--++ Legio Solaria Titans ++--

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

 

Managed to get a full re-render of the group shot in with the various updates and such that have been going on in the background, including the addition of the Leviathan over on the left hand side of the image.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

And, just because i happened to have a basic model of them handy for other purposes, here is a scale size comparison of the titans against a couple of "real world" landmarks, being Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben), and One WTC (Freedom Tower):

 

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

I remain open to suggestions for the next modelling option that might require reconsideration or reinvention... I'm in need of a distraction!

 

I'm much more an Imperium kind of fella - none of your filthy Xenos options! 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Ooh ... I have no idea. Maybe write out a list of candidates and roll a dice? (that's probably not much help )

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

11 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Ooh ... I have no idea. Maybe write out a list of candidates and roll a dice? (that's probably not much help )

Problem is I've run out of candidates! That's what I need the help with!

[Firedrake Cordova]

Ah, so you've done all of the titan variants ... are there any weapon variants you'd like to do?

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

10 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Ah, so you've done all of the titan variants ... are there any weapon variants you'd like to do?

Nothing springs to mind. I've got most of the other weapons modelled already, but the loadouts shown in the image are the "best balanced" from an aesthetic perspective to my eye.

 

Might try the conversion beamer variation for the Acastus Knight... 

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

On 4/17/2024 at 11:37 PM, Lord_Mephistopheles said:

Nothing springs to mind. I've got most of the other weapons modelled already, but the loadouts shown in the image are the "best balanced" from an aesthetic perspective to my eye.

 

Might try the conversion beamer variation for the Acastus Knight... 

 

As it turns out, i'm very predictable and easily led...

 

Some slight modifications to the basic Acastus chassis, mostly in the armour.  Added the Karacnos rad mortar to the carapace, with a lovely green glow of the Cherenkov radiation (if you watched TMNT as a teenager in the 90s, or have played C&C Red Alert, you know!)  Obviously the twin-linked conversion beamer main weapons.

 

Still some detailing to do clearly, but the bulk of it is there.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

Bit of detailing on the Conversion beamers, and a modification to the shoulder armour.

Imaged next to the Porphyrion for comparison.

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Definitely coming along nicely

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

Boredom with work has struck again - the tedium has returned.

Having spent 25 mins usefully cleaning out the fluff and greb from my keyboard, i've now run out of distractions.

 

I'm not in the mood to spend more time churning through armour-lining and banding, but I'm feeling the need for creativity.  Anyone got any ideas for anything they think might be worth creating for things that are in the lore that have never been seen, or that could do with an update to more modern aesthetics... i'm open to suggestions!

 

For the love of God, someone please suggest something!

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

 

Yes, i got bored.  Is anyone REALLY surprised... i don't see me going TOO far with the Cybernetica as most of the designs i don't like... might end up just being this and the Thanatar at this point.

 

But i've made outlandish promises like that before...

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

Well, I've come back to this yet again.

 

After waning enthusiasm, due to having modelled everything i had a particular interest in, and not really being able to take them much further beyond spending ever-increasing amounts of time detailing which, while necessary from some perspectives, very much is not from others.

 

I play around with drawing up some Cybernetica, but struggled with some elements of the armour plating which i couldn't get to look right, and which in the end caused me sufficient frustration that i gave up.

 

A recent perusal of a Reddit thread on the size of Titans in 40k however brought this back to me, and got me thinking - when i looked at the images i've created, have i, in fact, gone TOO BIG with the Titans?  Has my sense of scale been completely overwhelmed to the point where I have no concept of how big these would be "for real"?

 

I started on this journey, 'lo so long ago, simply content with an Imperator design.  Since then, this has grown arms, legs, heads, the lot - but everything started from that first model, and the scales were effectively fixed from there, in combination with a few decisions made along the way.  If i tell you that largely everything I've drawn has started from determining the scale of a "typical" Godhammer or Mark VII Mars pattern lascannon, moving on to a Godwyn-pattern Heavy Bolter, and then subsequently deciding that they are the appropriate weapons to use as point-defence on your typical Warlord titan (as the FW model), and then working from there.

What i discovered was, while the scale factors in 40k are obviously "wrong" (vehicles remain too small for their stated abilities being the main example) - they are comparatively self-consistent.  Working from a known size and then fitting said size to other models with shared features results in consistent size increases, for the most part.

 

Taking that view, and then looking at the images i've posted here, the Titans are MASSIVE.  Almost ludicrously so.  But then, compare a Titan to, say modern-day naval ships.  A 300m tall Imperator isn't HUGELY different in overall size than, say, a modern-day Ford-class aircraft carrier.  Big for a bipedal robot sure, but as compared to modern weapons of war...?  Maybe not.

Which leads me onto my next post... there was only one way to be sure.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

IMPERIAL TITAN: Ascendent Destiny - Legio Solaria, 2nd Maniple, Primaris-engine

 

Class: Warlord (Sunstalker sub-class)

Pattern: Tigrus  (Alpha-pattern Command Module)

 

Primary Armament: Sunfury-pattern Plasma Annihilator; Subjugator-Pattern Macro Gatling Blaster

 

Secondary Armament: Twin carapace-mounted Mars-Pattern Turbo-laser Blasters

 

Tertiary Armament: 8No. twin-linked Arachnus-pattern Heavy Lascannon

 

AA-Armament: 1No. quad-barrel Hydra-pattern 75mm flak emplacement; 4No. Leviathan-pattern Stormcannon array (quad-mount 40mm Autocannon)

 

Overall height: 104.1m (resting; to top of reactor cooling vanes)

 

Overall breadth: 85.3m (across extremities of carapace shoulder armour)

 

Overall depth: 59.5m (maximum dimension)

 

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

The Tigrus-Alpha pattern Command module has overall dimensions 16.1m long x 16.4m high x 12.5m wide.  

 

However, not all of this is habitable space - once allowances for armour; sensors; independent power and life-support systems to enable function as a remote life-pod for command crew etc. are accounted for the habitable volume is a cylindrical space of 8.0m diameter x 9.0m overall length, safely contained within the bulk of the "head" of the God-engine:

 

 

The command module for this Warlord-class engine provides space for the following crew:

 

1No. Princeps (Senioris-grade or higher) - Ascendant Destiny provides an integrated Amniotic Tank with associated MIU for the Princeps, but a Command Throne may be installed in other engines.

 

1No. Moderati-Principus - the Moderati is the second-in-command of the Titan, and also acts as the Steersman, seated centrally at the front of the command deck

 

2No. Moderati-Ordinatus - The Ordinatii-principa are in control of the primary arm weapons of the Titan.  Under normal operating scenarios, each Ordinatus will control a single slaved weapon, but in extremis it is possible for both primary weapons to be slaved to a single Ordinatus albeit this may come with a downgrade in the efficiency of the weapon subsystems.

 

2No. Ordinatus-Secundus - these two crewmembers are responsible for the secondary carapace weaponry, and as with the primary weaponry, a single Ordinatus may control both weapon mounts if necessary,

 

Seated behind the Princeps, working along the walls of the command deck are the junior crew, including:

2No. Ordinatus-Tertius - responsible for the tertiary armament of the Titan, and the anti-air defences respectively

 

1No. Moderati-Sensoria - primary crewmember responsible for managing sensor data and providing information to the remainder of the crew

 

1No. Master of Vox - primary comms station / reconfigurable to provide Tech-priest Engineseer a Command Deck station, as needed.

 

 

As can be seen, this can all be sensibly accommodated in the relevant-sized Titan Command Deck, leaving a reasonable amount of space for crew to actually access the deck / move around if necessary, as has been repeatedly described in the books but which is not duplicated in the FW models, which imply that crew are somehow shoehorned into the command module like F1 drivers being fastened into their cars, and not having room to so much as lift their elbows once inside.

[Firedrake Cordova]

 

have i, in fact, gone TOO BIG with the Titans?

I suppose the question is, do GW ever state how big a titan is?

 

My memory might be playing tricks on me, but I thought some mention of it was made in Titanicus? There again, there seems to be some conflict on ideas of the size.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

 

I suppose the question is, do GW ever state how big a titan is?

 

My memory might be playing tricks on me, but I thought some mention of it was made in Titanicus? There again, there seems to be some conflict on ideas of the size.

Yeah.

 

They have released "official" sizes via Titanicus, and also from scaling the models.

 

But that's direct conflict with the lore in some of the books. The smaller sizes never worked for me.

 

There are passages in, for example, 'Titandeath' that describe fights taking place in the cockpit of Imperator titans after Sanguinius breaks in through the eyes with the Sanguinary Guard... That's never going to happen if you look at the scale of the FW models.

[Firedrake Cordova]

There was something similar in Titanicus, with enemy infrantry boarding the titan and entering the head, as far as I remember?

 

++EDIT: Sometimes I think GW has "scale consistency" issues ... to me, the cockpit on the Lightning, Thunderbolt, and Barracuda in the Aeronautica Imperialis line looks quite out of scale - I don't know if the titan models are consistent within the range or not  

Edited August 25 by Firedrake Cordova

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

New obsession unlocked!

 

This ended up being more work, because when i looked again at the Gamma-pattern head for my Reaver Titan model, i found it problematic, which OF COURSE led to me HAVING to completely re-draw and remodel it from scratch... and frankly, i'm not sad about that because what's come out of that work is FAR superior.  So, the new head, in context as part of the Reaver-class engine "Steel Huntress" is below:

 

And now... the cutaway:

 

 

Less crew than the Warlord-class engines, as one might reasonably imagine, but the same principles apply.

 

1No. Princeps.

 

1No. Moderati - second-in-command / steersman

 

3No. Ordinatus - primary arm / carapace weapon control

 

1No. Ordinatus-Tertius - tertiary armament / anti-air defence

 

1No. Sensoria / Vox 

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

Having rediscovered some love and enthusiasm for this ongoing project, here are a few updates, in no particular order.

 

Reaver titan - Tigrus-Alpha pattern command module (head):

 

 

Given that i rebuilt the Tigrus-Gamma head as part of my "Are the Titans too big?" moment when i was determined to show there was sufficient room for command crew without it being ridiculous, i then obviously had to rebuild the Tigrus-Alpha head to ensure it looked similar; sat on the basically-identical understructure; had the same level of detailing; while also being different enough to be a alternate pattern of manufacture.

 

The armour therefore is a touch more angular than the smoother curves of the Gamma-pattern.  The large cylindrical transverse vent structures are gone, replaced by an array of angled vents off the upper surface.  Additional greeblies in the "cheek" areas.  Change of the nose/mouth vent to the traditional Reaver triangular vent.

 

Warhound titan - Tigrus-Alpha pattern command module (head) + Cutaway:

 

  

 

As for the Reaver, a rebuild of the head model to be compatible with the cutaway for the interior.  This was one of the trickier ones to get right for the interior, simply because my initial idea of having the "eyes" being basically windows didn't work because of the level differences - it would have meant a heavily-stepped command deck, with the Princeps at the lowest level.  It just didn't look right.

 

For this, although it's difficult to see, i also came up with a very basic outline for a command throne for the Princeps rather than the amniotic tank - it's tricky to see though because of the structure and shadows.  The crew complement follows a similar pattern to the other titans - each primary weapon gets a crewperson, along with a driver/steersparson and the princeps.  Given the lower-volume of secondary and tertiary systems, there are less crew required to control them, and thus they end up "doubling-up".

 

I also envisage, if it's not come across, that the larger weapon systems require a more senior crew-member to control them.  I envisage this because the Machine Spirit of the individual weapons systems becomes more complex and more bellicose the larger the weapon, and thus requires someone with greater training and experience to not be overwhelmed by it.  I also like the idea of rank progression for the Ordinatii.

 

Cybernetica - Thanatar Siege Automata:

 

This was the modelling that broke me a few months back.  Between this and the Domitar, i was struggling to get the armour to look right, particularly the chest armour.  The frustration with it made it an unenjoyable task, and i wasn't in the mood to persist with it feeling like a chore.  After a break, and coming back with fresh eyes, i managed to sort the issue to my satisfaction, albeit i may now go back and tweak further until i'm pleased with it, rather than just "satisfied".

 

Shown with an Astartes Leviathan and a Knight Armiger for scale - i like the idea that the Thanatar is terrifyingly-huge.  It's a siege machine after all.  Clearly some work to be done still, and the observant amongst you will note that i've mix'n'matched the Thanatar Plasma Mortar with the Thamater-Calix Graviton Ram.  This is purely because I liked the asymmetry of the design, and the Graviton Ram just accentuates that further.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

 

Loads more detailing done.

Added the twin Mauler bolt-cannon to the Thanatar, which you annoyingly now can't see because the Leviathan is in the way!  

 

Got the Hellex Plasma Mortar to about 80% completed.

 

Re-modelled the Domitar chestplate - am now MUCH happier with it.

 

Slightly tweaked the sizes for the Cybernetica - made both the Domitar and the Thanatar about 10% smaller to bring them a tiny bit more inline with the Contemptor and Leviathan, respectively.

 

The Cybernetica, which i had no particular love for, have grown on me IMMENSELY.  The asymmetry of the designs extending to more than just the weapons has always been something which caught my eye, and is now something i'm wondering if i can take a bit further on the Domitar, hence the inclusion of the shoulder Mauler Bolt cannon to somewhat mirror the Thanatar.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

MOAR UPDATES!!

 

I've gone back and looked again at some of my earlier modelling, particularly on the Blood Angels which now look a little plain and undetailed to my current, more experienced eyes.  I'm attempting to bring the level of detailing up, starting with the Super-Heavy Mastodon and Mammoth!

 

Mastodon:

 

 

 

Mammoth:

 

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

The detailing continues apace, and this is where the fact that many of these vehicles have been built from similar building blocks comes in handy - an update to, say, sort out the armour plating and tracks on the Mastodon also, with a small amount of additional work, sorts out the Cerberus and the Spartan, and both versions of the Sicaran (which is possibly a tomorrow job; possibly may be a few days more).

 

The Spartan got a few more changes - I rebuilt the nose to make it look a bit more like the Mastodon, added extra lights and a few housekeeping changes.

 

The Cerberus was basically just a tread swap, but also a load of housekeeping stuff i didn't even KNOW it needed until i started fiddling.  I also (although it isn't visible) changed the engine block on the Cerberus by enlarging it about 10% on the basis of additional power for the Neutron Laser Blaster.  It's a subtle change, but i know it's there even if it goes unnoticed.

 

Spartan:

 

Cerberus:

[Naryn]

I really love seeing your takes on all these different vehicles. Great work as always, i'm always excited to see this thread update.

[Lord_Mephistopheles]

 

I really love seeing your takes on all these different vehicles. Great work as always, i'm always excited to see this thread update.

Thank you!

 

I'm always happy to get a reply - firstly because who doesn't like a tiny ego boost, but mostly because at least it means people are getting enjoyment out of this rather than me just screaming into the void! I'm having fun working on these again so it's very pleasing to know you're enjoying the output!

 

I think the Mammoth and Mastodon are, by some margin, my 2 favourite vehicles that aren't giant robots... I'm pleased with how they both look both sleek and dangerous at the same time; being obviously built off similar chassis but being different enough as well, while retaining key design cues to other vehicles in the "family".

 

The Spartan is a fairly minor change really to bring the aesthetics in-line with the modern Land Raider.  The Cerberus is even less of a change, as other than scale, and the tracks to match, it's as GW/ Forge World intended.