Tyranids: Hive Fleet Zorn

Following our dive into One Page Rules, I've been looking at my old GW Warhammer 40,000 armies, to get them up to speed and playable for OPR.

One of the core joys of these rules is that I can look at armies I'd like to play but would never get to using the 40k rules, and they are actually viable to put on the table using OPR. Marvellous!

So, starting with my Tyranids, I kicked off on the 21 genestealers I acquired from somewhere years ago. I gave them a coat of ivory spray as an under/base coat. I'm really not sure what colour to paint these little fellows, but I want to get them done and on the table super-quick, so something simple I think.

I went with a sepia wash to make them bone coloured, and I considered therefore making them bone & red, which in GW terms would make them "Hive Fleet Kraken". 

However, faced with the choice at the painting table, I decided I wanted to keep a less striking and more muted tone to the army, and so I went with one of my favourite GW contrast colours, their leathery brown. This would push the Tyranids into the direction of Hive Fleet Karkinos.

Image by Catgutt here: https://pholder.com/hive-fleet-karkinos

There is NO WAY I'm painting them to look this good. I could probably get close with a lot of effort and time, but I want these on the table, so they'll be "grim dark", around the Zorn palette, and will be rough, scrappy and dirty looking. I didn't even bother correcting some of the errors, remaining flash etc. that the previous owner inflicted while building the little chaps!

Which means...ooh...perhaps these are Hive Fleet Zorn, a degenerated splinter of Karkinos. Interesting...

Anyway, after about an hour and 10 mins of work (not counting drying time) over a couple of lunchtimes and breaks, I've got the genestealers mostly finished.

I used Carroburg Crimson for the pinky bits, Snakebite Leather for the brown carapace, and for the claws and "back stripe" I used Basilicum Grey.

They are scrappy and a bit messy but they'll look fine enough ranked up. I wasn't sure switching away from the red was the right choice, but when the black/grey went on, I was very much happier with the results, and now I kind of like them.

I think the grey/black needs a bit of darkening down maybe.

In OPR terms these genestealer will make 4 units of "Soul Snatchers".

Next, onto the dreaded task of building the other models...

I glued the damn things together (have I ever mentioned how much I dislkie making multipart models?) double quick and made a start on the paint in a similar vein to the genestealers.

Now then...

Hmm...

I used carroburg crimson wash with the genestealers for the "fleshy bits" and figured I'd continue with that for these other models. I chose to make the extensive areas of wing membranes "fleshy" and...well...it didn't look right. 

In my efforts to try to fix it, the models became increasingly pink. Not what I indended at all.

OK, so, I actually think the pink is quite nice, but it just doesn't fit with the Zorn palette that I want with this tyranid army.  Its too bright and in my view unbalanced in colour tone. I was planning to have bone/brown as the theme, and the pink just overpowers that, changing the tone of the whole force to pink. It dominates to the overall appearance.

Ugh.

What do I do? 

I agonised over whether I just run with it or whether I repaint it to try to get it closer to what I want. I want the flesh tones to be less red and more orange/brown, so I think that's where I'm going with it.

INTERMISSION

And I'm back.

OK, so, with time to consider, and consulting with friends (and strangers online) I decided to try to fix the "pink problem". I gave it a wash of Guilliman Flesh contrast paint, and it seemed to improve the situation, really toning down the bright pink.

I'm happy its at a point where I can proceed and so i finished off the final bits and bobs (after taking the Tyranids into battle last night).

I have a couple of other units ordered and on the way, but for now, I'm calling the army done. Here it is in all its glory.