Monday 30 April 2012

'nids part 33 - Tyranid Warrior to Hive Guard conversion pt2.

Here's where I want to make a decent Impaler Cannon. You can do it cheaper, use a Venom Cannon, and add some Flesh Hook spikes to the tips and it's done. No one in their right mind would be needing Venom Cannons so it's simple. Except aside from the talon underneath they are butt ugly and I want something a little meaty, if a little more costly in the real world. So to make my Impaler Cannon you will need the aforementioned Venom Cannon, Warrior Flesh Hooks and also a Carnifex/Hive Tyrant Stranglethorn Cannon.

I think the MC arms of the Stranglethorn Cannon are too big, but you could use this as is too, it's certaily better than a Venom Cannon, so I cut the barrels off both.


Then I turn the Stranglethorn Cannon upside down and glue it to the VC barrel. The spur on top can be sliced flat and this allows the SC pipe to mount semi-flush so you end up with a different looking gun to both the donor weapons. Then by trimming down the smaller flesh hooks, bending them and adding another three trimmed hooks you can get all your Impaler ammunition sprouting from the muzzle. Rinky dink right?


The torso of the Hive guard has now been primed so here are the different views so you can get a feel of it's construction and pose - Right Side


Left Side.


Front and back.


Here's where you have further options, the head. Now I had one of the Genestealer heads with the implant attack. These guys fit the 'blind' Hive guard and I was hoping to secure these for the project and if you have a Genestealer sprue you may well have spare heads regardless of bioform to fulfill this roll.


However, I felt it was actually too small so I looked at the Termagant sprues, the simple posed Macragge ones that I'd ended up with 3 halves minus their leg halves. So a quick slice and I have a slightly more proportionate head to sit on the shoulders.


So what does this look like altogether? Well, here it is blu-tacked for your perusal. I thought it would be easier to paint with the arms unattached so I can get into all the nooks and crannies to do the Turquoise Chitin.


And the other side with the Stranglethorn Cannon 'ammo feeder' arm in place


So that's the construction, no green stuff, all bits I had around and not 100 miles away from the Finecast altrnative, with some advantages:
  • Customisable - heads and poses
  • Cheaper - even if you were to buy all the bitz brand new I worked it out as £9.30 from one bitz store
  • Uses up your own bits store, really who wants a load of Venom Cannons knocking around?
  • It's fun to do, unless you lose a finger cutting - one scalpel blade did shatter in the making
So what do you think?



Up next is painting, and the start of Hive Guard v2.0 with added armour but what do I do with only one Warrior Rending Claw? 

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Excellent use of the crushing claw!

    Take the one-armed wonder and turn him into a Zoanthrope or Doom of Malantai.

    Here is my lazy conversion. Ignore the awful paintjob.

    http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/zoanthropes.jpg/

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  3. Actually I think that's a simple yet effective conversion you've done. Some of the similar attempts I've seen have perhaps over complicated the brain bit, my Doom conversion [long in progress] is certainly too fiddly. Actually the one-armed wonder will have a new right arm built from bits in the bitz box. Funnily enough a left arm seems quite an easy thing to build but the right is more difficult.

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