Horus Heresy 2e Review: Warlord Battle Titan

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. Pure win.

Background.
The mainstay of the titan legions. More responsibly for Unity and Heresy than the space marine legions themselves - arguably. They can lay waste to both armies and cities alike, and can do so on airless rocky moons and verdant planets alike so long as the ground beneath them can support their mass. Their only true enemy is others of their kith and kin. 

Strengths.
See the notes that I made about the Warhound Titan in the previous post to begin with. 

I last reviewed the Warlord Titan in 2016, at that point it cost 2750 points (now 3000 points which is still more than fair) and cost GBP 1240 - now costs 1185 before the weapons which would take it up to the region of GBP1537.50 (volcano cannons and missile launchers). As I stated in 2016, I would like you to have a good hard look at those numbers. Are you going to use it in a game? Are you rich enough not to care? Or merely display it in your home somehow and hope that your toddlers (if you have any) don't try to play with it as an equal (in size at least)? I don't yet own one myself, but have often toyed with the desire to purchase one, I will freely admit. 

With a game breaking AV=15 on two faces, a whopping 30 hull points, 6 void shields, 5++, and all the usual titan rules you've come to expect, I'm not even sure how to bring a Warlord down short of fielding one against it myself. Other than that, we get to choose two arm weapons and two carapace weapons. And yes: there is choice here. The weapons are all viable in various combinations. For the arms, I like the sun fury plasma annihilators and the bellicose pattern volcano cannons most myself. I don't like the close combat weapon (the shooting is better, and you've got a great stomp attack anyway and can't be locked in combat regardless -- even by another titan. Hence I think taking ranged weapons is better, but equally, it is the size of my own hand, and also works well in full sized games of Titanica). For the carapace, I like all options. However in second edition, we are missing the vortex option - why oh why???

Weaknesses.
None. Even the fact that it explodes magnificently upon engine death can be a strength. 

Builds.
To be clear: you can not truthfully go wrong here. These builds are merely suggestions.

Warlord Battle Titan, 2 Laser Blasters, 2 Belicosa Volcano Cannons.

Lots of ranged D class weapons to cause headaches. Big pie plates too. Nothing not to like.

Warlord Battle Titan, 2 Apocalypse Missile Launchers, 2 Sunfury Plasma Annihilators.

More dakka. I actually prefer the above build, but this one is still totally viable. 

Warlord Battle Titan, 2 Laser Blasters, 1 Arioch Power Claw, 1 Mori Quake Cannon.

Absolutely viable as well, the only issue here is the minimum range on the quake cannon if you're closing with another target? But you don't care and can shoot at something else. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Warbringer Nemesis Titan

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. Excellent

Background.
The Nemesis has a reputation for a restless machine spirit with ghost sensor artifacts that sometimes enable it to lock on before a threat is even sensed by the crew. It is in effect a "heavy support" choice (my words) for the Titan legions and brings heavy weapons to bear in order to bring down enemy titans. Hence the name.

Strengths.
Again, I will refer the humble reader back to the general notes that I made concerning the Warhound Titan in the previous post. 

The Nemesis comes with improved front armour (AV=15) compared to even the Reaver a whopping 6 void shields along with gatling blasters and the carapace mounted quake cannon. The autocannon batteries are not to be sniffed at either. All told this is a very dangerous titan that has an apocalyptic mega blast with the quake cannon and can take out targets with uneasy regularity. 

All this in mind, the same caveat applies here as it does to the Reaver: you're not taking it in regular games. Its either massive games, or specific Titan games. The upgrades are all good. 

Weaknesses.
None really. Maybe AV=12 at the rear needs to be thought about in terms of positioning?

Builds.

Warbringer Nemesis Titan, Nemesis Quake Cannon, 2 Gatling Laser Blasters.
Naked, and specifically for removing power armour enemies, or enemy mechanicum?

Warbringer Nemesis Titan, Nemesis Volcano Cannon, 2 Volcano Cannons.

Lots of AP1 from volcanoes all round. The nasty anti-titan build. Replace the arms with melta cannons for a bit of a closer ranged threat?

