The Prima Incubatoria

The secrets of Titan construction are shrouded in the mists of time. There are even those who believe that they were not manufactured; that these monstrous machines are the Emperor's very will, manifested in cold plasteel and adamantium. That these ancient machines blaze with a machine life of their own is well known amongst the Adeptus Mechanicus. Indeed each Princeps' first challenge is to attempt to master the fierce spirit of his Titan, lest he be consumed and the machine run wild.

Though the knowledge of their forging is lost and though many and varied are the rituals and incantations involved in preparing a Titan for battle, fret not dear reader. I have anointed myself with the sacred unguents, lit the incense and chanted the litany of awakening, More to the point I have solved the complex mathematical algorithms involved in working out points values for different Titan builds according to the Codex Titanicus!

Many Grox were sacrificed to bring you this post.

Gigantic Skeletal Death

Lexicanian Trask prayed the Rebel advance was faltering. Below him the Landraider and Predator continued fire on the Traitor Titan while the Ultramarines milled about trying to regain formation. Two Loyalist Titans raced forward on an intercept course. Trask upped the intensity of his magnoculars. Filters cut in to prevent him being blinded by plasma flare. He made out the insignia of the approaching allies: Warp Runners.

The enemy Titan loomed like gigantic skeletal death over the wasteland of twisted girders and broken buildings. Trask felt impotent and alone as far below his brother Marines fought to stave off the enemy advance.

The battle teetered in the balance. Trask hoped the Warp Runners could stop the Deaths Head before it reached the Bromium Refinery. He knew that it would take only one unlucky hit to make the whole ammo dump go up like an out of control reactor.

Excerpt and illustration from the Adeptus Titanicus rule book.

Right then - back to the Horus Heresy and some epic scale goodness!

Firstly I want to share with you some snaps I took of the lovely old Titan models in Bryan Ansell's marvelous display cabinets that can be seen at the Foundry down in Newark. Also worth checking out is Steve Casey's excellent posts of Bryan's Titan collection.

 These were the original metal Titan prototypes that were used in the publicity pictures for Adeptus Titanicus.

Traitors and Loyalists were represented by the Deaths Heads and Fire Wasps respectively.

It was certainly a novel experience to study them in the flesh and take snaps for painting references rather than the usual casting about through Google images and peering through old rulebooks and White Dwarf magazines.

Suffice it to say that the Fire Wasps are next in the painting queue, although I'll also be painting up some Warp Runners and making a Bromium Refinery so I can make up a scenario based on the bits of narrative that appear throughout the Adeptus Titanicus rule book.

Seeing these venerable old minis has also strengthened my resolve to try and track down a MK1 metal Titan of my own although that will have to wait until my finances are in better health!

It is a shame that they didn't go with this original design in a way, as much as I like the old plastic Warlords, there's something about these MK1's that really floats my boat - the head and carapace in particular.

Anyhow, I'll have to keep dreaming for now! Here's my efforts in the mean time.

Deaths Heads Warlords advance through the ruins, supported by Sons of Horus Marines and Land Raiders.

These guys are the first in my preparations for the Adeptus Titanicus game I plan on running at BOYL 2016 - be great if I can nab one of the tables by the display cabinets and those great old MK1's who grace the Adeptus Titanicus box!

I had fun looking up some suitably moribund Latin phrases for names of these Deaths Heads.
This is Curum Perficio - My Journey Ends

I'm planning on painting up three Warlords each for three Loyalist and three Traitor Titan Legions. All these Titans will be magnetised so that weapon choices can be changed as per the players' preferences. The banners have also been magnetised but that's more to make them easier to transport!

I'm hoping to achieve a bit of balance by enforcing a points limit based on the rules for designing your own Titans that appeared in the Codex Titanicus expansion. Don't worry if you don't want to stump up the £25 or so for one on Ebay though as I'll be posting some guidelines on the process later.

For anyone wanting to bring their own Titans that are fully tooled (and glued) up it might be a case of bringing fewer models to the table to get in the points limit, or lowering the power of the weapons but more of that in another post.

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus - We Are Dust and Shadow

I was quite pleased with how easily these were to paint up - the colour scheme is pretty simple and effective and the dazzle style camo on the carapace wasn't too onerous.

 Even the banners were pretty straight forward with a steady hand! The eagle-eyed among you might have spotted that I used skull transfers from some old Undead transfer sheets I found.

Sub Cute Calvarium - The Skull Beneath the Skin

 I also had fun finding alternatives for the Eye of Horus symbol that all Traitor forces display to show their loyalty to the rebellion.

The classic Egyptian look...

A blend of the Chaos star and the Eye of Horus...

And another variation on that theme.

Definitely glad to have the first batch of Titans under my belt - I guess it'll be the Fire Wasps next...

Brought to Bay

Another quickie today and something else from the "archives" or rather stuff I never got round to photographing and forgot to post...

Before all this Horus Heresy stuff got me interested, I had visions of recreating another campaign involving Marine against Brother Marine - the Badab War. Some of you may remember the Tactical and Land Raider Companies of the Executioner Chapter that I posted some time ago - which reminds me that I never posted pics of the Thunderhawk Gunships I painted up in Executioner livery either!

Well as part of that (abortive - for now) project, I painted up my lone (at the time) Warlord Titan as one of the fighting machines of the Legio Crucius - the only Titan Legion to take part in the war as far as I could ascertain.

We'll have to see whether I ever get round to revisiting the Badab War - it is a setting that I found really interesting. Civil War without necessarily having anything much to do with the usual insinuations of Chaos.

I'm not sure what part the Legio Crucius took in the Horus Heresy, but here we see a Warlord rounding on its pursuers - four Warhounds of the Deaths Heads Legion! I can't take any credit for painting the Warhounds other than a quick ink wash over the existing paint job they came with.

Two will be getting resprays at some point so that I can even out the Titan forces across the three Loyalist and three Traitor Legions I'm planning on painting up for the Adeptus Titanicus game I'm planning for BOYL 2016.

You might notice the Vulcan Megabolter, fetching in white and gold trim, that the Warlord is sporting - I was a short of one Titan weapon so it got bolted on despite the fact that this weapon is more often seen on Reavers and Warhounds.