Today in Titanicus I...

[Fajita Fan]

How big do y’all reckon a 40k-esque shipping container would be at AT scale? I’ve made a simple one in TinkerCAD to print but I lack a 28mm knight to scale him next to.

 

The way I have it scaled now is 14mm tall, 15mm wide and 35mm long. Sound okay?

Edited December 29, 2019 by Fajita Fan

[Kenzaburo]

Today in AT I've wondered where people are getting all those epic scale heresy minis. I've seen tanks, marines, tiny contemptors and all. I understand that you can somehow 3D-print them, but I don't own a printer. So, where do you buy those?

[Fajita Fan]

True GW Epic scale miniatures are found only on eBay now for horribly inflated prices.  A lot of the files I use come from Thingiverse:  https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=epic+scale&dwh=555e093b9639ce5

 

Like the little Rhinos I'm using is this very simple model scaled to 115% I believe:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:619993

 

I actually used Tinkercad to add a demolisher cannon and a big siege blade to make a Vindicator (pics after I get them sprayed).

 

*Edit: well crap someone also altered it to have 30k style doors.  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2473254   Crap now I have to reprint, spray and paint mine :(

Edited December 29, 2019 by Fajita Fan

[malika666]

How big do y’all reckon a 40k-esque shipping container would be at AT scale? I’ve made a simple one in TinkerCAD to print but I lack a 28mm knight to scale him next to.

 

The way I have it scaled now is 14mm tall, 15mm wide and 35mm long. Sound okay?

Just get these instead? https://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/shop/novan-light-shipping-containers-x6/

[Fajita Fan]

I could if I didn't have a 3d printer at work and already made the shape, it's just deciding on scale. There's a bunch of other stuff I'd like to print in resin I'll probably need to have professionally done once I work out the scale. 

[malika666]

Hmm, check how big the 28mm versions are and do a 1/4 versipn of it?

[Kenzaburo]

Thanks, FajitaFan. But I was actually looking for a place, where I can buy the printed stuff. Those files look nice, but are not what I'm looking for. I wanna buy epic-like current models without having to find someone to print them for me. ;)

[Fajita Fan]

You could have Shapeways or a place like it print those for you. You’re looking for out of production but still copyrighted models from a litigious company so finding storefronts that sell new Epic models will be harder.

[Fajita Fan]

I didn't take a pic before leaving for work but I magnetized a few guns last night, my repurposed Valkyrie cylindrical apoc launchers for my Custodes Warlord looks awesome, I love how it looks like the beetleback Warlord launchers.  I also magnetized a Valkyrie Hellstrike missile to a 3d printed Reaver launcher to be warp missile but I switched the polarity from the carapace magnet that secures the launcher to the torso.  Now my missile wants to fly off so I need to cut that magnet out tonight and do it right before priming.
 
You can see the Warlord launcher here before I sprayed it:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6eEkdtnHzC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

I primed them silver, should I paint the body of the launcher gold or just wash the silver and paint the rim gold?  I think a giant gold cylindrical launcher would look gaudy so maybe just the rim?  Ha, gaudy on a giant Warlord...

Edited December 30, 2019 by Fajita Fan

[Rabenga]

Moar gold!!!

[Mendi Warrior]

Why not mixing gold and marbled red? Dividing the body of the launchers into sub-areas with different colours?

 

Happy New Year to everyone!!!

[Fajita Fan]

It's not worth taking a picture of what I accomplished today because you can't really see it.  I printed 4 of the shield generators from Hoth in Empire Strikes Back and these four generator buildings I cobbled together from from stuff on Thingiverse to use as scatter terrain to slow down knights. 

 

 

All 8 of those are primed dark gray, tonight I used a brush to get in the harder to spray recesses with some brush on primer so that I can figure out how I'm going to paint them.  Since my buildings will be light granite I think these generators should be, ironically, Mechanicum red so maybe I should respray them red?  It would make sense to print these in black from now on so they're easier to just lightly spray gray and spray the very top light gray or white so I don't waste time on this crap.  It's just 3d printed scatter terrain, I shouldn't be wasting time on it.

 

I also did some gold trim on a couple of Warlord weapons, on my paint table I have Blood Bowl humans and lizardmen, some Battletech minis, and some Hot Wheels for Gaslands because I can't stay focused on anything.  I also got distracted by Secret Life of Pets 2 on my iPad (very funny movie) and started planning an Inquisitorial warband based on the Witcher because that show was cool.  

[Mendi Warrior]

Brother Vogon posted an interesting set of points from his Open Day visit yesterday. For the complete post, see here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/361026-new-year-open-day-vogon’s-random-thoughts/?p=5456184

 

Points of particular interest regarding AT (emphasis mine):

 

[...]

There will be new Adeptus Titanicus stuff coming out soon - check the community website in a couple of weeks.
They will be going Warhound size Ursus Claws. Now they have all the core weapons they will be able to make the more esoteric stuff. While chatting they dropped serious hints about a book covering the shadow crusade in Ultramar and the legions involved.

[...]

On the subject of AI and AT there are certainly plans afoot to expand on them in the seminar they mentioned there are 10,000 years of history to explore and the war of the beast and gargants could be one place to explore. They also said they would like to add tanks and ground troops (basically bringing back Epic) but this was a long way off. If they did it would likely be in the Heresy Era because that it the domain of specialist games and they can do what they like with it without having to defer to the main studios.
[...]

 

I guess we might see stuff revealed during the Las Vegas Open (January 24-26).

Curious to see if we'll get the Ursus claws in resin (very high probability imho) or if we might get a new plastic boxset (very low probability imho although I would love to see this with reinforced armor plates).

 

Shadow Crusade: Titan legions involved were Audax and Suturvora on the Warmaster's side, Lysanda and Oberon on the Loyalists' side.

 

MEGA "Make Epic Great Again": not holding my breath but seems like a change as until now the answers given to people asking for Epic were quite negative, especially towards infantry. Imho, as a separate gaming system to AT, otherwise I fear too much dilution.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mendi Warrior

[Fajita Fan]

Rules for ursas claws, eh? That’s pretty awesome although I’ll still be kitbashing my own out of flamers to save some money.

[Fajita Fan]

I have my AT poster on my cubicle overhead at work a coworker decided to improve it. 
 

[Kenzaburo]

So, as I'm about to build my titans for the upcoming painting event next week, today in Titanicus I'm wondering if there's anything I should look out for when building my warhound titans? Are they straightforward builds? What's the consensus on armament? What's effective, what's to avoid? 

 

Is it better to build and then paint or build in subgroups and paint those?

[Mandragola]

So, as I'm about to build my titans for the upcoming painting event next week, today in Titanicus I'm wondering if there's anything I should look out for when building my warhound titans? Are they straightforward builds? What's the consensus on armament? What's effective, what's to avoid? 

 

Is it better to build and then paint or build in subgroups and paint those?

 

The best approach to painting all titans is generally to build the skeleton and paint it metal, but do the armour panels separately. Some people even paint the armour on the sprue.

 

Warhounds are generally pretty straightforward to build. Think a bit about the pose you want. The tricky thing is that the legs are one piece, making them far less poseable than the reaver and warlord, but that also means they're easier to assemble as there's less that can go wrong. On this forum you can see loads of examples of  other people's warhounds.

 

Quite a lot of people have chopped the legs up to repose them. It's relatively easy to do this if you want. A particular tip I'd suggest would be to angle the toes down if you have one of its feet raised up. It looks a lot more natural than having a flat foot up in the air.

[Fajita Fan]

With some small magnets you can easily magnetize their arms so you don’t have to worry about loadouts. Also the legs are meant to be assembled in pairs so if you lose track you’ll have one posed with his nose pointed at the ground (I had to build one of mine up on a base) but otherwise they’re easy. Edited January 7, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[Kenzaburo]

Thanks you guys. @Mandragola: That's good advice about the toes.

 

@FajitaFan: I'm not a big fan of magnets - interchangeable, yes, but gives me less cinematic poses, should I want those. :) So any advice on good standard loadouts for Warhounds?

I'll also keep that bit about the legs in mind - sounds a bit like something that could happen to me, tbh. :D

[Marshal Wolfhart]

In general Warhounds have no bad weapons, the loadout just pretty much defines how you (can) run them.

Vulcan Megabolter: An excellent shield stripper and great at punching through damaged locations with called shots from a flank.

Plasma Blastgun: The highest damage you can get on a Warhound, blast even giving you multiple hits.

Inferno cannon: The most niche, it is solid strength for no reactor stress and can decimate knight banners.

Turbolaser Destructor:The only option with some range. The shieldbane is risky on a Warhounds small reactor.

 

I enjoy a pair of Warhounds with Vulcan Megabolter and Plasma each. Allows to strip shield and hit home with two blasts of max Plasma, or to punch a hole with plasma and follow through with the Bolter. Also great at removing Knights. A pair of Warhounds with two Turbolasers is also a good flanker, allowing the Warhounds to hide and striek from unexpected angles or go for objectives while the heavier chassis do the fighting.

[Fajita Fan]

Thanks you guys. @Mandragola: That's good advice about the toes.

 

@FajitaFan: I'm not a big fan of magnets - interchangeable, yes, but gives me less cinematic poses, should I want those. :) So any advice on good standard loadouts for Warhounds?

I'll also keep that bit about the legs in mind - sounds a bit like something that could happen to me, tbh. :D

But with the magnets you can point them any way you like. Just sayin’.

[Mandragola]

In general Warhounds have no bad weapons, the loadout just pretty much defines how you (can) run them.

Vulcan Megabolter: An excellent shield stripper and great at punching through damaged locations with called shots from a flank.

Plasma Blastgun: The highest damage you can get on a Warhound, blast even giving you multiple hits.

Inferno cannon: The most niche, it is solid strength for no reactor stress and can decimate knight banners.

Turbolaser Destructor:The only option with some range. The shieldbane is risky on a Warhounds small reactor.

 

I enjoy a pair of Warhounds with Vulcan Megabolter and Plasma each. Allows to strip shield and hit home with two blasts of max Plasma, or to punch a hole with plasma and follow through with the Bolter. Also great at removing Knights. A pair of Warhounds with two Turbolasers is also a good flanker, allowing the Warhounds to hide and striek from unexpected angles or go for objectives while the heavier chassis do the fighting.

I agree with the most of this. Generally the best load-outs for warhounds are either plasma and Vulcan or dual turbo lasers. Plasma and bolter is an awesome all-round option and dual lasers gives you a useful little sniper titan, who is nasty for targeted shots. I've seen a particularly nasty use of a laser hound in a Ferox maniple, running inside shields and landing accurate targeted S9 hits on things.

 

But for simplicity, you really can't go wrong with plasma and bolter. The bolter is perfect for shield stripping and finishing off wounded titans with targeted shots. The plasma is great for killing knights and breaking through a titan's armour. When I run warhounds I generally take a pair of these, and they do great work.

 

The awkward thing with the lasers is that there's no other warhound gun you can really pair them with, which is why it generally makes sense to take two. This is because their main advantage is range, but no other warhound gun works when you're that far away. Paired lasers are fine though, so long as you remember to never push your reactor for shieldbane. Doing so is almost certain to hurt your warhound more than it hurts the enemy, because a warhound's reactor is so weak. Even a single push can result in an orange reactor, leading to either a void shield shutdown or hits on your warhound's fragile body. I honestly can't imagine a scenario where that would be worthwhile, except if you actually wanted to blow up your warhound for some reason.

 

The only time I think it might be worth using shieldbane is on a Warlord's laser blasters. The Warlord has a good reactor and it's firing 6 shots for one point of heat, which is decent. You occasionally see people taking "disco reavers", which are reaver titans with loads of lasers, that can blow themselves up any time they want. I'm not sure I see the appeal, personally.

 

The bit I really disagree with is the flamers. We've been discussing these over in the Principia thread today. There's this total myth that they're good at killing knights. They aren't - at all. Firstly, they force you to go close to the knights, which is awful because that's exactly what they want you to do. And secondly they just are not that good at killing knights. A good flamer hit is liable to kill a single questoris knight, which is a totally pathetic exchange for your warhound titan - and you're certainly about to lose your warhound when the remaining knights charge it. A plasma blastgun is far more effective for killing knights and you can from nice and far away, firing at least a turn sooner.

 

The main thing is to magnetise. It's easy to do and gives you far more freedom to experiment, find out what you like and make your own decisions (at which point you'll see that I'm right, of course!  ).

[Fajita Fan]

Added some layers of cheap craft paint to my nuke cooling towers and these Hoth shield generators.  I mixed too much water so it took two coats to get them halfway coated, I may just do one more coat, dry brush light gray, and try my own black wash from the ink I bought.  I got some cheap neon green craft paint to put on the ridges in the shield generators so they look more like fancy dynamos. 
 

The power plants in the back will be painted with some cheap dark blue and maybe orange or red on the side gubbins.  This is just scatter terrain to make a table look industrial. 
 

[Noserenda]

For my several games running light maniples of mostly warhounds: 

Dual inferno cannon warhounds can inflict horrific harm on enemy titans, they erase shields, suffer a bit against full armour but are then devastating for killing blows, i always run one or two and they have amongst the highest k:d ratios on my titans (Behind those kill stealing reavers :D ) You do need to play them pretty aggressively at the right moments though! 

Agree they arent great for knights, though they do ok in light maniples as a last resort its not their best job. Some players are pretty worried about the possibilities though so they can drive knights away passively. Tbh you are usually best swatting knights with a Warlord in the first couple of turns with weapons that want shields down.

Depending on your groups use of advanced/house rules they can also be pretty useful for terrain destruction and opening up paths. 

Bolter/Plas is definitely the best all round Warhound loadout though, i plan to build a dual laser one at some point but im not rushing, it just seems like a job for a bigger titan most of the time.

[Fajita Fan]

Got some blue on my generators, the gray pieces need another coat of paint before drybrushing with light gray.