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19May/220

Adeptus Titanicus – Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan

In January Games Workshop announced a new titan for Adeptus Titanicus - the Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan. After about 4 months the kit is available via Forge World and today, we have the chance to see it in our review.

Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan

The Dire Wolf is a variation of the Warhound Titan and available in two variants, one with a Neutron-Laser and one with a Volcano Cannon.

It is based upon the Mars pattern Warhound, but much sturdier and more heavily armoured. The Dire Wolf is armed with pintle-mounted Ardex defensor mega-bolters, and either a neutron laser or volcano cannon built into the carapace. As this class is not based in the old lore, but a new addition to the game, there is not that much written about it - yet. All we know beyond the armament is that the Dire Wolf is a favoured weapon of the Legio Audax. A traitor legion, affiliated with the World Eaters and known for their excessive use of Warhound (and Dire Wolf) titans.

Please note because this kit is produced by Forge World and not by Games Workshop, it is a resin casted miniature and not made from injection mould plastic or finecast. If I am not mistaken, this should be currently the largest full resin kit for Adeptus Titanicus available.

The rules for using the Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan with Adeptus Titanicus can be found in the packaging of the titan itself.

Games Workshop / Forge World sets the price of the resin kits at 44 EUR each. The 41 piece resin kit comes with a command terminal, two weapon cards (printed on the backside of the assembly instructions), assembly instructions, an 80mm round base (the same as Warhounds) and a leaflet on how to handle resin (that serves as a document of quality control as well). This kit does not include any decals.

Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan Adeptus Titanicus - Mechanicum Questoris Knights Magaera

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A quick spread out of the parts, as you can see the only difference is the carapace weapon. The Forge World resin comes with their casting aids attached. Some break loose during transport, but that's not a problem. Along with the overview from the assembly instructions you can check them for completeness (at 41 pieces and the scale of these parts, mispacks can happen, but GW/FW customer service is usually ace about that and sorts you out quickly).

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Casting is really well done. As these models are not sculpted by hand in a traditional but 3d designed and then printed, we had issues of printing artefacts (fine print step) on larger surfaces in the past. But it seems that they not only improved on the printing on the master, but seem to post-process the masters as well (some areas that would be prone to having the print artefacts, look as they had been sanded). And that makes for a cleaner final product. On some parts you can still see the steps, but only if you really look closely and angle the pieces to grab the fine shadows. So not really a problem.

As for resin casts, instead of an injection mould as you have with (hard) plastic, these are usually produced with a (two-part) rubber mould, that the epoxy resin is poured into and then settles inside a pressure chamber. After the epoxy resin is cured, the pieces are taken from the rubber mould. As a two-piece mould, and the inviscid attributes of resin, you don't have the classic mould lines you have from injection plastic, but often thin flash or resin skin, that needs to be cleaned. As the resin has to be poured into the mould and air has to escape the mould, the parts have connection pieces / casting aids, that need to be removed. Usually this can be easily done with a pair of clippers and then cleaned afterwards with a cutter or file. In some cases, air is trapped within the mould, (not enough resin used, the pressure chamber is not running smoothly or similar errors) causing small air bubbles to occur on some areas of the casted parts. But here we have a very clean cast. Minor flash on these pieces, next to zero mould slips (that's when the two parts of the mould not properly align and create an off-set) and I only found a single small air bubble on the inner side of a single piece.

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I removed the casting aids from the pieces, gave them a quick bath in luke-warm soap water to remove any possible left-overs of release agent. With resin kits it makes sense to go for a dry-run to see if all the pieces you want to assemble, have a proper fit. Longer and / or thin parts can be warped, if they are not completely cooled or cured while removed from the mould. This can be fixed by applying hot water and reshaping/re-aligning the pieces. This was not necessary in my case. Had a proper fit with minor or no visible gaps.

The first build unit you assembly is the upper torso. It is four-part build, with a larger main part, the back and the sides added. There are thin struts on the sides, that need to be removed as well (highlighted red in the third picture). As you can see the joint for the waist has an insert, but more on that later.

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Connected to the main body are the two pintle-mounted Ardex defensor mega-bolters. These can be angled to the left and right, and due to their connect on the arm elevated. They do have inserts similar to the main hull, but we will get to that later as well. If left of the armour plates for moment, as it makes it easier to paint and will add them later.

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The legs are the most complex part of the build. As you have pistons here, you have option to not simply glue everything together but actually articulate the poses. We will go into the detail on this further below. As you can see the third toe, that is placed on the heel of the foot is added there by a tongue and groove connection, as is the lower leg with a ball-joint and guiding groove. The pistons are assembled like an Achilles' heel and are designed in a way, that you could modify them. For the first Dire Wolf, we build them straight from the instructions.

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The two legs have ball-joints on the waist and the hips come separate with an armour plating for the groin. You can keep that off for easier painting and assemble the plate afterwards, if you prefer it this way. The waist has an insert on the connection to the hull, matching it upper counterpart.

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As for the carapace weapons. We have here the Volcano cannon, consisting of a three-part main armament, along with two piston like stabilizers on each side. The weapon main connection is a tongue and groove design, that would give you the option to elevate the weapon system, if you modify it accordingly.

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The neutron laser is designed in a similar way. The connection is the same but you have the long barrel with three smaller detail parts and an additional stabilizer for each site, just like the Volcano cannon. And this could be build in a way to elevate the weapon as well.

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The inserts on the arms and the hips are large enough to fit standard sized round magnets (of 3x1 and 5x2 mm diameter). This is not only practical for transport, but if you were to receive further options (by Forge World, third party components or printed by yourself, like I did with my Warmaster Iconoclast titan).

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We are almost done, only missing the armour plates and the head of the Dire Wolf. The head is a ball-joint so you can have it look around, up, down or to one of the sides.

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As I had access to both kits for this review, I wanted to go for a more dynamic pose for the second one and made use of the ball joints and modified some of the tongue and grove connections. I highlighted the parts you need to cut or file in red on these pictures. Again, give it a dry run before you glue it, to ensure that you don't collide or create angles that are too narrow for the remaining parts to be added.

The right leg was more straightened, as you can see in the picture and comparison to the regular pose. For that I needed to prolong the pistons on the heel, as they don't give you much room to work with (I replaced them with left over supports I had from 3d printing, as they had a very similar thickness). I went for a raised left foot, brought it closer to the body, once again making sure that the armour plates could still be attached and added both legs to the hips.

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With this opportunity you could either have your Dire Wolf take a more dynamic pose, walk over something or stomp on something, what ever fits your legio or basing theme. A quick comparison of the two different Dire Wolves, one with the Neutron Laser and the other one with a Volcano Cannon. Interesting to see what difference in height the altered leg position creates.

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And as the Dire Wolf can be added to your Warhound units, the size comparison between these two is interesting. And it is sturdier, that is for sure, but it is not off in an unfitting way. We usually do a 6-8mm vs. 28mm scale comparison, with a price per inch. But as the Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan only exists in Adeptus Titanicus (at least so far) we can't supply that here.

Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan

The Dire Wolf got a lot of bad feedback when it was initially introduced. People arguing about the oxymoron of a heavy scout titan and the static pose of the kit. And after building them, especially in both ways. I have to say, that this kit isn't as static as it seems in the product pictures. You can put it in the shooting position, where the stable both feet down makes much sense. But you can easily go for a sprinting or at least more dynamic pose and I am a bit surprised, that we haven't seen those as at least alternate pictures in one of the Warhammer Community articles, not even when it went up for Pre-Order (both product pictures show the "straight" build variant and even the same titan legion of Legio Gryphonicus).

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Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan Adeptus Titanicus - Dire Wolf Heavy Scout Titan

Conclusion

We usually don't go that much into the meta or rules of units. But in case of the Dire Wolf the supplied rules seem to "calm down" a lot of the critiques of the role of a heavy scout titan, along with ease the initial reservations due to the static pose. But that just added for those, who take that into consideration. I go with the rule of cool in such cases. Do I like the miniature and its style, and I have to clearly say yes in this case. I even hope to see another carapace weapon system.

With the ranks of Adeptus Titanicus becoming more and more complete, the question is always, what is next? The Warmaster is already a very heavy choice, and as cool from a modellers point of view as an Emperor titan class would be, it would be a stretch. Thus the addition of the Dire Wolf, as an appendix and / or replacement to the Warhound is an interesting choice and I hope we see further (sub-) classes of titans. For example, after having the Sinister Warlord class psi-titans, I would really love to see the possessed / corrupted counter parts to them.

The regular Warhounds are 55 EUR for the pack of two, and the currently largest full resin kits for Adeptus Titanicus were the Cerastus Knight Atrapos until the release of the Dire Wolf, priced at 55 EUR as well. With that for orientation, the 44 EUR for this full resin kit, and it is of proper size for this kind of game, is quite reasonable. You could argue, why not go for an upgrade for the Warhound and "just" add resin pieces for that and go for a hybrid. That wouldn't really work as you have a very structural overhaul of the Warhound, along with the sprue covering two titans and thus creating a not so small bundle in the area of 80+ EUR as a final product.

The quality of the kits I was supplied with for this review was superb. The second one had a few minor "problems", like smaller mould slips, but on the inner side of parts or regions that would be covered by other parts, so don't really lower the final product. And as mentioned above - if you have a problem - customer service with Games Workshop or Forge World is happy to help you. But in comparison with the Mechanicum Questoris or Atrapos, they improved the master and mould making process noticeable.

Warhammer 40,000 and Adeptus Titanicus are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.

Posted by Dennis B.

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  1. Hey man, wanted to say thanks for all these Titanicus in-depth model reviews. Super informative on a subject where info is usually lost in the sea that is social media. Great to see you reviewing specialist GW game stuff still after multiple years doing it, it’s been really useful. Love it.

  2. Thanks for the kind feedback. There will be quite a lot of Specialist Games content in the next months and years. My backlog is huge.

  3. Great reviews. But in the case of the Dire Wolf, I think a more appropriate name is Angry Chicken. The arm weapons are to short, the feet are excessively large. Completely destroyed the wolf/dog feel…


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