Primaris Secutar - a Reaver Titan build - Part One

I think I mentioned that I'm playing in the Adeptus Titanicus game at Adepticon this year, right? Well, if I didn't mention it earlier, you know now.

I'll be building the Rever Titan Primaris Secutar of the Legio Crucius. This is the Reaver that I purchased "mostly assembled" around four years ago. It has been sitting in a drawer, waiting for the right moment. And that moment is now.

Here are the PIP knee pads, with the one of the left sporting a sculpted icon of the Legio. This will be a reasonably long road. As a friend pointed out the other day, it's only 11 weeks or so until Adepticon 2014!

Additionally, the pics of the Mechanicum Myrmidon models in the back of the January WD inspired my to start converting up a few of my own. Now I just have to get a few Necron specialist box sets to keep rolling. The bases are from Dragon Forge Designs.

Cheers
Dave

My first game of Malifaux...

Well, it's my first ever game of Malifaux tonight. I'll be using some combination of the models in this post. Wish me luck! ; )

Cheers
Dave

Happy New Year!

During this time of reflection and renewal, take a moment to remember...

No matter how tough things can get in your life, it has to be better than being hardwired into a Reaver Titan!

May you all enjoy 2014 at least as much as I enjoyed 2013. There will be plenty more fun to come in 2014, and I'll get to my usual "reflection and resolutions" posting soon.

Until then, have fun painting!

Cheers
Dave

The French in Egypt

It's been a pretty crazy time lately. Lots of things to build, convert, paint. Lots of different projects, but I must say I'm really enjoying painting up these models for our Guns Of April "Napoleon in Egypt" game for AdeptiCon 2014.

Above are a couple of grenadiers from the 69me Demi-Brigade de Ligne, flanking a Sergeant character from our French Infantry lists (although I'm using a converted Dromedary Corps standard bearer for this guy).  One of the interesting facts about the French expedition to Egypt in 1798 was that after the Battle of the Nile, the French suffered incredible supply issues. To address the issue of uniform resupply they redesigned it, and were forced to assign a wide variety of colors to the Demi-Brigades (there was simply not enough indigo dye available to issue uniforms in the typical French blue). These colors included: Light Green, Sky Blue, Red, Purple, Brown, Dusty Pink, and Violet.

While not many wargamers undertake the collecting of an army-sized force of the period, it's a bit of fun to tackle this aspect at a skirmish scale.

Above are three fusiliers, again from the 69me Demi-Brigade de Ligne. They are wearing the Kleber helmet of the Egyptian uniform.

And for a little change I painted these three (above) as chasseurs from the 22me Demi-Brigade de Legere.

And finally for this post, here are three of the four French Savants from Brigade Games, an excellent pack full of character. In our gaming one of these guys will accompany my Infantry force, another one will hang out with the Dromedary Corps.

Last, but not least, here's the knee pad for my Reaver Titan of Legio Crucius : )

Cheers
Dave

Venatrix Nocturna - She Walks!

On Friday I posted a teaser pic of a Warhound Titan. This little beastie is the Venatrix Nocturna, and she's the titan my friend Dave Pauwels will be bringing along the to Adeptus Titanicus game at AdeptiCon next year. Dave is an absolutely brilliant painter (as his many awards will attest), but he'll also admit he's quite slow. Therefore, to avoid missing out on the game, he asked me to assemble her for him.

About two years ago, I assembled and painted a Reaver Titan, so some of the pain of that ordeal had worn off. I jumped into this task in a fairly positive way; soaking and washing all the many, many parts.
I read through the FW instructions several times and, after cleaning up all the parts (trimming off almost three pounds worth of resin pour channels and "tabs"), I started building her from the feet up.

In these photos you can see a deconstruction, as Dave will be painting the interior. I had to make sure there was plenty of accessibility to all the fiddly details inside. Dave also wanted some flexibility with his weaponry (who wouldn't?), so I've added very strong rare-earth magnets to each upper arm, allowing for a fairly straightforward swap of weapons as required.

Anyway, I'll let most of the photos do the talking : )

Above you can see the washers embedded in the guns. These are more than enough for the magnets to grab onto : )

For easy of packing/transport once Dave has painted the model and attached the front of the torso to the rear of the torso, I added another magnet to the rear torso and a washer to the column above the waist.

It seems the Warhound comes with four shin plates, allowing you to make it quite Imperial (with two big eagle pads) or less so (as I expect Dave will be doing with this traitorous beast!

There's even a sheet of etched metal for the grille looking down into the reactor section.

And finally, instead of gluing in the resin cabling to the weapons (and destroying that flexibility), I replaced them with small lengths of network cable. These are glued into the body, and can slip into the sockets at the back of the weapons Dave sees fit to load her out with.

I hope you've enjoyed these photos. I'll have some more of my new Reaver build and paint coming in the New Year. I'm working on a Loyalist Titan for the very same game!

If you have any questions about the build, just ask.

Cheers (and Merry Christmas!)
Dave