The Right to Rearm Titan's Right Arms

 

The most challenging part of this whole upgrade was taking off the right side Volcano Cannon. I had planned for this day when I assembled the Titan, using Velcro to hold the Volcano Cannon in place until the Gatling Blaster was released. 

That wound up taking far too long. The sticky tape holding the Velcro in place gave up one hot day and the Cannon fell off. No damage, but I decided I would use just enough CA glue to hold the massive weapon in place. 

The day finally arrived to remove the "temporary" Cannon. With the help of Mrs. Blackheart I gently rocked the weapon up and down until the CA finally cracked and came loose with to ill effects at all!

I love it when a plan comes together.

Yellow paint was added to all the weapon shields, the head and a kneepad, making it feel much more like a War Griffons Titan. 

A few decals, some epoxy to hold the new weapon in place, and done!

I am very pleased with the outcome. Just feels more finished, and finally the weapon loadout I had always wanted. Now to make a mission to let her loose on the table again.

Tempestus Rex Walks

The Big Guns Never Tire

Clean, Wash, and Straighten

Not that many parts in the Gatling Arm kit, just big and heavy. Crisp details, a bit of flash, and some big mold lines. No problem.

One evening trimming and cleaning up the parts, followed by a nice warm soapy bath. For the Gatling Blaster, not me. 

On to the dry fitting, and...crap. Three of the gun barrels are warped. I'm not really surprised due to the part length and how long it took to ship to Southern California from England. 

Now for a really hot bath, like boiling hot.

This step is kind of tricky, and requires a zen-like patience. Dip the offending part into the boiling water for a few seconds. Pull it out to see if you can bend it a bit, if so, then shape it to your will.

Then douse in cold water and dry fit again. Repeat as long as it takes.

And took quite a few attempts to get all three barrels just right. The assembly of the gatling section is not for the faint of heart or easily frustrated. The next day it was time for paint.

I spray primed all the parts black, then sprayed the weapon housing in Boltgun, and the barrels with Titanium. Good starting point for the brush work to commence.

Next up: A simple-ish arm swap.

The Power of Resin Compels You

With a Hot Water Assist 

 

New Year, New Gatling Blaster

Long ago I assembled and painted my Forge World Warlord Titan. It was a awesome event in my modeling career. When I got it, the only arm weapon options were: Volcano Cannon. That's it.

More were promised "soon", and in fact the Plasma BigMuthaCannon did come out a few months later, followed by the Huge Honkin' Powerfist. But what I really wanted was a gatling cannon the size of a Warhound. Last year I finally got that. 

In the meantime I had re-done the paint job on my actual Warhound Titan, so I had a Warlord upgrade in mind. A new weapon arm and a little more paint to fall in line with the Warhound.

Tempestus Rex: The Before Picture.

Now it's time to spring into action!  

Next up: Time to...wash?

Let The Forges Be Relit!

Just Not Too Close to the Resin.

 

This Old Warhound

My dear old Warhound is 11 years old. It still sits proudly in my display case, but next to my Warlord Titan, it looks...a bit dated. Painting during my real-world Tactical Color phase, it suffers from a downright boring paint job. No contrast, small unit markings, just not nearly enough Warhammer to it.

Not to mention it needed dusting. At which point the right weapon-arm fell off. That was that. Time for a do-over! I made the easy choice of staying with Legio Gryphonicus to match my Warlord.

Stripping the paint off was out of the question. Old resin would make that endeavor far too risky. So I carefully popped some of the parts off to facilitate painting, thinned down some Grey and put on a few very light coats, which covered well and didn't get thick.

I hated painting yellow. Even more than white. But not any more! Averland Sunset is a great paint and color. I prefer the minimalist, older War Griffons paint scheme. Yellow on the head and weapon mounts.

Some bold unit markings, detail work on the weapons, and a wash, presto makeover!
I had some decals left over from my Warlord, and they add a nice finished touch to the beast.

Overall I am very pleased with Lupus Magnus's rebirth. Now to find something to fight...

Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Hound of War!

Or Something Like That.

Storm King vs a Lot of Tanks

Finally time to put my shiny new Titan on the table. One lone Warlord Titan (2,750 points) versus a full Emperor's Fist Tank company of ten Leman Russ Vanquishers, a Baneblade, and two Shadowswords (3,100 pts. A few stand-ins for the Guard)

Turn One: The Guard went first, Even with most of the Vanquishers only needing a 3+ to hit, it still took four of them to drop the Void Shields. The remaining six did 4 hull points of damage, all from the Vanquisher battle cannons. The Baneblade did single point of damage with its main gun and none from the lascannons. The pair of Shadowswords inflicted seven points of damage with their mighty Volcano Cannons. 12 points of damage total, almost half.

Then Tempestus Rex shot back. The Shadowswords were clearly the biggest threat and each got erased by a triple turbo laser battery. The Baneblade and a Vanquisher were taken out by a single Volcano blast, and the formation HQ tank plus a two of his friends by the second Volcano Cannon shot.

Three superheavies and four Vanquishers. Not a bad turn of shooting. And I got two Void Shields back.

The six remaining Vanquishers (now hitting on 4+ due to the loss of the HQ) Took down the Voids and did 3 more HP. Then they died.

 A swift two turn bloodbath. With thirteen vehicles the tank force only did 50% damage to the Titan. The tanks had the added advantage of going first, and starting within lascannon weapons range. The Warlord's guns have a huge range advantage, if we had started any further apart it would have been even more lopsided. The plan was for the Vanquishers to close and use the sponson mounted Multi-Meltas to great effect. That didn't come close to happening.

