Author Archive

The Devourers of Worlds: Getting the Most from a Tyranid Army (pt 4)

by Wintermute - April 28th, 2010

(This post end’s WHITE MAN’S MINIS’ four-part Tyranid article)

Magnets

Most of the Carnifex's components have been magnetized to allow for swapping

Most of the Carnifex's components have been magnetized to allow for swapping

The Carnifex is a brilliant model with a huge range of options in the kit. If you’re the kind of 40k player who loves to mess around with different army lists, making a magnetized Carnifex might be a good idea. After all, nobody likes playing proxy models and buying multiple Carnifexes gets expensive. Simply buy rare earth magnets in several sizes. I used 1/8″ dia. x 1/32″ thick for smaller bitz and 1/4″ dia. x 1/32″ thick for the arms (bought online from kjmagnetics.com). To attach magnets a hole was drilled with a pin vise and enlarged with a hobby knife. Then the magnet was glued in place and, where it was visible, it was smoothed over with greenstuff. Using this method the head, carapace, arms, back, and tail were magnetized.

The Carnifex's main body (more…)

The Devourers of Worlds: Getting the Most from a Tyranid Army (pt 3)

by Wintermute - April 21st, 2010

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

This Genestealer counts as a Space Marine in Apocalypse games.

This Genestealer counts as a Space Marine in Apocalypse games.

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.

Trygon (more…)

The Devourers of Worlds: Getting the Most from a Tyranid Army (pt 2)

by Wintermute - April 14th, 2010

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

Reinventing the Devilfex

The Devilfex's gun sat around for a while before being used for anything.

The Devilfex's gun sat around for a while before being used for anything.

My Devilfex plays very differently from my Sniperfex. It’s very mobile, constantly on the move to find and eliminate different targets with its powerful bioweapons. I decided once again to have a back-mounted cannon, this one made from four connected Devourers. This would accurately represent the two sets of twin-linked Devourers. With that idea in place the weapon was roughly converted from spare bits. The more of your model is made from bitz the better, for several reasons. It reduces the amount of sculpting you have to do, ensures the products will stay close to the established Tyranid look, and makes overall assembly and test-fitting much easier. Tyranids have enough organic shapes that with a bit of hacking you can find an appropriate piece for almost any situation. After construction, the weapon then sat in my bitz box for a good many months before I got around to buying a Carnifex to go with it. Sometimes it’s good to vent your inspiration while it’s there; plus, then you’ve got the thing sitting and serving as further incentive to get back to the project before you forget about it.

To embody the idea of mobility I decided to give the Carnifex long legs and a straight tail, with grasping clawed feet to give good running traction. I had seen other Tyranid conversions with tiny vestigial hands or talons used to serve as fillers for empty arm slots, so I decided to make my Carnifex with tiny two-fingered arms. See where this Carnifex revamp is heading?

T-Rex: old and new (more…)

Pic of the Week: Oh hi!

by Wintermute - April 11th, 2010

Oh hey woah I forgot about this thing for a bit but now I am back so everything is a-ok!! This week let’s have some funny pictures.

Proxied Slann. Not to be confused with a proxied Slaanesh (dildo).
Proxy Slann

Necrons are cool because they actually some with parts for twice as many soldiers as you’d initially expect.
Spruecrons

Oh my god that is too many drop pods. It is silly to have that many drop pods.
Drop Pods

The Devourers of Worlds: Getting the Most from a Tyranid Army (pt 1)

by Wintermute - April 7th, 2010

(This article contributed by EoW forums poster WHITE MAN’S MINIS.)

Tyranids are an enormously fun army to collect and play. I’ve been a fan of them since back when the newest Warriors were pewter, and Tyranids were always my primary draw to the Warhammer 40,000 universe. In my mind, then, there’s only one thing better than a Tyranid model – and that thing is a converted Tyranid model!

This article shows how Tyranid players can go about converting models, using their old models along with their new ones, and using Apocalypse to go all-out with what the Hive Mind has to offer. While at some points the article may seem as much a photo gallery as a text document, the goal is to show how much the Tyranid army has to offer in every aspect of the game. The same principle applies to any army, however; the hobby doesn’t have to stop at your 2,000 point army list. From expansions to Warhammer 40,000, terrain, specialist games… if you really love the army you’re playing, the possibilities are endless. As you read this article try to think of ways that the general ideas for customization could be applied to your own race.

Hopefully you’ll be inspired to whip out the knife and greenstuff or throw down some old classics you thought might look outdated on the battlefield. For the Great Devourer! (more…)

Pic of the Week: Beer, Guns, and Dinosaurs

by Wintermute - April 2nd, 2010

Courtesy of White Man’s Minis, we have conclusive proof that Catachans are the best Imperial Guard army ever:

Cheap Terrain: Slag Trees

by Wintermute - March 31st, 2010

Today’s cheap terrain is “slag trees”. Useful for alien desert worlds or Chaos-infected terrain, slag trees can provide decent cover for your little space men (or elf men, as the need arises).

Total cost: ~$5.00

Materials:

  • Plastic cup
  • Plastic lining (e.g. garbage bag)
  • Plaster (preferably something stronger than plaster of paris)
  • Water

Instructions:

This terrain piece is easiest to make for those of you already making plaster casts for other projects. Chances are, you’re going to have some extra plaster at the end. Rather than letting it go to waste, pour the remaining plaster into a small puddle on some plastic lining. Wait for this to harden, and repeat. This will produce the “layered” effect shown. As the plaster hardens in each layer, some of it will drip or ooze down over lower layers. After a couple dozen repetitions, you’ll have a fully-formed “slag tree” ready for painting!

Depending on how much extra plaster you have, you may want to work on two or even three slag trees at a time. If you’re not making plaster casts while doing this, you could make an entire forest in a weekend.

Pictures:

Pic of the Week: Mycetic Spore

by Wintermute - March 26th, 2010

Welcome to another new (semi) regular feature: the Pic of the Week! Today’s pictures are from EoW forums poster POSTIN’ DIRTY’s Tyranids. Using extra bits from a Carnifex kit and some ingenuity, he made an awesome mycetic spore pod, burst open and ready to dispense crazy bugs all over the battlefield:

Cheap Terrain: Ridiculously Easy Tau Barricades

by Wintermute - March 24th, 2010

(Courtesy of Fenn the Fool)

Today we’re starting a new feature (one that will probably last all of 2-3 iterations): Cheap Terrain. Theoretically, this will be a series of articles about cheap (and relatively easy) terrain that YOU TOO can make in your spare time. It’s fun and easy!!! With that out of the way, let’s get on with our first article: Ridiculously easy Tau barricades.

Total cost: $4.00-$7.00

Materials:

  • Puzzle ball bank (available from here)

Instructions:

Disassemble the puzzle ball, and reassemble bits of it as shown below. Each individual ball makes one large barricade and two small ones, with two pieces identical to the roof of the large barricade left over. Put a coat of paint on top and add decals to taste.

Pictures: