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.

This Tyranid flyer counts as an Ork Fighta-Bomma

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.

A genestealer masquerading as a combat servitor.

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.

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:

My main goal is to help those who don’t think that they’re capable of making terrain by showing them how easy it can be by using just a handful of materials and tools that should be accessible to everyone. I’ll be entertaining more exotic tools and crazy techniques with which to hurt yourself at a later date but my first bunch of articles will most likely concentrate on getting decent results with basic techniques and materials so everyone has a chance to have a play.

If you’ve been there, seen it, done it etc. then please hang around anyway, I’d love your thoughts and feedback.

Why?!

Why make your own terrain? A few reasons spring to mind:

1. It’s satisfying! – when was the last time you actually made something from scratch?
2. It’s very green – welcome to the dark side of recycling.
3. It’s cheap! – the main driving factor for most people.

Getting Started

Tools

• sharp modelling knife
• ruler
• wood glue
• pencil

Materials

• cereal packet card!

Today we’re going to make something out of… wait for it… cereal packet card! Hopefully you’re a god fearing cereal eater like the rest of us and can lay your hands on some kind of thin card, it doesn’t necessarily have to be cereal packet card but just any kind of thin card disguised as packaging will do. As long as it’s not embossed then it’s all good, you have no idea how out of place the Kellogs logo looks in the 41st millennium.

You’ll see that you don’t really need a lot; something sharp, something straight, something sticky and something pencily. Oh and something materialy.

For this article, I’m going to keep it simple and make a simple fantasy house / hut / call it whatever you will. It will have 4 walls, a roof, a door and maybe a window if the occupants are lucky and I’m going to make it using nothing but cereal packet card and wood glue.

Working with card, and indeed any other sheet material, is simply a case of ‘flattening’ your design out, take a look at this and try and work out what the hell it is:

Four walls? check… Roof? check… That’s the basic plans for my fantasy house. Let’s make that template a little more workable and less basic:

I’ve added tabs to the areas that will need them and I’ve also chopped the 4 walls into two seperate sections with 2 walls apiece. This is just to make it easier in transferring the design on to the card (as not many cereal packets will stretch to fitting all four walls on in one big long strip)

So if you’re still following me then you should have something that looks similar to the above, it doesn’t have to be a perfect replica, just a basic shape will do with some basic features.

The next step

Now, if you drew your plan straight onto your cereal packet card then bravo, you can skip the next step you clever little bean.. but if you didn’t, just tape the plan on to your cereal packet card, take a pin and poke a hole through the plan AND the card at the end of every straight line (what? no straight lines? use a ruler you tool) – once you’ve done that, simply connect the dots and et voila! As if by magic, your building plan has been transferred to the cereal packet card! It should look something like this:

Now cut that shit out. Use a ruler (preferably metal, plastic rulers have a tendency to enjoy being cut by sharp blades) and a sharp knife and cut your walls and roof out, be sure to cut out any windows and doors as well. We’ll sort them out when it comes to detailing.

You should have something looking like this on your desk:

The more astute of you will notice the ‘A4′ on my cutting board and will then be questioning the scale of this building, yes, I made it a bit smaller than I normally would, mostly for speed but everything is still applicable, even at a larger size.

Before you go any further, it’s worth taking the time to score the card where it will be bent. It’s always best to score on the outside of the bend, i.e. on the side that will be facing outwards. Take your ruler and a knife and gently run the blade across the card, basically make a very slight cut into the card but not through it.

Getting sticky

Next up, the easy bit. Wood glue is perfect. I’ve found it best if you put wood glue on both sides to be joined, wipe most of it away with a scrap of card so that you’re left with a thin coat of glue and then slap them together. They should grip together pretty firmly right from the word go but it’s still best to leave it to cure overnight. Once you’ve gotten everything glued together then it should look something like this:

If it doesn’t, you went wrong somewhere. Go back to the start and try again.

If it does, congratulations! You’ve taken your first step into terrain making. It’s all down hill from here. If you’re worried that it looks a bit like a few sheets of cardboard glued together at the moment then that’s ok… because that’s what it is. I’ll cover detailing with cereal packet card in the next article… here’s a sneak peek. Oooh thrilling stuff.

I got this thick plasticard from another warham; I think it’s 1/8 or 1/16th of an inch thick. It’s very sturdy, but also hard to cut.

Foamcore is the standard for lots of people. It’s relatively easy to cut, but it can be flimsy and it tends to warp.

