Today I have something different to the stuff I’ve been churning out over the past months – something from Games Workshop – Forgeworld in fact. What we have here is the set of three Tyranid Capillary Towers that have been OOP for many years and that I’ve had sitting around here for many more.
They weren’t too hard to paint, though they did take me over a year from start to finish. They’ve been about 80% done for months even within that.
What was keeping me from finishing them was simply laziness – needing to get right in there and finish the “meaty parts” and all the rocks. The problem that was keeping me from starting them, on the other hand – was not having settled on a colour scheme for my Tyranids. This mentally blocked me from even beginning to paint them for many years until I finally just decided to get them started sometime over a year ago – probably for one of Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery challenges. I finally settled on using the “Cockroach Brown” scheme that I did paint a few Tyranid/Genestealer models in many years ago as a Combat Patrol – for a very old, White Dwarf version of the rules. Sadly, I’m not even sure where those models are at the moment.
I figured that if I go for a different Tyranid paint scheme in the future, I can always add contrast over the top of the brown to tint them red or purple or whatever. This way they’re finished and out of the house – they sat next to the printer for a year or so and Marouda always told me that she was worried one of us would accidently stab outselves on the spikes.
As you can see here, they’re pretty impressive looking next to a Space Marine, and have potential use for any other games that need some Alien/Kaiju Biomass bursting from the ground, etc. I always wanted (but never got) the triple-version of these – the Spore Chimney as it had gone OOP by the time I was thinking about ordering it. Luckily there’s no end of readily available STL files to make similar models to both Spore Chimneys and Capillary Towers and more these days – so if I decide to keep goiong with my ‘Nid scenery, I guess I’ll be doing that. I’ll probably have to start painting the models first, though! As models that I’ve owned for a decade or more, these ones certainly count towards Dave Stone’s Paint What You Got Challenge 24-25.
I’m aware that I do need to get onto more of my GW models – both as painting exercises and just to get more of them done. The difficulty is that the main game we’ve been playing has been Zombicide, I’m into the final sets of models for our 1st edition collection, and as I’m sure many of you will agree – games are more fun when the models are all painted – so I’ll just have to try to keep sprinking in a few more GW models, though unless I suddenly start playing 40k or AoS on the reg, I can’t see the focus shifting dramatically away from the endless hordes of Zombies.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I think the neutral colour scheme works really well on these towers mate, and with the detail Simon Egan sculpted on these, must be a joy to paint with contrast paints
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Thanks Dave. Contrasts made for a good base, then regular paints over the top. Painting them was the opposite of a joyful experience though, unfortunately! 😮
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Whoa!! They’re awesome. Don’t worry mate, laziness gets to us all sometimes
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Thanks mate – and you’re not wrong!
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Oooh, I like these! 🙂 Very impressive!
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Thanks John – they’re certainly impressive pieces with the size of them!
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These really capture the creepiness of Tyranids well. That ugly “bug” tan color is perfect for stuff like this. I enjoy seeing the zombies so keep ’em coming, I say! 🙂
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Thanks mate – it comes from how I painted the few Tyranids that I did paint – essentially a “cockroach brown” copy of the Xenomorph costumes from Aliens.
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So cool! I have always liked those terrain pieces. Very cool; great results!
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Thanks! A shame I didn’t get more of them at the time, but at least we all have more options accessible to us in 2025! 🙂
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Oh those are very cool. Always fancied getting myself some of them but never did.
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I have to say – with 3d printing there’s never been an easier and even cheaper time to get some of these if you still want them – there’s so many very similar and accurate STLs out there for free so you just need someone to print them for you (or probably eBay ot Etsy).
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This is true. I really need to befriend someone locally who has a 3d printer. I did find some Tyranid terrain on ebay but a close look at the photos revealed print lines about 3 foot deep so I declined. And then along comes GW with the new kill team set, and what do you know – it’s got a load of Tyranid terrain in it. To my eye it doesn’t match up to this stuff, but I reckon it’s good enough – but on the other hand it’s going to be expensive and sell out 3 seconds before it goes on sale, so maybe 3d-printed is the way to go after all. I just have this longstanding dream of sending a Deathwatch strike team onto a planet that’s being consumed by the Tyranids – which is very silly as I have no Tyranid terrain… or any Tyranids… or any Deathwatch…
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Great painting mate👍🏻, I had a bit of a chuckle in regard to Marouda’s comment about being stabbed 😂😂😂👍🏻.
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Thanks Pat – crazy to be worried about impaling yourself on these, right? 😉
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😂😂👍🏻
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