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Project Jubilee (a.k.a. Leander, 54mm Warhound Titan)

Started by MarcoSkoll, January 23, 2012, 08:30:28 PM

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MarcoSkoll

Hello gents. Project Jubilee was supposed to be my headline event at both the last IGT and the Autumn Conclave, but supply problems, engineering issues, having to redo huge chunks that didn't work out the first time around (or which simply weren't "right") and general procrastination put paid to that.

But having been started it over a year ago now, I'm reduced to looking at the various parts and lacking motivation.

I find sharing things does help my motivation, but I've been reluctant to do it for this because it was supposed to be something of a surprise (although not a very well kept one, as it's now common knowledge to our Dark Heresy group, and I know not all of them kept their trap shut) – however, it's probably going to take another year or more if I don't find some more motivation.

And here's hoping you guys can get me motivated enough to continue and actually get it done in time for the coming IGT (now less than 10 weeks). So, Project Jubilee*:



Sorry, it's an old photo, but the lighting isn't good enough to get a decent picture of what few changes I've made since.

The three things to note are;

1) The upper legs do exist in a framework form, but they weren't practical to pose for this.

2) The reactors are place holders cut from scrap packaging polystyrene (fortunately I did do a test run, as it turns out my dimensions were too narrow). They need to be done again out of extruded polystyrene. If anyone has a decent recommendation for where to buy it without picking up a massive slab from the local builder's merchants, I'd be glad, as the last time I bought it online was soooo long ago the webstore has gone out of business.

3) The shin plates won't sit that low on the final model, but their supports still needed building at that point.

*So called after the Jubilee locomotives of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. This one will be borrowing its name from Leander, the first locomotive I ever travelled behind.
Maybe not very Titan-ish, but when you build your own 54mm Warhound, you can call it what you want.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Tessio Niri

Wow looking good so far.

Beats my dreader anyday

T.
"There is but one God and his name is the Omnissiah. How his hunger extinguishes that light of the stars." Magos Belion Tygrosa

Mordenkenain

54mm.........War...hound......titan

<sits in a corner rocking back and forth while gibbering quietly>

on a more serious note, it looks good so far, very true to the 28mm design (and I'm sorry if I misremembered which titan was which, I think that's a warhound, yes)
Bonis Nocet Quisquis Malis Pepercit

RobSkib

Holy smokes! It really is big isn't it! I really hope you have the motivation to see this project through to the finish. It'll be absolutely incredible.
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

MarcoSkoll

#4
Yes, it really is big.

It's one thing to throw about numbers like it being 18" tall (although that varies with pose, as all the joints are articulated) or have the 1:1 blueprints, but when it's actually in three dimensions on the table in front of you, you are left in no doubt about why they're called Titans.

