostalgia's sake, maybe this will get me into the game again...

The deal contained two Orca dropships (top) and two Tigershark bombers (bottom).  They came already painted with a desert camouflage scheme, and it looks quite nice, so I probably won't repaint them.  Unfortunately, some of the always-delicate resin aerials snapped off the models a long time ago.  I'll have to see if I want to repair them.  Included for scale is a Forge World Epic scale Tau Devilfish APC I had lying around.

The unpainted resin model is a Firestorm Armada Manta-class ship I already had.  I'm thinking that it looks big enough and close enough in style to the Tau models to use as a proxy Manta-class destroyer for Epic.  The Forge World Tau Manta is so hard to find these days, and it commands such a high price, that there's really no choice other than to use a proxy.  By coincidence, the name even matches!

Maybe this is the start of a Tau army for Epic...

2014 Fall Auction Items

The local gaming club here (Edmonton Wargames Group) is holding an eBay auction in the fall to raise money for its operating costs, and I'm donating some of my unused Warhammer 40k miniatures.  I painted these years ago to get them quickly into gaming, but I think the paint still holds up fairly well.

The batch consists of two Tyranid hive tyrants with magnetized arm hard-points, two tyrant guards, and a carnifex with permanently glued guns.

 Here is the whole gang together, a total of 3 large models and 2 medium ones.

 The two tyrant guards.  These are the older all metal models.

The two tyrants, again both previous edition metals.  Both have four magnetic hard points each.  I have two big guns (venom cannon and barbed strangler) for one of them, and a pair of wings and two twin-linked devourers for the other.

This is the tyrant with wings and devourers.

This is the tyrant with the two big guns.

The carnifex is also from the previous edition, but is still all-plastic.  It has a venom cannon and a barbed strangler permanently glued on.

All of these are painted and based, ready to play.  I'll be wrapping these up in bubble wrap and putting them in boxes for the auction.  The tyrants will be shipped with the magnetized weapons detached for safety.  The club member who is running the auction, Dave, will be putting up the auction link when it starts in September.