Xenos Alchemist: A Review of Tyranid Design with Moloch & Hydra - #CreatureConference

This one has been a long time in the making. Back in the beginning of the pandemic, Moloch, Hydra, and I sat down to conduct a review of the newer parts of the Tyranid line. It wound up being a bit of a survey of our collective thoughts on Tyranid design, where the newer kits have hit the mark, and where they might have missed. 

And, to save it from just being three grey beards bitching about other people's designs, I kept a little surprise up my sleeve for the end of the video: a challenge that would make the three of us put our money where our collective mouths were. 

I'll save the surprise for your viewing, but the reactions I got from the Germans were pretty fantastic!

Anyway, if you love Tyranids and converting them, this is the video for you!

The Return of Moloch: Hive Fleet Ouroboros

UPDATE: Marco Schulze/Hive Fleet Moloch lives again! You can not follow his work on his Hive Fleet Moloch Instagram profile!

As the recent White Dwarf featuring the new Tyranid releases may have caused some confusion, I thought it be best if I set the record straight about where "Hive Fleet Ouroboros" originated. You may have previously seen these kicking around the ol' bloggerino:

DOMINATRIX, CRAFTED FROM A FW HIERODULE, originally done by Hydra

A DE-SLUGGIFIED EXOCRINE

A DE-SLUGGIFIED DACTYLIS

They are all projects that Moloch and I have collaborated on over the years. However, compared to the photos from my slew of Hive Fleet Moloch posts, you may wonder about the shift in colour scheme from the Moloch reds and blacks. Well, these were certainly all painted by Moloch, and they mark a shift in his Tyranid evolution that took place shortly after the release of the fourth edition Tyranid codex. 

Hive Fleet Moloch: GOZILLA! continued...

UPDATE: Marco Schulze/Hive Fleet Moloch lives again! You can not follow his work on his Hive Fleet Moloch Instagram profile!

I went trawling through my closet full of white dwarfs again the other day, and I uncovered the article I'd missed in the last batch of Hive Fleet Moloch scans. As I'd thought, this one featured the Godzilla army that Moloch had whipped up for the studio. The article is mostly written by the man himself, so it gives a good deal of insight into the thought that went into the army. I must apologize for the poor quality of the scans and the dark quality of the images as they appeared in White Dwarf. Hopefully they are still legible enough that people can draw some inspiration or further understanding from them.

(EDIT) Someone pointed out that, due to the way Blogger displays photos, these may not be the easiest to read on here. Thus, here's a link to the actual gallery on google photos, wherein you can click on the loupe/magnifying glass above each image to see them full sized.)

White Dwarf 307
(August 2005)
Hive Fleet Moloch Godzilla Swarm

Warpshadow has gone dark

Howdy folks.

Anyone who knows me from Adam knows that I've been involved with Warpshadow.com, pretty much, since the inception. It is a place near and dear to my heart, and though I know nothing about WebMagicTomfoolery, I have an abundant amount of enthusiasm for the board. Unfortunately, boards don't run on enthusiasm alone, and as much as I love the board, that love can't obliterate the nefarious work of hackers.

Thus, as we had recently come under the crosshairs of hackers, and there were all kinds of weird redirects happening when people tried to access the board for about a week now, we contacted out service provider and asked for help. They took a look through our files, found some ones that had been messed with, and, promptly, obliterated those files.

Unfortunately, those files were rather essential for the operation of the Phpbb backend of the message board  :|

So, when they removed the infected files, Warpshadow went dark.

Now the Gestalt is faced with the mammoth task of resurrecting the board from our back-ups and patching the holes that let the hackers through in the first place. Understand that NONE of us are web-heads, so we are, pretty much, clueless when it comes to how to move forward. We will be relying a great deal on our service provider for help with this, and I ask that you all have patience with the other members of the Gestalt/Admin team. Unfortunately, I will be away and out of synapse range for the next week, so I am trusting this all to Yaleling, Hydra, Hive Node, and Moloch. If anyone has any help that they could provide to them, I encourage them to do so.

Rest assured that we will restore the Shadow in the Warp as soon as we are able!

Hive Fleet Moloch: GOZILLA Swarm!

