Principia Titanicus

[noigrim]

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.

I agree, the reaver is top dog, it's resilient, fast to dodge the warlords and realtivelly cheap

[Mandragola]

There have been quite a few changes to this game recently, so I’m going to try and write up some thoughts on them. This is kind of a weird time to be doing any kind of tactical analysis, since it’s virtually impossible for me to play games at the moment. I’d definitely welcome feedback on this stuff from people with more actual experience.

 

I want to talk about the Warmaster first, because it’s a new thing that everyone has access to. Also mine arrived in the post this morning. There’s actually a thread on it and I’ve also had some chats with people who’ve used it, including Bair of Goonhammer. So what follows isn’t entirely just my own ramblings.

 

The Warmaster is a massive increase in scale and power for a single unit in AT. It’s more than double the price you’d usually pay for a Warlord. Where previously units tended to step up in price roughly by 100 points per class (Warhound, Reaver, Warbringer, Warlord) this thing is about a 600 point step. So that does odd things to the game.

 

Taking one of these means you’ll be heavily outnumbered and almost certainly out-activated… at least at the start. But it won’t die too easily so the enemy is likely to lose activations faster than you do. It has a great reactor and shields, and given the amount of fire it’s likely to attract, you probably want to use almost all its reactor power for those shields.

 

An advantage it has is that AT is a game where focussing fire on a single target tends to work well. If you put a lot of power into one model then it can’t help but focus that power on one thing, and it’s pretty likely to kill that thing. The challenge is preventing your opponent from focussing too much firepower on your Warmaster in return.

 

There are also pretty major disadvantages to a big model like this. Playing a strat like blind barrage on it will ruin a lot of your shooting for a turn, and there are plenty of other similar options.

 

The odd thing for writing tactics about this thing is that for now, you don’t have many choices. You get to pick what armpit guns you want, which ancillary reactor to go for, and that’s all. Presumably we’ll get more weapons in future, whether in resin or plastic. Personally I think it’s a real shame that they shipped the thing with two identical arms, but there you go.

 

And then the choices you do get are honestly fairly straightforward. You definitely don’t want to be firing Suzerain Class Plasma Destructors at void shields, so for the armpits, you probably need to look at shield breakers, which are the VMBs and apoc arrays. But that actually puts you in a bit of a tricky spot because neither is quite ideal for you. The apocalypse missile arrays only have 3 shots each and the VMBs only have 20” range, so the enemy can potentially keep out of reach.

 

 

So essentially that’s what you get to decide with a Warmaster. Do I make a devastating midfield brawler or a significantly less powerful long-ranged support titan? Personally I’d go for the brawler. That means either two VMBs or one and a Plasma blastgun – which is decent against shields and excellent against knights. Overall I think the VMBs are probably your best bet as breaking enemy shields is the top priority, and they’re the best way to do it – as well as being fairly cheap.

 

I think this is a good bit of game design. They could have made this thing a massive artillery piece that could sit back and blast stuff off the board. I think they’ve toned down the apoc launchers deliberately to avoid that and force it into midfield. It’s devastatingly powerful within 20”, but also vulnerable to return fire.

 

So what ancillary reactor do you want? I have to say I think this is really not a big deal either way. 1” of movement versus a once-per-game supercoolant probably won’t make much difference. That said, different Legios might have slight reasons to prefer one to the other.

 

For my Astorum I think I prefer the supercoolant, marginally. I don’t need that 1” of extra speed really, since I can push my reactor for speed normally and expect to cool down very easily.

 

At first I thoughy my Mortis would probably want the extra 1” of movement. That way I can use March of the Dead on turn 1 and it will have gone 10” forward by the end of the movement phase, likely getting those VMBs into range without generating any heat. Actually though, this one would still be better off with supercoolant, since it could achieve the same result by just pushing its reactor in the movement phase.

 

So thinking through some real-ish examples means I think overall the supercoolant is the way to go. The big problem with the plasmatic locomotors is that they punish you for pushing for turns. You probably won’t need to do that all that often but having a massive penalty if you do is a problem, I think.

 

There are some options you can take here. The Experimental Locomotors stratagem lets you use your boosted move speed without pushing your reactor. It doesn’t trigger the plasmatic locomotors penalty and you can move 7” per turn with no issues. That’s only a 1 point strat, so if for some reason you want your Warmaster to run around quickly (but not turn much) this could well be the way to go. And there are some Legios that have similar rules, which could make this a good option.

