Dabbling in Fiction

Back in 2011 I took part in a Battlefleet Gothic campaign. I can't remember all of the details but it was a narrative campaign, and I was a little late to the campaign joining near the tail end. I think I only played about 3 games at the time and only two of those were strictly part of the campaign.

As it was a narrative campaign many players wrote short narratives either in the lead up to a game or post game from their admirals perspective. So I followed suit by creating a short introduction to my fleet and I thought I would share it with you today.

I've never written any sort of fiction but I'm quite proud of what I came up with. I think I had recently read First Heretic by Aaron Dembski-Bowden and I think some ideas were heavily borrowed from there and other Black Library books.

I did intend to follow it up with a post game story and I'm kinda sad that I never did. But my fleet is still technically the same fleet. I maintain the same 1500pt roster, all my ships are named as well as my fleet commanders so you never know I may pick the  story up again one day. I even have a ton of 40k Chaos Marines which I intended to paint up as Word Bearers and still might at some point.

To give a bit of context the battle was an escalating engagement against the Dark Eldar near the planet Tanais, which I believe the Dark Eldar had just taken control of in their previous game against the Imperium.

The Holy Torment and Glory of Chaos win a crushing victory against Dave's Imperial Fleet a few weeks ago.

The Bringer of Truth translated into real space approximately 37.4 standard minutes behind the bulk of the fleet.

'Report!'

'The rest of the fleet has assumed standard search parameters, Admiral Torvus reports no sign of the Imperial fleet'

'How can that be?' The Crimson Lord growled 'Our scouts reported heavy concentrations of enemy ships not three days ago'

'er I...I'm not sure my Lord' Stuttered the startled Comms officer. The men and women occupying the bridge of The Bringer of Truth were all members of the Kor Tal and could be considered the elite of the elite by any human standards. But even they could be cowed by the presence of the Chaos Marines they served alongside, not to mention the Crimson Lord whose visage pained the eyes and whose mere proximity could force the weak to vomit despite themselves. The Bridge officers of the Kor Tal were selected for that role largely based on their strength of will that allowed them to function for such extended periods within the presence of the Crimson Lord.

'Get that fool Torvus to transmit the fleets sensory data to us immediately'

'Yes my Lord'

Admiral Torvus, an accomplished man and True believer of the Word. He had his uses. But he's only Mortal. Yes, not even a Space Marine, his incompetence is to be expected.

Not quite immortal himself, yet he could hardly be described as mortal either, the separation between Daemon and Marine had been a line impossible to distinguish within the Crimson Lord for millennia.

'Data coming now sire, Litany of Hate is detecting a number of burning hulks, several escort sized vessels and at least one cruiser sized, in close proximity to the planet Tanais'

Someone has beaten us to it

'Glory of Chaos is picking up what looks to be several civilian vessels in the outer reaches, and we're attaining several anomalous readings across the fleet'

The Crimson Lord surveyed the data for himself, someone had indeed been here and driven the Imperial fleet away. No doubt troops were fighting for control of the planet at this very moment. This planet is destined for the Word. Thousands of years worth of experience told the Crimson Lord that this engagement had not happened long ago. The enemy is still here. But what was this enemy. Lets see

To an outsider the Crimson Lord appeared to enter a trance, closing his eyes he allowed the power of Chaos to flow through him, the Daemon within him feeding on the emotions around him. He could sense the discipline of his bridge officers, yet the fear they felt for him, reaching out he sensed the thousands of other souls toiling within the Battle Barge, he could feel his Acolytes and Word Bearers, their eagerness to bring the Word to yet another deluded planet of the Imperium pleasing to him. The Daemon pushed out beyond the confines of the ship, travelling the waves of the Immaterium he could feel the emotions emanating from the other vessels in his fleet, their positions impossible to locate in this manner, yet the Crimson Lord recognised them clear enough. Now the petty human emotions, no doubt coming from the ignorant he had come to educate and unite with Chaos, and then...Yes something else entirely, sadism, disgusting pleasure, far beyond that which a human or even the more depraved members of Chaos could produce. Lofty, immeasurable arrogance, yes this was what he sought.

