Painting Challenge Entry: AT18 Legio Gryphonicus Reaver Titan

I've been a bit remiss in posting here as I've been madly painting in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. As the Challenge has ended, now it's time to play some catch-up and repost a few models here on our home blog. This is the Legio Gryphonicus Reaver Titan I painted for the "Altar of the Snowlord" - the final room of the Chambers of Challenge.

Here we see the Reaver equipped with Laser Blaster and Volcano Cannon arm weapons and a carapace-mounted Turbo Laser Destructor.

But wait - there's more! I painted all of the weapon options for the Reaver and magnetized them for easy swapping - here the God-machine is seen equipped with a Gatling Blaster, power fist, and carapace-mounted Apocalypse Missile Launcher. And a different head, to boot.

A close up look at the Reaver's heraldry on its shoulder pauldrons.

...and on the knee armour. Notice anything funny going on here?

A rear view. The Reaver was painted as follows: metal bits, Leadbelcher and Brass Scorpion; grey bits, Mechanicus Standard Grey with lighter grey dapple camo; yellow bits, Averland Sunset over XV-88 base. Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade washes, and sponge chipping with Rhinox Hide and craft black paint. Groundwork is Rhinox Hide - Mournfang Brown - Steel Legion Drab - Rakarth Flesh. 

Here's another weapon combo - Melta Cannon and Chainfist. It tickles!!

What a cracking model.

Here's the Reaver with its extra bits.

And broken down into its component parts, all magnetised of course. 

I really need to finish this model within the Challenge window as a lot was riding on it - Conscript Mike painted up a 3D-printed Legio Gryphonicus Warhound and offered it as my prize should I complete all of the rooms in the Challenge, so how could I resist that! Anyway as noted above I'll be paging back through some of my Challenge entries and posting them here - it could take awhile though!

New Reaver Titan - WITH Magnets!

Reaver titan model, together with weapon assortment - plastic model (with some resin weapons) from GW/Forge World.

Reinforcements for Adeptus Titanicus continue to march forth from the pandemic painting forges. This is a Reaver class battle titan painted in the colours of Legio Mortis, along with a full assortment of weapons. The titan model itself and nearly all of the weapons are multi-part plastic kits from GW - a couple of the weapon choices for the carapace points are resin bits from Forge World.

A "classic" loadout - lasers on the left, gatling cannon on the right, and a big "Apocalypse" missile launcher up top.

The Reaver is a "medium" class (!) battle titan - "medium" insofar as it is bigger and slower than the "scout" class Warhound titans, but still smaller and faster than the massive Warlord class titans. The Reaver is a frontline battle titan, with scary heavy weapons that can level entire city blocks in one blast, and commonly found among all of the Titan Legions in the Adeptus Titanicus game. Good times!

Laser blaster option for the carapace.

Another carapace option - Vulcan Mega Bolter.

Perhaps the whackiest carapace option - the "Warp Missile Rack".

GW's plastic models for the revamped "Adeptus Titanicus" game are just wonderful, beautiful kits. But not all of them were designed with small magnets in mind - some were - but the Reavers were not, or at least not completely. I don't think there was any sinister motive there...the Reaver's design has a rounded joint in the "shoulder" and in the mounts for the arm weapons themselves. The folks who created the plastic model kits for the Reavers were true to this design - the carapace weapon mount has a feature that easily fits a small magnet, but the arm weapons do not. So you cannot magnetize the weapons mounts for the arms and swap out the weapons - not without a bit of hobby engineering.

A particularly "angry" configuration? Two close combat weapons? Not sure this would work out in the game, but I know there are members of the group who would want to try :)

I chickened out at the prospect of magnetizing the first Reaver titans that I built for my collection. My Legio Mortis Reavers had all of the weapons, even the carapace mounts, glued down. The Reavers for my Legio Gryphonicus collection have the arm weapons glued down, although I did magnetize the weapon mounts on the carapace. That gave players some choice, but not much.

The "Volcano Cannon" on the right arm - good times!

The "Melta Cannon".

But my friends have inspired me to try to build a Reaver with all weapon points magnetized. To build up my courage, I practised first on some Warhounds. That worked for me - yay! I then opened up a new Reaver model, got out the magnets and...it worked! Here we are, a new God-engine for the rebel forces hoping to topple the unjust tyranny of the so-called "Emperor".

"Let's go for a walk!"

Growing collection of spare weapons for the different titans...

