Ben's TYRANID/GENESTEALER Army

Most of the Tyranids I see painted up are in really garish, outlandish colors. I greatly prefer a more sombre paint scheme. I start out with a black base-coat, then I go straight to drybrushing in their primary color-- purples, greens, or browns. I use a very light color for this drybrushing, then cover the whole thing with the darker shade of ink-- purple ink over a "mindflayer mauve" drybrush, green ink over a "bullywug's belly" green, chestnut ink over "leather." Inks look really good over the basecoat, just a hint of color and slightly wet-looking. Once the ink is dry, I drybrush again with the original color. Voila! Highlights and shadows. Then I go in and paint eyes, claws, and weapons. Not great, but tableworthy. Tyranids are too numerous to spend a lot of time on individual paint jobs.

At the last convention I attended, my friends and I were in a hurry for another Zoanthrope for our BFG. I ran over to the dealer and bought this guy, and had it painted up in 5 minutes. (Yup, you can still see flash on the claws.) If it hadn't turned out so-- uhh, acceptable-- I'd probably take the time to clean it up a bit. The eyes and teeth need to be brought out. This one was basecoated black, then drybrushed with leather, slathered with chestnut ink (twice, for that shiny look), then drybrushed again. I used a bit of purple on that brainy-looking stuff around the crown of the head.

I show it here not because I'm particularly proud of it, but because I'm proud of my Tyranid painting technique. I absolutely hate looking at a huge pile of Genestealers or Hormaguants and thinking about painting them individually. Even more than Orks, Tyranids can get by with really fast paint jobs. They don't have pouches, guns, purity seals, or any of those other details to worry about.

Here's a sample of my green Tyranid paint scheme. So far only my Gargoyles have used this scheme, but I like it a lot. If I ever get a Lictor I'll go with the green. I haven't bought a Lictor yet because the model is so damn silly looking. I'm holding out for my good friend Joe Baptist to send me a Zoat to sub in for my Lictor model. Fortunately, Lictors still suck as an elites choice. No hurry.

Now here on the wings you can see the effects of that most powerful of all painting supplies, chestnut ink! You can't go wrong with this stuff. The wings were painted very fast all over with leather. The leather coat was heavier than a regular drybrushing, but fast and sloppy enough that some of the black basecoat showed through. Once you attack it with the chestnut ink-- several liberal coats of it-- you get a really nice leathery look. Cool, eh?

Imposing, isn't he? Same basic black-purple color scheme as all of my pureblood Tyranids. I got this model back when GW was still selling the two-bonesword variant in packs. Back in the V2 days, this was a really nasty combo. I bought them with Voltage Fields for their biomorph, giving them that invulnerable save (to make it across no man's land) and bumping up their strength for when they finally got into hand-to-hand. Two parries, and a chance to short out character field-saves. Just balls nasty. I don't recall, I think a squad of four equipped like this was right at 300 points.

.I'm thinking in V3, however, that I need some big squads with Devourers. I'll hold on to my money until the Codex comes out. For starters I'd like to see boneswords count as power weapons again. Otherwise these guys end up shelved.