40K-Scale Warhound Titan!

Here's the last post I made in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - Canis Negris, a 40K-scale Warhound Titan of Legio Krytos.

This is another 3D printed model I got from the same chap who printed me Apostolus Tenebris, the Reaver Titan I painted earlier in the Challenge. The Warhound is an awesome model too, and also adheres pretty stringently to the "Codex Look" of Warhammer 40K Titans. In terms of intellectual property and other awkward considerations, sometimes it's better to do as the great Harry Flashman was advised once upon a time: "lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions."

Anyway, the Warhound was quite a bit less fiddly to assemble than the Reaver. One thing I did, though, was to grind down the neck somewhat as it stood too proud of the carapace as cast. I like the hunchback look of Titans and a sticky-out neck is not for me. Of course the weapons look grand, don't they? Turbo-laser Destructor and Plasma Blastgun for the win. There's also a Vulcan Mega-Bolter that will make an appearance farther down the page.

One of the shinguard armour plates has some wonderful cast-on detail which I customized to my own build.

Plasma Blastgun!

Rear view of the Warhound. Some nice cast-in aquila detail on the panels. 

Vulcan Mega-Bolter taking the place of the Turbo-laser.

Standing beside the Reaver.

As for scoring... I submitted this model for the "Books Studio", reserved for models related to books that would make a great movie. I haven't read a ton of Warhammer 40K novels (many of them are dreck and merely "bolter porn") but I LOVE the work of Dan Abnett, his Eisenhorn and Ravenor books are fantastic, and "Horus Rising" (the first book in the Horus Heresy series of 400+ novels) is sublime. But one of my all-time favourites of his is "Titanicus", a novel about engine (Titan) combat in the 41st millennium. It goes into great detail about how the god-machines work with their "mind-impulse units", sarcophagi full of amniotic goo, etc. but doesn't forget the PBI either. The descriptions of Titans from an infantryman's point of view are awesome, and all the details he includes about the Chaos titans and their sirens wailing scrapcode just bring so much life to the setting. Great book and one I would LOVE to see made into a movie.  

Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the post!

Reaver Battle Titan in 40K-Scale!

<This post describes a submission to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, but there is some added content especially for this blog's readers>

Here it is - a 3D-printed 40K-scale Reaver Battle Titan. I've always wanted a Reaver in 40K-scale and now I have one!

Here is the story behind it. A couple months ago I was browsing Warhammer classifieds on kijiji (free ad website, like Craigslist) and stumbled on a guy who was advertising 3D-printed proxy Titans. I'm talking Warlords, Reavers, and Warhounds. Anyway we got together and I saw that the models were decent quality, so I got him to print me one along with some extra weapons (actually I got two, and you might see the other later in the Challenge...?) 

The model required assembly of course, but not nearly as much assembly as a resin one from Forgeworld. Still fiddly in places but I would compare it to the difficulty level of the new tiny Reaver Titans from the Adeptus Titanicus (2018) game. Of course I magnetized the weapons with 3/8" neodymium magnets, which mostly worked OK.

I painted the God-machine as Legio Krytos - a Titan legio affiliated with the Iron Warriors space marine legion, which swore its fealty to the Warmaster Horus in the Horus Heresy. Krytos was the legio in whose colours I painted my AT18 titans as well.

Colours used: Vallejo German Uniform, Rakarth Flesh basecoat with Pallid Wych Flesh on the off-white bits, Leadbelcher on the metal parts, Brass Scorpion for the brass trim, Steel Legion Drab highlighted with Rakarth for the scrolls, the whole washed with Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade. I added some light dirt streaks with my new AK "Streaking Dirt" pencil and sponge chips with German Camo Black Brown. Dust was drybrushed on the feet with Rakarth.

Part of the coolness of Titans (and other ridiculously large war machines) is that they are all individually named. I chose "Dark Apostle" as the name of this Reaver, and that translates into "Warhammer Latin" as "Apostolus Tenebris". At least that's my best guess, anyway. The Krytos insignia on the shield is from the AT18 Legio Krytos decal sheet.

The model is actually pretty nicely detailed. Assembly was straightforward - mostly using superglue but some of the structural elements were secured with JB Kwik-Weld two-part epoxy.

How about this detail on the pistons on the backs of the legs!

Here's a good view of the Melta-Cannon arm weapon. This is actually pretty heavy (it has separate barrels inside the shroud) and the magnets I used to secure it could stand to be a bit stronger (those are on order). 

I used some decals from the Imperial Knights sheet to detail the weapon.

Speaking of Knight decals, I'd wanted to use the Aquila decals from the sheet on the pauldrons, but they were way too small. So I had to freehand the aquila onto the pauldron. The small cogged skull is from the AT18 Krytos decal sheet though.

The other weapon is a very awesome looking laser blaster. I painted this to match the laser blasters on my AT18 Reavers.

More decal detail on the laser blaster.

I just HAD to put a "VIN plate" on the Titan as well.

And no Reaver Titan is complete without a massive power fist!! It was a little trickier to fit this one - I had to cut apart a spare arm piece to make a magnetized extension for the fist.

It's a big fist!!

Penetrating stare from the Reaver head. Such a cool look, but sadly there is no internal detailing here.

