From the Challenge: 28mm Space Explorers in EVA Suits from ???

 <<ORIGINALLY POSTED TO THE ANALOGUE HOBBIES PAINTING CHALLENGE BLOG>>

I'm trying in this Challenge to work my way through some already-primed figures that have been hanging around awhile. These models have probably been in a Plano case for five (?) years. I think I bought them to use with the old Kenner Alien boardgame if I ever chanced to pick up a copy. 

But for the life of me, I can't remember where these models came from. They're clearly old sculpts, probably from the '80s, but were new castings available commercially. The anatomy and detail are somewhat ropey but they have a certain period charm.

The massive helmets are super-cool right?

I just did some hand-numbering on the front plates to distinguish one from the other.

Here's one with a handgun of some kind... I likely should have replaced this with something from the bits box as it's not that well done.

Number 4 also carries a gun, also not looking that good.

I figured I'd fill the blank space on the shoulders with a decal from the trusty GW sheet.

Now for some perspective... this was my vision for these four.

Or maybe something like this! In any case, it's never gonna end well for these guys.

And if anybody knows where these dudes came from please hit me up in the comments! Thanks all and stay healthy!

EDIT: "Captain Gamma" on TMP reminds me that these models were originally sculpted by Tony Yates for Plastiform, and are currently sold by East Riding Miniatures. I should've remembered this myself as I bought my "Slick" Necromunda not-Delaque gang from ERM. Cheers Captain and I owe you a beer! 

 

40K 6th edition: part 2 and battle reports!

Last Thursday we celebrated the release of 40K v.6 by having two small-point games at my house. This is a style of play that Conscript Dave V. has been enamored with of late; 1000 points played on a 4'x4' table. So I set up out a sub-urban layout with the infamous LED Skyshield pad, an Imperial bastion, some craters, a crashed ship, and some other random stuff to provide cover. Dave came with his Eldar and Greg B. had his Elysian Drop Troops list with Valkyries and a Vulture... I thought discretion the better part of valour and encouraged Greg to take on Dave in the first game.
 

The less said about that, the better, I think... Dave's deployment zone was soon swarming with a "castle" of Eldar skimmers while Greg's aircraft, being "Flyers", were obligated to come on as Reserves, even though they are his troop carriers and have the "Skimmer" special rule also... in 6th edition if you're a Flyer, it's Reserves for you, no choice in the matter.

This kind of put Greg on the back foot as he had to deploy something in Turn one, so it was a couple small units of Guard (including a Command squad) that were sacrificial lambs to the Eldar skimmers. Fortunately for Greg his Flyers arrived promptly from Reserve but luck did not go his way as they were quickly suppressed or Immobilized (which, strangely enough, when it happens to a Flyer that is Zooming, means that the Flyer must continue Zooming for the rest of the game). Greg couldn't deploy his troops from their transports in time to shift the Eldar from the objectives... result: Eldar win.

We then set up Game Two which pit Conscript Hugh and "Hive Fleet Nostromo" (Hive Tyrant, Carnifex, 2x Zoanthropes, 5x Warriors, 2x 10 Genestealers) against me and Conscript Indo, and my Plague Marines (Daemon Prince, 2x 7 Plague Marines in Rhino, 7x Plaguebearers, Blight Drone, Vindicator).

Five objectives were laid out and can be seen above - on top of the landing pad, between the two wrecked ship bits to its right, in the crater above it, in the yellow woods at middle left, and in the yellow woods at centre top right. Control of each was worth three VPs with one VP awarded for "first blood" and killing the other player's Warlord. We rolled for Warlord Traits before the game and I got lucky scoring a "6" on "Strategic Traits" - my Daemon Prince counts as a scoring unit. This would come in handy later...

Picking up the action in Turn Three we have a squad of Marines on the centre objective, about to be attacked by the Tyrant and Gunfex... Daemon Prince intercepted this by charging the Tyrant.

The Prince about to charge the Tyrant, who's had a wound put on by Marine shooting.

In the ensuing close combat the Prince killed the Tyrant (1 VP) and then dashed off behind the Aegis defence lines, giving the Gunfex a choice - charge the Marine squad or take on the Prince and move farther from the objective. Gunfex chose option "b"...

 

Fex charges the marines and wins combat, but thank goodness for Toughness 5 - the Marines can make Feel No Pain rolls and a couple succeed. More importantly, the change to the Fearless special rule (discussed below) means that the Marines no longer take "overkill" wounds for losing combat. Summoned Daemons are to lower left of the crater moving on the objective just out of shot.

Vindicator was almost forgotten about, lobbing shells from underneath the landing pad! Deviation was our friend this night as one of the large templates deviated right on top of the Warrior brood, killing 3 of them and ending the unit as a credible threat.

