Tuesday 19 August 2014

Tyranid Infestation - Stage ..whatever.. complete

Sometimes you've got to stop over-thinking things and just get on with it.  I'm a terrible procrastinator. So, on Thursday evening I found myself with a ton of half built terrain, having promised to deliver a full Tyranid board to the CTA tournament venue by Friday night.  Another one of those 'Oh Shit' moments followed by another one of those 'Painting Till 3am' sessions.


To make matters worse, my Zuzzy gaming mat had still not arrived (still waiting Zuzzy.  8 weeks now.  Hello!  Hello?) and the water effects weren't fully dried out.  Norski Kleer-Kast is the very devil to work with. You could still detect the stench of chemicals emanating from my board during the tournament.  Now you know what the Hive Mind smells like.

The first step was to fill my Digestion Pools with acid.  I was using GW's Quake Cannon craters for this.  Its a really good kit and comes with 8 'half' craters which you can join in any combination.  Four little craters looks a bit samey, so I glued and grey stuffed 3 halves together (centre crater above) to make a big crater.


I added some 'Green Weed' and Tyranid body parts to the debris because Nids hurl themselves into their own digestion pools once they have outlived their usefulness.  The beasts are then absorbed into the biomass to be rebirthed another day.  The 'underwater' surfaces were painted with Caliban Green and drybrushed Elysian Green -> Nurgling green over the top.  The outside of the craters were painted in the same way as my infested ruins (Drybrush Thunderhawk Blue -> Codex Grey -> Celestra Grey)


Next came the messy part: adding Clear Embedding Resin.  I'd asked around to see if any of my neighbours had a spare Nuclear/Biological/Chemical environment suit but was met with blank stares.  So a pair of Marigolds and a paper filter mask had to do.  Norski's embedding resin is actually quite good if you prepare, mix and leave it to dry properly.  I didn't have time to do it properly and put twice as much catalyst in than recommended followed by a stint in the airing cupboard.


After several complaints about the smell from various family members I removed the craters from the airing cupboard and repaired to the garage.  All 3 were balanced on top of Jenga blocks directly over an electric fire.  They dried very quickly.  So quickly in fact, that the resin shrank and peeled away from the sides.  Some green stuff repair work was needed to fill in the gaps and Nurgle's Rot was slopped all round the edges.  Done.



The last piece of terrain I wanted to do for the table was a big line of sight blocker.  I was rapidly running out of time and decided to just plonk a smaller piece of insulation foam board on top of a larger piece of insulation foam board, spray it grey and call it a 'hill'.


However, this seemed a bit of a cop out.  Additionally, Chris had given me 3 unassembled Chapter House Mycetic Spores (ahh 5th Edition) with vague instructions to build some terrain out of them.  I decided to create an 'Evolution Chamber' a la Starcraft II.  I would use the base of the hill as main body and add all sorts of interesting tentacle and spikey bits to it.  Then stick the 3 spores on top.


Sadly, at this point, it was midnight and there was simply no time to complete the piece.  In fact, I gauged that I would not even be able to paint it, as is.  I dug out my airbrush, which was completely clogged up and unusable, dropped it in some nail varnish remover and washed it out with hot water.  The airbrush was now usable.


Undercoating the base of the hill with too much Primer produced a passable melted effect.  The rest was airbrushed with Khorne Red -> Elysian Green -> Nurgling green to finish.  It looks like a Nurgle birthday cake or a rotting meringue but it definitely blocks line of sight.  You can see it in action in my previous post at the Call To Arms tournament.

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