I am pretty pumped to have a Reaver model that can mount a whole variety of weapons. And it can share arm weapons with the Nemesis Warbringer Titan I painted earlier this spring, so the variety works all around.

Updated "family photo" for my Legio Mortis detachment....

You can see from the photos throughout this post there is a fine assortment of terrifying weapons for any Princeps to choose from, including the bonkers "close combat" weapons, which are hilarious and great fun. You might be ten stories tall...but there are STILL some things that MUST be punched...or sawed! That is one aspect of the crazy 30k/40k setting that I never get tired of...I know some players in our group like to play particularly aggressive in these games, so I'm glad we'll have more options for them to enjoy.

A big "thank you" to Dallas for helping with photos/planning for how to get the magnets to work properly on the Reaver chassis! Now I need to get a similar one prepared for the loyalist faction...hope all are safe and well out there!

Legio Krytos Reaver Titan #2

Well, Titan escalation continues to... escalate, building towards the just-announced New Year's Day game. The exact lineup hasn't yet been determined, but is expected to pitch Greg's Legio Gryphonicus and Legio Mortis (on opposite sides of course) against Mike F's Legio Ignatum and my Legio Krytos. So of course it was important to get another Titan painted!

The Reaver is definitely my favourite Titan design. I just love the beetle-backed look of these monstrous war machines. This one was built straight from the kit, mainly because I have a ton of extra weapon arms and carapace weapons from the other Reaver I built. This one also is equipped with copious amounts of magnets to take advantage.

One thing I did screw up on this build (which was discovered too late) was the legs - I assembled them backwards!! Ugh.

The paint scheme is standard Krytos of course - Vallejo German Uniform and GW Pallid Wych Flesh.

What a cool looking machine eh!!

Sorry for the blurry pic - wanted to get one of the alternate head, from the Reaver weapon sprue. I couldn't decide which one to use, so I magnetized them so I can use both. 

Slightly better pic of the head here. I weathered this model "to the extreme" including leaving a couple of panels (crotch and right leg) in "primer"... simulating emergency repairs made on campaign.

Once again the excellent Legio Krytos decal sheet was utilized. Unfortunately, there's a distinct lack of Imperial eagles on the AT18 sheets, so I pilfered a half-eagle for the left pauldron from a 40K decal sheet.

So with the completion of this Reaver, we've got a full Axion Battleline Maniple - Warlord, two Reavers, two Warhounds. I do have another Warlord kit to build, but first I'm going to paint the Civitas Imperialis buildings that came with the Grand Master edition of the ruleset. I've got 'em assembled now and it looks like they'll be a relative snap to paint.

Legio Ignatum Reaver

I finished the Reaver titan for my Legio Ignatum “Fire Wasps” maniple. I magnetized the guns in case I end up getting the additional weapon sprue. Right now I only have the volcano canon to swap out the melta weapon. The carapace was the most time consuming part of the model, but I’m quite happy with the results. Hopefully I can finish the two warhounds before the painting challenge starts in a few weeks.

Adeptus Titanicus Legio Krytos Reaver Titan

Titan escalation continues! The latest model to be finished is the amazing Reaver battle titan. I just love the look of this model and it's a great addition to the Warhounds and Knights I'd finished previously.

One of the cool things about the Reaver is the variety of weapon loadouts that are now available, and I've taken full advantage of these by magnetizing pretty much everything on the Titan. Shown above are the Apocalypse Missile Launcher, Laser Blaster (right arm) and Melta Cannon (left arm).

I also used the cool Legio Krytos decals on the titan. I think that I maybe use fewer decals than others in finishing my titans, I dunno.

Rear view of the Reaver. I have to say I found some of the assembly a bit tricky, particularly the feet and lower armour plates. Certainly you have to be really careful in ensuring the legs and hips end up at the right angle (level or very slightly inclined forwards) or the torso assembly can look a bit wonky. I screwed it up a bit on this build but corrected it mostly with a very slightly angled magnet on the hip-torso joint.

Alternate weapons - Void Missile, Gatling Blaster (right arm), Chainfist (left arm). The Fist comes from the alternate Reaver sprue and the Void Missile is from Forgeworld. The missile itself is also magnetised (with two teeny-tiny magnets) so you can remove the missile from the rack once fired. Cool!

And here we have the Turbo Laser, Volcano Cannon (right arm) and Power Fist (left arm).

Some detail on the magnetising process. I used 5x1mm magnets here, gluing the right arm into place as it would always have a weapon of some kind - I figured I'd never want to build a Reaver with two melee weapons! I magnetised both ends of the left arm, so I can use a ranged weapon there as well, if I want. Gotta thank Conscript Greg for coming to my rescue with an emergency magnet resupply as I'd run out in the middle of assembling the model... I think I used 17 magnets altogether.

Standard titan weathering techniques - sponge chipping with a Rhinox Hide/craft black mix, and streaking with Agrax and Reikland Fleshshade.

Some more detail of the weathering.

Sorry for the blurry pic - just wanted to show the decal on the left knee.

Here's the battlegroup so far - Reaver, two Warhounds, and three Knights. Next up will be the two Warlords I've not yet assembled, as I'm waiting for the box of 100 5x1mm magnets to arrive!

New Knight & Reaver Weapon for AT18

Some AT18 painting - another Cerastus Knight Lancer and a new carapace weapon for a Reaver Titan.

In my last post about painting, I mentioned I was staying in 10mm, and I sort of consider the new Adeptus Titanicus model range from GW to be 10mm-ish...at any rate, after finishing those few small Prussians, my brushes have returned to Adeptus Titanicus subjects for the past couple of weeks.  Here is a Cerastus Knight and a Warp Missile Rack for the carapace mount of a Reaver Titan.

Cerastus Knight
The Cerastus Knight is one of the newer models GW have released for their Adeptus Titanicus re-boot ("AT18").  When it comes to the "fluff" of the story, the Knights are not of great interest to me, but the models are really lovely and the Knights can play an important role in the game.  This specific Knight will join two I painted earlier this year to form a full-strength banner of Cerastus Lancers.

This may shock you...

Each Cerastus Knight seen here carriers a shock lance and an "Ion Gauntlet" (a power fist for Knights, essentially).  They are intended for close combat on the AT18 table.  They are able to move fast and if they survive to get close to their opposition, the shock lances could deliver a nasty surprise to even the mighty Warlord Titans.  They will also do well putting a beating on banners of opposing Questoris Knights.

I can't say enough about the excellent decal sheets GW has released for AT18. They are very nice, and really help finish a model, especially the Knights, which are often sporting heraldry of their various "houses".

There are other weapons available, in theory, for the Cerastus Knight chassis, but for now the shock lance and ion gauntlet are the only models out there. I assume the flame cannon and bolt cannon variants will arrive as either separate model sets, or as upgrades from Forge World.

The Ion Shield, which is capable of delivering a short-range "shock blast".

The shock lance...another short-range weapon, but can be very deadly on the table if the Knight is in the right position...

My loyalists now have the support of two different Knight banners - these fellows, and a full strength banner of six Questoris Knights.

Warp Missile Rack
GW's support for AT18 has been hit-and-miss, but they are gradually releasing a greater variety of weapons for the Titans in the game.  Selecting different weapons load-outs for your Titans was always a fun aspect of the original Adeptus Titanicus game - and while the new Reaver kits at least have a touch of variety in their weapon loadouts, Forge World has augmented the choice out there (for a price, of course) by releasing Warp Missile Racks designed to fit the carapace weapon mount on Reaver Titans.

A one-shot deal, mounted in the carapace mount of a Legio Gryphonicus Reaver Titan.

The Warp Missile is a fun, whacky, weapon.  Basically the missile flies at the enemy Titan, goes briefly into the warp in order to avoid any void shields, then returns from the warp just in time to hit the target Titan.  In essence, this weapon gives you a chance to land a critical hit on an enemy God-engine even while your target's void shields are in rude health. Yikes! This weapon has a lot of disruptive potential - I look forward to seeing the players try it out on the table!

Another view of the Warp Missile Rack.  The missile itself can be removed to show it has been fired (and presumably has caused trouble for the Warmaster's minions...).

While I am not hobby-savvy enough to figure out how to magnetize the arm weapons on my Reaver Titans, it is very easy to magnetize the carapace weapons, and so it is easy to swap out the Apocalypse Launcher and/or Laser Blaster to mount this thing on top.

Reaver Titan and Cerastus Lancer banner - you can see the Cerastus Knights are pretty tall for Knights (it's all relative in the grim darkness of the far future).

There is a nice variety of weapons available out there now for your Titans.  They are not cheap to acquire, and GW has managed to package this in a fashion that brings to mind the ridiculous process TV signal-sellers use to flogging channel packages, but they are out there now, and even seem to be in supply.  As I said above, choosing weapon loadouts is, for me, part of the fun, so I hope to share some more progress on different weapons for my Titans soon.  And, of course, more Titans at some point...

Thanks for visiting!