Coven of The Devouring Maw - Concept Development

I hope this post will be one part exercise for me in fluff writing/gathering and also one part a call to the wider Dark Eldar community for any input you are willing to share. With that said here's the basic idea I am chasing down:

Take the Dark Eldar, particularly Haemonculi, and their love for "flesh-sculpting' experiments, add in some captured/collected/forcibly dissected Tyranids, and you've got some potentially awesome looking models, at least in my opinion. And so, I want to share with you some of my background thoughts on creating a new army:

The Coven of the Devouring Maw.
(Note: I shamelessly adopted this name, source provided below)

I know Dark Eldar are going to be a great army project for me for the following reasons:

- Bad guys are "better" than good guys
- Converting models is fun
- The ability to be a dual purpose army, both fluffy and competitive, is nice
- They offer a completely different play style than my typical MEQ armies from the past
- Again, no more MEQ!

So with a check mark by each of these items I have been fumbling through the Dark Eldar codex for a few weeks now, and I found the entries on page 18 & 19 starting with "The War of Dark Revelations" that talk about how Urien Rakarth saved the Tau from the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kraken with a price tag of a "cultural exchange" (a delegations of 77 Tau from each caste with 7 Ethereals also demanded). Long story, short (read the whole thing now if you haven't) **Spolier** Rakarth ends up killing everyone like a boss, turning the Tau into Wracks and Grotesques, and pillaging the whole planet.

While blue fish-men communists don't seem like the best experimental play-things to me, these entries got me thinking about the other haemonculi that would have been floating around the battlefield, watching the Tyranid eat broadsides and kabalites alike, who were probably thinking "I gotta get me one of those boneswords and those toxin sacs will look delightful attached to my liquifier."

These entries led me on a search of the internet, and resulted in this link, the source and namesake of this project:

The Enshrouded and The Devouring Maw (just google it, since as a new member I can't post external links!)
Basically, they are a coven of haemonculi that have been messing around with Tyranids as a way to lessen the hold of Slaanesh over the Dark Eldar race, plus corner the niche market of exotic pets that will most definitely kill you and turn you into a genestealer, because you kept a genestealer on a leash with a shock collar and thought it would listen to you.

So there you have all my thoughts up to this point on this project! I mean look at this fan art of a Grotesque, how can you not want to try and model this kind of a themed army:


So now, I'd like to ask a few questions of all you saavy Dark City members and Dark Eldar fans:

- Is there other fluff out there that I should look at for notable DE/Tyranid clashes
- Have you seen/can you share any past projects along this same vein of modelling (DE + Tyranid)?
- General criticism/comments on the concept as a whole?
- Can you think of a better name than "The Coven of The Devouring Maw" for this army? I'm only 80% sold on it, but its way better than"The Coven of I Like Boneswords and Toxin Sacs"

I'm going to be slowly building this idea up further as time goes and should hopefully have my own hobby log started in a few months. I really want to nail down some fluff and take my time with the army build before I start going wild with tons of units and covernting 15 things at once. Thanks for any help you can provide!

The DE treat the Tyranids as every other species afaik. But I'm sure that the Haemonculi want to know about their hierarchy, the structure. How the communicate? Who gives the orders....

Tyranids are very welcome in Commorragh - as long as they don't leave the arenas of the wych cults. I can imagine a Coven of the Beast experimenting with Tyranids. Personally I have never seen more DE/ Tyranid fluff. We are hidden, they can't reach the city. And with exception off filling the arenas and the laboratories there is no reason to raid them.

There is already one army of Techno-Tyranids:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4nzgPbHlNo4/SpNxfgDvnsI/AAAAAAAAFwA/fBYjG6dsg_E/s1600/techno-tyranid-01.jpg

And some more:
http://blog.spikeybits.com/2011/12/and-now-mechanids-armies-on-parade.html

Coven of The Shadowed Warp. As a recovering Nid player I was thinking of doing exactly what you are, but I decided I wanted to play and paint with new models I haven't painted a version and went with D.E. worshiping She Who Thirsts... So for that you get my stamp of approval. I will be watching to see how you pull it off. I don't know of any more fluff saying D.E. vs Nids, but there are alot of splinter Hive Fleets out there, mostly of Kraken if my memory serves with out referring to my nid codex. If you don't have one message me with questions about their fluff I will try to find it in their codex. Well good luck, and I hope you enjoy your flesh sculpting.

