Titans, knight houses and general lore question

[Brother Antio]

Hi guys.

Am looking to get a hold of Adeptus titanicus when some extra cash comes through and just picked up them knights and ad mech codexes as thought something like that for 40k might be fun.

Have a couple of lore questions that I think I know the answers to but just wanted to check.

 

Are all the titan legions allied to the mechanicum? Reason for asking is adding in some knight lances to Adeptus titanicus and wanting to decide if I got questus imperialis or mechanicus.

 

Is there a list of which knight houses are allied to which Titan legions?

 

And lastly, and being fairly new to ad mech and knights in general I’m not sure on this. Are all mechanicus knights primarily red?

 

Thanks!

[Black Knight]

Are all the titan legions allied to the mechanicum?

 

The Titan Legions are part of the Mechanicus, they are not Houses that are aligned but actually a structural part of the Mechanicus. https://goo.gl/images/3UEfVS

 

Are all mechanicus knights primarily red?

 

There's usually some red involved, not always the main colour but mostly. If you want other colours they are either Imperial aligned or Freeblades.

 

With regards to Houses and Legions I don't know, maybe link them by planet or origin?

[Marshal Reinhard]

Typically the red is to show their allegiance to the priesthood of mars... but i believe you can find any number of forgeworlds who do not incorporate red in their paint scheme.

All of the official houses incorporate red to some degree, but afaik there's nothing preventing you from making a mechanicus house of your own design that doesn't mainly feature red (or at all)

[Stray]

The idea that all Titans are part of the Mechanicus isn't strictly true. All Titans are nominally part of the Collegia Titanicus, which is part of the Mechanicums infrastructure (they build and maintain them after all), but operationally it's a different story in practice.

 

Titan Legions are based all over the place. Some even on Terra itself and under orders of the Council of Terra only (in the case of the Ordo Sinister titans, literally no-one except the Emperor or Council of Terra can command their deployment - not even a Primarch, and certainly not the Mechanicus).

A great many Titan crews are far more Imperial aligned than Mechanicum also. Some Titans even carry the part of the Inquisition on a semi permanent basis.

 

Then of course there are the numerous traitor legions...

 

So on paper, sure - there is Mechanicum involvement - there has to be to keep them running. But in practice? It's not nearly so black and white.

[Sandlemad]

As Black_Knight said, the Collegia Titanica are fully part of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They're not in the actual priesthood but any legion will be the most privileged and senior military force on a forge world, given much more respect and prominence than the skitarii legions for example. They have a little bit of independence with their own traditions and such but they're largely the Mechanicus's iron fist.

 

Is there a list of which knight houses are allied to which Titan legions?

 

There's not a list as such but a good start would be to look at particular forge worlds. Knight houses do have bonds with particular titan legions but you'll find that more often the houses (mechanicus-aligned houses in particular) are oathed to fight for/in defence of a particular world and then have bonds with the titan legion that operates out of that forge world.

 

So for example Legio Metalica hails from the world of Metalica (!) which has close links with House Raven. The knights of House Taranis are based on Mars, also home to Legio Ignatum. There's other examples that might just get a line or two in a book; houses Perdaxia and Rajha were supposed to be allied to Incaladion and thus fought as auxiliaries for Legio Fureans but apart from a line about their colours, we know very little.

 

That won't cover them all, there's definitely room for knight houses to have allies outside that kind of link. Houses Krast and Arokon fought at the fall of Cadia alongside legios Ignatum, Gryphonicus and Metalica, probably earning comradeship and honour through that. House Hawkshroud are an imperial-aligned knight house that make a big deal out of their alliances with other forces, even incorporating the symbols of noble allies into their heraldry. In practice this means that in GW art/display models it's famous folks like the Space Wolves and Ultramarines but there's no reason you couldn't do the same with titan legion emblems.

 

 

And lastly, and being fairly new to ad mech and knights in general I’m not sure on this. Are all mechanicus knights primarily red?

 

Mostly but not all. There's variation but a lot of them would have some red built into the heraldry, however small.