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Reaver Battle Titan

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. Nothing not to like here!

Background.
A battle titan in name, and in role. The Reaver is a most ancient design of Mars, and sees use throughout all of the Titan Legions.

Strengths.
I will refer the humble reader back to the general notes that I made concerning the Warhound Titan in the previous post. 

Look, if you're taking a Reaver Titan, then you are probably playing either a super massive points value game of Horus Heresy, OR you are taking part in a specific tournament / titan walk event. Otherwise, you're probably using it for the most massive objective imaginable? There's void shields here, there's lots of armour, and there's three titan weapons to choose between. Take your pick. It is actually all good here - there are no bad choices. 

Weaknesses.
I'm not sure what to write here since the Reaver is just wonderful to my biased eyes! That said, see my notes below about permitted builds in this edition versus the previous one.

Builds.

All of the four weapon choices here are great. But why we are not permitted to have a carapace mounted laser in this edition is beyond me. Please FAQ this! And what about the carapace vortex??

Reaver Battle Titan with Apocalypse Launcher, Laser Blaster, Titan Close Combat Weapon
This is probably a base line Reaver. It contains a mix of D weapons, large blasts, and the close combat weapon to make sure you move the thing to take advantage of it. 

No longer valid in this edition WHY??? Reaver Battle Titan with carapace-mounted vortex missile, 2 laser blasters
Very nasty turn 1 launch with the vortex missile to take out any close clumps of things you dislike, followed up by lots of D class shots. And lots more D class blast shots every turn thereafter. Nasty. Just nasty. Replace the vortex missile with a carapace mounted double-barrelled turbo laser destructor if you like, for sustained D shots every turn.

No longer valid in this edition WHY??? Reaver Battle Titan with carapace-mounted double-barrelled turbo laser destructor, 1 melta cannon, 1 volcano cannon.
Sit back. Blast away. Replace the volcano cannon with a laser baster to taste. But beware: this is one titan that you will forget to move around.

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Warhound Scout titan

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

5/5 stars. Its a titan. You can bring it to games under 3000 points. Splendid!

Background.
The smallest of the true titans! It is classed as a scout as it moves quickly and can be deployed as such by the legions.

Strengths.

I'm broadly copying my notes from First Edition here since they still apply. So let's be honest about something. If we're taking a titan, we're probably going to be opposed with titans. Therefore, I strongly would recommend that any titan is equipped with at least one strength D weapon to try to counter any enemy titans or super heavies. Admittedly, S10 is a close second, but its not quite the same. The ability to take these weapons should not be overlooked!

Titans are treated as gargantuan creatures in assault and can therefore make stomp attacks which is easy to forget when you're playing with all that shooting power. The final "strength" to remember is that titans can move. Yep. Seriously. They have legs. They walk, jog and run. Remember to think about this: it is a mobile weapons platform after all.

Weaknesses.
It is the smallest class titan, so "only" has 2 void shields. You can live with this. The reactor meltdown should also be a weakness, but in all honesty, it is fun when they go boom and Princips shout "Engine Death" - as you should. 

Builds.
Warhound Scout Titan, 2 Vulcan Megabolters
Don't bother unless you know for certain there are no other super heavies or land raiders on the enemy side. Pumping out 30 AP3 shots every turn will rapidly decimate any space marine army otherwise. No fun for the opponent in this regard (but then, you're taking a titan!).

Warhound Scout Titan, 2 double-barrelled turbo laser destructors
 D weapons with a 5" blast every turn is serious business. This is the kind of titan that is ready for anything. Nothing in the game cannot be handled by it. Take it.

Warhound Scout Titan, 1 plasma blast gun, 1 double-barrelled turbo laser destructor
A more balanced titan (if such a thing exists! lol!), the massive blasts from the plasma gun is amazing at range and fun to play. Its also high strength and is flexible (depending on if you're facing hordes for instance). And the laser destructors are for the enemy titans to contend with.