UPDATE: Marco Schulze/Hive Fleet Moloch lives again! You can not follow his work on his Hive Fleet Moloch Instagram profile!

In the Piece of the Hive Mind introduction, I mentioned that Moloch used to have a pretty decent relationship with some of the lads in the Studio. Never was this relationship more decent than in the run up to the 4th Generation/Edition Tyranid release. While we were all hmmm'ing and hawwww'ing, trying to figure out what, exactly, a plastic Carnifex was exactly supposed to look like, Moloch was lucky enough to already have his hands on the kit.

No, sorry, wait. He was lucky enough to already have his hands on SIX of the kits, and two metal Hive Tyrants to boot! The studio had supplied him with the models early with the understanding that he would convert and paint them up to represent a Godzilla swarm: a Hive Fleet list that maxed out the number of Tyranid Monstrous Creatures you could include at 8! This seems like small potatoes these days, where Harpies and Tervigons mean that the most TMCs you can fit in a list is 17 (Do the math: 2 Tyrants/Tervigons as HQ, 3 Tervigons as Troops alongside three broods of Termags, 3 Harpies as Fast Attack, and 3 units of 3 identically equipped Carnifexes as Heavy Support. Now, that isn't to say you could actually cram all that into a normal point limit...), but back in 4th Edition, the idea of the Godzilla swarm struck fear into the hearts of Marines everywhere.

The studio entrusted Moloch to make this newest of Tyranid monster lists look good, and I think he may just have exceeded their expectations!

Hive Fleet Moloch: The White Dwarf Articles

UPDATE: Marco Schulze/Hive Fleet Moloch lives again! You can not follow his work on his Hive Fleet Moloch Instagram profile!

I had meant to scan most of these in time for the two original Hive Fleet Moloch articles, but I only got around to it recently. I've scanned the covers of the magazines each article appeared in for reference sake. I feel like they're just further proof that Marco's Fleet was a big deal, and even Games Workshop recognized that. As these pertain to, IIRC, 4th Edition, they are, essentially, nostalgia pieces, but there are some good photos in there, so I wanted to share them with folks.

(EDIT) Someone pointed out that, due to the way Blogger displays photos, these may not be the easiest to read on here. Thus, here's a link to the actual gallery on google photos, wherein you can click on the loupe/magnifying glass above each image to see them full sized.)

White Dwarf 276
(March 2003)
Hive Fleet Moloch Feature 
(from the Nottingham Grand Tournament)

Hive Fleet Moloch: A Killer Team

UPDATE: Marco Schulze/Hive Fleet Moloch lives again! You can now follow his work on his Hive Fleet Moloch Instagram profile!

As I mentioned in my previous post about the diabolical mind behind Hive Fleet Moloch, Marco was always into the creepy story behind the Tyranids. He communicated this in how he chose to photograph his Nids, but he also paid particular attention to their posing and basing. Nowhere is this fact more apparent than with the Crimson Stalkers of Tenebra Prime: a Tyranid Kill Team that Marco put together shortly following the release of the new plastic Genestealers in fourth edition.

(If you've not heard of Kill Team, it is a simplified rules set that Games Workshop introduced some time in...4th? Edition. It is some times referred to as 40K in 40 minutes as it used smaller, more characterful forces for skirmish-sized games. It was loved by gamers, so much so that there is a fan-made ruleset entitled "Killzone" that can be downloaded for free and is, IIRC, updated to be able to play in 5th Edition.)

Once again, I've been limited in what I can post by the fact that I mined most of these photos using the Way Back Machine as HiveFleetMoloch.com is currently offline and being occupied by cyber squatters. That being said, I was able to find a goodly number of photos.

So, I present to you, The Crimson Stalkers of Tenebra Prime:

The Tyranid Archive - A Piece of the Hive Mind

Here's something I had completely forgotten about, but just rediscovered and figured was perfectly timely for us going over 4th Generation/Edition of Tyranid models this week. A few years back, when Moloch was better connected with the studio, he managed to score an interview with Phil Kelly and Jes Goodwin on the heels of the 4th Edition codex release. I feel like the article explains itself, and it's always lived on Warpshadow, but I've reproduced it here for the sake of completeness and ease of use. I can't promise that it's aged well, but it does give a unique insight to the minds of the creators. If anything, it's a pretty solid indication of just how open the studio used to be that Jes and Phil were ever allowed to give an interview like this to someone who wasn't employed by Games Workshop.

