The Great Devourer awakens

This quintet of Tyranid Monstrous Creatures represents the first models painted by John Beech for his new Tyranid collection, currently designated as Hive Fleet Titan.

John has made great use of the spare parts that you get in the Tyranid boxes. This Hive Tyrant combines the body and wings from the plastic Hive Tyrant kit subtly converted using the crushing claw arms from the Carnifex and a few spare devourers. The ammunition feeds (if they can be called that) for the devourers are a pair of spare lash whips that John had left over from his two Hive Tyrant kits.

John's other Hive Tyrant is his current Warlord and he wanted him to be "tough as nails", hence the heavily armoured carapace. The huge shovel-like arms were created using the spare head carapace that comes on the Trygon kit - John imagines that they're large chitinous shields that the Hive Tyrant has adapted to absorb incoming fire. He also used a pair of Carnifex legs and tail to give it an even chunkier appearance. "This is a heavy-duty Hive Tyrant not to be messed with", claims John.

The devourer-armed Carnifex (a deadly weapon combination if you haven't been on the receiving end of one before) has been converted using the spare parts from the Hive Tyrant above, plus a fair amount of Green Stuff to create its deadly bio-weapons.

John has even converted a Harpy for his army. It's a complicated conversion that includes a Carnifex torso, a Hive Tyrant's legs and wings, a Tervigon's tail and a Mawloc's head, plus all manner of spare plastic pieces from his bits box. The end result is an impressive and very dynamic conversion. Apparently John's already started work on a second one...