Master Builder: Part 3

With the recent release of the 40K 6th Edition Tyranids codex, I decided to return to my long forgotten Nids.

I had painted up approx 1,000 points worth of Nids back at the dawn of 5th Edition. However I never really played it as I was at the time more preoccupied with my other 40k love: my Blood Angels army.

Tyranids, IMHO, has one of the best model ranges in the entire game. No other army has such consistency in the quality of miniatures available. This is partly due to the fact that the majority of the kits are relatively recent additions to the range and benefits from a unified design philosophy (which also makes sense fluff-wise).

Now with regards to the rules, I disagree wholeheartedly with what the internet says as I think it is decent and very fluffy. I am of course not blind to some of the more derpy rules (i.e. Pyrovores, Trygon tunnels, Rippers etc.). This is where I think the rules fall down a little as nothing jumps out as being super exciting unlike some of the unique army rules available to Tau and Eldar i.e. Supporting Fire and Battle Focus respectively. Personally, I think the main reason Tyranids can't compete with the more powerful armies is almost entirely due to having no access to allies. This means it can't play Deathstar 40k which seems to be the only way to play competitive 40k in 6th Ed. Hence, my main aim of revisiting my Nids is to paint up some new bad ass models (Exocrine/Haruspex I'm looking at you) and use them more to tell a story while throwing dice around (forge a narrative anyone?).

40K: The Great Devourer Returns

First thing on my to do list was to dig out some of my old purchases and get them to the 'Prepped for Painting' stage on my Kanban board.

I assembled my metal Death Leaper and Venomthrope. In the case of the former I pinned his scything talons and for the latter I pinned its arms/tentacles as they looked pretty flimsy.

Death Leaper parts

Death Leaper assembled

Venomthrope assembled

Given my ultimate plan of using a Tervigon, I knew I needed a boat load of Termagants. As such I opened up the Tyranids' Batteforce that I bought a while back and assembled the first 8 Termagants. I forgot how long it took to assemble these guys and I plan to have at least 80. Yikes!

Nids Batttleforce still in its shrink wrap!

Yummy plastic crack

GW has come a long way in its plastic kits. Look at all those empty spaces!

 Termagants parts half assembled

8 Termagants ready to be painted

 Given that I already have approx 1,000 points worth of Nids , I will also be 'refurbishing' these minis which will mainly involve repainting all the bases from old school goblin green to a more modern earthy brown, magnetising all the arms of the existing Carnifex and varnishing the army's current paint job (which I'm still happy with).

So much to do but so little time!