Thus Ever Two Tyrants

There's quite a lot of redundancy in Tyranid kits, more so than most I'd say. Only one thing to do with spare biomass, right?

First up, Zooanthropes. Venomthropes seemed more of a priority when I first started collecting the army, because that bubble of -1 to hit looked important. After a year of playing, I'd call it more of an optional extra. Nice when you have the points spare, but not essential.

Zooanthropes, however, are pretty impressive. Hefty smiting, work well with the cheap and excellent Neurothrope and surprisingly durable to shooting (but expect embarrassment in melee). The two creatures come in one dual kit, but there's plenty of leftovers as they don't share heads or upper torsos.

Now, I'm pretty terrible with green stuff, as I'm sure you can see, but making snakey tails for these two was at least doable. The paint job hides some of the worst of it, but they're pretty clumsy attempts for all that. I also discovered I was out of 40mm bases, and far too cheapskate to buy new ones. These are just circles of plastic cut from old containers and covered in scenic fluff. They do the job!

The original plan was to build a unit of three. Alas, I was short of one giant brain head, having used it already for my original Neurothrope. Rooting about in the bits bag got me all sorts of other spare parts, though, mostly from the Hive Tyrant and Warriors. And there was a stick of green stuff left, plus an unexpected larger base, so I got to work.

Much swearing later, this thing was spawned. Because it's got Hive Tyrant legs, that's the most obvious representation it can pull. I wouldn't be above claiming it was a Thornback Carnifex, as it has the right weapons and base size. He's a bit skinny, though. Needs feeding up, hence the bonus extra mouth.

A quick spot of terrain - this is an objective I cobbled together earlier in the year and never finished.

And this has been lurking in the in-tray for about eight months. Kas left it behind at the 'Boot, mixed in with the Crypt Angels. You know me, if it's not nailed down I'll probably paint it, so it's a stab at source lighting for this genestealer in a bottle. The plastic canopy is still in the UK, I think, or at least I can't find it in my cupboard, so the finished look is yet to be revealed. But it's done for now.

Next up, it seems unfair to paint new things for the 'Nids and neglect my Scions!