First run with 6th ed Tyranids

7.13.12 Bugs vs SpaceWolves 1000pts

Winged Tyrant fully loaded 2x Devourers Hive commander, Old Adversary
Prime with sword whip talons and poison
3 Hive Guard
Venomthrope
16 Termagants in a Pod
Pod with Stinger Salvo
Tervigon Stinger Salvo & Claws
Aegis Defense Line

Table Layout 6x4

The Green patches are forests

Grey in the Center is a swamp

Resin mutli-floor ruins on the right

River in the center with a bridge

More Forest markers

Resin multi floor ruin at right and next to bridge

Craters leading to a crashed flyer wreck

Mission:Purge the Alien 
Deployment: Hammer & Anvil, Night Fight on round 1, Wolves go first.  Alpha Warrior is my warlord and rolls Legendary Fighter bonus VPs for challenge kills


                                                                               
Bug deployment

Flappy and the Vulva pod full of Termagants held in reserves.  Someone thought it would be a good idea to land a drop pod full of Terminators behind my defensive lines before I even get a turn.

Wolf Deployment

Obligatory Longfangs in the tall ruins
2 Rhinos with 6 man squads
2 Psykers walking along behind the Rhinos
1 Suicidal lone wolf hiding in the forest
Landspeeder w/ Flamer & MM














Turn 1

Top of 1 Wolf strike
5 Termis get out and put a total of 1 wound on the Hive Guard unit. sorta anti-climatic.
Lone wolf in the forest finds nests full of Razorwings that try to eat his face off (1 Wound suffered)

Bottom of 1
Tervigon spawns 14 termagants without blowing an O-ring out. and Casts Iron Arm for +2 S,T, etc
The Pond turned out to be full of Dangerous Iceblood, that my Termagants and Tervigon wallowed in like pigs in mud.

Termagants and Tervigon score 13 wounds in the shooting phase only to watch the termis save all but 1. Looks like this is gonna leave a mark.

Assault Phase Warlord Prime makes it into assault challenges and wins his combat (1 bonus VP), Combat ends in one turn, 3 of the spawned Termagants survive and no wounds are dealt to momma bug.








Turn 2
Top of 2
Random HK missiles and storm bolter fire from the wolves, and we see the first Daemonic attack as a wolf priest rolls snake eyes for a power.

Bottom of 2 Enter Flappy and the Vulva pod of death.

Flappy passes his roll for a power only to have 2 wolf priests deny it with a 24" range axe.
Flappy then vectorstrikes the unit of Longfangs dealing 3 wounds that were not to be saved even with ruin cover.  True to form the wolves roll snake eyes for moral. Flappy then unloads with devourers and takes the Multimelta off of the speeder.

The Vulva pod (ChapterHouse Studios pod)does not scatter and lands almost on top off a Wolf priest, Termagants unleash hell with fleshbolters and deal 1 unsaved wound.  The pod itself is within 6 inches of a Rhino and proceeds to whip the hell out of it and immobilizes the rhino.








Turn 3
Top of 3
Wolf priest and unit from immobilized rhino light up the termagants with bolters, and the Wolf Priest charges termagants. Leaving the priest and 2 gants locked in combat at the end of combat.
Lone wolf camping out in the razorwing forest decides to charge the drop pop.  Lashwhips means the pod and wolf go at the same time, wolfie does one wound and gets locked in combat.
Bottom of 3

Lone termagant keeps the wolfpriest locked in combat due to a massive  attack of ones rolling.























Turn 4
Shadows in the Warp help a Daemon find and finish off a wolfpriest when it shoots a power at a group of termagants, taking one gant with him on his way to some exotic hell.


Turn 5

Really?
End of 5th turn 2 scoring units are right on the line, 1 more inch and either unit would have scored a secondary objective of linebreaker.

The last surviving members of the Wolves are the 2 long fangs perched in the ruins.

Final Score 
Bugs 12 VPs
everything except for 2 of the Longfangs 9 points
First Blood
Slay the warlord
Legendary Fighter bonus
 vs 
Wolves 3 VPs
1 unit of 16 Termagants
1 Drop Pod
1 Venomthrope

Notable events
Momma Tervigon never rolled a double, spawned 15, 14, 8, 8, and 12. So an extra 67 Gants during a game is nice.
Daemons caused 2 or 3 wounds to wolf priests and 1 wound to the flappy tyrant.
Termagants tarpitting the Wolfpriest for at least 3 rounds of combat is crazy nice compared to the old days of no retreat wound shenanigans.

