Tyranid Myrmecology: Tyranid Myrmecology

Starting Point

Since buying Dawn of War 2 almost a year ago i have been obsessed with the super organism of the tyranids. partly because of my ongoing interest in myrmecology (the study of ants) and also because of their cool alien look.

I saw extreme similarities between tyranids and ants in their social structure and purpose. Ants form a collective mind much like the hive mind and thusly remove individualism from their society. Also ants continue to devour the creatures of the ground, harvesting their victims flesh for food for the good of the colony. we see this again with tyranids and how they devour entire planets simply so they colony can grow and devour more. in fact the only fundamental difference is in their size, ant's are not a threat to the eco system because they are so tiny. However tyranids are monstrously huge and thusly their appetite extends form insects and small animals to humans and entire worlds. even the fighting style of tyranids seems to be directly lifted from ants. Ants are relentless in battles, they swarm their enemies with overwhelming numbers to bring down creatures much larger than them and relay communications through chemicals much like this more sci-fi idea of synapse and the hive mind.

So all that fluff (which i am a huge fan of) this is the reason I have decided to start my first warhammer collection. And obviously I’m going to collect tyranids and paint them with an ant like paint scheme. The purpose of this blog therefore being to show off my new paint schemes for tyranids based around myrmecology. The next update i do will include a tyranid battle force painted in a variety of ways relating to Amazon driver ants, English red and black ants and army ants.

I plan to start this process at the beginning of my Christmas holidays when I have time to earn money to buy this stuff and then masses of time to spend painting them.

Here are some photos of the ant colours i'm thinking of.