Tyranid Malanthrope - Musings on Forge World's Tyranids

Creeping death.

When people think of the models that Forge World produces, I believe that most think of their impressive battle titans, tanks, and more recently their vast range of Horus Heresy models. Few, I suspect, think of the tyranids. I think this stems largely from that fact that many of their older, stellar kits have been discontinued with the release of plastic counterparts from Games Workshop.  And while I love the convenience of plastic, many of the Forge World Tyranid models were actually a good example of the increased level of fine detail possible with resin.  But today, few probably even know of the existence of the original resin Trygon, let alone have seen one in person.  I recently had the pleasure of assembling Forge World’s Tyranid Malanthrope kit, seeing the quality of the sculpt first hand. I wanted to spend a little time here to tell you about the model.

The Evolution of the Tyranid Zoanthrope

In space no one can hear you scream.

While no one was really expecting it, Games Workshop revisited the Hive Mind and opened the floodgates to another wave of new tyranid monstrosities over the past few weeks. When first hearing about the coming tyranid releases, I made the assumption that it would focus solely on introducing large tyranid bio-constructs to serve as army centerpieces (sort of a trend for Games Workshop for a while now). This was largely true, with the release of the Toxicrene and Maleceptor on the first week followed by the Tyrannocyte and Sporocyst on the second. However, the third week took a drastic turn. Instead of dreaming up new tyranid creatures, they looked inward and redesigned two of their older units in plastic, the Venomthrope and the beloved Zoanthrope! Frequent readers may remember my earlier post looking over the evolution of the iconic tyranid warrior. Now that the Zoanthrope has new and exciting plastic kit, I can think of no better a time to do something similar!

The Evolution of the Tyranid Warrior

In space, no one can hear you scream.

The recent tyranid release was met with a lot of skepticism and pessimism, with many claiming that its power level was not high enough for it to contend with most competitive lists (aka Tau and Eldar). And while the point costs of units went down almost across the board, very few major adjustments were made. One unit which many people were anxiously awaiting an update was the tyranid warriors. They saw a lot of use in 3rd edition when they were immune to instant death, but when they lost this in 4th, it was difficult to justify their point cost considering that a single krak rocket could kill one of the 3 wound horrors. Now that the dust has settled from the new tyranid release, it is clear that the warriors are still in the same predicament they have been in for years. You pay a premium to get a synapse spreading 3 wound body, but due to a low toughness and save they just are not durable.