After having played Tyranids since 2nd edition it feels like the bugs may be back to being competitive.

Project Compendium Hive Tyrant Wings

Hive Tyrant wings with scything talons.

This project is now dead with the release of a plastic GW flying tyrant kit.


First is a reference photo of the large scything talon from the Trygon kit.

Top view ready for first layer of thin sheet polystyrene to build the wing webbing.

Next a top down view, dry fit onto a hive tyrant.

Top down view comparison against a Balrog wing conversion.

Frontal comparison.

Frontal comparison 2.

First layer of Green Stuff has been applied to the top of the wing, I used heavy paper to make the base of the webbing then soaked it with super glue to add strength.  The GS has been textured using wet sand-able sand paper being pressed into the GS to leave a rough even texture.

Paper membrane ready for Green Stuff

I realized that this is the largest GS project I have ever done. I have used GS often to fill gaps and reconstruct small missing details, but nothing of this scope.

On this side I still need to re-work the talon on the elbow, the inner arm webbing, and the attaching tendons to the finger bones.

More green stuff added, wings have been smoothed to remove previous texture.

Bottom side, starting to apply green stuff.

The steps between green stuff take a lot of time to dry, so I have started a second project.

Comparisons with Forgeworld warrior wings

After checking out the FW wings I have decided to match the style, the armor plates at the joints and elbow,  the armored section around the hand structure, and the way the membrane joins up to the skeletal/chitinous  structure

Project Compendium Tyranid Swarmlord

This is a compilation of the WiP posts for the Tyranid Swarmlord


I have been running two conversion projects at once, to fill the down time while waiting on green stuff to cure.

Starting Bitz;

I am going to be using a Trygon torso and 2 Trygon head plates (not pictured), plus a set of Carnifex legs and tail, standard Carnifex head and standard Carnifex armored plate (not pictured either).


Torso modifications:

I removed the 2nd and 3rd ridges from the armored plate,  I would later go on to remove the first two back vents as well.


Torso modifications step 2:

Here you can see the Carnifex armored plated and additional green stuff vent that has been added to the torso.  The Carnifex tail section has been lengthened so that the torso and tail/waist will fit correctly.  The tops of the Carnifex legs have been widened and Trygon head crests have been cut into armor plating for the thighs.

Leg conversion process

Thighs removed from legs

Thighs cut in half

The Carnifex thighs were removed with a jewelers saw, the cut in half with a standard hobby razor saw.  The thighs were then widened by gluing the halves to a 1/8 inch thick piece of plastic card and sculpting/sanding it down to match the original contour.  Your can see the white plastic card in a photo above this.

Trygon torso:
Beginning to blend the Carnifex armor plate into the torso and have added the first 2 green stuff vents.

 


Waist & Tail extended and armor plate added

Torso & Tail dry fit

The last two pairs of vents still need to be extended with GS.

Current edition Hive Tyrant tail

I need 2 of these and I don't want to pay for them as bitz on eBay.

Press Mold

I used Instant Mold to make a quick press mold.

I took a piece of brass rod and bent it to shape to be structural support of the tail.

Beginning to pack the mold with ProCreate at a 60/40 mix.

Two short tail sections molded up with brass rod inserts ready for use.

Legs about %85 complete

I need to fatten up the thighs a little bit, going for that softball player look.


Making the primary horn

Still need the extended goatee and talon thingies on the sides of the mouth


































Tail section

Built up with brass rod and first layer of green stuff.

Update 4

Head

Moar Head

Those wonderful mouth claw thingies

I still need to finish out the neck muscles.

















Thickened thighs

Ready to be cast in resin.

Update 5

Resin Leg casts are finished........ Wooo

Size comparisons

So it looks like Swarmy is gonna be shorter than a Trygon / Mawloc and taller than a current Tyrant.  That is an original hive tyrant up front, I now use them as either tyranid primes or tyrant guard.

Face off

The torso still needs 4 more spore vents and the small chest plate claws.

Top down

Side view

Leg comparison

Current hive tyrant, custom leg set, carnifex.