Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's...

[ChromeAngel]

This month we see the addition of the loyal Space Marines’ heavy support in the form of the devastator class. These marines will be proudly wielding the powerful Heavy Bolter to combat the Tyranid invasion.



With the arrival of the Imperial Guard last month comes the Chimera troop carrier. Although they are both non playable, they will make a valuable addition to the maps in Exterminatus in the form of props!



As for the Tyranids, they see the coming of the Hormaguants; the jumping, slashing, slicing, biting cousin of the Termigaunt. These Hormaguants are totally focused at close combat fighting, and although they have no ranged weapons to speak of, they are able to charge at blisteringly fast speeds into the fray.



Lastly we have the Tyranid drop ship. Although it is not an existing Tyranid creature, we have had to use some artistic licence in order to create a model that could feasibly transport the entire Tyranid team while also keeping to a size restraint. So without further ado, I present the Harpy!



Read more about the Harpy on our forum (see the discussion link below).

Thanks to Razielk and DarkWulf for their help writing the news this month.

[ChromeAngel]

Recently salvaged form the imperial comm net, relating to this news

Data Log : 37571 Date : 0582006 M41 Time : 1907 Hours

>From : Demetrius III Recipiant : Adeptus Astartus Servitors on planet Ultramar

+++ Log of Lieutenant Crosby +++

We saw something strange today... I am not sure what it was, it was new to my men and I. A fierce wind tore through the base followed by the beating of colossal wings. At first we suspected gargoyles, those menaces are scary enough, but then we saw it against a building and got some idea of it's scale...

This was no gargoyle or harridan, it was a gruesome creature. It seemed to have two segments to it. The uppermost a winged beastie, larger than even a harridan. The other, seemed to resemble a giant shell, for lack of a better word; separate, yet linked to the other creature at the same time.

I ordered my men to vox to our AK AK batteries for fire support to take it down, but it was fast, despite its cumbersome form. It came down and landed atop of my platoon, crushing many of them beneath it's thick shell. As it did so, a roaring screech that hurt our ears, and broke the spirits of my remaining men.

Lasguns were ineffective against the creatures. Then the shell type creature started to make a coughing noise, like regurgitate something, as it seemed to cough, the front of the shell opened and released it's deadly cargo. A roar of clicks and hiss's filled the air as an uncountable number of other Tyranid creature came flooding out.

I ordered the survivor's of my battalion to fall back. We didn't get far before we were surrounded, the whole regiment surrounded. We have dug our selves into the barracks now, those that are left. We cannot escape, we cannot get out. The men are frightened. Emperor guide this data log.

Lieutenant Crosby out.

--- End of Log ---

+++ Inquisitorial Addendum +++

7 hours after this log was filed Inquisitor Krennel pronounced Demetrius III beyond resuce and ordered the planet cleansed by fusion bombing.

+++ Adeptus Mecanicus Addendum +++

Magos biologis of Segmenutm Ultima have assigned this new form of Tyranid the identifier "Harpy" for the eardrum ripping screech it gives out.

[ChromeAngel]

regarding more operational matters (the bitchy, whiny "why me?" part of the news)...

Typheron has chosen to step down as our public relations man.  Probably due to his hecitic real-life situation.  We wish him all the best and hope he'll be back when things have settled down.  In the meantime I am looking for a volunteer to handle public relations for EX.  Contact me by email or PM if you're interested.

Secondly Valve have released an update to the Source Development Kit (SDK).  You get it wether you want it or not.  This update has broken the normal mapping in the model viewer, whish is why the heavy weapons marine looks so much flatter that the other marine classes.

Thirdly the Chimera is actualy more complete than it looks in this month's render.  It's almost totally skinned, except for the weapons.  It looked a bit odd like that, so I want backed to the shaded render for this month's news.  Should be ready for next month.

I'll post some more about why we had to create the Harpy when I get some more time.

[ChromeAngel]

The team discussed various tyranid constructs to deploy re-spawning tyrnaid players:

* Mysetic Spores (drop pods) , which aren't re-usable and therefore end up cluttering the map.
* A Ravener-like, burrowing troop carrier, which would require all spawn zones to be accessible from the air (for the THawk) and underground (for the burrower), putting too many limits on where mappers could place the spawn zones.
* A Harridan-like creature.

The Harridan creature wasa favorite for quite a long time. Then while I was thinking about the coded gameplay, it was possible that our tyranid dropship eqivilent could be required to carry as many as 16 carnifexes or up to 64 gaunts at once...

Takes a pretty honking big bug to carry that lot in their ribcage (as harridans do) at the same time. Extending the ribcage to make it beg enough to take a single carnifex made it look... unnatural :/

By seperating the cargo compartment into a symbiote creature the flier returns to more nid-like proportions. Hence the "Harpy".

[cadian 9th]

what does a PR guy have to do?

[ChromeAngel]

what does a PR guy have to do?

It's the PR guy's task to promote EX.  The most routine part of this is to write the monthly news update and see that it get's posted wherever people might be interested in EX.  You also get to answer any awkward questions that are asked about the mod by putting us in the best light possible.  Typheron also did a great job of keeping the team up to date on the progress of other 40k mods and goings on.

Razielk has volunteered to write the monthly news again, to help share the load of the PR task.

[Typheron]

or be me.

/me reclaims his job and smites some n00bs