His Eyes opened

'Druchii' the Lord Spat

The officers on the bridge exchanged worried glances, they had been expecting battle sure, but against the Imperial Navy. The Eldar was a whole different style of warfare, their technology would have them chasing ghosts while their own ships would slip past undetected to attack their stern.

'No, this is a blessing' said the Crimson Lord sensing the change in mood of his crew 'The population of Tanais has been abandoned by their Imperial overseers, thousands of their members butchered by this foul xenos, they will be far more open to the teachings of Lorgar, their binding to Chaos will be even more expedient. This truly is a gift from the Gods. We must repay them.

The Crimson Lord stared out into the void, invigorated by this renewed sense of purpose

'These, Druchii, have run and they have hidden from our masters for over ten millenia. Slaanesh wishes to feed upon their souls and we shall hand them to him'

'My Lord, the fleet are detecting vessels'

'Excellent, order all ships to converge on their position. Our enemies will fight, and they will lose, and destruction will be visited upon them, for it is written.'

The Dark Pact Revisited

Back in July I wrote a post about The Dark Pact, a Horus Heresy themed Tale of 4 Gamers type of affair. This is a follow up post to that one, so go and give it a quick read to remind yourself of what it's all about before reading this one.

DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS

Ok so that would be all of us then.

As you can probably guess by a lack of posts since the last one, the Dark Pact has kinda petered out. Unfortunately I think this a pretty common occurrence with this type of thing. Everybody is so pumped and excited when a project like this starts but the enthusiasm soon dwindles as the project roles on and life gets in the way. If anyone has any good tips for maintaining momentum within a group please leave them in the comments below.

I was intending to writing another post at the time of the second deadline. However, as only Craig and I had managed to meet that target there seemed little point. Since then Matt and David have caught up as well so I figured that it was about time I got you guys updated. Incidentally we've seen nothing new from Mog or John so there'll be no update there.

VI Space Wolves XIV Death Guard- Rob

 I realise I never posted Robs first months offerings in the original post, as he hadn't finished at the time of writing. If you've read the last post you'll see I made a big joke about how Rob constantly changed his mind about which legion to take, so it's no surprise then to see he ended up with painted Death Guard in the end.

I would complain but he's done such a good job on these that it's hard to. Unfortunately it looks like he's out of the Dark Pact for good. So there's no 'month 2' offerings. I keep trying to tempt him back and you never know I might be successful one day.

The 4 of us who are left (me, Craig, Matt and Dave) haven't given up on building Heresy armies altogether, we're just not following regular deadlines. Unfortunately cost is the main barrier at the moment. As it happens though we're all building regular 40k armies at the moment.

XIII Ultramarines - Dave

I only have pictures of 3 of Dave's Marines. I'm missing the other two although I'm sure he's finished them.

I'm betting he never got the chance to photo the other to what with the moving to Australia malarkey

 As always you can read about Dave's adventures here on his blog. If you've kept up-to-date there you may have seen him post pictures of his new Heresy miniatures a few weeks back.

He's recently moved to Australia for a couple of years and he's working on some Dark Angels at the moment, although he's had to make some hard decisions about what miniatures to take over with him. He's also threatened to GM some games when he gets back, so we've all got about 2 years to get some armies built in preparation.


XII World Eaters – Matt

2nd Month models

Army so far

Matt got the second half of his squad completed a little before Christmas. He's currently working on some 40k Orks. I had two sets of the Black Reach Orks lying about which I sold to him (I'm sure I'm going to regret getting rid of them one day) so he's using them as a basis for an army.

XVI Sons of Horus - Craig

2nd Month models

Army so far

 Craig got his Justaerin finished on time although I say he cheated. The rules stated you have to paint 5 models or a unit. Justaerin can be fielded in units of 3 so technically he's fine but I know he has two others he intended to paint but didn't.

He also broke the spirit and point of the project by buying too many miniatures. One of the things we wanted to do was to only buy little bits at a time and paint it before buying more. I believe me and Dave have 5 basic marines unpainted, while I don't think Matt has any. Craig on the other hand has his two Justaerin, 3 Jet bikes, 5 basic marine and 5 assault marines...I think I've got that right.

He's also getting in on the regular 40k action by starting an Eldar army. Me, Craig and Matt all reside in Cardiff now so once they've got a few hundred points painted up we'll be getting some games in and I'll be sure to write about those games here.

