The arms race continues...
Ferrum Dominus
My trusty Reaver titan Ferrum Dominus will always be special as it's the first titan I completed. At the time, it felt like a huge milestone and a massive uplift in the quality of my larger projects. You could say it laid the groundwork for Ira Metallum and other ambitious projects.
The sad fact is that Ferrum Dominus was never very effective at titan walks because he was equipped with a gatling blaster, laser blaster and apocalypse missile launcher. These weapons are great at shield stripping, but none were really able to deliver a killing blow. I did make a custom laser blaster turret for the carapace a few years ago, but even that was lacklustre in practice.
When Forgeworld released a conversion beam cannon for the Adeptus Titanicus range, I knew I had to make one for Ferrum Dominus - aesthetically it would fit better with my Reaver and would give him some much needed engine killing punch. This paid off in a big way at the 2025 Titan Walk in October, but I'll get to that!
While I was working on my Reaver's armaments, I decided to overhaul the base and update the paint scheme to bring it in line with my other engines. I'll run through all of these including some maintenance on one of my Warhounds and finish off with some images from the TOC Walk 2025...
Base upgrade
The base of my Reaver titan was originally made from two thick sheets of Styrene and over time had warped up at the edges like a banana making it a bit unstable! I didn't want to make a new base as I was really pleased with how this one looked (plus my AT scale version has the same base!).
I decided that he needed a thicker solid base which wouldn't warp and would make him much more stable. My plan was to reinforce the existing base while keeping all of the existing detail as is. I also wanted to update the base details by adding some Secutarii - I intend to do this on all of my engine's bases as I deliberately left space for them, but just never got round to it!
I started by cutting a thick MDF base with a jigsaw, then screwing and gluing it under the existing base, keeping the shape as close as possible. I intentionally went up through the base and into the bottom of the Reaver's feet to add even more stability.
Next I used and ungodly amount of car body filler and Millupit to fill the large gaps between the MDF and plastic base topper. I think you can tell how much the base had warped just by looking at the amount of filling required. It was then sanded smooth around the edges and blacked out.
Finally I painted up some Skitarii and added them to the base behind the defence line.
A little freshen up
It has always rankled slightly that people mistake my Reaver for Legio Ignatum rather than Metalica because of his yellow hazard stripes. These were supposed to be a throw-back to the original Legio Metalica Reaver Titan Battle Group which has always been my favourite depiction of these engines.
Back then, the paint schemes were a little less distinct and as Legio Metalica has changed to mainly black and white hazards, I decided that the yellow ones on my engines would actually represent a nod to their House Raven allies and as such, when painting my Warhounds and Imperator, incorporated the thin white separating stripes into the hazards of their armour.
And so, for a number of years I've been meaning to go back and update Ferrum Dominus to bring him in line with his maniple mates. As I was already working on the base and a new carapace weapon, it seemed like the perfect time! I masked off all of the black striped areas then carefully painted on the white (actually, it's Celestra followed by Ulthuan grey) before re-matching the existing weathering for consistency.
Making a Hunter into a Killer
As previously mentioned, I was keen to make my Reaver more effective by making him a carapace mounted Conversion beam cannon. After toying with using an Acastus knight version, I just fully committed to the madness and started making one from scratch!
I started work by measuring the component lengths from the AT scale miniature so that I could scale it up to 28mm. Once I had the barrel length, I began constructing them - luckily I had a spare dish nozzle from my Acastus knights although I'd lost my other spare. Thankfully, Princeps Siph Horridus from the Weemen Blog came to the rescue and sent me a spare he had knocking about! I know it's only a small part, but it's actually quite complicated and would have taken a while to replicate.
Keeping both weapon barrels straight was tricky, but I managed it by drilling a hole through all of the components and pushing a metal rod through, keeping the multiple components in line.
In order to keep the depth of the barrel discs consistent, I used a lot of plastic washers when I keep in various sizes. Perfect circles are hard to reproduce so this was another great time saver!
C-Beam weapons are definitely some of the most complex to build - I've now made several of them from scratch and although satisfying, I don't have a burning desire to make any more in the immediate future! :D
I blocked out the shape of the weapon base and tested to ensure a good fit with the carapace socket, then gap filled and sanded it nice and smooth so it would turn nicely on the carapace.
