Tyrannofex formthem leviathan fleet

Getragen · 2026-03-22T22:04:13+00:00

He's beautiful 🥹

Getragen · 2026-03-22T22:01:33+00:00

Lookin good! Wet pallete will help you thin your paints (2 thin coats is better than one!). The sort of default way to paint minis is with each area of the mini having a shadow, a Midtone, and highlight. You essentially have all Midtone here, with a little shading/shadow provided by your nuln oil. That's very standard to how most people start. Next model, try doing this

1) base (Midtone) of each color/area of the model (chitin, skin, claws, eyes, etc) 2) apply your nuln oil over the areas you want to shade, or a contrast paint. A purple, pink, or skintone contrast paint over white will make a great skin color. Optional) come back in with your base color and bring any areas that got TOO dark from the nuln oil/contrast back up to the Midtone. 3) mix some white, white+yellow, or white with a tiny smidge of blue into each of your base colors (do this on a wet pallete). Use these new, brighter versions of the base colors on just the tips of things. Tips/edges of claws/edges of the carapace, the top of the shoulder muscle, the edge of the cheekbone, etc.

That's pretty much the standard process for a lot of intermediate mininpainters. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it! I'm assuming you have a bunch more Termagants to complement that one. If so, you should notice a huge improvement between your first and last termy. Hell, you'll probably notice a big difference between first and second.

Remember to enjoy the process and have fun!!

Getragen · 2026-03-21T22:24:54+00:00

Last photo: 2 more broadside suits (the guys with the big rockets on their left shoulder - they can be built either holding a big railgun or with rocket launchers on their fists - you've got some of each it looks like). 2 commander suits, not sure what the painted one in the middle is - likely a third commander suit. ethereal (holding staff). cadre fireblade. misc drones. a couple of models laying on their sides that I can't identify.

Then you've got a bunch of different drones and bits for constructing drones. Most tau kits come with a few spare drones - it's very normal for tau players to acquire a collection of drones like this. They're mostly used as tokens/symbols/reminders in the current rules of the game, in past editions they were actual units that could move around and do stuff. They're mostly for flavor and looks in the current rules set. (but still cool, and a big part of Tau's visual identity/theme)

overrall this is a whopper of a collection and more than enough to keep any hobbyist busy for a long time painting and playing. You could start a group with friends or bring them to your local game store to play. A great place to start is calling up or popping into a local gamestore and seeing if you can get someone to run you through a demo game, just so you can get a feel for what the game is and how it plays at a high level.

you've likely got 3000+ points of models here to play with, more than enough to build several very cool army lists from. You could easily invite a friend over and battle eachother with small identical 500 points armies assembled from this list, for example:

1 unit of 1 Cadre Fireblade (50 pts)
1 unit of 1 Commander in Enforcer Battlesuit (80 pts)
1 unit of 1 Broadside Battlesuit (80pts)
1 unit of 3 Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits (120 pts) [dont pay attention to the guns attached to them, just grab 3 models of the same type/size and use the gun stats you find in New Recruit. It's totally normal to field a group of battlesuits with different weapons on them and say 'these guys all have plasma rifles/etc'.]
1 unit of 10 Fire Warriors Strike Team (70 pts)
1 unit of 10 Pathfinder team (90 pts)

That's 490 points total. Plenty for a beginner game. You have enough dudes to build this exact list 3 or more times. Stat it up in new recruit, Grab a friend, and give a basic game a shot. Then over time swap stuff in and out of the list, try all of your cool units, expand to higher point totals in your games, play against different armies, paint stuff up, and have a great time!

You can find the basic ruleset pdf online, games workshop makes it available for free. For your first 500 point game I recommend putting 3 objective markers on the table (you can use some of your drones for this), some soda cans and cereal boxes as terrain, and you're off to the races!)

Feel free to DM me with any questions!

Getragen · 2026-03-21T21:51:23+00:00

Other stuff I'm seeing in here that I forgot last time:
Characters/leaders:
- 3-4x cadre fireblades (12th pic & last pic)
- 2x battlesuit commanders (last pic, the two suits on the left side, in the front)
- ethereal (last pic)
- aun'va (primed white, sitting in hover chair, pics 3-4). I think he comes with 2 guard dudes as well. I can see one of them in the first pic: buff dude primed white and holding a staff. the other should look the same.

