Adeptus Titanicus: Legio Mortis Warlord Titan

Following on the heels of my previous Adeptus Titanicus post, I've managed to complete the second Warlord titan from my boxed set. This fella is in the colours of Legio Mortis. 

In 30/40K lore, Legio Mortis is one of the oldest titan legions in existence, renown for being insufferably haughty and elitist. With this being the case, I thought I'd give their classic baroque black-red-and-gold armour the high gloss treatment, with very little weathering. In my mind's eye, I see these alpha-level god engines having flocks of cherubim servitors flitting around, continually buffing and waxing the armour to a blinding sheen. :)

Nonetheless, I still wanted to make sure the model conveyed the sense that it was a brutal war machine. With this in mind, I chopped up some extra bits from a Civitas terrain sprue to create the wreckage of a administratum building that's in the midst of being pounded into dust by the Warlord. Also, to help place the scene within a sense of scale, I positioned a small group of tech-thralls and their tech-priest who are bravely (mindlessly?) moving amidst the titans legs (probably busy registering voters for Horus).

While I've been busy building titans, I'm also trying to add some more Epic scale terrain for them to stomp around in. Here are a trio of buildings, two from the 3D printer, while the one on the right is from the Civitas Imperialis plastic set.

Hopefully I'll have a few more structures to show soon, along with a few Knights and a new Reaver medium titan. 

Thanks for dropping by and have a great week everybody!

Entry #15 to AHPC VIII: Wulfen

This lupine fellow as he reminds me of a time when I thought the scariest monster by far was the werewolf. 

I was born and raised in northern Saskatchewan, which is pretty much as rustic and remote as it can get here in North America. My hometown was the last bit of civilization before you headed off into the Laurentian Plateau and the sub arctic beyond - literally on the edge of nowhere. One autumn, when I was 9 or 10 and staying out at my grandparents farm, a pack of timberwolves came hunting into our area. During the week we could see them at night in the farmyard, and I have to say, they were pretty magnificent creatures - scary as hell, but magnificent all the same. Anyway for those few days that they were around, my grandfather, shotgun in hand, would meet me at the end of the road where the school bus let me off and then walk me back to the farm. As a young boy you can imagine how that impressed me.

Later, when I was a teenager, the movies 'American Werewolf in London', 'Wolfen' and 'The Howling' were all released in 1981 and while they scared the absolute bejeezus out of us, my friends and I absolutely LOVED them.  We would often stay up late at night and tell our own scary stories of werewolves and work ourselves up into a terrified frenzy. It was great fun.

My favourite of the '81 werewolf movies

Anyway, when I first saw this figure I knew I had to have it as it reminded me so much of those carefree teenage days where primary concerns were avoiding being ridiculed by girls, the next scheduled D&D game and scaring yourself witless watching monster movies.  

It's a Forge World resin model, which I believe was released for a special GW event back in 2012. PaulS entered a wonderful rendition of this figure as part of the 'Myth' theme round during Challenge V, and after expressing extreme covetous of the model he kindly sourced me with another that he had acquired (thanks so much again Paul!).

I shaved off most of the silly GW Chaos iconography and painted him as a black timberwolf. The gore effect on the poor Reiselaufer, who's being toted around as lunch-on-the-hoof, is a triad recipe from a Citadel ink set that I've had since 1987 - back in the heady days when GW used containers that actually sealed...

Have a great week everyone!

40K Inquisitorial Retinue (Part II) Adeptus Arbites Hunter/Seeker Team - Kane Corso and 'Daisy'

This past week I returned to the hobby-desk to expand my 40K Inquisitorial retinue.

This is Kane Corso and 'Daisy'. They are an Arbitrator K9C Hunter/Seeker team originally part of the Adeptus Abites police force (think of a grittier, more nihilistic version of Judge Dredd and you pretty much have it), but are now valued members of Inquisitor Rochel-Perez's retinue of espionage operatives, detectives and combat specialists.

This set of miniatures was released (I believe) as part of a Forge World special event several years ago. As can be imagined, they are quite hard to come by these days unless you know the right, ahem, contacts. In this case the source is a company named, quite appropriately, Black Market Miniatures. Anyway, I made a cautiously small order and was pleasantly surprised to receive my figures promptly, wonderfully packaged and beautifully cast in near-faultless resin.

I've painted Kane in dark green half armour, carrying a stun baton and a K9C sensory readout that is wirelessly linked to to his Cyber-Mastiff 'Daisy'.

