Monday 6 December 2010

'nids part 3. The Tervigon Tutorial part 1.

Chronologically speaking the Tervigon was one of the last elements to join my son's hive fleet, did we ever decide it was Hive Fleet Gorgon? Only the Hive Tyrant and the still WiP Mycetic Spores spawned after it. As the 'without numbers rule' had been dropped a Tervigon was really the only way to give that same effect of continually adding to your battleforce throughout the game. Now for the same price as a Tervigon you can probably get a whole lot more Termagants than they spawn but I thought I'd give it a go.

Initially I was deeply impressed by this Tervigon on BoLs and they also had a competition that rendered up quite a lot of cool looking homebrews. So I think it became apparent that a Carnifex would make the standard chassis to build the Tervigon out of. Ideally it can use a Trygon body to represent the bigger size to store all those embryonic gribblies in but I couldn't invest in that kind of shenanigans. As it was I was still thinking of versatility and if I used a Carnifex that looked like a Tervigon, in certain circumstances my son could perhaps still play it as a Carnifex, if he wanted to.

So a conversion that was just enough to pass muster was the call of the day and as this would be my first large scale conversion then it would be 'just enough'. Firstly I needed a donor Carnifex and thankfully ebay supplied. I wasn't even trying to get one really, it was a Sunday evening, we'd had tea and I was supposed to be doing the dishes. I checked on ebay and there was a Carnifex auction finishing in the next few minutes. I think no one had bid, or if they had I snatched it for the next highest amount of £7 or £8. Of course then the sweat gets on as the timer ticks down and suddenly I had a semi-painted/built Carnifex with box, spare sprue components and only a broken scything talon for around £11 including P&P. You gotta love the way those Carnifex nidzilla armies were destroyed by the new Codex...

My idea was to follow similar examples on the net. Silver foil balls were to be the Termagant embryos, with PVA coated tissue paper for the sac and a sphincter opening in the chest/stomach area for a Termagant to be expunged from.

First things first was a base. I wanted one of the oval ones from GW but the guy in my local shop just told me to make one as he didn't have any in stock. So it was back to the old hardboard from my son's old bed that I'd used to base most of our ruins on. It's kind of a nightmare to use a craft knife on 4mm thick hardboard, especially on curves, but it's possible.

A Termagant was then hacked, tail 'docked', bent in the middle and all it's limbs repositioned. Simple chops taken out of them to make them bend better and any gaps filled with poly glue and sprue shavings which when placed with care can form replacement plastic as if it had always been there [though a bit weaker].


Throughout all of this I was using the Carnifex as guide to how the Termagant would fit in. The 'fex had it's plain front carapace plate removed, the hardest part of the conversion, and replaced with the spine carapace for the Tervigons cluster spines [or whatever]. I'd then bent the right leg outwards, so much it broke off. Some more poly glue and shavings extended the joint in the groin area. This gave me much more room for the tin foil embryos. These were all added using my hot melt glue gun and a space in the front was made for the exit sphincter.


Below you can see a rear/side view and how the sacs were positioned. I chose the armoured tail, it seemed to bulk it out a little more in keeping with the scale of the beast. You can also see his broken talon. I'd tried re-gluing it but it had snapped off again, the poly glue joins aren't always as strong as the carapace  join was. At this stage the second pair of scything talons were not in place to aid access and because they would be mounted to the base to add more support for the model and represent it supporting it's own bulk as well as reducing their chance of snapping off.


In this front view you should be able to make out the sphincter and how the Termagant  pose fits into the Tervigon. I'd debated about the central row of vents depicted in the Codex. Although I wished to add them I didn't for a number of reasons, I didn't think my modelling skills would do them justice, it would firmly indicate it was a Tervigon and reduce it's versatility to be fielded as a Carnifex and the easier the conversion the greater chance I'd actually get it done and into battle.



Part 2 coming up...

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