Thursday, 12 April 2018

I see Fields of Green


Unfortunately, someone's eaten all the red roses.




Nobody looks forward to doing big blocks of troops. Everyone looks forwards to the results, of course, that happy feeling of having put another hobby chore behind you. That's the blissful state of mind I can finally relax into after a solid week of grind on this tarpit. The Termagants are done!

I couldn't quite face doing all the little stripes and spots for this lot, so they got a slightly reduced version. Two spot ladybirds, basically. Fly away home, your house is on fire and your children's biomass has been absorbed for future recombination, type thing. 

Thirty two is a slightly annoying number. It's two more than a maximum size unit, in fact. I knew I wanted to be able to field thirty, but buying them as one standard box set of twelve (the ones with devourers, the bigger guns that look like half a well-chewed pine cone) and then four of the smaller boxes of five was a bit cheaper. And let it be said, I am nothing if not cheap.


The boxes of five are less posable and don't come with all the extra weapon options, but who's going to notice that in a big swarm? Not me. Although I did use some spare armour plates to customise a couple of them just in case.

Landshark version
Big shoulder pads version

They look pretty good in their full squad, charging down the field like a splendid herd of wildebeest. Although at the same time, if I'm honest, there's also a slight feeling of disappointment. Is that really all thirty? All that time painting, and they don't seem that intimidating a hoard. Not that I'm going to do any more, there's still plenty of Tyranid left in the painting pile.

"When we left the hive ship, did you remember to turn the oven off?"

Speaking of which, it's the new spring season for the Tyrant.

All the Boneswords! Which makes this guy the Swarmlord, technically.
Heavy Venom Cannon and Scything Talons

Painting scheme is absolutely exactly the same as the last zillion of the little buggers I painted, so let's skip that today. Nice to have all the weapon options finished, really, just in time for what internet rumours promise to be a points increase and selection nerfing for the Tyrant. Some nobnuts fielded an army almost entirely consisting of Flyrants at a recent tournament, which has all the non-Tyranid players moaning about OP, accuracy to fluff, neck beard neck beard whiney whine whine, etc.

Monstrous Crushing Claws and Stranglethorn Cannon.
Personally, I think (although I would) that the flying tyrant tail looks fine like this, like he's pouncing on something. Or singing 'the wonderful thing about Tiggers.'
Claws and Wings

For the record, I'd say 'get over it' - no amount of points tweaking is ever going to make 40K a fully balanced, totally fair game. As fast as you fix one rules abuse, another will arrive. Taking nothing but commanders in your army list is totally fair, especially for the awful-sounding big competition scene, where everyone pulls such shenanigans in one form or another. It's annoying that humble, single-Tyrant types like me will get slapped with whatever GW comes up with to 'fix' it afterwards, though.

Flyrant with Bonesword and Whip

Ah well! At least it will likely stop me considering buying a second one! So I can splurge my money on some other nonsense (a Harpy, quadruple Carnifexes, two hundred more 'gants!!) instead.

See? Thirty is almost nothing. I need enough to tile my kitchen wall to wall. And someone else to paint them for me. 

5 comments:

  1. Good work. Did you already have a Flyrant, or was that just in my waking nightmares? And having played against them, I would say that thirty termagants is more than enough.

    If you feel bad about GW's constant tweaking, spare a thought for the poor scribes who had to write a seven-page FAQ for the remarkably-straightforward Shadespire, answering questions like: "Can I use a second unique card if it's in a different language?" and "What does 'away' mean?"

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  2. The tyrant is flying or not, depending on what you pin into it. Can't say I'm likely to field more than one, ever, not the scale we play, so if the rumoured price increase is their fix, I feel annoyed!

    You'd think wargamers could use their common sense to oh no, wait, they're wargamers.

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    Replies
    1. I think we can assume it's not lack of common sense that results in these FAQs, but someone who found a way to win at Shadespire by creatively interpreting what 'away' means.

      So lack of any sense then.

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    2. "I'm moving my model *thataway* right towards you, so it still has the *away* keyword."

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    3. I someday aspire to ask a rules question so stupid, irritating and technically unanswerable that the official GW team will be forced to resolve it.

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