My Tyranids for Double Trouble 3 and Painted Ripper Swarms

In the spirit of Double Trouble 3, I decided I should make a push to get my Tyranids ready for the event. Before I get into my meagre progress, head over to the DT3 page for more details of the event and to buy your ticket. If you're on Facebook you should also get yourself into the DT group where I'll post updates.

Right, with the shameless plugging out of the way, let's look at what I'll be taking. This list is provisional because I'm hoping to grab a second Tyrant before then but here's what I have for now:

874pts of Tyranids (Patrol Detachment (Behemoth))
Hive Tyrant (adrenal glands, wings, scything talons, devourers, Ymgarl Factor)

16 Genestealers (3 flesh hooks)
3 Ripper Swarms
3 Ripper Swarms

Trygon Prime (adrenal glands)
Trygon Prime (adrenal glands)

Pretty low model count (25) for a Tyranid army but the idea is that if my partner deploys everything I'll be able to keep everything off the table at the start of the game. Obviously I can deploy the Tyrant and/or Rippers if my partner has reserves too. The combination of the Behemoth adaption and the adrenal glands should give me a pretty solid chance of getting into combat with most of my units. That's why I've kept the scything talons on the Tyrant too. It gives him that bit more punch in combat. The big blob of Genestealers should cause problems for my opponents and I'll be hoping to hit them with Catalyst from the Tyrant if I can. The Rippers are obviously just to drop in and grab objectives.

Bear in mind I've never taken Tyranids to a tournament and haven't really played many games with them either. There's no deep tactics involved in the list. It's just get into combat as early as possible and smash face. Rinse. Repeat. Still, if anyone has any tips/suggestions feel free to comment.

Given that this is my new army for 8th edition, I've obviously not got much of it painted. I've got Scott's Tyranids to borrow if I want but I'd prefer to use my own models if I can. We've got an old sofa in the middle of my garage at the moment which still hasn't sold so I'm unable to get to my airbrush. That means I'm currently using my hobby time to frantically assemble all of the above. It's actually a pretty cheap army. I've bought two of the new Start Collecting sets to add to the previous one with the Tyrant. I managed to get a second Swarm box from eBay for a reasonable price which will give me enough Rippers. I did a quick tot up of the points I've got so far and even at a conservative estimate I've already got 3,000pts!! Not sure I'd be fielding 160 gaunts at any point but I can't imagine them every being cheaper than they are in the Swarm box so I figured I'd capitalise.

You might remember my test model (above) was the only thing I'd really managed to get painted so far. Well, with the airbrush not an option I didn't fancy painting much but figured the Rippers wouldn't suffer much from using a normal brush. The Swarm box gives you 20 individual Rippers and they give you five 40 mm bases. It seems daft to me to put five on a base and then not have enough to field three units of 3. I've therefore gone with four per base which I still think looks decent. It's not like you pay much attention to them in a game anyway, they're usually stuck on an objective and forgotten about.

Enough waffle, here they are:

They're far from perfect and still need their bases finishing off but I didn't want to throw any more time into them. The only thing I might go back and do is a pin wash of Nuln Oil into the recesses of the carapace to give them better definition. Bit paranoid it'll ruin them though. I'm happy with how the colour scheme translated to these guys but I'm concerned about how it'll look on one of the big guys. I've built one of the Broodlords from the new Start Collecting box to give me some idea but I might just be better painting the Tyrant. My worry is that the pink will be too much on bigger panels. I'm intending to use the airbrush to give a bit of a blend to it but I'm not sure how successful I'll be with it.

Anyway, it's progress at least. I've built up all of the 'stealers and five more Ripper bases (only need one more though). One of the two Trygons is built and the Tyrant is in bits waiting for magnets. Hopefully I'll have the building done by the weekend and then, assuming this f***ing sofa has sold I'll break out the airbrush and get some basecoats on everything. I might try out some blue-tac masking to see if I can airbrush the pink on too. At this point I'm pretty confident I can get everything done for DT3. How is everyone else getting on? Would people be interested in a series of posts highlighting other people's progress?

Double Trouble 3 Tickets are Now Available!

Somehow another month has passed since I last posted but I need to post today to tell you all that tickets are now available for Double Trouble 3! They're still £17.50 and give you three games of 40K with 9 different people! More details and info on how to buy tickets can be found on the DT3 page here.

For those of you not familiar with the Double Trouble format, allow me to explain. Double Trouble is "doubles with a difference". Most doubles events have you finding a partner ahead of the tournament and working together on a combined army list. Well at DT3 you'll not need to find a partner because everyone gets a different partner in each round. All you need to do is bring an 875 pt list (more on that later). Each round you'll get a random partner and then play against another random pairing. That means you'll play with/against 9 different people over your three games.

I know this format might seem like a strange one to some people but there were good reasons for doing it. Firstly, doubles events are often a problem with people who don't have a regular gaming partner. They're also tricky for those who have an odd number in their group. A potential solution would be just to take all the players without a partner and assign them one. Trouble is, if you get paired with someone you don't like or with a list that doesn't work with yours then you're stuck with them for the day. At DT3 it'll change every round so you're never stuck with the same partner or indeed, opponents.

This high degree of randomness obviously makes for an event that is more social than competitive. I know lots of people who've been put off the tournament scene by the larger events where they might come across a filthy list in all three rounds (or even five rounds in a weekend). To me, the draw of the tournament scene is playing different people from across the country and share a common love of the game. I met people at my first ever event that I'm still in touch with today. Obviously I like playing to win too but I try to tailor my lists to the atmosphere of the event instead of trying to win at all costs.

I'd hope that anyone who's been to the previous two Double Trouble events or even any of  the eleven Blog Wars/NMTBW events will tell you that I believe in giving out a ton of prizes in the free to enter raffle. I'm a great believer in keeping tournament prizes to a minimum. It seems there was criticism of some of the ITC events in the States having large cash prizes that encouraged a higher proportion of filth. There's little stopping you bringing filth to one of my events but you're not going to win a huge prize as a result.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling now. I'll post some more details of the event (including the scenarios) in the coming weeks but you've got just over three months to get your armies ready. I'm hoping to have my Tyranid force ready too so I'll be posting updates on my progress.