WIP - Warmaster Titan for Adeptus Titanicus - part 6 {The Story Continues)

 

Here it stands, fully assembled and on it's new base. Nothing too fancy, just a little something more than I put on the bases of the smaller titans to make this one stand out a bit as the largest (so far?) in the battle group.

I used a few plastic bits from an old OOP sprue of Titanicus terrain from the original game which I had picked up on eBay some time back.  This isn't the original card stock terrain - and maybe it's from some epic set, to be fair.  But it is standard plastic terrain of administratum style buildings.  It's going to sit a bit odd on my Mars theme bases (something Mechanicum would have fit better), but whatever.  This big guy needed something fun to stomp by way of telling a story about it's size and presence in war.

Vallejo Black Lava was used for the ground cover.  As standard for my bases, I apply the ground work around a model's feet so the model won't appear to float over or gently rest on the terrain when glued down. Whether trooper or titan, I prefer to have an element of weight to the composition.

Here's a better angle showing off the style of these plastic ruins. Once this had all dried, I set about the typical paint recipe, as documented on the appropriate recipe tab above.  The building was a new addition to the scheme, so that isn't documented yet.

The ruin is painted in a basic light gray from Pro-Acryl then washed first with Nuln oil, then just at the base with Agrax Earthshade. The rubble was made by cutting up one of the ruin pieces somewhat strategically to form (hopefully) believable chunks of the original building, busted up by the giant STOMP. More likely, the beast sorta dragged his foot into it...it's not a tap dancing Knight Gallant after all!

I'm happy enough with the results, even if they won't be winning any awards.  Once the weathering powders are laid on (my final step) I think things will look pretty cool.

Here's how things look from the rear.  I may put some more nuln oil, or something else dark on the inside walls to get a sorta pre-stomped, burned out look.  We'll see. The pic above was taken out of order with the rest, so you get a look at the messy base before I cleaned up the rim to tidy things.

And now we're back to how things actually look now.  Not much else was accomplished on the main titan, that shows off anyway.  I painted in the laser range finders on the weapons, and started some highlights on the front of the main torso. Oh, and prettied up the missiles which had become drab with wash during earlier phases. You can see all that in the main title shot, but really it doesn't stand out much from earlier photos.

Now that the torso is glued to the legs, and the legs are glued to the base, I'm in the home stretch...which realistically means another week or two of detail painting and highlighting before I'm done. I like to have everything fully assembled before I look at highlights so I can see where the natural shadows exist on the model. This prevents me from highlighting surfaces that are actually in shadow once the model is viewed in its final assembly.

That's it for now - sure, I'd be further ahead if I didn't waste a session or two a week on building Horus Heresy Dark Angels. But I'm OK with that.  No competition or challenge going on with this project, nor any impending battle to field it in, so I have some freedom to putter a way a bit.

I hope your projects have been going well - or at least that your summer has been full o' fun!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Horus Heresy Dark Angels - New Additions....

 

Copyright Games Workshop, ltd.

Ok, I could not resist building more Horus Heresy Dark Angels this week.  I am weak. I *am* still working on the Warmaster Titan, really I am...but I just *love* building models and I really have the bug to do it at the moment.  With the launch of HH 2.0, I decided to get all the backlog models built, before I look at the models from the new boxed set. I have a mix of plastic and resin to put together, so this weekend, I set to building the resin character models I've been sitting on and a handful of other stuff.

I took an original Tartaros Praetor and added a grenade harness and an alternate head from the Forge World Dark Angels heads set.  This fella is now a Legion Tartaros Centurion for my force, armed with a terranic greatsword (or equivalent).  I'd have preferred a two-handed flamberge, but this will do.

I took the original Boarding Marine model from way back and replaced his thunder hammer and head.  He's now another Centurion for my force, a grizzled veteran to lead my Legion Breacher Squad into the fray.

This Legion Praevian will one day lead automata from the Legion's tech vault to battle; once the version 2 rules are released for Mechanicum models.  I do so hope they continue to support adding automata to Legion forces.

I built a set of Legion Apothecaries to form a Legion Apothecarion Detachment. Probably need a few more of these fellas, but I expect something will appear in plastic at some point, so I'll hold out with just the two for now.

This lad forms my Legion Techmarine Covenant.  He's lonely, but that will have to do for now.  I also expect to see plastic here at some point. Or I'll be looking for something back in stock from Forge World.  The Techmarine in mark IV armor is suspiciously absent...or am I making that up?  I swear there was one at one point...

I got these cataphractii terminators in a bits grab at some point in the distant past - maybe a Veteran of the Long Wars kickstarter reward even? I forget, but they have been sitting in bags for a few years. I made a couple modification with some plastic bits to suit my interests. Should make for a nice all-around shooty/poundy squad.  They could probably due without the reaper autocanon, but the rule of cool won out - and what else was I to do with it?!

I took an existing 5-person Cataphractii command squad and turned it into a 10-person Legion Cataphractii Terminator Squad.  Seems like the game could use big blocks of terminators, so here we are. There is always the option to break the squad up and field it differently in any given game. Oh, and never mind the five plastic Cataphractii from the new boxed set waiting on the shelf...maybe I will reconfigure the squad again and free up the original command squad back to their duties.  So many models, so few games...😂

I also converted an existing 5-person veteran squad into a 10-person squad.  The original sergeant was demoted (sorry dude...) with the addition of a new head, and this resin chap (center front) was given the job instead.  He's probably supposed to be a Praetor or Centurion model, but he'll make a fine Veteran Sergeant. A flexible squad to plug any gaps in the line, they have a mix of H-t-H and shooty weapons.

That's the lot of new stuff for now.  I have now built all the resin, save for the Lion himself and his Deathwing Companions.  They will literally never get built, or painted, as I'm a big old scaredy cat. Maybe one day, when I think I'm at the height of my craft and the palsy hasn't yet taken my skills...but no, probably not.  I want those last models of the Legion to by my finest work - the centerpiece-de-resistance, as it were.

For plastic, I have 30 mark IV marines to build, five will increase the size of my current Calabanite Tactical squad to 15, 15 will form a third tactical squad, five will form a heavy support squad with lascanons and the last five will form a heavy support squad with multi-meltas, 'cause why not?

Then, I will think about the models in the new Horus Heresy Age of Darkness boxed set, and not a moment before.  Ok, who am I kidding?  I think about those models ALL THE TIME.  But I'm not building them...nope...yet.

Hope you have found something inspiring, or at least entertaining, in this post.  I'll follow up with a progress post on the Warmaster Titan by the end of the week.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP - Warmaster Titan for Adeptus Titanicus - part 6 (A New Hope)

 

Greetings!  More progress on the Warmaster to share today.  With transfers finally applied, I feel reinvigorated and motivated to complete the project. It's been a bit of a challenge to focus on this beast coming back from vacation with my head full of 28mm Horus heresy projects.  No worries, however, because progress was made. Above, the glorious declaration of a Warmaster of the Adeptus Titanicus can be seen center stage on the carapace, just below the missile launcher.

I chose a few straight forward transfers for the various shields.  Above, the shield on the left (the titan's right) declares this a Warmaster of the Legio Ignatum.  The shield on the right pays proper honors to the Legio itself.  And the three hanging shields pay homage to the Adeptus Titanicus, without which these mighty engines would not walk the galaxy.

The titan's left shoulder declares allegiance to the Emperor of Mankind (eagle), the Deus Mechanicus (cog), and the Adeptus Titanicus, in that order.  The right shoulder rightfully declares this engine as a loyal member of Legio Ignatum, aka the Fire Wasps.  The lower shoulder armor recognizes the machine spirit of the weapons. 

The leg armor makes it clear to all which Legio is stomping you into the dust. After all, these engines tower high over the battlefield where the shoulders and other bits of heraldry are lost through the smoke and fog of war.