I'm also hoping to get them to guest write a post once they've got some models painted...although I've not told them that yet.

VIII Night Lords – Me

2nd Month models

Army so far

So I say I win the Dark pact as I was the only one to get 10 models painted when they were suppose have been painted. If you follow me on Twitter you may have already seen me post these pics on there last year when I painted them.

I've been toying with painting a new legion. The new Night Lords rules in Massacre are cool and all but something doesn't sit right with me. When I think about how my army is going to grow, I realise it's not going to grow into want I envisioned from a Heresy army. It's difficult to explain and perhaps I'll write another post about my thoughts on it at a later date.

I think one of my problems is that I don't like the models for the Raptors. If they release some awesome models for the terror squads it may pull me back in.

I've got 5 Heresy marines unpainted and I'm tempted to paint them as another Legion as a test. Even then several legions are winning me over, although Imperial Fists are currently in the lead.

I'm going to be working on my nidz for the foreseeable future anyway so the issue is fairly mute at the moment.

So I'll leave it there, hopefully we'll see a further return to the Dark Pact, we've not given up on it entirely.

If you like the post be sure to comment and share it with your friendsTill next time...

The Week in Hobby 19/1/14

This is the 2nd in what I plan to be a regular segment on the blog. Each Sunday I'll be summarising my hobby and gaming activity during the week as well as providing a glimpse into the week ahead. I'm still not totally sold on the name of this segment, so it may change and suggestions are welcome.

The Blog round up
First a quick summery of this weeks blog posts. On Tuesday I posted the Tyranid Gallery a picture heavy post with many pictures of my painted aspiring horde.

Then on Thursday I posted The Swarm Evolves the second part to the previous weeks

The Swarm Approaches, a kind of before and after look at my Tyranid army with the new Codex being released in between. The post also contains some pics of some old games from 2012.

My hobby week

I have to admit, my hobby week has been a slow one. I started playing Minecraft again after seeing some cool lets plays, and boy what a time sink that game is.

All week I've been saying to myself that I need to do something just so I have something to write about today. And today I did just that.

First up I needed to sort out my painting table. While the table itself has been set up in my new house since I moved in, my paints, brushes and other tools have all been sat in boxes. In fact my painting table has been used primarily as a desk since I moved. Recently it's housed my laptop and it's become my writing desk. Well it was time for that to change.

I realised earlier today that this has been a hindrance mentally to picking up my paint brush and I was suddenly reminded of an old blog post I wrote 2 and a half years ago Good habits and getting distracted . Particularly the section on establishing a painting area and the benefits of having a dedicated painting table.

My painting table, relatively clutter free and ready to paint Tyranids

So now once again my painting table is organised with everything I need for my Tyranids close to hand making it so much easier to sit down for a quick half hour session when I get a chance.

What's more I actually put the table to good use today and spent a couple of hours working on my Hive Tyrant and I think it may be finally finished after waiting 18 moths in a half painted state. I still need to finish up the base and in fact as I'm just waiting for the Nuln Oil wash on the base to dry I figured it would be a good chance to write this post.

The finished Hive Tyrant with just the base to finish and after looking at this pic, perhaps a couple of touch ups

Going back to a point I brushed over earlier (excuse the pun), I want to add that it was a great motivator knowing I had to write this post today and I wanted to have some hobby progress to show. I can't guarantee that I'll have hobby progress every week but in those weeks I don't I can guarantee there'll be a heavy air of shame about the post.

The Week Ahead

Hopefully I'll get another 2 blog posts up during the week. I want to update you on The Dark Pact and I haven’t decided what the other article will be yet. I'm not sure to what extent I'll stick with the Tuesday and Thursday schedule either. I definitely want to maintain the Sunday post, I just don't want to get burnt out on the blog by forcing myself to commit to three articles each week. Like I said last week this is still very much a work in progress.

As for my hobby week, I think next on my painting table will be my Broodlord and two Zoanthropes. I figure they should be relatively quick and easy to get out of the way. After that more Termagants. I'm think another 12 to get the unit I have up to 30, and will probably aim to have 10 of those armed with Devourers.

Not saying I'm going to get all of that done, but that's the order I'm tackling things.

And that's it for this Week in Hobby.If you like the post comment and share it with your friends

Till next time... 

