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):

Tyranid Prime Ordo Xenos Crucifix - #KryptmansGambit

Behold! The most foolhardy machination the Ordo Xenos could devise: Kryptman's Gambit.

This project has been a long time coming. 

Some time back in 2011-2012, Hive Fleet Moloch, Hydra and me synergized a mad concept: what if the Ordo Xenos, in their unmatched hubris, sought to capture a live Tyranid synapse creature with the goal of using it as some kind of synaptic terminal through which they could force access to the Hive Mind. What you see above is that very creature, and what follows is some of the history for how we came up with it, more photos of my work on it, and an idea of what's next for this hideous creation.

Tyranid Prime Conversion

One of my favourite commissions over the last few years was this Tyranid Prime conversion that I created for a new client. Though I started with the goal of making something slightly larger than a warrior, to fit the standard size of a Tyranid Prime, we got a bit of scale creep going on, which meant, as you can see from the photo above, it wound up being something closer to a Hive Tyrant in stature!

What can I say? I like big bugs!

In this article, I'll go over some of my favourite parts of the construction and highlight some of the bits I used in the conversion.

Cheap 'n Easy Shrikes

This is my attempt to make cheap 'n easy winged Tyranid warriors. It's an older project that I'm rolling out again to get it finished off. I was inspired to go this route because one of my mad ideas (other than a full Coven army) is to have a full warrior army. To do that justice, I would need me some winged warriors/shrikes, but I want more than wings tacked on a warrior model!

So, on this attempted return to Tyranid Tuesdays, I'll be showing the work I've done so far on converting shrikes out of--mostly--spare bits.

The Art of Mark Wood

The concept series is my schizophrenic attempt to shine light on the art that inspires me. I always do some of my best work when working from concept sketches. I find the hard lines and white space conducive to creation as they give you just enough definition to get you going, while still leaving space to do your own thing. Here's hoping you find these sketches as helpful and inspiring as I do.

It's been a FREAKING long time since I posted any concept sketches, so I thought I'd return to my "Art of" idea with a Warpshadow artist who I missed in my initial run. This week we'll be looking at the art of Mark Wood.

Mark is a prodigiously productive artist. It often seems that any time someone has a unique idea on the board, Mark, or "Wormwood" as he goes by online, is ready to take a run at drawing it. Thus, thought I've collected only a few of my favourite Wormwood sketches below, you can find far more in Mark's Warpshadow gallery.

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.