Nids and Nidability

Hey.  What's this?! There's not a single Calibanian in that picture.  Nobody's wearing robes, nobody's keeping secrets. What the hell?!

Ahhh, worry not dear friends. It's a side project.  I am attempting to build a Tyranid army without paying full price for any model.  Or at least, the majority of them. It's a social experiment tailored to size, to paraphrase the immortal Roy Harper.

It started when I got a free Fortress of Redemption.  I won't say where or how, needless to say I got it legally and for free. Which was nice.  Except I already have one.  So I took it to my local GW where they exchanges it for me as it was still sealed and they didn't have one in stock.  I ummed and aaaahed for a while, resisting the temptation to get MORE Spess Mareen stuff (even though a third Ravenwing box was calling my name) and picked up the Tyranid codex and Battleforce. Paid a measly fourty dollars or something in difference and off I went.  People were agog

"Chris is doing nids!" (And all at the same time! F'nar!)
"Chris has dropped his Dark Angels!" (which I will deny at the top of my lungs from the highest peak)
etc.

So I got the battleforce. Put that together.  Hmmm need more stealers.
I love Craigslist.  I love eBay.  Now I have 40 2nd edition Space Hulk genestealers.  Unpainted. I have more spore mines than I can shake a stick at.  I got more gaunts and a hive tyrant at discount and bought gaunt bodies and heads from Hoard O'Bits to make more gaunts using the arms left over! Then I got three warriors for $20 which were unassembled and unwanted.  That would make my warrior brood and Prime.
OMFG - I looked at all of the niddiness I had amassed and was... a little overwhelmed.  That's a hell of a lot of dipping to be done in the near future.  Possibly a whole liter of Minwax will be used.

And I did it again today.  Craigslist, you slut. I answered her call again today and got:


9 stealers with rending claws
3 termagaunts with devourers
2 termagaunts with spinefists
21 termagaunts with fleshborers
6 hormagaunts
1 base of rippers
10 spore mines
1 old Zoanthrope that needs basing somehow
1 old (smaller) hive tyrant (which will now be my Tyranid prime)

Not cleaned of flash, poorly primed and some horribly painted. $25.

I'm off to buy some Simple Green to give them a bath.  Really, they're horrible.  It looks like a certain local Howling Griffons player painted them. Yikes.

I may start a sub-blog to cover the creation of my bug army, or maybe not.