Spotlight On: Tyranid Flying Hive Tyrant & Toxicrene!

Say hello to my flying Hive Tyrant. 

He's a very friendly chap. 

And here's my ever-friendly Toxicrene!

I painted them using a blend of yellows starting with something dark and almost orange - a series of paints I picked up from B&Q in tester pots made to my specifications.

Claiming Back the Jungle - Part Three: Overwhelmed

Tyranids vs Jungle Fighters | Tim v Gill | 40k | 60 | 112.997.M41 

The Tyrands were everywhere, swarming through the undergrowth; rattling the boughs and leaves, screeching and grinding their teeth, pushing through the bushes and trees, voraciously devouring every living thing before them, sweeping out from the spawning chambers and brood nests, infecting Lapitar like a voracious plague.

But the tanks of the Valorax Guard were waiting for them.

Where squads of disciplined jungle fighters had failed, now lines of armoured might stood ready and at first sighting unleashed a rolling barrage into the thick of the advancing swarm. Infantry closed to maximum range and took up firing positions with their lasguns, sighting down their barrels at the oncoming hordes.

The Jungle Men of Lapitar engaged the terrifying aliens, using flamers and plasma weapons as they got closer, but Genestealers leapt onto them, hacking them down with scything arms as Ripper Swarms swept in behind them to pick the bones.

What had began as incisive guerrilla attacks on the expanding Tyranid menace had already become a withdrawing gunfight and threatened to become a complete rout. The jungle regions surrounding the Hive were being lost, acre by acre. So far, the loss for Lapitar as a whole was negligible but all attempts to slow it so far had failed. All indications said that the jungle realm and ultimately the entire planet were already effectively lost.

Hormagaunts leapt into the lines of guardsmen, hacking down the command squads providing stability to the defensive. The structure of the culling was faltering and was not far from a free fall.

The infantry withdrew in line with the tanks but the Tyranids kept coming, driving too close for the massive guns of the Lemen Russ and the Basilisks. The number of men left fighting was falling fast. Those with enough space to fire their weapons was close now to zero.

Ans then the monstrous creatures reached the tanks and all was lost. A bludgeoning Carnifex tore two Leman Russ Battle tanks apart with its crushing claws, even as they swung their turret guns round too late to blow it away.

In the ditches and dirt, dying men groaned as the vehicles cracked open, spewing flame into the darkening sky.

Soon only three Basilisks stood unharmed, levelling their guns on the approaching Carnifex but though their shells ripped the spines off its back, it tore into them, too close for them to retaliate, and coming on behind it were dozens more of the massive beasts: far far too many to possibly defeat.

Claiming Back the Jungle - Part Two: A Tactical Misstep

Tyranids vs Jungle Fighters | Tim v Gill | 40k | 59 | 110.997.M41

As the Jungle Men of Lapitar struck at Station Xeta, another battalion simultaneously circled Airbase Kappa in their Vendetta gunships, looking down at the overwhelming Tyranid infestation.

The base was heavily fortified, two bastions and multiple automated weapons within the confines of an Aegis Defence Line protecting twin launch pads. It was an important refuelling station and so its recapture would pay dividends, but more than that, it was the centre of a major hive network. Slaughtering the Tyranids here would take out a huge swath of their defensive frontier, opening the way for a major offensive.

Captain Grebadger gave the nod and immediately the firestorm began, the entore base bombarded with incendiary bombs designed to wipe out the alien life while preserving the valuable defensive infrastructure. Gaunts and Genestealers were incinerated, screaming guttural screams in the gelatinous clinging flame.

And then the Vendettas swept in, dropping off their troops and pinpointing the towering monsters with their racks of twin-linked lascannons. Veterans dropped onto the upper landing pad and eliminated even more Genestealers under fire from two hand flamers and a heavy flamer, lasguns driving the creatures back.

But it wasn't enough. The Broodlord the survivors back in and wiped them out before they could shoot further.

On the lower landing pad, more veterans landed, all but wiping out the Termagants stationed there but again, a charging Carnifex, clambering up onto the platform, ripped into them, slaughtering every man.

Sentinels strode out of the jungle, firing their Autocannons at the Hive Tyrant, but though wounded, they couldn't stop its assault. They were torn to the ground. 

Paratrooping Storm Troopers, their landing coordinates confused by static from the presence in the warp, fell to ground far from the battle. Before they could redeploy a gargantuan Trygon burst from the ground, gouging holes through their torsos and wrenching them back beneath the earth with it.

This wasn't going to plan. Captain Grebadger squinted through the cloud cover feeling panic dancing across his mind. This was the commit or withdraw moment, There was time to pull back and keep half of his men alive. Or he could go all the way and do everything they could to hold up their part of the attack.

He glanced at his sergeant. "Commit."

They grabbed their rappel lines and swung down onto the upper landing platform, eliminating the surviving Genestealers. They let fire at the Carnifex and Zoenthrope still controlling it as behind them two infantry platoons came down.

But disaster! One of the platoons suffered a grav shute mishap. The first man to leap from his Valkyrie got tangled in the release mechanism and swung into the engine. It exploded, swinging into the air until it struck the other two Valkyries in the deployment wing.

Below on the ground, the second platoon landed in the bushes and opened fire but Leaping Hormagaunts raced toward them and hacked them to death before they could have any effect on the battle.

Everything was going wrong!

