Hive Fleet Numereji: Building a Better Deathleaper

I have a couple of games of 7^th Ed. 40K lined up and I have realised that I don’t have any painted HQ units. I have a choice of three Hive Tyrants, Deathleaper and a Tyranid Prime to finish off, all of which have been stripped of their old paint scheme and require various amounts of modelling to complete.

My 5^th-6^th Ed. force was led by the Swarmlord and featured Deathleaper, which was great fun, so I have decided to start with them. The Swarmlord has made it onto my 2014/15 To-Do list, but Deathleaper is going to be the first finished out of necessity, so that I can play in smaller games.

To prepare the miniature I have performed some significant re-posing. In my opinion, the stock standard pose is, well…

I modified the head slightly and reposed the legs to produce a more dynamic look. I also bent the tail to give it a more aggressive appearance. Weapons-wise, I have replaced the scything talons with old 3^rd Ed. Ravenor parts, because I prefer the cleaner look. I do like the more contemporary mantis style talons as well, but they just didn’t look right.

 

 

 

 

The rending claws are going to be from the Tyrant Guard kit, and look wicked in my opinion (the trifurcated Space Marine is a nice touch: thanks Citadel!). The Space Marine viscera (guts) are from the back end of an Aliens style xenomorph head from Chapterhouse Studios (I think…). I don’t have much experience with painting gore, so it is going to be an interesting project. To help with that I have borrowed some Tamiya Clear Red to tint with, it will just be a case of getting the underlying colour layers right.

Next step: laying down glazes to bring out all that detail (…and hide stuff I don’t like!)

See you across the table,

M4cr0

P.S. The Mad Mek over at The Mad Mek's Workshop just posted some photos of his new Big Mek conversion (check it out, it is wicked). It reminded me of something, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what...

Then I remembered this...

Fantastic! I'm not sure if anyone outside of Australia has heard of Gotye, but he has been pretty big here for a while now. Great clip and a great Big Mek: enjoy!