Adeptus Titanicus: Legio Fureans Warlord and Reaver - Superstructure Basecoat

So I took a hiatus on displaying my Legio Fureans Titans during my wonderful (sarc) FedEx adventures with my Warbringer Titan.  But now - let us continue!

After priming my Titans, I split painting into two sections, as is customary.

The first bit, I do not have many pictures of, but it is the Titan superstructure, as follows:

I did not prime the superstructure with any Stynylrez Grey, only the black.  Following that, I airbrushed the superstructures of both Titans, and some of their weapons, with Vallejo Mecha Color Gunmetal.  Then, to help my wash flow into recesses better, I sprayed all of the aforementioned pieces with Vallejo Mecha Color Gloss Varnish.

A quick word on Mecha Color Gloss Varnish: I love it.  I just cannot get enough of it.  I have struggled and struggled to find varnishes that work well.  I do not like brush on varnishes because I feel like they lay unevenly.  I do not like spray can varnishes because, as I explained in my earlier Adeptus Titanicus post, the region where I live rarely has weather that facilitates spraying anything outside.  Period.  It is always too humid or too cold.  Other airbrush varnishes are either weak or clog my airbrush so much that spraying is an exercise in frustration.

Oh, and I need a varnish because I have the ability to rub paint off of anything.  Seriously.  Varnish is my best friend.

I follow that with a wash of Nuln Oil.  I apply it all over with a big shade brush, trying to keep it from pooling, occasionally using a paper towel or cotton swab to aid me.  Then, after that is quite dry, I drybrush a layer of Necron Compound over the whole deal.

The superstructure is fairly easy.  The technique brings out details and adds some character to the "metal" parts of the model, but it is not a high level technique, and it lacks a certain amount of finesse.  If I was really trying to compete in a masterclass painting competition, I would not do it.  Fortunately for me, I am not.  It looks pretty good and saves a lot of time.

Well, that about does it for this blog entry.

I feel like every post should have a picture, and seeing as I did not log my superstructure painting, I will, once again, post a picture of my current progress on my Warlord Titan.

P.S. - I am sure you noticed that I link to Competition Minis a lot when I talk about paints.  I am not affiliated with Competition Minis, nor do I receive any sort of compensation for mentioning them here on this blog.  I simply tend to do all of my paint shopping there because they have a great selection and they are sort of local to me.  Use them, do not use them, up to you.  But I just recall from reading blogs myself that I often wonder what paints painters are using and on occasion even saying the paint name leaves ambiguity.  This way, there is none.

The Past Few Months: Adeptus Titanicus

I am still waiting for the arrival of my Warbringer Nemsis Titan, but FedEx tells me that it is "on the truck for delivery."  Of course this only makes me wish there was Sunday delivery.

While I wait, I thought that it would be good to start off with a little insight into the Adeptus Titanicus (AT2018) projects which I have been working on for the past several months. 

I really have quite a few AT2018 kits that I have been piling up in order to play what I think is the best game that Games Workshop has produced, rule wise, in quite some time.  I am probably a little biased, though, because AT2018 contains only the units I want to use, namely Titans and Knights (both mechs).  When I am playing 40k I constantly find myself fielding armies heavy on mechs (such as Imperial Knights and T'au), and the other units are frequently just sort of chaff to me.  Not that everyone should feel that way, just that I really like mechs. 

Over the summer I picked up two Grand Master edition boxes, followed up by six Reaver Titans, eight Warhounds, two Sunfury Plasma Annihilator equipped Warlords, and two boxes of Cerastus Knights.  The idea is to be able to field two full Legios, one loyalist and one traitor, so that I can dragoon friends and family into playing with me when no one else is around, or when my schedule does not permit me finding time to play outside the home (which, to date, has been pretty much the reality for me).

My loyalist Legio is still very much a work in progress.  It is a Legio of my creation - the Legio Hashmallim (Electric Angels) named after an order of Angels in Judaism responsible for, through its Greek translation "elektron," the name of electricity.  I am trying to find a suitably cyberpunk paint scheme for them that really stands out.  What I have to do is just paint some test cards and be done with it.  That, however, means airbrushing a bunch of note cards and it is just hard to get excited about doing it.  I want to get Titans on the table!

So what I have been working on is my traitor Legio - the Legio Fureans!  The Legio Fureans (Tiger Eyes) is a well establish canon Legio with a striking paint scheme.  There are a lot of other folks playing Fureans, so the Internet has a wealth of pictures to use for inspiration and guidance painting this scheme.

In order to get started I assembled and primed a Warlord Titan and a Reaver Titan, and magnetized them in order to swap their weapons.  I used Badger Stynylrez black primer run through a Badger Patriot 105 airbrush.  I do this for two reasons: 1) I like the finish it gives; and 2) priming from a rattle can is next to impossible in the Mid-Atlantic.  Seriously.  There are maybe two weeks out of the year where you can reasonably expect a good rattle can prime job here.  It is either too humid and the primer gets terribly fuzzy, or it is too cold and the primer congeals too fast. 

After the black primer, depending on the color scheme, I typically hit the miniature with a layer of Stynylrez Gray.  Usually this is at least partially zenithal (I aim the airbrush at an angle from above the miniature to hit mostly raised areas and areas that would naturally receive more light) and I try to leave recesses darker where possible.  For my two Fureans Titans I absolutely did this.  The yellow color scheme required a primer that was, at minimum, lighter than black.

Well, this has been a pretty big wall of text, so in the interests of my dinner and any potential reader actually reading this, I am going to end this here and pick up later.

In the meantime, here is a picture of my Titans in their current state: