Legio Ventus & House Qattara - or - 'How to hide a Titan'

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I've been lurking in this sub-forum for a few months now, and thought it would be a good time to jump in properly.

My journey into AT has been a while coming. I was really enthusiastic when the first models were announced. (I was told off repeatedly by my wife for staring at my phone too much while on holiday because I was following the open day.)

However, the GM box didn't grab me and my enthusiasm wasn't re-piqued until the new starter box was announced. I started reading up on how things have progressed release wise, watched some bat reps, read some of the Goonhammer stuff. But by far my biggest mistake was listening to the Independent Characters' episode on getting into AT. The one where they go all out hard selling the game to convince one of the gang to play with them. it worked on him and that was me knackered as well. So when it came out I jumped in.

I also picked up a job lot of knights, titans and scenery on Facebook, and now had a reasonable size collection. My biggest fear at the time, (6 weeks ago, before The Event) was when I would ever find enough time to paint it all...

In terms of painting. I knew I wanted to do my own Legio, I've been enjoying the freedom of my custom Knight House and Sisters order, (and Black Templars are hardly the most consistently painted army), so I started looking for inspiration.

The idea I thought of, mainly because I thought it would be pretty 30k/40k ironic and funny, was for camouflaged titans. I just thought it would be so Imperial to not bother trying to hide your troops, but going to extreme efforts to hide metres tall walking mechs. More research took be down the rabbit hole of Dazzle Camouflage.

What was even funnier, once I started understanding how dazzle is supposed to work, is that I think it may actually 'work' on titans and knights. The theory behind dazzle is not that you're trying to hide the ship or aircraft, that would be impossible, but that you're just trying to make it more difficult to hit the object.

Here's my first efforts:

These were a complete medley of different styles. I tried a more traditional ship dazzle, with stripes of black and green on the legs, but the contrast wasn't distinctive enough to dazzle. I also realised that I am nowhere near yet good enough with an airbrush to replicate some of the designs used on WW1 ships.

The top half was inspired by a tutorial on a similar Tempestus scheme tutorial I found online (https://262krieg.blogspot.com/2018/11/wip-painting-dazzle-camouflage-for.html) The colours are inspired by a real USAF splinter camo scheme used in Alaska.

Proof of concept down, I finished my first Reaver "Rixator" shortly into lockdown:

I used this model to flesh out some of the design motifs of the Legio. I've called them Ventus with the Low Gothic moniker of 'Swift Winds' The legion's symbol is a lightning bolt (a symbol used heavily on the really old SM transfers), and their focus is on fast moving lighter titans, I wanted a sort of loyalist foil to Audax, so tried to think up a reason why such a legio would exist.

Fluff wise therefore I decided they spent almost all of their time with the White Scars, initially they were equipped as a standard legion with a mix of all classes during the early years of the Great Crusade, attached to one of the Star Hunters Pioneer Companies which was - unusually - focussed on heavy mechanised warfare and siege work. However, the following the finding of Jaghatai and the re-mustering of the V Legion, as well as their oath-sworn titan support; he was displeased with the slowness of the heavier titans: too slow and too large to support the lighting style of warfare he preferred. Therefore, the legio moved to a lighter, faster style of warfare as a result, with the heavier titans relegated to fire support. Camouflage was used to assist this faster moving style of warfare, to add an element of surprise. With the new style, came the new name, to represent their light nature. They may also have "acquired" some useful technology to aid in this style, such as titan drop pods and maybe a teleporter or two...

So that's my Legio. I have two more Reavers (Percussor and Arbiter Ultima) on the desk ready to finish. A Bellicosa Warlord in a box, and in my next post I'll look at my Knight Household.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

With my Knight house, I wanted to continue with the camouflage theme, my research into Dazzle had taught me about a scheme used by the British Army in WW2 in North Africa, known as 'Caunter' after the officer who is credited with coming up with it. It's reasonably distinctive, and quite popular with scale modellers and Bolt Action players. It uses straight stripes and shapes of desert sand, dark green and a silvery grey colour to disrupt the shapes and profiles of vehicles. It also comes as a boxed set of air paints from Vallejo, so i thought I'd give it a go:

These were my first efforts, they're ok, but I took away some lessons on how to make the style more distinct. Mainly I needed to use more paint to increase the opacity of the different colours!

I think I did slightly better with my Cerastus and my first Acastus:

In terms of fluff, again I needed to justify why Knights would use camo. So far I have gone with the notion that the house is based upon a desert world where whole cities are mobile, moving across the desert to stay on the day side of a planet which rotates extremely slowly. So slowly that the night is dangerously cold and long. These caravan cities were protected by 'Saracen Suits' which fought off rival caravans, as well as the local fauna. Without the ability to undertake surprise attacks at 'night' camouflage was deployed by the House to gain a battlefield advantage.

That's my House Qattara, as it currently stands. I have three more Questoris to complete, and I'm having a stab at a reposed Acastus.

[Fajita Fan]

Looks badass. Acastus aren't easy to repose, I'm working on that today and a melee arm I'm not happy with 

[malika666]

Cool stuff!

[TheDreadfulSagittary]

You did a really great job on the titans, love the color scheme! Keep up with the great work! 

[Mandragola]

Very nice work. I think dazzle makes some sense for titans and you've done a good job of it. Good to see another strong blog on the board.

[Sherrypie]

Yes, dazzle camo is indeed finely suited for these battleships on legs. I like the Warhounds in particular and Qattara's colours suit their desert background well.

 

...though that generator at the Acastus' feet puzzles me, who built it in the middle of a road?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I envisaged it more as being the edge of a complex rather than a road, but you're right, it could be a standard example of excellent Imperial engineering.

[Mendi Warrior]

Excellent work! I love the fluff and the various steps you took for the camouflage, the Acastus is my actual favourite in terms of colours.

 

I heard the engineering team got reassigned to active combat duty on the frontline afterwards

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Where they heroically held up an advancing traitor Titan legion by placing large buildings along all major transit routes...

 

The Acastus is definitely the best, but it's mainly because I used the others to work out the mistakes. It was however, by far the hardest. Because the pattern lines have to line up across panels I had to blutac it all together for the spraying, then take it apart to paint the endless trim. I couldn't do that with the legs however, so they were glued together, sprayed, and then I had to paint the metal skeleton inside the panels!

[noigrim]

Nice, reminds me of that nomad knight house in Molech

[malika666]

Look up WWI naval camo for warships, might give you some ideas. :)

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Look up WWI naval camo for warships, might give you some ideas. :)

I have looked at the idea, but it's really hard to pull off on this scale, the models are just too small for me, and my very nascent airbrushing skills, to get enough stripes on the panels!

[Lord Uglor]

I like this quite a bit!  I always enjoyed the notion that titans had their carapaces camouflaged as an attempt to protect them for air attacks, silly though that may seem what with auspexes and scanners and what have you.  Looks really nice, and your back story of caravan cities is great!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks! The whole process has made me appreciate hazard striping generally as being much more practical than I think a lot of us had realised.

 

Other techniques I want to try in the future include painting patterns to look like other things. For instance, ships occasionally had patterns painted at their prows on the water line to look like fake bow waves. This made it harder for U-Boat captains to work out how fast they were moving, and made it harder to achieve torpedo hits. (This practice is less helpful post RADAR) the Japanese also used to paint the outlines of turrets on their aircraft carrier decks to make them look like battleships from above, to confuse dive bombers.

 

This made me think that a pattern of upward pointing triangles painted on the top carapace of a Warlord could look like building spires, which would confuse spotters trying to pick out a Titan among buildings. That's my plan for that Titan anyway.

[Frostbit3]

Little patches of snow melt on your bases would really sell the Alaska camo for me. That said the models look excellent. You have a distinct painting style that is great. I can’t wait to see more

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thank you.

 

I hadn't considered snow, but you're right. It would match the light blue patches quite nicely. It would only then not match the desert of the knights... Decisions.

[DuskRaider]

I love the dazzle camo pattern so much. It definitely fits the carapace quite nicely. Can't wait to see more!

[Shovellovin]

I dig your idea for camo on titans. Looking forward to following your progress. 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Three more Questoris painted, and a final pic of my Acastus, with a little more weathering:

I'm really pleased with these three, compared to the first three. My airbrushing is improving and the colours have come out much clearer, improving the clarity of the contrast in the scheme.

My final knight, (for now) is on the painting table now. I completed the re-posing of the legs and am hopeful it will look the part.

In terms of the re-posing (Sorry, I didn't take any pics) I have copied The Apologist's simple walking pose. To create the steady forward leg, I cut the leg at the knee using a razor saw and re-posed it as straight as the knee pad would allow. The piston was then cut, and lengthened using a small length of plastic rod.

For the other leg, I left the knee as it was, but re-cut the toes about to create the impression of movement. The front toe has been bent 'upward' planted on the floor, the other three have been bent downward as if they are hanging loose with gravity. The toe hanging down seems to match the extra height now present on the straighter leg.

The tricky part was re-positioning the toe pistons, the hanging toes now need longer pistons, and the front toe needed a shorter one. This isn't an issue with the side panels, as the pistons are attached to the panel, not the leg.

In the end, I reasoned that with the Acastus, the panels appear to move with the pistons, not independent of them as with other patterns of Knight, I therefore removed the lugs which hold the panels in one place, so they can slide freely up and down. The pistons were then cut free of the leg, and re-glued attached to the foot and the panel only. This appears to have fixed the effect. I'll take some pics once the masking tape is off.

[schoon]

First - welcome Brother Adelard!

 

I saw your Reaver with the dazzle cammo on Facebook, and am happy to see you here as well. Your color choices and weathering for the Titans is spot on.

 

Concerning winter bases, you could always add some winter to your existing desert bases if you want everything unified I think snow would add a little pop.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Nice work Brother, does anyone 'need' to hide a titan? :P

You're doing a great job on camo schemes regardless.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

What do people recommend to winter up the bases a little?

[Mendi Warrior]

Very nice work! It is an excellent scheme and you are definitely improving it with each new model!

 

I have never added snow nor ice to a base so I couldn't really make a recommendation. This said, Overwhelming Odds recently built an Arctic battlefield and has a related YouTube video, there are at least two posts where he delves more into the details

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/360694-greetings-from-overwhelming-odds-where-military-insights-a/?p=5480386 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/360694-greetings-from-overwhelming-odds-where-military-insights-a/?p=5487079

 

Even deserts experience snow on some occasions https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/09/africa/sahara-snow-trnd/index.html

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks, that's really helpful. (And thoughtful!)