All posts filed under: Tyranids

Tyranid Hormaguants

Tyranid Hormagaunts of Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

After finishing the Warriors brood, I realized that I didn’t have any pictures of the Tyranid Hormagaunts that so feverishly leap forward into the enemy. Obviously this isn’t run as a single brood, but rather two smaller ones, but I just lumped them together for the pictures. The actual models make up a combination of an old army box and a pile of sprues that I had given my brother in law. He then mashed up as many bodies and arms as he could assemble from the old bits so some of the Hormagaunts are actual Termigant bodies or Genestealer arms. The difficulty with the leaping forward nature of the Tyranid Hormagaunts is that they tend to tip over at the slightest breeze. To prevent this as much as possible, we glued down layers of washer both under the base as well as on the top of some of them. The ones on top then got covered with thick layers of sand to hide them. Overall this made the models much more stable. You may have noticed …

Hive Fleet Behemoth Broodlord

Tutorial: How to Paint A Broodlord from Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

So after a good reception of my tutorial on painting a Hive Fleet Behemoth Carnifex, I’ve put together how I painted the Broodlord from the Shield of Baal box. My goal with these tutorials is two fold: first to document how I painted the model so I can repeat it for additional units in the army, and second, is to give back to the community. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers that I want to contribute my little piece to the greater whole. So if you are looking to paint up a Behemoth swarm, or just looking for ideas/inspiration for your own army, check out the steps below and see how straight forward it is to paint a decent looking army. Broodlord Step 1 – Primer The first step I have been doing with all my models is a two-stage primer. First I give it a nice coating of black followed by an top over-spray of white. The black undercoat provides a first level of shadows, any time I have tried to prime just …

Hive Fleet Behemoth Broodlord

Tyranid Broodlord of Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

So one of the main selling points of Games Workshop’s limited edition Deathstorm box set was the special edition Broodlord. Much like the one in the Space Hulk box, this guy is huge and way cooler looking than the old metal model. He is painted up for Hive Fleet Behemoth to go along with the other monsters from beyond the stars on my shelf. I think the dark red skin gives him a kind of bloody rage which is in contrast to the cool blues of his carapace. The base was one of the first of the new, smaller oval bases that GW put out to mess with all of us, but I like it. It fits the model much better than trying to fit it on a 40mm circle base and helps emphasis his movement forward in a way. Another cool aspect of this Broodlord is the Tyranid Spire he is leaping off of. Not only does it give this impressively huge genestealer more height but it adds more to the story of the …

Hive Tyrant of Hive Fleet Behemoth Close up

Tyranid Hive Tyrant for Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

All armies need a powerful leader, and the galactic swarm of the Tyranids is no exception. So to lead my brother-in-law’s Hive Fleet Behemoth army growing on my shelf is a Tyranid Hive Tyrant – in this case, the old metal beast. Much like my other Tyranids of Behemoth, the blue carapace goes nearly white rather the GW teal and the weapons are a black to white look. This shows through on the darker background here that I made with some black/gray cloth. I tried using the basic white background, but the tips of the weapons got lost. The barbed strangler is a plastic bit from the Carnifex box to give some long range punch to the guy. It is one of the things I have always liked about GW products is that they put in that effort to make the kits inter-operable to give both the flexibility to bit swap but also keeps a uniform look between generations. Even when you look at the new Tyranid Hive Tyrant, the general look and feel are the …

Behemoth Zoanthrope

Tyranid Zoanthrope

Published by Joe B

Because what is cooler than a floating brain with iity-bitty claws? How about add a row of menacing teeth in a snear? And with that, I present the Tyranid Zoanthrope from Hive Fleet Behemoth!   This is the ‘old’ Finecast model that was at least an upgrade for the extremely top heavy metal version, but that little point between the tail and the ground spike is a point that keeps breaking. To prevent this I have added a small pin so we will see how that holds up. The biggest question for the colors on this guy was what to paint the brain. I decided to keep it blue but reverse the highlights from the carapace so the depths were the white and dark blue on the ridges. This helps give a glowing, alien look to it and contrasts to the hard plates. I love the skin stretched over the brain. If GW ever asks my opinion for the greatest sculpt, this may be among my top 10, though the new plastic version is pretty cool …

Tyranid Ripper Swarm

Tyranid Rippers for Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

Just because they are small, tinny, bitey things don’t make them less scary en masse. Today I add some Tyranid Ripper Swarms to the growing hive fleet. I love the fact that these guys come on the various sprues because buying a box of just rippers would be a bit lame to open and ‘assemble.’ Having them as a freebie gives a nice surprise instead! For the coloring on these guys, I purposely left the red a bit darker except for the face to help emphasize it a bit more. I left the extreme blue contrast through which helps brighten up the otherwise dark mass. While only three ripper bases may not accomplish much in a game, since they come in each gaunt box they will continue to grow as the horde expands to consume the universe!

Tyranid Warrior of Behemoth

Tyranid Warrior Brood

Published by Joe B

Ok so that teaser post was a while back now, blame it on Real Life ™. But anyway, here are some more units for Hive Fleet Behemoth, this time a (now old) Tyranid Warrior Brood to lead the little gaunts into battle. Each is armed with the classic scything and death spitters to give a well rounded battle field role of longish range shooting with an extra attack in close combat. While the lack of the special weapon gives it a lack of punch, it also helps cut down on the point cost – which makes this a great throw-away leader unit if needed. This is one of my favorite aspects of the Tyranids, in that you can see the hunger and drive in each of the units. From the snarling faces to the forward lunge it is clear they are trying hard to get forward into the enemy. This view shows the contrast between the deep, smooth(ish) red and the high-contrast blue of the carapace. I really wanted an army that sticks out from the table top …

Carnofex of Hive Fleet Behemoth

The Hive Mind Devours All – Tyranid Carnifex

Published by Joe B

So I few years back I enticed my brother-in-law to join me in the 40k world and he was drawn in by the Tyranids. While he has built up a small army of the bugs he hasn’t quite got around to painting them all yet. Over the Christmas break we spent time base coating his whole army red and had planned on doing the black/blue base as well but just ran out of time (future post coming on Kill Teams!). To help motivate him and get the painting juices going I volunteered to paint his Carnifex – ok it may have been a bit selfish on my part too!   He had chosen Hive Fleet Behemoth and painted a few ‘guants for me to pull colors from. The whole model had already been sprayed red so I based in the Necron Abyss for the blue areas, black for the weapons and claws, and elf flesh for all the soft bits. A black wash later had the model tabletop ready.   I love the look of …