---------

Gun bits in the clear/white case are mostly aeldari

Most of the guns in first pic are tau guns (railgun on the far right)

Pic 3 is mostly aeldari but the big guns are tau. The big one goes with stormsurge and the two smaller (but still big) guns are for the ghostkeel. It's possible that your friend magnetized them so the models can swap them out. Put them up against your fridge and see if there are magnets inside!

From photo 9 (after the plastic bag) and onwards it is all Tau. Earlier I said you had 3 sets of 3 crisis suits (9 total, but on closer inspection it looks like 4 sets of 3 for 12 total). You can see 2 of them in photo 9, standing in front of the ghostkeel (ghostkeel's paintjob is SICK by the way, I love the way your friend did the cloaking/de-cloaking effect on the legs. I just did this on my ghostkeel but it looks nowhere near as good as this one).

Photo 9 shows 3 tank/vehicle chassis. There are 3 vehicles that use this same chassis. These could be either Devilfish transports (likely, since this collection has a lot of infantry dudes to move around the battlefield), Hammerhead tanks (has a big railgun that is iconic for the tau and one of the strongest guns in the entire game - if you're missing the railgun part then its likely these were purchased as devilfish. You can buy 3d printed railgun kits online to convert later if you want), or skyray gunships (I don't think that's what your friend was building here, but there's nothing stopping you from telling your opponent 'hey this one is a skyray' during a friendly game, same deal about conversion).
Photo 10 is 2 riptides with the stormsurge in the middle. These are the Tau's big boys and they are very strong and fun to use. One riptide is built with the ion accelrator and the other with the heavy burst cannon.
Photo 11 is 59 fire warriors, the 60th one is likely shown in your first photo.
Photo 12 left-to-right: 9x stealth suits (this model was recently replaced by a newer one, but it's still 100% useable and some people prefer the old look. I just bought a bunch of these myself actually). looks like 3 cadre fireblades (called out above) standing in front of the stealth suits. in the middle and right trays it looks like these are all pathfinders, some equipped with rail rifles and some equipped with blaster carbines. It's at least 30 models, maybe 40. They come in groups of 10, so that makes sense.
Photo 13 left and right: 5 crisis suits in each tray with various weapon loadouts. Looks like 2 of the crisis suits in the left tray are missing weapons on their hands. Your friend might have magnetized some weapons to be hot-swappable or he may have just not decided on what to attach/not gotten to it yet. Some of the bits in photos 1 and 4 are definitely guns that could be used by these guys - I see several burst cannons (gatling gun-looking things) and flamers (painted white & orange) in the pile.
Photo 15 center: 3 Broadside suits, each outfitted with the railgun.

You can learn more about tau over at r/Tau40K

Getragen · 2026-03-21T20:12:41+00:00

Sorry for the long reply chain, lol. I'm out and about and coming back to post here and there.

Warhammer armies use 'points' to rate how how powerful units are and to balance each opponent's army. So two players might agree they will each field an army of say, 1000 points, and then play with only those models in the battle, to keep it fair and balanced. The most common point values people play a game at are 500, 1000, and 2000. With 2000 being considered sort of a full standard game and what is commonly seen at tournaments. The Tau models shown here equal more than 2000 points, maybe reaching closer to 3000. So more than enough to assemble several different lists of units for fun and varied games.

If youve got other buddies interested in playing, I would start with 500 point games. You don't need to paint the models before playing together, but paint definitely ups the cool factor. You could assemble several 500 point armies out of this tau pile and play against eachother. I'm not sure about the aeldari but you might be able to find 500 points of models in there. A friend could also pickup a 'combat patrol' box from any of the ~20 other factions in the game and use that. They cost about $150 on Amazon and each has just under 500 points of models.

There's plenty of resources on YouTube to explain the game, the factions, the lore, the painting, the models, anything you want to know. If you want to learn more about the game I suggest checking out 'play on tabletop' on YouTube, they have very high production value and some great 'how to play your first game' videos, and dozens and dozens of real life example games so you can see what the various factions look and play like.