 

The Swarm Evolves

 This is a relatively long post, so grab a coffee and get comfortable. (Tea would be acceptable as well if)

Last week I compiled a list of my current Tyranid models and their values under the old Codex. With the release of the latest Tyranid codex at the weekend it's time to update those values and consider how my army has changed.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be any sort of master tactician. While I've played 40k on and off since 2^nd edition, I've only played a handful of games with 6th edition, and I've never played in any real tournaments for 40k (in fact I've only even played in one and that was for Warhammer). I tend to play for fun and much prefer the narrative side of the game.

Bare in mind as well that I've not played any games with the new book, so what follows will largely be first impressions, also any sort of analysis will be very much focused on my own specific army rather than the book as a whole. So don't expect a complete review of the book.

First up will be the basic numbers of the overall army before I talk about any specifics. Remember these numbers don't include any biomorphs, just weapons.

	Old Codex		New Codex
	Unit QTY	Points	Unit QTY	Points	Points difference
HQ	2	550	2	540	-10
Troops	11	2037	11	2010	-27
Elites	1	120	1	100	-20
Fast Attack	1	240	1	228	-12
Heavy Support	6	1045	3	815	-230
Total:	21	3992	18	3693	-299

  

So first up you can see that overall my army decreased points wise by almost 300 points or 8% which is pretty good. I could add a Harpy and Hive Crone for those points or just one of those in a 2000pt game or so.

There were a lot of points decreases across the board, however there were a few noticeable exceptions. The Ripper Swarms collectively went up 39 points and the Genestealers' scything talons also went up adding 32 points to their total. Both of these increases make me less inclined to want to take them/paint them, especially when other troops choice have gone down, and it's not like I'm short of other troops choices and I already talked in the last post about how I have too many Genestealers anyway.

To break up the article I'm adding a few unpublished pics from some old games.

The Tervigon also went up by 25 points. Technically it went up by more, but mines got crushing claws which went down in price giving a lesser net increase. I've never used the Tervigon in a game before so it's difficult for me to comment on how it's rules have changed, but the internet is largely crying that this unit has been nerfed heavily. I'm looking forward to trying it out from a blank perspective, so I can judge what it's like now without any real reference to what it use to be like.

Talking about crushing claws, their rules have changed quite a bit going from adding D3 attacks to adding 1 strength and giving the armour bane special rule. I quite like the change. Looking at the model for them, I never understood how they were supposed to grant the model extra attacks. Now they have rules that allows them to crush stuff, like you would think crushing claws should.

Having said that I armed my Tervigon with crushing claws precisely for the extra attacks to take advantage of the smash rule in 6^th editition, which halves your attacks rounding up and doubles your strength. Modifiers such as those given by the crushing claw would be applied after. So with 3 attacks, with crushing claws you'd always choose to smash because you'd get S10 with 3-5 attacks anyway. With the new rules for crushing claws, they're not quite so perfect for the Tervigon. At least now it's not always going to be a no brainer to choose to smash or not.

The first couple are from my game with Paul on 3/7/12. I don't think this Farseer lasted much longer

Now lets talk about some units that have got cheaper.

Starting with the Troops Hormagaunts have got cheaper, although if you kit them out with adrenal glands and toxin sacs, like I use to, they stay the same. I equipped them with both for the nice combo of being able to re-roll to wound against T4 models on the charge, which with the quantity of attacks normally would do a decent amount of damage. With the change to scything talons however, I'm consider taking the Hormagaunts without any upgrades and taking advantage of their base reduction in points.

I was always in two minds about whether I should take all the upgrades or take twice the number anyway. Even with the upgrades they still die as easy and a unit rarely gets into combat fully intact anyhow, so perhaps more is better, especially now they can run faster as well.

Termagants have seen some nice changes too in my mind. Not only are they also cheaper but they can take devourers for less as well, making that unpainted unit of 20 with devourers that I have much much cheaper. It took me a while to notice, but you can also mix and match weapons in units now, so the idea of taking say units of 30, 10 with devourers becomes quit appealing. The cheaper fleshborer models making an effective meat shield for the more expensive devourer wielding ones.

