Welcome back to Goonhammer’s series for aspiring Titan Principes. We here at Goonhammer’s own Collegia Titanica know that Adeptus Titanicus can seem intimidating to players unfamiliar with its particular quirks, but this series aims to equip you with everything you’ll need to play out epic clashes on the battlefields of the far future with your very own Titan Battlegroup. In this series, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at the various Legios of the Collegia Titanica – exploring their origins and how to use them on the tabletop, from maniple selection and their loadouts, through to how to command them on the field of battle to secure ultimate victory.
Despite coming from the same STCs, each of your God-Engines is a walking relic with their own history and modifications over countless years of service. To reflect this, many players will often convert their titans to make them unique from one another.
Battlebling is a third party who specializes in 3D printed accessories for making this task easier. Before we get started we’d like to thank Battlebling for sending over everything featured here for us to try for this review.
Before we get underway, there’s one item we need to cover off. With any third party bits, you need to be aware that if you are going to events you may need to check with your TO that they are acceptable. Whilst play aids and accessories are not an issue, items for conversions and proxies from some third parties can be akin to skating on thin ice.
For those who don’t have access to a 3D printer and haven’t dealt with 3D printed resin before it is extremely hard and brittle material. It doesn’t cut nicely like most resins that models are cast in; it breaks and fractures easily when cutting into it. Approach with caution and a very sharp knife if you need to cut away at any small parts or to clean it up to smooth parts out.
An accessory for every occasion
Nameplates
Sometimes there are things you never knew you needed until you’ve seen someone else with them and get jealous. Nameplates fit firmly in this category, being a great touch to personalizing your Titans. Like Necromunda, the successes and failures of your battlegroup become more personal when you refer to your models by name.
The nameplates come in several different styles and also indicate your firing arc, which helps remove the ambiguity in situations like the Warhound’s round base. Battlebling do nameplates as singles or in bundles of 10 for 20£. There’s only so much to be said for a bit of resin with some text on it, but the look once it is on there is *tight*
Soggy: Recently added are the nameplates which go on your terminals, to tie everything together. Again, this is not essential for gameplay but is a nice way to remove ambiguity for your opponent and get into that that personalisation – I’ll definitely be picking up a pack.
Bases
Premade bases are a great shortcut to having some incredibly detailed bases, as with all things there is a trade off to be made – in this case one of flexibility and variety. We talk through our experience with these below
Bair: The resin bases that I’ve used for my Honorum titans are base toppers designed to be placed on top of the normal plastic bases so you can still use the nameplates if you want on the original rim. The bases are slightly smaller than the bases themselves so in terms of gameplay it’s still a good idea to do this so that your arc templates line up correctly and all of your models are the “right size”. That said it is only a small difference and I actually preferred the look before attaching the normal bases underneath; but knowing they’re a little different is more than enough to keep them on for me personally.
My only real issue with these is the design itself. Also, a very common issue with Titan basing in general, is that the sheer weight of these god-engines would surely destroy more of the stone work, but they do look cool!
They seem to be designed for aesthetic first and foremost, not taking into account the models that you’re mounting on them. One of the Warhound bases (armed with an inferno gun in the pictures) I had to cut quite a lot around the knees to make it fit onto the base at all. While I do really like the pose that I was able to get from it, despite it not setting entirely right in the hip (my own fault since I hadn’t noticed while it set) this base in particular is not for a newer modeller or someone that doesn’t want to mess with cutting up frankly expensive pieces of plastic that might not come out great.
Remember how we mentioned earlier about resin being brittle? The Reaver I have here was painted and based before we were asked to review some pieces, so I decided to cut it off its very plain, boring base of texture paint and put it on this one instead. Since it was already posed I had to cut away at the base itself instead. Where its forward foot is there’s a wall section which I used my hobby cutters to chip away at. I took off a little more than I wanted this way but worked out for the most part in the end.
The scale of the bases largely seems to work well with Titanicus but some of the details on them seem a bit off from each other – most notable the stairs and railings being far too large to make sense compared to the arch ways on the same base…having pillars holding up a railing as tall as an archway that supposedly a person is meant to fit inside.
The bases are printed solid which makes them heavier than the Titans on top, a good thing so that your models aren’t tipping over all the time from being top heavy if you’re half as clumsy as I am.
Soggy: It’s amusing as now Bair has mentioned it, I’m noticing small scale differences between the bases. I must also admit I didn’t initially notice at first that these are made to go on top of the bases themselves – the 50mm bases for the Cerastus above were 45mm in diameter.
It was great to paint up some scale accurate marble plazas quickly with these bases, although if I was going to use them across a larger force I feel like I would like to see more designs to avoid too many repeats.
Alternate Bits
Possibly their main attraction, BattleBling has a wide number of alternate bits for your battlegroups. To name a few:
- Conversion kits to change your Warhounds into the classic AT’88 design
- Arm pieces for Warhounds/Reavers with premade magnet holes
- Alternate heads for your God Engines
- Community made Weapons with fan rules
Soggy: Despite being spoilt for choice, I opted for the replacement Warbringer turntable, which you can use to convert anything onto it’s carapace. Side by side with the real thing it’s practically identical and fits nicely, I used a spare Belicosa I had lying around to give me another weapon option. I’m curious to see what guns the community has converted in place using some of these bits.
Bair: The only alternate weapon that I’d asked for are the Warlord missile launchers which I kept in a very generic silver to work on any of my Legios titans. I actually previously had converted 40k Valkyrie Missile Pods as Warlord launchers using mega bolter attachments that I had to cut apart and reposition to look half-decent. I thought at first that the Battlebling ones would look far too small since I’d gotten used to my own conversion but they actually look really good and probably in a better scale than my own make. The “best” Warlord kit to pick up is the one with Sunfury plasmas but you often want Apocalypse launchers so these are nice to be able to get without having to get a whole upgrade sprue or whole other Warlord just for the missiles.
The weapons themselves came with some attachment points to have to clean off but were easy to remove with a hobby knife. The mountings for them have divets for 5mmx1mm magnets, the standard that Games Workshop has made for weapon mountings on official models, so nice to see Battlebling have built in the same.
Blinging it up
BattleBling’s offering is aptly named. Bling isn’t necessary but if there was any place for an ostentatious display on the battlefield it would be on the God-Engines of the Legio Titanicus. Their range is available via their Etsy store.
Bair: Overall I’m pretty impressed with how all the bits look. These guys do excellent 3D design work and printing of bits has clearly come a very long way as well to look nearly as natural on the plastic models as original bits! I’m not usually one for alternate bits and pieces on my models because I really lean on the gaming side of the hobby more than the building or painting but these are really cool. For those of you that do like more out-there designs, 3rd party bits etc then it’s definitely a shop to check out.
Soggy: Converting isn’t for everyone, some don’t have the time or inclination but for those who do and fancy a bit of variation I’d suggest checking out Battlebling’s offering as their designs fit seamlessly and save the hassle of doing it yourself. I’m personally a big fan of the nameplates and will be picking up some more.
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