The 1/2″ pink insulation foam is great because you can carve lots of stuff into it, and cut it into lots of shapes. The downside is it has almost no structural strength, and it dulls knives FAST.

Finally, I use .030″ plasticard for surface details. I’m fortunate enough to live nearby a plant that manufactures it, so I get huge sheets for next to nothing.

The big metal ruler has a felt backing, which is important to keep it from slipping when making cuts. The transparent T-square helps keep lines straight, and the sharpie marker will write on just about any surface.

Clothespins make great impromptu clamps while waiting for glue to dry. The elmer’s white glue is great for most surfaces, but if I’m bonding plastic to plastic I use Methyl Ethyl Ketone. The rubber cement comes in handy a lot, too.

Finally, I’ve been using a utility knife a lot recently. The blades are cheap and pretty durable, which helps make it better than the standard X acto knife.

Next, I’m going to go over the steps I take to cut out a building. This is probably very basic for anyone else who does terrain, but I’m including it for complete newbies. Accuracy is important, and I also like to minimize the various steps I take. Trying to cut out each piece seperately takes forever, and you tend to end up with different sized pieces. This makes assembly difficult. I guess if you’re building Ork stuff that’s fine, but I’m fond of my imperial buildings.

Once you’ve figured out the measurements of your building, you’re going to add them together like the picture shows. This way, when we cut, we’ll end up with all our pieces the same size. Don’t cut yet, though, just mark the dimensions on the foamcore.

The next step is to mark out our windows and doors. Since all the big pieces are still lined up, this will make sure that everything lines up. In a one story building, it’s not a huge deal, but if you’re doing several stories it will look better if everything lines up.

After you’ve marked all the doors and windows, all the lines can get confusing. I like to use different colors of pen to mark things so I don’t cut the wrong thing, and I mark the pieces to be removed with an X.

To minimize the time spent cutting, cut all the way across one line first, making sure to skip the spaces in between. Be careful at this point, but it’s not the end of the world if you end up with a window that’s double width every now and then.

Once you’ve got all the doors and windows removed, you can cut out the big pieces. Again, it’s much easier to do a few big long cuts. I do the longest big cuts first, then the shorter cuts last.

Here is a building I’ve been working on this week. The base is made from foamcore, the bricks and door are from a cut up cereal box. I used spackle on the edges to hide the bare foam.

Next, the base. The base is built from a lot of different parts. I started with a base of MDF board, 12 x 6 inches. I had a big piece of foam about the same size, from some kinda packaging, so I glued that on top. Then I realized I needed a way for models to get up and down, so I built the ramp and glued that onto the side. I had originally planned on stairs, but didn’t have enough room.

One of the big problems with using foam is even after you paint it, it just looks like foam you slapped paint on. The solution is to cover the surface with something. Anything. You can use sand, spackle, paper mache, anything. For this, I used all three. I put spackle over the surface to make it flat. To fill in gaps and cover the joins between the ramp and the foam, I used paper mache.

The ladder on the backside is just bent florists wire, stuck into the foam.

The brickwork is easy to do, and looks great once it’s painted. First, I covered the foam with spackle and let that dry.

Then, I took a Dremel tool, and carved in the shapes of the bricks. Finally, I sanded it down to remove the texture and any rough edges.

I did this on the top and the sides of the big base.

Finally, to make the pink foam look more distressed, I airbrushed Acetone onto it. The Harbor Freight airbrush lets me spray a little or a lot, and since the acetone dissolves the foam, I could slowly distress it further if I wanted.

The next part of the building I made out of foamcore. I used cereal box cardboard for the edges. To do the textured plaster, I stippled the surface with an old paintbrush before it dried.

The framing around the upper window is more pink insulation foam. You can also see how I used spackle to fill in the inside of the windows, so you couldn’t see the seam and the exposed foam.

Finally, the building needs a roof. I used the thick black plasticard to make the basic structure, then cereal box cardboard to do both the wooden planks on the ends, and the shingles. The shingles look a lot more complicated than they are.

Test fit everything to make sure it looks good.

Next, I wanted to even up some areas, cover some seams, and make sure the distressed areas looked good and busted up. So I glued sand onto certain places, and let it dry.

After that, it was just a simple matter of painting. I used an airbrush to apply the base coats, and did so in several layers, lightening and darkening the color with each layer so it wasn’t a smooth perfect shade. Some thin black paint made a perfect wash, then a little drybrushing to highlight. The final step was gluing on the flocking, then some dullcote for protection.