 

In terms of actually fielding the thing, you’re going to need another maniple. This means the smallest game you can theoretically use it in is 1660, with a Lupercal maniple. At 1750 you can theoretically field it with a Reaver and two hounds, which opens up more maniple options, but only by giving everything the cheapest possible weapons.

 

You should really be using this thing in bigger games though. At 2500 it can be taken along with a little over 1400 points worth of friends, which is enough to get a proper maniple. And that’s not just to avoid being “that guy” – you’ll have odd games at 1750 and really struggle with any missions other than engage and destroy… and maybe defending against Glory and Honour.

 

The maniple you’re taking with a Warmaster needs to strip shields for the Warmaster, defend it against melee threats and do whatever your mission might be. There are lots of ways you can do this but to me it tends to suggest Reavers. They are relatively fast, resilient and cheap, which tends to make them the best titans for achieving missions like vital cargo. So I think I’d look at maniples like Corsair and Fortis that let me bring a few Reavers along. Spamming Warhounds is tempting but I find them unreliable for missions and vulnerable to getting picked off.

 

Hope this is useful. I’d be very interested in input if you’ve got other ideas.

[The boater]

Hope this is useful. I’d be very interested in input if you’ve got other ideas.

Great analysis. I think my preference on mortis would be the speed, as 10 in in the first turn puts them in threat range, but that’s just my preference.

 

Some interesting ideas I’ve been thinking through: Run one for my Fortidus as a “suicide bomber.” It’s a really risky to plan for a titan to die, but knowing full well that it’s going to be a fire magnet it might be worth it. I’d run him as hot as I could right up into the face of the opposition, then when they manage to bring it down drop the “even in death” and “red sky” strategims. Either option, your putting a lot of hurt on a VERY large chunck of the board.

 

Idea number two is for Vulpa. Run him with the fast option, throw both of the Vulpa upgrades on him and run him like you would a Vulpa warhound. If you start to run hot, your plasma gargoyles will have enough strength to actually do something. It would be mean, but it has to carry the entire battlegroup, so quite the risk.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I think the Supercoolant is currently a no-brainer really. This thing wants to be up close, yet is armed purely with ranged weapons, which means pushing for the extra turns is going to be key for keeping things in arc, especially when you're almost guaranteed to be out-activated. You need to move it second, to force your opponent to move something else, then use the turns to lock onto that target. Otherwise your opponent is going to out manoeuvre you.

 

Whereas if you take the other plasmatic locomotors, you take a to hit penalty which reduces your shooting capacity greatly, before you even think about things like cover, which your opponent will be hugging for dear life. Which makes it pretty pointless.

 

I almost think the locomotors are designed to support weapons we haven't seen yet, probably melee ones. As it seems to be designed to get the Titan as close as possible to a target without worrying about shooting. An unstoppable force relentlessly closing in on its foe.

[Mandragola]

 

Hope this is useful. I’d be very interested in input if you’ve got other ideas.

Great analysis. I think my preference on mortis would be the speed, as 10 in in the first turn puts them in threat range, but that’s just my preference.

 

Some interesting ideas I’ve been thinking through: Run one for my Fortidus as a “suicide bomber.” It’s a really risky to plan for a titan to die, but knowing full well that it’s going to be a fire magnet it might be worth it. I’d run him as hot as I could right up into the face of the opposition, then when they manage to bring it down drop the “even in death” and “red sky” strategims. Either option, your putting a lot of hurt on a VERY large chunck of the board.

 

Idea number two is for Vulpa. Run him with the fast option, throw both of the Vulpa upgrades on him and run him like you would a Vulpa warhound. If you start to run hot, your plasma gargoyles will have enough strength to actually do something. It would be mean, but it has to carry the entire battlegroup, so quite the risk.

 

I'm honestly not a fan of trying to detonate one of these. You can still just do very little with a reactor explosion if you do only one or two hits, hit a weapon, or whatever. Not at all worth an 1100 point engine. Red sky is for melee titans in my opinion. They tend to die a lot, often near to the enemy.

 

The Vulpa one is pretty great though. Making one of these things a meaningful threat in melee is horrible. They've also got a strat that lets a titan fire again if it kills something, and this thing could make great use of that.

