Mecha Month Begins: Knight Warden Titan

At long last, the Knight Warden is finished, and  I can clear the decks for other projects (including another artculated ZOE model). Unlike the Warhound before him, he got off to a pretty rough start. That head was totally unlike the one pictured until the last minute, and the hips took about a month to finalize, mostly because the toy it was based on was pre-posed with one leg extended. Also, it was only after everything was glued and set that I realized the carapace armor plates should overlap heading the other way. Oh well.

Like the Warhound before him, he's covered in shields and parchment, most of which would get blown off pretty quickly in pitched combat, but look lovely otherwise. With the head as low-slung as it is, I probably should have used heavy flamers or assault cannons, but given that the face shield came from a Gundam mode, the HB's were somehow appropriate, so I left them on. That right arm has an autocannon, complete with feed mechanism:

As always, feel free to click on the pic to zoom in. At a certain point the thing was just flying together, and I even had a shell magazine from an old tank kit that fit that notch on the arm perfectly. I still need to ink in some saint's names below the angel statues. on the knee guards. That thing peeking out from below the armor, by the way, is a campaign-shield commemorating a joint action with the Blood Angels:

I know, it's more than half-covered by the knee armor. That's what happens when you add detail after the fact. There was this perfectly good circle on the piece I used for the leg armor and nothing to fill it with, so I ended up making it a campaign shield (sensing a theme here?). There's a better one for the Imperial Fists on the other leg:

I wonder if the IF chapter would be insulted that it's under the main Titan Legion campaign badge on the knee armor? Honestly, it was this or some kind of campaign banner, and I still can't get those looking the way I want them to. I was going to hang one off of that rod under the Laser Destroyer barrel, but again, it just didn't look right..

Wardens are supposed to be long-range defense units, so rather than a battle cannon for the left arm (or the rather silly bolter clusters on the Epic model) I equipped him with a Laser Destroyer (featured on the IG equivalent of the German WWII Hetzer). I figured it was a nice anti-vehicle weapon to complement the Apocalypse Launcher on his back . No bulky clip or ammo feed for that arm, although it does have a huge heat exchanger on the back. That left arm is the only thing articulated on the model, by the way. You can also spin the barrels of the Apocalypse Launcher by turning the crank on the back, but that's about it. 

If you're this close and have this view, you're probably in a Reaver or Warlord about to get a face full of everything this guy has to fire. Either way he's too slow skip out of the way of what's coming next, so that pilot's just going to sit unload while his machine slowly trundles away in reverse. 

Hmm, speaking of which, no exhausts for that reactor. Maybe it vents forward, out from under the armor plates? Or maybe the designers implemented a cold fusion reactor, and it doesn't need to vent? To be honestly, I was torn with stemming some big exhausts off the rear, and may yet if I can find the proper parts. I was determined to make this model with what I had-on hand, as I had no cash to buy new parts. Otherwise, I would also have worked out an assembly for a separate pelvis. As it is, that pilot's going to be really uncomfortable whenever this thing moves. Maybe that's the reason for those monster shock absorbers on the back of the head?

In general I think he's a pretty successful build, although there's always room to improve. I need to finish off some detailing and base him before the deadline for the Titan contest. Hopefully, he'll hold up against all of those larger Warlords and such. The other glaring problem here is, of course, the lighting I've been using in the light box. Too many harsh glares, and I've had to compensate not only by using the tungsten setting on the camera, but also with a cooling photo filter in P-shop. When I get a job, and some money, hopefully I can upgrade to one of those photo-tents that Brent was showing on his site a while back.