Unboxing: Cult Mechanicus Kastelan Robots

From ancient Mars...

After all the excited Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii releases, it was hard to believe that the following Cult Mechanicus models would be able to live up to them. Fortunately for everyone, they largely did, with the fantastic tech-priest dominus and the tracked Kataphron Destroyers. The first kit released for the Cult Mechanicus, despite being just as visually striking as the others, has received a lot of mixed opinions in the community. I am speaking, of course, of the 50’s era Kastelan Robots.  I could not resist getting a box to play around with and to see the models first hand.

Iron Sleet Invitational: Thorian Inquisitor WIP

Innocence proves nothing.

Having largely finished the first inquisitor and his accompanying security officer, I have begun to work on the last model for the Invitational, a second inquisitor.  I wanted this inquisitor to be less cautious about his identity as an inquisitor, instead of wearing run-of-the-mill fatigues and overcoats, he would be wearing a custom suit of power armor.  Despite a more brazen appearance, I wanted to ensure the model still had a reserved quality, giving no indication towards his placement along the thin line of radicalism.

Imperator Rex: the Imperial Knight Reveal!

Victory does not always rest with the big guns; but if we rest in front of them we shall be lost.

Apocalypse passed by without me giving it so much as a second thought, despite Games Workshop’s hope it would crash into my life with the full fury of a Lucius Pattern Warhound titan kicking aside some wave serpents.  While the two models they released for Apocalypse (Lord of Skulls, and the Tesseract Vault) look excellent, the $160 price tag was hard to swallow.  And when I only get to play a game of 40k every few months, I would rather play a standard game and try to fine tune a list, as opposed to playing something filled with crazy world-ending monstrosities that are imbalanced and liable to make the game one-sided. Games Workshop was obviously unsatisfied with the sales of Apocalypse, because they quickly followed it up with Escalation, allowing the imbalanced Lords of War to be taken in regular games of 40,000.  Even with this release, I was still unmoved.  Honestly, Dreamforge Games got closer to convincing me to try out these rulesets when they released their Leviathan Crusader, than Games Workshop did with any of their efforts.  And while I bought and assembled a Leviathan Crusader, I never tried out either of the rulesets, as one titan does not make for a good game of Escalation or Apocalypse.  It looks like this is about to change, however, as last week images leaked revealing that Games Workshop is finally bringing titans out of Epic 40,000 and into Warhammer 40,000.

Leviathan Crusader Complete: Apocalypse and beyond!

The Crusader is finished, ready for Apocalypse!

Seeing that Apocalypse is coming to 6th edition Warhammer 40k, it seemed an excellent time to put the finishing touches on the Leviathan Crusader I have been slowly working on for the last few months.  Although I largely completed the model in my last post, I never decided on a final pose, or assembled the left hand vulcan cannon arm that was given for free as a part of the kickstarter.

Leviathan Crusader: Assembling the arms

By the manner of their deaths we shall know them.

I thought I would update you all on my progress with the Crusader.  After last post, I figured I would only have one more entry about the Crusader, showing the completed Crusader, arms and all.  The last few weeks have not afforded me much hobby time however, and the arms took much longer than I had initially anticipated (the belt of the assault cannon was particularly daunting...).  I have finally finished both the sword arm and the first vulcan cannon, and wanted to show and tell you my thoughts on them.

Leviathan Crusader: Assembling the body

Armless, but still imposing.

Having finished building the legs, instead of going on to assemble the arms as the instructions suggested, I decided I wanted to finish the core of the titan.  Since the arms can easily be swapped at any time, I wanted to see the actual body of the crusader come together, and then decide on how to arm it afterwards.

When assembling the pelvis/spine region of the body, you put three ball joints on the titan (one for each leg and one for the spinal column).  These fit on so tightly that glue is not necessary, and I would actually recommend not using it at all.  You need to apply a huge amount of pressure to get the balls to slide in completely, and if you apply glue it might set before they are completely in position.  Even without glue, when you put them on they are not coming back off, so make sure you are committed when applying them.  After attaching them, I did apply some super thin cement (something I really recommend if you are starting to build such a large plastic kit, because it can easily be applied after you have fitted pieces together and are certain they are attached properly).  

Leviathan Crusader: Assembling the legs

The legs are done!

It has been a bit over a week since I received the impressive Leviathan from DreamForge, and I wanted to let you all know how the assembly has been going and impart a few suggestions for any of you who may be envisioning owning one in the future!

The legs are the probably the most complex part of the kit, and it is what you start assembling first (if you follow their nicely illustrated instructions), so it can be a little bit daunting.  There are a lot of parts (many that you are not to glue), pistons, joints and armour plates, but luckily they all fit flushly together and layer on top of each other easily.  Because of all the parts and the points of articulation, I took my time carefully trimming and sanding the pieces before dry  fitting all of them.  This allowed me to get more familiar with the model and how each part was intended to function, before gluing anything down.  There are a few minor errors in the instructions for the feet (which have been corrected and posted on their blog), but because the sprues are arranged by letter and have all the relevant pieces together, it is easy to find everything that you need.

DreamForge Plastic Leviathan Crusader: Initial Impressions

I first heard about the miniatures of DreamForge Games a little over a year ago on the wonderful gaming blog The Eye of Error.  He had gotten ahold of one of their Leviathan Mortis resin kits.  I was intrigued by the kit and felt it could easily serve as a Knight class titan or function as a suitable stand-in for a Warhound.  The limited production runs and high price tag (close to that of Forge World’s Warhound titan) of the DreamForge kits made purchasing one infeasible for me, however.

That all changed late last year when DreamForge began a Kickstarter campaign to produce the Crusader variant of the Leviathan in plastic for under $100.  They easily exceeded their $30,000 goal, reaching an impressive $205,971. This gave them the resources to make the Mortis variant in plastic as well, along with a host of alternative weapon options.  I jumped at the chance to get another titan for Apocalypse-style games (when one titan goes to war, it needs another to oppose it!).

I had been receiving steady updates over the last two months about the production and eventual shipment of all of the Crusader kits from China.  Last week I got word that they were finally being shipped to the Kickstarter backers and I got a UPS tracking number.   I am excited to say that the kit arrived in the mail today!  This is going to be the first post in a series chronicling my assembly of the Crusader.  In this first post, I am going to talk a bit about my initial impressions of the kit.