 

I think the Supercoolant is currently a no-brainer really. This thing wants to be up close, yet is armed purely with ranged weapons, which means pushing for the extra turns is going to be key for keeping things in arc, especially when you're almost guaranteed to be out-activated. You need to move it second, to force your opponent to move something else, then use the turns to lock onto that target. Otherwise your opponent is going to out manoeuvre you.

 

Whereas if you take the other plasmatic locomotors, you take a to hit penalty which reduces your shooting capacity greatly, before you even think about things like cover, which your opponent will be hugging for dear life. Which makes it pretty pointless.

 

I almost think the locomotors are designed to support weapons we haven't seen yet, probably melee ones. As it seems to be designed to get the Titan as close as possible to a target without worrying about shooting. An unstoppable force relentlessly closing in on its foe.

I can't honestly see an occasion where I'd use the locomotor thing. An engine with the coolant can push to go faster anyway. Experimental locomotors are the one good option, and I guess actually that could work for something like the Vulpa engine above.

 

It's possible that there will be new weapons but even then I'm not sure I'd often take them. A melee engine wouldn't be satisfied walking 5" a turn.

[Gattopardo]

This is great analysis. Really interesting.

 

The issue I'm thinking about is what Legio I should paint this beast as. My options are to add it to my Astorum or Vulturum. (Or of course start a third Legio! But let's not go there....)

 

I think the Warmaster will be pretty good as Astorum now that it gets to re roll two repair dice for Veteran Princeps. You can War March it into range quickly (which also suggests the VMBs are a good shoulder option as the shorter range is less of a disadvantage versus the plasma blastgun) and it should be able to manage heat well. The Warmaster is also a great candidate for playing Machine Defiance on, so it should be seriously tough. March it into midfield soaking up fire and hopefully the rest of your battlegroup won't get shot up.

 

However, I'm probably going to paint it up as Vulturum. As Mandragola says, it's best suited to larger games - this works really well for Vulturum as the Relentless Killers trait becomes much better as the game size increases. Vulturum benefit from killing stuff early in the round - ideally in the movement phase if possible - and the Warmaster first firing looks a good candidate for doing that. The Suzerain only has 3 shots but if there's a damaged engine you'd have a pretty good chance of finishing it off, particularly in short range with the +1 to hit. Alternatively, an untargeted shot with the Suzerain could potentially one shot an unshielded Warhound.

 

The Warmaster's extremely powerful guns and great reactor are also excellent candidates for Cull the Weak and Scent of Blood. Clearly when facing a Warmaster, arc dodging and getting into cover will be important, so I'm thinking that there will be good opportunities to play Cull the Weak - particularly if you move the Warmaster aggressively. Obviously this will only have value when the enemy Titan has lost its shields, but firing a Suzerain at someone who's trying to run away sounds pretty great. Scent of Blood would be excellent on the Warmaster, which can take the heat, but obviously relies on another engine inflicting a crit.

 

Vulturum can also put storm frag shells on the Warmaster's VMBs, which sounds fun. This may not be optimal though as I think the Warmaster wants the VMBs to strip shields and doesn't really need the strength bonus, and the -1 to hit at long range when using storm frag shells means they're less good at shield stripping. I actually think they'll work better on the support titans - say you take a Ferrox or Venator in support, then the Hounds and/or Reavers can take storm frag shells and be able to strip shields for the Warmaster but also potentially hurt stuff once the shields are down. I quite like the idea of a Venator maniple supporting the Warmaster actually - you're setting up the hounds to strip shields anyway, and if you get a free shot with the Reaver and cause a crit with a good Melta hit, you could (as Vulturum) play Scent of Blood on the Warmaster to either finish off the target the Reaver had hit, or get started on something else. Not something that is necessarily going to happen a lot but would potentially be quite devastating when it does.

 

Of course, the Loyalist Legios book brings quite a lot of changes - not just the Warmaster. It's a really interesting time for us as Titanicus players I think, with quite a lot of new stuff to try out.

[Mandragola]

That's a tough one. I've got a similar dilemma in deciding whether to make mine Astorum or Mortis. You can argue that it's better for Mortis as it's likely to get kills and, as a result, rerolls to hit. That would be quite a big deal. On the other hand Astorum are just very strong and they're also my main Legio, so that's who I'll make my first Warmaster for.

 

One factor I'm considering is that they might eventually bring out a second weapon sprue for the thing. If/when they do, I'll probably get one, paint it for Legio Mortis and give each titan one of each gun.