Next up was the power plant at the rear of the weapon. Again I used the Acastus knight version of the weapon as a guide to replicate the miniature at 28mm scale. My version is a loose hybrid of the Acastus weapon and the AT scale miniature as I had to make a few small concessions to make everything fit.
The Reaver carapace version I was creating actually needed to be slightly wider than the Acastus version although it was helpful to have the Knight version handy for comparison.
The springy looking hoses / pipes are synonymous with C-beam weapons, but they are a major pain in the pinny to replicate!
The Barrel supports came next and they were very fragile while under construction...
The support struts were made very slowly with precision and care, slowly whittling down key areas from different thicknesses of styrene layered together. It felt like a lifetime, but I managed to get them to match the proportions of the AT scale versions with the detailing of the Acastus scale.
Finally attaching the barrels to the support struts was a major relief as it made handling (and not snapping) any of the fragile components much easier! Another stroke of luck was the fact that I never used the C-beam grills from my first Asterius (Quake Hydra from the Court of the Fisher King), so these were repurposed. I'm actually super glad I didn't have to make them from scratch as they're so thin, I could see me losing my mind over snapped grill plates very quickly!
I used some stacked acrylic shapes I had to make the forward section of the weapon body giving me the final piece of the main structure.
Now all I had left to do was fill and sand the body before creating the large armour plate for the top of the turret. I started by mapping out the design on graph paper, reinforcing it with masking tape then cutting it out. The template ended up looking rather satisfyingly like a manta ray!
Once I had finished making adjustments to the template, I laid it over a sheet of aluminium, marked and cut out the basic shape. Note that I also sanded the aluminium thoroughly firs to ensure the surface was keyed to accept filler, putty and glue. I carefully bent the plate into shape then coated it with an initial layer of putty before re-checking the fit.
What followed was a lot of sanding, filling and repeating until I had the plate nice and smooth...
The next steps were adding trim and other details, then yet more sanding and filling.
At this point I could see see the turret coming together and was getting quite excited to see it finished!
Repairing some battle damage
I just wanted to quickly mention the repair work I carried out on my Warhound Fulgur Manus. When I originally built him in a running pose, I thought the ridiculous amount of metal I'd added to the leg attached to the base would be sufficient to prevent him from leaning. I was wrong. It turns out that gravity is a cruel master. In addition to this, the cold temperatures in the garage where my titan crates are stored also caused the epoxy glue to fail at the hips.
My solution was to clean up the hips, re-pin them with new epoxy and add a clear acrylic rod to support the hip not connected through the leg to the base. I didn't particularly want to do this, but the reality is that I wanted a Warhound not prone to self destruct more!
I drilled a 10mm hole right up through the base, pushed the rod through, then used a metal plate underneath the base to prevent it from pushing through.
I have to admit that this makes the model so much more stable and it no longer leans at all. The clear acrylic rod actually doesn't show up the much, so I'm happy with the compromise!
Titan Owners Club Walk 2025
Finally I just wanted to share a few pictures from the Titan Owner's Club Walk 2025. It was another great event and the first I've attended for a while - this year though, I had a very worthy opponent to face off against in the form of Imperator Titan Magna Belifica.
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| My Engines and my friend's Eldar waiting for their bulk carrier to ferry them into battle... |
This was Ira Metallum's first outing against another Emperor class titan and boy was it scary being on the receiving end of a Starshatter Plasma Cannon! Even though Magna atomised both of my Warhounds in the first turn of the game, Ira returned fire with every available weapon system, bleeding the enemy engine of all its shields as well as inflicting significant critical damage.
Ira was eventually also brought low with combined fire from multiple engines, but her sacred chassis will be retrieved and repaired! All in all, this was an absolutely brilliant game, with my main opponent David O. being a great sport!
One of my favourite parts of the Walk was being able to deploy not only all 5 of my Titans, but all of my painted House Raven Knights as well! There's a sneak peak of my new House Raven Asterius if you look closely - I'll share some better images at a later date as well as some shots of the 3 Cerastus Knight Lancers I'm currently working on.
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| 'Charge of the Knight brigade.' Aaron's Astorum aligned Knights bravely charged the Imperator's shins causing some damage, but were ultimately annihilated when the huge engine detonated... |
In addition to my own engines, I've also been working on a few other projects which I'm sure I'll finally be able to share in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled!
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