Warhounds 2 Warmasters

Returning to doing some hobby after a hiatus from painting Titans that was largely caused by my somehow managing to prolapse (awful word) 2 discs in my neck has had me spoiled for choices.

With time ticking and Beachhead 2025 looming, I started to Theoryhammer some lists and approaches I might take. These lists ranged from ‘Strong yet Thematic’ through ‘Mildly Beardy’ and all the way over into ‘Seriously? You Absolute *$#&%!!!’.

The Theoryhammering, the selection process and all of that associated nerdiness will form a separate article – part of a Road to Beachhead series which may or may not have some new contributors lend their voices to the discordant choir of my own cracked-warble, we’ll see.

Skipping to the end, I decided I’d build and paint several lists at once because I hadn’t done anything bonkers in a few months.

One of those lists is for Legio Damicium and comprises three Warlord Titans and two Warhound Titans. Yay.

So Legio Damicium, eh? I’ve played against Damicium exactly twice in my Titanicus career. The first time was at a narrative event in Wycombe and I cannot recall having noted anything specific about them. The second time was my final opponent of Beachhead 2024 and this was a VERY different story. The ability to downgrade critical damage with the armour, to ignore a critical effect with the trait, the improved Command Values – this was a Legio I definitely wanted to consider much more closely as a contender.

As far as I’m concerned, there are two ways to approach Damicium’s rules (obviously there are a lot more, but I’m a simple creature and stating two and then illustrating them is better for establishing polar points) and these can be summarised in handy one-word terms: ‘Big’ or ‘Smol’:

Big

Going Big means Warlords and lots of them.

The aim here is to really, really lean into the paramount degree of tankiness that the Damicium tool-kit offers and try to keep as much of your force still standing all the way through to the end of the game.

Having close to your full force still alive and functional in the closing turn can often mean you are scoring objectives for yourself (or denying an opponent’s objective) by default.

Taking some of the mental strain from playing an objective away means you can devote more brain-heat to shouting Engine-Kill and this can only be a good thing.

A standard 2000points list (or an oddly pointed 1950 points list, as is the case for BH2025) can comfortably fit 3 Warlord Titans and then include some Warhounds or Banners of Knights to provide some mobility and board presence.

This translates to two very strong options:

Extergimus with three Warlords and two Warhounds

Or

Regia with two Warlords, two Warhounds and one Support Warlord

Seeing as these both use the same engines, I can cover off how I’d play them and which I’ve settled on for BH25 (if I do settle on running Damicium) and simply focus on the builds and the painting here. Yay.

Smol

Going Smol means Warhounds with a couple of Reavers.

Leveraging the added survivability afforded by the Reinforced Plating upgrade.

This wargear is top tier quality, reducing the first Critical hit received to a Devastating hit. This is huge – it means that a Vortex Missile hit or even a Psi Titan cannot kill a Damicium Warhound with one shot of the Sinistramus – something that no other Legio can offer to all of it’s Warhounds!

Adding +1 to your Command rolls as long as you have sight of an enemy Titan of equal or Larger Scale is huge for a Warhound heavy list.

Being able to repair Critical Damage on a 4+ roll is also significant for a list fielding so many engines with two servitor clades.

The Arty Side of Things

I wanted my Damicium to have a different armour pattern to really sell the Reinforced Plating – also – I’ve done dozens of Mars Patterns at this point and very much enjoyed the notion of some variety.

I roved the internet and considered some fairly outlandish options before eventually settling on the Isurus Pattern, available via those legends over at Battlebling.

The armour panels provide a different presentation of the same chassis and they have been a dream to paint.

As I am several muffins short of a bakery order, I decided to do another Legio painted after full assembly. I had two Warlord Rescue projects that I’d snagged from Ebay as they were inside my ‘Buy Them for Later’ price banding. I decided to just buy two more Warlords as new kits as I hadn’t built one in a month or two and missed building them.

I wanted the weapons to stand out a bit and so a thorough perusal of the Battlebling stores was held. As I was already sporting Bling Armour plates and Weapons, I figured I should probably commit to the bit and just go in fully and so I grabbed several bases to complete the look.

After cutting, sawing and peeling the Rescue Warlord’s panels off of them, I was assembled the two new kits and eventually got to a place where I had three poses I was happy with and one that I have relegated to the ‘Problems for Later-Jay’ pile.

Once the armour plates were in position, I built two Tourney Pattern Hounds and primed the lot with Chaos Black.

One of the less fun side-effects of having issues with discs in your spine is the potential for nerve damage. I initially lost feeling and a lot of control of my right hand – which definitely impacts my ability to build and paint titans – but after the first procedure I had regained enough control in my right hand to get by. The persistently useless digit is my right thumb, which had previously been one of my top three digits, leaving my brushwork impacted enough to make me pout and generally complain to anyone within earshot at least once an hour.

Accounting for this inconvenience, it was already decided then that these Titans would be largely airbrushed – which would be the second time I had attempted to use the still-seemingly magic of this tool. I had looked over all of the pictures I could find of other player’s Damicium and they were all gorgeous BUT they were also all purple. When I looked at the plates Damicium looked a lot more violet/magenta to me and I even called in the unquestionable eyeball for colour that is LSW and had her opine, Violet/Magenta it was.

I attempted a few test panels, intending to do a metallic base and glaze up violet until I was happy but as soon as the purpled hues began to get where I wanted them, the metallic was lost. Bugger.

I eventually found a scheme I was happy with and that was achieved as follows:

I primed the Titans with GW Black. I’ve tried a good dozen alternative black sprays at this point and not a one of them comes close to the consistency and finish of this primer – I’ll eat the cost to start my projects from a good position.

From the primed black I slowly worked up thin layers of Acryl Pro Signature Green Brown for all of the shoulder/carapace and head panels. Once these where dry, I layered up a thinned White/Yellow from Pro Acryl called… something? I can’t remember. It smells like banana and tastes like sadness. This finishes much more white than I was anticipating, so I blended the edges up to the trim with a weak Agrax mix.

I had originally intended to have these Titans as completely battered and weathered with Rust and Corrosion effects but… no one ever does clean Damicium so I decided to keep this to a minimum.

For the remaining torso, arm, groin and leg panels I started with Scale 75 Sunset Purple. I layered over this with Pro Acryl Purple followed by Pro Acryl Magenta before finally pulling these all together with a thinned down Violet Ink glaze.

Given my relative dysfunction with my brush-hand, I was very pleased with the panelling at this point and opted to save my progress – applying a Gloss Varnish through the airbrush before moving onto the Trim.

For the Trim, I decided to punish myself for some unspecified past deed. I started out with AK Gun Metal and once this was in place and dry, I targeted Rust Effect over bolts and joins and in some choice areas and when that was dry, I went back and highlighted with AK Silver. In hindsight, I wish I’d tried dropping a thin blue wash over the Gun Metal and then highlighting over that before applying some rust and tarnishing and then applying a final highlight. Ah well, next time.I decided that I’d go for glowing greens for face lenses – feeling it would stand proud of the brilliance of the plating.

For the weapons, I tried to have an attempt as some basic lighting and barrel burn – to varying degrees of success.After spending that much time, effort and cash on these guys, I felt they deserved name-plates and so I put in an order with ‘Them That Bling’ and had base plates and terminal plates made – they really finish out a force and go that little extra distance for me.