 

I think your analysis of the Warmaster's strengths for the two Legios is right. An Astorum one will be tough and a Gore Crow one will be extra dangerous. The Gore Crow one would be way easier to paint I think, if that's a factor. But fundamentally it'll work for either Legio so this is more a question of how you'd personally prefer to play it. I want to run mine with a four Warlord Extermigus maniple at 3000 points, just to see what happens. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

The thing with big games is that the mechanics make too many activations a total slog to get through. Its not like apocalypse where one side goes and you can take a step back and rest or anything; you always gotta be thinking about the next activation and your opponents in response. Playing some exhibition games with the master and a normal list against an opposing version is going to be good fun, but I'd work out how to optimize the thing for more standard games sizes like 1750-2000 before the big 3000.

 

For me, I'm going to try and magnetize but stick to plasma for the most cases; with hunting apex they can function as shield breakers and then the lazy suzans can hopefully crack the target. Or just strip the shields with any hounds and give me an excuse to do a whole laser loadout.

 

I'm also considering starting atarus after seeing Peter Martin's scheme, in which case the missiles with the upgrade are a no brainer.

[Gattopardo]

That's an interesting point, but for me the Warmaster means big games become more feasible - loading a lot of points into one activation reduces the problem of too many activations significantly. Clearly if the other side takes a lot of light maniples then it may still not work, but a Warmaster and friends against a Warlord heavy opponent is very feasible I think.

 

Also of course, with the large amount of firepower and the way the game encourages focussed fire, the number of activations will drop quickly.

 

It's something that needs to be tried out though, obviously.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Gattopardo

[Mandragola]

Ok so looking at small games, it's just barely possible to fit one of these and a Ferrox maniple in at 1750. You have to take literally the cheapest options possible on every engine though. On the plus side that means you'll have plenty of dakka for shields, but unfortunately nothing but the Warmaster will have a gun above S5. You can take a lupercal instead, of course.

 

I think it starts to become a little bit more reasonable to field one of these things at 2k, and that they start to actually make sense at 2500. There's a pretty real problem with them at small games because they'll either dominate or fail to, and the game is just about them.

 

They're also obviously quite bad at missions like retrieval and vital cargo, which reduces your options and probably forces you to go for boring old engage and destroy. And if you're using the cards you could be in trouble.

 

Personally I expect I'll mostly only have this thing walk in games of 2500 points and above.

[Sherrypie]

It could be an interesting fire support choice for a knight army as well, with lots of battlecannons chipping shields down before the plasma hammer falls. If something gets crippled by the Suzerain, it's then lanced by roving Cerastus teams.

 

Not necessarily a power move, considering the activation deficency of Lances, but an intriguing prospect for further examination at 2k.

[SkimaskMohawk]

My feeling is that I'll be playing more 2000 point games with this thing in it, where usually we stayed around 1750/1850. Maybe even a bit higher like 2250 But I know the chance of getting too many activations is going to prevent us from raising the points for any game that doesn't use a war master.

 

The mission thing is an odd point, because yes, these things basically mean you suck at being on multiple points/moving a lot. But I honestly don't know how many people actually use the matched play mission. Imo they're terrible because of the sheer variance and asymmetry; you can't ever try to learn the fundamentals of a mission that has a 1 to 625 odds of being the same. Add tertiaries in and it's a complete gong show. So any home made missions that are more kill-based will make it easier to take the master, while ones that encourage controlling objectives and spreading out will see less of them.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I was thinking about whether you could use it in some of the bigger narrative missions, like Nycron city, but I'm not sure it would ever get in range on that map!

[depthcharge12]

I’m still out of the loop on this one but what is the verdict on the ancillary weapons (armpit guns) having different rules than the warhound weapons? Are they correct per the cards or not correct?

[Sherrypie]

I’m still out of the loop on this one but what is the verdict on the ancillary weapons (armpit guns) having different rules than the warhound weapons? Are they correct per the cards or not correct?

Correct. They aren't the same.

[Sherrypie]

@skimask: personally I love it when mission objectives are asymmetric. "Kill lots of stuff to win" is the most boring scenario of all, especially if both are going for it, since killing stuff is anyway going to help you in achieving those more varied goals like destroying a specific target or capturing an area.