Hive Fleet Moloch: What happened to Moloch?

Alas, poor Moloch, I knew him, Horatio...

/Flame On/
When trying to amass photos for this article, I googled "Hive Fleet Moloch," and I found a thread on Heresy Online or some similar forum, wherein someone said he/she was starting an army using the Hive Fleet Moloch colour scheme, but he/she had no idea what the Hive Fleet Moloch paint scheme was. Then someone else replied to the post, saying that as there was no scheme described in the codex or on lexicanum online, the original poster could paint Hive Fleet Moloch ANY COLOUR HE/SHE WANTED.

No.
Sorry.
Just...no.

The reference to Hive Fleet Moloch wound up in the fifth edition Tyranid codex solely as a nod to the very talented German artist Marco Schulze who originated it back between second and third edition. It was recognition for years of dedication to one of the original extensively converted Hive Fleets.
/Flame Off/

So, in a vain attempt to avoid this happening again, and in the hope of leaving this article as a reference for new Tyranid collectors everywhere, I present to you...

Hive Fleet Moloch

Now, if you've been eating your biomass and keeping in touch with synapse, you, likely, know all about Hive Fleet Moloch, but in case you missed something, or in case the fleet has fallen off the astronomicon, I'll give you a bit of a personalized tour.

BREAKING NEWS! A message from the Moloch

Today is Hive Fleet Hydra's birthday, and Moloch, that most mysterious of modeling geniuses, has seen fit to bless the Hydra with a message. What's more, he makes a comment on the status of HiveFleetMoloch.com, which has been down for a time.



Unfortunately, this may be all for me this week as I'm heading out to Edinburgh for a week, and I haven't had a chance to put a post about my progress on the Coven in the can. That means no Flesh Friday, but I guess it wouldn't be Flesh Friday if I didn't miss it!

If anyone is keeping up with this, and you're feeling bored, feel free to pop over to Warpshadow in my absence and contribute some ideas to my Raider Problem, that would be glorious.

Redux: Tyranid Dominatrix from a Hierodule

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.


First up, I would be remiss if I didn't credit my Hobby Brother, Hydra, for being the first person ever to convert a Tyranid Dominatrix from a Forgeworld Hierodule. Go see his original work, though he wrote that article about 12 years after he created the original!

Having learned from the work I'd done on Ross'/Accommodator's original Dominatrix, and having improved a bit through practice over the time in between, I endeavoured to take ANOTHER stab at the idea of creating a modern Tyranid Dominatrix from a Forgeworld Hierodule model. The project was another one that was sponsored by Moloch, and, when all was said and done, it would be he who would put his brush to it. With this in mind, and having seen the fantastic treatments he'd given the Dactylis and Exocrine, I was well motivated to go above and beyond on this Dom.

Exocrine - Project De-Sluggify 1.0

To build up some content on the site, I'm going to be posting a few of my past projects that were kind of like milestones in my development as a sculptor. I'll call them "Old Strains," and you can feel free to check them out if you're curious.

In 2006, I got a hold of the plastic carnifex kit for the first time, and immediately set to work tearing it appart and attempting to build it up into something more. I was, once again, inspired by a fantastic concept sketch for a Biovore (this time by the phenomenally talented Roberto Cirillo) that had gone unrealized in the rather underwhelming resculpted Biovore model.

Though it was a sketch for a Biovore, I thought I'd be able to do it a bit more justice if I upped the scale somewhat to Carnifex-size. I also thought this might be a good opportunity to start in on a completely separate idea I'd had for some time: starting in on re-imaginings of the classic Tyranid Epic-scale beasts. I wanted to give them actual legs, bodies, and a imposing presence on the battlefield (hence why I labeled the idea the "De-Sluggification" initiative), and I thought that, perhaps, the plastic carnifex kit was the best backbone for the project.

Thus was the Exocrine born.