On the Marine left, a brood of Stealers emerged from Reserve but too close to the Blight Drone, which effectively wiped them out with a template shot from its pus cannon (ewww). However, on the other flank, the second Stealer brood emerged a quickly positioned for a charge on the Marines holding the objective there.

OM NOM NOM NOM

No contest - the Marines got eaten. But it was too little, too late, as in the centre the Daemon Prince killed the Carnifex. leaving the Marine squad to hold the crater objective, and flew over to a second objective... while the Plaguebearers held a third.

The final score in the game was Marines: 10 VPs (three objectives plus Warlord kill); Tyranids: 4 VPs (one objective plus first blood). I enjoyed the game but credit good luck for no small measure of the win. The favorable template deviation onto the warrior squad made a real difference in the outcome, I think.

The one rule change that I liked a lot is the change in how "Fearless" works. Veterans will recall that in 5th, if a Fearless unit lost combat it didn't check Morale, but took a number of excess wounds equal to the loss margin of combat. "Hey Phil, we lost combat. Do we run?" "No, we're Fearless, we're awesome!" "Oh wait a minute, we lost by three so three more of us die" "WTF????"

In 6th, there's no more of that. Fearless units never check Morale, take Fear checks or get Pinned. However, they cannot Go to Ground (for an improved cover save) or take advantage of the new rule that allows units trapped in combat with an opponent they cannot hurt (like a Dreadnought or Wraithlord) to voluntarily leave close combat. All in all I think it's a decent tradeoff.

40K Tyranid Tervigon review

Last weekend at the Comic and Toy Show I impulse-bought the new Tyranid Tyrannofex/Tervigon kit as a reinforcement for Hive Fleet Nostromo. The new kit looked really cool and although I'd been jonesing for a Tervigon conversion kit from Chapterhouse for some time, that would've involved buying a Carnifex and then adding $25 plus shipping for the Chapterhouse kit. Although the plastic Tervigon was not cheap, it's a one-stop solution with typical GW plastic kit quality and copious left over bits for the bits god.
    

The Tervigon's assembly instructions were straightforward and the kit went up in a couple hours, if that. One thing I did do, following a top tip from this month's White Dwarf, was to leave off the legs from initial assembly and priming - easier to reach the greasy bits underneath when painting later.

The only conversion to speak of was to grind the spikes off her head and greenstuff in the smoother Giger-Alien head dome to match the rest of the models in the Hive Fleet.

I painted the model last night in the typical Nostromo scheme of Shadow Grey/Space Wolves Grey, Boltgun Metal/Mithril Silver, and Dark Angels Green/Snot Green, with Badab Black washes and 'Ardcoat gloss. I think it turned out fine and will be a good addition to the Hive Fleet - there are 18 more Termagants waiting on the painting table and these will certainly be needed the next time Nostromo rolls out large.

Magnetized Carnifex

Awhile back I'd picked up some Tyranid models in a trade - reinforcements for Hive Fleet Nostromo, my "Alien"-themed Warhammer 40K army.  The gamer I purchased the models from was an acolyte of the new mania for rare earth magmets - in particular, for magnetizing every possible part of a model that might conceivably be swapped for a different WYSIWYG "load-out".

This is actually not a bad idea on a Carnifex since it can be built as a shooty-fex or a close-combat-fex, depending on arm options. Above you can see the model with its greebly magnetized bits all removed (except for the tail spike which I forgot to remove - yes, it's magnetized as well).

 

Here it is in "shooty" configuration. As no ranged weapons came with the model I got, I rigged up a gun and left arm I had spare from another model with some magnets. Looks OK and works well.

I'm still kind of ambivalent about the whole magnet-mania that's so au courant right now in 40K modelling. One the one hand it appeals to my inner cheapskate/pedant, since all options can be modelled on a figure and swapped at will, enabling perfect WYSIWYG without having to buy multiple models. On the other hand, drilling and fitting the magnets can be a pain, and makes the models much more difficult to paint - all of the magnetized components have to be painted separately. And at the end of the day, it's easy to go overboard. For example, the Carnifex model comes with three different shoulder carapace options, corresponding to upgrades from Codex: Tyranids, and the previous owner magnetized all three option pieces. Although I generally subscribe to the idea that options should be modelled on the figure, I really would not be that fussed with using one carapace piece to represent any option, and just paying the option points and noting it in the army list. I don't need to see poison sacs modelled on the figure with magnets! And to me, all this faffing about with clipping magnets on and off and posing the arms makes the models seem more like action figures than accurate miniature representations of combat troops (or in this case, terrifying monsters). Although in this case I appreciate the previous owner's efforts, I don't think I'll often seriously consider magnetising options on my 40K models.  