Warhound Scout Titan, 1 plasma blast gun, 1 vulcan mega-bolter
A more "standard" configuration, but one this is frankly, not as effective as the two previous examples unless you are playing full scale Adeptus Titanicus.

I cannot say I'm a fan of the inferno cannon, but can see some of its merit in flushing out power armour opponents for a swift moving war hound.

Reaver Progress at the resolution of September 2021

A short update on the Reaver today. The picture below shows the rough state of play for the titan. Everything is dry-fitted together (and a big shout out to my daughter who helped with the dry fit and holding the weapon on to the carapace for the image; but ignore the shoulder pads being the wrong way around! Maybe this will start an unlikely trend? Maybe not...). 

Regardless, significant progress has now been made with the painting of this beast. All the basics are in place and awaiting the first oily wash over before progressing to some detail and edge highlighting. 

For the curious, the Warhound weapon on the top has one of the spare Warhound leg guards wrapped around the top, but I intend to make this fully exchangeable for the missile launcher. As for the rest of the titan, the legs guards, the knees, the weapons, and the shoulders all need to be glued into place yet. I will keep the torso unglued from the legs to ensure portability. 

Much more work yet to be accomplished here, but good progress is being made!

 

Titanic Weapon Addition: Apocalypse Missile Launcher

Reinforcement weaponry is here for my Reaver Titan: an apocalypse missile launcher.

This heavyweight resin product from Forge World only comes in a small number of parts. The main body of the missile launcher is one solid, large blob of resin that is hard to miss. On the rear of the launcher is a small vent system that has to be glued on. Beneath is the connector that plugs it into the carapace of the Reaver Titan itself. 

And at the front are the missiles themselves. Each and every one of the missiles comes on a small resin sprue and must be added on its own. This is tricky due to the curvature of the missiles (it makes them tough to get in place, even with tweezers). Significantly, it is also easy to get one slightly misaligned and pointing in ever so slightly the wrong direction compared to its neighbours. This can be seen in the image where I've taken it at a certain angle to exaggerate this effect. Look closely and its possible to see a few missiles whose tips appear to not face forward. In real life when looking at the model straight on, this is hardly possible to detect though. I am reasonable confident that once I've applied a paint scheme to the missiles that any slight deviation from full frontal facing will be easily disguised. 

I know some people like to remove some of the missiles to suggest mid-battle action. But for me, I've decided to keep all of the missiles in their place since I wanted to present a fully loaded and ready weapon system. I should post more Reaver pictures as there's been a hell of a lot of progress since the last time!

Perennia Logo

It turns out that there is more than just me worldwide that wanted to have a titan in the Perennia colours. I was stoked that others reached out to me in the past year to discuss Legio Perennia (you know who you are) and I was only too happy to chat about that titan legion and what its iconography might be.

Now, when one invents a legion, there is complete freedom to choose whatever you like for iconography or colour. But the situation is slightly different here. Legio Perennia is a canon legion, but there is very little to go on for the Legio, except for the mention in the Horus Heresy short story that involves the Alpha Legion (which was also me reason for selecting Perennia).

Candidly, there really is only the name of the Legio.

As mentioned a long time ago when I was choosing the painting scheme, I felt that Perennia comes from the same root as "perennial", as per the plant type. This fact in itself is why I chose green for the major part of the colour scheme that I adopted for the war hound. To me, it also has overtures of something eternal, and even slightly Celtic perhaps.

Hence when I sat down to think about the logo, I wanted to try for something that brought these themes together.

The best result I had was looking at the ancient Celtic Tree of Life logo (also: Yggdrasil). If you google for "celtic tree of life", you will see the kind of thing I am talking about. The added benefit of this kind of symbology is that it is old enough to be out of copyright. Despite this benefit, the knots and swirls are very tough to paint due to the sheer level of complexity (I attempted several). So I started to look for a lower complexity version. There were not many. This Amazon seller for instance -- https://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Yggdrasil-Sticker-Mythology-Knotwork/dp/B01BO14HEI -- has bumper stickers that look great, and almost what I was after. In start white, it would stand out excellently against the green paint job of the body of the titan. Yet, it still lacks a certain something to my mind. Plus: needed to be simpler - much simpler. A design of this complexity is exceptionally tough to reproduce without very specific templating. 

I therefore retained the idea of knots, but simplified it a lot. I ended up with this design that I painted on the side of my war hound. 

I am broadly happy with this as it is simple enough to duplicated, yet specific enough to be easily sighted and recognised. Let the annals show that this knotwork is now the logo and symbol of Legio Perennia!

Titan Stripes

One of the toughest problems in painting (beyond getting white or yellows looking magnificent) is the challenge of undertaking straight lines, or stripes, on curved surfaces. 

For my Reaver Titan, however, this is exactly what I wanted to undertake. Now, there are numerous approaches to achieving this. The best I've seen uses sticky tape designed for acrylic nail art (i.e. nail varnish / nail polish). However, all the techniques are broadly similar. Take something with straight edges that is tacky, but not too sticky that it will rip off the layer that you adhere it to. Put said sticky stuff over the model, and then paint as best you can. Remove the tack and you should have straight lines underneath. 

The image above shows a pitiful attempt at illustrating what I mean using regular masking tape which I had left over from decorating a room in the house (i.e. it goes over power sockets, or the edges where the walls meet the ceiling to avoid paint getting splodged on the ceiling). Its application here is precisely the same. However, the hard part is the raised surface of the Reaver's shoulder pad. This means that some of the paint will creep in underneath parts of the otherwise straight edge. Although there are solutions on the market to this, I have found its slightly more bother than the cost otherwise pays off. Hence slightly thicker masking tape usually does the job. 

Here, the titan shoulder pad has already been base coated in white. I'm going to add black stripes to the pad, and then fill in (and / or touch up) using a slightly brighter white. The results of this is displayed below. 

The lines are for the main part super-neat, although there are one or two slight issues that I will go back and paint over when the time comes -- or hide with the use of weathering paint / oil more likely. I am not claiming this is perfect, but it is very sufficient for curved surfaces for my purposes and the grime layer that will be added later will take care of most of the slight issues seen in the second image. 

Reaver Embodied

Whilst I have not glued the upper torso to the legs, the progress on the Reaver has been significant in the days gone by. The image shows the stage that everything is up to. In a nutshell: it is now ready to paint.

Having said that, it is clear that I've not added on the knee pads, the shin pads, shoulders, or weapons. The intention is to paint these components separately and then glue them in to place as the final step. I wanted to pay some attention to the areas beneath them before attaching them, hence their absence from the image above. Just need some good weather outside to start spraying.

Reaver Body

After a lot of clamping and drying, the body of the reaver is now firmly locked in to place. Apart from a slight warping that I fixed with a hairdryer, there were no real issues in construction during this stage beyond having the patience to allow the piece to dry out thoroughly before removing the clamps that I had used. 

Inside the body are the painted pieces that I did earlier in the process: the dirty brass looking walkway surrounded on either side by the computers and servitors doing their thing. I have also glued in to place the void shield generators (circles toward the rear of the model - right hand side of this image above). 

I am keeping the lid unglued (as recommended) and will paint this up as a distinct section. Lots of rapid progress expected soon though as this titan is really taking shape now. 

Battle Titan Volcano Cannon

A short update on the Reaver today with the other main weapon built and assembled.

The main problem with this weapon was the thin layer of release agent that was covering some of the outer parts -- in particular the outer cladding either side of the main weapon that can be seen in the image.

That said, the new design of the Volcano Cannon follows the other re-design of the laser blaster. Once again, the bits on the sprue here will be attached at the last moment as they will determine whether this is a left or right arm (they're interchangeable with some magnetisation shenanigans). For my Reaver, this will be its right arm (at least that's the plan at the moment!).

Reaver Cockpit

A bit more painting on the interior of the Reaver: this time the cockpit interior. It follows the general aesthetic that I established on the servitor walls for the main interior: dark, broody, with a slightly retro vibe. The pulses in particular on the screens could almost be a vax display at some level!

