Painting: Steve’s Swarmlord…

Whilst I am waiting on my new Airbrush and Compressor Unit (with tank) for my Dark Eldar, I thought it was worth posting some pics of some of my friends models (with their permission) so you can see the kinds of things I go up against at the club.

These pics are of my mates Swarmlord that he uses with his Tyranid army. Steve has always been a really good painter... *mumble grrrr* ...and has done everything from Wood Elves and Dwarves through to Eldar and now Tyranids.

He really seems to have fallen for Tyranids in a big way despite the Codex being something the internetz says isn't very good. I certainly don't subscribe to that impression and neither does he.

Honestly, that may well be the case if he were in a highly competitive area or doing tournaments with the aim of coming first with a complete WAAC attitude - but he isn't. Frankly in the club environment Steve is probably one of the best players there and his Nid list is scary good. I'm fairly sure only I've beaten it at the club (with my Space Marines) and that was in the early days whilst he was learning about his army and forgetting his psychic powers. The best most people at the club can look to get is a draw, the rest tend to be tabled by the end of turn 2 or 3. It is fast, nasty and has plenty of teeth to it.

As you can see from the pics, Steve has somehow (his green stuff-fu skills are legendary!) managed to join a Hive Tyrant to the Giant Spider model from Fantasy. It is a huge monstrosity as befits such a nasty creature. With something like that leading his Tyranid horde, it is an imposing army to face - but similarly when someone puts the effort into their models like that, it makes all the difference.

I can only hope when my Dark Eldar start to come together that I can have models half as good as that (I'll take better than his, but my paint-fu skills are a pale shadow). Speaking of which, like I said I am waiting on my airbrush, but in the meantime I have been playing with colour schemes and also gathering all my models together ready to crack on with painting (and gluing). I am still planning to do the first unit of warriors and their Venom first, so that will be my first stage.