Aside from heraldry, I also started to put some work into the body.  Here, I have identified some armor-like panels on the back of the plasma reactor as well as some windowed cloisters next to the heat exchangers and just below the rear shoulder armor.  The rear access door is pretty homely here, so expect something to happen there soon.  I'd love to see hazard stripes in chevrons to match the rear shoulder armor, but a simple tidy red might do. 😁

Of course, I would have made even more progress were it not for spending one night building a new tactical Support Squad for the First Legion. I love painting miniatures; but there one thing I love even more - building miniatures! 😂 I've been trying to get all the MkIII and MkIV marines from the prior two Horus Heresy boxed sets finally built before tackling the new MkVI marines.  Only 30 more MkIV marines to go! For MkIV marines, I'm using the Dark Angels bodies, heads, and shoulder pads from Forge World. I have adopted transverse crests for my sergeants, so I decided to stick with the basic MkIV helmet and crest here.  It's just easier than attaching a crest to the Forge World helmets.  I did that once already for a heavy weapons squad with mediocre results, in my opinion. but enough of that for now.

More progress next week on the Warmaster.  Maybe a new base to show off?  Probably a new squad of Dark Angels for seasoning. We'll soon see...

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP - Warmaster Titan for Adeptus Titanicus - part 5

  

Greetings!  I'm Back from family vacation and back in the hobby.  It was a slow start this week with a lot of other competing priorities taking my time.  But progress was made.There is a lot going on with this Warmaster, and I'm realizing I'll have to put some time in to get all the details painted to my own standards.  This week I poked at a few of those details.

 

 

I base coated and shaded the scroll work on the upper carapace.  I'll be using some fine tip pens to put some test there at some point.

 

 

 

I started the week working on completing the legs, when I noticed there was some small armor pieces on the skeleton that I had missed in my initial paint work.  Two small red sections are shown above to ether side of the groin armor.

 

  

 

Here are the same sections from the other side of the legs.

Then I found these pieces on either side of the ankles.  So not much surface area painted, but managed to fill up one of my weekly hobby sessions (I only manage to fit in 2 - 3 2hr sessions/week typically).  Of course, I would have made more progress if Horus Heresy 2.0 hadn't dropped recently.  I spent one hobby session this week building 5 additional Tactical Support marines with plasmaguns.

These new marines will bulk out my initial tactical support squad to 10 marines. Once the Warmaster titan is complete, I'll be switching into more Heresy era Dark Angels. I have been bulking out my existing collection by finally building the remaining plastic marines I had on hand from the prior two heresy box sets. The new marines will wait until the Dark Angels Mark VI upgrades are released (shoulder pads and heads).  I also have a a lot of armor waiting to be painted, including three rhinos still in the box. So lots of Heresy era projects to look at.  

But back to the Warmaster...I'll be putting decals on soon and then soldiering on with the detail work.  Some days, I feel like the project is almost done.  Other days it looks like its only half done.  Regardless, I'm back in the hobby saddle and progress will be made.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [July] - Heresy Era Dark Angels Tartaros Pattern Terminator Squad

I found a couple Heresy draft posts that hadn't been published so enjoy the filler while I'm away...

I decided to bang together the squad of Tartaros Terminators I had from the Burning of Prospero box.  Since this pattern doesn't suffer the movement penalties of the Cataphractii, I thought they'd make a better hand-to-hand squad and armed them for close in work.  A plasma repeater will support the squad along with a combi-bolter and the Sergeant's Volkite pistol.  Otherwise, these terminators want to get stuck in.

I based these to match the rest of my 30K Dark Angels, with a quick dip in the model railroad ballast after covering each base with wood glue. I use a GW technical paint spatula to push the basing material from around the feet and off any of the models where I might have got glue while covering the base.

And there I have a squad of Terminators to support my Tactical squads. I look forward to painting them up in First Legion colors.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!