 

For me pitched battles are the stale bread of wargaming: it'll keep you alive, sure, but has no taste. Having proper attackers, defenders, last stands, rearguards, holdding actions, vital cargo, rescues, sieges, surprise raids, esoteric technorituals, boarding actions and sabotage runs in space and what nots is where the best gaming happens. Long live varied setups!

[Mandragola]

I definitely agree that missions that involve you making your titans go places and do stuff are always better than just killing the enemy. There's no reason for that mission to exist really, since you can always just do that if you really want to. And it's a real shame that the original AT missions made the scoring so imbalanced, making Engage and Destroy score more than anything else.

 

AT does not scale very evenly. In bigger games it's much easier to kill a titan in a single combat phase, which significantly reduces how useful repairs are. This also means that melee becomes a bit less effective, as it's harder to get engines across the board in the face of lots of firepower. I think this is where you should use Warmasters, both because they're better in those games, and also because they're more appropriate.

 

A Warmaster in a small game is going to dominate, but it's also very vulnerable in some ways. If I saw one opposite me in a 1750 point game I'd take strats to block its line of sight, which would take away a lot of its options. That wouldn't be so effective in a bigger game because the other stuff would still be able to do things, and it would be harder to hide all my own stuff. Overall I think taking a Warmaster in a small game probably makes you likely to win the fight but lose the mission.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I also agree that kill point missions are basically terrible because they don't encourage engagement with the opponent or good tactics. But I also don't think that complete asymmetry like you can get in titanicus results in good player engagement either.

 

Imo just having a diverse spread of terrain can alleviate stale shooting galleries and add a lot of dynamics to games. Ive also tried implementing outflank as a more multi-use, core part of the game similar to how 9th edition is doing it and it added a lot, without ruining player engagement.

[Mandragola]

One of the interesting things that the Loyalist book brings in is new upgrades that all of us can have, and a second set that are only available for Loyalists. I thought I’d look at this list with some recommendations of how to use them.

 

Universal Titan Wargear

 

Tracking Gyroscopes are a slightly controversial upgrade. They’re seen as a broken option for a homebrew Legio, priced at 10 points. Here they cost 25, which is a lot more reasonable in my opinion. They’re definitely not an auto-pick at that price but they’re good enough to definitely be worth considering.

 

I think the best use for these is on a support titan that wants to mostly be on first fire orders. As such I think they’re best used on Warlord apocalypse launchers and Warbringer Quake cannons, especially in an Arcus maniple. Sit your titan in a corner with a fire arc covering most of the board and you can just blast away all game.

 

They obviously aren’t bad for midfield brawler type Warlords. However, those are more likely to be operating without orders, meaning they can turn if needed. Having said that, I guess you could put a brawler on split fire more often if it had these, and that might give you some great options.

 

I wouldn’t take Ranging auspexes, on the other hand. Guessing ranges and arcs is part of the fun of AT in my opinion, and to be honest I’m quite good at it. Anyway, these only work in the combat phase and you’d really want them to work in the movement phase, when you can actually do something about your fire arcs and range by moving. In the combat phase you can find out if a target is in range by shooting at it.

 

I do like Hardened casing, for two reasons. First, I hate to have 5 points left over in list construction and this upgrade costs 5 points. Second, making a melee weapon a bit tougher could actually mean someone failed to damage it, especially with a knight melee weapon or something like that. A chance to swing a melee weapon at someone is worth 5 points. It arguably makes sense to stick these on a Warmaster’s Suzerains too, or a Sinistramanus Tenebrae.

 

Bastion shielding is also pretty nice at 10 points. This would be pretty useful for my Astorum if they were war marching about the place, as they could avoid a two reactor dice roll. And I think Warhounds would love these as much as they hate to roll reactor dice.

 

Finally the oath banner costs 5 points. I’d be tempted to pay 5 points for all my Warlords and deck them out with these even if not using knights, because it’s the kind of show off move my Astorum are famous for. But if I actually did have some knights then I think I’d absolutely want these. Being shaken is terrible for them, and this extremely cheap upgrade makes that a lot less likely.

 

So in summary the universal upgrades offer some pretty good stuff. It tends to be cheap and actually quite effective in the right situation.

