It's Evolution Baby!

Yet another night of restlessness. I look at my Flying Hive Tyrant, and notice she's in desperate need of yet another touch up. The moss glued to her base is crumbling away and the base itself has not been touched up in years. Her wings are still the same old paintjob from the moment I put her together. This model has gone though countless touch ups and re configurations that it has quite a bit of history. I dug up some old pictures and I see how much this model has evolved over the years!

This Tyrant was my very first Warhammer 40K model and the first one I ever assembled and painted. I was even brave enough to dive into the Greenstuff! Here is a photo of the first spawn of Hive Fleet Cicada in all its bad photo glory! This was taken about 2-3 years ago. The wings were taken from the Soultaker figure by McF Toys.




















Having no idea how the game worked and with codex in hand, I just went with what I thought looked cool. This is the first incarnation of the Alpha Tyrant of my fleet.
































I began doing research on how people build their bugs, and found out about the 4th ed dakkadakka load out. I also touched up her paintjob, making the white look much cleaner then my previous newbie attempts of blending bleached bone with skull white, with a badly made green wash to boot! The new Citadel Washes also come out around this time, eliminating any trace of my horrid newbie wash. My Greenstuff skills have also improved, and I touched up the old GS work. I neglect to touch up the wings, they bare the same paintjob from the moment of this beasts spawning.



































She was quite the terror on the battlefeild, the 4th ed incarnation of the dakkaflyrant was a monster, shredding anything in her path. When the 5th ed Tyranid Codex was coming around the corner, a big change hit the Tyrants stat line, and I was forced yet again to change her weaponry. The Bonesword and Lashwhip were no longer crap, and the Tyrants changes looked to be build more for close combat then the dakkaspam I was used too. The converted devourers were taken off, and eventually made their way to a magnetized option for my (nearly useless) Carnifexes. With the release of the Trigon kit along side the new codex, I grabbed a box and with the leftover talons, I finally had the perfect set of Scything Talons for my Tyrant! The other ones I just could not get to work and the smaller Trigon talons were just the perfect size!

The evolution from 4th to 5th ed was quite a change for my Alpha Tyrant. She was no longer the near invincible brute that could shoot and hack her way though legions of biomass. She took on more of a support role, but was still an able HQ slayer. She even had a bit of a fall when I dropped my travel box. Only her tail and some arms fell off.

This brings us back to my intro. Age was starting to effect the model, with the moss crumbling away and the creaking noise of glue peeling off the base. It was time for another touch up. Her base is now touched up and solid again, and finally I pay attention to those wings. It's funny how a nice touch up can breathe life back into a model! Touching up those wings made a huge difference, making her look ten times more bold! I also had to redo sections of her carapace to bring back that bold green.








































She will continue to command my fleet, unless the Swarmlord wants to rear its ugly head. It's almost like cheating taking the Swarmlord over her in my games! She was always my main HQ until GW stuck in mr uber tyrant and changed old lore around... wait who else does that to their lore... *coughWorldofWarcraftcough*

As for Tyranid Evolution, if I EVER have to change her again, she is totally getting magnetized!

Atmospheric Objective Markers

Hi, Sara here with my first article on this Blog (Finally got the darned thing to log me in without hassle.). I will be posting hobby related material here and I hope it will cause some inspiration for all your wargaming junkies out there!

When it comes to objective markers, the usual ones are those green flags or spare change. Why not spice things up with your own set of custom markers? You can actually add a lot of atmosphere to your armies with a nice set of scenic markers and also add a boost to your display board for tournaments. I will show you my Tyranid and Ork markers that I have made using those large flat 60 mm bases (Think they are the titan bases for epic).

You will have a lot of spare bits lying around, like weapons, biomorphs, spare arms and heads for example. With my Tyranid bases, I went with somthing simple yet gribbly by using those infestation markers that come with Genestealers. Then I take some Adrenal Gland bits and tie them all together with some Greenstuff. Then some paint and gloss varnish to finish them off and now I have a set of infested landscape for my bugs to defend.














For my Ork horde, I have lots of spare weaponry and vehicle parts laying around. I created little weapon cashes loaded with Orky goodness. One pile of Stikkbombs, one pile of Rokkits and a Big Shoota hold being tended to by Grots. The Rokkit pile was made from cutting the Rokkits of the Kombi weapons that come with the Nob kit, and the Grot poping out of the pile is the backpack found in the Loota/Burna box. Stikkbombs are quite common in Ork kits. An Ammo Runt from the Nobs kit is charged with carrying the Stickbombs to the pile. The Big Shoota pile has one Shoota from the AoBR set, and one from the Deff Dred kit. The Grots are from the Grot boxset. The other 2 objectives are fluffy to my Ork Army, who horde the bones of all they slay and offer them to Gork/Mork in giant piles. The Grots are from the Grot boxset and the skulls are from the Pile of Skulls blister and various kits/bits bins.









































With large scenic markers like these, you should check if its ok with your opponent to use them. Better be safe and check with tournaments too, and see if there is any objective size limits. I have a set of small ones just in case, and they are just the small pile of skulls, which I do not have a photo of at the moment. Small objectives can also be small ammo staches, wounded troops, the options are endless. It just takes an imagination and a pile of bits to create some scenic objective markers for your forces!