Hector Cephas - Titans Primed

Hi everybody,

I luckily managed to catch a day of good weather and had one heck of a priming session! 8 Reavers, 8 Warhounds, 6 Cerastus Knights and all of the weapon options for these and the extra weapons from the Warlord Plasma Annihilator sprues.

On top of this I also had to prime all the armour plates for the reavers, warhounds and the additionals from the upgrade sprues...

That was one very productive day involving 3 and a bit cans of primer to do it but completely worth the effort as now I can crack on with painting everything now at my leisure. I managed to prime everything else a few months back so this is basically the last of the priming until I start work on the AT scenery I have. Next thing on the list, start painting titan frames.

Apologies if this is not such an interesting post, I was just pretty proud of the fact that I managed get this all sorted in a day.

Until next time,

Hector Cephas

Hector Cephas - Reavers and Knights Built

Hi everyone!

I've finished building the last of my titans and knights  well, at least until further cerastus variants are released to bolster my support banners and dominus maniples. The reavers are the new melta cannon variant that were made with the different head; the good thing is that it is only one sprue different to the older reaver so they can be magnetised in the same way and the weapons are entirely interchangeable so a bit of win in that regard. I really like the look of the melta cannon and the chain fist combo for an aggressive close-range attacker 

I've built all 6 of my lancers along with all the weapons from the plasma annihilator upgrade sprue - now my warlords have some variety in terms of weapons and armour paneling like the rest of my titans.

Did any of you buy the warlord upgrade sprues by themselves or did you buy the plasma annihilator warlord titan kit (or both)?

Until next time!

Hector Cephas

Hector Cephas; Magnetising Reaver Titans

Hi all,

Given the amount of questions I've seen on social media in regards to magnetising a Reaver titan and the different approaches people have suggested, I've decided to throw my hat in the ring and outline what I did. I won't take the credit for it as it was an idea pitched by a friend of mine who I thought had a strange fascination in 3x2 magnets but it turns out that it is entirely justified and worked nicely with the Reaver!

Nice convenient thing about the Reavers shoulder assembly is that it gives you a big pilot hole for drilling. It's about 3mm in diameter at the bottom so it's pretty much perfect to use 3mm diameter magnets and having ones with a depth of say... 2mm... it gives you more to glue to the structure around it, it's pretty much perfect.

The harder bit in my option was actually magnetising the arms:

1. You have to drill into a ball
2. We don't know if we are getting arms for weapon upgrades or whether we need to use the ones we got with the kit so what do I magnetise?

For point 1 - I have huge hands, and naturally huge fingers so attempting any drilling without a vice was going to end in tears. Fortunately, if you haven't got one, you can get hobby vices cheaply (£9 at Homebase and I am sure you can do better online too - I just didn't want to wait). What I recommend you do is:

1. Identify the *top* of the ball - remember the arms are at an angle, the base of the arm where it connects to the gun should be level.
2. Put the arm in your hobby vice top up and file the point where you want to drill to reduce the chance of the drill slipping
3. Use a crafting knife and a 1mm drill to create a small pilot hole (again to reduce the chance of the drill slipping)
4. Drill with a 3mm drill bit so the arm is ready for your magnet
5. Glue the magnet in

For point 2 - I didn't take any chances, my arm sections are magnetised top and bottom and the guns are also magnetised. To magnetise the rest of the arm very simply just put the part in question in your vice (drilling surface up) and do steps 3-5. As a bit of a helpful hint as well, I'd recommend using something like an ice lolly stick for ensuring your put your magnets in correctly:

The bit that has "Magnum" on it has my magnet I use for ensuring I have put my weapon magnets in the right way up. The opposite side is for the counterpart magnet so my weapons don't get repelled from the rest of the model. Doing it this way ensures that all of your weapons are magnetised in the exact same way so you can swap weapons between arms as you like!

Oh, and by the way, for all you guys who have lots of 5x1 magnets left over from building your warlords - good news, you can use them to magnetise your apocalype missile launchers!