 

House Hermetika was aligned to the forge world of Mezoa and they have a nice wine-red colour. The traitor house Malinax was aligned to Xana II and they have bone with some red elements. The serf knights of House Atrax, bonded to Cyclothrace, were black. House Coldshroud is supposed to be Mechanicus-aligned (I think but most of the details are in the ever-receding-into-the-future Fires of Cyraxus book) and they're all yellow.

 

Curiously the level of red doesn't seem to depend on how closely bonded the knights are. Houses Raven and Krast have red-dominated heraldry and they have their own worlds and independent domains. Malinax was literally based on a forge world and Atrax was made up of armour-locked slaves, with no independence, and both of them eschew red as their main colour.

[Brother Antio]

Ok, so looks like I can pretty much do what I want!

Think I might find a legion I like, then try and work out what forgeworld would suit. Time to do some digging!

[Stray]

 

Curiously the level of red doesn't seem to depend on how closely bonded the knights are. Houses Raven and Krast have red-dominated heraldry and they have their own worlds and independent domains. Malinax was literally based on a forge world and Atrax was made up of armour-locked slaves, with no independence, and both of them eschew red as their main colour.

 

In the case of House Malinax, they were a pre-existing house from a Knight World before the move to Xana.

 

Interestingly, Xana as a whole seem to eschew Red as a colour. They have some ritual where the bones of exceptionally large predators are collected and processed before being used to colour the armour of Xana's military assets. You can see much the same colour scheme on Xanite Taghmata forces too.

 

So there's at least one fluffy instance of a novel colour scheme being used by 'Mechanicus' (well, former mechanicus) forces. :)

[noigrim]

Just check lexicanum for legions and knight support

My legio metalica goes with house raven for example, but for mortis I'd pick some traitor house (devine?) since they don't have ties to any.

Tempestus and ignatum could go with heresy blue taranis martians.

[Vash113]

I'd also point out that Imperial Knights can be permanently seconded to a Titan Legion and adopt the color scheme of the legion as their primary heraldry. So you can paint up Knights in the colors of the Legio Ignatum for example to represent lances permanently assigned to support the Legion.

[jeffersonian000]

The new Adaptus Titanicus game is set during 30k and the Horus Heresy. At that time, the Collegio Titanicus was split almost evenly between the Imperial aligned Mechanicum and the Horus aligned Mechanicum (Dark Mechanicum). All Knight Houses that were aligned with a Titan Legion were for all intents and purposes Questoris Mechanicum Houses. The reason for this is actually in the new Adaptus Titanicus rule book, which states that all Titan Legions started off on Mars before being distributed to other worlds during the Mechanicums great disporia that founded the other Forge Worlds. And we know from the HH novels that Mechanicum aligned Knight Houses only took the color red to honor their allegiance to Mars after the Heresy schism that separated the Mechanicum in half.

 

As such, you can paint your Knight Banners in any color scheme you want, and your Titans should be painted as individuals with only their iconography and banners representing their allegiance and Legio.

 

If your eye is on 40k Adaptus Titanicus, then yes, your Knight Banners should have some red in them if they are loyalists, and your Titans should have a more uniform color scheme with their banners and icons representative of their individual histories.

 

SJ

[Stray]

I'd love to see someone one paint up a bunch of Knights as the Rusthounds - I'm almost tempted to myself.

 

Apparently a House Krast detachment was tasked with engaging a portion of the Death Guard. The battle was very one sided and the Death Guard contingent was wiped out by the House Krast Knights.

 

Unfortunately, those same Knights caught a daemonic virus known as Ferric Blight from the Death Guard during the battle. Throne mechanicums tainted, and the Knights now permanently touched by Papa Nurgle, they renamed themselves the Rusthounds and hunt other House Krast elements, seemingly in an effort to bring them to Chaos also.

 

I'd love to see some horribly corroded Renegade Krast Knights. You could have such fun with the painting and weathering.

[Spiky Norman]

I'd love to see someone one paint up a bunch of Knights as the Rusthounds - I'm almost tempted to myself.

