Two Tyranid Army Lists

So, a few more games in and I'm starting to get used to things. We finished the Niederbergen Campaign (it was a win to the Eldar). I'd post it, as the fluff was quite nice, but I nicked the map from somewhere that I can't remember. Given I'm the plagiarism officer for my School, I'm thinking it'd be somehow wrong to then go and post it on the internet without accreditation. I'm working up the next campaign, the Scahdelort Campaign, which is composed of bespoke missions throughout, as soon as I get the chance.

Anyhow, having learnt a few things, I've designed two lists. The first one was with some help from Mal (always nice to have your opponent help out with stuff like this). It's a Tervigon based list, and I've got Warriors in at the time being. It looks like this:

19 Termagants                                                                         

Tervigon                                                                                  

6 Shrike w/ bonesword and whip                                             

6 Tunnelling Rippers w/spinefists                                            

6 Warriors, one w/ venom cannon, the rest with deathspitters 

Tyranid Prime w/regeneration                                                

3 units of 2 Hive Guard                                                         

20 Hormogaunts                                                                      

8 Genestealers                                                                         

I've only just discovered that Toxin Sacs will give a lot of my figures re-rolls on the damage, so I might be dropping a few bits here and there to make room for them. The idea is to have the Tervigon pump out the gants, the Shrike to fly over and tear shreds out of the enemy, the Rippers to deep strike in, whilst everything else slowly advances forwards - probably using the gants as cover. The Hive Guard, all three units, will form my 'Circle of Death' (I take great pleasure in swinging my arms back and forth to make sure we all know where that circle starts and ends.)

The biggest joy with this list is that I get to build myself a Tyranid Prime. He'll be made by doing a Gattaca on his legs (that is, break them in two places at the joints, drill and pin them by about 1cm and then epoxy the gap), building the whip out of epoxy, the sword out of plasticard, bunging a Mawloc or Carnifex tail tip on the end of his and using a Carinfex's head, trimmed down at the neck, instead of the normal Tyranid head. I worry that the head might be outrageously big, but we'll see next week when I get a chance to convert it (and have a 'take two' with my picture taking.)

The second list I haven't tried yet. It's a fast attack list:

Hive Tyrant with wings and Hive Commander                          

3 Hive Guard                                                                          

2 units of 6 Tyranid Shrike with double boneswords               

25 Gargoyles                                                                         

1 unit of 20 Hormogaunts w/ adrenal glands and toxin sacs

1 unit of 19 Hormogaunts w/ adrenal glands and toxin sacs

18 Terrmagants 

The plan is to have the gants in reserve, ready to take a back seated objective. In a Kill Point mission I'll probably just send them on in, hoping that the enemy will have more worrying targets to shoot. The gargoyles will take front as a shield wall, backed up immediately by the Shrike, the Tyrant and the Hormogaunts, all of which should be able to keep up with the 13-18" move of the Gargoyles. I'll, obviously, leave the Hive Guard somewhere safe (hopefully) to crack open some tanks so my forces can tear them to shreds. Clearly, once the army meets the enemy the idea is to just lay on in and tear seven shades of shit out of them. Again, with this list I'm thinking of toying with it further - I'm very much in two minds about what to do with the Shrikes, and whether to take boneswords or a whip and sword. I'll see how they get on. In any case, I've not bought any gargoyles so will have to substitute gants or stealers or something in their place to see how they do before shelling out a gazillion pound on them. 

First painted pictures

Okay, it's also my first stab at taking pictures of the miniatures as well as the first set of painted miniatures. The paint job has gone well (tabletop ready easily, although every one of them still needs detailing - as you can see their teeth are still the wrong colour, the eyes haven't been painted yet etc.) and they're starting to look more like aliens and less like blobs of black and red. The picture taking hasn't gone well. I'm off to Germany tomorrow so I can't spend all evening snapping away, but when I get the chance I'm going to have a second attempt at picture taking (I'm thinking I should've used my white foam card rather than left over bits of paper as the background. D'oh!)

Here's the Carnifex. I'm particularly keen on his left arm, which has gone astonishingly well. I tried taking a close up of it, but the picture was blurred.

And this is a (ever so slightly blurred) picture of a termagant. I've got scads of them, but only painted 20. To help me distinguish between the different packs spawned by my (yet to be built) Tervigon, I'm going to paint the rest in batches of 10, each with a differing paint job (like a heavily blue back, painting their feet bone, painting their heads bone and painting the tips of their tails purple.)