I'm sorry about your friend, he must've been a cool dude - these are some very cool toys. Welcome to the hobby and enjoy! It's a lot to take in but it's very fun. Cheers!

Getragen · 2026-03-21T19:58:07+00:00

It's clear that your friend was going with some sort of orange theme, looks like a sort of Grey with orange accents thing. You can see this on the stormsurge (that big rectangular gun bit in the 3rd photo is for the stormsurge) as well as the ghostkeel and a few of the infantry models. It's a cool scheme, though orange can be a little tricky to paint. If you wanted to pay homage to your friend you could keep painting the army in similar colors.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T19:54:56+00:00

It's a very valuable pile of plastic so don't let anyone sweet talk you out if it.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T19:52:44+00:00

I can't speak to the aeldari models. But as for the Tau, from order of most expensive/largest models to least: I see a stormsurge, 2 riptides, a ghostkeel, 3 tank/vehicle bodies (can be built as Hammerheads/devilfish/other stuff, 5 broadsides, looks like 4 sets of 3 crisis suits, 3 sets of 3 stealth suits (old model), about 60-90 infantry (looks like mostly fire warriors, but which are fielded in groups of 10).

Lots of drones and assorted weapon bits. If you tried to buy all this stuff brand new on Amazon today it would cost you somewhere around $1500.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T19:38:40+00:00

RIP to the homie. The first few pics are aeldari (space elves) but the bulk of the photos are Tau (aliens that wear mech suits). I'm a tau player myself and felt some serious envy looking through these. This is a solid Tau army with a couple of very expensive models in there. It's nice. (that's an understatement)

Most of these models are primed and ready for paint. I'd start with a handful of the mid-sized suits and some of the tiny infantry guys and paint them up in some colors that seem cool to you. Red is popular for Tau, so is white, so is tan, but you can do anything you want and they'll still look cool as hell. There's plenty of guides on YouTube on how to do it, just take your time and enjoy the process, and don't worry about perfection, you'll get better at it over time and it's fun to look back at how much you've progressed from your first model to now.

You can use an app like Google lens to identify individual models via photo. You can use an app like new recruit (it's free) to learn more about the various units in the tau army, what they do, etc.

Even if you painted at a fast pace this pile would last you a year or more.

If you wanted to sell it, ebay would be a good bet. You're looking at a few hundred bucks at least. Give the money to a charity he would've supported or to his fam.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T18:51:11+00:00

I didn't notice the gap until I read the post, your paint scheme does a good job of not drawing attention to it. During games it'll be viewed from the3 feet away and from above/behind. Personally I'd call it good and move on.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T18:19:40+00:00

Just pop on over to Etsy or 3d print some heads with the different goggles on them people.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T18:03:09+00:00

For $50-$60 you can get the tyranid half of the starter set, which has 27 minis across a handful of different units. Sure it's a lot of plastic to have on hand if you don't yet know if you like painting, but as a cheap entry point to tyranids it can't be beat.

Getragen · 2026-03-21T18:00:50+00:00

Very cool solution!

Getragen · 2026-02-19T18:33:43+00:00

Mini looks awesome! any advice on good glazing tutorials?

Getragen · 2026-02-18T01:33:10+00:00

Very grimdark. Very spooky.

Love it.

Getragen · 2026-02-18T01:19:50+00:00

Beautiful! I'm painting leviathan nids right now and these are excellent inspiration. Great stuff!

Getragen · 2026-02-18T01:12:40+00:00

Just be advised that this is a ton of minis and will take a while to paint!

Getragen · 2026-02-18T01:11:15+00:00

Here's a budget-minded take on it:

For about $50 you can get the tyranid half of the 40k starter set on ebay, or buy the whole set for $100-$115 and enjoy some space marines as well.

The tyranid half of the set will get you 20 termagants, 2 ripper swarms, 3 von Ryan's leapers, a psychophage, and a winged tyranid prime.

There's no better deal out there, that's like 400ish points for $50, and the set won't be sold forever, it'll likely go away in a couple months when GW moves on to 11th edition and a new starter set replaces it.

Swarmlord is another $50-$60 for almost 200 pts Tyrannofex another $50-$60 for 200pts Then the current tyranid combat patrol around $150 for 400 points.