In total, for each Reaver you are magnetising, you will need:

1. 2 5x1mm magnets
2. 9 3x2mm magnets (2 for the shoulders, 4 for the arm sections, 2 for the guns, 1 for the close combat arm)

All in all, it took me about 3-4 hours to fully magnetise my 6 Reavers but I did them all in batch which cut down on a lot of time wastage. Like the build for the Reaver, it is worth taking the time to make sure you get it right. I personally feel the approach I took is the better approach to magnetising the Reaver for me but that's more because it falls in my comfort zone - I wouldn't be comfortable removing most of the ball from the arms and or trying to mount a larger magnet in the shoulder socket using green stuff to make the platform for it whereas I'm happy to drill holes just fine. There are a few other tutorials and hints and tips on social media so if you aren't so happy with drilling through the shoulder then you probably can find a different approach that you may prefer on Facebook.

Until next time,

Hector Cephas

Titan War

Good evening guys and gals.

I'm back with a follow up post to my earlier Astraman piece. As you know many of the Bunnies marched to war in the Shadow War at Warhammer World. I took two armies with me, offering my opponent lucky dip to establish whether it was Mechanicum or Titan Legio that they faced. I had a great time and a fair number of opponents chose to face the might of Astraman, which generated some great games (both win and loss). As part of the event we were encouraged to write a narrative for the games we played - here is my run down of the 5 games played over the weekend (please remember that the narrative is written from Legio Astraman and the Mechanicum of Graia's perspective and any derision of enemy forces is meant with good jest - and a massive thank you to all my opponents).

Game 1

The cowardly word bearers aligned their elite forces against the might of Legio Astraman. The primary objective was jealously guarded by the servants of the dark gods, as the valiant god engines laid waste to the tainted tanks and walkers of the blighted legion mustering for the arch traitor Horus and their primarch Lorgar. As the dust of battle settled, two resilient marines held the objective, out of sight of Astraman's targeting augurs, surviving long enough to take their prize back to their legion command.


Game 2.

Legio Astraman strode out onto the barren wastes searching for the artefact stolen away by the foul Word Bearers. The Titans were intercepted by an armoured column of the warmasters own. The Titans opened fire en masse, rendering much of their armour to useless molten slag and sending the scant few survivors darting for cover. The enemy advanced, destroying a valiant warhound as Horus and his Justerian entered the fray. With volcano cannon and laser destroyers blasting at them as they advanced. Enraged by the loss of his favoured sons, Horus engaged the Reaver Titan in glorious hand to hand combat and was promptly squashed under foot by the massive God Engine of War.


Game 3.

Hearing of his brothers defeat, Perturabo looked to exact revenge on the forces of Graia. The Mechanicum of Graia, activating a cybernetica cohort intercepted Perturabo's forces as they mustered at their rallying point. The cybernetics engaged the Primarch's forces, decimating the marines with rotor cannon and lightning gun. Perturabo saw an opportunity to end the attack by nullifying the cohorts magos. Calling upon legion support, two drop pods carrying mighty Leviathan siege dreadnought were locked onto the magos' co-ordinates. They descended on wings of fire but were met upon landing by the Magos' bodyguard of mighty Domitars, which swiftly despatched the Leviathans with their graviton hammers. As the smoke of burning drop pods cleared it was evident that the forces of Graia were victorious


Game 4.

The Legio Astraman, cut off from their supporting forces by their engagement with Perturabo, were forced to regroup in another sector, chased to their extraction point by traitor Solar Auxillia and a Reaver Titan of an unknown Legio. The valiant Astraman cut down the traitorous reaver as the Solar blasted a warhound to pieces with their demolished cannons. Repaying the debt and avenging its brother, the second Astraman warhound stalked the wreckage, executing Solar auxilia and destroying the remaining Dracosian under foot in order to secure the Astraman Reaver's escape.


Game 5.

To ensure the survival of Astraman's invaluable engines of war, the Mechanicum of Graia further harassed the Iron Warriors of Perturabo, looking to delay their advance as the looked to hunt down the engines of Astraman. Two Knights, renouncing ties to the Imperium stalked the ruins, laying waste to some of Graia's more esoteric automata. One knight, over estimating the weakness of the Mechanicum was caught by the combined might of two Thanators just as the Lord of the Iron Warriors cut down the Graian Magos, deactivating his Cybernetic cohort.

The battlefield fell silent once more.

My hobby schedule for the next 3 months will be dominated with building and painting further titans for my War Maniple 'The Ardent Mace'.

