 | Main - Tactics - Fiction - Rumours - Army Features | ||||||||||||
Converting: Tyranid Hive Fleet - Alan Hill | |||||||||||||
| Tyranids have always been a favourite alien race to me. With all those claws and biological weaponry and an insatiable desire to devour any living thing they come into contact with. Since I prefer Warhammer to 40K there hasn’t been the need to build an army. However, I recently became interested in Battlefleet Gothic and this presented a good opportunity to build a Hive. At the same time I wanted to have a unique and personal fleet.
BFG is a relatively cheap to play compared to other Games Workshop games. The key question was could I build a large Tyranid fleet on a tight budget, and if so, how could I do it? Here I will present the fleet I created and will leave it to you to decide whether I achieved my goals. The Nids are one of the fleets that that allows one to really flex their imagination and produce a unique and distinct force. I have used 40K figures for my own fleet. Here's what I used as the basis for the ships. Hive Ships - Ravener Cruisers - Tyranid Warriors Escorts - Gaunts Construction has been relatively simple. Take a deep breath and hack, cut and file selected pieces so that they conform to 'big picture'. Then pin, glue and use a fair bit of green stuff to finish. With only one Battlefleet encounter with under my belt using Tyranids it is clear that with so many possible ship variations remembering which ship has what weapons layout would become quite difficult. Especially where mixed squadrons of escorts are concerned and would probably detract from the overall enjoyment of the game for both players. So that opponents wouldn't be confused or surprised by the figures I've been consistent with the pieces used for the weapons layout. I’ll return to weapons later. My first plan was to modify the GW ships but a quick calculation revealed the cost to be prohibitive considering other army projects I presently have on the go. Besides there isn’t a model available for the Kraken. The simple solution was to make my own using 40K Tyranids. Using 40K was obvious. The victims would retain plenty of detail that would reduce my build time and I could maintain a relative size differential for each class of ship. So far I have saved 60% with the ships I have built compared to the purchase price and there are still enough components to double the number of escorts. Also, this figure does not include any costing for the ordnance etc that I’m making. Modelling each ship has taken some time but I don’t consider this to be a cost because of the enjoyment and satisfaction. What follows is a brief construction overview for each type of ship.
Weapons for capital ships: (I'm not familiar with the 40K Tyranids but I think the weapon descriptions are correct). Launch bays - just the barrel of the fleshborer (no hand or magazine). Pyro-acid batteries - just the hand of rending claws. Tentacles - fine spring wire stretched to shape with moulded green stuff to create suckers. None of the ships in my fleet have bio-plasma weapons at the moment.
I'm also in the process of making ordnance from bits. It would appear that I will need a lot! I mentioned earlier that all these ships have been produced at a cost saving of 60%. The calculation is simple enough. Here is what it cost me. From the figures I get: 1 Ravener = 1 Hive Ship. 1 box of Tyranid Warriors = 3 Cruisers. 1 box of Gaunts = 40 Escorts minimum (16 Vanguard, 8 Kraken, 16 Drones), plus ordnance and assault craft. To summarise the objective was to create a unique fleet at minimal cost. At this stage in its development I can easily expand the fleet, in fact the Hive has grown since the images below were taken and is now in excess of 2000 points. Even with a Vanguard fleet I can bring 1000+ points to the table. If this inspires you to create your own fleet then feel free to duplicate the ideas presented here. After all, the only real restriction is the limit of you own imagination!  The new Hive Fleet emerges.....  Reproduction comes naturally to the Tyranids..... | |||||||||||||
Want to discuss this? Or anything else? | |||||||||||||
Main - Tactics - Fiction - Rumours - Army Features | |||||||||||||
