WIP Reavers and Tiny Tanks

So after a nice break in sunny Spain I'm now back in significantly less sunny England, which makes me sad, but it does mean I can continue to work on my Axiom Maniple for Legio Metalica!

I've now finished what I started before I went away and got the super structure built for the two Reavers Hastati Lux and Victorious Endeavour.  I like the Reaver kit, not least because it comes with more weapons options than the notably lacking Warlord, I found the legs on the Reaver a little more fiddly than Warlord though (I even glued the lower leg sections on backwards on the first one!). 

Please excuse the quality. But, for those interested, yes the Warhound weapons scale well for Reaver carapace weapons.

As you can see Hastati Lux is armed with a twin linked Turbo Laser from the Warhound kit on its carapace.  Because there is no such thing as too much BWEEEEEM!  Tactically it will be rubbish at stripping shields, but it will ruin the day of any Princeps caught with his shields down! The Warhound weapons take a little jiggery pokery to fit the carapace mounts but not too much.

Victorious Endeavour is the more well rounded engine. Where Hastati Lux and Mors Incarnadine will aim to get into firing positions and likely stay put once they do Victorious Endeavour will be much more mobile, advancing ahead alongside the two (yet to be built) Warhounds Borophagus and Aelurodon (paleontological names there for anyone into their prehistoric dog species), closing the gap, stripping shields and, when it has chance, getting in close to BIFF! some unsuspecting engines with the Power Fist (I briefly considered a double fist loadout but decided against it in the end)

The beginnings of my Epic force.

I also managed to get my grubby little paws on some 30k Epic tanks off eBay. The Glaives were meant to be Falchions but due to a mix up at the other end I got Glaives instead.  Oh well, I was planning on getting some at some point anyway so its not a huge issue.

Still very much PIP!

I love these models though, whoever made them has done a fantastic job of translating the FW models to 6mm scale.  Painting tiny hazards stripes though?  I must really hate myself between these and the white/black stripes on the titans!

I haven't got myself a 28mm Mastodon, I will live vicariously through the 6mm version!

I also picked up a Mastodon (and the nice chap sent me a free Land Raider Proteus and Rhino.  The Mastodon is awesome, like the Glaives I can't overstate the amazing job done translating the 28mm model to 6mm.  I just need to get them all finished.

You'll notice a suspicious lack of infantry for my Epic stuff, that's because I want to get my hands on some of the lovely MkIII Tacticals and Breachers I've seen around various blogs/forums. It may take a while, and a lot of patience, but some will surface eventually, and then, they shall be mine! (though in the meantime, if anyone has any leads on some, let me know!).

Right! Need to get the Warhounds built tonight and then I can get the whole lot sprayed and crack on with the painting.

Until next time...

Legio Metalica Walks!

At last! An update with actual models, its been a weird few months and I have been in a bit of a lull.

However, the siren call of the new Adeptus Titanicus proved too strong for my, admittedly poor, impulse control.  And as such, here strides forth [I]Mors Incarnadine[/i] the first of my Legio Metalica engines.

I was a little slow off the mark (and also, too poor) to pick up the Grand Master Edition so I settled for the Warlord Bundle with the titan plus rules. I will say I really like the ruleset, which I know, everybody is saying the same thing. The rules are complex enough that the first time you play you'll find yourself keep going back to the rulebook to check stuff but once you get the majority of the basics set in your head there is a lot of tactical depth.  I wont go too much into detail in this post but I will do a full battle report once the Warhounds are out and we can run full maniples.

Mors Incarnadine and the war on Mycenae

Tasked as they were with the eradication of an Ork Waaagh! splinter which had found itself in the resource rich but otherwise unremarkable Mycenae system the 73rd Expedition fleet petitioned Legio Metalica for aid, given their long history of war against the Greenskins around Charadon it was the logical choice. The lords of Metalica agreed and a Demi Legio of 35 God Engines accompanied the 73rd Expedition to Mycenae.

In the shadow of the great war machine a stranded member of the IV Legion fends off the traitors.

The engine designated Mors Incarnadine acquitted itself well in the following four years of war, scoring a total of 8 confirmed Engine Kills on Gargant class Orkiod constructs, but it wasn't until the aftermath of the War that the engine proved its true worth.  Caught on the fringes of Lorgar's Ruinstorm the 73rd found itself isolated and ignorant of events taking place in the galaxy at large.

When a fleet of ships belonging to the XII and XVII Legions broke through the storms the 73rd at first thought reinforcements had arrived.  It quickly became clear that was not the case when the XVII Cruiser Epistle of Fire launched a devastating torpedo salvo detonating the plasma reactor of the Solar Auxillia Bulk Carrier Flame of Jupiter crippling the IV legion Cruiser Thunderhead.

The fleet of the 73rd scattered from the oncoming ships, attempting to extricate themselves from the incoming lance and macrocannon salvos.  While the orbital forces retreated in good order, suffering no further casualties, it allowed a window for the enemy to launch transports and landers onto the planets surface.

One of the most hotly contested zones in the first assault wave were the landing fields on the great crystal plane.  One of the few area in Mycanea's vast deserts open and stable enough to facilitate the landing of Titan and Ordinatus assets.  

When the enemy forces began to land, having received news of the attack from orbit Mors Incarnadine along with its Reaver Class escorts Hastati Lux and Pyroclastia held the landing field, along with support elements from the 208th Praetorian Infantry and a garrison force from the IX Legion, for 7 hours of bitter fighting, buying the defenders in other locations time to prepare their defences.  When it became clear they could not stop the flow of enemy landers the trio of titans were the last defenders to pull back from the landing fields.  Although Pyroclastia suffered catastrophic damage its weapon systems which would see it sidelined from the fighting until the very last days of the war, to have held their ground as long as they did was a truly magnificent feat.

So I still have a little more work to do on the titan, it needs decals and markings etc, though I'm not certain whether to get decals printed from the BOLS Metalica Transfer Sheet or to do a bit of a redesign on the, admittedly dated, Legio icon. We shall see.

Now, something I've been toying with the idea of for a while,  This guy is just the first test paint for the regiment (because why do one militia list when you can do more), but here is the first soldier of the 208th Praetorian Infantry.  The pants came out a bit on the shiny side which was odd but a blast of matt varnish once I've finished the rest of the squad will sort that out.