Hive Guard a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

...yeah, that's really the best picture I could come up with to go with that pun. The Tyranid is feeling a little coconut shy. Hey-o!

Hive Guard! Because everyone in the meta keeps banging on about them. "How dare you even consider yourself a Tyranid player if you don't have six HG in your LVO list," people keep saying to me on forums. So I made like a good 'nid and ate them, then incorporated their DNA into my existing mass.

As models go, they're nice ones. The big hunch makes them distinct from Warriors, as does the lack of eyes. Any model without eyes gets bonus points in my book. That's why I painted big fake ones on the side. It's a celebration.

Tyrant Guard were tempting, I must say, I usually run a Hive Tyrant and there's obvious synergy there. But I've seen first hand how easy it is to run off in the wrong direction from your bodyguard (see previous battle reports with my Ogryns) and the models look a bit funky with their huge seventies shoulder pads. Plus, as I say, the meta. So Hive Guard it was!

Not that I didn't crossbreed them. This one has Tyrant Guard arms, the ones pulling a space marine to bits. Not something I expect Hive Guard to ever manage, they're pretty duff in melee, but the rule of cool applies here.

So the guns are the only option to worry over, and actually, I'm not worried. The two options consist of alternative sleeves that sit over the end of the cannon, and actually the dry fit of the model is more than enough to hold it in place. No magnets or pins, just wiggle and slide. A tiny bit of careful sanding after I'd undercoated and varnished, to make sure it didn't stick, and it works really well.

Frankly, you could glue them anyway. On the battlefield, an Impaler Cannon sounds like the kind of thing that has a ruddy great spike on the front, but confusingly that's actually the Shock Cannon. The Impaler is a high strength gun that does good damage and ignores line of sight. So they can sit in a hole and fire their giant mosquito rounds into your neck from safety, like the Hivehand gun in Half Life. Great against pretty much anything, this is probably the go-to gun.

But the Shock cannon - tons of mortal wound capacity against vehicles, plus its an assault gun. Run up alongside the rest of the swarm, batter a vehicle with a round of fire and then finish it in assault with the team. It's also cheaper, so I can see great potential there too.

Their inaugural use is next week, so tune in to see how badly I waste them!