Tyranid Dactylis from an Exocrine Conversion: The Process

Last time I showed the completed photos of the Tyranid Dactylis from an Exocrine conversion, but I thought I would go through the construction process in this post for anyone who was curious about how it came together.

Here's what I started with: A bunch of my nid bits box stuff, an official exocrine model, a Tyranofex model, and my own converted Exocrine of yore for inspiration...oh, and a bottle of peaty scotch :)

I first tried to mock up the beast with the original exocrine arms.

...However, the exocrine arms weren't working for me in that position, so I moved the arms forward to extend the profile of the model. I was already loving it a lot more :)

Tyranid Dactylis from an Exocrine Conversion complete!

Howdy!

Sooo, I'd foolishly assumed I'd already created a post about this project, but apparently not :/

A good while back, someone very nicely commented on my original Dactylis conversion here on Modern Synthesist, saying they'd love to have one of their own. We started talking, figured out what he was looking for, and it evolved into this commission. I'm very glad it did, as I'm pretty proud of how the beast turned out, and I feel like he does a giant Tyranid gunbeast far more justice than modest Exocrine >:)

As he's done now, I'll share the completed photos in this post, and then I'll go through the build process in a separate post for anyone who enjoys that kind of stuff.

Here's the finished beast in all his glory:

The Tyranid Archive - Epic 40k

In honour of 40k's 25th Birthday this year, I'm working at an ongoing series called "The Tyranid Archive," which is meant to be a historical look back on where Tyranids came from and how far they've come. As I wasn't sure I'd have time for a Flesh Friday this week, here's a little Tyranid Archive side trip. Apparently there was a goodly amount going on back in second edition, and a complete Tyranid Archive would not be the same without the inclusion of...

Epic 40,000
(Also known as Titan Legions, Warhammer Micro Machines, and Sorry My Cat Ate Half Your Army)


I can't tell you very much about the Epic game system, unfortunately, since I never had any interest in/experience with it. However, Games Workshop did a pretty good job of shrinking down all of the second edition Tyranids into epic models, while also expanding the overall Tyranid line to include some massive bugs that we'd never seen before. Though the designs for the bigger bugs were a bit wacky, and, in some instances, a bit too sluggish for my tastes, they created a space in the imaginations of Tyranid players that has persisted to this day, encouraging people to take on conversions to represent things like Dominatrixes, Exocrines, and Dactylis.

So, without further ado, here are the Tyranids of Epic 40k. Special thanks to Warpshadow member Markconz for providing us with photos of his swarm.

First off, the devils we know: