Jabberwocky Rises: Neurolictor Conversions

[Xenith]

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++HIVE FLEET JABBERWOCKY++

 

 

 

Variably known as Jabberwocky, Jabberwock, or more colloquially as 'The Consuming Wraith", this Hive Fleet appears to be a splinter fleet of Hive Fleet Leviathan sheared from the main body of the swarm in the wake of the Devastation of Baal, and is actively battled by the Sons of Sanguinius, the Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters across the Red Scar area of Imperium Nihilus to this day.

 

Like Leviathan, whose synaptic links and apparent communication between leader beasts and the swarm were more powerful than that seen before, Jabberwocky appears to be a further stage of this evolution - whether the fleet was a later more psychically resonant tendril of Leviathan arriving after the main body of the fleet, or the fleets response to the cicatrix maledictum is currently unknown, however what we do know is that these monsters are far more psychically capable than similar breeds seen in other fleets, capable of organising and strengthening the horde, all the while unleashing potent psionic blasts to ravage anything in their path.

 

Like it's parent fleet, Jabberwocky contacts with Jabberwocky seem to be sporadic and in multiple locations across the Imperium Nihilus, suggesting it arrives from the underside of the galactic plane. More disturblingly are reports of similar beasts with advanced psychic abilities in the Imperium Lux. In all cases, Jabberwocky appears to target worlds with high human populations and encroaches upon many Hiveworlds - those it takes, it digs in like ticks making the diffucult to dislodge and almost certainly requiring Astartes intervention. This makes it a threat not just to the population of these worlds, but to the imperial war effort as a whole - if the manufactorums shut down, from where comes the materiels that power the Imperoum of Man?

 

Jabberwocky is disctinct from it's parent fleet Leviathan from it's varied patternation, with light blue exoskeleton and white carapace in place of violet carapace and light exoskeleton - possibly an adaptation to icy climates of cityfighting in Hive Worlds.

 

 

Welcome to my attempt to get into the Hive. I have a small Tyranid army from a long time ago that never really got off the ground when I discovered chaos, but I've always wanted to have one. Now, 8th 9th ed, and being out of uni and having a real job means all my wishes come true.

After reading the WHCommunity article on nids, and feeling some of the buzz, I went and picked up a Start Collecting! set from a GW, and then managed to score the last Brood Progenitor in stock at my FLGS. Between these and all the Tyranids that come bundled with Blood Angels boxed sets, I have a decent force to start me off.

 

 

++The Current Disposition of Hive Fleet Jabberwocky++

Assembled/Undercoated/Painted

 

Leader Beasts (HQ)
'The Consuming Wraith' - Hive Tyrant
Warrior Prime (1)
'The Wail of Ballan'Tar' - Neurothrope
Trygon Prime (1)
Tervigon (1)

Neurotyrant (1)

Tyranid Prime with Wings (1)

 

Ymgarl Strain (Genestealers)
Brood Lord 'The Icharan Dread' (1)
Genestealers (16)

 

Brood Beasts (Troops)
Warrior Brood (3)
Termagant Brood with Fleshborers (20)
Termagant Brood with Devourers (16)
Hormagaunt Brood (25)
Gargoyles (10)
Ripper Swarm (3)

Barbgaunts (5)

Neurogaunts (11)

 

Specialist Genus (Elites)
Lictors (3)
Zoanthrope Brood (6)
Venomthrope on foot (1)
Venomthrope Brood (3)

Von Ryan's Leapers (3)

Maleceptor (1)

 

Harassment Species (Fast Attack)
Spore Mines (24)
Ravener Swarm (6)
A Parasite of Mortrex (1)

 

Destroyer Beasts (Heavy Support)
Hive Guard (3)
Screamer Killer (1)
'The Elder Talon' - Tyrannofex
Hive Guard Alpha Pack - note dermal enhancements (3)
Carnifex (1)
Belial's Bane - Exocrine/Haruspex (1)
Mawloc (1)

Screamer Killer (1)

Psychophage (1)

 

Flyer/Transport
Harpy (1)
Tyrannocyte (1)

 

The following Imperial forces have lost troops and materiels to the onslaught of the Hive Fleet Leviathan Tendril designated 'Jabberwocky':

The Blood Angels; The Grey Lizards; Drukhari Raiding Force; Custodes; The Emperor's Children; Cadians; Orks Imperial Knights

My big grey pile of Nids to paint

 

-------------------

Original First Post
My initial messing around with schemes, which are spoilered below if anyone wants to see

 

I ended up settling on the blue skin, white carapace scheme, but with a little purple in the recesses.

Currently to my name, I have a painted Hormagaunt, Warrior and Ripper Swarm.

 

Thanks for looking!

Edited July 24, 2023 by Xenith

[Sabadin]

Loving the scheme, nice and other worldly looking, also a fan of fade on the bonesword. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Xenith]

Cheers dude. I fell in love with the Lizardman blue paints a while ago and knew I had to do something with one of them. I wanted them to be quite bright as for the last age I've been painting darker Blood Angels and Chaos...

 

Eventually they'll get snow bases, but I need to pick up the GW snow texture first.

[Sabadin]

 

Eventually they'll get snow bases, but I need to pick up the GW snow texture first.

That new snow texture is amazing, very quick and easy to work with compared to their old offerings.

[FlamingDeth]

Your opponents are gonna have to get themselves some vorpal swords. Ones that go snicker-snack are preferable.

[Xenith]

All you'll hear will be my lictors snick er snacking on my opponents brains.

[Uprising]

Hello

 

I see great potential in the scheme, but I believe it can be improved if you want constructive criticism.  Also, I have a tutorial on snow bases if you also want to hear.  Overall a great start to a great army.  Can't wait to see more. 

[Canadian_F_H]

Good start. I have a spattering of nids and GSC I would like to get to table worthy status for my home, beer and pretzels games with the rpg group.

 

And yeah, a lot of BA players have tag along nid collections lol. Thanks to deathstorm and space hulk!

 

Look forward to seeing where this goes!

[Xenith]

Hello

 

I see great potential in the scheme, but I believe it can be improved if you want constructive criticism. Also, I have a tutorial on snow bases if you also want to hear.  Overall a great start to a great army.  Can't wait to see more. 

 

Constructive comments are always welcome, what do you think I can improve upon?

 

Bear in mind the gaunt was a fast test piece and had been painted several times, so looks a little sloppy. 

 

Snow base tutorial also welcome, but I'm 99% likely to be using GW's solution, I'm not after any baking soda recipes, etc :)

 

 

Good start. I have a spattering of nids and GSC I would like to get to table worthy status for my home, beer and pretzels games with the rpg group.

 

And yeah, a lot of BA players have tag along nid collections lol. Thanks to deathstorm and space hulk!

 

Look forward to seeing where this goes!

 

Thanks! It's good to have motivation to plug away at them.

[Uprising]

Constructive comments: 

1.  The teeth:  It looks like one coat of white over the blue/green skin tone.  The best way to improve this is to give the mouth a coat of black or dark blue.  Then build up the white with a base of browns and khaki colors, finishing with a tip of pure white.  Another suggestion would be a give the moth a coat of nurgle rot to give it an alien saliva/acid vibe.   The best way to see example of how teeth look are to google animals pics(I suggest sea creatures for tyranids). 

 

2. The green: I love it great work.  I think an additional bright green highlight in the veins would help bring it out(like the sword).  

 

3.  Carapace:  Looks great.  If you want, you could add patterns(like insect) to make it stand out even more. 

 

4.  The purple:  Looks great, but you missed some detail on the warrior.  Its too much purple, and need some contrast(like add green to the middle, etc). 

 

5.  The blue:  Skin is extremely hard to do on nids.  The blue looks a little flat.  You could add darker color to the recesses or give it another highlight to brighten it up. 

 

These are my initial thoughts, hope they help. 

 

On the snow bases, GW works best.  I would suggest adding some white and light blue paint to the mix for preventing yellow.  Also blood effect on white bases look great. 

[Filkarion]

Great work! I really like your scheme!

