Warhounds 2 Warmasters

Another blog, another Legio.

My last attempt to create a decent-looking, competitive maniple/force was less than successful. I’m happy enough with the aesthetic direction – it’s difficult to be upset with warm yellows and black flames if you live inside my head – but for playstyle… I forget to use the Fureans only Strat: Offensive Surge, I am too cautious with reactors to get much mileage from ‘failed’ awakened machine spirit free-shots and I will not shed a tear if I never play as/against a Corsair maniple ever again.

So what to do?

I’ve ummed, ahhhhed and hmmmed for a bit and decided to split my time between getting the Solaria force table-ready AND engaging in my fantasy project, my Big Bastard Dream, my ‘This List Will Kill Things’, my Vulcanum.

Taking to heart the lessons of Fureans, I don’t do well with ‘active’ abilities. It’s also true for me in a lot of games and systems – I am more likely to succeed with a Fighter than a Barbarian due to the rage mechanics, gimme them sweet-sweet passives. With this in mind, I want an ‘always on’ effect so I just have to learn that that is what X titan does. Bonus points if I can limit the variety of titans to 2, and preferably without Reavers.

Before I cover off the ‘plan’ with the maniple, I’ll go over a couple of Vulcanum points – lorewise and ruleswise.

Vulcanum is actually two Legios working in concert (competition) with one another. They are themed around Janus (2 faced God) and the word ‘twin’ features front and centre. They have one key upgrade I am interested in ‘Twinned Machine Spirit’ – this allows you, when purchased on two separate titans, to squadron these titans – which normally can’t – even outside of/across maniples. That opens up shield sharing tricks and co-ordinated strikes: the main element of Warhounds that I love 🙂 *Evil grin intensifies*

This does mean that Vulcanum play differently to anything I’ve played to date – very few activations. High Risk/High Reward? I hope so.

There are very, very few examples of Vulcanum paint schemes I could find – they are almost all black with gold trim and then either a deep green or a green blue accent colour, usually used VERY sparingly. They appear grim and a touch oppressive, with a few minor changes on interpreting this scheme… I think I like them.

I’ve been signed off of work for a week due to a persistent chest infection (having impaired lung function from pneumonia does mean I am more at risk from any respiratory illness), which will no doubt having me climbing the walls in frustration, wondering what I am missing and falling behind with. I have a veritable stack or work-related reading that needed catching up on anyway, so I can keep down stress from missing the time with this, somewhat.

Still, this leaves me with a LOT of resting time, and I learned how to paint laying down YEARS ago. I can’t do complicated or involved actions, but I can trundle out steady process on an impressive amount of models when I’m otherwise laid up. For those hours in which I am upright, I figure I should learn something new… like finding a way to paint marble with a brush 🙂

I’m aware of the rattlecan/airspray over dried and stretched baby wipes method – I won’t be going that route because:

A: The weather is wet and not great for spraying

B: I remain stubborn in my refusal to unpack and use the trashy airbrush I bought a few years ago

C: I don’t wish to cause or contribute towards an epidemic of nappy-rash by taking all of the little-one’s butt napkins. Life will be hard enough for them soon enough once they learn to comprehend their surroundings and see what a hash their forebears have made of things

I watched a few videos and asked around – nothing really grabbed me. I even thought to try to find the old GW article on it (the issue where they first released Asdrubael Vect for the dark elder I think… pretty sure there was a Chaos Lord ‘eavy metal painting competition in the same issue… I may be misremembering) but ultimately, I decided to just start trying things – I have files to reprint armour panels if I REALLY screw things up 🙂

I took one of my 2 remaining ‘Rescue Warlords’ from the Box of Potential and set about blacking every panel. Black Legion contrast is a godsend. Once done, I grabbed a small, rounded sponge that was hanging around from the last time my wife had encountered painting supplies whist out foraging and had a ‘These might be relevant to his interests’ side-quest pop up and bundled them in with the other foragables.

Incubi Darkness to Dark Reaper to Kabalite Green sponging followed. Some small areas of black were selectively sponged over, followed by a few selective areas of Sons of Horus green. Once almost dry, a 50/50 coelia green shade/medium mix was ran over the panels. Twice. After this, watered down Celestra Grey was blobbily used to introduce round-headed lines through the building colours. Coelia mix again. White Scar lining running through the blurred grey areas and 3 successive 25/75 Coelia/Medium washes to follow. I then very selectively added a few blushes of heavily watered down Kabalite green to bring a out a few areas and to combat the increasing glossing of the plates.

I will do some limited grey ‘flicking’ of paint in a corner for each panel and possible a very limited reapplication of some black. But otherwise, for a first attempt I am not displeased.

As to the force itself – I’m building it to work from 1750 upwards and see it as a very swingy list – it’s not dissimilar to an Ignatum list I saw at the Bristol event recently – with the important dustinction of added bastadry, Vulcanum-flavoured.

At 1750, what I am putting together is an Extermigus maniple with a Direwolf (Neutron laser) in the Aux titan slot. All of the titans will have Twinned Machine Spirit – giving me two Warlords in the first activation and a Warlord and Direwolf for the second activation. Anything that is fired upon by either of those squadrons is either dead, crippled or an exceptionally lucky critter.

I’ll have to make use of the ‘Titan Hunter Infantry’ strat to give myself further activations and some extra shield-plinking and I’m considering Battlefield Assets for the first time – I saw an Apocalypse Missile pod asset used to decent effect at the weekend, it’s something I would like to test. At 2000, I simply add in a Lancer Lord Scion and two Martials, giving a further activation and a less squishy melee-threat. The guns I’m using will be different to my normal – I don’t see the need for Belicosa when I can use the Extergimus trait to add +2 strength and throw Str 11 Quake pie plates down table. Sunfury Plasmas in Maximal with Extergimus and Co ordinated strikes is going to be absolutely ruinous.

Updates to Follow

Three Warlords, 3 Days

UPDATE

It’s January 2023 and I’ve just recovered (mostly) from another fine bout of covid. Yum. As I reviewed my blogs and projects of the last year, it became apparent I missed a great many updates and have rather a lot of titans that haven’t been mentioned – my Vulcanum Direwolf Servant of Aon being a case in point.

I have had name-plates arrive for all of my Vulcanum that are painted – they will be painted and added shortly – and have a new project underway to expand the Marble-clad Madness.

Kicking off the Events for 2023 is a local event being run by my OG opponent, James, called ‘Frozen Voids’. I’m technically helping a bit with this one (providing review of the packs, the event name and making the trophies) but the real work and organisation is wholly James’ – as is the credit.

Here is an early sneak peak at the soon-to-be repurposed titans from my rescue/abandoned projects pile (and a straight up