GOLD for Hive Fleet Angrboda in AoP 2023

Though I wasn't able to get my display board finished in time for the international deadline for the online edition of Armies on Parade (honestly, GW, why shift the deadline from end of November to BEGINNING of November???), I DID manage to get it done in time for our local Games Workshop Toronto's Armies on Parade Day (though it was a near thing!).

Building a Lictor Alpha or Lictor Prime (Project Deathleaper)

 The Tyranid Lictor has been a part of my hobby DNA since I started Warhammer 40k back in 1997. In second edition, I ran four of the beasts, each equipped with voltage field biomorphs, and when the Inquis Exterminatus art book was released in 2000, I fell in love with Jes Goodwin's original sketch for the Lictor.

So much so that not only was I determined to convert one of my own to match this artwork, I even felt the need to tell Jes about my plans when I met him for the first time at a Games Day Canada in the early 2000's.

That was my first-ever Tyranid conversion, and the first time I ever tried sculpting on models. I was a bit hamstrung by my materials (greenstuff was expensive and came in small quantities, so I worked with plumbers putty :P ), but I didn't make out horribly!

But that was the last work I ever did on a Tyranid Lictor for nearly two decades! The 3rd edition pewter model failed to inspire me, and though the most recent pewter/finecast edition has grown on me, never so much that I felt the need to model one. In the back of my mind, I always thought I'd get to converting my own Tyranid Lictor one day, and when I did, I'd draw on the amazing sketches from Roberto Cirillo that came out in the interim!

Fast forward to early in 2021, when someone approached me with a commission to make not one but THREE Tyranid Lictors for them, all inspired by the unique Tyranid creature known as Deathleaper.

Introducing Hive Fleet Angrboda

If you've been following me for any time at all, you may know one key fact about me:

I don't paint.

I love building, converting, sculpting, but when it comes to painting, my hobby fire tends to dry up. I mean, I managed to grind through painting an entire Genestealer Cult force (helped mostly by an airbrush and a deadline), but, given the choice, I'd rather be sculting!

But then Contrast paints came along. And though they're not the be all and end all that the marketing campaign may have had us believe, they're a neat little hack for skipping a couple of boring steps in the painting process. And I firmly believe that they're the reason I've actually painted some Tyranids for the first time in a decade!

It all started with these two warriors, which I converted up to look a little smaller/slighter than your average warrior so that they could be used by my buddy Matt in our introductory game of Shadow War Armageddon (yes, I know that game is older than dust, but I had the rules and had an understanding of it, so we dusted it off when we played our first game in December of 2019):

Project #SwarmSentinel: Building Better Tyrant Guards

Ever since Games Workshop delivered us second edition ant-style Tyranid Warriors carrying picnic tables as our Tyrant Guard models, Tyranid hobbyists have been on a quest for better Guards. Warren Beattie and Roberto Cirillo got us close with each of their concepts for Guards, but it wasn't until the current plastic kit that we got a decent model.

Decent, I say, but not perfect. 

Because, let's face it: when it comes to acting as a shield wall for a Hive Tyrant, the current plastic guard models look more like something that would be the Tyrant's dog.

If we want to keep our Tyrants safe, we have to think BIGGER: