+ inload: Salamanders reinforcements for The Corsair Gambit III +

+ Combat Strategy +

+ Salamanders reinforcements for The Corsair Gambit III +

+ Another Epic-scale campaign event is coming up – the closing part of Maximal Fire's Corsair Gambit. You can get a ticket here [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+], if you fancy joining in. Having taken the Salamanders to the first two, I wanted to be there in the closing stages, too. +

+ Into the Fires of Battle! +

+++

+ Plans and preparation +

The event pack notes that the game size has increased to 3,000pts, so I've got some building and painting to do – though in a pinch I have plenty of Epic Ultramarines and various Titans that can fill in some space, so the pressure is off. Nevertheless, I'd like to have a nice cohesive army, and it'd be good to round off the Salamanders and apply some of the lessons I learned at the previous events. 

You can pick up on the previous panic-painting sessions here [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], if you're interested in what the rest of the army looks like.

Long-time inloaders will know I like to build campaign-specific stuff for events like this, and since the fighting is taking place on the forgethrone of Legio Maximal, Nabed-Paleae, I'm planning to take a Warlord Titan. The points restrictions for allies (no more than 30%) mean that I'll have to replace Profugon Iratus, the Reaver who spearheaded the previous campaigns, but I do want to make sure that there's at least one Titan from the Legio there, fighting for its homeworld.

+++

+ Salamanders +

While a Warlord Titan will gobble up a significant amount of points (and also help to keep the number of Detachments/Formations down to help with game speed), I've also got some new Space Marines to paint. This is a mix of infantry and armour:

I think Epic-scale games looks best when there's a combined arms approach, with a range of everything from infantry, armour, aircraft and War Engines involved. Happily, GW's new FAQ for Legions Imperialis has addressed quite a few of the bits I disliked about the base ruleset, and has gone some way to rein in the strength and flexibility of infantry.

Nevertheless, what Space Marine army doesn't have lots of Space Marines? I had some Marines left on-sprue from previous events, so it's time for their time in the sun – and guilt-free, as they'll now behave more reasonably than their super-speedy previous incarnation. On the blocks are:

• 8 stands of Tactical Marines
• 2 stands of Plasma Support Marines
• 2 stands of Missile Support Marines
• 2 Command stands.

These won't add up to a huge amount of points, but will allow me to bulk up Detachments and give my marines some real sticking power around objectives. The Salamanders Legion special rule makes them very resilient morale-wise, and this will combine well with the Demi-Company Formation special rule, which makes supporting non-infantry better at supporting them when capturing objectives.

As you can see above, I have created a monstrous 'painting sprue' to hold the marines while I spray and paint them. To do this, simply snip off the extraneous supports, trim those below, and glue it to the remaining sprue so the models stand upright, in a consistent orientation. The two-part missile marines and plasma marines, some of which are oriented differently to the Tacticals, are cut off individually and superglued straight to the bit at the front of the painting sprue.

Once in position, you can prime with brown (I use Colour Forge's Hyrax Brown), then do a zenithal spray of Salamander Green – that is, keep the sprue at a consistent angle, and spray downwards onto the models, so the brown remains visible in the lower recesses.

The same zenithal spraying approach was taken for the vehicles, though since they're considerably larger, I also turned them upside-down and gave them a quick spritz with a darker green to suggest reflected environmental light. The additional armour units are:

• 6 Land Raiders
• 3 Predators
• 2 Kratos
• 5 Land Speeders
• ... and 4 Rhinos, which don't currently have a place in the list, but are on standby to fill in space.

The Kratos are that rare thing in my army – a unit that doesn't have any place in previous editions of the game, and are included slightly begrudgingly as the only Heavy Armour choice currently available to Marines. With that said, I like the models a lot more now I have them in hand, even if they do have the weird half-visible tracks that I find so odd about the newer Marine Armour (Sicarans likewise flashing a bit of thigh).

In terms of armament, I've picked one of each Kratos main gun – primarily to try each one out. These will be Command Tanks, and if time allows, I'd like to go to town on these a little bit with markings and freehand. The Predator squadron is armed with lascannon turrets and heavy bolter sponsons as a bit of a change from the others, which have the old-school autocannon turrets and lascannon sponsons.

+++

+ A minor rant on list-building +

You'll spot that I've got 'spare' Rhinos that may or may not make the list, and that's because I can't bring myself to write a formal list just yet. I find army building in Legions Imperialis a chore. There's loads of fiddly technical hoops to jump through – 'you must have X'; 'you can't have Y'; 'you're only allowed 30%' – but they don't really do much to rein in abuse, as the stories of LI tournaments attests, with armies made of hundreds of Missile Support Marines, Dreadnoughts and Warmaster Titans, with a scant few stands of Tactical Marines to make it legal.

Secondly, the divided nature of the army list across loads of books makes experimenting with lists more awkward; and then there are odd decisions of iconic units like Whirlwinds and Vindicators still not being out, or the Land Raider, the Space Marines' battle tank for forty years inexplicably being made into a Transport...

Oof. All exhausting, and another unnecessary bit of 'mental friction' that prevents people from picking up what is at root a very simple and fun game.

+++

+ Painting +

Once dry, I started painting both infantry and vehicles using the technique outlined in this inload: [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. They're ticking over nicely, but I think I'll have to pick up the pace a bit to get them all up to scratch in time for the event. 

Of course, this is where future-proofing comes in handy, because I've got a pile of bases ready and waiting from the last big batch of Epic Salamanders I did – once the marines and Land Speeders are painted, it'll just be a case of gluing them in place.

Speaking of the Land Speeders, the squadron needs a sixth member – en route from the piractical forge-moons of eBay – and because the only ones I can find are pairs, I'll end up with six with the flamer and multimelta option.

It may be objectively worse than the plasma and heavy bolter variant, but who cares when I can indulge the pyromaniacal desires of my mean green Space Marines?

+++

+ What else is new? +

As you'll see below, there are some 32mm Salamanders awaiting a bit of painterly love.

Oh, and this...

+ inload: Metalica Maniple WIP +

+ Adeptus Titanicus: Armageddon +

+ More bits and bobs have arrived for my Iron Skulls (Legio Metalica) maniple, so while the armaments aren't final, I've managed to get two Warlords and a Reaver – Steel Hammer, Old Three Skulls and Ferratus Tertius respectively – on their feet and properly assembled. +

+ And here I'm finding the perils of working in painting subassemblies. It's taken me weeks to work up to this point, and I rather wish I'd simply bitten the bullet and just assembled them fully. Every time I come to sit down and work, there's fifteen minutes or so of faffing about trying to reconnect things, remember which armour bits go where etc., and now I'm left with a big scary pile of stuff to work on – all rather paralysing! +

+ Here's Old Three Skulls – or Tricranium the Great, to give him his officialy designation. His weapons aren't final; they need to be married up to the old Epic one. +

+ Our Reavery friend, Ferratus Tertius. The banner has been hijacked from its intended recipient. Having been complaining about the inertia created by building everything en masse, I should balance that by saying it's been enjoyable to be setting the poses so things work in a group. It's also given me the opportunity to dot in interesting bits and bobs for each Titan to make them unique – like the mix of armour plates, variant heads, poses and unique weapons. +

+ Ferratus Tertius, for example, has a custom-built Fusion Cannon, built from – er... a Revaer Fusion cannon and two Warhound Melta Lances. Pleased with how it looks; and while this is intended as a purely visual chance, it could also be used to reflect the Experimental Weapon stratagem or similar +

+ Titan of the Maniple's Princeps Senioris, Malleo Chalybis has all its weapons in place – though I'm still deciding on the head. While I like these classic style heads (available from Battle Bling), I think I'd prefer a little more variety. +

+ As with his smaller comrade, the Steel Hammer has a custom-made gun. This is a combination of a Knight Armiger arm from Taro Modelmakers with a Battle Bling upper arm and an armour plate from a Belicosa Volcano Cannon. I also used the top of the Belicosa to create a proper joint for a Titan, too. +

+ Now just to paint them! Seeing them laid out here is getting my enthusiasm up, so I'm going to aim to bite the bullet and just get started on painting. After all, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. +

+++

+ inload: Legio Metalica plans and preparation +

+ Delving into the depths +

+ Onto the planning tables +

+ With the theme of a new Titan maniple in mind, I've been enjoying musing and planning. Key ideas for the project are:

• Cool poses
• Using Retrohammer schemes on modern models

+ The posing we've looked at in the previous couple of inloads, so today I'll focus on the research for the old paint schemes. +

+++

+ Planning a Maniple +

+ Battle Titans – Warlords, Warbringers and Reavers – are my jam. Now Adeptus Titanicus is at a mature stage, I'm coming round to Warhounds and Knights, but I definitely know that I want to field as many Battle Titans as I can fit into the 1,950 points limit for the Beachhead event. +

+ My research therefore started with looking up the old Titans.  I vaguely recalled a battle report having Reavers in. After a bit of noospheric scouring I stumbled upon this precious node [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] which links all the Epic articles from White Dwarf. +

+ Armed with this I could check out the articles, roam the noosphere and gather all the data I needed! +

+ The results +

+ This is the initial list, with the Titans drawn from battle reports in issues 179 and 184, plus the Warlord Old Three Skulls, featured heavily in the Space Marine 2nd edition launch, and Steel Hammer mentioned in the Second War for Armageddon background.  Here's a rundown:

+ Warlord 1 +

Steel Hammer – Malleo Chalybis 

• Free armament

+ No pict-capture of a model, therefore, for our gallant Princeps Senioris, but on the plus side, I've got completely free reign with Steel Hammer's armament. +

+++

+ Warlord 2 +

Old Three Skulls – Tricranium the Great 

• Gatling blaster
• Power Fist
• Volcano cannon and vortex missile

+ Tricranium the Great, or 'Old Three Skulls' to his mates, was the Titan used to advertise Space Marine 2nd edition (SM2). One of these came in the box; a reuse of the sprue from the first edition of Adeptus Titanicus (AT1). The studio paintjob – by Mike McVey, is lovely, and there's lots here to provide inspiration for a modern twist on things. +

+ In terms of armament, the arms are no problem: a macro-Gatling and Arioch Titan Power Fist Claw are perfect modern updates. The carapace, however, is a bit more problematic. Neither the Volcano cannon nor Vortex Missile is an option for Warlord carapace, so we'll be seeing Tricranium being fielded with something else – at the moment I'm leaning towards these old-school Apocalypse Missile Launchers for retro appeal. +

+++

+ The Reavers +

+ Four Metalica Reavers make an appearance in three different battle reports. The first was WD#160, where Mark Watts led a then-unnamed Titan, freshly-painted by Neil Hodgson of the 'Eavy Metal team, into battle in the Assault on Barbarius (against Richard Helliwell's Alaitoc Eldar, for the record). +

+ The second was WD179 in Inferno, the promotional battle report for Titan Legions, between Legio Metalica led by Jervis Johnson and Waaagh! Hargluck led by Andy Chambers. The same Reaver appears here, now accompanied by a pair of others (and the Imperator Cassus Belli). +

+ The three gain names:

+ ...and a fourth Reaver appears in WD184's Abomination!, a battle between Ian Pickstock's Imperial Guard and Gav Thorpe's Tyranids. Lots of lovely Knights and two Warhounds, too. +

+ The new Titan is on the top left-hand side; the three are referred to throughout as 'Ferratus Primus, Secundus and Tertius' – I won't copy the whole thing here, but here's a taste. +

+ For obvious reasons the battle reports re-used models as different characters in-universe, so happily I've got at least one potential name for all four Titans:

• Reaver 1: Clavigera/Ferratus Primus
• Vulcan Mega-bolter
• Chainfist
• Barrage Missile 

Clavigera/Ferratus Primus

+ Not an easy loadout to translate to the modern game. The Chainfist is straightforward, but the Barrage Missile Launcher no longer exists, and the Vulcan Megabolter isn't an option for Reaver arms (for some reason). Gatling blaster seems a simple change; and an Apocalypse Missile Launcher could work for the carapace. +

+ I might look at strategems or wargear to see if these can be updated – something that changes the way a Missile Launcher or Gatling Blaster behave in some way might explain things and offer a modelling opportunity. +

+ It's a shame that the modern Volkite Eradicator is carapace only, as this low-strength, shield-stripping, high rate of fire weapon would otherwise be a more creative way of updating things. +

+++

• Reaver 2: Carnivore/Ferratus Secundus
• Multi-launcher
• Turbo-laser
• Turbo-laser

Carnivore/Ferratus Secundus

+ By far the easiest to bring into the modern game; this is simply a case of using an Apocalypse Missile Launcher on the carapace and Laser Blasters on the arms. + 

+ Since there's not much to say on him otherwise, here's a good opportunity to talk about things common to all four: firstly, the banners, which provide some good inspiration for updating. Secondly, I've just noticed that the three Reavers painted later all have white heads – perhaps an intentional nod to the 'Iron Skulls' Legion name? +

+++

• Reaver 3: Castigator
• Turbo-laser
• Gatling blaster
• Warp Missile

Castigator

+ Annoyingly, the oldest Titan, Castigator, seems to be the trickiest to find good pict-captures of, though happily most of the details are there. From what we can gather in the White Dwarf, this model was painted first, and you can see that he's slightly different to the others – I suspect were painted in a group as they're so cohesive. Castigator has gold trim (unlike the others' gunmetal), and his head is red rather than white. +

+ It's worth noting that not only are details like this perfectly in keeping with the varied and heraldic nature of Titans, it's also all grist to the mill of inspiration. I want to evoke the idea of these models, rather than rivet-counting obsession. Let's face it, despite Adeptus Titanicus players tending towards the older side of the hobby, I very much doubt anyone will recognise my resulting models unprompted! +

+ Weapon-wise, Castigator is another easy fit in the modern game. All of his weapons are simple updates to the modern equivalents: Laser Blaster, Gatling Blaster and Warp Missile. +

+++

• Reaver 4: Ferratus Tertius
• Vulcan Mega-bolter
• Inferno gun
• Plasma cannon

Ferratus Tertius

+ Spoiler warning for a twenty-odd year old battle report, Poor Ferratus Tertius gets downed by a faceful of alien goo that pretty much melts his legs off! +

+ Weapons-wise, Ferratus Tertius is the most problematic of all: none of his weapons exist for Reavers in the modern game, so there are a few options. The heat-based Inferno gun could be reimagined as a Melta Cannon (also having the advantage of providing some much-needed finishing punch to the group); a conversion of this using parts from the new Warhound Melta Lance might be fun. The Vulcan Mega-bolter will have to be treated as for Clavigera at the top – and given the awkwardness of this, I think I might simply use the excuse to swap things out for something completely different and otherwise lacking to the Maniple in-game, like a volcano cannon. +

+ The Plasma cannon on the carapace no longer exists, but it does offer a great opportunity to swap in a modern weapon like the Graviton Destructor – something different would be fun, and the silhouette is evoactive of the bulbous plasma cannon... +

+++

+ inload: Epic Reaver build continues +

 + Work in progress: Posing a Reaver Titan – part II +

+ Part I of this project can be found here:
[+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]

+ 'Old Spiteful' of Legio Sumer-Nikator, traversing rough ground at speed +

‘Raising a Reaver Titan is a matter not of construction, but of faith. The Machine-Spirit must be invited (a coy term for ‘lured’) into the mechanical frame once it has been correctly sanctified.

‘Once aboard, a series of increasingly secretive rites must be observed and warily conducted, culminating in the sacrifice of a local predator-beast in the sanctum of the reactor core. The aim is to bind the Anima to the metal, ivory and plastek construction; thereby making a synthesis that invests cold metal with spirit. The more puissant the creature, the more powerful the binding and the resultant Titan.

‘Fewer than one in a thousand attempts is a success; more than a quarter of the attempts are fatal for the Priest-Attendant.’

– Liber Humer-Ghant; extr. On the Enthusiasm of War Engines

+++

+ Our last look at our Legio Maximal Reaver saw it with a sculpted base with the feet firmly integrated to give it a sense of presence and weight. It's now time to move on to working upwards, constructing the legs and torso. +

+ Battle Bling upgrade armour plates – Loyalist; Classic option – tacked in place. +

+ My personal preference for building any model is to build it in its entirety, as I find it holds my interest and I enjoy the process more (not to mention it saves bits getting lost when things have to be packed away!) but I do occasionally use subassemblies. +

+ Not only does it make it easier to paint into recesses, but it offers you the ability to basecoast things with starkly different primers, saving painting work later, but it also forces you to slow down and consider things. That particular note is handy for Reaver Titans, which have a number of things about the legs that can trip up the builder. +

+ Lower legs +

The back of the lower leg is on the left; and the front on the right.

+ We looked last time at the subtly non-symmetrical feet, and a similar thing applies to the lower legs. Here, you want to make sure that the Aquila (double-headed eagle) detail faces backwards, as in the picture above. I've clipped the armour plates in place to help make this clear; but the reason for it is that the Aquila should remains visible once the armour's in place. As you can see, the Battle Bling upgrade armour preserves this nice little touch. +

Traitor armour plates showing the same thing – and perhaps it would have been nice for these to have an additional detail to obscure the Aquila.

+ Another thing to note about the armour upgrades (both Loyal and Traitor) is that they replace the knee armour completely – it's integrated into the shin armour a bit like Mark VI power armour. This doesn't make any difference here, but it does mean that you can't make another common building mistake for the standard kit, which is to glue the kneepads on upside-down. +

+++

+ Upper legs and pelvis +

+ The upper legs are more subtly asymmetrical, with the difference being the vent on the back – visible on the right-hand side of the picture. The upper legs are otherwise interchangeable, and you can easily build them with the vents facing forwards. To be honest, this is one of those things that could easily be optional rather than 'correct'. +

+ The pelvis/groin/hips piece is simple – there's a larger and smaller hole to receive armour plates on front and back. The upgrade armour's fit on these is nice and snug, so they'll stay in place without any temporary fixes for painting. +

+ Traitor front +

+ Loyalist front +

+ Loyalist rear +

+ Whether loyal or traitor, these pieces are the same for both options in the respective upgrade packs. +

+++

+ Assembling the legs +

+ When assembling the legs, bear in mind the pose you decided upon (see part I), and keep it in mind as you work. Dry fit the parts – and feel free to use Blu-tak or similar to hold it temporarily. +

+ When you feel confident, you can begin to glue things. Work joint by joint, building upwards from the feet. 

+ The key things to remember when assembling the lower legs are:

• Get the pieces the right way round
• Don't overextend joints, or the armour won't fit
• Ensure that the recesses on the legs broadly align with the recess/divots for the pistons – you've got a little bit of play, but not much.

+ While the glue on the lower legs is drying, dry fit the armour to check that it fits, and that there is sufficient space for the pistons. The poses available here are surprisingly limited without carving into the pistons and armour – but don't worry, you only need a few degrees off vertical/horizontal to create a convincing pose. +

+ Upper legs and waist +

+ My advice here is to allow the lower legs to dry completely, which will give you a firm foundation to build upon. Placing the upper legs on top too quickly can cause the lower legs (which have a relatively small attachment point) to move, which means you'll be trying to keep too many components in place at once, and risk ending up with a wrong or awkward pose. + 

+ Add a small amount of glue to the hips and attach the upper legs loosely. Before this subassembly dries, dry fit it against the knees. There are a series of grooves on the top of the lower leg that should fit snugly. If they don't, try adjusting the hip until the upper leg grooves slot in. +

+ If they still don't fit, disassemble the hips and upper leg subassembly and leave to dry. Add a touch of polystyrene cement to the ankle of the problematic lower leg and wait until you can flex the joint. Reset it to a less extreme pose (but bear in mind your original aim) and start again. +

+ The key things to remember when assembling the upper legs and waist are:

• Get the pieces the right way round
• Work slowly, and on top of a firm foundation
• Don't be afraid to tilt the upper legs – much of the 'weight' of the pose will come from the angle you choose, and you can be quite extreme here as long as the centre of gravity remains where you want it. 
• Generally speaking, the more acute the angle of the upper leg, the further forward the knee should be compared with the foot. 
• The waist determines how the entire upper torso and weapons will sit. Unless you have a particularly dynamic pose in mind, the top of the waist piece should be near parallel to the ground, or tilted slightly forwards.

+ Example poses +

+ Moving at pace, Senex Codomannus is caught mid-stride. The centre of gravity sits forward, the front leg bent as it settles into a new position (note drooping toes as it finds firm footing); the rear leg straight, trailing and lifting. The torso is canted forward on the waist to give more impression of momentum, and the weapons are trained downwards. +

+ In contrast, Mercato Stipent looks wary and hesitant. Both feet are firmly placed and braced on the ground. Here, the rear leg is bent, and the front straighter; giving the sense that the Titan has stepped backwards or is adjusting its placement – note how the centre of gravity is set further back. The weapons are up and the head follows the direction of the Gatling blaster. +

+ Alternatively, you can build up one leg at a time. Start with the leg you're happy with and glue on the upper leg and pelvis. Adjust this so that the top of the pelvis is parallel with the ground or canted only slightly – any more than this will quickly make the Titan look like it's overbalancing. Once one leg is in position, you can adjust to get the other leg into place. +

+++

+ Once the legs are fully assembled, attach the pistons. The longer one sits at the front, as shown; the other three are interchangeable. +

+ With the pistons in place, dry fit the armour plates again, and adjust if necessary. These small pieces have quite a bit of play – but as a general note, it's worth doing this assembly with small amounts of glue to make adjustments easier. You can go back and reinforce joints later, often simply through the capillary action of the glue into the joint, with no breakage necessary. +

+ When adding the pistons, bear in mind that these will have additional small armour plates themselves, so try to sit them as centrally as possible in the recesses and divots, to give yourself as much space and flex for these. Keep the pistons upright and straight if you can, too – it gives a neater final effect. +

+ The pose of the foot has forced the front piston on the left leg (right of picture) out at an angle – but note that I've used what flexibility is there to ensure enough space for the piston armour to fit in the gap left in the leg armour. +

+ When reposing the foot to an extreme, it's fairly inevitable that you'll end up with some parts needing to be adjusted; whether that's a toe, shin, piston or even the entire leg. If you're willing to compromise the pose, it's best to do this on the fly – but if you've got something really specific in mind, then you can trim down the relevant parts to get things to fit. I suggest, however, that this is a last resort, and that wherever possible you make such changes in an unobstrusive place as possible. +

+++

+ Upper body +

+ A plate is included to cover the bottom of the upper body (the 'chest', if you imagine the Reaver stooping). This slots neatly into place, and like the other parts, will stay in place through friction; useful for painting the plates separately.  +

+ ...And the top plate simply sits on top. This isn't quite so snug, but is fine for temporary work. +

+ The pauldrons then balance in place on top of the shoulders. The Battle Bling designers have added positional details inside to ensure a precise fit. Note that because this is circular, you do have some limited poseability; shrugging the armour forward to close the gaps at the front, for example. +

+ The shoulders are one of the most distinguishing parts of the upgrade kits. The Loyalist Classic and Traitor Heretic packs have the larger pauldrons above, which hang down at front and back. These are symmetrical and interchangeable, so you can use either pad on either side. If you want to represent reinforced or extra armour in-game, these are a good way to do so. +

+ Traitor equivalent – Forsaken variant +

+  The Loyalist Winged and Traitor Forsaken packs instead have designs closer to the plastic originals, with asymmetrical shapes and less coverage. These give a lighter, sleeker look – just make sure you glue them on on the correct sides! +

+++

+ Assembly and painting +

+ With all the subassemblies completed, slot the armour plates in place to do a final check on the pose. If you're happy, your ready to prime and paint. +

+ As noted, keeping the armour plates separate can help when painting, allowing you to use a dark primer on the structural skeleton and a different primer entirely on the armour plates – here's what that looks like with Halfords camo brown (recently rebranded and repackaged, but I'm happy to say still the same reliable stuff) and Games Workshop's Grey Seer. +

+ And the upgrade kit (Loyalist – Classic) in all its glory. +

+ Kit review summary – Battle Bling Titan armour upgrades +

+ I'm impressed with these kit. All are really well engineered, and it fits like a dream, particularly impressive given the awkwardness of the shapes and the precision needed. I've no hesitation in recommending it. All four of the variants fit right in, and are ideal for adding some individuality to your Titans, whether that's to make it easier to distinguish Titans within your Maniple or Battlegroup, or simply for the fun of having something a bit different. +

+ Here's the link:

[+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]

+ Future ideas +

+ I hope that Battle Bling continue to produce different armour variants like this (and indeed there's a few spiked options already), and I'd love to see a proper asymmetric monstrous one for possessed Titans. I'm really surprised no-one's tried to tackle this yet, as an easy upgrade kit seems to be leaving money on the table. +

+ Likewise it would be nice to see upgrades that reflect specific things like wargear upgrades. Not only would they be nice aesthetic upgrades, but they'd also be useful for providing a physical reminder of which Titans have upgrades. These could be nice and generic:

• Engine upgrade to fit in the gap at the back of the body, between the shield generators: Plasmatic binders/Motive subreactors/Bi-folded power containment/Plasma channels
• Armour upgrade including parts to cover the upper legs (like the Warbringer)
• Sensor upgrade to fit around the cowl above the head, perhaps, to represent upgrades like Gravitonic sensor array/

+ ... and on an entirely subjective and selfish note, I'd also love to see a head or two to supplement these armour sets. Long-time readers will know I've been hoping some enterprising individual would make a modern take on the other classic Reaver head 2 (below), as I think Titan's heads are the key to their personality, and helps your giant robot feel like your giant robot. +

+ Until then, I'll be using a conversion I made from a spare Warlord head and 40k Knight. You can see the first splashes of colour on the Titan, too. Keep your eyes peeled for more! +

+ Base metal – the Reaver's 'skeleton' receives its first splashes of colour +

+++