The Swarm Pt 11

   Despite being close to finishing all of my current Genestealer Cult models, I've changed tact after a bit of a think. I've mentioned that the current campaign now has an end date, so I thought I had better focus on the main army for the conflict so I can get as much of it on the table as I can.

   I figured the best thing to start with is another swarm unit and the one I fancied painting the least was the last unit of Gargoyles, if you are going to force yourself to paint, you might as well go hard.

   These are painted the same as the other 10 I have already done - one of my first swarm units - but these have their bases finished in time for the photo.

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Pushing The Advantage

   With the Battle of Arccaster breaking the biggest single swarm on the planet of Fratribusia, the Imperium was fast to try and capitalise on their victory, hunting down survivors and surgically hitting any other build ups of Xenos, but the Imperial forces were not blessed with the numbers they had at the start of the war and certain gambits had to be attempted.

   While in other areas the supposedly defeated swarm went on the attack leaving the Imperial defenders scrabbling to hold the line.

   This ended up being a real period of revival for the Tyranid cause, the Imperium had found itself over stretched and the Xenos fully capitalised on this dragging a strong Imperial victory much closer to a draw.

+++ Message to the Governor General +++

My Lord

Scans of the jungle show a build up of titan sized organisms.

I suggest an immediate strike.

 House Steinschild stands ready for deployment.

 Thought for the day: Life is the Emperor's currency, spend it well

 +++ Message Ends +++

   Using another White Dwarf 'Bunker' scenario, this time "Suffer No Rivals" which puts the victory point focus not on the objectives in the centre of the board but in individual models in the opposition's army, we decided to build a mission based around two super heavy (I miss that, that term has gone from 10th edition) models and use the warlord as the second objective.

   The game was played out between my brothers with me just controlling the Imperial Knight (which I lost turn 1!). I was mostly just enjoying watching my brothers playing a game, but I was determined to fight the Hierodule in combat, so saved my main gun for a different target - which was a mistake. 

  With another Imperial victory, we decided to pit my brothers back against each other again, this time in a combat patrol*. For reasons completely unknown, my Tyranid playing brother hid his Termagaunts behind his other beasties, which meant that by turn 2 he had a lot of termagaunts left and not much else, but once he realised what the list can do he managed to pull a win out for the aliens.

*while I tamed the toddler

   The last game was another combat patrol using my own sisters of battle, mostly just for a bit of variety in colour on the table.

Despite the Imperium killing the first titan sized organism spotted on Fratribusia in a well-planned strike, the loss of an irreplaceable Imperial Knight while doing so has severely weakened humanity’s cause. With this loss and multiple small victories across the breadth of the planet the Tyranids are once again in resurgence and control of the planet is slowly slipping away.

There are reports of massive spawning chambers breeding huge new broods of lesser Xenos, can the Imperium hold back this new threat?

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The Cult's Specialists

   The last unit that comes in the combat patrol box are the Acolyte Hybrids. The box comes with 5 that I built as per the instructions for the box (as combat patrol gives you no options on how a model should be armed) while the second 5 I bought separately and used to make the unit a touch more competitive in full lists.

   While I was buying the second box of Acolyte Hybrids, I also picked up a Kellermorph. When I first got into 40k in 3rd edition, characters were definitely a useful thing to have in your army and gave you something to get attached to, but you rarely took more than 1 or 2*. Modern 40k, characters are where big buffs come from and are almost must haves in multiples. Genestealer Cults are one of the armies that really benefit from having some floating about and the Kellermorph is one of my favourites**.

*some armies didn't have more than 1 or 2 options

**at the point of not having yet played

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Mining Machinery Turned Tank

  Another model that came in the Genestealer Cult combat patrol is the Goliath Rockgrinder a piece of mining machinery that the cult are using as an armoured vehicle. I painted the guy on the back with the second batch of Neophytes to save some effort, but I was slightly stuck on the vehicle's colour scheme.

   Then having a think about what colour looks good as an off-grey without being grey, I saw there are two flesh colours in the range that are more of a light greeny-grey than flesh. So I bought some pots and did a test scheme with a green wash in between and have to say I am really pleased with the end result its a horrible colour but that's kind of the point, it feels like a cheap paint*.

   I decided not to tie the other main colours onto this vehicle leaving as a separate thing - in my head the colour you paint a work vehicle doesn't need to match worker overalls, but with the guy on top and other vehicles in the army, it should end up looking natural in time.

*got ideas for other things to paint in this now . . .

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