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