Now, many painters usually go for a digitized view out of the front window for these displays. However, my logic here is that the Princeps already has that view afforded to him thanks to jacking in to the retinal and spinal connection ports. Hence there's no real need to have that screen in front of him. Similar arguments can be made for the Moderatii (to a lesser extent). Hence I thought that a neat idea might be to have a machine print out similar to a medical diagnostic machine. Perhaps they're relaying information about the peak power consumption? Every time a primary weapon fires, there's a pulse! Or maybe its like a windows style CPU usage readout? Either way, I kind of like the concept a bit more than having a viewport, hence I went with it. This idea is replicated on the right hand side, as well as on the lower left rectangular display just below the dials.

For the keyboards, I originally wanted to try to suggest that the keys had some kind of back-lighting to them. However, this did not go quite as I had envisioned. Regardless, I'm happy with the outcome here. Time to glue the Princeps in place soon!

Laser Blaster

Alongside the Reaver titan that is progressing very nicely now, I am simultaneously constructing its armaments as well. One of them will be a battle titan laser blaster -- basically a triple-barrelled laser gun the size of a tank. 

There are only eleven parts for this particular weapon, and most of them come in pleasingly large chunks of resin that is straight forward to put together once removed from the resin gates and shaved down. 

The image shows the final assembly for the laser blaster. There are two parts left over which can be seen on the sprue in the lower right of the picture. These parts will attach once the arm is put in place. However, I also need to decide whether the laser blaster will be the left arm or right arm for the titan before I can do that. I think it will be the left arm at the moment. The only (and weak?) logic behind this choice is that I want the titan to look like it has 1-2-3 barrels from the front going from left to right. i.e. a volcano cannon on its right arm (which is on the left when viewed face on), the carapace double-barrelled laser destructor on top, and this laser blaster on its left arm (viewed on the right face-on). I will have to see about that though as the striding legs might make me change my mind still. 

More Reaver Interior Painting: Servitors

Continuing on a theme of painting things that will only rarely be seen, today a little progress post on the interior of the Reaver. 

These are the servitors that line the interior walls of the main (upper) part of the titan. Goodness knows what they are actually supposed to be controlling - the primary weapons perhaps? Not too sure to be honest. Their pose, sculpt, and aesthetic is positively grim and dark though. 

For the painting colour scheme, I've opted to go for something a bit noir as I felt it went well with the grim depictions. The whole pieces are a combination of faded gold and brass colours combined with a black background. This creates a very "sued" vibe which was what I was going for. The human servitors have been picked out in fleshy tones. In hindsight, I might have gone for something a little more subdued and less obviously fresh (not quite Nurgly tones, but perhaps anaemic looking). 

The computers in the background have also been picked out. I simply opted for a pulse-like monitor with some numbers on the screens. I intend to carry over this pulse theme to the cockpit of the titan, rather than making the computer screens in to some kind of pseudo-view port to the outer world. The reason for this is that I feel all the technology wired in to the Princeps means that such monitors are not required. 

Overall, I am happy with how the gold colour has come out - the shading in particular is very pleasing, along with the weathering. I'm less happy about the servitor though, and one of the computer screens ("91") the brush messed up on me a bit, so I ended up with larger lettering than was intended. Regardless, these are now ready to be installed in the main interior and the progress of the titan is coming along in leaps and bounds now. 

Starting on the Reaver Titan Interior

The building and painting of the interior of my Reaver Titan, Harmonia Tacita, has now commenced. In the first image, there is a computer panel from just below one of the void shield generators (which will be on the back, rear of the upper face of the titan). Naturally, it has the number 42 in the screen (what better?). The painted area here will hardly be visible once the main body of the titan is glued together and held in place. However, I will know its there! 

The second image shows the glued together interior walls for the main body of the titan. These will be painted up along with the rest of the interior prior to assembly. I want the interior to look dark, perhaps with gold accents. Whilst I was toying with an off-blue or grey colour, I'm going to stick to something that will look a bit Black Legion for the interior scheme. I also want the accent colours to be red for the display monitors. 

One interesting facet of putting this together is that one of the braces at the top has to be snapped off. I strongly recommend to readers who are fitting this piece to their own titans to take care with this. Dry fit it a couple of times just to be sure. On top of that, a hair dryer (or hot water) may well be necessary to slot in these side pieces and get them to sit correctly. Be prepared for a bit of work in this department before progressing to final gluing. 

Striding Reaver Legs

Much dry-fitting later and we have some striding Reaver legs for the titan!

Other progress includes the shin parts and some dry fitting of hip pistons. They will be completed very soon and we can move on to the toes, leg plates, and painting the interior of the main part of the body of the titan.

Leg Filling

Feeling a bit like a dentist must, I decided that the best way to solve the resin cavity (forgive the term - it is accurate) in the leg of my Reaver was to undertake a filling.

To do this, I made sure that I firstly had drilled a deep enough hole in the cavity to host a brass rod firmly in position. After gluing the brass rod in to the cavity, I proceeded to fill around it with green stuff mixed with a touch of grittier milliput. With that dry, I went over the top of the hemisphere of where the cavity has been and covered it over with liquid green stuff to make the hemisphere whole again.

The job complete, its now time to let it dry before welding it in to place on the other leg. In the image, the first leg can be seen in the background. I have adopted a striding stance for this titan as I wanted it do be dynamic. Having fitted the plates, I'm happy that this stance will work nicely despite the obvious angle. Still plenty of work to go in this titan yet...

Reaver Legs

Some construction work on the legs of the Reaver Titan from Forge World today. The basic assembly for the thighs and calves is done - the fiddly bits remain to be achieved. In short, I do not want this titan to be looking static. I favour a more dynamic pose, but need to play this off against the necessary practicalities of transportation dimensions and ensuring that the titan balances. Hence, I want to have both feet on the ground realistically, despite my inner urge to try something one-footed and mid-run or mid-stride. 

To ensure that the titan is solidly and robustly constructed, I am going to pin a number of the major components together. The first image shows the holes that I made for a brass rod to be inserted in one of the chunkier leg pieces. 

Also notice here the scoring that I have done around the drill hole. This scoring is to ensure that the glue bonds better to the parts and is a technique that I have used for decades to rough parts up to make them come together better. 

Below is the basic thighs and lower leg components all assembled and awaiting connection to the hips and feet (plus toes). I need to do some dry fitting before proceeding too much more to ensure that I can get the post that I want. 

However, one issue has already reared its ugly head for me. The next image shows an excessively thin bit of resin that was removed along with the gate when I was chopping it from the sprue. As can be seen, the resin has not been cast solidly enough, but instead contains a large bubble inside the hemisphere (the other leg has no such issue and is solid throughout). 

I am a bit disappointed by the quality here. However, I think this might not be too much of a big issue since this hemisphere will ultimately connect with the foot. I plan on filling out the large bubble with some milliput or greenstuff, and adding a long brass rod to ensure a high quality connection to the foot (I was going to insert a brass rod regardless for stability purposes). All that said, it is still annoying to find these kinds of hidden problems (defects?). 

Reaver Unboxing

This is the first in a series of posts about the building of a Reaver Titan from Forge World.

As with all such projects, the starting point is unpacking the box and checking everything out. If you have never seen a Reaver titan before it is constructed, and ever wondered what it looks like straight out of the box, then this is it. Below, I have scattered all the components on to my table to inspect. Large and small, delicate and robust, these are the entire contents of the Reaver box freshly delivered; no trimming or anything else has been done at this stage. I'm merely inspecting the parts to make sure that they are all present and correct.

Speaking of the box, I guess not many people get to see what that looks like either, so here it is below.

More on this project soon!

Reaver

The Fabricator General has decreed that your army may deploy the might of a

Reaver Titan.

Tremble foes of man for the might of the Omnissiah is upon you.

Thought for the day.

A moment of laxity spawns a lifetime of heresy.