The Titan Project – Week 7

It’s Titan Wednesday!

 

HOORAY! I hear you cry in your best Lord Flasheart voice…  (any people in the USA reading this probably won’t get that reference).

I digress.

So, what have I done this week? Well, I’ve dedicated this week to painting. Specifically, painting the leg armour panels and the legs themselves as well as touching up part of the guns.

I’ve done absolutely nothing to the head and body this week.

 

 

As you can see below I’ve basically finished the armour panels for the legs, all that is required now is some Leadbelcher or Gold on the soon-to-be-metallic areas that are currently picked out in black.

I haven’t decided yet whether to use tranfers/decals on the armour or to use a stencil and airbrush for the markings and Legio Astorum heraldry.

 

 

The legs have so far been heavily drybrushed with Leadbelcher, washed with Drakenhof Nightshade and washed with Gryphonne Sepia, then washed with Army Painter Strong Tone and lightly drybrushed again with Leadbelcher.

 

 

This produces a nice metallic effect with some different tones and small areas of dirt or discolouration. I’m pretty happy with it so far. I just need to drybrush some of the raised areas with a bit of Ironbreaker and that base metal is done.

 

 

I’ve started picking out some of the detail on the legs, such as the pistons – of which there are many – and I’m using straight Runfang Steel to represent a nice polished piston rod which will be given a light wash of Nuln Oil. I’ve tried to photograph them but my camera and lighting isn’t doing me any favours!

 

 

That’s the lot for this week! Thanks for reading and I’ll hopefully have some more work done on the torso next time.

 

Neil

Weekend Battle Report 4

WARHAMMER WORLD!!!!

So, this is the second of two games we got in at WHW for our first #ForgeWorldOnly get together. Best note that @CPJohnson80 only realised after the 4 hour journey that he’d left all his models at home. Good thing @NeilChallis could help him out… a little.

Thunder Raven Space Marines (1500pt) and Battle Brothers Bork’an Sept Tau Empire (1000pt)

VS

Angels Templar Space Marines (1250pt) and allied Grey Knights (1250pt)

Game Type: Apocalypse, Hammer and Anvil

Thunder Ravens: 1x Space Marine Captain, 2 x Tactical Squads, 1 x Dreadnought, 1 x Contemptor Dreadnought, 1 x Landraider, 1 x Devastator squad. Tau Empire: 3 x Fire Warrior Teams, 2 x Crisis Teams, Crisis HQ, 6 Pathfinders and Devilfish, Hammerhead with Railgun, Broadsides with shield drones.

Angels Templar: 3 x Tactical Squads, 1 x Sternguard Squad w/ Space Marine Captain, 1 x Assault Marines, 1 x Terminators, 1 x Dreadnought. Grey Knights: 1 x Paladin ‘Asshats’ Squad, 2 X Assault Terminators, 1 x Librarian, 1 x Stormraven.

On the fringes of Imperial space a core of Grey Knights have been ordered by the Adeptus Administratum to stomp all over a treacherous force of Thunder Ravens trading with Weeaboo Space Communists, the Tau Empire. The Grey Knight’s, after searching their foe for months have finally tracked the Marines down assisting the Tau in uncovering an Eldar webway gate.

Deployment

Finally tracked down, the Tau and Thunder Ravens prepare for a last stand against the EMPRAHHH’s Finest. Winning the dice roll they form along and behind the walls of a captured Imperial Fortress.

The GK and Angels Templar decide a forlorn hope through the left wall and main entrance would be futile so they deploy to the right wall where the fortress is most exposed.

Turn 1

Spotting the enemies attempt to outflank, the first shot of a Hammerhead’s Railgun signals the start of the battle. A unit of tactical marines take a large blast template scattering limbs in all directions.

Turn 2

Hoping to jet pack to the entrance; a unit of Assault Marines make good of their ability to move across the field. Nevertheless, their ability to assault is nothing when measured against the ability of a Landraider to tear through bodies like paper, and unfortunately for them one is waiting.

The Loyal Angels Templar are now in real trouble and without heavy support. Calling over the vox, the Captain curses his Grey Knight brothers, but they’re not getting a response. No flyer or Terminators on this turn. The dice say NO.

Turn 3

The Assault Marines are decimated by a second rail of fire from a Contemptor Dreadnought which appears from the second entrance. Kheres Pattern Assault Cannons whirling, the unit is finished before even striking a blow.

The Angels Templar are now taking a shower of metal rain; auto cannons, burst cannons, plasma shots and Railguns. But still only crackling over the vox. “Where is that flyer? Where are those beardy metal heads?!”

From the distinct fog comes a roar of an Imperial assault craft. The Storm Raven!

