Tyranid and Guard Projects

Hello!

I recently worked on a couple of small army projects for some discord friends in far away lands, a small force of Astra Militarum infantry and and addition to the xenomorph inspired Tyranids.

So since I had them both here together, and they have since gone to live in different continents, I took a pic of them fighting over my painting desk! Guard vs Nids is a classic match up after all!

Anyway, lets have a quick look at the forces, firstly here's the Nids, consisting of the Leviathan set and a sneaky Lictor!

Having already painted my own Leviathan Nids, I knew what to expect here and luckily this scheme didn't need a whole lot of extra work for all the extra gnarly carapace bits these bugs have got. The Lictor is new to me however, and it is a rather impressive kit with a lot of options, there's the three core builds but a whole load of variety you could add in. I built this one more or less as per the instructions.

Next up, the Guard, a load of infantry and characters to join a tank force under construction, led by a man on a big horsey!

This lot were mostly painted by the 'Sponge-chop' method which I think has worked rather well at quickly painting through a whole load of troops with contrast and providing some interesting texture to them. 

So there we go. Both the recipients liked their armies, and I hope you like them too! Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.

The Vardenghast Swarm - Tyranid Combat Patrol

Hello!

The first batch of the Leviathan box I got on the painting table was this lot, the Vardenghast Swarm, aka the Tyranid Combat Patrol army. 

I usually paint my Nids in fairly big batches so I thought this would be a reasonable ask, though in hindsight it was a bit of a slog doing all this carapace at once! As you can probably see I go for the 'paint lots of little semi random lines' approach to my bug backs, and this lot have got quite a bit more armour plates than most of the previous Nid models. In fact all round the new stuff here represents a slight departure from the smoother Tyranid aesthetic that was laid down with the 3rd edition revamp, and takes a lot of design cues from the older 2nd edition models, in my opinion at least. Personally I'm ok with this, but it does mean there's a lot more sticky-outy bits to paint! 

Anyway, first up, the new Termagants. I'm hopeful that even with the slightly larger bases they will still look decent alongside their many, many older siblings!

The Barbgaunts are the first of the newer breed here, and there's certainly a lot going on here. Being hybrid organisms I debated painting the guns in a different scheme, but in the end opted to keep them on brand, with a bit of a green glow from the symbiotic brains as a spot colour.

Von Ryan's Leapers - a very cool trio of models, but man that is a lot of plates to highlight! You can see here that I incorporated some rubble into my usual swamp bases for this set, a lot of them are standing on tactical ruins!

The boss of this lot, the winged Prime. Another cool kit but another one that's a fair bit more knobbly than his predecessors. Also pretty hard to get a good angle for him to show off wings, skin, carapace, and face!

Finally from this swarm, the Psychophage. This is the model that most drastically departs from previous Tyranid design conventions (bulging abdomen like a spider, reversed back legs, no hooves), but also I think my favourite model in the whole set. Just awfully glibly and horrible looking, a true alien terror. Also had the most fun of this batch painting this one.

And here they are together - sort of fitting into the light box! And I managed to just about paint them all in time for a game!

This was my third game of 10th ed and my first of the new Combat Patrol, against Orks fighting over their town!

It was a lot of fun, both sides having a nice mix of units and the scenario having a nice mix of skill and luck required to win - making for a close game until the end.

Both sides lost their 'chaff' units quickly, with this one Nob being the last 'regular' Boyz that whittled down the Leapers to a single model on one wound.

The bigger units were a tougher nut to crack however as the Warboss and Deff Dread took several attempts to down the Psychophage, losing the Boss in the process.

This mission had disappearing objectives and it came down to holding the remaining No-man's land one to win. Sadly for me the remaining one was in the Ork half of the board so I could only pile a few Termagants onto it against the surviving Deff Dread and two Deffkoptas. A narrow loss for the Tyranids, but a really fun game all the same. It took us about two hours to play, with a lot of rule checking, so I could easily see getting through a game in 90 mins, and playing something like a 5 game event in a day. I certainly enjoyed myself, and I hope you did too! Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!

Video Boarding Action Battle Report - Tyranids vs Space Wolves

Hello!

Back with another Narrative Wargamer YouTube battle report! And this time, it's with the new-ish Boarding Action rules - though rather than using expensive, probably out of stock plastic terrain that neither Tony or myself own, we made a battlefield with card Necromunda and Space Hulk tiles. With that in mind we picked a thematic match up with my Tyranids taking on not-quite-terminators, in a mostly Gravis armoured Space Wolf force. The Wolves were kindly lent to Tony by fellow Narrative Wargamer Podcast contributor, Chris of the Unrelenting Brush.

