From Barks: Tyranid terrain (60 points)

I felt bad seeing Challengers refusing to compromise quality over quantity. I, however, have just smashed these out, ignored mistakes, and may go back and add details later. These are tyranid-themed alien terrain pieces in my orange and bone theme.

There are fifteen gribbly bits here of varying size.

And ten skullz (total 238)

That's it from me!

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Hey Barks, even though you say that these are a a quantity over quality they still look pretty solid to me.  I also love the colour scheme as it really makes a lot of the details really pop.  These are a bit hard to score as they are fairly large but also fairly simple to paint (other than the bone effects which looks really good).  I am going to go with 60 points due to the number and size of the items here I figure it would take me about the same time as painting a unit of simple models. 

- Byron 

From Barks: Tyranid gribblies (87 points)

Some more gribblies for my 'nid swarm. I used Contrasts Gryph-Hound Orange and Skeleton Horde to do a lot of the work.

The neurogants have a symbiotic creature on their back, which steers them to the fight.

The leader is bigger and slightly more elaborate, with a bigger base (the abominable 28.5mm) and a bigger brain.

Last year I described spore mines as "exploding jellyfish balloon thingies". I love their languid deadliness, and got my hands on more.

11x Neurogants (55 points)

8x Spore mines (32 points)

Squirrel: +1

From Millsy:

Nicely done Barks! We've not seen much of the Nids of late and you are making me want to return to my own project which has been stalled for a while.

I really like your chosen hive colour scheme, there's just something that works when red, bone and black come together like this. The shading is superb and the stark highlighting on the claws makes them feel like they really are deadly sharp!

Brilliant work and a great way to clock up another 87 points.

Cheers,
Millsy

From Millsy: Purple People Eaters + Extras (170 points)

G'day All,

To wrap up my Challenge for this year I wanted something simple, relatively low on detail and that wouldn't require too much in the way of thinking. The answer is Tyranids (and droids) apparently. Apart from the Assassin Droids these guys are an addition to Hive Fleet Millsy.

Apologies for the photos, the light is really poor and the purple doesn't agree with the phone camera!

20 x Hormagaunts (100 points)

Speedy, slashy, stabby little suckers who want to get all up in your grill and then eat everything on your grill. And then eat the grill.

10 x Termagants (50 points) 

Speedy, shooty little suckers who want to get slightly less all up in your grill but still eat your grill, etc. after all anyway.

1 x Broodlord (10 points)

Nasty, grabby, stabby monster with loads of spikes, teeth, etc. [insert your own grill joke here]. He's about 80mm tall so I'm not sure what he's worth points-wise. If teeth and spikes count for anything it'll be quite a bit!

Star Wars Legion IG-Series Assassin Droids (10 points)

Not much to say about these apart from they're done. About and simple as they come in terms of paint job really!

And that's me done for another year. I believe I've passed the 15K total points this year which when I think about it is a LOT of minis I might not have painted otherwise.

Thanks once again Curt for the opportunity to be a part of something so special, thanks to my minion charges for the fun and games, and thanks everyone for sharing your work and commenting on mine!

Cheers,
Millsy

TeemuL: Yes, relatively easy paint job to crab a lot of points, very fitting indeed. And as I painted the Broodlord myself two years ago and claimed 10 points, I see no reason to grant you the same 10 points for yours. Blue, purple and red are traditional Tyranid colours and you have executed the scheme well. Those two droids have a busy evening fighting all those 'nids...

P.S. I somehow misread the title and was expecting "World Eaters" all the time... :D

From Barks- Old and new (Front Desk) (Fantasy) (85 points)

I'm stomping my way into the library. My first entry is my most recent acquisition, the new Biovore sculpt. This is a 40K Tyranid with a symbiotic ranged weapon* on its back. This spits out spore mines, which are exploding jellyfish balloon thingies. I really like spore mines as a concept.

Biovore and friends

He's on an 80mm base.

Biovore

Love me some spore mines

The sculpt is rather nice, and the 'gun' can be removed entirely or replaced with one that sprays acid as a close-support 'nid (a 'Pyrovore'). It's a bit of a challenge to parse the sculpt and work out which bits are claws, shell, armour, fleshy bits etc.

Pyrovore

No ranged weapon. A useful xeno-arachnid thingy.

I was going to place this next entry under 'Overdues & Returns', but was a bit bamboozled by the well-trod library pathways. Luckily, it fits under 'Fantasy'. These are Razorwings from the Battlelore boardgame. I got them back in 2015 and they've followed me on multiple house moves etc. I keep a list of miniatures to do during a Challenge, and these have stayed on it for many years, neglected. No more! They're AP Speedpaints; mostly Warrior Skin and Ruddy Fur.

Battlelore Razorwings

1x 28mm bug: 15 points?

6x flying beasties: 24 points?

Front desk: 20 points

Fantasy: 20 points

* Frankly I find the idea of a bug that can shoot, offensive.

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Barks!

Terrific opening gambit, sir. I really like both your giant bats and your Biovore, though I, who has an almost pathological fear of spiders, must agree with you that the whole concept of malicious bugs sporting guns to be rather horrifying - but I guess that's the whole point.

Let's pitch the Biovore as a small vehicle (15), but the rest as 28mm 'infantry', so 85 points total.

I look forward to your oncoming entries, Barks!

- Curt 

From Barks: A swarm-o-gaunts (240 points)

Last year, I painted seven termagants. A nice little project, I felt. Maybe a few more melee gribblies for a more rounded force wouldn't go astray, I mused. They come by the dozen, so I got a sensible twelve. And another whimsical twelve in the unlikely event my warband skirmish scenarios got out of hand. I started painting them after Christmas, and quite liked how they were going. Then a stray copy of Xenos Rampant appeared, and I found a bloke on ebay selling them pre-assembled...

Forty-eight hormagaunts later, and I'm good with tyranids for the time being! Contrast or similar is just about mandatory for these, but I still edge highlighted all the claws.

They're infamously unbalanced, so I used split lead weights to lower their centre of gravity.

I also painted up the movement trays, but I have more to do and may submit them for a point later in tthe Challenge.

48x 28mm figures: 240 points

Those hormagaunts do look quite scary when all massed up like that, the living wave of xenos about to come crashing down on whichever poor unit has to hold the line against them. I'm pretty surprised that GW didn't sell official lead weighted bases (at an obscene mark-up) to go along with these models. The use of movement trays is pretty inspired, I wish I had thought of that back when I had my own horde of these critters.

From Millsy: Hive Fleet Millsy* expands (30 points)

G'day All,

Another "palate flenser" to go along with my recent Genestealers whilst I wade through a pile of fantasy cavalry. This time its a trio of 40K Tyranid warriors which gives me a complete Kill Team, but which has (inevitably) transformed itself into a small [cough][cough] proper 40K army.

I blame Pete. You don't know Pete, but we all HAVE a Pete. He's the guy who gets you into games and armies you swore you'd never paint minis for or play. Bless you Pete, you complete and utter b*st@rd.

When a problem comes along, you must whip it!

Enough tongue to make Gene Simmons jealous

Eat, eat, eat. Repeat.

There's a Broodlord and twenty Termagants in the post from Troll Trader. If Royal Mail recovers from their recent cyber bullying fast enough those might also appear before the Challenge finishes.

3 x 54mm beasties = 30 points.

* I'm fully cognisant of the size of my ego and my cavalier attitude towards inserting my own name into everything. I just don't care. :-P

Cheers,
Millsy

Great looking 'Nids, Millsy. Nothing wrong with putting your name to them, everyone knows exactly who to blame later. The purple and red colours give them a very organic, yet alien feel. While I like the Alien-esque look of the warriors with the elongated head, chitinous armour and long slender body, I can't help but feel that the heavy weapons (is that still called a venom cannon, I haven't played 40K in years?) are comically oversized.

Also, I think I may be my group's Pete. 

From Millsy: Tyranid Genestealers Ewww! (Studio Sci-fi 60 points)

G'day All,

My second submission is a quick one, more of a "palate flenser" than anything, a tonic to refresh me from the two large subs I am working on at the moment.

These horrible little monsters have been lurking in my stash for a while now and scratch an itch I have always had to paint a few Genestealers without ever actually needing any. Recent enjoyment of Kill Team 2.0 means I've found a use for them so everyone's a winner (at least until you meet these guys in a dark corridor).

They're simple enough to paint if a bit laborious cutting in all the blue-black carapace. The scheme is a popular one and indelibly linked in my head to all things Tyranid, going all the way back to my Space Crusade days.