The ability to mix and match weapons affects most units now opening up some interesting possibilities. Tyranid warriors for example. While on the surface they didn't really change, the ability to take just one or two lash whip and boneswords, rather than kitting out the whole unit with such an expensive upgrade again creates more options and possibilities to consider.

I know Tyranid warriors have their flaws, but I like them, I remember when a Tyranid army was basically Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers and Carnifex and to me not including them in a Tyranid army is like not including Tactical marines in a Space Marine army or Ork Boyz in an Ork army. So anything giving them more options is fine by me.

For me though the big one where being able to mix and match weapons really matters is with the Carnifexes. I built my Carnifexes before the last codex, before they could form units. I didn't want them to all be the same (in fact I didn't want any 2 units to be the same) so I armed them differently. So imagine my disappointment when you could combine them into units only on the condition that they were all armed the same! Units were also incredibly expensive, a unit of 3 with no upgrades would set you back 480 points.

These last two are from my game against Ben's Necrons at the Poole GW store 17/7/12

Now finally I can include all 3 of my Carnifexes in the one unit. Not only that but they are collectively 145 points cheaper. I'm definitely going to see about getting these guys on to the board. Even under the old codex I wanted to try out a unit of Carnifex, but that involved buying new ones. Now I have no excuse.
My Zoanthropes and Tyrant guard got a decent price cut as well. Many of the elite choices did, like Lictors and Hive Guard...but I don't own those models yet. I havn't worked out any lists yet but I'm thinking the Tyrant guard may make it in now. A Hive Tyrant with a full set of Tyrant guard is a pretty solid unit. It's quite a pricey unit but now it's cheaper it's probably worth another look.

The options for the Hive Tyrant have changed quite a bit too. I use to take him with an Armoured shell, giving him a 2+ armour save. This is no longer an option so I'm going to have to think about what upgrades to give him and to be honest this is one unit I've not fully explored yet.

I got well and truly owned. Strangely I don't have any pictures of that stage of the game.

There's one more thing that stuck out to me, and it's an upgrade not a unit; adrenal glands. These now provide fleet as well as the furious charge special rule they had in the last book. This is an upgrade that a majority of units can take. Now I know the rules for fleet may not be as good as they were in 5^th edition, (or it's debatable at least) but for an army that needs to get across the table, I can see myself taking these for every unit that doesn't already have fleet, in particular I'm thinking about the Carnifexes and Hive Tyrant.

Right that's probably all I want to talk about for now. There's definitely more I could talk about but I've gone on just about long enough and these are just the things that jumped out at me. My next task is to draw up some army lists for some small 1000pt games using what I've got painted so far and to see what they're like in practice.

Tyranid Gallery

I'm still working on the promised second part of last weeks article The Swarm Approaches I should have that up on Thursday. In the mean time I wanted to post a gallery of my painted Tyranids so far.

Some of these pictures I may have posted on Twitter around the time I first painted them but that was a long while ago now, plus I wanted to collate them all in one place for posterity. They're ordered chronologically based on when I painted them.

In the future I may update this post as I complete more units or if I can figure out how I'll create a separate area of the blog where I can store galleries.

I will create a painting guide at some point for these too. When I do I'll update this post to include the link to that here.

Initial Test models

The colour scheme is surprisingly easy to do. It was inspired by Citadels new paint range when that was released 2 years ago

Obviously the scheme for the bases was decided on later

These last two models were another colour scheme I was considering.

While I really liked this scheme I decided on the yellow and blue mainly because it was more striking

Gaunts lots of gaunts 

Note: This is the same group of Termagants photographed from 3 different angles

I really wish I had already painted this many

Big time...

There are 18 Termagants and 18 Hormagaunts painted here. They're a funny number because 4 were used for test models.

And it really bugs me that they're not an even 20. An extra 2 models for each unit is a priority.

Fun fact: I painted all 38 in one big batch...never again will I batch paint with that many...I wanted to rip my eyes out

Tyranid Warriors

6 Warriors with Death Spitters and a barbed strangler. You might notice some odd specks on their carapace.

That's the snow, the powder got everywhere, like sand from a beach. I've cleared it off the models now.

 Carnifex

 

My first go at a monstrous creature. After all those troops I decided I needed a treat.

I really love this model. I'm particularly proud of how I've posed him.