 

My only suggestion is: paint some details with a warm palette on weapons/biologic bits of larger models to make them stand out

 

Works grate to create a sense of competition on bigger models, with little effort 

[Xenith]

Thanks all for the input. These are still all test models essentially, and the scheme can...evolve. The 'scutes' on the barbed strangler are prime for being painted green, that will likely happen next.

 

Likewise, teeth were mainly an afterthought and straight ulthuan grey over the blue. I can build this up in the same manner as the carapace, going through the greys, and a little purple at the root. I'm not going with the brown/khaki as suggested though, that would look too out of place with the white/grey I have going on, I think.

 

On the skin, maybe it's bad lighting. Its sotek green over white, with a drakenhof/lahmian wash, then back up to sotek.

 

Patterning, I'll go for on larger bugs, but I'm unsure what colours. Maybe xereus and genestealer purple, in blotches down the dorsal carapace.

[Claws and Effect]

I like the scheme.

 

It seems to me that the Vorpal Swords chapter of Marines would be the natural rivals of this hive fleet.

[Draakur]

Scheme is pretty badass, good stuff! Also, love the name :)

[Xenith]

Thanks guys!

 

I've made a couple of touch ups based on suggestions in this thread, but got distracted finishing up some Blood Angels.

 

I also picked up some GW technical snow base, but the original one. I need the valhallan blizzard to start basing my guys. Does anyone have experience with this? I kind of want to give it a guilliman blue wash...

[Closet Skeleton]

I used valhallan blizzard but I never washed it. It stains pretty quickly so I think it will just give you blue mud but I'll test it for you (with cassandora yellow because I don't have guilliman blue)

[Xenith]

Hey, thanks, I'd be interested to see. I think there is a big difference between mournfang snow and valhallan - mournfang is more like plastic beads in a paint + pva glue mix, while valhallan is more like the traditional bicarbonate paste.

 

As such, mournfang is best for slapping on to entirely cover bases, then drybrushing

valhallan is more like patchy snow, to put on other bases.

 

I might end up using a mix of them, or basing them like my other armies/imperial sector basing, just with some patchy snow.

[Xenith]

So my bits order came through today, as well as something from a local trade group, I can add to my collection 17 new gaunts, 14 gargoyles, 6 warriors, 2 fexes and some zoanthrope heads - these will be going onto some warrior bodies to make some old school walking zoans.

[Closet Skeleton]

I forgot about this thread.

 

Casandora yellow turned out how I expected, but I have drakenhof nightshade now so might try that.

[Xenith]

Don't use yellow snow!

 

I'd go with 50:50 lahmian medium to Guilliman blue, it'll do a better job of going into the recesses and not staining the colour, I think.

[Xenith]

A little work done on a base

Really unsure whether to go with full snow bases, or normal bases with a little snow on. Maybe the latter. I'm also having a crisis about the claw colour, green or purple. Likewise, green or pink for the soft bits.

[Xenith]

An example of the purple talons. I think they seem to work well with the blue skin, and match the other purple bio weapons. I can do a reasonably good blend from Xereus purple to genestealer purple also.

And purple and green next to one another

And some detail on the carapace

In the meantime, I've put together a Screamer-Killer Carnifex to test the scheme on a larger bug. Once I'm happy and have nailed something down, I think I'll put together a bunch of stuff and begin to work through it. This is advice on army building and painting from the latest white dwarf, about painting to tight deadlins - the author isnt motivated by models on sprues in cupboards, and I think the lack of progress on my nids (2 months, 4 models/50pts painted) is maybe due to this.

Next up will be the rest of the hormagaunt brood.

Edited August 22, 2017 by Xenith

[Claws and Effect]

I kinda like the purple claws better.

[Xenith]

I think I agree with you now, the purple talons and screamer pink soft Bits just look... Right. I think I'll be going with that. Now I just need to work out how to base them...

[Xenith]

So this weekend I primed 10 termagants and got them to 75% finished, minus the bases, quite pleased with this progress!

I also made and painted a spore mine, giving me 1 troop, 1 fast attack, and a warrior that I can proxy as a prime: Legal army!

Gaunts!

Test gaunt and city base

Hormie on city base

Spore Mine

Edited August 29, 2017 by Xenith