Group shot with my old Armorcast Legio Metalica Reaver. The new 3D printed model absolutely dwarfs it. You can see the Princeps and Moderati on the buildings in front of it. The scale of this Titan is massive.

Here's where the scale really shows. At front left is an Iron Warriors standard bearer and at right is an AT18 Reaver. The 3D printed Reaver is a little over 16" tall.

BONUS CONTENT:

To thank you for continuing through this lengthy post, here are some bonus work-in-progress pictures:

Here's a stack of parts after priming the sub-assemblies. 3D printed resin is a funny material, the parts I got leaked some oily stuff for some time after I got it, and the matte black primer left the parts rather sticky. However this was addressed with a coat of Krylon Matt Spray on the primered parts which solved the issue.

Here's the primed lower body and Apocalypse missile launcher.

Partially assembled. The model was largely painted in sub-assemblies - I left the leg plates, knee pads, shoulder pauldrons, carapace, head to be painted separately.

The print didn't really leave a logical way to connect the torso to the lower half of the model, So I had to improvise... yes, that's a cardboard McDonalds straw. Finally found a good use for one - they're certainly no good for drinking through. There was a bit of faffing involved here too. Although the prints were hollow, there's still a ton of supports inside them, so these had to be carefully drilled through to leave space for the post.

Here's the model partly painted. Even the weapons benefitted from being painted before final assembly. 

I really enjoyed painting this model and I love the way it turned out. It's pretty unlikely to ever be used in a game (although there are game stats for it in GW's new Liber Mechanicum supplement for the Age of Darkness rules!) - a Reaver is worth a base 1,500 points all by itself. Maybe a Warhound would be a better game investment...?

Yeah, definitely a Warhound!    

Resinlab Models "Iron Warrior" Knight Titan

Some months back, a local gamer mentioned in a Facebook group that he had a garage kit Knight Titan for sale - not an Armorcast Reaver, but a model that some Italian Spaniard had sculpted and produced in a limited run. This kind of thing is right up my street so a deal was quickly made.

It turns out the kit was the Iron Warrior from Resinlab Models. Produced in a limited run of 150 kits (60 of the "original" IW followed up by 90 "IW MkIIs"), the model springs from the talented sculpting hand of Enrique, principal of Resinlab Models.

I built up the kit with a few conversions, including the GW stubber added here. I also drilled and added a magnet on top of the carapace to mount a missile rack, not shown. I've built one from the GW Imperial Knight to use.

The model represents the Knight "Nero" of House Caesarean, an Imperial Knight house associated with Legio Krytos of the Collegia Titanica. According to lore, both Krytos and Caesarean engines supported the Iron Warriors Space Marine Legion in the battle of Tallarn in the Horus Heresy.

There aren't any 28mm scale Caesarean decals available yet so the tactical markings were painted by hand. I used some IW decals from the Forge World decal sheet.

House Caesarean's colours are yellow and black of course, so I painted the Knight in much the same palette as my IV Legion Iron Warriors Space Marines.

I really like the helmet of the Knight - apparently the Mk I model was sculpted without the laurel wreath.

 

Decals from the IW decal sheet and Imperial Knight sheet were used on the paldron.

Wouldn't be a Knight without a big f*ck-off chain weapon, would it??

Knight world origin marking on rear of the chassis was poached from the Imperial Knight sheet as well.
 

Bitty li'l skull in the groundwork.

I assembled the model with a central pin, so the torso can rotate, or be removed altogether for transport or storage.

Some comparison photos... here's the Resinlab model with the GW Imperial Knight. I really like the Resinlab model's inspiration being drawn from the original Adeptus Titanicus knights of yore.

Size comparison with some other Iron Warriors models it's likely to be supporting in battle: Contemptor Dreadnought, Lochagos/Praetor, Deimos Rhino.

I enjoyed building and painting this model - it's cool to be able to work on something a bit different and rare. I'm sure it'll get blown up quickly in the first game in which it's deployed, but it'll be cool to get it out on table. And needless to say, it's a good feeling to complete a project that's been in the works for some time.

Poll Results and New Poll

After a big-time election win here in Canada by Hair Man, Son of Fuddle Duddle, I thought I'd also update the poll here on the blog ;-)

Results of the last poll:

Forge World now sells a Warlord Titan model, retail price over 1,200GBP. Is this insane?

Survey said:

Yes, no amount of lead crack is worth that. 4 votes (44%)
No, if cost were no object I'd have one (or more). 4 votes (44%)
Don't care what it costs - I'm buying it. 1 vote (12%)

Thanks for playing!

Forgeworld Titan Crew

When you have a Titan I guess you'd better have a crew as well. So awhile back I'd ordered Forge World's resin Titan crew. Interestingly for GW models, they come with integral bases cast right on!

So here they are - the Princeps (centre) and two Moderati. I pinched the colour scheme from that used by another enthusiast, found on the Internet (thanks man!)  I think the red sets off the red on their Legio Metalica Titan nicely.

The Forge World models are lovely indeed (as you'd expect for the price) and they turned out nicely. They'll be handy for a scenario where they have to cross a hostile table to mount up in their ride, or in a similar game.