Wednesday, October 24, 2018

A Pack of Warhounds for Adeptus Titanicus


For any who have been following my recent posts, it's fairly easy to see that I've been swept up collecting and painting stuff for the recent release of Adeptus Titanicus. This time out, I have a hunting pack of 'light' Warhound titans (yes, a wonderful contradiction in terms) all done-up and ready to stalk prey on the tabletop.

While the big Warlords and medium Reavers are all fine and good, my favourite titan design remains the Warhound. There is something wonderfully predatory about its hunched stature and digitigrade legs that really appeals to my lizard brain. The Adeptus Titanicus rules help encourage the use pack tactics of the Warhounds by allowing them to activate as a group, 'share' void shields and to concentrate their fire on specific targets. Very evocative of the GW fluff.


But, GW being GW, it has decided to be infuriatingly lackadaisical in its release schedule for follow-on 'engines' for Titanicus (really, follow-on anything for that matter). Tired of waiting for the Warhounds to be made available (and not particularly enthused about the cost), I snooped through my favourite go-to open-source 3D design site, Thingiverse, to see if anyone had posted anything that I could use as proxy. Well, lo-and-behold a VERY talented chap going by the handle of 'Stroganoff' has made available a series of excellent prints for the Warlord, the Warhound and a lot of other handy things. 




They are absolutely brilliant designs, with each having several weapon options and limb variations. Furthermore, he's cleverly provided the Warhound in the alternate 'Lucius' pattern to make it different from the ubiquitous 'Mars' used by both  GW and Forge World.

Completely chuffed, I printed off four kits of which I have three done-up here today.

Each 'kit' only has nine parts (another credit to the overall design), so the assembly is pretty straightforward stuff.


The kit minus the two weapons.

You can see with each of these models that the legs can be positioned into many different action poses. I particularly like the trotting Warhound, with it's one foot suspended in mid-stride. 



I've painted two in the austere grey livery of Legio Cerberus, giving each a different colour accent to help identify them on the tabletop. I've been enjoying seeing the work of others, especially my friend Greg, with them contrasting the colour of the head/cockpit with the body -  so I've given all my Cerberus titans distinctive white cockpits (something for the heretics to zero on, I suppose).  The decals are a mix of designs from the Warlord and Reaver kits.




I wanted to paint the other Warhound as a nasty Legio Mortis engine, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun with the airbrush and give it a decadent candy-apple red paintjob. 



It's a bit over-the-top, but I quite liked how it turned out on the whole, and  besides, we all know red vehicles go faster, right? I've used this same colour scheme for my upcoming Reaver, which I'll post up soon.

For a bit of visual interest, I put in a recessed footprint into the basework of one, and a wrecked hovertank (another 3D print) on another. 



Otherwise, the bases have been done in my usual post-apoc, ash-grey motif, accented with some rubble and a few scorched trees and bushes.



Finally, I have to give a shout out to my good friend Byron, as while I was in the midst of building these models I discovered I had no bases to mount them on. Nevertheless, Byron (who is the proprietor of Northern Lights Terrain) came to the rescue and quickly sent me a set of 80mm MDF bases. Thanks so much Byron!

Well, that's it for today folks. Thanks for dropping in - have a great week everyone!

31 comments:

  1. Wonderful work and I'm sure no way infringing on any evil empires IP rights. Rest assured that if I do turn you in for any bounties, it's just business and nothing personal

    Is it December yet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew I could count on your discretion, Miles. Please send part of the bounty's proceeds to Sarah (She's packing my satchel as I write this).

      Delete
    2. She'll get her portion of the proceeds for sure. In fact she's the one who came up with the idea - I'm just a prototypical henchman cog in her diabolical plan of world domination. I'm somewhat surprised the plans hinges on your incarceration in a secret GW prison facility but its really not appropriate for a henchman to question the ring leader.

      Our job is to execute not contemplate...

      Delete
  2. Brilliant! Outstanding stuff as always dude! Does one need their own 3D printer, or can these be ordered on their own?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks dude. These designs do require you to have a 3D printer or a friend who can print them off for you. :)

      Delete
  3. Woof, woof! Excellent work as always Curt :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great work Curt! I enjoyed playing with these toys last weekend, I think I almost had as much fun as you did 3D printing them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, thanks Pete. Your spectacular detonation, chained with the rival Reaver was a definite crowd pleaser.

      Delete
    2. Hey my warhound put up a damn good fight and took down a much bigger titan in the process of imploding!

      Delete
    3. You did indeed! Along with Jeremy's Warhound getting sniped from across the table, it was the highlight of the night.

      Delete
  5. Those turned out very well. The paint job is, of course, very impressive, but I am suprised with the print quality.

    Also, I had never heard of Northern Lights so thanks for the tip.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Yes, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out as well. Some stuff from Thingiverse can be a bit hit-or-miss but Stroganoff's work is excellent.

      Delete
  6. Wow, those are great, and if you do get around to the GW option, they should fit in nicely (obviously as a different pattern).

    Have you talked about your newer 3d printer? Looking back I see that you mentioned the filament printer, but not the SLA one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, they're great little models. Yes, I have the GW kit on order and am looking forward to having some Mars Pattern engines to add to the pack.

      You're right, I've not done a post on my experiences with 3D printing - I should think on doing something like that. I started off with a Prusa filament printer and then supplemented it with a Moonray DLP resin model (which is not my main workhorse machine). While using resin requires more post-production work, I do like the smoother/finer resolution of the prints and the fact that it's less fiddly than the filament models I've used.

      Delete
    2. Yes please do, if the muse takes you, since there are certainly others that would be interested in your experiences.

      Delete
  7. Wonderful work mate - love the use of 3d printing and the product is outstanding! The Legio Mortis colours are fantastic too

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Paul! Glad you like the Mortis engine - it was a lot of fun to work on. If you like the candy-apple red then you'll get a kick out of the upcoming Reaver. :)

      Delete
  8. Lovely Titan's, particularly impressive that they're 3d prints , the future really is just around the corner! Nicely dour colour scheme too!
    Best Iain

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Iain! Dour is always so underrated. I guess it goes with the territory.

      Delete
  9. Fabulous work on these, Curt. The weathering abdominal basing are excellent. Love the red one.

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war"

    Amazing as always, Curt!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wow! They are absolutely beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)