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Being a scale modeller at my roots, I'm back in the Warhammer realms after an almost two years break just to be instantly fascinated by the (for me) new Adeptus Titanicus Warlord. What a model!!!
I'd like to try my hands at adding some light and stuff to this as I'll build but to be honest, I'm kind of clueless as to what exactly to add. The visor is one obvious point, I think. Some of the pipes might be replaced with fibre optics and lit by LEDs, too. Not sure about the weapons, tough.
What would you add to such a model? What effects? Which placement?
I know my way around electronics and the related software so, I'm more interested about the rest.
Having just built one I can say you're in luck as there's a lot of hollow space inside it.
I'd say the big 4 places to light would be;
Head
Both guns
The plasma reactor in the top/back carapace.
A brass etch grill over the exhaust instead of the plastic solid piece would be especially cool.
Fafnir wrote: Oh, I certainly vote with my dollar, but the problem is that that is not enough. The problem with the 'vote with your dollar' response is that it doesn't take into account why we're not buying the product. I want to enjoy 40k enough to buy back in. It was my introduction to traditional games, and there was a time when I enjoyed it very much. I want to buy 40k, but Gamesworkshop is doing their very best to push me away, and simply not buying their product won't tell them that.
Thanks a lot, @jonolikespie! I have completely overseen the carapace so, special bows for pointing that out. Not sure about the guns, tough. Is any of the included options a plasma gun?
A brass etch grill over the exhaust instead of the plastic solid piece would be especially cool.
Is there such a thing as upgrade sets including such grills? Military scale models have an extra industry built around such upgrades but can't remember seeing such sets for these models.
armored76 wrote: Is there such a thing as upgrade sets including such grills? Military scale models have an extra industry built around such upgrades but can't remember seeing such sets for these models.
Seeing it's brand new kit any that are custom designed to fit would have started design work only like within week or so so I very much doubt there's any out yet if anybody even intends to do it(small customer base probably)
If you got some mesh it wouldn't be hard to cut it to shape. And right now the Warlord comes with a pair of volcano cannons and a pair of missile pods, but an upgrade sprue of some sort with more weapon options (including a plasma gun) is in the works.
Fafnir wrote: Oh, I certainly vote with my dollar, but the problem is that that is not enough. The problem with the 'vote with your dollar' response is that it doesn't take into account why we're not buying the product. I want to enjoy 40k enough to buy back in. It was my introduction to traditional games, and there was a time when I enjoyed it very much. I want to buy 40k, but Gamesworkshop is doing their very best to push me away, and simply not buying their product won't tell them that.
Only thing I can suggest is to not make the mistake I see all the time which is full power LEDs, etc. on a 40K model. Nothing ruins a cool lighting system like 10x as much light than is needed to get the point across. I like enough light to see what has been done, and not a blazing disco on the tabletop.
I'd say 90% of the wargaming models I've seen with lighting are hugely overdone and distracting.
If there's room, some sort of fibre optic system would be better for a model this size, rather than individual LEDs.
Have a look at some of the artwork shots in the rulebook and in the Forge World Horus Heresy books - those will likely have light sources added to the image in Photoshop. The box cover of the Grand Master edition is an example.
Personally, I don't think many of those lenses on the model should actually be light sources - especially the sensor clusters in the head. The lenses on the front torso around the head socket would be good spots for running lights / searchlights, etc. If you could get a sort of "underlighting" effect around the void shield generator nodes, that might work, too, as well as red "aircraft warning lights" on the top, and red/green left/right running lights on the sides (perhaps on the arms).
armored76 wrote: Speaking of which... I still can't make up my mind: Are LEDs on a model cheesy or not? Thoughts?
Nah, it's only cheesy if it has sound effects
Fafnir wrote: Oh, I certainly vote with my dollar, but the problem is that that is not enough. The problem with the 'vote with your dollar' response is that it doesn't take into account why we're not buying the product. I want to enjoy 40k enough to buy back in. It was my introduction to traditional games, and there was a time when I enjoyed it very much. I want to buy 40k, but Gamesworkshop is doing their very best to push me away, and simply not buying their product won't tell them that.
There is actually a rather simple way of playing sounds using something like a WTV-020 sound module. You hook it up to 3V (coin, AAA, AA, etc) and optionally some control keys in case you want to play more than one sound or would like to control when the sound starts or stops.
In case you have a small microcontroller you can also use that to control the sound and synchronize it with LEDs on your model, for instance.
Here a short video that actually compares two such modules. Around minute 8 the guy shows you how to connect and control the WTV-020:
This guy talks about how to convert the sounds files to the right format (and control the board using an Arduino board):
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/09/03 07:05:40
Poweredplay do kits for precisely this sort of job.
They held their "Glowpocalypse" at a gaming convention this past weekend (I'm on the other side of the planet) (edit: Nova con or something recently).
Best part is, you don't need to know how to solder as their kits are plug and play. They had kits for 40k scale knights and some would probably suit the AT stuff.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/05 08:48:12
I'm OVER 50 (and so far over everyone's BS, too).
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.
That is not dead which can eternal lie ...
... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.
I guess that's the other end of the same scale... Some love to tinker, some couldn't care less for the technical part and just want a ready-made solution. None of them are wrong but I'm a "tinker guy"
You can do it but I don’t think it looks great at AT scale. I wired up a Warlord with a green LED and a 470ohm resistor and I think it looks more like a searchlight in his face. A CR2032 battery doesn’t slide in and out of the torso so I had planned to run wires down his torso, out his ass, down the back of the legs under the armor, then integrate the battery holder and switch into some terrain.
It’s all doable but it’s a real hassle if you plan to paint in sub assemblies and if the LED is too bright it looks weird. A cooler plan would be to wire a potentiometer in and light up the shield generators individually so that as you gain or lose shields you light or dim each LED. Again a real pain if you plan to paint it in separate pieces like I am.
I tried to attach a picture from my iPad, dunno if it’ll show.
Okay it looks like I can attach pics from an iPad but only one at a time. You get the idea.
I gave up the idea so I can actually finish my four Warlords this decade (I work slow) and because it’s even less practical in the smaller Reavers and Warhounds.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/04 21:52:51
Thanks for sharing Fajita Fan! The finished titan looks so realistic
I think you might experiment with either connecting two of the 470 Ohm resistors in series to reduce the brightness of the LED or connect the LED to a thinner (0.5mm?) light guide and have that show in the face. It will give you a smaller dot, less bright. Using an SMD LED is another option. That or connect the light to a microcontroller board and use a PWM signal to control the brightness but for only one LED it is probably overkill.
There is no way to run the wires inside the legs?
PS: The copper band is an excellent idea, actually!
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/09/08 08:35:17
I can’t really carry the theme across the Reavers and Warhounds so I’m not bothering to light up the Warlord. I have plenty of bigger resistors but you sorta lose the effect of the glowing eye. I wish I had like the effect enough to keep wiring things but I didn’t.
Actually my newest thing for AT is getting 3D printed guns made. I found some files on Thingiverse and modified them in TinkerCAD. So far I’ve got carapace laser blasters and Vulcan megabolters, plasma cannon arms, and I’m scratchbuilding Gatling cannon arms.
Daston wrote: That war horn sound is bang on with what I imagined. That would gak you right up if you heard that in the distance and then very big muzzle flashes.
A little piece of head-fluff I always imagined was a fortification or a citadel during, say, the Horus Heresy. They see an Imperator class titan in the distance, well beyond weapons range. The poor bastards in the citadel or hive city get to watch it for hours or days before it comes into range...feeling the tremor of its approach. Imagine waking up from a quick nap while on watch and seeing the Imperator being another mile or two closer. Boy...that would suck.
armored76 wrote: @Fajita Fan: That sounds cool! Would you care to share the links and show us the final prints?
The laser blasters are scaled kinda big (I had to eyeball them) and for whatever reason the model I used for the Gatling blaster barrels won’t print the barrel tubes. I had to cut up a couple of contemptor dread assault cannons to finish them.
I guess I could make the files I printed public and call them Titanic Proxies or something (I don’t want to get a letter from GW so I thought it was okay to print them for personal use). People would still need to resize them.
Thanks, they're good enough as proxies because the default weapon options aren't good. The volcano cannons don't have the rate of fire to take down shields and the plasma cannon has pretty good stats.
By taking a mix of weapons you can take 3 Warlords at 1500 points and 4 Warlords at 2000. Maybe I should start a blog on here, I started a blogspot years ago with 3 posts as a motivation tool to finish projects.
