New Warhound Titan Joining the Chapter

[Karack Blackstone]

Hail all, felt like sharing that the Wolves of Fenris will soon, later this month, be joined by a Titan newly forged by the Iron Priests for war!

 

We play a great deal of Apoc in my meta area these days, and my 4500 points is going to be joined by a 1,000 point Warhound Titan. 1,000 points, you ask? Permit me to explain.

 

I have been talking with my local GW Store Manager and discussing a change to the standard weapons loadout on the Warhound, of Plasma Blastgun and Vulcan Megabolter. Instead of featuring the normal Plasma Blastgun, I was thinking and came up with an extra weapon system, an oversized combi-weapon system for a Warhound. This one-shot per game weapon allows a single chance to use a single Turbolaser Destructor shot fired as normal, once per game. This pretty little thing pushes the Titan's cost in points up to 1,000, as noted, and will likely require a Shadowsword be used to convert the added barrel from the Volcano Cannon setup that the Shadowsword contains. Firing this weapon mode (prevents the Plasma Blastgun from firing either of its two normal profiles) also costs both Void Shields from when the combi-mode is fired, and they come back up at the start of my next controlling player's turn.

 

I am curious as to thoughts on this rule setup, if it seems fair, and how people think and feel about reading this datasheet, as it were.

[DV8]

Conceptually cool, but you over-balanced and now the Warhound is over-costed, comparatively, to other builds and what they do.

 

Straight off the bat, Plasma Blastgun + Vulcan Mega-Bolter is not the most ideal combination, depending on the targets you hunt.

 

Plasma Blastgun has a nice juicy blast, but the downside is that it still has to roll to Glance/Penetrate vehicles, still has to roll to Wound, still allows Cover Saves, and it can't be used to target fliers (an important point!). Compared to the Turbo-lasers (yes, only 5" blast) that auto Penetrate vehicles, auto-Wound, inflict Instant Death, allows no Cover Saves (still can't target fliers), and inflicts D3 Structure Points worth of Damage on Super Heavies, there really is no comparison. If you're taking a Warhound to engage ground-troops and other Super-Heavies, taking two Twin-Barrelled Turbo-lasers is the way to go.

 

The Vulcan Mega-Bolter is great because on a Warhound, it counts as being AA-mounted (which means you can engage Fliers shooting at your BS instead of hitting on 6's, although you still suffer the 12" reduction in range). Unfortunately it's useless against anything but light armor, and infantry still get Cover Saves (after you roll to Hit and to Wound).

 

Which brings me to the unbalanced points you have given. A Warhound is 750 straight up, and allows any weapon configuration without changing it's points. Some of them are better than others, but there really is no adjustment at all comparatively to how weak or strong the weapons are (I don't know if this is intentional or just lazy on the part of the designers), but 1000 points to, for one turn, give up the Plasma Blastgun to shoot a one-use Turbo-laser shot, for an extra 250 points, that ALSO brings down your Void Shields? That's terrible! Especially considering I could pay 750 for a Titan that fires 4 Turbo-laser blasts for 750 and doesn't bring down it's Void Shields.

 

I think as long as your group allows it, having the Combi-Weapons would be a neat feature (so long as the Combi is one-shot), especially since you forgo firing the other weapon it's mounted to. I would not bother creating any other downsides (bringing down your Void Shields, increasing costs by 250 points) as the Warhound would still be balanced.

 

Now, if you created a Weapon System that could fire in either mode (essentially giving the Plasma Blastgun a D-strength shot profile), then I would consider increasing the costs.

 

Think about it this way too:

 

Warhound with Two Twin-Turbo-lasers for 4 D-strength 5" templates costs 750 points.

Reaver with Four Twin-Turbo-lasers for 8 D-strength 5" templates costs 1500 points.

 

If you're already paying 1000 points for your Combi-Warhound, it would not be a far stretch to just pay the extra 500 points and upgrade to a Reaver...

 

 

DV8