Ferrum Vulcanos

Legio Astraman Nemesis class Warbringer, and the first war engine I’ve built for the “Morning Stars”. This was a palette tester that I did to try to match as closely as possible the artwork from the Titanicus campaign book; “Crucible of Retribution”. The Morning Stars are an old legio with a storied history reaching back to the original Titanicus game and featured in Codex Titanicus way back late 1989.

I wanted to blend the new bright palette from the new books with the iconic retro battle banners of the original. Overall, I am super happy with the final result. So  much so I think I will do more and fill out a maniple for some narrative gaming in Legions Imperialis.

Morning Stars green

The Legio Astraman Nemesis Warbringer is slightly unusual as it is effectively a clear shade over a pre-shade of white and purple. The base, like most of my war engines is a flat pre-shade of Tamiya white over a black primer, over which I applied shaded areas of purple contrast/shade (both work equally well). The primary colour application is Tamiya Clear Green, several very light coats to built the saturation up slowly. To push the highlights and saturation even more I did a couple of passes of Tamiya Clear Yellow over the top of the green to add even more contrast and interest. This really brings it close to the artwork appearance in my humble opinion, or at least to my old eyes it does.

Go big or go home

I’m all about the banners in Epic scale and Legions Imperialis. They were a big part of the original game for me and probably the single most iconic feature on the original Titans. As more war engines have been added to the collection, I think the back banner in particular has got larger each new engine I add. This is fine! When I get to the really big engines like the Warmonger, I’ll probably reign the size in a bit and focus on the kill banners a bit more. For the Reaver/Warbringer class however, big is definitely back in fashion in my book.