The Great Devourers

Another one of my favorite armies in 40k would have to be the Tyranids. The fact that it takes all of the best resources the Imperium has to kill one tendril of its unimaginably massive hive fleet (ie the Battle for Macragge) is one reason for this. The other is how they continue living. As long as they are not the only living thing in the universe then they will always be killing, murdering, and being modeled into comical armies for table-top war games. They also remind me a lot of the Kroot's survival mechanism times 100. Kroot eat to change subtly... Tyranids eat to become new species.

I've always wanted a Tyranid army since I was 12 and was first learning about 40k. These desires only were magnified a year later (or so) when I played against my first Tyranid army. I got tabled and lost horribly.... on turn 2.... but then I played again and to keep one unit alive until the end! And I continued to play against this opponent until I was almost drawing a couple games. Sadly we got deployed not long afterwards and has only recently come back. But since I've seen a Tyranid army here, then here for a little bit. It was only recently that I actually started my own Tyranid army with the present of a Tyranid Battle Force set for Christmas this year. I got so excited that I just got right to building and such and bought the codex next time I was at my local game store. In the couple months since I've worked it up to a 1750pt army (which is pretty good when you don't have any time of income).


Let me start by explaining the fluff of my army. After a little research into the Tyranids I found out that before a Tyranid invasion they send out spores that supercharge the plant growth. And if Earth is anything to model other planets by, then about 90% of most planets will be plants anyway. So it doesn't take much to convince somoene that Tyranids eat about 85% plants and 15% other stuff. So why are all these Tyranid armies modeled as though they are only carnivores and only eat other animals? Which is why I have created Hive Fleet Flora!!!


My Tyranids have a green exoskeleton, a brown carapace, and a megenta coloured miscellaneous pieces such as the tongue and ammunition. They are fun to paint, mostly combinations of washes and dybrushing. None of them are based because mostly I don't know how I want them. I have very few of these buggers fully painted, most of them are all very close to being finish though (I ran out of the colour I highlight the carapace with and haven't felt like getting a new pot yet). So I don't have many pictures of them but I'll post them later.


My army is very much in the extremes, all my guys are either extremely shooting (ie my Tyrant) or extremely close-combat oriented (ie my bull-dozing, 250pt point monster fex). I noticed the only way to make these guys better in combat is give them scything talons (or crushing claws in the case of Carnifexes). Unlike most armies, giving them guns doesn't hurt their combat ability. So now you can shoot a million shots and still be just as devastating in combat, so most of my guys have big guns (or small guns in the case of gaunts and rippers... yes I even give my rippers guns). And how would you like being shot at with vicious beetles, and then being pounced by a dump truck sized killing machine? You wouldn't. And neither will be opponent.

With that I'll bring this to a close (mostly because I just got up and can't think clearly) so I don't waste any more of your (or my) time.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.