How To - Magnetizing a Warbringer Nemesis Titan

 

With Forge World's recent release of a Volcano Canon Carapace weapon for the Warbringer Nemesis Titan, I decided it was time to add this titan to my Legio Tempestus battle group.  This will even up the odds somewhat with my Legio Ignatum force which already possesses a Warbringer Titan.

If you haven't been warned yet, understand that the new Volcano Canon kit for the Warbringer includes just the gun barrel assembly, and not the mount it goes in.  So if you glued in the Quake Canon, as I did, you're going to be out of luck for the new weapon unless you fancy a delicate operation to cut the glued weapon free so you can magnetize everything.

With this new Warbringer, I set out to magnetize everything properly from the start. Let's see how things turned out.

The Warbringer is pretty easy to magnetize, with only a couple scratch build bits, depending on how you want things to turn out.  For example, I like to magnetize the carapace weapon mount.  I did this originally so it could be swapped out with a new weapon mount.  Based on how the new volcano canon option has gone, this step is not really necessary. I went ahead and matched what had already been done for my first Warbringer titan, but feel free to skip this.

I started by gluing a magnet over the hole where the weapon mount attaches, from below and inside the titan's body.  You can see this in the picture above.  I use 5-minute 2-part epoxy and I'm sure to cover the whole magnet in epoxy to limit the possibility that the magnet may one day come lose and rattle around in the body of the titan. magnets are put in the supplied sockets on the upper arms as well.

From the top, you can see the large magnet covering the hole where the carapace weapon mount goes.  Additional small magnets (1mm x 5mm) have been glued into the sockets where the AA guns sit as well. I have lined up all of the magnet polarities top to bottom so they pull on each other rather then repel...otherwise its hard to get the glue to set right if the magnets are being pushed out of their holes by their neighbors above or below.  I guess if you glued things one-at-a-time, letting the glue dry in between, this wouldn't be an issue.  Still, to me this approach just made sense.

2mm x 10mm magnet in place

Now the scratch build - which is really customizing here.  I have used a razor saw to carefully cut off a portion of the weapon mount that would have extended into the hole in the carapace, now covered over by the magnet in the body.  Measure twice, cut once, as the saying goes.  The goal was to take off enough plastic to allow a new magnet to be glued on.  The end result is the mount sitting flush where it belongs in the carapace with full contact between the magnets. Now...I am using large magnets here, based on what I had on hand.  There is a lot of magnetic pull and it is a bit of a pain in the end because the attraction is very strong.  But I don't have to pull the mount off much, so I don't mind.  One could go further with some plasticard and smaller magnets, I imagine, to get the same result with less attractive force (using smaller magnets). Even using a 1mm x 10mm (3/8") magnet might help some.

 

 

The arm weapons and AA gun mounts get magnets too (1mm x 5mm). When gluing the magnets into the weapons, use care to keep the rectangular sockets free of glue (I had to dig some out as it was drying).  These are where corresponding pegs on the arm slot in based on which side you put the weapon on and align the weapon correctly with the cable coming down from the body.

At this point I had a collection of bits as shown above, magnetized and ready for paint. Now it was time to stare at the Quake Canon a bit to see how bet to magnetize it so the new Volcano Canon option could be swapped in.

The one challenge to over come was removing the rings form the mount halves that would insert into the sides of the barrel.  Magnets will go there, and we can't have anything inserting into the barrel if it has to come out once everything is glued up...I want flush magnet-to-magnet contact only. Also, there isn't enough room for a magnet to sit in in the mount halves, once the rings are removed, so I had to dremmel new holes with a router bit. Not fun, and MUCH care should be used to avoid routing a hole in anything else - like fingers holding the halves during the process.

The barrel was the easy part, just drop in a magnet on each side. A word of advice, I matched the polarity here so everything is in line.  This has the effect of drawing all the parts together (mount and barrel) rather than have things being forced apart.

The dremmel router bit (small) did a a fine job of removing the rims and making a new sockets for the magnets.  I exercised great care here to insure I did not cut through the sides of the mounts.  There is not much plastic to work with here at all.  But I managed a mm deep socket for the 1mm x 5mm magnet. It's not pretty, but once the gun is in place you cant see the magnets or their rough cut holes anyway.

 From the top, you can see that nothing of the magnets is seen to obstruct the gun barrel from dropping smoothly into the mount. The magnets provide enough force and friction to hold the barrel in place at any elevation.

And here we have the mounts and weapon all magnetized in place.  It's a bit of a journey, but as you read, most of it is straight forward with a bunch of 1mm x 5mm magnets.  It's really nice to see Games Workshop put the magnet sockets in the design.  These models are NOT inexpensive and it helps folks make the most of their investment when weapons options can be changed so easily.

That said, there was no such provision  made for the carapace - possibly to future proof sales so that folks would need new titans to use the new gun. I certainly expected the new Volcano would come come with a resin version of the mount so that hobbyists would not have to go to such lengths to use the two weapons on a single titan. With the peg the mount sits on, it seemed like this was an obvious choice (if you don't glue the mount in).

I hope this article helps some out there, and that you found some enjoyment in following along with my process here.  At some point, I'll have more to share with this titan, and the Warlord that is now also waiting for some paint.  These will be two great upgrades to my existing Legio Tempestus battle group.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!