 

Loyalist upgrades

 

A Spark of Vengeance is a thematic upgrade and probably also quite a good one. If you’re fielding a Warmaster you’re likely to end up pushing its reactor a lot, so this might let you fire a bonus Suzerain or VMB shot from time to time. This could be an especially nice option on a Psi-titan, as the Sinistramanus threatens even fully-shielded enemies who might want to pick on it, though of course Psi-titans generally only push their reactors for shield saves, so it might not get too much use.

 

Wait, did you say Vortex payload?! Ok so for 20 points you can turn a largely inoffensive warp missile into an obscenely powerful Vortex missile. And you should definitely do that, as the traitors deserve no less.

 

This thing is horrible enough against single engines but against anyone grouped up it’s much, much worse. Nobody’s going to want to have Warhounds sharing shields if one of these things is on the board and Fortis maniples will look a lot less smug. Best to only take one I think, to avoid the occasional rubbish game where you cripple the enemy battlegroup in turn 1. Of course, sometimes it’ll miss or you’ll do one hit to something, so it’s far from an IWIN button.

 

The Aquila Benedictus could potentially be good on a Psi-titan, partly to reduce the negative effect it has on its nearby friends. You don’t want a Psi-titan failing its command checks so this is definitely worth considering. You could take the Iron Resolve stratagem instead though.

 

I’m not a huge fan of Plasmatic Blinders. For one thing, 25 points is a lot. For another, they happen too late, as you can only use them during the damage control phase. If you’re in the orange or red you’ve therefore already taken the effect of overheating before these come into play. They don’t justify their cost for me, though I’d be interested to hear how to make use of them.

 

The Null Emitter does nothing for now, while we wait to see what Corrupted Titans are all about. I’d actually be quite surprised if this ended up being worth 25 points in a TAC list even then, but we’ll see.

 

Hunter Shells are very lethal, but also very expensive at 30 points for a gatling or macro-gatling blaster. Still, if a titan has a compromised location then firing a macro gatling with hunter shells at it is almost guaranteed to result in an engine kill, so it could be worthwhile.

 

The Revealator on the Warmaster is also an Ordnance weapon, and with only 3 shots this upgrade costs 15 points instead of 30. I think this could be a very nice way to use this upgrade as it would allow the Warmaster to finish off enemies at very long range.

 

How does that all sound? Hopefully people will have thought of uses for this stuff that I haven’t. Let’s hear them.

[Gattopardo]

That's very good analysis. Great stuff.

 

I don't have a huge amount to add to be honest. A lot of these look useful in the right circumstances and some of them are priced to move, so we're going to see them a lot to soak up the spare few points you can often end up with.

 

Plasmatic blinders are cool but yes, rather overpriced given that you'll already have rolled on the reactor overload table. So very much not the best choice at 25 points. However, they might be good on the Warmaster. It effectively gives you two uses of Infusive Supercoolant. I'm not sure if this will be useful, not having tried the Warmaster yet - it's obviously going to generate some (lots!!) heat but I'm unsure whether having two goes at venting heat on a 2+ is necessary. Aside from cost, one problem with it is that the titans that most hate getting hot - basically Warhounds - aren't great candidates for it, having only two repair dice. It works best on larger engines that can already manage heat better. It could work on some builds though. Warlords that will push their reactors a lot for movement and shields, for example. And the choice of Legio is relevant too. Astorum and Defensor could probably make more of a case for this. It might let a War Marching Warlord push its reactor for shields more aggressively, for example. Defensor could use it on a Warlord, and between A Day of Retribution and Righteous Fire that Warlord could fire 30 missiles in turn one without getting too hot (Or 36 shots if it took paired Gatlings...). It might also make a triple volcano cannon Warbringer viable, which would be an interesting option in an Arcus maniple. Not sure it would actually be good though - that Warbringer would be very expensive and not good at stripping shields or finishing stuff.

 

I think Hunter Shells is good (though expensive). It's vaguely worded, as ever (thanks FW!!) - does it also remove the -1 penalty for targeting within 2"? Assuming it does, I think it's an excellent option for the Warlord Macro Gatling Blaster, although again not cheap. That gun becomes a very very deadly finisher against anything outside of 2", but also does targeted shots on a 4 in melee. Warlords can really struggle to hit stuff up close so this could be huge, whether to finish something off or to strip off a melee weapon or whatever before it can strike. It's very much unclear to me whether this applies within 2" though. Incidentally - this is the reason I think the Warlord volkite weapon has potential. Dealing automatic hits is huge for the Warlord any time it finds itself within 2" of an enemy Titan.

 

One interesting possible use of Hunter Shells is in a Ruptura maniple. Equip one of the Warbringers with a Gatling and give it Hunter Shells, and you're significantly increasing the chances of a Warbringer claiming a kill and triggering the free move for the Reavers. Great shame that it's loyalist only, as I'd love to try this with my Vulturum Ruptura list.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Gattopardo

[Mandragola]

Thanks for that insight. 

 

On the plasmatic blinders, I think bastion shielding is generally much better. In fact I think it's probably close to an auto-pick for warhounds, which gain so much from pushing for shields and hate to push their reactors so much. A squadron could alternate activating these and be very substantially tougher.

 

I guess you could use the blinders on a Warmaster or Warlord. Just accept that you'll overheat sometimes and then cool off again.

 

The time to use them is when you have a hot, damaged titan. Then you can use a roll of 2-4 to cool down and a 5-6 to repair stuff. In that situation it's not perfect - you'd have liked the blinders to kick in before rolling on the overload table - but it's a lot better than nothing. 

 

I hadn't thought of hunter shells on a Warbringer's gatling. That does make sense in a Ruptura maniple to get kills. I'd actually been thinking they are kind of unnecessary for macro gatlings, as these are already highly likely to kill something they're targeting. Normal gatling blasters become very lethal with hunter shells though, and would become an excellent way to trigger the ruptura bonus. Great idea.

 

As for whether they work within 2"... I'd say by RAW they don't. They cancel the -2 modifier but don't say anything about cancelling the -1. I've no idea if that's the intention. I guess maybe guided ammo isn't much use at extremely short range before its guidance can kick in, if you want to try and rationalise it.

[Gattopardo]

Yeah, I think I agree with your interpretation of Hunter Shells. I think it's worthwhile on the Reaver Gatling therefore, but not the Warlord Macro Gatling, which as you say probably doesn't need the upgrade.

 

Between this upgrade and their Legio trait, Metalica look a very good bet for a Ruptura maniple actually. 

 

I agree that Bastion Shielding is better than Plasmatic Blinders. The FAQ has (rightly, IMO) reduced the effectiveness of sharing voids - it just makes so much more sense to have to declare it per enemy activation, rather than per attack - which will hurt the power of my Astorum Regia battlegroup.  But I think taking Bastion Shielding - probably on several of the titans, given it's so cheap - will go some way to offsetting that. 

[Mandragola]

A metallica ruptura maniple can bend the game in all sorts of weird ways, now you come to mention it. Have a Reaver damage something's body a lot, activate a Warbringer with the trait, shoot gatling hunter shells to try and get the kill, then move the Reaver again.

 

The goonhammer guys think that Ruptura Reavers get to charge multipe times if they're on charge orders. I'm honestly not sure about that, but it seems they might.

[SkimaskMohawk]

It basically hinges on a couple of things;

 

"in the movement phase, a unit acting under charge orders can only move within its front arc, and once it starts moving, it cannot make any turns. However, once it has finished moving, it can immediately make either...."

 

The first question is if the ruptura's "as if it were the movement phase" is enough for "in the movement phase" . Historically, gw has gone with no to that question. But the second sentence can be interpreted to not rely on the restricted movement-move and simply allows you to make attacks after any instance of movement like ruptura...or concussive.

 

Even though the argument is there, I think we're entering the realm of AT-isms and would have to allow barrage being non-functional if letting charge-attacks proc on any movement. So best to use it as if the writing was a bit tighter and referred back to the limited move as the trigger.

[Mandragola]

I thought I’d talk about the changes to the actual Legios in the Loyalist Legio book. These have quite significantly improved some of the weaker Legios. The majority of Legios are the same though, so I’ll ignore those here.

 

Gryphonicus have always been quite good, and they get quite significant buffs here. Firstly, they can now replace any Warlords or Warhounds in a maniple with Reavers – not just one of each. So you can have an Extermigus maniple of four Reavers and a Warbringer (which you can’t replace) for example. That’s actually really good as S10 lasers are far better. And a five-Reaver Ferrox maniple would be fantastic, especially because…

 

They can also now buy their wargear for any Reaver; not just ones that are replacing Warhounds or Warords. So you can give all your Reavers Motive Sub-reactors. These are great both because they keep your Warlord cool, but also because they save you from failing machine spirit rolls.

 

Legio Solaria probably needed buffs more than Gryphonicus, and they got less. It still helps though. Actually pretty much all their rules have been changed, though only in fairly minor ways.

 

Their fog of war strat now just costs 1SP to redeploy each Warhound. It doesn’t depend on bringing bigger titans any more, and you can bring it multiple times. So if you’re squadroning this is good because you won’t have many deployment drops, and this makes up for that. If you aren’t, then you’ll effectively be deploying almost your whole army after your opponent.

 

Cameleoline is also changed. It now only works if you’re moving (which is bad news for 40k snipers of all kinds, but whatever) and it now works at >10” away instead of at long range, which is better against almost all weapons. Having to move is annoying because previously it would have been quite cool on a sniper warhound with turbo lasers. They’ve also changed the wording of Fortis Motivators but as far as I can tell they work the same in practice.

 

Legio Atarus picked up some pretty significant buffs, which is great because their original traits did almost nothing. Siezing the initiative can now be done on any one turn, rather than having to be used on the first turn. That’s a big difference because you can now use it a) when it might matter and b) when rerolling might actually make you win the roll.

 

But the bigger change is to Infernus missiles. These now add Voidbreaker (2) to the missiles on a Warlord, Reaver or Warmaster, and that’s fantastic. A Reaver will cause substantially more shield saves this way and it roughly doubles the power of a Warmaster’s apoc arrays, meaning that it has a viable long-range shield breaker.

 

The Atarus Maniple of One stratagem hasn’t really changed, but it’s a lot better than when first written because the game has changed around it, with more maniples and titans to apply it to. You can have a Warmaster (which can’t ever be in a maniple normally) decide to count as being in a Ferrox maniple and charge something. Any titan can decide to be in an Extermigus maniple and blast people with high-strength shooting. There are quite a lot of options here and the main thing is really having the enormous flexibility this strat allows.

 

Crucius get a small, but not insignificant buff. Their Terminus Override Mechanisms used to put a titan on shutdown orders when they kicked in and now they don’t. You just don’t roll on the reactor overload table the first time you’d normally have to, and that’s really great. 30 points is a lot to pay for this, but it could be worth it, especially since Crucius are pretty good at cooling themselves down again.

 

Unfortunately not all Legios have been reviewed. Astraman retain their offensively bad ability of giving up their whole turn and gaining two heat in exchange for a repair roll (that probably won’t fix the two heat you just gained).

 

As well as this of course, we get a whole new Legio: Metallica. Lots of people are excited by this, but me not that much, if I’m honest. They’re not bad though, and they do a new thing for the game, which is to muck about with activations a bit.

 

Their signature ability is to have one engine activate straight after another, though the second titan has to gain two heat to do so. That’s a very heavy price to pay in my opinion and definitely won’t be something you want to do all that often. That said, it could be extremely useful in the right situation. That’ll usually be the combat phase, where you want to fire a second titan to kill a target before it gets to activate. You might do basically the same thing in the movement phase to get a second charge off. I thought you could also potentially do it in the repair phase to push a titan into the red if you really wanted it to explode for some reason, but actually that doesn’t work because it only gains the heat after activating. I guess you could cook off a titan in the movement phase though, if you really wanted.

 

This does add some new tactical options (other than blowing up your own titans, which you should not do), which is great. However the extra heat probably means you’ll want to run really big engines so that they can actually survive doing it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and actually it could give pretty great synergy for a Regia maniple, with the warhounds breaking shields for the Warlords.

 

They’ve then got a strat that lets you not activate the machine spirit. That’s decent because it stops an annoying thing from happening. It’s more useful for smaller engines, which you probably won’t have that many of, but on the other hand a Warlord going nuts is a really big problem, so it could be worth investing in preventing that.

 

The wargear is kind of bad to be honest. Ignoring fusion and rending is nice, but there’s obviously no real guarantee you’ll meet either, and it’s an expensive upgrade. This is the kind of thing that would have been nice as a trait rather than a bought upgrade, as realistically you just shouldn’t buy it. I guess it might be worth something on melee engines. And then the other thing frightens knights with loud noises, which is both silly and not particularly likely to work, so don’t bother.

 

So there you go. Gryphonicus are now badass, Solaria, Atarus and Crucius are ok, and so are Metallica. What did I miss?

Edited April 30, 2021 by Mandragola