I have been called to arms as part of a loyalist titan contingent which will be tackling engines from Legio Mortis at the Horus Heresy Weekender in early February. I ideally want to leave my Warhounds at home for this (mainly as they're quite fragile - one suffered massive damage at The Shadow War as I packed it away into it's box) so to that end I'm hoping to take 3 Reavers and my Warlord. To this end I've begun the build on my third Reaver Titan, not one to make my life easy I decided to modify the carapace on this engine to make the maniple a little more diverse.

I thought the job would be far easier than it actually was - I attacked the detailing with a dremel, then used a scalpel to scrape back the rough cuts to make a smoother finish and finally a sanding block to make the surface as smooth as possible. I still need to fill a couple of divots where I went too deep with the dremel bit and I'm also considering green stuffing a couple of streamer ends to add to the top of the shield.

I'm still unsure of the armament of this particular Titan, however I do have some conversions in mind for both the Reaver and the Warlord, namely a buzzsaw arm and a carapace mounted Vortex Missile for the Reaver and a close combat head for the Warlord. I also have the standard weapons to put together such as a second volcano cannon to enable swap outs for maximum titan killing capability.

Ambitious with a deadline I know but the Emperor loves a trier.

Stay posted for more updates as I finish the leg builds for both the Reaver and the Warlord.

It's not easy being green.

KF

Legio Astraman, servants of Graia.

Good evening everyone.

As you know I've steadily been working through the build of my Warlord Titan 'Venatoribus Hastam', this has also whet my appetite for completing the rest of my war maniple 'The Ardent Mace' (3 Warhounds, 5 Reavers) at the same time.

I've been working on finishing up the paint job on one of my Reaver titans, primarily as I've been putting it off for a while as I was painting Mechanicum and legion forces and in addition I've been challenged to a Titan Death scenario at Warhammer World against the Legio Fureans (which will comprise of three Warhounds, three Reavers and a Warlord) - so to that end I have a steep slope to climb to match them in terms of engine strength.

There are many factors involved in arming a Reaver, what you want to kill being one but also which combination of weapons works best against certain FoC forces and what allows for a legal list to be fielded using the leviathan FoC.

As I have a major game on the horizon I wanted to minimise my build and paint time by picking a loadout I know I can use out of the gates. To run a Reaver and two Warhounds (which I already have done) as a neat little 3000pt package I needed to select a weapon fit which didn't heap on too many additional points. Both the volcano cannon and chanfist add on additional points so to that end I knew I couldn't max out on either of these weapon systems. I wanted a loadout that was good against horde infantry (as most legion forces are) and one which would (in concert with the two Warhounds) work at dropping enemy LoW shields and then deliver the hammer blow with a well place D weapon. In the end I opted for a volcano cannon and a laser blaster for D weapon shots at medium and long range. My carapace choice was more difficult - initially I thought a vulcan mega-bolter would be ideal at stripping shields but at only S6 it's rolls of 6 to knock out a shield, aiming to engage other Reavers then means you need a lucky four 6s out of a potential 15 hits (although on average you're looking at 7 hits - so nearly half the dice rolled being a 6). I also looked at the turbo laser, as if I'm sacrificing D weapons to knocking down shields then I need to maximise on the potential for that (without compromising on range too much). Of course there is always the trusty apocalypse launcher, which on reflection, is probably the most tactically versatile of all the carapace options - undoubtedly that's why it is currently the only one produced by Forge World. At S7 it's knocking out shields on a 5 or 6 put at Ap3 it is also pretty good at dropping blobs of power armour too.

So for ease I've made and painted these three options as swap outs as an when the time arises to do so, I'm slowly marching through the painting and hope to get this initial Reaver done by next weekend (as I'm on holiday for the next week). The legs need additional metals added to the base metal colour and the carapace and knee pad need additional detail work. the main colours for the majority of the weapon systems are now done with really the only key thing to do is to apply the gold edging to the armour plates and paint the additional metal colours on the barrels etc. I'll also need to magnetise and paint the void shields too.

what these titans will need are transfers and weathering, I'm loathed to start the weathering process until transfers are on but I'm also not keen on applying the generic transfers if the talented Holly Ann Goodwin will be furnishing Legio Astraman with a specific set of transfers in the near future, so for now they will have to remain quite a bright green.

Here is some WiP shots of what I've been up to.

More to come soon....

And remember life is like a clown's funeral.

KF.