Mandragola’s Legio Astorum (and Mortis and stuff)

[Mandragola]

I guess I could do a smashed tree in the hand. Not sure why it would have one, but that seems to be what's happening in the image.

 

Here are Lucy's new legs. I've gone for a sprinting pose, which I think has worked reasonably well. I wanted to show a high speed turn. Might do a right hand power fist coming in for a punch.

 

This one is hard to photograph but I think it looks ok in real life.

 

 

 

Neither of these Reavers is glued at the waist of course. Tomorrow I'll try to get some leadbelcher on them and maybe start painting.

 

Unfortunately she's not quite straight on the base so I'll have to redo that. Otherwise I think it works. What do you think?

Edited April 10, 2020 by Mandragola

[Fajita Fan]

A brave pose for sure, I like it.  Power fist upper cut!! 

[Mandragola]

Ok I've painted up Lucy's new legs and stuck the panels back on. Good as new.

 

 

 

 

I'm kind of happy with the result, but not completely. Haven't yet made a right handed power fist and that might improve things. I think the pose doesn't quite work with paired guns. There's too much lean right now.

 

I've got a lot of titans now ready for basing. Just added dry mud pigment to four warhounds and Penumbral Reaper. And the Mortis Reaver is basecoated, ready for shading. Good progress, I feel.

[Fajita Fan]

Already? Crap you're fast.  

 

You might want a fist with the bicep a bit more flexed, maybe do the chainfist like that? I never pictured Reavers being too athletic but the novel "Titandeath" makes them all sound a bit quicker than I anticipated. 

[Mandragola]

Well it's taken me a couple of days to basically paint a Reaver. Not super fast.

 

Here's how the other half of it, the Mortis one with Lucy's old legs, is coming along. 

 

 

I tried it with a plain carapace with a pattern. Was interesting to paint but overall I think I prefer this version with the scroll. Quite a lot of highlighting and weathering to go, but the basic scheme is there. I think it will look quite good, and that the pose suits a predatory, evil-looking titan better than it did the bright Astorum one.

[Fajita Fan]

It’s great, also your Astorum Reaver above is very close to my poster of Incaeduus Prime.

 

[Mandragola]

True, they are quite similar. It's actually designed as a copy of Lucius Praetorian from Titandeath - which is the special character Reaver for Astorum.

[Marshal Loss]

That Mortis reaver is seriously cool. Love the homage to the old art

[Mendi Warrior]

I second that. It is a wonderful homage. I also like the claw, seems to imply the Princeps is listening to some death metal 

 

Regarding Lucy's new legs, it is a bit as if she is about to fell to the left. I would suggest pinning the left foot and insert some height between the base and the left part of the foot to correct the angle and improve her overall balance.

[Mandragola]

Yeah I think I'll do that with Lucy. She might look cool with a right-handed fist, but I'm not sure I'll always want to use that load-out. She doesn't look too crazy in real life to be honest. It's tough to capture miniatures with photos sometimes. The left-hand fist looks particularly bad because it's sort of drooping there.

[Mandragola]

Here’s a progress update on the Titans of the Heresy pledge I took.

 

I promised to paint 6 Titans: Penumbral Reaper, a Reaver and 3 Warhounds for Legio Mortis, and a Warhound for Legio Astorum.

 

I have actually painted 8-ish titans. Or more accurately 6 and two halves. I added an Astorum Warbringer and I painted a whole Reaver, half as Astorum and half as Mortis, so I could turn the legs from Lucius Praetorian into a Mortis Reaver, and give Lucy a new set of running legs

 

Ok so here are my Mortis titans:

 

 

Quite pleased with this. It’s basically a 1500 point army that I didn’t have a few weeks ago.

 

And these are my Astorum ones. I’ve had a nice time doing stuff like the Astronomical patterns on the , which I thinnnhave come out very well. I’m not totally sure I’ve nailed the pose on the Reaver, so I might look at that again.

 

 

I think all of these are at least useable now. I need to work on bases for most of them next. I’ve also got a Bellicosa for the Warbringer to complete and some rust to add to the Mortis Reaver. Overall I’m happy with the progress though, and this pledge has given me a lot of impetus to clear my backlog.

 

The next step is the splatter mud. I don’t particularly enjoy that, so I’ve been procrastinating. It’s one of those tasks that’s actually fine, but which for some reason I don’t look forward to. I’ve therefore got a bunch of titans waiting for it to be done. I’ll take proper photos of titans once they’re based.

[Mendi Warrior]

Wonderful work! I love them all!

 

Mud fight soon then  I totally understand the procrastinating thing.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Super coolio work Brother, inspirational stuff.

[Mandragola]

It’s been a while since I’ve done any work on titans. I’ve painted a bit of stuff for aeronautica and bolt action recently instead.

 

However, this weekend I did some work on my Psy-titan. I think I’ve been a bit put off by the amount of work needed on this thing, especially with its base. I’ve now done some of that work.

 

 

 

I had a spare Reaver armour sprue and I’ve used it to make this crashed body. The idea is that it’s been cored through by the Sinistramanus, exploded, and then collapsed. So far I’ve managed to get the pose to a position where it works but there’s a bunch of work still to be done adding bits of torn metal around the “exit wound” in the Reaver’s side.

 

A few more pics. Let me know what you think of the position. I think it’s ok, finally.

 

 

 

 

[Sherrypie]

Hot stuff. I like the annihilated hole in there, stands out from being just destroyed in general.

[Mandragola]

Yeah I'm struggling a bit with that issue. I like the idea that it has just shot a neat hole through the Reaver, but I don't like the idea of having to sculpt that. It would be a bit easier to something more catastrophic.

 

Another problem is the missing legs. A big internal explosion that ripped through the underside would help explain that.

 

I'll muck about with some green stuff and see if I can create something I'm happy with.

[Dark Bjoern]

Rich bitch, using a reaver apoc launcher for base deko.

[The boater]

I like the look of the Dakka-Sinister-lord. Glad someone else was planning on doing that as well, haha. Really great looking beast though

[Mandragola]

Yeah someone was selling the armour plates and weapon sprue for not that much. I think I have enough missile launchers.

[Fajita Fan]

That looks awesome, and I wouldn’t worry too much about the legs. A torso being sheered apart is totally explainable in a battle like this and it’s not like you have much room on an oval base for too much wreckage.

 

This is another reason I really do wish the bigger titans were on round instead of oval bases - you’d have some more real estate to work with for adding stuff. As it I can’t fit much in the way of upscale Epic vehicles on my bases...

[Mandragola]

I think I agree with you there. I find oval bases annoying in game. It isn’t really possible to do a turn accurately because you have to remove the template to move the model. It’s much easier with warhounds, on their round bases, so long as you mark somewhere as the front.

[schoon]

Very nice work on the knee armor and the destroyed Reaver!

 

I also really like the load out on this. Looks brutally effective at range.

[Mandragola]

I've done some work!

 

Here are my first batch of knights, for what I intend to be a Hawkshroud battlegroup. I'd sprayed these black, so getting the yellow was a chore, and it's starting to dawn on me that at some point I'm going to have to paint the trim. Oh dear!

 

Anyway, the idea is to use the eagle symbols from AI to represent the Hawkshroud symbol. They're actually identical, which is helpful. I've got a few 28mm knights too, so I've got some big symbols that I could potentially use on a standard bearer and things like that.

 

I think the yellow will look ok once finished, with some red and white details and the trim done.

 

 

Also, I've done a bit of work on terrain. This is something I've previously ignored almost completely, as my club has a bunch of stuff I've been able to press into service. But if I build some buildings I might be able to have friends over for games (in the garden for now!) while the club is still shut for lockdown.

 

I've got myself the big box of Civitas stuff that includes a couple of spire sprues. I kind of like the spires but I hate that most of them are hexagonal. The idea of a hexagonal tower on a square building is abhorrent, so I've been forced to make hexagonal buildings. I'm grateful for Mendi Warrior's measurements on hexagon sizes. I've got a lot of hexagons cut out now.

 

 

These are the first two I've done. They're an identical pair but I'll mix things up more in future I think. The plasticard for the roofs is ridged like tiles, so hopefully that'll look ok. I'm slightly feeling like there ought to be windows or something in the roof sides, but I'm pretty sure I can't be bothered to make them. Anyway, the pitched roofs ought to make the bits go a bit further.

 

I've no idea what actual function these buildings are supposed to have. I think I might stand something like a MKIII marine on one, or potentially even a Custodian. 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Mandragola

[Sherrypie]

You could build a big gate between them or combine several to make up a religious site. Or just stand them on top of bigger bottom floors as impressive towers.

[Mandragola]

Yeah I imagine it'll be stuff like that. There's the slightly odd issue that nobody is supposed to be religious during the Heresy era, so a load of church buildings is a bit inappropriate. That said, memorials to the heroes of the crusade might be a thing. I quite like the idea of a big triumphal arch too.

 

One slightly interesting thing is that these buildings are about the same size as a hex in AI. The new campaign book for AI has rules for flying around buildings and trying not to crash into them, so these would be ideal for that. They could represent the upper spires of a hive city, for example. Actually these two aren't good for that because where the walls bulge out they cross into the neighbouring hex, but lots of the other wall sections are flat.