Titan in a day! - How to build an Eldar Phantom Titan

This was a hell of a project and something that I was thrilled to be involved with.

Hot damn! That's impressive!

To explain a little, a good friend of mine who shall remain nameless (Jack) has a bad habit of buying enormous Forgeworld models that he's too intimidated to construct. Now I have every sympathy here, having built my own Hierophant Bio-titan which was a tricky and time-consuming job but very rewarding in the end. At any rate, Jack has been hassling me for some time to help him out with his growing pile of un-built Forgeworld super-heavies, the grand-daddy amongst them being the Eldar Phantom Titan pictured above. After many months of hassling and a couple of tins of beer I finally snapped and agreed to set aside a day to help him out with these projects.


As the fateful day loomed we talked briefly about what we would need and what models to build. I supplied an enormous shopping list (drills, pins, putty, glue, cookies etc) which Jack went out and bought. As there were several models available including a Revenant Titan, Scorpion grav-tank and a Vampire Raider we weren't exactly sure which to attempt or even how much we could get done in a day.


As a beautiful Friday morning dawned (nothing like building titans in the sunshine) I headed on over to Jack's and we got stuck in to some resiny goodness. After looking at the models we both knew we had to attempt the Phantom, after all, the point of the day was twofold. Firstly to build some badass miniatures but secondly, to give Jack the confidence to tackle some more of these projects alone.

Early progress showing the left leg.

Straight away I could see it was going to be a challenge, the left foot alone was made up of nine separate components all of which had to be trimmed, pinned and glued. On the upside, the feet of a Phantom Titan are exceptionally poseable enabling you to make some really outlandish miniatures if you're feeling brave.

Completed leg assembly, we weren't brave enough to go for a one legged pose!

Strangely, the legs themselves only consist of three separate components, the upper, lower and the knee. These needed to be reinforced as strongly as possible so they were thoroughly pinned along with the hips to make the lower section of the Titan stable. We were able to drive a pin straight through both hips providing a good connection between both legs.


As you can see from the photos we were making a horrendous mess (anyone who's ever drilled and sawn resin will vouch for the amount of debris created). The hoover was used liberally throughout the day to try and keep on top of the stuff.


When it came to the torso assembly we hit a snag, one of the components (front breastplate) was missing. Ultimately I left it down to Jack to decide what he wanted to do, should we stop building and try to build the Revenant instead? Luckily he had a brainwave, a battered Wraithknight was laying around in his bitz box and its chestplate was just what we needed, you can see it in the photos below (the horrible purple part).

Starting to look impressive!

The main torso was quite straightforward and we were able to drive a single pin through all four of the components and into the hips making it rock solid. The shoulder assembly was quite something, involving all the holofield fins, the missile launchers and the massive pauldrons. It all went together pretty quickly though (despite me getting superglue on the coffee table) hence the lack of progress photos.


Then came time to add the head, arms and weapons. Jack declined to paint the inside of the cockpit so the head went straight on. The arms turned out to be a major headache as the guns were really heavy. Much pinning gluing and swearing later and the beast was finished!

Getting there!

Jack wanted to magnetise the right arm as he had both D-cannon and close combat options for the Titan. In the end, we got the sword ready to go but the D-cannon was left for a later date.

Taste the beast!

At any rate it was a fantastic day and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Thanks to Jack for letting me be part of such an awesome build, now all he has to do is paint it!