My choice of army had already been made for me - a year prior for our Secret Santa I had thrown out the bold (and possibly foolhardy) request of "buy me a model for a 40k army and I will collect it". Dodging something ludicrous like some Sisters of Silence or Harelquins (god I would not enjoy painting Harlequins) my gifter got me a Tyranid Broodlord, an excellent choice. My existing 40k army was Tau so 'Nids were a complete departure (I get to learn the psychic phase rules for a start) and it's also an army that doesn't have a big presence in my gaming group.
When planning my slow grow I had two big things I wanted to keep in mind:
- I wanted this to be the core of a solid Tyranids collection, it should include the staples - blobs or Hormagaunts, Termagants and Genestealers, some big monsters like Carnifex and Tyrannofex and a Hive Tyrant and Broodlord to the lead them.
- I wanted a custom paint scheme that I could execute well and efficiently - if I chose something too difficult I knew I would burn out, especially on a horde army. I also wanted it to be bright.
Choosing the Models
I decided early on that I didn't want to plan out the full army in advance - I wanted to do 500 points at a time and adapt based on what I liked and how the games I played with it went. If this was a Ciaphas Cain novel it'd be here that it'd say something like "little did I know that 2020 would interfere with my plans in ways no-one could expect"...
Another thing that influenced my choice of models was the collection of plastic I'd already acquired - in addition to 2018's Broodlord Secret Santa, Xmas 2019 added a box of Termagants. Even more impactfully, the release of Apocalypse and some frighteningly good value battleforce boxes added 2 Hive Tyrants, 4 Carnifex, 2 Tyrannofex and 2 Trygon/Mawlocs.
For quarter 1 I kept it simple - Hive Tyrant on foot, 12 Hormagaunts, 12 Termagants and 2 Carnifex. A nice even force that would let me practice the paint scheme as well as not get too badly dumpstered on the tabletop.
Choosing the Paint Scheme
I knew I wanted to be bright. My Tau are very cool colors, white and blues, and my Flesh Eater Courts and muted greens and browns. I wanted the 'Nids to pop.
I narrowed my initial focus down to either bright pink or bright green. Knowing nothing about color theory (and being more than a little color blind) I googled various articles and videos on choosing a paint scheme that worked, which led me to various color wheel apps and let me home in on a triad of pink, yellow and green.
Next came gathering reference material, mostly from Instagram and Google image searches for "pink Tyranids". The biggest spark of inspiration appeared when I came across the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Shai Hulud here belonging to MikeyP of Deployment Zone (hilariously I've just noticed the pictures are all taken at Element Games, where my Tyranids are likely to play most of their games). This scheme seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, I set about concocting a version of it I could implement:
- The pink would be Vallejo Warlord Purple, with Squid Pink for highlights. I planned to use the airbrush I'd bought myself as a birthday present a few months prior for this. I'd use Red Wash in the recesses.
- The yellow would be VGC Heavy Goldbrown with an Umber Wash, then highlights with Gold Yellow and VMC Ivory.
- The green would be VGC Dark Green with carapace markings/highlights of Sick Green and Scorpion Green. This was a minor departure from the Shai Hulud scheme, I wanted to push the green highlights an extra step brighter. Also, I enjoy that the Vallejo Verde Escorpena is translated as Escorpena Green - "yeah, we've translated half the name, they can make an educated guess with the rest"...
- For basing I was in luck as just as I was planning it BuffaloChicken over on Goonhammer posted an article about jungle bases. Perfect.
The Test Models
Models and paint scheme selected I moved onto test models:
The only modification I made to the scheme was swapping the Umber Wash on the yellow to the Red Wash I was already using for the pink, much less dirty looking. The scheme is going to work, I love the look of it and it's not too onerous to implement. It also lets me grow my painting skills with plenty of places to improve on.
A friend referred to them as Stabby Candy. I could not be happier.