Give us a kiss then my lovely!

8 x 28mm minis + bonus = 60 points. Ka-ching!

Cheers,
Millsy

I like the bright, vibrant purple you've chosen to go with the deep, dark blue. The traditional look for Genestealers is pretty hard to beat. I still have nightmares about playing against the 'stealers in Space Hulk, one bad dice roll and they would quickly rend their way through a squad of terminators. Nice work, Millsy.

From TeemuL: Alien [LV426] (55 points)

We quickly move to LV426, a much rumoured place, but we are disappointed. More of these black and green aliens...

This is Broodlord, largish genestealerish alien beast, painted with familiar colours. Not much to say, anything new, at least.

Happily we encounter a Dame with no Name, who helps us aboard the Sarah's Star Yacht and our way back to Great Abyssal, from where we travel inwards and step to the nearby planet Krypton. Dame with no name is a metal miniature from Knuckleduster Miniatures. I got her from YourModelBox some time ago. I like the mini, but of course she might have more practical clothes.

I'd like to score this monster as a 54mm miniature, so 10 points and 20 for planet LV426. Western girl is 28mm so 5 points and another 20 for Star Yacht. 55 in total.

From Millsy:

Another wonderful addition to your collection of not-Tyranids Teemu. The more I see of this black/green/yellow scheme the more I like it.

Large and horrifying as it is, it doesn't seem to be phasing the Dame with no Name in the slightest. She's suitably dusty, weathered and has clearly seen some stuff so, this is probably just another opponent who thinks it is more badass than it really is. I suspect this particular Broodlord is about to get a swift introduction to messers Smith and Wesson. Nice work!

From PaulO'G: 'Nidzilla!!! (Arrakis) (45 points)

News of the upcoming release of the new Tyranid Codex had Reilly and I reaching for some unpainted bugs this week. You saw his Broodlord earlier this week and this is my contribution: a Trygon - and a big (half a foot tall) menacing fellow he is!

Game wise, he is a burrower and erupts from the ground in a nasty surprise attack kind of way. He also generates a tunnel behind him that other bugs can then scuttle through - so apart from his personal attacks, it can be a bit of a pain when bugs suddenly erupt amidst your army.

The basing is done to match the rest of the army - I'm not super happy with it yet and will add to it later, but I am literally off to the airport for a work trip now so thats good enough for today.

Game wise, he erupts from the ground in a nasty surprise attack kind of way. He also generates a tunnel behind him that other bugs can then scuttle through - so apart from his personal attacks, it can be a bit of a pain when bugs suddenly erupt amidst your army.

As one who burrows around and comes up from below to destroy everything around him, I figure he is well aligned to the Giant Sand Worms of Arrakis. Indeed, I shall be chanting "Shai-Halud" every time he does so. Bless the coming and going of him...

Noting this fellow is 150mm tall, I would like to propose 25 points for him plus the Arrakis bonus for a 45 point total of biomass consuming goodness.

From Millsy:

Tri- Tri-anti-wonti- Triantiwontigongolope! No, hang on, that's something else altogether although probably no less unpleasant to meet on a dark night.

Well done getting this wee beastie ready for posting 5 minutes before leaving the house today. I've waited a looooooooong time to be able to say the following so thanks for the opportunity mate! [Ahem]

TAXI FOR MR O'GRADY!

Ahhh. That's better. It's the little things that make life worthwhile.

Bollocks aside, this is a cracking miniature Paul. The high contrast style really suits the Tyranid aesthetic and just never gets old. 25 points looks about right for this guy, so that's 45 including the bonus. Noice.

From ReillyO'G: Broodlord of Hive Fleet Charybdis(10 points)

 

Quick sidetrack from the planned schedule (though frankly who doesnt during these chellenges eh?), a quick Broodlord for our personal Tyranid collection as motivated by the latest announcement of their 9th ed codex,.

Nothing too fancy as our genestealer scheme calls for mostly greys and blacks with some bone chitin but was fun to paint nonetheless, especially painting all those terminator helmets as Brother Noctis or Brother Leon from Space Hulk to pay homage from this model's original boxset.

As a 50mm model head to base calling for 10pts for this lad.

Happy Painting!

- Reilly 'Right Stuff' O'G

Late again? Luckily for you I've got a very soft spot for Space Hulk, genestealers and tyranids- not to mention that skullicious pile.

Barks