Heresy Era Mechanicum - All about that base...

Sorry, sorry. Couldn't resist.

With the holidays upon us the work year draws to a close and I actually am getting a few much-needed days off starting Wednesday. Much needed after getting emergency panic texts at 4am two days in a row, that's for certain - Ugh. On the up side, after work today while picking up some last minute gifts I did manage to find a wooden disc suitable to make a base for the Reaver, score!

Dug up an old crashed Aquila Lander from the depths of the Closet of Doom and started fiddling around with potential arrangements, definitely want to get a walking pose out of it - Still awaiting the missing thigh piece before I can really nail down the final leg positioning, but it's on the way and I hope to have it in hand by the end of the week (holiday shipping mayhem permitting). Been slowly getting all the parts cleaned up in preparation for assembly, and scheming on how best to allow for weapon swaps on the beast, hence the big ol' magnets! I'm finding that my earlier statement of it being surprisingly lightweight may have been a bit premature. Got the main carapace assembled and let's just say I don't think even those magnets are going to be sufficient...

More pics to follow soon!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Things just got a little out of hand...

As I'd mentioned earlier I may have had a mild lapse in judgement and it appears that I ended up buying a titan!

Each of those toes is a little bigger than a marine. What on earth have I gotten myself into?

Yeah, it's a Reaver. Or more accurately, a Reaper War Walker. Completely custom sculpted by Sci-Fi-Guy Modelworks (there are some fantastic sculpting pics), it's a loving homage to the old Armorcast Reaver, with some design elements akin to the updated take on the beast from Forge World, notably the head and the overall size. Having owned an old AC Reaver back in the day, I can assure you this thing is significantly bigger, but surprisingly lightweight for its size. It's no feather, but I'd expected it to be far heavier than it is. We'll see if I maintain that position once it's all assembled, I suppose!

The kit comes with three weapons, the carapace-mounted apocalypse launcher in the earlier pic, and a choice of gatling, laser or plasma arms. I ended up going in for some extra weapons, and ordered two of each of the arm weapons for flexibility in armament. The arm mounts also can be mounted on the carapace, though it doesn't appear as though it's possible to mount the apocalypse launchers on the arm mounts.

There was unfortunately an issue with shipping and the USPS absolutely botched the process, mis-directing it from Denver to Memphis and back again before it made it to me - by no means is that a slight on the seller, he was as concerned as I was as we watched it carom across the nation for no apparent reason. The gorillas in the shipping centers managed to mangle the box something fierce and it appears that somewhere along the way one of the upper legs went missing. I spoke to the caster and he assured me he'd get a replacement part out to me straight away, he's been very helpful throughout the process, and an absolute joy to deal with. Overall I couldn't be happier with the kit, and I'm really looking forward to getting it assembled! Now to figure out what to do for a base for it - I'm scheming on trying to incorporate a somewhat beat up Battlescape terrain piece I inherited, but will need to wait for the leg piece before I can really tell if it'll be large enough for the stance of the titan!