Beefing up the Guard, Tyrant Guard,

One of the problems I've always had with Tyrant Guard is that as quite literally meat shields they never seamed tall enough or beefy enough to do their job, across the years they have been both but never at the same time. 
So since I had loads of second edition Codex Tyranid era warriors kicking round I decided some time back to have a play see what I came up with back then and now after the break. 

Some years back I managed an afternoon playing with these old lead minis and some of the plastic armour plates from the assorted newer kits. With three of these guys in this state they sat among my bits box for some time until the hobby challenge last year. Inspired by the new plastic duel Guard kit and using the Challenge as an excuse I had an afternoon of playing with the new kit, spare parth and the third of my original creations I came up with this.

The old school warrior already has enough height so my first step was to add bulk and armour. For the legs this was easy enough simply by using the forearm plated bits from the tyrant guard.

Next up and I realy wanted to incorporate the big shoulder guards as I feel they are an important part of the Tyrant Guard Silhouette, with some clipping and a lot of fiddling around I managed to get them to stick in a way I was happy with, they will however need a fair bit of green stuff work on the back to blend them in. 

Part of the plan here is to make the head actually locked in place, since they have no eyes and are simply acting on the the will of the hive mind under complete dominance or at the least relying on other senses I see no reason for them to need to turn their head and just see this as another part of their evolution into solid wall of meat.

The final Conversion was to remove the chest with some clippers and use part of a Crushing claw cut down to bulk it out a bit more. 

I feel this also helps to match the silhouette of the tyrant guard better as well as adding bulk to help it live up to the toughness 6 these beasts have.

lastly this one was given crushing claws and got to keep the original models rending claws, I do love these old claws and have a tendency to use them on a lot of my models having build up a supply via ebay over the years.

With the basic shape fleshed out the next step will be to start adding green stuff, this will be a fairly lengthy process so it's on the back burner while I'm working on some other bits. For now though I'll leave you with a comparison shot with the Hive Guard body and a Hive Tyrant. Until next time TTFN