Adeptus Titanicus – Warhound Scout Titans

Let's begin with the Titans. The first review will cover the duo of Warhound Scout Titans, the smallest of the Imperial Titans.

There are multiple patterns of the Warhound Titan, produced on Forge Worlds among others like Mars or the now destroyed Gryphonne IV. The here shown Warhound pattern is the Mars Pattern, depending on how you count the Mark III. It is the first time that the Mars pattern is produced in 6-8mm scale. A Warhound has a crew of 4 (a Princeps, a Tactical Moderati, a Weapons Moderati and a Techpriest Enginseer) along with multiple servitors and servo skulls.

Warhounds have the role of scouts on the battle field, often fighting in packs of two and as a spearhead in front of the main army / other titans. With a speed of roughly 60 kph and a height of just 14m (remember we're talking titans here, so being a bit larger than a regular family house isn't that tall for a moving battle fortress), they are able to stalk their enemies using ruins and buildings for cover.

The weaponry of the Warhound consists of two of the following weapon systems, Plasma blastgun, Vulcan Mega-bolter, Inferno gun and Turbo-laser destructor. All of them are included in this kit twice. For example a Mars Pattern Warhound, as they are in this box, has the Standard Weapon Configuration of the Vulcan Mega-Bolter and Plasma Blastgun. The warhound does not have access to titan close combat weaponry (at least not in a STC configuration).

The rules for using the Warhound with Adeptus Titanicus can be found in the Adeptus Titanicus boxed set.

Games Workshop sets the price of this plastic kit at 55 EUR for the set of two. The titans are spread across 3 medium sized sprues in grey plastic. The density of the parts is high and the sprues used almost to the max. The cast is very good, a lot of sharp details and a low amount of mould lines. This is not an easy-to-build or push fit kit, but a regular one, where you will need plastic glue to assemble the miniatures. The kit is quite complete, as it covers all the available weaponry for the warhound twice, so a full set for each of the two warhounds you can build from this kit. Beside that the armour plates and carapace are included in multiple design variants, for loyal and traitor legions. Same with the decals, they cover insignia for five different houses of the loyal titan legions, Gryphonicus, Astorium and Atarus, and the traitors of house Fureans and Mortis. Inside the box you'll find multipage construction leaflet and two 80mm round bases.

The sprues are numbered A, B and C and have a mirrored design. As you'll see later on, these sprues cover a lot of spare parts, that can either be magnetised (using a bit of creativity) or scattered around the bases as the debris of damaged and fallen titans. You might notice that the traitor legions do not show chaos insignia. As Adeptus Titanicus plays in the Horus Heresy, the allegiance is shown by using the eye of Horus and not chaos stars or such (yet). But feel free to use the blank pieces and decals or freehand to do so.

Building of the warhounds begins from the centre, with the groin. I'll build both warhounds simultaneously. As you can see, the legs are different for each left and right design. You can mix them as you like, you do not need to follow the assignation of the instruction (beside left and right). The position of the legs can be altered in different steps. If you file away the grid on the inside of the connection, you could position them more freely, but it is fine as it is.

It makes sense to do these steps quickly after each other, so you can correct or modify the stance if you are not happy with it. The feet of the warhounds are single cast parts and come in two designs. One flat foot and one with a raised heel. You could probably cut the toes and position them at a different angle to "wrap" them around the terrain / detailed base (maybe one is stomping on a tank or ruin). The lower body of the Warhound is now almost finished.

The only pieces missing from the Warhound legs are the greaves and leg plates. There are two different designs for the leg plates and three different for the greaves. The greaves come with a loyal Imperial Eagle design, an Opus Titanica design and a plain set. The plain set covers spikes similar to those of the chaos star.

Now we move to the upper body. The core is the same for both and you do not need to glue them on top of the legs. The connection above the waist is 360° turnable and you can position them freely. On the back of the power plant compartment you can see the two Void shield generators.

The carapace is available in four different designs, two of them Loyalist and two of them Traitors. The shoulder assemblies bear the icons of Traitors and Loyalists as well.

As for the heads, two different designs are included two times. So you could build both either loyalist or traitor. I identified the one with the spikes as traitorous. The heads are kept in the style of hound head, staying true to the lore through all of the different patterns.

Next up the weaponry. From the left to the right, Plasma blastgun, Vulcan Mega-bolter, Inferno gun and Turbo-laser destructor. Each of them is included twice and can be mounted either on the right or left arm. With a bit of green stuff you could easily magnetize the weaponry of the warhound.

Now for the final assembly. The Traitor warhound will be Jackal sub-class, with Inferno gun and Vulcan Mega-Bolter as I find that suiting for a "chaos" warhound. As the weapons and the head are connected with a ball-joint, you have a bit of flexibility in the assembly. If you replace the pipework on the weaponry with wire or a piece of guitar string, you could even position them more dynamic.

As for the loyal Warhound, I stayed with the regular Mars Pattern STC weaponry of the Plasma blastgun, but replaced the Vulcan Mega-bolter with a turbo-laser destructor (I simply love the design of the weapon system).

Here are the two assembled Warhounds next to each other. I only blu-tacked some of the parts, to disassembly them for priming and painting. You could do the same. If you just not glue the waist, you have two pieces that are easy to handle during painting and will have access to almost every nook and cranny.

And as mentioned further above, all of these bits are spare when you build the two (!) warhounds. Maybe you use them as base detailing for the larger titans or magnetise the weapon systems.

Of course a scale comparison may not be missed with such a review. In the first picture a comparison with a regular Space Marine, a Primaris Space Marine and an old Orc Boy from the old Epic range. In the second picture a comparison with other battle engines, a Castellan Robot and a Warmachine Heavy Khador Warjack.

The Mars Pattern Warhound Scout Titan is available as a 28mm resin kit for the Warhammer 40.000 range as well by Forge World, starting at 595 EUR. They used to offer the Chaos variant of the Mars Pattern as well as the Lucius Pattern Warhound. For comparison, the Warhammer Warhound is four times the height of the Adeptus Titanicus kit. At the incredibly useful euro per inch ratio, the Adeptus Titanicus warhound beats the Forge World Warhound with 11 EUR/Inch (27,50 EUR for 2,5 Inch) to 44 EUR/Inch (463 EUR for 10,5 Inch).

And both, the loyal and traitor Warhound Scout Titan from different angles in front of the backdrop.

Conclusion
This was a very pleasing build. The fit is incredibly well and I am still amazed by the amount of detail on this kit. As these are scaled down large battle engines, the density of those is higher compared to for example a similar sized Warhammer kit. Therefore I didn't understand why all of the Adeptus Titanicus Titan kits show the larger and more detailed Forge World kits on the cover (use the actual model or artwork, but that move is just something that will be connected negatively from a customer's point of view). The amount of spare parts and variants with this kit is a huge plus. You have all the weapon options, a couple of different carapaces and armor plates. It would be a difficult to say, how to improve this kit. As far as I am aware, they beat the other titan kits the amount of options, but more on that later. You have a lot of flexibility with the poses and you can move even beyond that, if you are willing to take a knife to the kit. But this is very beginners friendly and still dynamic, a good balance in the design.

At a price of 55 EUR per two Warhounds, it is similar priced to for example the Castellan Robots, but a better value than - for example - the different similar sized dreadnought kits. As Adeptus Titanicus isn't a game of dozends of models, I'd rate the Warhounds as very reasonably priced.

I am not sure, where Adeptus Titanicus will be placed in the future. If it will be supported by Forge World like Blood Bowl or Necromunda, or what kind of further supplements are planned. But I can imagine, depending on the demand and success in the market, that we will see further conversion parts, similar to the way they are already available for the other scales / systems. It would be easy for Forge World for example to offer a set of corrupted armour plates and weaponry, to convert this kit into a post-Horus Heresy Chaos Warhound, or using the substructure to build a Lucius pattern Warhound from it. But nothing keeps you from trying it out yourself, with a bit of green stuff and/or plastic card, if you do not want to wait or take the risk.

Depending on your creativity, you could use parts from the Armiger Knights or Adeptus Mechanicus range to either convert them in one of the vast variety of variants of the older lore / background from Adeptus Titanicus or use them as some interesting sub-knight class for your Inq28 / Rogue Trader / Kill Team in Warhammer 40.000.

In the next days, I'll cover the Reaver and Warlord Battle Titans as well on this blog.

Warhammer 40.000 and Adeptus Titanicus are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.