I present the “Ferrus Castigatus”, second of a pair of Reaver class battle titans I’ve added to my Legio Mortis maniple and what a superb plastic kit it is. Compared to the huge Warlord the Reaver is both a simpler and more complex kit to assemble in equal measure. Weapons and torso are pretty straight-forward, but the area to pay particular attention to is definitely the legs and feet. The feet are asymmetrical and really easy to mix up without realising so I recommend checking the box art and dry-fitting. This is doubly true of the lower leg armour assembly which should align seamlessly above the front piston armour. I say ‘should’ because this can be surprisingly tricky depending how much articulation is modelled into the stride. I discovered this the painful way when I assembled the first one, so definitely something to watch out for.

Melta weapon heat effect

The Ferrus Castigatus is constructed from the separate optional loadout Reaver kit which contains not only additional carapace and arm weapon options, but also three alternative style heads, all of which I really like. The melta cannon was a must for me as it’s one of the weapons that I remember fondly from the original game and the current design with the heat shields really sells it in my opinion. To create the effect of heat discoloration along the louvres I used a range of transparent acrylic artists inks over the chrome base. This lets the metallics show through creating an effect similar to what you see on exhausts. I’ve added the palette to the ‘Forges of Mars’ section, but in summary it is applied in the following order, with each only slightly overlapping the preceding colour and importantly in diminishing width bands. Start with a clear yellow or sepia, followed by red, then purple and finally a super thin band of blue at the very tip.