He is festooned with purity seals indicating that he's been anointed by a priest of the Imperial cult, marking him as a man who has seen, or is about to see, some nasty, nasty things.

'Daisy' is a heavily augmented Mastiff. I was going to suggest she may be a Cane Corso (an Italian dog breed), but thought that would make a better name for her handler. :)  She's obviously seen better days, what with all her roughly installed battle augmetics and heavy burn scaring along her flanks. 

A good portion of her skeleton and musculature has been replaced with a reinforced chassis, various cybernetics and a bunch of neural injectors for pain-suppression, heightened senses and adrenaline boosting. 

Yes, it seems that the SPCA is sadly absent in the 41st millennium.

She's seen here going 'walkies' with her owner. I wonder if Kane cares about 'Imperial On-Leash Ordinances', or the fact that he's neglected to bring along any poo-bags? 

Somehow I suspect not.   

Earthen Artillery Emplacement from Forge World

As I'm hoarding all my toy soldiers for the start of the Challenge I thought I'd get a bit of work done on some terrain before it's 'all hands to the oars' for the next three months.

Back in the day, Forge World used to make a wide range of wonderful resin scenery, yup, not just whacky sci-fi tanks with guns that look like their compensating for something and armoured 'humans' who look more like walking volkswagens, but stuff you could actually use for things other than the GW family of pocket-emptying games. 

I've managed, through hook and by crook, to pick up a few Forge World gems over the years. You can see their wonderfully sculpted 6mm castle and windmill here, but for todays post I'm featuring their excellent 28mm artillery emplacement which features finely sculpted gabions, log buttressed earthwork, assorted barrels, etc. 

No assembly required! It's all one piece. I like that - nice and simple. I think it will be a great objective in a 'Sharpe Practice' skirmish game or to serve as cuirassier-bait as one of the smaller fleches south of the Great Redoubt at Borodino.

To provide a sense of scale, I've manned the emplacement with a 28mm French 12pdr and its crew. The gun is an old Elite model (a hefty beast) and the crew are from the venerable Foundry range.

Anyway, if you come across any of these rare lumps for a reasonable price (I know, what are the chances of that) I recommend you to pick it up as it's a great bit of terrain. 

On a side note, I've decided to conduct a little experiment regarding my photography for the blog. My old warhorse camera, a wonderful Panasonic Lumix, is dying a dignified death so I thought I'd let it 'diminish and go into the West' while trying something else. So I've been casting my eye around for a replacement camera, reading reviews and consulting with friends who are photo buffs. I was ready to plunk down some substantial dosh on a new rig, but then I had a wonderful discovery - my new iPhone 5s actually has a pretty decent integrated camera! So, for for the balance of the Challenge, all of my personal submissions  (starting with this one) will be photographed with an iPhone. In addition, I'm going to audition various photo app software and try out nifty lens add-ons, like these from OlloClip to see how their macro, telephoto and polarizing lens work. All this should be dorktastic good fun!

6-10mm Scale Terrain from 'Forge World', 'JR Miniatures' and others

A resin 'Forge World' castle tarted up with additional buildings and trees.

I was reorganizing the shelves in my storage cabinet the other day and noticed some 6-10mm terrain that needed a bit of touching-up since our move.  I dragged them out, repaired them, got a little nostalgic (sniff) and thought I'd put up a few shots of them. 

Check out the whacky door and walkway out of the upper tower: 'Watch out when you go out to the loo, the first step's a doozy.'

There is nothing more picturesque than a burned-out village...

I always liked the rips and patches sculpted onto the sails of this windmill.

I put this stuff together several years ago for my 'Grande Armee' and Warmaster collection. The castle and windmill are from the sadly, now-deleted Forge World range of terrain for Warmaster. I'm not entirely sure about the other buildings, but I think at least a few of them are from JR Miniatures.

'Berthier, after you write out those orders, get me a couple of fresh croissants, some butter and a non-fat latte from that village. Oh, and mind the artillery fire, I don't want you to spill...'

As an aside, these are Adler 6mm which have incredible detail. You can even see the bespectacled bald head of Marshal Davout! (He's on the horse to the right of that strange little Corsican chap.)

To give a sense of scale I've placed one of my 'Grande Armee' command stands depicting Napoleon's headquarters next to the windmill.

Bases placed together to depict a town with very poor zoning bylaws.

I mounted the buildings on 4" square plywood bases in a manner where I could mix-and-match them to form a larger town (or towns) if needed. Well, now I feel like dragging out my 6mm stuff to have a game of Grande Armee!