It does however leave you wondering what the people who say they should be bigger are smoking. This is a baby Titan as they go, but take a model's eye view, and you wouldn't begrudge them a change of underwear:



~~~~~

Anyway, I figure I should actually explain the reason for this beyond "because I can".

It started when sometime after the 2009 IGT when I doubted that many people had noticed that what is supposed to be the flagship event for Inquisitor was going on in the same hall as them.
And that's a shame. The event doesn't promote Inquisitor if it's barely noticed.

So, I decided I needed to think of a way people would notice. I don't know at what point that idea turned into this, but I've had a general love of the Mars Pattern Warhound for a long time.
But, having no use for a 40k scale one, as I don't play Apocalypse (anyway, my 40k army is Eldar), there was little reason to build or buy one. I play more Inquisitor than I do 40k, and there are at least some excuses to include one of the God-Machines as part of an Inquisitor scenario, so it resulted in what you see here.

Basically, it's the end result of a love of the Mars Warhound and a desire to do something really noticeable for Inquisitor.
That does simplify it a bit, as it was originally also intended to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Inquisitor (part of the reasoning behind the Jubilee name), but that's a little late now. Well, it can help celebrate the 5th GT instead.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Dolnikan

It's just immense.

It must be one of the most insane projects ever undertaken for Inquisitor, and that means something. |If this thing doesn't draw attention I don't know what will.
Circles of the wise My attempt at writing something, please comment on it if you have any advise.

axiom

Immense modelling so far, both in terms of execution and scale. I wish you every luck in completing this mammoth project; it will look fantastic!

Trasher

WOW!  :o :o ??? :o :o ??? ??? ??? :o :o :o :o That is all.



No, wait, this model deserves more. That's an awesome piece! I see you're using wood, that's because plasticard isn't stable/strong enough, right? Seeing how thorough you've been with other projects I can't see anything else than this becoming a very precise copy of a warhound. What are you going to arm it with? PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES?! ;D ;D ;D
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MarcoSkoll

#8
Quote from: Trasher on January 24, 2012, 10:11:23 AMI see you're using wood, that's because plasticard isn't stable/strong enough, right?
The balsa is down to two reasons.

Firstly, balsa is a tenth of the density of plasticard. So, if I need a thick wall or so, it's actually far more weight efficient to use balsa than to try and build an equivalently rigid piece out of plasticard.
In some cases, where I'm expecting to have to glue a lot of details later, things like the side walls in the upper body are balsa faced with thin plasticard (as gluing to plasticard can be accomplished more quickly than to balsa).

Secondly, it's far quicker and easier. Using a solid piece of balsa is one piece to cut to shape, not 10 different pieces that then all need gluing together.

Both are important points, but the weight one was the main decision. It's a tall model, and I need to keep the centre of gravity way down. Which is why the upper body is mostly balsa and thin plasticard, but the legs make extensive use of copper pipe, slabs of PVC, the thickest plasticard I could get my hands on, steel and milliput impregnated with lead shot.

The latter is what the toes are made from, although mostly covered over with regular milliput. While not quite as dense as solid lead, it's not far off the weight as if these parts were solid steel.

QuoteWhat are you going to arm it with?
I'm going with what's considered the standard Mars Pattern loadout, the Vulcan Mega-Bolter and Plasma Blastgun.

I had originally considered doing interchangeable weapons, but it would have made the LED lighting almost impossible to wire. Not to mention that there's no need to be able to optimise the weapons loadout for Inquisitor - any one of the weapons could comfortably cause whatever havoc my scenario needs it to.
The issue is more going to be stop it instantly killing player characters the moment it takes a dislike to them - I expect the solution will involve some sort of inverse relationship between accuracy and character importance.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

biggreengribbly

I'd imagine the footprint within which the guns cannot traverse would be a fair percentage of a 4x4 table,.

... does that rule even exist in post-Apocalypse 40k?

Also if you're going to the effort of wiring it up for light, are you going to motorise the Mega Bolter barrels?  ;D

RobSkib

Quote from: biggreengribbly on January 24, 2012, 02:11:03 PMAlso if you're going to the effort of wiring it up for light, are you going to motorise the Mega Bolter barrels? 

Remote controlled Nerf guns. If you can't manage this Marco, you're not the man I thought you were ;)
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

MarcoSkoll

#11
Quote from: biggreengribbly on January 24, 2012, 02:11:03 PMDoes that rule even exist in post-Apocalypse 40k?
Only for carapace mounted weapons. Arm weapons have no minimum range.
Mind you, if you're close enough that the arm weapons can't point at you, you then have to start worrying about the fact it weighs more than 400 tonnes.

In practice, I'm going to have to be a little liberal about the exact range of its weapons traverse (else it would only be a threat to things above ground level on an average board).

QuoteAlso if you're going to the effort of wiring it up for light, are you going to motorise the Mega Bolter barrels?
I had considered it, but at present, the Mega bolter is just solid balsa.

I may replace it with a motorised version, but that does have several problems. The big ones are complexity, power and weight.

As far as power, the current power supply is a 4 AA battery box taking the place of the power junction on the back of the Titan (there aren't many pictures of the back of Titans, but you can see that junction on this Lucius Pattern).
It's a bit of a compromise on the junction's shape, but it was an accessible place to put it.

This was only designed to offer enough juice to run the LEDs for a couple of hours, and motors will mess with that.

Hmm. It might be possible to double up the power by instead putting a battery box behind each of the reactor exhausts. This could help rebalance the rather front heavy body.

Quote from: RobSkib on January 24, 2012, 02:14:10 PMRemote controlled Nerf guns. If you can't manage this Marco, you're not the man I thought you were ;)
Possible, although NERF wouldn't work (just doesn't go that small). And I think the players might be somewhat aghast it actually started firing what would work at their pristinely painted models.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Draco Ferox

Quote from: MarcoSkoll on January 24, 2012, 03:42:24 PM
Possible, although NERF wouldn't work (just doesn't go that small). And I think the players might be somewhat aghast it actually started firing what would work at their pristinely painted models.

*puts away paintball gun*

But I would suggest having it more as a movable terrain piece instead of a  vehicle- I want to see characters jumping onto its back from high hab-blocks, and fighting atop the carapace and weapons!

Also, on a minor rules note, what effect will machine empathy have (if any)?
Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Kaled

I'd suggested Marco build scaffolding that can be set up around it - that way games can be fought in a repair facility or starship hold and it can be used in more situations than just having it stomping around and shooting everything.
I like to remember things my own way... Not necessarily the way they happened.

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Ynek

Quote from: Draco Ferox on January 24, 2012, 04:51:11 PM
But I would suggest having it more as a movable terrain piece instead of a  vehicle- I want to see characters jumping onto its back from high hab-blocks, and fighting atop the carapace and weapons!

I can't speak for everyone, but personally, I get a bit twitchy when I'm balancing my models on top of something tall that they're likely to fall off of / get accidentally knocked down from. I tend to put a lot of effort into my pieces, and don't like to put them into situations where they might come to unnecessary harm.

But I agree that using it as a terrain piece might be an interesting way to counteract it's inevitably high power. Perhaps the titan is being repaired by a rebel / heretic princeps and his cohorts in Fayde Thuring style, and a plucky Inquisitor has to stop them before they complete their preparations and wreak havoc with the titan...

Or perhaps the titan is in the hold of a ship, en route to an active warzone. A heretic/alien infiltrator on board the ship has taken the opportunity to plant an explosive device on the titan, and the Inquisitor/magos/rogue trader has to get on board the titan and remove/defuse the explosives before they go off... However, the infiltrators are still on board, and could strike at any moment...

Well, long story short, there are ways to include the titan in your games, but without a princeps to make it work, all it would ever really be is a rather eye-catching and awe-inspiring terrain piece.

You've certainly taken on quite an ambitious project here, Marco... Should I assume that the next edition of the Revised Armoury will include titan weapons? :P
"Somehow, Inquisitor, when you say 'with all due respect,' I don't think that you mean any respect at all."

"I disagree, governor. I think I am giving you all of the respect that you are due..."