he author of Codex: Tyranids, Studio Games
Developer Phil Kelly has a soft spot for all things
gribbly. We
asked him about how he adapted his Tyranid army for the
release of Apocalypse, and how his initial commitment
to paint up a Hierophant Bio-Titan eventually ended up
as a massive project that has doubled the size of Phil's
original Tyranid collection and terrorized the Studio
gaming tables ever since.
Phil's
flying Hive Tyrant and his Gargoyle
bodyguard — very scary
in games of Apocalypse, where
the enemy is forced to close
quarters if he wants to claim
those all-important objectives
Phil:
Unless you have been hiding in a spore chimney for the
last few months, you will know by now that Apocalypse
is a chance to take your favourite army and really go
to town. You might want to up-scale your collection
for
a special game, for an event at your local gaming store,
or just collect a new unit or two for the fun of it.
Apocalypse is an excuse to revisit the first army
you ever collected, to add troops you never thought to
use
or
just haven't
had the points for (a Greater Daemon, Tank Company,
or
even a Titan, for example), and to bring your collection
to a truly impressive size. I would say the sky's
the limit, but if you add a flyer or two to you collection,
even the sky is up for grabs (sorry, no more puns, I
promise).
A WHOLE NEW WORD llow
me to introduce a crude but useful new term that's
snuck into the Studio: "to Apocalypsize" (or "to
Apocalycize" as the Americans call it).
You've heard of upsizing — well, Apocalypsizing
is the next one up. It means to take your army and
add
Battle Formations, special characters, and Legendary
Units to it until you are ready to field it in a game
of Apocalypse. You can Apocalypsize your scenery collection,
too, by making large and impressive pieces for the
action
to centre around. (Click here
to see some of the amazing terrain created by the Studio's
Hobby Team.) Right now, though, I'm going to stick
to what I know, as scenery was never my strong point.
Here are my Tyranids before Apocalypse steamrollered
into view — you might recognise them from the
Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, where I banged on about how
easy they were to paint. Well, they are easy; at least
the little ones.
Phil's
army before Apocalypse crested the horizon.
The extent to which you Apocalypsize your army is
of course up to you. Most gamers are already most of
the way there — the minimum points value of models
you need to play Apocalypse is 3,000, and the majority
of us already have between 1,500 and 2,000 points of
models in our favourite army. Add a couple more Elite
squads and a Legendary Unit such as a Baneblade or Titan,
and bingo, you have an Apocalypsized army. That in itself
can be a really fun project.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, I
am a bit of a geek when it comes to Tyranids. It wasn't
enough for me to just get my collection to 3,000 points
and leave it there (though I had an awesome 3,000 point
game against fellow Studio Games Developer Alessio Cavatore
where my Tyranids took on his Eldar — led by all six
of the Phoenix Lords). I had a simple-but-ambitious
idea, which would mean painting a hell of a lot of gribblies,
but once it occurred to me, I knew that I was going to
have to do it. I think most hobbyists can relate to
that feeling. Several of you have probably had the same
idea already.
Phil's
tyranid force would feel incomplete without a
brood of Genestealers.
My idea was to collect one of each of the Tyranid
Datasheets so that I could field them all at once.
But every grand idea has to start somewhere. The trick
with any really ambitious project is to break it into
a group of smaller tasks. Never is that easier than
with an Apocalypse army — just paint a unit at
a time.
Simple, right? Well, not that simple as it turns out.
But then that might be because I started with a model
that is nearly a foot tall — the majestically
hard Hierophant Bio-Titan.
he author of Codex: Tyranids, Studio Games
Developer Phil Kelly has a soft spot for all things
gribbly. We
asked him about how he adapted his Tyranid army for the
release of Apocalypse, and how his initial commitment
to paint up a Hierophant Bio-Titan eventually ended up
as a massive project that has doubled the size of Phil's
original Tyranid collection and terrorized the Studio
gaming tables ever since.
llow
me to introduce a crude but useful new term that's
snuck into the Studio: "to Apocalypsize" (or "to
Apocalycize" as the Americans call it).
You've heard of upsizing — well, Apocalypsizing
is the next one up. It means to take your army and
add
Battle Formations, special characters, and Legendary
Units to it until you are ready to field it in a game
of Apocalypse. You can Apocalypsize your scenery collection,
too, by making large and impressive pieces for the
action
to centre around. (Click 