Although I did that several years before I painted him

 Group Shot

 

These are the majority of what I've got painted so far

I really like how these guys look as a swarm. The yellow and blue works well in large numbers

I'm looking forward to the day I can cover a gaming table with these critters

Fun Fact No.2:
I went for snow basing largely because I had some GW snow lying about for years and wanted an excuse to use it

 Genestealers

 

Once I painted these I obviously decided they didn't warrant another set of group shots. They also only got 1 photo compared to 2-3 for all the other units. I'm sure they feel under appreciated and thus under perform in battle to spite me

 Work in progress Hive Tyrant

 

Yep, if you've paid attention to previous posts you may have worked out that this has been a work
in progress for about 18 months. He also only gets a portrait photo rather than a proper landscape one.

I don't know what the Genestealers are grumbling about

The Week in Hobby

This is the first in what I plan to be a regular segment on the blog. Each Sunday I'll be summarising my hobby and gaming activity during the week as well as providing a glimpse into the week ahead. I'm not totally sold on the name of this segment, so it may change and suggestions are welcome.

Restarting the Blog 

So I've recently decided to restart the blog as you may have guessed. What you wont know at this point is that I've decided to restart it in a much bigger way. It's still a work in progress, but the aim is to post far more regularly, perhaps 2-3 times a week and to generally take a more professional attitude to the blog.

When I first started the blog the aim was to track the building of my Lizardmen army. You can see the results here

In the past, even when I was posting on a semi regular basis it was always in a hap-hazardous way. There was no regularity to my posts, I would write them on a whim and just keep writing till I ran out of things to say. While I'm proud of the posts I wrote in my Lizardmen series, they were very much sprawling affairs reaching into the 3-4000 word mark that I'm sure for many people earned the mark of tl:dr (too long didn't read for those not familiar with internet speak). The plan now is to write shorter but more regular posts, with the occasional essay thrown in. 

I also want to aim for regular days on which to post. At the moment I'm thinking Tuesdays and Thursdays with a regular week in hobby post on Sunday, although this is subject to change. I also want to broaden the subject matter for the blog. While it will primarily remain a Games Workshop gaming and hobby blog, I want to include the occasional post on other types of gaming, such as board games and perhaps even computer gaming although I'm not sure how far down that rabbit hole I want to go.

My one post since making the Lizardmen army was about the Dark Pact, 

a Horus Heresy themed tale of several gamers. You can check it out here

As to why I'm doing this, there are a few reasons. The main one is that a couple months ago I moved to Cardiff. Right now I'm only a 20min walk away from from a good gaming venue as opposed to the 45min train ride I had to traverse while living in Weymouth. I also have a few friends already here, who are hobbyists like me and so there should be a hell of a lot more hobby and gaming in my life in general, giving me much more material to write about.

Taking part in the hobby and writing about it has gone very much hand in hand since I started this blog. A lack of posts has very much been a symptom of a lack of hobby in my life, with just one or two exceptions.

I've also recently had the urge to write more lately, to practice and get better at it and this likewise fuels my desire to get this blog into a better state.

At the moment though, consider the format of this blog to be very much a work in progress and there will likely be some trial and error. Comments, criticisms and suggestions at any point will be greatly appreciated about anything, from the hobby to the format of the blog to the writing itself. Feel free to leave them here directly on the blog or tweet them at me here, but please, keep them constructive.

Elsewhere in the week

On Monday I had a visit from Dave over on Zen and the Art of Miniature Painting. He talks about the visit here but the long and short of it is we had a game of Battlefleet Gothic and my Word Bearers fleet decimated him. Later we played the board game Relic with two of our other gaming buddies in which I didn't do quite so well. I'll leave the detail to Dave, he gives a small battle report, it's a good read and there's some pictures of our fleets you should definitely check out.

Later in the week I began sorting out my Tyranid collection in preparation for the new codex being released Saturday. I posted the results Friday and you should expect the second part of that post, where I see how my army totals up under the new codex, on Tuesday. I'll also be writing some thoughts on how my army has changed under the new dex and some first impressions.

I've got some other posts in the works as well, which should be up over the next few weeks, including a more in depth look at my painted Tyranids so far as well as an explanation of how I painted them. In fact I've got a couple of posts in mind for the Tyranids.

