Tyranid Objective Markers Concept /w Pics!

Welcome heretics, xenos friends, and loyalist scum wishing you can be as cool as us.  Welcome to another post by your beloved (or reviled) heresiarch, Chaosheade.  Life is continuing to kick my butt pretty thoroughly.  Work, my wife catching pneumonia and an angry gall bladder, taking care of my family, blah blah blah, excuses, excuses.  Fortunately my wife is pretty much recovered now and things are getting closer to normal, or at least what passes as normal for me.  I have been able to squeeze in some hobbying and I'm making some decent progress building my nids.  Of course my blogging has slowed down a bit but what can you do?  I'm here now, ain't I?

Today I wanted to share an idea I had for some Tyranid objective markers that I think are going to be wicked awesome.  Yes, I just said that.  That just happened.  I uploaded some previews of some preliminary conceptual mock-ups of the models on my DeviantArt account and then "leaked" them on the Maximum Heresy Twitter Feed.  For those of you who think Twitter is for twits, here's a blog post with all the pictures and info with a more thorough explanation of all the markers and the inspiration behind them.  Gribbly goodness after the jump.



I already have some more generic objective markers that would serve for my 'nids but I thought it would be even better if I made a set of objectives specifically for my Tyranids.  It was a very low priority on my list so I stuck the idea on the back burner when I happened to come across a picture on DakkaDakka that just screamed "You should make objective markers like this!"  The picture is entitled "Ripper Thanksgiving" and can be found at the end of the first post in this thread by Doomthumbs.

Eureka!  That looks like a great objective marker!

The idea just grabbed me so I began thinking about how to go about turning it into a set of objective markers.  In the fluff I'm working on for Hive Fleet Balor my army began as a splinter fleet from Hive Fleet Leviathan and eventually grew large and unique enough to be classified as a separate fleet.  To be consistent with the fluff of my army I decided that the victims in my objective markers would be from the same forces that fought against Hive Fleet Leviathan.  I was also leaning towards selecting victims from armies that my friends play so I went with Orks, vanilla marines (Ultrasmurfs), and Blood Angels.  The Blood Angels were not directly involved as a chapter but Deathwatch forces were active in the fighting so I decided to make a Deathwatch inducted Blood Angel as one of the victims.  I also went with a couple Imperial Guardsmen even though I don't know anyone who plays them because I had a cool idea for one of them.  That's enough fluffiness for now, let's get on to the markers!

At this point it's still mostly in the concept phase as I collect all the bits (I'm almost there) to actually create the objective markers.  These are just a quick and dirty mock-ups stuck together with blu-tac stuff to get an idea of what they will look like when they are finished.  I'm aiming for a very dynamic look on each one as if it's an action scene and not just an immobile figure on the table.  Let's get into the details of each one now, shall we?

This first one is an unfortunate Ork falling to ground trying to fight them off and failing.  I am planning on modeling him as if he is being overwhelmed and falling to the ground as he continues to desperately fight for his life.  Spoiler alert: he's going to die.  After taking this picture and looking over the markers I decided that this one did not have as much character as the others so I came up with the idea to add another ripper biting the ork's face off as he is falling.  I might add another ripper or two on top of that one just to emphasize the fact that he is being overwhelmed by the little buggers.

The second Ork is doing a little better than the first one (but he's still going to die) and has grabbed one of the rippers by the tail to use as a club after losing his choppa.  The pose and position of his ripper-club arm isn't quite right (I'll work on that) but I really like the concept of the Ork using one of the rippers as a weapon.  Another thing I like about this one is the ripper staring down the barrel of the Ork's slugga.

This poor unfortunate fool Ultrasmurf fool has already fallen and will have a ripper coming out of him chest burster style.  It's hard to really show this using just blu-tac so you'll have to use your imagination a bit on this one but I can guarantee you it will look really cool when it's done.  I also have a ripper munching on his dismembered arm/shoulder and will probably add a couple more rippers to this one as well.

This one will be the Blood Angel Deathwatch marine, another one of my favorites of the set.  Like all the others, he is doomed to be devoured by the little monsters.  He knows he's screwed so he has decided to go out with a bang - literally.  It might be hard to see in the pic but he's holding a grenade in his right hand so he can take out as many of the rippers as possible when he goes down.  Another bit of action on this one is the chainsword in his left hand.  One ripper has ducked under the marine's swing but the second one will be caught in mid leap by the blade with the obvious brutal outcome of the chainsword + ripper flesh combination.

This is another really fun one.  This guardsman has had the unfortunate experience of being eaten from the inside out.  The ripper is poking its head out of the guardsman's neck and will be wearing the guardsman's helmet on its head.  I really love how the ripper looks like it has this crazy grin on its face as if it is very amused with its handiwork.  I certainly am.  I am still missing the bits for the second guardsman so I don't have any pictures of that one but he will be a lot like the original "Ripper Thanksgiving" picture where he is just dead on the ground and being devoured.

I obviously have a lot of work to do to get these objective markers modeled and ready to put on the table but they show a lot of promise and I'm really excited about them.  I really like how dynamic they all are.  Action scenes may be a bit unusual for objective markers but I think a little imagination can go a long way towards explaining why an army would want to claim these objectives.  It could be to consume the biomass of the fallen fighters, reclaiming Gene Seed, getting revenge on the rippers, just wanting to make sure one or both of the sides in each fight is finished off, or there could be some material object involved in the scene that is important in some way.  The objects could be valuable loot, a relic, weapons or ammunition, documents/intelligence, teef, or anything else that would be important to your army.  The possibilities are endless and dny of these things, material or otherwise, could be the motivation for any force wanting to claim the objectives.

So that's my idea for some very cool and dynamic objective markers.  They are not on the top of my priorities list but they will definitely be awesome when I get around to making them.  I'd love to hear some feedback on the idea, both positive and negative, so please feel free to leave a comment to let me know what you think of the idea.  I am still working on the Zoanthrope conversion tutorial and have some other ideas for my hive fleet so stay tuned for more gribbly goodness coming to a blog near you!  Catch you on the flip side.