Thursday, April 30, 2020

Some New Warhounds - WITH Magnets!

New Warhound titans from GW's Adeptus Titanicus - spare weapon options seen at the feet of the bases.
Some more machines for GW's "Adeptus Titanicus" - these are Warhound-class titans, multi-part plastic kits from GW. Each side of the Horus Heresy gets a new machine here - the grey and yellow titan serves with the loyalists of Legio Gryphonicus, while 30k fans will probably already be familiar with the purple and red colours of Legio Mortis, who fight for the cause of the Warmaster.

Legio Mortis engine sporting twin plasma blast guns - these weapons are hard on the Warhound's reactor, but also very deadly to an enemy engine that has lost its void shields.
A mixed weapon load...mega bolter on the left "arm", and a laser blaster on the right "arm".
Twin flame cannons...probably an ineffective weapon loadout, but in the Horus Heresy there are some problems which can only be solved with lots and lots of fire...
The Warhound is the "smallest" of the battle titans that serve in the ranks of the Titan Legions of the Horus Heresy. They are sometimes called "scout titans", which is conceptually hilarious, but these machines are (relatively) lighter and faster than the other city-crushing titans. They can maneuver more deftly, and while their weapons are (again, relatively) "lighter" than those carried by the Reavers and Warlords, they are still dangerous - the Warhound is a real threat to enemy machines, even the larger chassis.

Legio Gryphonicus Warhound.
Warhounds are particularly dangerous in groups, and they can cooperate groups, sharing their void shields and joining their firing together to cause serious damage to their enemies. I already had two Warhounds for each Legio in my collection, but a third Warhound for each side will help the "pack" reach a nice critical mass.

Twin mega bolters...this weapon variant is very, very dangerous to enemy void shields, although the weapons cannot do much damage once the shields are down. That's where the "pack" part come into play...
There is one special thing about these models that is a different from the Warhound models I built previously - I managed to magnetize the weapon mounts on these! I was inspired by Dallas to figure this out. Dallas is very smart with his use of magnets, but I am so clumsy with them. Magnets are an old hobby foe of mine, and efforts involving magnets often end in frustration and swearing. I constantly, constantly screw up the polarity on the magnets.

Some of the new Adeptus Titanicus models from GW are designed specifically to accommodate small magnets, and I usually manage OK with those. The Reaver and Warhound kits, however, were not designed specifically to use the magnets, they use a kind of ball joint instead. So you either had to glue the weapons on, or come up with your own solution that worked with/around the ball joints on the weapons.

Here is a photo with the loyalist machine sporting the flame cannons.
Confronted with the option of doing some of my own hobby engineering, I chickened out at the time and I glued the weapons into place on my previous models. But Dallas, Curt and others have shown that, with some clever modifications, the magnets can be used on the ball-style weapon joints of the Warhound and Reaver models. I copied Dallas' approach, and I managed to get the little magnets to work!

This is great as these machines now have different weapons options - choosing weapons in a big part of the fun for the game. As you would expect, different weapon load outs offer different choices in tactics - for example, a Warhound equipped with "mega bolters" (i.e. huge, heavy calibre machineguns) on both weapon mounts will be very useful for bringing down enemy void shields. Or, perhaps a player will prefer to mount twin plasma cannons...not so great at shields, but more than able to deliver a killing blow once the shields of an enemy are down.

Magnets are also the only way I would ever bother with the giant flamethrowers - I'm not sure what value these weapons would really have in a game of "Adeptus Titanicus" - as opposed to a game of "Epic", where they could obliterate entire infantry companies in one pass - but thanks to the magnets, the players can choose to use them or not.

The newly expanded Warhound pack on the shelf with the rest of my loyalist collection...
The expanded Warhound pack of Legio Mortis...
I didn't have quite enough spare weapons to cover every possibility for both sides...the Legio Mortis side is short a laser blaster and a mega bolter, something I'll look into later. For now, it's great to have these new machines joining the ranks. Now if we could just get a game in somehow...

Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there!

7 comments:

Peter said...

I see a Lucius pattern Warhound in one on the images. Where did you get that one? I was under the impression that GW only did made Mars pattern now a days.

Reese Crawford said...

Good job with the magnets! I find those very helpful when it comes to attached weapons.

Simon Quinton said...

These titans look cracking. Good on you for magnetising the weapons.

MFraser said...

The Lucius is a 3D print. I have a couple I haven’t painted yet.

Peter said...

It looks really good!

Moiterei_1984 said...

As ever these look splendid Greg! You can field quite an army (or two) by now it seems.

Dallas said...

Outstanding dude!