In any case, after their kin inflicted a minor loss on the Tyranids, the Space Wolves were on the hunt, venturing into a space hulk looking to burn the nest, but the Nids were certainly not going to go down without a fight, especially as they were able to employ specialist organisms bred for this kind of battle. This would most certainly be a brutal, close quarters battle of ceramite against chitin...

I really enjoyed the differences here between a regular 40k game and Boarding Action. It really felt a lot more tactical than a normal 500 point game of 40k which usually goes one sided very quickly in my experience. The terrain and various changes to actions and overwatch etc meant there was a lot more thought going into how to negotiate the battlefield and it helped kept units alive a fair bit longer. I hope that comes across in the video, and you enjoy it - and maybe it'll inspire you to give it a go as well, especially if the barrier to entry has been access to the official terrain. 

In other news however, that won't be the last time my Tyranids will feature on the Narrative Wargamer channel. Much as Chris did with his Space Wolves, I am lending Tony my Tyranids for some months, and there is at least one more game in the pipeline featuring them...

Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

Tempest of War Battle Report - Tyranids vs Space Wolves

Hello!

First 40k game of the year! With the Grim Dice Crusade League wrapped up, and the new GT mission pack out but not really available anywhere, it was time for good old Tempest of War, a format which is probably cementing itself as my favourite way to play 9th edition. Sadly due to work, Christmas stuff and illness I wasn't able to arrange the last game of the Crusade league (I ended up pretty much dead centre of the pack in the overall rankings) but I was now able to play my scheduled opponent Neilson and his Space Wolves, so we made it happen. Since he was looking forward to a bug hunt, I brought my Tyranids, and we had a nice 1750 point game (because his 2000 point army dropped a lot in the recent points adjustments!).

With the new points costs in play I took the opportunity to run a whole load of stuff I'd not taken much and leave out some of the things that were previously such good value. I ran Behemoth as usual, keeping the adaptive trait and fitting into a battalion. The Swarmlord was, of course, my warlord, and I spent one extra CP on another trait. 

HQ: Swarmlord (Catalyst, Paroxysm, Synaptic Lynchpin), Broodlord (Onslaught, The Dirgeheart of Kharis, Alien Cunning)

Troops: 3x 10 Termagants, 2x 3 Tyranid Warriors (talons, 2 deathspitters, venom cannon)

Elites: 2x 10 Genestealers, Haruspex, 3 Tyrant Guard (talons)

Fast Attack: Mawloc (adrenal glands, biostatic rattle), Trygon (adrenal glands, pincer tail, Dermic Symbiosis)

Neilson's Space Wolves were an essentially all Primaris force, heavy on infantry, and as such he had quite a few units. He spend a few CP at the start to kit out his characters and to place the Eradicators into reserve. He had a Captain (aka Wolf Lady), Librarian (Rune Priest), Lieutenant (Wolf Guard Battle Leader?), two units of Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, two of Infiltrators, two of Reivers, Hellblasters, Las Eliminators, Eradicators, Suppressors, Flamestorm Aggressors, a Redemptor and some doggos. It's a lot of stuff at 1750, but I was looking forward to not having to worry about Armour of Contempt!

Deployment. We were playing Vital Ground, which is increasing points for holding your home objective, any middle objectives and then your opponent's objective. It also scores extra points for killing units, which we didn't forget this time! The twist was that we placed an additional no man's land objective, meaning scoring that middle points bracket should have been fairly easy. Deployment was long edge triangles, but we both had forward deploying units, and we both had some stuff in reserve - the Rievers and Eradicators vs the big snakes.

Space Wolves got the first turn, and immediately moved up to cause some damage. Not a mega shooty army, the long range heavy weapons reached out to damage the Haruspex (who fixed some of it with Rapid Regeneration in my turn) and then the dread went brrrrrt with the Gatling cannon and a load of genestealers went away - though two remained in synapse range to frustrate. In melee a unit of Intercessors charged Genestealers in one of the central ruins, cutting down several but losing three to return attacks. Some secondary points were scored for claiming three objectives, but no units yet killed.

Tyranid turn one saw very little shooting, but a brutal counter punch to claim the middle. The Haruspex gobbled up the remaining Intercessors that had charged the Genestealers, while the Swarmlord and his guard cut down a unit of Infiltrators who had strayed to close to grab an objective - this netted me some points both for the kill and for the secondary card to claim an objective from the opponent. I also had to kill units in melee and kill 30 wounds worth of stuff which were well under way.