No big surprise that the Warlord Titan is a nigh unstoppable machine of destruction, and doesn't really belong in a 40K scaled game. But it is so much damn fun!

  The Emperor Protects

But Size Does Matter

Tempestus Rex

Here is the culmination of many hours of toil. I present to you, Mars Alpha Pattern Warlord Titan, Tempestus Rex, ("Storm King" in low Gothic) of the Legio Gryphonicus.

I am well pleased at the way it came out. As with many large projects, there are a few small things I would do a bit differently, but nothing major. It has been one hell of a build, and one of my best.

Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement, it helped a lot in the dark times when there was just so much left to do. Booze and cursing The Jeff helped a lot too.

Now it's time to see what 3,000 points of imperial Guard Tanks can do to it.

The Big Guns Never Tire

And What A Joyous Sound They Make

Almost There

Decals are done, arms have been epoxied, and all smaller parts are attached. The only step left is left is to put all the big parts together. I'm kinda terrified.

That will happen later today, so on Monday there will pictures of a (hopefully!) complete Warlord Titan. It will still need some touch up paints and a final dullcoat, but damn this has been a hell of a project.

As I have said before, I want one of the main weapons to be a Gatling Blaster.

Forge World has yet to produce one but I want to be able to swap it in once they do. I though of a few ways to temporarily mount the Volcano Cannon. Magnets and pinning being the first two. I ruled both those out for practical reasons. I know, heresy against the magnet gods, but the size of the magnet required vs, space available was not a good match. I have gone with...

Yes Velcro! That technology that that we got from the Roswell aliens. Or something like that. I cut some pieces down to fit and damn if it doesn't work.

 Well, mostly. I still had to put some thin cardboard shims along the sides to keep it snug, The end result is a solid mounting that will keep the heavy gun in place for the time being.

All Praise The Machine God

And Maybe the Velcro Aliens Too... 

Painting Frenzy

Lots of good progress has been made on on the mighty Warlord Titan. It will be a while before I will do anything that has gold trim on it again, but it does look nice. I finished painting up the armor plates, now some need decals before being attached.

The torso is complete, I still have the head and guns to detail, then it will be on to final assembly and then some weathering.

Today's Top Tip: Always keep your coffee mug and paint water a safe distance apart...

Re-enactment. No coffee was harmed, this time.

At least I noticed right after I infused my drink with gold paint. Which just proved I needed more caffeine. Next up: Battle report with a fancy new game mat!

Trust In The Machine God

I Need a Coffee Servitor

Slow and Steady

No dramatic progress to show off. Lots and lots of priming, some test fitting of the big subassemblies, and a whole lot of over-thinking the paint scheme.

The Testors Titanium Metalizer spray paint  looks great over the black primer. I did the guns with Leadbleacher spray for some variance in the bare metals. All of the armor plates have been back-painted black and I have started to do detail paint on the legs.

As for the main color, I have been testing a few different shades of grey. I'm making this titian as one from the Legio Gryphonicus (War Griffons) Of course this means I'll have to repaint my Warhound to match, but it's a small price to pay for awesome.

This is (mostly) the scheme I am going for. Mid-grey kinda color. Gold trim with a white, (maybe red) head. At the moment I am favoring Tamiya Haze grey as the main color. It'll be fun.

The Emperor Protects

Even against runs and overspray

Guns, Guns, Guns

Ahh yes, the raison d'être for the Warlord Titan. Very heavy weapons and lots of them. I was a bit torn on the weapons loadout, I think for the shoulder weapons missile pods have great utility and can wipe out entire units of infantry, but I like big guns and I cannot lie. Triple Turbo Lascannons would be my choice for the "secondary" weapons.

 Arm weapons, I want the classic Defense Laser (Volcano Cannon to you kids) and Gatling Blaster combo. Alas, Forge World doesn't make a Gatling Blaster yet. Soon, I hope. I have a few ideas in decreasing order of sanity for a gatling Blaster arm, but more on that later. The Plasma Destructor and Power Fist don't really do anything for me, so I went with a pair of Big Honkin' LaserGuns.

 First the usual, cut, trim, bath. A little bit of re-bending in boiling water, nothing too bad. All went together pretty well. The triple turbos had a moment of frustration when putting the three barrels together, but it was overcome with a few choice oaths and strong drink.

Just because I wanted to be done with the cut, trim, wash cycle I also prepped the cockpit.

So this marks the end of all sub-assemblies. Getting all them to fit together with be a thing.

Next up: Time for a whole bunch of paint.  

The Big Guns Never Tire

As Long as the Epoxy Sets

Some Titan Progress

I didn't get to work on the Warlord Titan very much the past few days. I mostly blame the oven-like wind that was here all week. I did manage to trim & wash the remaining parts for the body.

And all the armor plates while I was at it.

I can already tell some of the big parts are really warped. Yay, more boiling water fun. All the smaller parts went onto the torso, but I need to prime and start some painting before any more assembling can continue.

The main weapon arms look like they are going to be, you know, challenging. Three different parts make up the joints, so we could give it a large range of motion, which nobody does. Because it's a huge Imperial Titan, not some nimbly-pimbly Eldar. After the priming I'll have to start on the main weapons so I can get the arm pose correct. Next week: Guns & Paints.

Hail the Omnissiah! He is the God in the Machine, the Source of All Knowledge.

And a Real Pain in the Aft Quadrant