 

Apparently a House Krast detachment was tasked with engaging a portion of the Death Guard. The battle was very one sided and the Death Guard contingent was wiped out by the House Krast Knights.

 

Unfortunately, those same Knights caught a daemonic virus known as Ferric Blight from the Death Guard during the battle. Throne mechanicums tainted, and the Knights now permanently touched by Papa Nurgle, they renamed themselves the Rusthounds and hunt other House Krast elements, seemingly in an effort to bring them to Chaos also.

 

I'd love to see some horribly corroded Renegade Krast Knights. You could have such fun with the painting and weathering.

I've been eyeing the mention of the Rusthounds too. How would you do it?

 

I'm personally not too keen on the red armour, and planning to paint my two knights in Death guard green, but without any other Chaos conversions, so not horns, spikes and Chaos icons. Just rust, grime and flaking paint, is the plan so far. Still I'm thinking it may be too far removed from Krast to use the Rusthounds lore.

[Vash113]

 

I've been eyeing the mention of the Rusthounds too. How would you do it?

 

I'm personally not too keen on the red armour, and planning to paint my two knights in Death guard green, but without any other Chaos conversions, so not horns, spikes and Chaos icons. Just rust, grime and flaking paint, is the plan so far. Still I'm thinking it may be too far removed from Krast to use the Rusthounds lore.

 

 

You could try gray armor with heavy rusting, showing the unpainted ceramite beneath paint that is long gone, maybe with a few traces of red poking out here and there.

[Stray]

Given Nurgles proclivities, I can only imagine anything infected with Ferric Blight would be horrifically corroded given enough time. I've no doubt you could get away with painting something that is essentially unrecognisable as an actual Krast Knight.

 

I'd quite like to see the original colours and heraldry present, but ridiculously faded/poorly maintained etc. I kinda like heavy weathering anyway, so a fluffy excuse to go all out, balls to the wall crazy with that would be great.

 

Loads of ways you could reasonably approach it though I think. I'd guess different Knights could have quite radically different levels of 'corruption' also should you so wish - some could be more newly infected than others as they seem to make it a point to go after their old comrades...

[Spiky Norman]

Given Nurgles proclivities, I can only imagine anything infected with Ferric Blight would be horrifically corroded given enough time. I've no doubt you could get away with painting something that is essentially unrecognisable as an actual Krast Knight.

 

I'd quite like to see the original colours and heraldry present, but ridiculously faded/poorly maintained etc. I kinda like heavy weathering anyway, so a fluffy excuse to go all out, balls to the wall crazy with that would be great.

 

Loads of ways you could reasonably approach it though I think. I'd guess different Knights could have quite radically different levels of 'corruption' also should you so wish - some could be more newly infected than others as they seem to make it a point to go after their old comrades...

True, true. The level of "corruption" can certainly also tell part of the story.

 

One of the reasons why I'm waffling a bit on where to go with my small two Questoris two Armiger contingent is that I would prefer if they could be used in an Imperium army as well, so that I could get some double usage out of them - So I'm trying to figure out how close I can get to the line between 'definitely Chaos' or 'Definite Imperium', before I cross it and make them only usable in one or the other type army.

 

I have a Nurgle daemon army, that I want to use the knights in (ie Rusthounds), but I am also tempted to go for an Imperium Ordo Sepulturum (ie exposed to Nurgles diseases but not turned) or maybe even "Remnants of Vraks" type army. So if I could find a happy medium between those, then that would be optimal :-)

[Brother Antio]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Had thought about doing legio tempestus and house tanaris.

Though looking through I’m also tempted by a few others.

Triplex Phall says it has several houses and legio Victorum, but no details on colours orhouse names, so that might be an option.

Other is legio pallidus mor, which is black and ivory and based on forge world Tolkhan. Again, no houses mentioned.

 

My other thought would be to do the knights as house steel and can then do demios skittari which I could use with the grey knights I have.

They wouldn’t tie in to well with titanicus is all...