Space Wolves once again marched forward, but only one of their reserve units came in, Reivers on the flank looking to shift my two Genestealers hanging on to the objectives. They had secondary points on offer for killing units in the shooting phase, so between the Redemptor, and Aggressors a unit of warriors fell, leaving the Broodlord clear to be blasted off the board as well. Firepower also damaged the Haruspex once again but it remained alive. 

Those Reivers made their charge and displaced the 'stealers, who fought on death out of spite and killed a couple of them in return. Four more wounds for my tally.

Nid turn two, and it was monster time. The Mawloc burst up to cause some mortal wounds right on the Wolf home objective, while the Trygon found a gap right in the corner. The Haruspex regenerated again and went after the Dreadnought, while the Swarmlord and Guard flanked the ruin to get onto their objective - in this turn the Guard were made ObSec by Swarmy.

In the shooting and psychic phases not a lot happened, though importantly the Warriors hit the Suppressors to proc the Shard Lure stratagem and give the Trygon an extra dice to charge in. All the other charges were made, and the killing commenced. The Haruspex dropped the Redemptor to a single wound, though sadly was crushed in response. Swarmlord and the Guard both reduced their respective Intercessor units to just the sergeant. Finally the Trygon did kill the Suppressors to finish off my three melee kills!

Onto Wolves turn three, and the Assault Doctrine. Thanks to my melee butchery, they didn't hold their own objective, so lost some points there, but had an opportunity to gain some back in secondaries, with Assassination - kill the Swarmlord...

The reserves arrived to put pressure on the Termagants on my objective, while the Eradicators marched into their own deployment zone in order to get a nice close shot at the Swarmlord, while the Frost Axe wielding Wolf Lady lined up for the killing blow.

Unbelievably, only one of the six melta shots caused a wound, which was saved by the Swarmlord's psychic shield, leaving the Space Wolf warlord with a lot to do!

Elsewhere, the wounded Redemptor and Aggressors poured fire into the Trygon, then charged in, but in an impressive displace it split attacks to interrupt and kill both the Dread and two Aggressors, then passed a whole load of Dermic Symbiosis invulnerable saves against the power fist attacks.

In the big duel the Wolf Lady failed to do any damage, but passed all but one invulnerable save to survive and stick around.

In Tyranid turn three and beyond the fight for the centre was looking good for the Nids, while the flanks were going the way of the Wolves. The Mawloc kept the Eradicators busy/dead for the rest of the game while the Swarmlord eventually took down the enemy general in the grand duel (Neilson took this photo btw, I just thought it was pretty epic so I borrowed it.) The Trygon killed off the Aggressor but then perished to Eliminators and character support. Crucially the Reivers took out the Termagants on my home objective on the second attempt to net a bunch of points. By the end of the game it was looking very tight.

Tallying up the scores, with ten for painting, it ended in an incredibly narrow Space Wolf victory, 79-77. 

So first game of the year, and first loss. But really, it's nothing to complain about because it was another great, tight Tempest game. My last three have now been a two point loss and two dead draws, so that goes to show the system is well designed to create nail biters. With tenth edition probably on the way in the summer, I'm not sure quite how many games I'll get in before the end of ninth, but I fully intend to make most of them Tempest games if I've got any say in it! Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and stay safe out there.

First Projects of the Year Compilation

Hello!

As the title says, this is just a compilation of small projects I've been working on so far this year. A small commission and a couple of Christmas presents. Here we go!

First up, it's an Ork! The awesome Goff Rokker (though in this case he's a Snakebite like the rest of my Boyz), complete with purple Amp-squig. I always enjoy painting Orks so this was a great gift from the wife. A fun and pretty quick job with contrast doing a lot of the boring work for me over a brown base coat.

Next up, some sinister looking Zoanthropes and a Neurothrope to lead them. These are more of the Xenomorph inspired Tyranids I painted at the end of last year for the Icaran Sector, and I think with the big glowing brains (via sponge) they look particularly spooky. Again they have spaceship themed bases which hopefully comes across with the various markings and bits of debris.

Finally another little project for me, some Seraphon from a discord secret santa! A cool selection of minis that caught me a bit by surprise, as I was kind of expecting 40k. Still, I do enjoy painting lizards, and I'm hoping to get the chance to play some more AoS this year, so all in all a great gift!

The Saurus Sunblood is a cool, gnarled old lizard with a big old shield. In keeping with the narrative and the official scheme, I kept him very pale, but also desert themed so he should fit in nicely.

The big old Kroxigor are pretty fun. They look a bit like giant Saurus but they prefer to hang out with skinks, so I gave them a scheme that doesn't mark them out as either, based off some real world lizards.

So there we are. That's what I've been getting up to so far this year - well that and something big that'll be getting it's own post in the near future...

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe out there!

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