@ Lay_Ayanesha Thanks for the links - those are some very interesting armies that feature a ton of conversions, which is going to be one of my goals that I want to post about more when it actually comes time to think about how to model this project. I personally had envisioned more visibly identifiable DE models that have had things like scything talons grafted to them, etc.

Still it's great to see some examples out there. And "Coven of the Beast" - I like that name.

@ravengoescaw I love stamps of approval! I am going to have to do some 'Nid homework, but I love getting army books, so this shouldn't be an issue to dig up fluff/background on Hive Fleet Kraken/splinters. Plus there is a lot on the web about how 'Nid Hive Fleets came to be. And another good name "Coven of the Shadowed Warp." I'll post some more thoughts later today.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Some further thoughts on Dark Eldar, Tyranids, and stuff that I think would make a haemonculus really happy:

The Tyranid are new kids on the block as far as races are concerned. While they cannot be dated or traced to anything from within the Milky Way Galaxy, they have only been "present" for ~255 years (though who knows how long Genestealers and Lictors have been creepin' about!) As mentioned in "The War of Dark Revelations" entries, two Hive Fleets were present within the span of 100 years (~899.M41: ~995.M41) in a fairly central part of the Tau Empire. These Hive Fleets are:

Hive Fleet Gorgon (wiped out)
Hive Fleet Kraken (very splintered/dorment cells/wiped out)

I like Hive Fleet Gorgon as my connection for this Coven because of a very specific feature that is described in their fluff:

Quote :

[Hive Fleet Gorgon] was relatively small compared to other Hive Fleets, but it was exceptional for its ability to quickly adapt on a biological level to new circumstances of battle. In fact, Gorgon manifested more bioform varieties than any other Hive Fleet.

In a period of only 4 years, Hive Fleet Gorgon has displayed the most bio-diversity of any Hive Fleet. Ever. And they are one of the only Hive Fleets to make specific reference to a confirmed encounter with a "Dominatrix" which is supposed to be a direct and extremely powerful link to the Hive Mind and full of all the genetic codes for the various Tyranid species.

They are perfect test subjects if I have ever seen ones.

In terms of my project this provides some really nice context for my fluff;

• The Coven will have to be realtively young since Tyranids have only been around to tinker with for the last few hunderd years
  
• The Coven will have a lot of flexibility when it comes to creating Tyranid/hybrid monsters.
  
• The Coven will likely have to "buy" their affiliations with the likes of other Kabalites and Wyches

I forget where I originally saw this...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/52756-Looted%20Carnifex.html

But seeing dark eldar equivalents would be awesome!!

@ Omnicide - Another awesome model! Thanks Omnicide. I already had something like this on my ever growing list of projects (no getting side tracked!) so you can definitely expect something like this to come out of the my Haemonculi's laboratory. And when you think about it, there is a lot of solid ground from a gaming perspective for this kind of a conversion to work. Just look at the similarities in the basic stat-lines between these entries:

Carnifex 3Ws | 3Bs | 9S | 6T | 4W | 1I | 4A | 7Ld | 3+Sv

Unit Type: Monstrous Creature
War Gear: Bonded exoskeleton; Scything talons (two sets)

Talos Pain Engine 5Ws | 3Bs | 7S | 7T | 3W | 4I | D6A | 10Ld | 3+Sv

Unit Type: Monstrous Creature
War Gear: Armoured carapace; Close combat weapon; Twin-linked splinter cannon

Cronos Parasite Engine 3Ws | 3Bs | 5S | 7T | 3W | 4I | 4A | 10LD | 3+Sv

Unit Type: Monstrous Creature
War Gear: Armoured carapace; Close combat weapon; Spirit syphon

If you are able to "grow" a Carnifex (because after all, what good is having all the different genetic sequences for Tyranids if you don't try them all) with your own special brand of "hive mind" communication, shove it full of drugs, and swap a few limbs out here and there, you essentially have either a Talos or Cronos Engine.

But I'm focusing on fluff and background right now. Not modelling. Definitely not modeling at all... (starts shopping online)

Also, thoughts on this for a name (combining the previous suggestions from Lay_Ayanesha and ravengoescaw)

Coven of the Shadowed Beast.

It's simple. It's kinda scary. It plays to the fact that these guys are not going to be most popular kids in Commorragh given their "newness" but also plays to the bestial nature of a lot of their units. They're going to be operating out of the basement and dark corners of the city. I think it also ties in really well with the Tyranid elements given that 'Nids are "Shadows in the Warp."