After not rating the EpicUK Plaguehound Titans all that highly a couple of test games including one changed my mind - horrifically short-ranged guns but horrifically nasty once they get close enough!
In keeping with the highly-converted aspect of my Death Guard army and inspired by some conversions of Cryx models on the Taccoms forums I started keeping an eye out for some cheap Bonejacks to use as the chassis. Here's the first mockup, done a couple of months ago. Suitably bulky and the sculpting style is surprisingly close to the the Jes Goodwin Reaver head.
The basic idea was to make something more animalistic and to get rid of the very distinctive skull heads of the Bonejacks. The biggest design problem was how to add guns. Some searching on eBay also got me the restic Cryx starter box for £15, netting me another three Bonejacks and some other bits as well.
Fast-forward to Christmas week and I've finally had time to assemble the model above and start on the others!
First up is the assembled metal one.
Not a lot of changes from the mockup. The Dark Eldar lance gun and the tail got pins due to the excessive length compared to the size of the contact point while the head is just glued on.
The base is a 50x25mm pill shaped ply base from either Fenris or Litko, I don't remember which. This is partly due to not having enough shallow 40mm bases (40k ones are too high for Epic for my taste), partly to help protect the protruding tail and gun and partly to emphasis the long and fast look of the model.
Second, Mr Tentacles. This is the first of the restic models and the first time I've worked with that particular material mix. Although as a material it's OK, it's not really strong enough for the thinness of the lower legs, the models will be relatively fragile because of this.
The tail is a tongue from a Carnifex, the head tentacles are from a plastic Spore Mine and the tusks are left over from one of the conversions down the page.
The gun solution here is a pair of gimbal-mounted rotary cannon. The cannon are leftovers from the GZG spider drones that were used as the basis for the Defilers mounted on balls cut from a Space Marine backpack. These were pinned with a single piece of wire going straight through the ball and into the body. Thanks to the thin nature of the cannon this took some concentration.
A pair of tentacle 'arms' were added later. Note the Nautilus-style eyeball at the base of the main tentacle group.
Third up is Blip the Teleporturtle. Partly because it's fun, partly to get way from having three models with absolutely identical leg positions and a fourth very similar metal one...
'Dontcha luv his little waggy tail?'
Track units from a chopped up Land Raider (some detailing still needs to be added to the outside faces), tentacles from the Genestealer and a gun made from the lower jaw of the metal Bonejack head plus a Necron bit on the end. Unfortunately I messed up the position of the holes when pinning the gun to the body and it's tilted down further than planned. I might have to bend it up and fill in underneath.
Fourth, the Jurassic-pattern Warhound/Plaguehound. The tail is a Mawloc tongue (I think?) bent into shape, a Chaos Terminator head (the horns on Mr. Tentacle were from this), head-guns from Land Raider sponsons and some small tentacle arms to add to the Velociraptor feel.
On the subject of tails, the vestigial stumps on the unconverted Bonejacks really perplex me. The whole design of the model cries out for a counterbalancing tail and I think it adds a huge amount of dynamism to the design so I can't see why they were left off. Maybe it was a production/gameplay issue of not wanting to have a long piece sticking out the back.
To reinforce the Velociraptor effect even more, I replaced the tentacle arms with some of the tiny arms from a DE Talos and added the tentacles to Mr. Tentacles instead.
'Ach Bjorn, run, it's the Titan-sized Velociraptor!'
A couple more shots showing the actual Terminator head. This one feels a bit under-gunned compared to the others but the amount of menace makes up for it.
Fifth (yes, the fifth of four models) is one of the 'spare' models in the starter, a full size Warjack. The model in the middle here:
Unfortunately the legs are massively undersized (my biggest single gripe with Warmachine aesthetics) and I'm not a massive fan of the arms either. :-(
However, with a bit of lateral thinking and inspired by the Steam Gargant, how about tracks instead of legs? Here's the very rough mockup for a Warlord-equivalent.
The torso is tilted back about 30˚ from the standard pose and the arms will be replaced with a big double-hardpoint on each side. The more finished mockup of the gun mount is the left shoulder which will have the big Nid gun fixed permanently in place and then a magnet in the middle of the top panel so that more guns can be added at a later stage. The 'head' is from a Talos and I thought it made a good representation of the Plaguelord's Plague Maw and Plague Claw.
With a Warhound for scale.
The bottom half of the model still needs a lot of work firming up the design but is likely to use some of Zinge's new tri-track units:
Anyway, quite a bit of design work still to go on that one.
One reason for the magnets on the Warlord-equivalent is that I've now got so many Titan-like models I can run a small Titan Legion force! In which case swappable weapons on top of the shoulder mounts to represent the carapace mounts will be really handy.
A Warlord and six Warhounds is about 2800 points under the new EpicUK AMTL list but unfortunately wouldn't be possible under the NetEA list as that would require a second Battle Titan to run that many Warhounds.
The deadline for getting some of these base-coloured is the Exeter Inquisition's next combined Epic and Apocalypse day on Saturday 4th January, which is getting pretty close...
Ian
