Mandragola’s Legio Astorum (and Mortis and stuff)

[Mandragola]

It’s definitely a lot of trim. Weirdly I seem to have just ploughed through it without much trouble. The Acastus is still a great model despite its horrendous rules.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

It is. I liked the challenge of trying to get some movement out of it as well. It's so much nicer than the mechanicus version

[Mandragola]

Yeah the admech version looks bad at 28mm. I’m curious to see how it looks at Titanicus scale.

 

I saw a great conversion someone did using the guns from two admech tech priests to serve as the conversion beamers. Bizarrely, I do have two of these guys unbuild (bought forgebane and randomly won an old starter set) so I could make one.

 

If anything though, that thing is even more broken than the porphyrion, with its even higher strength and large blasts. A mixed banner of one of each would possibly be less good than two of the same, as you’d have to roll locations separately for their different weapons.

 

Anyway I’ve got plenty of other projects on the go. For now I’ll wait to see if we get the other murder turtle in resin or plastic (I don’t care which) before doing anything.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I did see someone selling a 3D print straight weapon swap for conversion beamers. Looked good, but yeah. Broken.

[Mandragola]

I couldn't find an image of the conversion, but it basically involves replacing the laser barrels with the gun in the bottom left of this image.

 

[General Strike]

Sorry if I missed the explanation, but how did you do the pools of greenish water on the bases?

[Mandragola]

Those are really simple. I paint the base green, slap on a couple of layers of gloss varnish and then add my fake mud over the top, leaving holes in it. The trees go on at any point before the mud. I've coloured in the mud a bit more with washes and drybrushing, as it looked a bit flat before that.

 

The only thing to watch for is not to put matt varnish over the gloss. So if you're varnishing the mini, do that before the base.

 

My fake mud comes from AK. There are various brands but I like this one.

[General Strike]

Thank you!! It looks so cool!

[Mandragola]

My knights are nearly done. I’m adding some transfers to them at the moment from a variety of sources. I’m doing Hawkshroud as my house as their badge is identical to the AI Imperial eagle head, which I’ve got tons of. In 40k they sometimes add a wing to the design but I’m not worrying about that for now.

 

I’ve also added some Astorum symbols because Hawkshroud like to show their allegiance in this way… and because I’ve got a lot of them available.

 

I think a few more bits and pieces are needed. I’d like to be able to identify banners somehow. The AI sheets have some quite nice numbers, so I could add those to the canopies. Might look good. And it feels wrong to have nothing on the banners, even if they’re barely visible when you look at the models from above. The Cerastus are a bit more awkward as there’s nowhere to really put symbols. I’ll have to differentiate banners with the shoulder colours or something.

 

 

C+C very welcome – especially any ideas on how to easily do more markings for these guys.

[Lord_Borak]

The Knights look great mate. The blue is especially well highlighted and the details were well picked out. As for other ways to do markings/Inspiration. You can always look up Taro Model Maker, he has a REALLY nice Hawkshroud 40k army. 

 

I'm trying to hold off on my own Titanicus Knights and seeing these really isn't helping.

[Mandragola]

Well I'm sorry to say that looking at this part of the forum will have that effect. There's loads of good work here and I often find myself wanting to emulate it.

 

I've added check patterns to the Questoris banner to make them look a bit like a unit. I think it's come out fairly well. The shoulder transfer was a success with some micro sol/set and I did the baron's canopy freehand. I'm now wondering if I should have done the squares the other way round on the canopy - diamonds instead of checks - but I think that would have been harder to do and might not have looked better. This is fine I think.

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Mandragola

[Gattopardo]

These look great.

 

As regards markings, personally I wouldn't put numbers on. That seems right for aircraft, but not Knights in my view. Heraldic patterns seem much more in keeping with both the lore and the styling of the models themselves. And I'm not sure that numbers would work well in AT scale anyway. Although in fairness I'm not 100% sure on that, as I don't have the AI transfers.

 

I think those check patterns on the Questoris look excellent and you should stick with that approach. You could use different colours or patterns for different banners.

 

I agree that the Cerastus are a bit trickier as they don't have as many large panels. The shin would maybe work, but then it's not so visible when they are on the table.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Knights are well-painted.

[Mandragola]

Thanks both. I think I agree numbers aren’t the way to go. For Cerastus I think maybe the hatch will be a good place to paint unit markings on. It feels like something ought to be there anyway. The box contains some long strips of transfers with different patterns so I think I could paint a white or black stripe and lay the transfer along it. Should look ok.

[schoon]

Great work on the Knights.

 

It's a very unified color scheme that is going to look good on the tabletop - no question that they're all from the same House.

 

You've gotten a very good result on the transfers. Did you use a decal prep system for those?

[Mandragola]

Thanks. I've used Micro sol and micro set on the transfers. It seems to have helped get them to fit. I was worried I'd have to cut them around the detail on the shoulder pads but actually they just went straight on.

