Adeptus Titanicus: Warlord titan build

By the manner of their death we shall know them.

Games Workshop recently released an updated version of Adeptus Titanicus, complete with new rules and multi-part plastic models. We talked about the quality of all of the components contained in the Grand Master boxed set, but didn’t actually assemble any of the warlord titans it came with. I recently finished assembling the first and wanted to talk a little about my thoughts of the model!

The Warlord titan is a fantastic looking model, expertly capturing even the most minute detail from the 40k resin version of the model.

The warlord titan comes on three large sprues, one containing the weapons and head, one containing the armor panels, and the final holding the basic skeleton of the warmachine. The sprues are laid out clearly, and coupled with an excellent full-color instruction manual, the titan is fairly easy to assemble. Some of the components, particularly the legs, could be assembled backwards, however, so it is important to follow the directions carefully, dry fitting each piece. Fortunately, all of the pieces fit together expertly, often hiding seam lines.

To aid in the painting process, the armor plates were only temporarily attached with Blu-tack.

You have quite a lot of freedom in how you assemble and pose the model, with each leg being fully articulated. This freedom is great, but it makes assembly more challenging than most GW kits. Part of this difficulty lies in the tendency to not want to add the armor plates to the legs until after each is painted. Without attaching the armor plates, it is easy to pose the model too extremely, preventing the plates from attaching properly later on. I opted for using Blu-tack to temporarily attach the plates to aid in posing the legs. This was critical for achieving a reasonable pose, but was still challenging, because the plates would often shift as I tried to pose them. I used a small amount of Tamaya Extra Thin Cement on all of the joints of the legs (and the attachment point at the pelvis) and allowed them to start to get slightly tacky. This allowed me to experiment with different poses, before the glue set completely. And since I used so little glue, even if it had largely set, it was still easy to break the bond by applying light force. Using super glue would be extremely difficult because it sets so quickly, making aligning all of the different pieces at the same time almost impossible. It is also worth noting that while initially it seems like you could pose the legs in all manner of dynamic ways, due to the armor plates, pelvis, and toes, the number of reasonable poses are quite limited. This makes creating a simple walking pose, without having the lower armor plates scraping the ground, fairly challenging. Ultimately, I think this is fine, as it emphasizes that the Warlord is not a nimble or quick machine, but a lumbering god of destruction.

All of the weapons are designed to be magnetized, with slots cut to allow the insertion of 5x1mm magnets.

At the moment, the Warlord titan kit does not contain weapon options, requiring you to give it two Volcano cannons and two Apocalypse missile launchers. While this is a little disappointing, they did cut holes to allow the insertion of magnets, allowing you to swap weapons in the future. All of the magnet slots are designed to accept 5x1mm disc magnets, and due to the precise molding, they were really easy to attach. Unfortunately they do not provide magnets in the box, forcing you to order them from a third party vendor. Hopefully new weapons are released shortly, as I would love to see some of Forge World’s other weaponry miniaturized to the Adeptus Titanicus scale.

The general color scheme of titans of Legio Atarus, the Firebrands.

With the Warlord fully assembled, I can move on to painting the beast! Having not converted the model, I want to paint it as a loyalist titan. Much to my delight, the decal sheet provided with the kit contains iconography for Legio Atarus! Those well versed in 30k lore might know that Legio Atarus, or the Firebrands, were founded by exiles from the Forge World of Phaeton (in a move to pacify Mars by reducing Phaeton’s considerable martial strength). Little has been heard from Phaeton in the last 10k years, but its forges have not been silent. With this in mind, painting the first Warlord as an engine from Legio Atarus seemed like an obvious choice. I will be sure detail the painting process on the blog soon!

- Eric Wier