The Great Devourer … the great darkness among the stars … the Hive Fleets … the Tyranids are one of the most unique Aspects of Warhammer 40.000 and probably the single Faction, that has the most attraction for me. All the others … they are just there to fight the Tyranids. So about fucking time to get my own flavour of them. Say hello to Hive Fleet Styx …
Warhammer Veterans instantly recognize the image as the 3rd Edtion Cover Artwork for Codex Tyranids by none other than Adrian Smith. While I was looking for a colour scheme for my own Hive Fleet, I stumbled across this tutorial by famous Mengel Miniatures, of how to paint Genestealers as inspired by Adrian Smiths’ classic Artwork, and instantly fell in love with it.
And as we now have Contrast Paints, I tried to give the black carapace a little shiny tone, so I added Syish Purple, Terradon Turquoise and Leviadon Blue to the Black Templar … and of course Blood Angels Red to the lower parts. Quite easy so far and yet impressive.
Fluff
As the dark colour scheme and the dark name suggest, the Hive Fleet Styx mostly stays in the shadows. Although they have devoured whole Systems after arriving in the Milyway, they quickly disappeard afterwards from that part of space, just to appeare somewhere else again. And … the Imperiums formost contact with Hive Fleet Styx is not through regular Invasion, but more in form of infestations of Space Hulks and inhabitated worlds. Interestingly, the infested worlds don’t have anything in common. Some worlds were densely populated, some were Forge Worlds, but some were also almos barren and even Death Worlds are among Styx’s preys.
Scout organisms of Styx have even been found on worlds that have been invaded and stripped of almost all live by other Hive Fleets. It almost seems like Hive Fleet Styx is searching for something, but nobody can guess what that might be …
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