I will also be returning to the Dark Pact, to give you an update on this floundering Horus Heresy themed tale of many gamers. After my game this week I plan to write a bit about my love of Battlefleet Gothic, including posting a short story I wrote for my fleet in a campaign a couple of years ago.

I also plan this week to get started on painting more Tyranids, although I'm not quite sure where to start yet, but expect to see some posts about it should I make any progress.

And that's it for this Week in Hobby.

If you like the post comment and share it with your friends

Till next time...

(PS I might need a better closing line too)

The Swarm Approaches

The new Tyranid codex is being released tomorrow and with that in mind I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of my own Tyranid swarm.

Now eagled eyed readers may have noticed updates to my battle log over the past couple of years despite posts having been sporadic (massive understatement I know). Go have a look now, just scroll to the bottom of the page...

What's that? It's not changed much? Well believe it or not I have updated it every time I played a game. And yes that's not a lot of games played, and yes that means I only played one game in 2013 and that was against my 13 year old nephew.

As pitiful as that is, that's not what I want to talk about today. What you've hopefully also noticed is a new category in the log...Tyranids!

You'll notice I played a couple of games with them in 2012, right around the time 6^th edition was released. I started painting them a few months prior to this with that express intention of using them for the new edition. A few pictures of them from this time are dotted throughout this post, but expect a few more detailed posts to come about them in the future.

A couple of friends and I have recently been talking about getting back into gaming proper and from my perspective the impending release of a new codex is the perfect excuse. With that in mind I thought it might be fun to make a list of what I have, and what still needs to be painted.

I've also totalled up their points values under the current codex and will write a follow up post next week comparing their values under the new codex.

The list of completion:

Please excuse the poor pics, I've recently moved and have not been able to set up a decent area for photography yet

HQ
Hive Tyrant with Devourer and Scything Talons (Half painted)

Troops

6 Warriors with Scything Talons, 5 Deathspitters and 1 Barbed Strangler

18 Termagaunts

18 Hormagaunts

10 Genestealers

Heavy Support
1 Carnifex with twin Scything Talons

The list of shame:

HQ
3 Tyrant Guard
Tervigon With crushing claws

Elites
2 Zoanthropes

Troops
6 Warriors with Rending Claws and Devourers

20 Hormagaunts

20 Termagaunts with Devourers

13 Ripper Swarm bases

16 Genestealers with scything talons

23 Genestealers

Fast Attack
6 Ravenors with Rending Claws and Spine Fists

Heavy Support
Trygon Prime

Tyrannofex

Carnifex with Crushing Claws and Venom cannon

Carnifex with Crushing Claws and Scything Talons

Plus 8 Objective markers

And Some unassembled Extras

Troops
1 Broodlord

8 Termagaunts

8 Hormagaunts

8 Genestealers

So from a painted models point of view that's 54 models painted with 139 still to go!! To be fair there are 57 Genestealers in that list. I've painted 10 so far, but I can't really see myself needing another 47, so I can consider most of them a low priority.

From a points perspective here are the totals. I've not included any additional biomorphs, just what's included on the model:

Painted:

Unit                      QTY            Points
HQ                           1                 185
Troops                     4                  553
Heavy Support        1                  160
Total                       6                  898

Unpainted:

Unit                    QTY              Points
HQ                         1                    365
Elite                       1                    120
Troops                   6                   1484
Fast Attack            1                     240
Heavy Support      4                     885
Total                    13                  3094

Grand Total        19                  3962

Again it's worth pointing out that nearly 700 points of this is unpainted Genestealers. Also the unit quantity with the troops is fairly malleable depending on how big you want to make the units but suffice to say, I have a lot of troops with roughly 10 units accounting for around 2000pts of the army.

So where do I go from here

I'm looking forward to seeing how this list shapes up once applied under the new codex. As much as I want to buy every new Tyranid going there's still so many older ones I want as well. However money is tight and I've already got so many models to paint. I want to say I wont buy another model until all of these are painted but we know that wont happen. I will pledge however to get a good chunk of them painted before buying any more.

As to what I'll paint first, I should get my Hive Tyrant finished first. After that I'm not sure, I'll wait until I can have a good read of the new codex before deciding.

Picture from my game against Paulb 2/7/12