Magnetising the Tervigon/Tyranofex kit

I haven't blogged in a while unfortunately. I originally intended to make a post at least once a week but St. Paddy's weekend really threw me off! Anyhow despite not posting for the last 2 weeks I actually got a bunch of stuff built. For this post I will show ye how I magnetise the Tervigon/Tyranofex dual kit.

More Gribblies

I'm still feeling excited about the new Nids so I continued with putting together some of my old kits.

First up is the Tervigon/Tyranofex kit. Oh my is this kit a beauty to behold. GW could not cram more bits into these sprues.

I originally intended to build just the Tervigon since I always wanted to run the Termagant spawning list. However given my recent magnetising endeavours I thought there was no harm trying to magnetise it so I can play both a Tervigon or a Tyranofex. It's always good to have options plus I like the feeling that I'm getting my money's worth with two models for the price of one!

Main arm sockets drilled

I lined the interior end of the hole with GS

Grade N52 6X2mm magnets are inserted which 'sits'on the GS

Once the two body halfs were glued together I proceed to magnetised the heads.

An N52 6X2mm magnet is placed slightly above the centre point as the neck actually curves upwards. This ensure the head will look straight forward as oppose to skywards

Very important when doing the head that it is as centred as possible

Magnets were then inserted

I even went as far as to magnetise the little claws on the body for the Tyranofex build.

Using a hand drill, I made small recesses for the magnets

I did the same with the little claws

I then used the tiny N52 2X1mm magnets on the body..

..and the claws

Viola!

For the Tervigon build, I did some quick research on the internet on how others have magnetised the birthing sac and went with the one I think looked best.

With the help of GS I placed an N40 3X2mm magnet at the end of each half of the birthing sac

At the front I drilled a hole through to the Gant on the 'right' half of the birthing sac

The idea is that the Gant is glued to the left half but is magnetised to the right half so that I have magnets at both ends of the birthing sac for additional strength

I then moved on to the arms and man does this guy have a lot of arms!

Like all my drilling, I start with a small 'pilot' hole using a hand drill before moving to my electric drill

The arm sockets were just big enough for the N52 3X2mm magnets (seen in the middle)

Shooty arms also drilled

This is how it looks with the Acid Spray. Hmmm beastly.

Lastly I magnetised both legs to the base to ensure ease of access to the model's belly area to switch out the birthing sac. It would be very difficult to reach that area if the legs were glued to the base.

Once again, recess for the big N52 6X2mm magnets for strength

Precise holes drilled into the base

And that's it!

I didn't glue the model together as I will be 'sub-assembly' painting the various parts. It would be too hard to reach certain areas if it was glued on. However I did dry-fitting it to see what it would look like.

Does this birthing sac make me look fat?

I'm too sexy for my carapace...

In closing, if you have the kit I would really recommend magnetising it. It's not particularly easy especially the arms because you have to be pretty precise with the magnet placing. But like everything the more you do it the better you'll get.

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!