Death Dealers started: Battle of Aquilla Atoll

[Pictors Studio]

Recently I decided that my hobby goal for this year was to do the Battle for Aquilla Atoll by July.  I don't know if I'll make it but my first model is done. 

I started with the Death Dealers as I thought they would be the hardest ones to do as they would need more complex basing.

So this is the Ersetu. 




The battle has Legio Mordaxis landing in the shallow seas around the Atoll as the forces of Legio Lysanda and House Vornherr try to defend the beaches. 

The Death Dealers were the first Legio to really fall to chaos as far as I know.  They were campaigning with the Word Bearers and fell victim to their treachery before the Heresy even started. 

So this gave me an excuse to make some corrupt titans. 



In most of my previous Legios I've done the banners after I got the titan all painted and based.  With these, as with my Legio Audax, I'm trying to do the banners as they are being painted and before any basing.  It was a bit of a PITA to go back and do that and some of them still aren't done.  I've barely done any for my Legio Mortis titans.



I discovered that the chaos spawn bits fit perfectly into the holes left for the shield generators in the Reaver so I popped some eyes and some boney spikes in there.  I'm not sure I like the eyes and might turn them into pustules. 

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  I have some work in on a Warbringer for these guys and then I'm going to try to get a Warlord done for the Sentinels of the Edge. 

Both Legios strike me as being more in tune with the heavier titans so I think the Lysanda forces will be focused mostly on Warlords, Warbringers and the odd Reaver, while Mordaxis will probably have mostly reavers and warlords with one Warbringer.




The Loyalists have a total of 2000 pts to spend split between Lysanda and Vornherr.  The traitors get 2500 pts.  I think I'll probably do about 500 pts of knights and 1500 pts of titans for the Loyalists.  The traitors are not permitted any knights. 

I'm going to try to build a 4x4 shallow sea/atoll table for it as well.  Should be a fun project.  If I get it finished in time I'll probably run a game at Historicon. 

[Pictors Studio]

Now I've got my first Sentinel of the Edge Titan done. 

I went with a Warlord for the first Legio Lysanda titan. 



The basing is themed around an industrial facility on the shore of this atoll.  There isn't a ton of space on the Warlord base to put things but I did what I could.






I used lead foil to make the banner and attached it with a piece of wired that I attached to the titan by drilling a couple of holes and gluing it in place.

Next up is another Death Dealer Reaver. 

[Pictors Studio]

Looks like I got a bunch of stuff done since the last time I posted.  I guess I've been busy in the last 20 days.

Here are 5 of the 6 Death Dealer titans I have planned for my Legio Mordaxis force for this game:




I went with a force of 3 Reavers and 2 Warbringers.  I didn't want any Warhounds in this army as I imagine them to be ponderously slow in their lore. 

This reaver is more geared for close up fighting, despite that.  He hits pretty hard with a melta and chainfist.  The missiles will work on dropping shields for the Warbringers to pulverize the enemy when they drop. 




This next reaver has a similar function except he will be more for dropping shields than ending titans up close.  The power fist packs a wallop but the laser and the missiles will be mostly for dropping shields.




The Warbringer with the Quake cannon will have a, more or less, finishing role.  He has a volcano cannon on one arm and a gatling cannon on the other.  Of the two Warbringers this one will be the one to advance more quickly although that may not be by much. 



The other Warbringer is all long-range devastation with three volcano cannons.  I'm giving every titan in the force Cold Soul and Gelid Field so they should be able to deal with the heat that their weapons are producing.  That means all lasers will be firing with shieldbane every single time it would be useful. 

In addition to these I will be adding a Warlord to round the force out.  Also with dual volcano canons. 

I may start working on the board next as I'm out of titans at the moment. 

[FramFramson]

The eyeballs in the second pic might look better if they were a little less "Googly eyes", wither by adding coloured irises or by making the pupils into catlike slits, and maybe add some bloodshot veins either way. As it is the finer detail on other parts of the titan make the eyes look kind of intentionally cartoony, but it's certainly possible to make them look creepy, and I think that would be better than two exactly-even pustules. 

[Pictors Studio]

That is a good suggestion.  I might get rid of one of the eyes and replace it with another part from the kit too, that might make things look less symmetrical.  I painted and repainted the eyes like three times to try to get a look I liked and nothing looked sinister with them sticking out of the back like that.  I'll have another go with your suggestion and then see about replacing one. 

[Pictors Studio]

I got back to getting some work done on this project.  Horus Heresy stuff derailed it for a bit so chances of it getting finished by the end of the month are slim to none, but we'll see what we can do.

I got the last of the Death Dealer titans done.



It's a Warlord.  I did it with a gatling cannon, lasers and a fist.  I also have plasma for it to swap out either of the arm weapons.



This is it pre-basing.    Basing it was a beast.  I wanted to have a wrecked shipping container on the base with things floating out of it.  It took three pours of resin to get it to the height I wanted.  I think it turned out ok.




The whole thing is a bit of a monster in terms of weight.  With the cut out for the base to get the storage container to fit the resin leaked through and so the whole bottom of the base is resin too. 




I also started working on the table.



I got four 2x2 insulation pieces and started putting cut out bits of insulation foam on them.





I wanted there to be indentations in the sea floor as well as things coming out of it.  I used a bit of plastic glue to melt some areas here and there. 

The area is supposed to be shallow seas and I figured there would be some islands in all that so I've put some islands out there while the other side of the table has the beach for the only continent.  That takes up 12" on the one side of the table.  Rather than just making it a sloping beach I put in some coastal islands.  They will have some industrial equipment on them. 




There is the whole thing together with a titan on it for scale.  I didn't have any bananas at the time.  It is before I started to texture it.


Here is as far as I've gotten.  I managed to get some texture down on 3 of the four pieces. 



I'll get some appropriately coloured paints for the airbrush tomorrow and try to get the base coat on the whole thing on Tuesday.  I have some desert texture from AK and will probably use that to add some extra details to the parts of the table that will be above water. 

Eventually the whole thing is going to be coated in resin.  I'm not going to go for a lot of depth, just a coating really to give it a feel of water.  For one thing I'm not made of money, for another I don't want the pieces to weigh a ton.

I have some of the industrial terrain for titanicus and it is going to be situated on there in various places.  I'm going to have a look to see if I can find a model of a freight carrier and have that capsized somewhere on the table with the storage containers floating around in the water. 

After that I still need to do one Lysanda titan and get some pictures of the 2nd Reaver I did for them. 

[Bloggard]

I haven't got a clue as to the 40k lore-ness of it, but great work on the models and terrain boards.

[Pictors Studio]

We tried our first game yesterday at Historicon.  The terrain is not yet finished but we made do with what we had.



The traitors advanced into the fire from the Loyalists who stood their ground and shot, keeping their knights in reserve to launch into the traitors. 



Soon Mordaxis titans were falling into the shallow waters while the loyalists stayed mostly intact.



Eventually the loyalists suffered the loss of one Reaver.  They launched the knights into the water to attack but both lances timed their charge poorly and were left in the open.  They were duly engaged by the Death Dealers and eliminated. 

The delay they caused was not insignificant though.  While the traitors then focused their attacks on the Lysanda Warlord and destroyed it, they did not do so with enough time to accomplish their goal.