 

I'm pretty happy with how they've come out and I agree they should look decent as an army. I've always been a fan of armies that really stand out on the tabletop and nothing much does that better than yellow. I'm feeling a bit inspired to do more of these guys.

 

I'm trying to decide how to represent a Standard and High King - both of which will be lancers, I think. It would be quite fun to do the King with some sort of personalised weapon, like a big sword or something. The standard can just be something... standard. I've got a few big Hawkshroud transfers designed to go on 40k scale knights, which could look pretty good. If I can I'll give the King a cloak or something, with another of those on.

 

I added up the points of all my knights, including the sealed household box I've still got. It came to over 3000 points, excluding upgrades like the standard and king. I think I'll do a few - say 3 lancers, 3 questoris and an Acastus, as Malinax to support my Mortis titans. Most of the rest will be Hawkshroud but I might paint a banner or two as freeblades. I did a paladin as one of the Molech houses a while back and it would be fun to have a mixed set of guys like that.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Mandragola

[Mandragola]

Spent a bit of time on my knights today. Not painting but building stuff and doing a bit of refurbishment. I've got some Questoris fists now and thought I'd add them to some guys. My two banners of Wardens can be determined by the ones that have fists and the ones with saws.

 

I'd like all my Errants to have fists because that's just correct, according to their old skool model. Likewise Paladins will have saws, though Wardens can have whatever.

 

In theory this is mostly a 1750 point list, plus a few other random Questoris, not including the High King and Standard bearer that I still need to make. They'll be in a banner with the two Acherons. The Castigators lead a lance with the six Wardens I've got there.

 

I still have 6 unbuilt Questoris, 5 Lancers and 5 Porphyrions.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Mandragola

[schoon]

That's quite a few Knights!

 

What's the end goal for all those?

[Mandragola]

They'll be a household force. My plan is to get two banners of each Questoris load-out (Paladin, Errant, Warden) and a fair number of Cerastus. In game I think I'll be using two lances: an assault one with the King made up mostly of Lancers but maybe some Errants too, and a shooty full of wardens, intended to do coordinated strikes. In support I'll have Acastus and Freeblade Paladins.

 

I magnetised some of the knights, meaning I can run them as Gallants if I want. Personally I'm not a fan of that load-out. It's good to have flexibility though.

 

I want the King and Standard to be interesting. The King should be a Lancer, though maybe with a sword and a shield big enough to stick a 40k Hawkshroud transfer on. I'm less sure what to do with the Standard. I quite like the idea of making him a Castigator. A shoulder-mounted gatling gun and the standard held in both hands could look pretty cool I think.

 

I'm not sure if I should hold back some knights to work with my Mortis. I probably will. I've got 3 spare Questoris and 3 Lancers too - and too many Acastus. So I could do some to support them, using the transfers on the Mortis sheet.

[schoon]

Sounds fun!

 

I'll be looking forward to what you put together for your King. There's some awesome kit-bashing potential for that model!

[Mandragola]

There are three main elements to the idea for the king: a sword instead of a lance, maybe held in two hands, a cloak, and maybe a shield. I’m not entirely sure how any of these things will be accomplished but it’ll be interesting to experiment.

 

I’ve got some swords from GK terminators actuall, that could do that job. Might try an Empire standard for the standard bearer.

[General Zodd]

I’m planning something similar for my Senechal/High King. It’s got to be a funky weapon swap, right? I have a much reduced bits box after the great eBay purge of 2017, so I may have to supplement my meagre supplies with some individual components. I do, however, have some of the original plastic Empire Knight bits, and I was thinking of using the folded pennant style banner from there. I think pennants work better than cross-beam style banners, but it’s all personal taste. I hadn’t considered a cloak for the senechal, that could look effective, but I’m going for a carapace mounted icon and a scenic base to help him stand out.

[General Zodd]

There are three main elements to the idea for the king: a sword instead of a lance, maybe held in two hands, a cloak, and maybe a shield. I’m not entirely sure how any of these things will be accomplished but it’ll be interesting to experiment.

 

I’ve got some swords from GK terminators actuall, that could do that job. Might try an Empire standard for the standard bearer.

Hey, thought I’d follow up on this in case you can take some inspiration. My painted knights are in the TIAT thread, but thought you might like to see the raw plastic!

 

 

 

[Mandragola]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing that. Recently I’ve been working on stuff for my Crimson Fisys instead of AT, but the titans do call to me. I’ve built a pair of normal apoc launchers for my psi Titan and got some daler rowney ink to play with.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Mandragola

[Mandragola]

Long time since an update on this. To be honest I haven't done loads, as I've mainly been doing some historical stuff, but I've done more than nothing. My 4th Warlord is getting fairly near to completion. Actually completed is Lucius Praetorian, now with a new pair of legs and based.

 

 

 

 

If we ever get allowed out again, Lucy will be ready to smash in some traitors... or more likely perform missions like vital cargo while my Warlords smash in the traitors.