Hive Tyrant head WIP picture.

Small amount of progress again this week after getting the Hive Guard finished last week, I'm struggling with the Mojo a bit lately!

 I'm quite proud of the wet blending result on the big dog's horn, I have never been very good at it but decided to try and up my game with the brush and give it a go. I used GW acrylics, Abbadon Black to Gorthor Brown and topped it off with Rakarth Flesh. Each was mixed with a drop of AK Interactives Acrylic Drying Retarder and blocked in place before being feathered together. The rest of his body is coming along well, I've got it about 60% done at the moment and should finish it off over the weekend.

 

Made a light box, some better pics of the growing Tyranid swarm?

These kinda turned out ok, they have to be a little dark as the models themselves are quite dark but I still need to figure out the colour balance a bit better so I can get the red to pop without turning the rest of the model into a neon disaster. Also excuse the photo of the gants, must have bumped the camera. So everything I have painted now is done, I'm working on Hive Guard now, the new kit is really slick!

The Tuesday Update: Hive Fleet Behemoth Tervigon and Tyranid Warriors plus an updated group shot.

I can only really paint one, maybe two days a week if I am lucky so progress is quite slow. I pulled a big day last week though and was really happy with how the Warriors came out, I added some red blood splatter to these cats as they are often at the front of the swarm ploughing into the enemy lines trying to help (often, futile efforts).

I've taken a couple of more detailed pics of the Tervigon and the Tyranid Warriors and this weeks painting effort was centred around 10 new Termagants who are near(ish) completion, with the line highlight, blue wash of the carapace then gloss coating it, OSL type eyes and a few little details remaining to finish the models.

I am going to do a mad day of basing all these guys soon actually, I just really don't enjoy that as much as painting the models themselves so I would prefer to do it all in a big block.

Paint Progress Shot. Tervigon is done, started the Warriors.

X-25 Tamiya Clear Green is probably my favourite thing at the moment. I mixed it in with a few different GW paints to get the kind of slime look that I wanted on the Tervigon and it's base and I'm really happy with the result. 

So as far as progress goes I finished the Tervigon on Monday, and based both that and the Mucolid. The Warriors I started yesterday and are not far away from the finishing touches now. The Termagants need basing. 

I'm pretty happy with how it's all coming along:

Mucolid Spore and Tervigon WIP shot.

So I made a bit of progress today which feels really good! I have been fighting for time lately around girlfriend, work and sport time commitments mean at best I can paint for a bit on a Monday or Tuesday. I'm pretty happy with how the big spore bomb has come out, I still have to finish the base and add a few minor details but the bulk is done.

The Tervigon has quite a way to go, I've been working my way back from the front end with the head and spawned 'gants finished. I had a real win too with the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 I normally use for blood effects also being available in green (X-25) which I have sponged and stippled on to the front end where they are bursting out. It looks gross, cool!

500pt Combat Patrol - Tyranids vs Necrons & Alpha Legion - Hive Fleet Behemoth Swarms.

Tyranids, 500pts.. I had only seen this going poorly. With the Adepticon: Combat Patrol rules we were using restricting models other than troops to 2 wounds max, and a restriction in usable slots, I went with the best list I could figure for the value while still getting a hefty MC on the ground to punch it out. I listed it out in the previous post but here it is again for context:

1x Venomthrope

30x Termagants - Fleshborers

1x Tervigon - Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Electroshock Grubs, Stinger Salvo, Scything Talons

3x Warriors - Deathspitters, Scything Talons

The first match was against MB with 30k Legion Marines, he had:

10x Legion Tac Marines

1x Contemptor Dread - 2x Kheres Assault Cannons

1x Sicarian Battle Tank - JerkCannons and Heavy Bolter Sponsons

It was a match up that kinda petrified me as I could just see him tearing apart the Tervigon and the whole mess coming undone as I was left with 30 useless 'gants and a bunch of Warriors that couldn't do much. We got the Relic mission and I pushed hard to get on it with the 30 'gants before his Tac Marines could capture it. I pushed out 2 decent sized batches of new 'gants before the Tervigon ran dry and used I the spawned gants to push back the Contemptor (MB was trying to avoid CC, definitely the way to go with this guy) and finally engage it in close combat to stifle it's heavy influence on the game. 

The Venomthrope shadowed the Tervigon around as I moved everything up the guts and the big blob of 'gants captured the Relic before moving away from the Contemptor and Sicarian to shoot up the Tac Marines with the Warriors providing Synapse and fire support. I stuffed up my synapse coverage in this match though and the 'gants locking the Contemptor up were not fearless and were consequently over-run with the loss of an initiative roll off. The Tervigon got the Sicarian down to a single hull point before it bit the dust but by this time it was too little too late for the marines as the fearless blob squad and the 3 Warriors locked up the Contemptor for the remainder of the game after destroying the last of the Tac squad, netting me the win.

It was a really close game, the termagant swarm got pretty close to 60 which was pretty hard for his 12 models to deal with alongside the Shrouding from the Venomthrope and the Catalyst being cast from the Tervigon where needed. Great match though!

Result: 

Behemoth - Relic, Warlord, Linebreaker (but we called it as turn 5 came around)

MB - First Blood, Warlord

The second match was against DC with his Necrons, he had:

1x Lord (Veil of Darkness)

5x Deathmarks

6x Immortals

5x Immortals

4x Tomb Blades

1x Heavy Destroyer

DC and I are always very closely matched as the shooting range is pretty similar between the Tyranids and Necrons. This game was no exception! DC having watched me play MB in the match before went straight for the throat on turn 1, using the blast weapons that ignore cover from the Tomb Blades to hit the Tervigon he could see, and kill the Venomthrope that was hiding behind it that he couldn't see, dropping the cover save shenanigans immediately and meaning I was on +5's from that point out. 

The swarm grew, the Tervigon batched 4 times actually with the smallest lot of 6 coming on turn 4 with was perfect for the points weighted objectives game we were playing. We pushed aggressively up the middle from the start with pretty much the entire Necron force including the deep striking Deathmarks concentrating on trying to take down the lumbering Tervigon from the get go to limit the amount of spawns and synapse I would have at my disposal. 

DC played well, it wasn't to be though as the growth of the swarm and the resilience of the Tervigon with the +3 armour, cover saves and Catalyst being too much for the shooting and manoeuvrability of the Necrons to overcome. The game ended on turn 5 with a roll but the Necrons were starting to be in trouble as the Tyranids began assaulting units, becoming unavailable to shoot at while still holding the objectives in most cases. Great match though also!

Result:

Behemoth - 11 Points (10 Objective, Linebreaker)

DC - 6 Points (4 Objective, First Blood)

It was a really good night of gaming, we got another buddy into it too and he helped steer the nids at the start of the second match with me for his first time playing 40k. I was really happy with the list too, the damage output is horribly low, but the birthed 'gants ad a huge amount of utility to the force which kinda makes up for it if you can use them right (and maintain the damn synapse web!).

Here are a couple of crappy iphone pics to show how the final game ended up: