Principia Titanicus

[Mandragola]

My thinking is that you're never wrong to pick a missile launcher. It's a gun you can always fire, so it's very hard for something like a VMB to beat it.

 

VMBs are pretty good on melee Reavers. They're much more likely to get +1 to hit for being within 10" than they are to get it for being outside 30" with the AML. If your Reaver has a combat weapon and will be advancing then go for it. I often find I get within 20" of enemy units advancing on turn one with reavers and warhounds, especailly if the enemy full  strides at me.

 

VMBs are much worse on Warlords due to the very limited speed, range and fire arc, combined with the 10" in which you can only shoot other Warlords. They're a cheap option for the roof of a melee Warlord though if, like me, you are mad enough to field one. I think gatlings are strictly better, due to the extra range, strength and ordnance rule, but actually 10 points is not insignificant. I've used VMBs on a Warlord and I'd do it again.

 

I really like gatlings on a Warlord but I'm kind of forced to concede that missiles are often the better choice overall. Again it's the 15 point saving, but also the range. 24" on a slow platform is a lot worse than the infinite range of missiles. You can really focus missiles on things even in turn one in a way that's much harder to do with gatlings.

 

I think the various laser options suffer because it generally makes sense for titans to use their carapace weapons to break shields. This is because carapace guns tend to be weaker than whatever you've got on the arms, but with high rates of fire at enough strength to take a shield down. I think it therefore makes sense to stay away from carapace lasers. I do quite like the idea of turbo laser destructors in an Extermigus maniple, but again you'd often be better off using something rapid-firing to break the shields and then firing a S12 sunfury at the target's armour.

[Uberlord Gendo]

On the topic of reavers, what's the thought on them? I'm mostly thinking in terms of them filling gaps in forces as support choices, like taking two alongside an Audax Canis. Or more generally, how does one go about taking on bigger Titans with smaller ones? (Since using a lighter titan to drop shields for a heavier one seems pretty straight forward.)

[Mandragola]

The main virtues of the reaver are decent agility combined with good durability for its cost. They've got much better reactors than warhounds and an extra servitor clade, so they can push for speed much more reliably. A force with a lot of Reavers in it will tend to have quite a lot of activations too, so you often get to outmanoeuvre the opposition.

 

The main weakness is that their firepower is a bit lacklustre, as they can't do multiple high strength hits to a location in the way that a Warlord or a Warhound with a plasma blasgun can. The Melta is kind of an exception to that but it's not very reliable. Generally reavers need to get close to the enemy to do the most damage with meltas, laser blasters, gatlings and of course melee weapons. As a result your early damage output can be low and you are forced to advance. And generally speaking, the enemy is going to be more dangerous up close as well. Their command value isn't great and they quite often want to have orders, which can cause problems. This makes them a good candidate for being a Seniores.

 

I like to use Reavers when I need to get somewhere. They're good at missions like retrieval and vital cargo, or if your opponent has hold the line. Warhounds would be the obvious pick for these jobs but I find they're a bit too easy to kill. Reavers are also good at getting into melee and/or to counter other people's melee attacks. I find that a Reaver with a melee weapon is a great asset to a list. It's a unit that will always do something useful, whether that's threatening the enemy's back field, blocking a rush from warhounds or knights or winning the game through playing the mission.

 

When you're taking on big titans you want to get close, for a whole lot of reasons. If you get inside their carapace weapon range Warlords can struggle to strip shields and Warbringers won't be able to fire their biggest weapons. Also the guns on smaller titans tend to be most effective up close, so you will really struggle to win a long-ranged firefight.

 

If you have more engines than your opponent then you should have an advantage in activations. Combined with better speed, you can use this to outmanoeuvre your opponent. Try to avoid standing still for any reason and don't be afraid to miss shots of your own on the approach, say by hiding behind a big object, if it means your opponent misses out on more powerful shots from large engines.

 

You can use your first or second movement activation to advance a titan to where your opponent can't see it, causing them a dilemma. Where should they point their own engines when you have so much else to move? If you are moving first then you can put an engine on full stride. Have it advance in the open as bait. Hopefully your opponent will point guns at it, but you will then activate it first in the combat phase and move into cover.

 

The goal is to get in close, preferably inside the enemy's void shields, and stay out of their fire arc. You can do a lot of damage to big engines very quickly if you get plasma blastguns, meltas and melee weapons into them. The trick is not to be shot to bits on the approach.

[schoon]

I'm a big fan of Reavers as well, not as a space filler, but as a primary "main battle Titan."

 

Mandragola correctly points out that fewer points per Titan usually means that you'll have more activations.

 

Second, guns only get to apply their strength if they can be maneuvered into firing position. Reavers are a bit more nimble than their bigger cousins, and while they don't pack the same punch, they can throw more punches.

 

If you have a more aggressive style, they are equally critical, as they can come to grips with the enemy more quickly and can (marginally) take more advantage of cover during the approach.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Mm, yeah, that all makes sense. I suppose what I'm trying to think through is what different classes offer in terms of rounding out a force. What I mean is that in roping friends into games (mostly on TTS for the next few months), I've got freedom to explore different maniples, since ultimately, my legio's fluff is that they fight the way I like to play them.

At least where I am now, the heavier maniples are pretty straightforward- I just take the required titans and spec them to do the three phases. Similarly, something like a corsair makes sense to me- the reavers are flexible enough to do everything and the mobility is the draw.

Where I'm getting "stuck" is in building around a light maniple like a Canis or an Arcus. When I've got 400+ points free, what do I want to stick them in?

 

Concrete example, I can do a Canis for like 1200. That gives me space for more pretty much anything, including a Warlord. But I could also get two reavers, etc. So in a situation where I've got a small or medium titan centered maniple, I'm not sure what trade-offs are involved, since I know that Warhounds are kind of glass-cannony, reavers do a little of everything, Warlords are solid tanks, and Warbringers are... specialists?- I'm thinking about the carapace weapon, there. Not to mention Knights. So I'm not quite sure how to choose what I spend those points on since I can see ways to arm support engines and rearm maniple engines to make a lot of combos work. (Except knights. I don't quite get them yet beyond using them as distractions and shields.)

[Mandragola]

Well the Canis maniple is only available to Legio Audax. Goonhammer just did quite a good write up on them. Basically your only options are Canis and Lupercal maniples. It probably makes sense to have one of each maniple I think. Any other kind of titan would mean introducing a second Legio and giving your opponent 2 more strat points, though I suppose that could be worthwhile.

 

I think there are two main approaches when adding to an army. You can either add things that make it better at what it already does, or you can add something different that will allow it to do something new. I think you've got a pretty good understanding of what the different options would add to your army. They all have merit but some combos make more sense than others.

 

So if you're using a load of glass cannon units like Warhounds then I think you should probably avoid adding stuff that's tanky with low damage output. A tanky unit is of no value if your opponent can just ignore it and focus on the immediate threats, which a Canis maniple will kind of force them to do anyway. So I'd avoid things like warlords and warbringers and instead go for extra warhounds, knights and maybe some aggressive reavers. Give your opponent a lot of problems all at once and hit them very hard.

 

The simplest option for Audax is still to add a Lupercal maniple and maybe some knight lancers to give you a melee threat. An alternative would be to have something like a Ferrox maniple from a second Legio, with a melee Reaver or two. That would probably mean reducing the size of the Canis maniple a bit so you had enough points, with the result that the Audax portion of your list would probably be smaller than the other Legio.

[Sherrypie]

Nitpicking here, but you can add non-legio affiliated titans as reinforcements to an Audax group without ceding any additional stratagem points to the opposition since you're never required to declare you're using legio rules outside of only having identical allegiances within maniples. They won't have legio rules then, but if you don't care it's not that big of an issue.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Yeah, I was mostly thinking that a Warhound centered force looks like fun and that the Canis/Audax looks like a good way to do that. (Call them the Hounds of Tindalos...) Naturally, if the Hounds are on the Hunt, the King in Yellow can't be far behind. (Spectral Hounds that appear from sensor haze, perhaps supported by a terrifying psi-titan?) But quests for Carcosa aside, the was to explore what a splash of Audax could get you, or, throwing out less SP, what to take alongside a Lupercal. Or perhaps pairing a Ferrox and a Venator and using that trait that lets you pair Reavers, etc etc.

Also things to take in support slots in general when you've got points to spare as in the case of the aforementioned Arcus.

Actually...

Psi-Titan + Bypass weapons- this list cares not for your void shields! It'd be a weird. Super weird. But fun?

Edited August 23, 2020 by Uberlord Gendo

[Sherrypie]

For a list that cares nought for shields, just take double melee Reavers with Warp Missiles supported by the psi-titan :D

 

Quaranteed fun, at least.

[Mandragola]

The problem with the bypass weapons in Shadow and Iron, the claw and taser thing, is that they are useless. They give you too-small a chance to do not enough damage. It's incredibly hard to get a battle titan with the claw and it won't die anyway even if you do. An Audax Lupercal is the only way it has any chance but even then it's just not enough.

[Mandragola]

I’ve had a look at the rules in Crucible of Retribution and written up my thoughts. You may as well read them, now you're here.

 

Overall I think I’d have to say that this is the supplement that you need least for AT. Previous supplements have tended to include a lot of rules that apply to all players: maniples, stratagems, allegiance abilities and so on. This book basically contains a bunch of Legios (which you only need if you play them) and two maniples that you can probably manage without.

 

That’s not a criticism of the book though. The contents are all very good, I think. Perhaps the most exciting thing in the book is a whole load of new random missions. These mostly look like cool narrative things rather than new matched play missions, but many of them look like a lot of fun. I’m glad I managed to order a set of the cards to generate these, though you can actually manage perfectly fine with two dice rolls on the table in this book.

 

I think AT could do with some new matched play missions, as the original ones aren’t well balanced – and we’ve all mostly played them quite a lot by now. That’s not what you get here, but it is a lot more types of game you can play.

 

The missions mostly look good, and they have a lot of fun mechanics. One objection I have is that some say to build forces of different points values, but they go about it (in my opinion) the wrong way. Typically the attacker gets 1000 or 750 more points than the defender. I’d have preferred it if they got 25% or 50% more, so that it scaled better.

 

Also, rather too many of the missions just come down to who kills most stuff. That’s ok, but it could be better. I think it might have been fun to generate the environment and the mission separately some of the time.

 

Still, I’ll definitely be trying this stuff out if we’re ever allowed to play games again.

 

Here’s my thinking on the various Legios. I’ve written up what I think about the various Legio traits, stratagems and wargear, followed by a half-hearted look at the princeps traits, highlighting the good ones.

 

Astraman are good at repairs, sort of like Astorum and Crucius. They have one trait and it lets them spend a turn just rebuilding the titan, instead of doing anything else. In the movement phase you can advance your reactor once and do a repair roll instead of moving. You also can’t activate in the combat phase, meaning you’re swapping both your movement and shooting for one repair roll, and still have to gain a point of heat first. This doesn’t sound like a good ability at all to me at first. It’s a lot worse than repair orders, which let you either move or shoot, don’t add heat and add +1 to your repairs. However, you can actually do both this and repair orders, for a total of three repair rolls, to practically build a new titan from scratch.

 

They do have some nice strats. Strength and resolve will make any titan extremely hard to kill for a turn, and a Warlord all but invincible, by preventing any bonuses against you from structural damage. This actually combos relatively well with the Legio trait. A badly damaged titan can have this strat played on them to repair twice and not easily die. Stand Firm lets any titans merge void shields for a turn, for 3SPs, which could be phenomenal with big titans – so you could potentially have a healthy titan cover the aforementioned damaged guy while he rebuilt. Interesting.

 

The final thing is wargear for 30 points adding +1 to armour rolls (so knights will still get ion saves as if it was the original strength) for an ordnance weapon. Is a S8 macro gatling cannon worth 60 points? Actually it might be. That sounds pretty horrible.

 

There’s a fun Princeps trait that lets you punch someone back after they do a charge at you. That’s a pretty major deterrent to charging a Clawlord!

 

Then we have Atarus, who are basically the same as ever. One interesting thing here is that the “maniple of one” stratagem keeps improving with every new book, as more maniple options appear. So for example you could have a Reaver with dual laser blasters (or even all-lasers) that suddenly declared it was a member of an Extermigus maniple, and proceeded to spit out a load of S10 death. Atarus also have pretty strong Princeps traits.

 

Next up Ignatum, who a lot of us have been waiting a long while  to see. I rate these guys as pretty strong, thanks to a good selection of abilities all round.

First up their one trait: reroll 1s to hit in the combat phase (so not for charge orders). This is just obviously great in a game with very few rerolls. Do bear in mind the fairly obscure rule that you still gain heat on plasma even if you reroll a 1 to some other result.

 

An ability that combos quite well with this is their strat “punish their folly”. You’re up close to people so they’re quite likely to charge you. If they do, shoot them with your sunfury or macro gatling at full BS before they attack. Awesome. No rerolls of 1 of course, as it’s not in the combat phase. Shooting their melee weapon off with a macro gatling will be fun.

 

I’m less a fan of their “guard the gates” strat. What are you doing going on first fire in turn 1 if you want to get within 12” of stuff? And your reroll 1s thing obviously isn’t going to help, since it’s not the combat phase and you’re far away. And also the internet points out that it’s not clear whether this applies only in turn one or for the whole game. FWIW my personal take is you put any titans you want on FF immediately when you play the strat… but who knows? Well done FW.

 

Gravitonic sensor arrays give you +1 to hit a partially (or more) obscured titan. This is excellent as it means you can still land targeted shots on obscured stuff. It’s not quite as good as the Fureans targeters in my opinion but it does work at any range. If you meet Fureans, run at them (and definitely don’t play the above strat)!

 

Decent Princeps traits too. My favourite is Foe Slayer, adding +1 to damage rolls for any one gun (lol @Astraman paying 30 points to do this for a single weapon). Nice to be able to swap which weapon gets the buff each turn, as required. There are times when 10 S5 missile shots will be a good option, for example.

 

Legio Venator get two traits. The first makes them ignore Princeps wounded and add +1 to command checks while within 6” of their Seniores. A solid ability, especially for Reavers and Warhouds.

 

Secondly they can form any two titans from a maniple into a squadron if they want, swapping them around each turn. This is an exceptionally good ability, allowing for some very high strength coordinated strikes. There are loads of cool options here that I could almost write a whole post about. Having two Reavers charge reliably and simultaneously is pretty great. Squadroning a Warhound and Warlord in a Regia could be devastating, and so on. And it’s whenever you want to do it, so you can just ignore this if you need activations. Top ability and lots of fun.

 

Their blind launchers, which give enemies -1 to hit against a titan, are really nice too. It’s a mini blind barrage that you can use after you’ve shot. You can do it as well as a blind barrage if you want, say if you’re carrying an objective on full stride. Solid, though not cheap at 20 pts.

 

I don’t think there are any real stand outs in the Venator Princeps traits. They’re ok.

 

Laniaskara get a couple of awesome traits. First, any titan can move at boosted speed once per turn, without pushing its reactor. This is arguably the single best Legio trait for a Warhound titan in AT, as otherwise they’re very prone to overheating and losing control. It’s great for other titans too, but incredible for Warhounds.

 

The second trait is a bit less major, but still good. You can do a smash attack on a charge as well as any other attacks you make – so you could just do two smash attacks if you don’t have a melee weapon. This is solid as charges quite often leave targets nearly dead, and a good smash attack might well finish the job. It also allows you to do slightly sneaky stuff like use your melee weapon to attack a titan’s body (or wherever) and then smash in their melee weapon, preventing them from hitting you with it. Not a bad trait.

 

They then get a 1 point strat to allow all your titans to auto-pass charge orders for the rest of the phase. That’s fantastic as Reavers and warhounds can often fail charges, ruining your plan. It’s susceptible to Vox Blackout though.

 

They’ve got quite an interesting bit of wargear. Only 10 points and you reduce the armour rolls of anything with the maximal trait that hits you by 1. This could well be pretty good I think, downgrading quite a lot of devastating hits to direct, or criticals to devastating. Plasma is commonly used to break open a titan’s armour so this could have quite a big impact.

 

I like the princeps traits too. “Cruel” lets you add 2 to the strength of a gun when shooting something scale 5 or lower, meaning you can hit Acastus knights with S12 plasma and one-shot them. It’s what they deserve!

 

Kulisaetai are notable in that they’re a Traitor Legio with the kind of reliability that you usually find more often on Loyalists. They don’t suffer penalties to their command values and they can’t be forced to reroll. I think there might now be more abilities in AT to prevent modifiers to command values than cause them.

 

Cool strats though. 1CP to add 6” to short range if you don’t move is pretty nice, especially if you’re hanging back on first fire. Not so good for apocalypse launchers and quake cannons though. More fun is methodical advance, which lets you move all your titans of a particular scale in the first strategy phase. This sounds good for a Corsair or Extermigus maniple. Titans that move can’t be given orders though.

 

The accelerated autolaunchers wargear is pretty interesting if you have a titan on first fire. You get to fire your apoc launchers a second time, though at -1 to hit. It disables them but that’s not a problem on turn one, as you’re about to have a repair phase anyway. If you can fire a Warlord’s launchers at something twice on first fire, it’s likely going to be pretty low on shields afterwards. Unfortunately this doesn’t combo at all with methodical advance, as that would mean the titan couldn’t be on first fire and, as the strat makes your opponent first player, they could move out of your corridor arc before you shot.

 

Princeps traits are definitely nothing to write home about.

 

Tritonis are our first blackshield Legio, and they’re pretty interesting. They can swap compulsory Reavers for Warlords, which lets you get Warlords in Ferrox or Corsair maniples, and potentially do a 4-Warlord Fortis maniple.

 

The major thing these guys bring is the Stygian Veil strat, for 2SP. You get to put 3 6” markers that block LoS in the strategy phase, with the centres at least 10” apart. So the gap between two markers could only be 4”. Enemies within 6” also drop their command value by 2, as apparently titans are afraid of the dark.

 

This seems massively strong to me. You can hide your own advancing titans while also blocking vision for the enemy and making them fail command checks. There’s also a Princeps trait that lets you buy this strat more than once, though at 2SP you’ll usually only get 2 goes.

 

They also have a 25 point upgrade to missiles, so that 6s to hit against voids count as 2 hits. That’s reasonably good, probably getting you 2 more hits if you fire a Warlord at something. 25 points seems a bit expensive though for this.

 

They’ve got another good Princeps trait, tactical genius, allowing you to reroll your dice for priority each turn – at the cost of giving your Seniores orders. This seems decent, though non essential. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tritonis builds with two maniples if possible, to get both this and the option for multiple Stygian Veils.

 

Damicum are a tanky Traitor Legio. They can choose to ignore a crit from the start of the movement phase to the end of combat. This means they’ll still be affected by head damage in the stratagem phase while trying to do orders, but they can avoid penalties to hit, speed and (temporarily) VSG burnouts. And they repair crits on a 4+, which is pretty nice.

 

They also get +1 to command rolls so long as they can see an enemy titan that’s at least as big as they are.

Overall these are solid traits, particularly for Warhounds and Reavers. Those benefit most from better command rolls and the option to keep moving despite crits, I think.

 

They have a 3SP strat that lets you roll half your servitor clades (rounding up) at the start of the combat phase. I think this is also very nice for reavers, and it combos nicely with the ability to repair crits on a 4+.

 

Their 10 point upgrade secondary plating makes them turn the first crit they suffer into a devastating hit. This is really amazing for its price I think. It’s possibly the only upgrade that I’d recommend sticking on all your titans as a matter of course.

 

Princeps traits are ok. Beyond death could be entertaining if you could get a Reaver with a melta to stagger inside an enemy titan’s shields before exploding.

 

Maniples

 

The Ignis Light maniple is kind of cool. You add a dice to all flamestorm weapons and reroll 1s for their hits on armour, which is kind of ok for Legios that can get them into range. I could see myself using this with my Mortis… maybe. It’s good news for the Acherons, certainly, though I’d prefer to take those with a Lancer to grant them better ion saves, and this won’t allow that.

 

The annoying thing about it is that you’d end up with a load of knight castigators that can’t be part of the maniple – and which are pretty bad.

 

The Precept maniple is very like an Axiom (and the words mean similar things, Latin fans). It’s the first maniple with one of each kind of titan (two Warhounds) and it matches the contents of the terminal pack. It’s also quite nice, as you can pick an order for the maniple and then any titan that picks it passes on a 2+. The only downside is that you’ll rarely want all these different kinds of engine to be doing the same thing. It’s quite a flexible maniple, as pretty much any Legio that is able to swap titan classes around can probably have some fun with this.

 

The effects of this aren’t massive, but it’s quite nice. Your warhounds can quite reliably full stride on turn one, which could be useful.

 

These two maniples are both quite fun but I don’t think either of them will change the game much. That’s probably fine, as there are already plenty of good maniples in the game.

 

Conclusion

 

This seems like a great book to me, even if it probably qualifies as "nice to have" rather than essential. We’ve got seven new Legios, all with some cool abilities, none of which look like they’ll break the game too badly. Stygian Veil is perhaps the nastiest thing, but at least an opponent can respond by hiding in the shadows you give them if they want. The missions could bring a bit more life to the game if anyone's sick of the standard five. 

[Sherrypie]

I'll probably comment more when I get the book in my hands, but it sounds solid. It's nice to see more abilities that aren't variations of "shoot harder" and I'm always a sucker for more narrative missions and environmental effects.

 

Also, it's not like converting Castigators to more Acherons is that hard. BURNINATE EVERYTHING ;)

[Uberlord Gendo]

So, the Warmaster. I have a feeling most of us are going to get one, but how do you use it?

I'm thinking the draw here is the weapons. Between the Revelator and the Suzerains,you have the volume and strength to break armor and achieve an engine kill in a way other engines just can't. I think you can even have it stripping shields turn one thanks to the rate of fire. I think the big problem may end up being overkill on smaller targets. Which is all good, I think, given that it seems like you're going to have less than 700 points to play with in a 1750 list. I think the sensible move is to try a Lupercal or a Canis (the Warmaster is a support titan anyway, so...), because the minimum Lance is 490 points and only one activation.

I hear some of you saying "IGNUS IGNUS BURN IT ALL", but you can't fit it into 1750. (But you can at 1850.) At least at present, I think the most sensible way to run one of these things in a normal sized game is with Audax support and just use the Warhound pressure to let your Warmaster sit in mid-range and wreck things once the audax engines bring the shields down. Other ideas?

[Brother Dallo]

Can you run it in smaller games by taking a minimum Knight detachment and it as an auxiliary Titan?

 

Not sure how good/bad it would be, but it might be cheaper than three Warhounds? I’m not very familiar with Knights as their own force in Titanicus.

 

Dallo

[Gore Crow]

Looks like you have to run a legio battlegroup with at least one maniple to take it - no knight is telling a Warmaster what to do!

Edited January 27, 2021 by Gore Crow

[The boater]

Can you run it in smaller games by taking a minimum Knight detachment and it as an auxiliary Titan?

 

Not sure how good/bad it would be, but it might be cheaper than three Warhounds? I’m not very familiar with Knights as their own force in Titanicus.

 

Dallo

Doesn’t look like it. The cheapest load out still comes in the 1k+ range (unless there’s cheaper arm weapons down the line). Minimum game size is 1250-1750 for this bad boy, and I suspect that it’s *really* not worth it until you are playing at the 2500+ range. As far as with knights, I’m really not convinced this would be a good titan to take with them. You’re dominating your battle force with one activation, making it harder for you you keep your knights out of trouble.

 

I am really not sure what to make of this beast. It’s definitely a mid ranged brawler, and because of that, I think the boosted movement card is the better of the two by a long shot. I’ll definitely be getting one traitor and one loyalist, but I don’t think either will see the field unless my opponent has one out as well.

 

That being said, I would love to try to play a game of a light maniple of equal points trying to take down this beast... it would be interesting to say the least

 

Interesting that the Suzerian has three fire modes. I think this is the first weapon with that, I’ll have to do some math to see with one is the better but I suspect it will be maximal fire.

Edited January 27, 2021 by The boater

[Mandragola]

Since we saw the rules for the Warmaster yesterday I've been giving some thought to what to do with the thing. I've written down some first impressions below, in no particular order and with my usual disregard for brevity.

 

The most important thing for me is that it can kill Acastus knights for fun. Let's see how they enjoy S15 plasma; not very much, I imagine.

 

It can't be taken in support of a knight household force based on the rules we've seen. It says you can have one per maniple, not one per lance. The Legios don't go lending these things out to just anyone.

 

The cheapest load-out for this thing is double apocalypse launchers. It comes in at 1060 points. The cheapest maniple is a 3 Warhound Lupercal (or Canis) maniple, at 600. This means that you can't use it in a game of less than 1660 points - or more realistically 1750. At 1750 you can just fit in a Venator or Ferrox maniple, by going for absolutely the cheapest weapons on everything.

 

There are a bunch of things to consider when thinking about this monster. What Legio is it in, what maniple are you fielding, what stratagems will you use and, most importantly, how are you going to achieve your mission?

 

I think first it's worth considering how a model costing ~1100 points is going to function in AT. There are a lot of potential problems with it. First up, you're going to be out-activated and probably outmanoeuvred. Second, while it does have massive amounts of firepower, so does 1100 points of whatever the enemy brought against you. I'm not sure this thing wins a direct shoot out with two Warlords, for example, especially if they're using some kind of shenanigans from maniples like Fortis or Extermigus. On the other hand it'll very easily win a 1v1 battle with just about anything. This means you're going to want to use actual tactics with it, not just march it into the middle and expect it to steamroller the enemy.

 

You might expect the biggest titan in AT to be a stand-at-the-back artillery piece and largely harmless up close. You'd be wrong. This thing's main guns have a decent but not spectacular 32" range, with +1 to hit within 16". A lot of its secondary weapons like VMBs and plasma blastguns want to be close too and mostly don't have the carapace rule, so you can't run inside its guns like you can with a Warlord. Its smash attack, if it hits, is the highest-strength melee attack in AT before upgrades. It's also more manoeuvrable than a Warlord, with the option of 3 turns if it pushes its reactor. So we're looking at a midfield brawler here.

 

It's obviously going to attract a lot of fire. For me, this suggests that you'll want to try and save its plasma for the shields and avoid having it run quickly or use draining weapons too much. And of course you'll generate a bit of heat firing plasma too. Don't go nuts with heat, basically.

 

In terms of what to equip the thing itself with there are a few decisions, but actually not as many as usual since the arm and carapace weapons are fixed - at least for now. You have these insanely powerful arm weapons and and wholly unremarkable missiles on the roof. Then you get to pick an addon for your reactor and shoulder weapons.

 

For the shoulders there are five options. There are four broad categories of these: shield breakers (the VMB and apoc launcher), powerful killy guns (plasma and melta), somewhere in between (lasers) and awful (flamers).

 

The great news is that all of these have a 90 degree arc and don't have the carapace rule. So they're far easier to bring to bear on things than the Warlord's carapace weapons. It's more like if the Warbringer just had a pet warhound running around. As an added bonus, these things now get hit if your opponent rolls the "special" location against you, meaning a nice 1/6 chance of doing some largely irrelevant and easily repaired damage instead of hitting your body. This matters because the body is significantly weaker on this thing than the head or legs, so it's where your opponent would probably like to hit it. And it means 1/3 of non-targeted attacks just damage a gun instead of hurting the titan itself.

 

The most obvious option would be to take shield breakers, as the arm weapons on this thing are already utterly devastating, but not particularly good against shields. That should probably be your default option I think.  Of the two options I generally prefer the VMBs, if you can get them into range. I have Legio Mortis and Astorum, both of which give me ways to accelerate this thing forward, meaning that the VMBs look really nice when compared with the nerfed apoc launchers.

 

If you want a killy gun the plasma blastgun is far better than the melta, making this a nice easy choice. The melta is just shorter ranged and only has one shot, so disregard it. I assume that the card's +1 to hit at long range is a typo, as they did the same thing for the Psi-titan's laser blaster, but I could be wrong. It's fantastic either way. There's a relatively strong argument for taking at least one of these because they're actually not awful at shield stripping. Plasma blastguns aren't even a huge risk for heat since they only have two shots, which convert into 2 (or more) times that many hits due to the blast rule, so they're very efficient for your reactor.

 

I can't see much of a case for lasers on this thing. You don't really want to push its reactor for shieldbane on two shots and it's not a great finisher. It's not awful but there just doesn't seem to be an argument for it. I thought about potentially using them on a Mortis Warbringer with the Warmaster's Beneficence but it still just seems bad, and expensive.

 

And flamers are of course awful. This thing is slow and they don't help it break shields, damage armour or finish injured enemies. Leave on the sprue.

 

The ancillary reactor thingy is an interesting choice. You can either go slightly faster all the time, with a penalty to hit if you boost for speed, or you can have a turn when you cool yourself down a lot. It's not an easy decision. Personally, for example, I think I'd give a Mortis engine the speed boost and an Astorum one the chilled reactor. The speed boost works with the Mortis March of the Dead strat and the option to cool the reactor down a lot would be good for Astorum, if it had been War Marching and heating itself up. Both are nice to have though.

 

There are some stand-out stratagems to play on this thing. Venerable Machine Spirit from December's White Dwarf is close to a no-brainer, allowing this thing to do called shots on a 3+ within 16" with its main guns and even hit reasonably accurately with them in melee. Overcharged Cannon on one of its arm guns would let you shoot stuff at S15, which sounds fairly mean. You'd crit anything on a 2+, itself included. I think Traitors might have a marginally better toolbox of strats to use on it, like Warp Displacement and Bloodthirst, if they really want to go nuts.

 

There are ~30 Legios so I'm not going to try and go through them all. Here are a few things that have come out of a bit of discussion I had with friends yesterday.

 

Vulcanum (as pointed out by Goonhammer's Bair) can make its Princeps a twin with some other titan. This is the only way to give it a Princeps trait and also unlocks evil stuff like having it merge shields with a Warlord - and potentially do coordinated strikes. Sick - warn your opponent before doing this.

 

Fureans would be a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand it spoils their Offensive Surge stratagem. On the other, if you give it a Venerable Machine Spirit then it'll fail those machine spirit rolls quite a bit, giving you more shots or free repairs. Hunting auspex remains fantastic.

 

For Mortis it will likely benefit quite a bit from Reaper's Tally, and also from March of the Dead. As such, for me personally it's the first engine I'm thinking might be better for my Mortis battlegroup than my Astorum. It definitely isn't bad for Astorum though, as they can hit it with Machine Defiance if its shields ever go down.

 

Atarus can play Maniple of One on it, which gives you loads of great options. If it's close to the enemy it can decide to be in a Ferrox maniple and slaughter things up close. Or it could decide to be in an Extermigus to do ludicrous nova hits on things with potential (though unnecessary!) S17 plasma shots.

 

That's probably enough for now. I can't want to get one of these things on the battlefield.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Mandragola

[SkimaskMohawk]

For fureans, it definitely depends on the rest of the list for offensive surge. If you use this as the finishing titan and use split fire, you can surge to drop shields with the maniple and use the warmaster for clean up. Obviously hunting auspex is amazing on it and let's you do quad plasma.

 

I do think the more defensive legios and ones that can play around with maniple and princep stuff will see higher returns than fureans, who I'd rate in a B+ for synergy with the thing.

[Mandragola]

Goonhammer have published their own take on the thing here: https://www.goonhammer.com/warlord-wednesdays-warmaster-hot-take/?fbclid=IwAR3MCs-rg7AaENAkajVrntz_FjzmFNFyTyBFh686lAGQmPUGVVlFXttNLY0

 

We've come to reassuringly similar conclusions. They also flag Ignatum for their overwatch strat (which is indeed horrifying on one of these) and a few others. Well worth a read.

 

I think a lot comes down to the question of how we go about fielding the thing. Is it still viable to do objectives with one of these and a Lupercal? How should you deploy it? How do you counter it?

 

My first thought was really that this thing isn't all that great for its price. It's always going to be out-activated and that really hurts. However, I think it'll potentially reward good play. If it's able to take on enemies one on one, it will always win those fights.

 

It definitely changes AT to add something worth twice as many points as the next most expensive model. It's a bold choice, and kind of cool if they've pulled it off.

[Captain Idaho]

Interesting thoughts, much appreciated.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I'll also say that I really don't like the veteran machine spirit stratagem in general as its just such a no brainer on a lot of things, and especially not when combined with otherwise one off models like the psy-titan and warmaster.

[depthcharge12]

Something to consider is at 2k points, you can run 3 Warlords and a Warbringer in an extermigus maniple before Legio rules are considered.

 

I’ve heard 2k was the tournament standard so I think a Warmaster/min maniple is conceivable. I haven’t built the list, but I think it would be a Warmaster/melee reaver/2 warhounds up against the 3 warlords + Warbringer.

 

You’re matching activations but I have a feeling the Extermigus will live much longer. On the flip side, that list will only have a few things that can outright pen the Warmaster (Bellicose/volcano cannons/3 plasmas on maximal).

 

Something to consider.

 

P.S. for that list I’m slapping together the usual plasma/Gatling warlord, and two warlords with AMLs and volcanos/plasma. I’m sure a much more efficient list could be built.

[Mandragola]

I'll also say that I really don't like the veteran machine spirit stratagem in general as its just such a no brainer on a lot of things, and especially not when combined with otherwise one off models like the psy-titan and warmaster.

I agree, mostly. However a Psi-titan should never have this upgrade. It doesn't need the BS for the Sinistramanus and the -3 to command value is crippling to it.

 

Something to consider is at 2k points, you can run 3 Warlords and a Warbringer in an extermigus maniple before Legio rules are considered.

 

I’ve heard 2k was the tournament standard so I think a Warmaster/min maniple is conceivable. I haven’t built the list, but I think it would be a Warmaster/melee reaver/2 warhounds up against the 3 warlords + Warbringer.

 

You’re matching activations but I have a feeling the Extermigus will live much longer. On the flip side, that list will only have a few things that can outright pen the Warmaster (Bellicose/volcano cannons/3 plasmas on maximal).

 

Something to consider.

 

P.S. for that list I’m slapping together the usual plasma/Gatling warlord, and two warlords with AMLs and volcanos/plasma. I’m sure a much more efficient list could be built.

I don't think there's any "tournament standard" value. So far as I'm aware there's never actually been a tournament in AT. The event at WHW had games at 1k, 1.5 and 2k, whereas Blood and Glory used 1750. I've mostly played 1750 myself as that's one of the suggested points brackets, but others prefer 1.5 or 2k.

 

That said, I think your analysis is broadly right. This thing becomes a reasonable option for games of 2k and above. There are quite a lot of maniples you could fit into the ~900 points you'd have left. Mandatum, Ferrox, Arcus and Corsair, for example. Some of these would let you fit in something like a knight banner as well.

[schoon]

Interestingly, the Warmaster is slightly more mobile than a Warlord - which I was not expecting. But that mobility may not do you huge amounts of good when you're out-activated.

 

I'll be very interested to see what they do with additional arm and carapace weapons. That could give it lots more flexibility.

[Uberlord Gendo]

As odd as this is going to sound, at 1750 at least, I think the Warmaster is going to fit best with titan classes not in the game yet. The big issue is going to be a lack of activations and while any given light maniple is going to give you a total of 4, which is going to be on par with heavier maniples, Warhounds get a lot out of squadrons and both Canis and Lupercal play in to that. However, if a titan that is between Warhound and Reaver is not a squadron-based, then it may work better, keeping more activations. (The subwarhound class will probably be squadron focused.)

Beyond 1750 (like 1850, where you can burninate), I think we'll see a more natural sort of role for the Warmaster with Warlords being well suited for a sniping role, though honestly, thinking about the ways to use the Warmaster may change up my use of the Warlord at lower points, particularly as we see more titan classes.