Turn 4

Finally the Vox opens up, “deep strike!” Jumping into the heart of the traitors lines, Grey Knight Terminators and Paladin’s ready for some beardy Weeaboo action arrive! Three units drop in but one mucks up and land into the webway gate’s crane. Luckily @CPJohnson80 ‘s good friend and Marine opponent, @NeilChallis, is on hand to choose where they go.

That’s right, all the way over there.

Turn 5

Preparing for an imperial bummery from the Emperors hardest, every enemy gun available is brought to bear on the GK terminators. Every Fire Warrior, drone, Marine, Pathfinder and Crisis Suit piles in until the last two terminators are left standing. The final two are finished by the toughest of all xenos weapons, broadside twin linked Railguns. Taking an uber bashing to the face; the unit is wiped clean from the board.

Not going well by any means it’s now down to the Storm Raven to clear the floor.

Turn 6

Over to the approaching blob of loyal marines and the Contemptor is stuck in combat with a Dreadnought. The Angels Templar are launching grenades at a Devil Fish and have successfully obliterated a Hammerhead. The Stormraven is zooming above screaming for revenge, “FOR THE EMPRAH!!!”

Turn 7

Coming about for another bombardment, the Stormraven flies over the main gate. So far it has evaded just about every heavy shot thrown at it – and there have been many – but its final approach is over a devastator squad parked atop the entrance wall. Suddenly the flyer shakes and ground below the pilot erupts. A Lascannon has ripped through the hull and torn apart the deck.

The last of the Grey Knight’s are obliterated. They have failed both Matt Ward and the Imperium.

Conclusion

Tau: Well that was fun, and funny. Playing on Forge Worlds Imperial Fortress was great and Chris’s deep strike miss-hap brought me much joy. I think if Chris had remembered his stuff though he would have benefited from a tank or two. That said the flyer took forever to take down without sky-fire. Also the terminator deep strike right into a gun line was a big mistake!

Thunder Ravens: A marginally unbalanced game in hindsight but I doubt Chris will forget his miniatures again! 🙂 On another day I may not have been so mean with the deep strike mishap but this is WAR dammit! The Stormraven caused a mass of devastation and we found it very difficult to kill it without Skyfire. The Paladin’s and Grey Knight Terminators could’ve and perhaps should’ve caused more damage but the sheer volume of shots meant they were going to struggle not to roll a few 1’s!

THE TITAN PROJECT – Week 6

Eden Hazard just kicked a ballboy!

The world has gone mad…

Fortunately Titan Wednesday has arrived to inject some much needed normality.

It’s a short update today because I’ve had a pretty busy week and have spent most of my hobby hours painting my Realm of Battle board – blog post to come with step-by-step – and working on my 40k doubles army for the tournament in a couple of months.

I’ve mostly been concentrating on painting for the last week. I have sadly not started work on my base but the foam putty has arrived so work will commence this weekend! I’ve made big strides with the cockpit/head and I’m really pleased with teh metal work and yellow – in my slightly biased opinion, the camera isn’t doing it justice!

I’ve also nearly finished the guns. I just need to layer the blue and pick out control panel details and lights and so on and as you can see below, I have washed the legs with Drakenhof Nightshade and Gryphonne Sepia. They will now get a dark brown wash and then some careful light drybrushing with Ironbreaker before I pick out the pistons and gold Aquila’s that are all over them. 🙂

I have also basecoated the main carapace in Kantor Blue and that’s where I am so far.

Thanks for reading!

Neil

The Titan Project – Week 5

Good evening!

Welcome to another installment of Titan Wednesday! 🙂

This week I’ve been preoccupied with painting. My can of undercoat spray arrived today but it’s took dark to spray now so I will have to leave painting the legs until the weekend – instead, I have begun painting the internals.

As you can see I’ve started making some headway with the cockpit. I’ve finished the metal work and have begun layering up the Princeps! I’ve also drybrushed the main interior of the titan body with Leadbelcher and Tin Bitz and washed the whole area with a purple wash. I will add some other light drybrushes and washed of different colours to get some nice metallic hues.

 

 

I have also begun work on the cockpit cover/head, which I decided to paint yellow in keeping with the Legio Astorum’s colour scheme and offering a strong contrast with the blue and metals on show. This was actually undercoated black! I painted on a thin layer of Iyanden Darksun and then quick, light drybrushes (i say drybrushes but the paint was still wet, I was just using small amounts) repeatedly to build up the colour.

I am by no means finished with this but that’s where I am at the moment. I think it gives a nice JCB/building site vehicle effect to what would be a painted metal canopy.

 

 

I’ve also got further along with the guns. the metals are basically done now, they just need a little Ironbreaker drybrush. I’ve painted the blue areas with Kantor Blue and they are at this minute drying after being washed with Drakenhof Nightshade. I also used the Forge World recommended Gold Rub ‘n Buff (in last picture) for the tips of the Turbo Laser and I’m very impressed. Easy to work in and looks great.

