(Continued from last week’s post by WHITE MAN’S MINIS)

With the advent of Apocalypse comes a whole new world of Tyranid conversion opportunities. I thought it would be fun to convert some Genestealer-like Tyranids with guns to play as counts-as Space Marines. Eventually the plan is to give them a counts-as Rhino based upon the Malefactor, an old Tyranid from the game Epic and produced for 40k by Armorcast. The Malefactor was a troop transport and it would be a great challenge to try to convert up a living beast that could carry ten Space Marine equivalents.

Superheavies

The Tyranid Trygon appears in an Apocalypse datasheet, but the Forge World model carries a hefty pricetag. Old Alien toys make a great basis for Tyranid conversions – this Trygon was made from an enlarged Carnifex and the tail from a Snake Alien toy by Hasbro.

Superheavies can also be taken from other armies and converted for Tyranid use. Imagine the lumbering monstrous equivalent of a Warhound Titan or a huge scuttling Tyranid Baneblade. To the left is my idea of a Tyranid counts-as Ork Fighta-Bomma.

Note that, while clearly not a Fighta-Bomma, WYSIWYG is still observed as best it can be. The four Big Shootas are represented by four large organic guns on the creature’s shoulders, chest and mouth. The turret-mounted twin-linked Big Shootas are carried by a living turret-beast clinging to the larger animal’s back. The Burna-Bomms are made from acid Spore Mines and the payload of Bomms supposedly drops from the Spore Cyst carapace on the belly.

Genestealer Cults

Tyranids also have great fluff background about working in Genestealer Cults. While representing this in a standard Tyranid army would require extensive counts-as, it’s easy to do in Apocalypse. Simply find an Imperial Guard player to ally with (or use/start your own collection!) and stick some Tyranid banners on the tanks. The tank below has magnets allowing it to play either as a normal tank, fly Tyranid banners, or mount Orky-looking scrap armor.

If you’re really into it, you can convert models specifically for these situations. The infantryman above can play in an Apocalypse battle as an Inquisitor and as such can take a retinue of eccentric models. The Genestealer conversion from earlier can play as a Veteran Guardsman with a meltagun and this fellow to the right can work nicely as a Combat Servitor.

To go with my Eldar army is the following model, which plays using Elrad Ulthran’s rules to represent the potency of an Eldar Farseer amplified by the power of the Hive Mind. A shaved-down Genestealer head with pointy Eldar ears makes him look distinctly like an alien hybrid and the extra arm further betrays his Genestealer heritage.

The sky really is the limit for Apocalypse, and it’s much more fun to play when interesting models and alliances with a story behind them are present. Definitely take the time to figure out who your most common allies are and see if you can find a way to make the fluff work. The models shown here represent the Tyranids controlling their ally through Genestealer Cults, but it could just as easily work the other way. What if a Hive Tyrant was fitted with a mind-control device by a member of the Ordo Xenos or was possessed by a Daemon from the Warp? With access to the most powerful Synapse creature the rest of the swarm could be brought to follow the orders of the other army.

Stratagems and Objectives

Cityfight presented Stratagems which confer bonuses to armies that take them. Many of these – like Power Generator, Ammo Dump, and Medicae Facility – would be relatively straightforward for other armies to represent. But what would a Tyranid Power Generator look like? Because that Stratagem increases the chances that a weapon will hurt a target I based it off the Tyranid Toxin Sacs. The Ammo Dump is designed like a giant Devourer hive, since many Tyranid weapons work by firing smaller organisms. Presumably both of these Stratagems work be secreting some sort of hormone that alters the biology of Tyranids nearby. For Medicae Facility I took the Hive Node from Battle for Macragge and mounted it on a base. I can’t imagine Tyranids healing each other, so I just figured that for every Gaunt wounded there’s a 50% chance that a new one will crawl up out of this hole.

In Cityfight some missions call for armies to plant flags in captured buildings. It’s hard to envision a brood of Gaunts carrying a banner along with them, so instead I converted up some markers to serve as flags. The idea is that these creatures cling tick-like to a larger Tyranid and fall off when an objective is seized, sending out a psychic signal to let the lead Synapse know that the building is under control. Making them was a simple matter of gluing three bitz together – if you want to replicate something, it’s best to use as many standard bitz as possible.

Apocalypse calls for armies to fight over objectives. It was hard to think of a Tyranid objective, but seeing a broken walnut shell while outside inspired me. The loss of a young new breed of Synapse creature would certainly be worth fighting over, both for Tyranids and for enemies.

Tyranid terrain pieces also make good objectives. These large Brood Nest entrances, when completed, could serve as objectives and simple terrain or could be given special rules. Perhaps units can enter one and exit the other, or perhaps they disgorge random Gaunt broods, or perhaps the enemy objective is to get a unit in contact with one so they can chuck a melta bomb down. The pieces themselves are made from an old toy dinosaur egg, cheap Model Magic clay, and pink insulation foam.

Tyranids commonly create digestion pools when they’re taking over a planet, and a digestion pool makes a great terrain centerpiece. This one is made from scooped-out insulation foam and ringed with the tentacles of an old toy octopus. After painting the depression in the middle can be filled with resin water effect or – if you’re stingy – with dries-clear white glue.

Tags: tyranids

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Modelling, Terrain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.