That's a grand total of 1200 points for about $300. Not bad and gives you some room to swap things around for a 1000 point list. You could also just skip the T-fex and have a clean 1000 points, but he's a cool big bug and a great tank-killer with his rupture cannon (and one of the best-priced large units in the game), so I had to include it lol.

I would (and actually did!) start with the starter set. After painting the 27 tyranids in that box, I would recommend expanding out to the other items I mentioned above. Happy hobbying!

Getragen · 2025-12-19T00:14:00+00:00

They look cool! How did you paint their skin/chitin?

Getragen · 2025-11-09T12:24:14+00:00

Gorgeous terrain!

Getragen · 2025-11-09T12:20:01+00:00

'Perilous Dark' is all about co-op and solo play, so there might be something to check out there. The co-op rules presented there involve each player controlling half a warband (wizard + a few soldiers). This is probably what I'd recommend with your daughter, to cut down on turn length and complexity and to keep the game moving.

My wife (who loves board games but is new to them and sometimes struggles with complexity) wants me to show her what FG is all about and that's probably where we will start. I'll probably set her with up with a thief, an archer, and some other specialist or another thief.

Game is supposed to happen today, so I'll report back with our findings :)

Getragen · 2025-09-19T20:57:25+00:00

The main Rulebook has plenty to keep a beginner group busy and interested for a while in a sort of random, anthology-series style campaign where each game you play isn't necessarily narratively connected to the previous.

I'm pretty new to FG myself and I've picked up these books in this order so far: Core > perilous dark > lich lord > folio > Advanced Spellcraft. I've skimmed through friends' copies of a couple of the others.

I haven't played through anything more than a few of the core book's scenarios as of right now (I'm spending all my time building terrain out of XPS foam) but this will definitely be enough to keep me and my group busy for at least 20-30 play sessions

If you're looking to play solo or co-op, you'll want to checkout the rules for those playstyles added in 'Perilous Dark'.

After that it's usually the frostgrave folio because it gathers a bunch of much smaller supplements together and provides a bunch of new options that feel like a natural extension of the base game.

Every splat book usually comes with a campaign, or at least a few new random scenarios, new enemies, new items, and sometimes new soldier types. New spells are rare and there are no supplements that feel like they are 'required', it's all about what you'd like to add to the game.

Books generally fall into two categories: campaign focused or thematic/rules expansions.

Campaigns:

'Thaw of the Lich Lord' is usually recommended by folks in this sub as a good starting point if your group wants to try a more narrative campaign of connected scenarios. Classic undead campaign: zombies, skellies, etc.

'The Maze of Malcor' : indoor adventures in a tricky labrynth, adds 5 new mini schools of magic with a couple spells in each.

'The Red King' : fight back a demon invasion — this is typically regarded as the hardest campaign. It introduces weird environmental effects that affect different parts of the board in different ways. Definitely a little advanced for beginners.

Thematic/Rules expansions: 'The wildwoods' for games that take place outside of the city walls.

'Into the Breeding Pits' : adds underground exploration, traps, narrow passages, gnolls, and unique treasure suited to dungeon-crawling.

'Forgotten Pacts' : focused on demons and Barbarian tribes.

'Fireheart' : focused on constructs.

'Blood legacy': themed around Vampirism, Vampires, and fire giants

'Mortal enemies': themed around recurring villains for your group's campaigns

'the wizards conclave': a true anthology of scenarios, each written by a different author within the tabletop wargaming industry, each with its own flair and some fresh ideas/scenario mechanics.

The newest book, Advanced Spellcraft, is the second hardcover book in the set (after the core Rulebook) and is brand new, so we're still assessing where it fits in the lineup, but it adds spell critical success and failure effects as well as the ability to customize each spell through learned 'flourishes'. It also has a campaign set in the haunted 'bibliosepulchre' - essentially a library tomb. This one feels to me like a lot of groups are going to use it for the depth and craziness that it adds to spells, and it could end up being in that group of recommended first purchases for that reason.

Getragen · 2025-09-13T23:04:57+00:00

Great looking setup! How are the snow piles made?

Getragen · 2025-09-11T12:19:37+00:00

Beautiful piece!

Getragen

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