"Nid Flu" Strikes Hive Fleet Nostromo

Two weeks ago Conscript Indo brought over his stunningly painted Nurgle army for a game of 40K.  I threw down with Hive Fleet Nostromo, the threat level was 1500 points.  A bit small for my liking as I prefer to bring out lots of gribblies and the Nids are quite spendy.  Still fun though, I had painted some new models and (surprise) they were about the only ones that did anything...

Here's some of Indo's Chaos Space Marines.  The paint work and custom bases are just gorgeous. 

 Chaos Dread and the Obliterators... those guys are nasty.

 Initial dispositions.  The game was a straight-up kill point match.

 Nostromo's MVPs... Hive Guard.  As you can see they are the old 1st generation Tyranid Warriors with Chapterhouse heads.  they did great, killing Indo's Daemon Prince in a single round of shooting.  Unfortuinately I think that represented Nostromo's only kill point scored...

 Beautiful Forge World Dreadnought.

One of Indo's typical rolls on the night :-)   Long story short, the Hive Fleet got owned big time.  Good to have them out again but 1500 points isn't their strong suit.  Stuff is just too expensive, it seems.  Anyway all good fun and great to see Indo's army on the table!

Troll Forged Alien Larva Brain

Troll Forged Alien with Emperor's Champion and Tyranid Zoanthrope

In my last post I wrote about getting some Daemon parts from Troll Forged Miniatures to use in a Daemon Prince conversion.  Actually, I'd stumbled across the Daemon parts while browsing for Alien-style models to use in my 40K Tyranid army, Hive Fleet Nostromo.

Turns out that Troll Forged makes a very sweet Alien-style monster (the "Larva Brain") that would make a nice Zoanthrope, or in my army, will stand in for the Ur-Zoanthrope, the "Doom of Malantai". 

The Troll Forged model is a very clean one-piece casting in white resin, with a small integral base, and includes a large GW-style round base.  It cleaned up easily with mild soap and water, and took primer very well.  The only small caveat I have with the model is that the resin is somewhat "bendy", and didn't really straighten out even when run under hot water.  But this was not much of a problem in the end as it's not noticeable once the model is positioned on the large round base.  The Alien represents decent value for money as well, retailing for $12 in the Troll Forged online store.

Elysian Fields (of Fire)

Last Thursday Greg brought out his Valk-heavy 1500 point Elysian Drop Troop army out for a game against Hive Fleet Nostromo, my Alien-style Tyranids. It was simultaneously the first outing for Greg's gorgeous army and for my new-to-me "Stalingrad" resin terrain, this time standing in for the embattled Imperial planet Toxo IV.

Greg's Valkyries and especially his Vulture (Vendetta?) certainly brought the pain with twin-linked Punisher cannons (20 shots re-rolling misses?!?!) but we had similar luck with bringing on reinforcements... "what did we say? All at once. What did we do? One at a time." 

The game ended on Turn 5 as a draw as we both held our own objectives, uncontested. A couple more turns of play would have been interesting - I had an undamaged Trygon set to eat some Guardsmen while Greg still had some mobile troops in Valks flying around. But it was great to see his lads out and to use the new terrain. Regarding the latter, I'm all about cost amortization, so look for many battles to occur in the sump factories of Toxo IV, the ruins of Grozny, and the industrial area of New Putingrad, as well as in Stalingrad ;-)

Oh My, That's a Big 'Un

...said the actress to the bishop... ;-)  Anyway, now that I've finished the base, I wanted to post a couple pics of the new addition to Hive Fleet Nostromo - the Hive Queen Bio-Titan.  I had always thought it would be fun to have a giant titan-like model for my Tyranid army, and I really like the Forgeworld Hierophant, but I just can't justify 220GBP for it...


Family portrait: (L-R) Trygon, Carnifex, Genestealer and "Mum"

Enter salvation in the form of an action figure (!).  I was at a local comic shop awhile back and noticed this amazing huge Alien action figure... inquiring, I found out that it was a McFarlane "Movie Maniacs" figure that's out of production.  Of course this is no longer a problem as we have eBay... $35 and a few weeks later a box arrives with the model.  Unfortunately it was the worst packing job I'd ever seen - a few bits of flat styrofoam and a couple pieces of newspaper, packed into a box that was two sizes too small and bulging out at the top.  Result: two busted off arms and after a fashion, a partial refund from the seller.  I pinned the arms, trimmed and textured the base and added some 'nid bits and Rippers, then painted it to match the rest of the army.  The Queen herself required no painting at all, she was conveniently pre-painted the same colour as the rest of my models!

So she will be an adequate stand-in for the Hierophant.  I've even converted, but not yet painted, two bio-cannons to plug into the chest, where the small arms are, to represent the ranged armament of the Hierophant.  Very convenient.  I'm looking forward to wheeling out this 800+ point monster in an Apocalypse game (or as we call them on Fawcett, "a pretty big game of 40K")

Alien Bio-Titan towers over Shadowsword super-heavy tank - Yikes!!