Captain Grebadger looked out across the battlefield and realised how badly he had failed. His men and vehicles were being destroyed piecemeal and they had captured nothing! The great victory this had meant to be was turning into a war-turning disaster!

He turned back to his own conflict at hand and realised that once again he had let his concentration slip. His squad was already dead! Only he and his Ogryn bodyguard remained and the monstrous Tyranid creatures were surrounding them.

All was lost.

He had failed.

And finally... he was doomed. 

Scenery Showcase: Planetstrike Terrain!

After owning Planetstrike and its terrain for several years it was a bit lax of me to not actually play any games with it.

But that had to change someday; and my first Planetstrike game deserved some extra special effort on the scenery...

Claiming Back the Jungle - Part One: The Retaking of Station Xeta

Jungle Fighters vs Tyranids | Gill v Tim | 40k | 58 | 110.997.M41

Deep in the heart of Lapitar, the dense jungle region of Valorax, stood Station Xeta, the chillward entrance to a once thriving manufactorum complex in a time where defences for individual buildings were not a priority. Now it was just another point of contagion, a festering zone where the mass Tyranid brood nests pulsed, preparing their grisly children to take back the world they had almost conquered once before.

But this was Lapitar and the alien menace had not taken full calculation on the other inhabitants of that region. The Tyranids had not reckoned on the the determination of the Jungle Men of Lapitar to take back what was theirs!

The infantry squads moved in through the underbrush and took up firing positions, spying out the brood nests as priority targets and unleashed fire from their Heavy Bolters and Lasguns.

Immediately, the foliage erupted as huge stalking creatures burst forth, wielding lethal bioweapons, each of them hurling chewing fleshworms or globules of scalding acid at the encroaching humans.

With a roar, a Hive Tyrant strode out of the manufactorum and led its forces toward the guardsmen, slicing the air with two gigantic pairs of scything talons.

As Vendetta gunships swept down and tore apart one of the brood nests with their twin-linked Lascannons,. the eggs of the other burst open to release a massive brood of Hormagaunts, frighteningly close to the human line of fire.

Without concern, a third Vendetta dropped from the clouds, disgorging a squad of hardened veterans on rappel lines who unleashed the fire of hatred from not one but three flamers, wiping them out. Simultaneously, storm troopers fell on grav shutes into the upper layer of the manufactorum, hotting plasma and hotshot lasfire into the Carnifex lurking inside and bringing it down under a single salvo.

Then eggs attached to the underside of one of the ceilings cracked and a Ripper Swarm  slithered out, swarming up the walls and forcing the paratroopers to withdraw.

Station Xeta was still in the hands of the Tyranids but sniper rifles and heavy bolthers, plasma cannons and, most importantly, the twin-linked lascannons of the Vendettas, were systematically wiping out all opposition. But then the ground started to shake and split asunder and right in the centre of the Guard's defencive positions, a gargantuan Trygon tore up and ripped one of the infantry squads to shreds.

The autocannons of the scout sentinels and the Swirling Vendettas almost brought it down immediately, but it tore into the Guard lines, obscuring itself from return fire. Only when it had destroyed the sentinels and a dozen more men were the Vendettas able to bring it down.

Genestealers swarmed from the jungle, too far away to achieve much good as the Guard Target Assassin moved into position, sniping a Zoenthrope and charging in to dispatch the remnants of a brood of Tyranid Warriors. Meanwhile, as the Hive Tyrant ripped into the command squad sent to intercept it, the Storm Troopers counter attacked, refusing to break so close to their regimental standard, and in time the brute was brought down and disintegrated.

As this was going on, one of the Venettas came in high overhead and dropped a squad of infantrymen into Station Xeta on rappel lines.

The Tyranid forces were coming apart, their synapse chain breaking open at key points. Without the bigger creatures to support them, the ground troops were scattering.

With more and more guardsmen funnelling into the area, their infestation was disinfected.

With extreme prejudice.

Army Showcase: Tyranids!!!!

They're voracious predators.

They're intergalactic killers.

And they're mine.

Shall we start with my Hive Tyrant?

And Carnifex:

 Hormagaunts:

These lovely Forge World Meiotic Spore Sacks I painted the other day: 

The always delightful Ripper Swarms (including some of the Forge World ones). Notice I put more than usual on the normal bases to tie them into the Forge World swarms. 

Termagants: 

I nice blast from the past in the form of a dismembered original Zoenthrope. I used cut up Termagant spare parts to connect his limb sockets so they looked logical and now I love this guy!!! 

Here's his identical twin brother. 

And what army would be complete without a Trygon Prime??? 

The Broodlord having a nice morning stretch...

The Yellow (ahem) terror. This guy, the original Red Terror, has been marginalised in the latest army list but I use him as A Tyranid Prime which fits quite well. 

Genestealers.

And their slightly older cousins. 

This beauty is a Carnifex in my book but is actually a conversion from a non-GW model I can't remember the source of now. 

Speaking of conversions. How do you like my version of the humble Spore Mine? 

Heh heh. This Biovore dude is kind of funny. 

A Lictor (that I've never liked the pose of). 

And some of my favourite 40k models: Tyranid Warriors. 

And how about these Brood Nests, that I actually prefer to the official Forge World ones. 

These weren't made from cat vomit.

And the lovely Forge World Capillary Towers.

You'll have to wait for the Spore Chimney (I haven't finished painting it yet).

You can't buy them anymore but they are some of the nicest pieces EVER made! 

And that's all folks!!!