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!

Epic 30k Land Raiders

Some Land Raider tanks for Epic 30k action - these are "Armoured Proteus" variants.

I've been keen to get some more 30k stuff off of the painting desk, and not just titans, so here is a detachment of Land Raiders for Epic 30k. These are "Armoured Proteus" variants, and they are painted in the livery of the 14th Legion, the "Death Guard".

I tried to do the embossed legion logos on the doors some justice...was a bit tricky.

A view of the not-at-all-carbon-neutral emission systems.

These had been sitting in the "primed and basecoated" pile of shame for about a year or so...anyway, I thought it best to get them finished off, as I have not painted much Epic 30k stuff for some time, and I feel like it might be time to change that up!

The Land Raider is an iconic piece of Space Marine kit.

Lascannons and heavy bolters galore, plus some troop-carrying capacity.

Not a lot to add in this poost...the painting approach was pretty basic, but it was nice to get some practice in on these sorts of models again. Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there!

Painting the hydra!

The Consul Saboteur doesn’t look like he follows orders very well.

The pandemic has been a nightmare for many, but one bright ray of light has been the increased level of painting productivity. Just a quick glance at the blog will show that Dallas, Greg and Dave have been cranking out the models recently. I have not had the same production boost. My job as a first responder means that my work schedule has not changed and with all discretionary and vacation leave being cancelled indefinitely, I will be spending a lot of time at work. I’ve been fortunate to be in this position as many have lost their jobs and others are not sure if there will be jobs to go back to...some day. I’m not complaining, it just explains part of the reason why I haven’t posted anything in a while. The more significant impact to my painting has been the cancellation of school. Trying to teach and entertain a 6 year old on my days off and before I go to work is definitely not conducive to painting.
With this all being said, I finally managed to complete my first batch of Horus Heresy Alpha Legion. Above are two tactical squads, a praetorian in terminator armour and a consul ‘saboteur’. Paint colours are stegadon scale green base, sotek blue layer and temple guard blue highlight. I used drakenof nightshade for the wash. The saboteur is a conversion using various space marine bits and I tried to go for an anarchist look. Next up I’ll be going back to the Imperial Fits to finish some Rhinos that I started before he painting challenge.

More 10mm FPW - Prussian Artillery

10mm Prussian artillery, ready for battle - models and figures from Pendraken.

Some more FPW progress to share - a bunch of 10mm Prussian artillery pieces and crews.  There are two Krupp "4 pounder" guns, and six Krupp "6 pounder" guns. The guns and figures are all from the excellent Pendraken. It's a Prussian artillery park!

Divisional guns - Krupp "4 pounders" - there were four batteries equipping each Prussian division.

The steel breech-loading artillery of the Prussian army hit very hard during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The artillery was far from the only reason the French lost, but it was a major difference on the battlefield and, as you might expect, accounted for a significant proportion of French battlefield losses. I use air quotes around the "poundage" of the guns as I believe this rating was a theoretical one, the supposed size of roundshot that might fit in the barrel. The actual shells fired by these guns were heavier, had a much better range and hit harder than the equivalent roundshot. Bruce Weigle has an excellent overview of the artillery and firearms from the war in his rulebooks, which are 150% worth buying even if you never intend to play the games...

The BIG GUNS...Krupp "6 pounders", six batteries in a Prussian corps' artillery reserve.

It will be a tough thing for the French player if/when this lot deploys on the table...

The "4 pounders" were divisional guns for the Prussians, with four batteries equipping each division. The "6 pounders" were corps-level reserve guns, with six batteries available to each corps.

Another view showing the great details on the models and castings - Pendraken is fantastic.

Painting artillery is always tricky. Curt summed it up well for me with two words - "spoked wheels".  He is right, that is probably the worst part, but just in general I struggle to paint artillery and crews from any "black powder" era. I'm just not very confident about what the guns themselves "looked" like, or any of the equipment that went with them.  These were no exception, so it's great to have them out of the way, a nice mental hurdle to have overcome. 

I don't enjoy painting artillery, so it's great to get this bunch of it finished!

This lot will round out the artillery contingent for the Prussian side of the Wissembourg OOB - the German allies will have 18 batteries of artillery they can bring to bear on the poor French! My brushes now must turn to Prussian infantry and a few more command models in order for me to finally reach my goal of completing all of the models necessary for the battle in 10mm. I suspect, however, that there may be a diversion to different subjects along the way before progress on my 10mm FPW project resumes...

10mm Bavarian Infantry for FPW

Here come the Bavarians! 10mm castings and flag from Pendraken.

More 10mm Franco-Prussian war figures have come off of the painting desk recently.  This post shows five bases of Bavarian infantry - the castings are all from Pendraken. Not much to say beyond repeating what I have said before - 10mm is great, and Pendraken provides the best 10mm stuff I have come across.

Close up of the Jagers.

Another view of the Jagers...great castings.

There are four bases of regular Bavarian infantry, and one base of Jagers.  The Pendraken castings are all outstanding, but I was particularly blown away from the Jagers, which somehow managed to have the marksmanship cords and plume on the helmets on 10mm castings. My brush skills were not the strongest in terms of picking out those details, but wow - just great stuff.

For my initial attempt at "1871", each base will represent a battalion. But of course you can scale things up and down, depending on the scenario, and what rules are in use.

View of the regular infantry from the rear.

As with all of my recent 10mm FPW work, these figures are part of the build up to do the Battle of Wissembourg - some day when we can get together to have a game.  A division of Bavarians took part in that engagement, and with this lot completed I have now finished painting the initial Bavarian contingent in the OOB for that scenario.

The final bits of the Bavarian contingent for the battle of Wissembourg.

The entire Bavarian division awaits orders while massed on my shelf...

The French are already completed, and now that the Bavarians are finished, it is time to focus on finishing the rest of the Prussian contingent for the game. That will involve another eight batteries of artillery, a few more command bases, and another 12 or so infantry bases.  This will take some time to finish, particularly as I still get distracted by other projects and scales, but the Quarantine Challenge is helping me to focus, that's for sure!

Thanks for looking everyone - I hope you are safe and healthy, wherever you are.

Solido 1:50 US Army M20 Armoured Car

So this project has had a bit of a long timeline... I got this Solido M20 diecast model years ago, probably in a package deal with some other stuff. But once I started on the winter US Army project in earnest I dragged it out of mothballs to paint.

But I needed a crewman for it! After casting around the Internet a bit, I found that Company B produces some very handy vehicle crew models, including this .50 Browning gunner. The model is nice - it actually comes with a .50 cast on in one piece. However, I ended up cutting off the barrel and using a spare plastic one from a Tamiya kit in its place.

I ordered the gunner and some appropriate decals at the end of February but had some problems with the postal system. It got from Washington state to Canada OK and fast, but once it got to Winnipeg it sat for a week without moving, then suddenly scanned as "delivered"... when it never actually got to my house.

Fortunately Bruce at Company B was great about sending a replacement model. The decals haven't arrived yet though so I used some spares I had left over from the Tamiya M4A1 build.

The Solido M20 isn't super-detailed by any means but will suffice for our gaming needs. As noted, it's 1:50 scale so is just a skosh smaller than the M8 Greyhound I'm building (the vehicles shared a chassis) but not enough to notice, really. The M8 is suffering from postal delays too as it's fully built and basecoated but is waiting for its winter tires to arrive from Australia.

I painted the M20 in my standard US livery - Catachan Green base, then camo'd up with Rakarth Flesh and White Scar stippled on.

Gunner is good enough to justify a full-length shot. I had to stand him on an ammo box to make him tall enough to fit the M20 interior dimensions.
 

A couple of shots with the M4A1 Sherman to finish off the post. The winter camo is looking OK and I can't wait to get the Greyhound done - it's such a cool looking (and heavily armed) vehicle. I gotta give props to Company B for making the crew model. It's a really niche kind of thing to make, but adds so much to the LCF for our games.

Stay safe everybody!

Manufactorum Imperialis Terrain Set for Adeptus Titanicus

Isolation painting continues… this time it's clearing some terrain off the painting table, as I've finished assembling and painting Games Workshop's new Manufactorum Imperialis set for Adeptus Titanicus. For sixty of our Canadian dollars you get around 30 (!) pieces of terrain to use in your Adeptus Titanicus games. A pretty decent value, in my opinion... especially when contrasted with GW's latest antics... a Terminator Librarian and Sister of Battle two-model "package deal" for $90... come on!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I've set out my finished MI set on one of the terrain boards we used for the big New Year's Day game, with some Titans for scale. The card terrain sheets are made by TTCombat for Dropzone Commander and work great for AT also. They're 12" by 12" and four fit nicely on my 2' by 2' MDF boards.

Above, we see a Reaver Titan pictured with some random MI bits. There are several slick little pieces to the MI kit, including several structures with attached pipework, shown at middle above. You also get two cool liquid storage tanks shown at right.
 

There's a bit more scatter terrain included also - four scale versions of the Munitorum Containers already available in 40K-scale. These are remarkable, including even interior detail! A couple of ammo containers and 12 or 15 barrels round out the scatter stuff. I based these on low-profile round bases from Warlord Games.

The towers and gantry cranes are probably the coolest stuff you get in the box. There's a longer crane with jaws that can hold a Munitorum Container, and a shorter one with a giant hook - although the kit contains parts for another pair of jaws if you're inclined that way. Just a slight beef though - the attachment of the crane to the top of the tower is just a friction fit, and I wasn't happy with that so substituted magnets, with mixed success.

The pipework provided looks super-cool. Painting technique for the models was straightforward - primed black, then most pieces were sprayed with a grey primer paint. I found that Drakenhof Nightshade wash worked quite well to shade the light grey primer and provide a spot of colour, so that's what I used on most of the pieces.

I did some light weathering/rusting on the pieces once the basecoats and washes were done. Rust was applied with a small sponge and Doombull Brown. Rusty streaks were added with a mix of Doombull and Reikland Fleshshade wash, as I found that Reikland by itself wasn't strong enough to give the desired effect.

Verdict - an excellent set of small terrain for AT and a decent value to boot. You get enough parts to make LOT of small terrain pieces, and depending on your other ventures in 6-10mm SF gaming, they can have some general flexibility too. We play the old Aeronautica Imperialis game and Epic from time to time, and these pieces will fit in well there as well. So good on you GW, I guess doing this set entitles you to flog a few $45 28mm single models after all :-)

Stay healthy everyone!