 

 

This week I finally decided to magnetise something! Hooray! As I’m bothering to paint the interior I thought I should magnetise the roof vent section, so I did 🙂 One magnet goes into the top of the internal door and one is sunken in to the base of the roof vent piece. It’s not a totally flush fit but it’s close enough for me and i’m happy with it. I used the Firestorm Games 5mm x 2mm neodymium magnets and they are brilliant. Really, very strong.

 

 

So that’s where I am at the moment…  that’s roughly 3 or 4 hours work since my last blog post. I hope to do some more painting at the weekend and finally begin work on the base, although I still haven’t really decided what I’m going to do with that yet.

 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Neil

Weekend Battle Report 3

WARHAMMER WORLD!!!!

So the other weekend 3 of us took the 4 hour journey up to WHW for the first #ForgeWorldOnly meet (Check out the projects blog and the founders twitter handle here). We showed off what little we had achieved so far and decided to get some games in on the cool boards @war_game_geek reserved for the day.

Note: In the end it was quite an adventure, besides me, Neil and Chris, only Andy (@war_game_geek) were able to attend. This would have been fine had my car not broken down, resulting in us getting towed home, eventually arriving back at 3am. I had no idea it was the duty of the tired and distressed passenger to keep the recovery guy awake by chatting solid for 4 hours. Needless to say I was shattered, very irritable and bloody broke. Got a couple of games in though so I guess that makes up for it? (second Battle Report coming soon)

Space Marines (500pt) and Battle Brothers Grey Knight detachment (500pt) VS Space Marines and Battle Brothers Tau Empire detachment (500pt)

Game Type: Zone War Mortalis, 1000pt boarding skirmish

Space Marines: 2 x 5 man Combat squads, 1 x Sternguard squad, 1x Terminator Squad and Captain. Grey Knights: Brother Captain, 5 Grey Knight Terminators

Space Marines: 2 x Tactical Squads, 1 x Sternguard squad w/ Space Marine Captain. Tau: 2 x 10 Fire Warrior teams, Kroot blob and hounds, 3 Stealth Suits.

Deployment: SP + GK win the dice roll and prepare to board a listing space hulk. Blasting their way through the outer hull they deploy to the port bow. Unknown to them their foe was to the opposite corner of the board, to the starboard stern, waiting. Soon they’re going to meet in the dark and dingy hull of the ship with only laser fire to light up the enemy.

Turn 1

Tactical squads and termies march down the ships corridors. This unit of hardened genestealer smashing roid machines know a thing or two about space hulks, but this smells different, smells worse. Not the kind of smell which causes a warrior of the imperium to shudder, but the kind that thinks, “sweet Emperor, that’s worse than my Astartes sack.” KROOT!

Gathering pace from the other side of the board they can hear the hounds and snarling of an advancing blob of Kroot.

Turn 2

Closing in on the enemy the boarding party realise they’re about to counter a long straight corridor of death.  There is only one thing for a battle hardened Marine to do in such a situation… let the newbies go first. Turning round the bend to face the pitch black they encounter their foe, Stealth Suits and Fire Warriors. Fearless and resolute, the Marines open up and take out a stealth warrior.

Returning fire with fusion blasters and burst cannons the Tau plough in, but Marine armour holds up.

Turn 3

The Marine Captain who has been attempting to outflank, walks into a corridor of waiting Fire Warriors. Hammer held aloft he piles in for an assault. These blue squashy aliens with their soft rubber gun buts are an unknown quantity to this captain, and amazingly he fails to wound, its snake eyes. But surely he won’t lose the assault and fall back? Oh but yes he does. Who put him in charge we’ll never know.

Further up the corridor is a battered stealth team and a soon to be gutted Kroot blob, because in come the steadiest of all space hulk destructive Astartes, Terminators, all of them called Arnie. Cracking skulls and making a right royal mess of things they win the assault. The Kroot have no choice but to break and run, and in doing so send fear into the hearts of their Marine allies who do likewise only to rally.

Turn 4

Going well for the invading party they push on, sending the Grey Knights forward to finish the Kroot and take out their allied Sternguard.

The Marine Captain standing in disarray and his pride broken regains his composure. Assaulted by Tau allied Marines he thinks, ah… finally a fight with something I understand. Unleashing his hammer he crushes four Marines, heads now splattered across the deck.

Turn 5

The defenders are finally rounded up and sliced, diced, gunned down… well, generally slaughtered to the last man/xenos.

Conclusion:

Tau + Marine: Zone War Mortalis is fun but really you should take plenty of things for assault and anti termie weaponry. So lots of plasma and power weapons.

Marines + Grey Knights:

Hahaha…  HAHAHAHA….  *ahem* sorry. Yes, Terminators and rapid fire bolters are devastating in Zone Mortalis. I would like to play again with some assault cannons or autocannons too.