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To preface, I am not abandoning my other project log or letting it fade into obscurity, despite how unloved and forgotten it may seem now. Due to an uptick in work and a horrible case of the blues I haven't really gotten around to getting anything done, at all, in the last few weeks. I'm hoping that with this project, of a model I've been wanted to get for quite some time now (seriously, don't check my posting history in the Forge World thread!), that I can both reinvigorate myself and get a grip on the hobby once more.

Also, this project may, depending on my state of mind, either be a slow burner or something I'll want to work through as swiftly as possible. Who knows? I'm pretty fethed up these days and feeling quite gakky still right now, so it may take well over a year to get it all done! Or this may just be the kick in the knackers I needed and being something I'll work on non-stop until it's done. I'm also going to be using this thread to flesh out the background for House DuChess itself, something I've been tinkering with over the years now, but has steadily been gaining more renown and background as time marches on and I get more games in.

With that out of the way, let's get this trainwreck going!

"And in that time the Great Beasts shall walk the earth,
beneath their tread shall cities become as dust,
by their burning breath shall civilisations be as ash,
so the End of Days is begun."

- The Apocrypha Terra

This log will be my attempt at building and painting an Acastus Knight Porphyrion for my House Terryn Questoris Knight army, though chances are it will spend more time in my display cabinet than blowing stuff up in actual games, given how big and scary it looks to the average opponent, plus there are those restrictions imposed on fielding one, making it quite a challenge to get one in using the Horus Heresy rules. But that's okay, this is one of those models that just looks really, really good and deserves to be put on display, that is if the glass shelving of the cabinet can hold the weight of this monster!

For those curious, the (experimental) rules can be found here!

And what does the Porphyrion look like?


GLORIOUS!

With the model not in my possession as of typing this right now, which will probably not happen until after Christmas (though one can hope!), I've instead decided to focus on what I can work with: planning on what to stick onto the model in terms of upgrades and weaponry, what to call it, who is going to pilot it and how big a base I may be needing to put this sucker on, though this last part may not actually happen until I have the model in hand and partially assembled.

So without further ado.. let's get cracking!



What is thy name?
Every good suit of armour has a name. Saying "And now my big blue one is going to shoot your puny red one" is boring and breaks my immersion (not really). A name brings with it power, it instils fear.. Or knowing how gakky I roll.. ridicule and a whole slew of jokes.

So, we're shopping around for a good, fitting name for this suit of armour. One suggestion given by a friend was BRIAN BLESSED, because whenever the person in question sees the Porphyrion, she has a desire to shout out the attacks and other pointless one-liners in a booming voice, much like that lovable yeti OBE does. But as much as I like the man, nope! Not going to happen. It has to be something that fits in with the setting.

Here are some names I've thought about, though suggestions are more than welcome!

- Relentless Crusader
- End of Days
- Furious Reason
- Widow's Fury



Who commands this beast?
While by no means a requirement, I do like to have a miniature represent the pilot noble in charge of the relevant Knight, having a little something extra to put on the base. My other Knights also have a pilot on the base, so this one will be no different, if I can find a base big enough to hold it! But that's for when the kit actually arrives, in the meantime, let's look at the noble:


Victoria Miniatures to the rescue!

This model is as of typing not for sale and was only available through their excellent Christmas deal. Though this model and the rest of the artillery crew will go on sale as soon as Reaper delivers the artillery piece that goes with these models.

So yeah, a resin artillery officer, who looks suitably fancy and military enough to be passed off as a noble in charge of a Knight. She's got the right amount of military uniform paired with the weird Imperial costume porn that makes her an excellent model for the setting.

Meet Ekatharina DuChess, sister of the current Baroness Martial in charge of House DuChess and probably serving as either an Arbalester or Preceptor, depending on how the wind blows and what's the fluffiest rank for someone in a Porphyrion to hold. I plan on looking into the rank good and proper further down the road in another update, along with any upgrades for the suit of armour itself.

Fluff aside, this will be the first thing I'm going to properly tackle hobby-wise. I've already primed the model and jotted down a selection of colours I want to use, though for the most part these will tie in with the rest of the army and the Knight itself, so blue, gold and a wee bit of red and black here and there. But we'll see what happens, I can be a bit of a flake when it comes to this sort of thing.

Finally, once I have my hands on the kit, I can start looking into a proper base for the model, seeing as it doesn't appear to be coming with one. Failing that, I'll just base the noble on a 28mm (think BIG damn it!) 32mm base to fit in with the rest of the army.


Here be fluff, data dumps and anything else of interest as collated by the order of Remembrancers (whenever they can be arsed).

House DuChess background - PENDING
Baroness Martial Marianna DuChess and Vae Victis - PENDING
Scion Martial Salena DuChess and Eternal Warrior - PENDING
Scion Martial Josephine DuChess and Void Reaver - PENDING
Scion Arbalester Valentina DuChess and Hammer of Wrath - PENDING
Scion Arbalester Ekatharina DuChess and NAME PENDING - PENDING

How about Glorious Fury for a name?

Will be looking forward to your build and painting of this beauty.

As for names, you have to think about the character and how their temperament is.

If we are going for typical knight, which is kill everything in front of it for the honour of the Imperium, then I suggest Untempered Rage, or Unbridled Vengeance

But if they are of a different temperament, then the names can change accordingly. You don't want a character who has a more light hearted attitude to be called Murder-Fury or something

A more serious update will follow once I'm done dancing.

Oh myyyyy... That thing is awesome, in every sense of the word.

How about 'Inpendebat Exitio': I believe it to be Latin for "Impending Doom"

Okay, time for a serious update.

First off, did a complete check of the entire kit using the checklist in the manual, after which I started cleaning and dry fitting parts. It was during this stage that I discovered that am missing one of the two smoke stacks, having received the left one twice. I've already mailed Forge World about this, complete with a picture of the duplicate part, batch number on the box and the signature and other gibberish from the pamphlet included with most kits these days. Hopefully this will be resolved swiftly post-Christmas, but thankfully this is not a critical part needed for the overall construction, so that's good.

This morning I've started work on the kit proper, by sticking together the cockpit section (not like I'm going to paint the interior anyway! ):



And I've also glued the hips to the upper legs before heading off to work. Upon coming home I've decided to start tackling the legs and feet, trying to work out how to best go about pinning these, as a close to 2KG kit will resting on those feet.

Lacking brass rod I've decided to go with small nails we still had in the shed, with the heads clipped off. One for each toe, with deep holes on both ends so that there's plenty of length in both ends to keep things sturdy. I've also drilled a hole through the base of the foot for the later pinning of the leg to the foot. I am considering using a longer nail that reaches all the way to the ground, giving the legs an extra point of contact that while inelegant a solution, will be hardly visible and give me a little extra peace of mind when the whole thing is put together.



I've also applied a crude hinge to one of the legs that I will cover up later with greenstuff when it's fixed into position:



But for now it's handy for working out the pose of the legs, once both feet have been pinned and glued together.

There won't be much progress tomorrow as it'll be a busy day at work, plus I really want to do this right and not rush into things like I normally do, so the next update will be on or after Christmas, because who celebrates that anyway, amirite?

Merry christmas ,
Also I checked the English to Latin translator, and Coming Storm (your thread title ) would be "Procellam" . Or you could do Dues autem Procellam- God of the coming storm. It also kicked out tempestate veniet for coming storm. Maybe get be subliminal that you used those words in your thread title.

Nice job so far, that is a good idea for the hinges on the knee joints. Wish I figured/knew about it for my latest knight

 Ustrello wrote:
Nice job so far, that is a good idea for the hinges on the knee joints. Wish I figured/knew about it for my latest knight

I may use this for a Lancer I may be getting with the free shipping voucher next year. You've inspired me!

 BrookM wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
Nice job so far, that is a good idea for the hinges on the knee joints. Wish I figured/knew about it for my latest knight

I may use this for a Lancer I may be getting with the free shipping voucher next year. You've inspired me!

Well I am glad I could be of some inspiration , you will like the lancer it is a fun model to build

I'm struggling to hold back immense jealousy can't wait to see the whole model painted and displayed in all its glory.

As for names for the machine, if you're leaning towards a more Gothic style name (like Invictus, that Warlord Titan in the Space Marine video game). Basically any bullgak Latin or fancy word you can think of with "us" or "is" slapped on the end Scholaris, Mortalis, Vindictus, Dominus etc etc.

Or a two part name like Divine Retribution could work.

Or just name it something that's more unique sounding (and certainly ironic), like Stiletto


Hope this was helpful

G.A

First of all, merry christmas to all!

Secondly, keep those name suggestions and ideas coming, I've been putting them all in a list and I'll start looking into this more seriously when the Knight is coming along.

Now then, on to the next batch of WIP shots:



Interesting pose innit? Looks a bit clumsy innit? Wellllllll.. I built the legs as per instruction and when I decided to dry fit it to the waist I discovered that the legs should be assembled at a slight angle, not straight up like I did. Normal Knights wouldn't have this problem, but this beast has such massive feet (bigger than a 60mm base) that in the current configuration I couldn't have it standing upright. So, good thing I made those knees hinged then, eh?

While not originally planned to do something like this, this massive feth up of mine now means I need to build something of a platform for it to stand on and to look for a base big enough to hold it. Not as planned, though a base would help improve its stability when used in games. And here I was thinking I was taking it nice and slow, derp!

However, not all is lost thankfully and we're moving forward again with new hope. I just need to find a suitable something to stand on, be it a small structure, vehicle wreck or maybe even something along the lines of a flower bed, dunno. I'll also have to properly look into a big base now, something I was hoping to put off for some time to come. So any suggestions there as to a nice affordable material that doesn't look out of place on the table top is much appreciated!

Moving on, we've got this thing here, with the noble shown for scale:



Longer than a plastic Knight is tall, here we have the left arm, minus cabling, tubing and the protective armoured shield that goes over the targeting array when it's all done. Also quite a hefty piece, which paired with another one of these and a big chunky torso, also quite heavy, makes me worry if the legs will be up to the job!

And for those interested, using the powers of MS Paint, here's how I pinned it all together:



I used three long nails with the flat ends clipped off, mainly to ensure that the barrels stay in place (they have slots, but they are too short to make a good bond IMHO) and one through the rear capacitor, hinge that attaches it to the main body and the body of the gun itself, ensuring no awkward future moments where the glue may give up under the weight or whatnot.

These guns are so big, I am actually tempted to use the Porphyrion as a proxy for a Warhound in the really big games in the future!

And while taken some time ago, here we have the noble herself:



Not glued to that base, seeing as I'll be building one for the Knight itself in due time.

Next up will be the right arm, which will also be pinned like the left one, followed by dry fitting the torso together a fair few times while looking at how to best pin the arms to that one, as while the arms come with nice big pegs, these will be insufficient to keep the guns level and in place.

I would suggest the gw terrain pieces for the piece for it to stand on. I did something similar with my castigator and it worked out nice

You could scratch build a crushed set of stairs easily enough, think wide palace/government building stairs. Maybe as a part of the knights history like a siege on the imperial court which tried to leave the imperium(genestealers cult had worked the labor unions well ) and the knight walked up to the senate building and said no .

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll be adding those to my "Plan B" list after I did some on-line research and came across Zap-A-Gap's debonder, of which I've ordered a small bottle and hope to give a go on some spare bits of resin from this kit later this week. If it works, there will be much rejoicing as I'll repose the legs a bit and ensure I don't need a base in the foreseeable future. If it doesn't work, as in, the debonder winds up damaging the test resin, then I'll stick with plan B and build a suitable base for the model. I'm just a wee bit worried that the Plan B pose will not be sturdy enough to hold the weight of this beast after today's building session..



Today I built the right arm, added some of the cables to both arms followed by taking the big plunge and after a lot of dry-fitting and some pinning, sticking together the main torso, minus things like the hand rails, exhausts and the large resin hatch that holds the missile pod. The arms are also as of yet not attached, these will also be pinned in place with two or three pins, just to ensure that the bond is strong enough to hold the lot, as it's becoming quite heavy up there. I'll save that for last, when the legs are of a solid enough build to hold it all without falling over or collapsing under the massive weight.

With this out of the way, for some scary reason most of the big assembly stuff is done! I just need to await the arrival of the debonder to see whether or not it'll work, but other than that, the big box is slowly getting more and more empty each day. All that's left now are piles of extra wires, armoured panels and the tertiary weapon systems. Next big update should be this coming weekend, as I'll have the Saturday off and should have the debonder by then. I may also start priming some odd parts, like the head and the collar that holds it so I can start painting those parts before installing them.

Okay, we're going with plan B, as plan A is a bit too risky for me and for once I've stuck the parts together too well!

Here's a rough mock-up of the pose with a temporary piece of terrain that will be replaced with something not all that dissimilar I'm working on right now, only with less of the supports showing. I've also had a friend offer me several pieces of thick MDF, so the base for a base is also on its way shortly. It looks wonky now, but that's because the knees, the hips and the body section are not pinned or glued in place just yet, I won't do that until I've built the new terrain piece for it to stand on and pinned the arms to the torso, which is proving to be quite a task in and of itself.



But the bags of parts are slowly running out, with just some cables and armoured panels remaining before long!

I may also replace the noble already painted up with something else..



All converted of course! She'd get a headswap and something else for the right arm at the very least, but I like the idea of a noble wearing a sturdy life support suit.