Principia Titanicus

[The boater]

Great analysis as usual. One miss is the change to Fortidus: now Titans can be swapped with anything scale 10 or lower, which is a subtle change but really ads that much more flexibility and future proofs. My new favorite maniple might become the Corsair with a warbringer dropped in.

[Mandragola]

Oh yes that’s a good point. Fortidas can now stick a warbringer, and probably any potential future titans, into any maniple.

 

To be honest I think I forgot that because the ability doesn’t seem all that obviously useful. The main trick I’ve seen with Fortidas is to put a clawlord into a Ferrox maniple but that doesn’t make a lot of sense for a warbringer.

 

It’s a nice option to have though, particularly for smaller games. Adding a Warbringer to a Myrmidon, Axiom or Fortis maniple could certainly work. Doing so would probably be decent, though not amazing. I guess you could also add a second Warbringer to an Arcus maniple, or a third to a Ruptura. Doing that would give you two accurate blast machines, or more chances to trigger bonus moves... though for fewer Reavers.

[The boater]

See I would have though it wasn’t obviously useful either, until I got a few games in with my warbringer. It’s a great finisher platform, and throwing the gyroscopes on it makes it really versatile. It’s gets a ton of mileage out of the Corsair trait (can side step further than its entire base) and I actually think there’s a case to be made for ferrox as well (if you are facing a bunch of bigger Titans). I think the twin warbringer Arcus is also fantastic. Dropping one into an axiom is also great and has three builds: heavy (replace a warhound), different precept (replace a reaver) light (replace the warlord). It also gets a good bit of mileage out of the Perpetua trait if you like a “stand in the back arty” warbringer.

[Mandragola]

Thanks for those examples. I agree with you that this does open up lots of options for warbringers. Some, like adding another warbringer to an Arcus maniple, are pretty good. Others are good for the warbringer itself, but not necessarily the best option overall.

 

So for example you can add a warbringer to a Ferrox maniple and it does benefit a lot, like any titans does, from that maniple’s powerful bonuses. I think you’d be a lot better off adding either a Reaver or Warlord instead though. Warbringers still have the problem that their most powerful weapons can’t target most things nearby, after all, which counts against a maniple that gives bonuses for going close to stuff.

 

So I think this ability might improve more in future as more classes of Titan and more maniples appear. So for example if the bring out a Nightgaunt, which used to be a faster, more melee-focused warlord-ish thing, then presumably that would benefit hugely from the Ferrox maniple.

 

This reminds me of another change. Astorum titans of scale 10 or more now get two repair rerolls. Only warlords used to benefit but Warmasters now do as well. This isn’t a huge deal really, but it points to a new approach of referring to scale rather than class, at least for these two abilities. They’re trying to figure-proof the rules to allow for potential future releases, which is good news I think.

[Gattopardo]

I've managed a few games recently, and would be interested in some tactical advice.

 

My regular opponent fields a custom Legio and one of the traits he takes is Blind Missiles. I'm finding these very tricky to deal with. Generally he's taking them on Reavers - say two Reavers in his battlegroup will have the upgrade - and they seem extremely powerful. They cost 20 points as an upgrade to apocalypse missile launchers (on the Reaver or Warlord), and are one use only, but when you get to use them, instead of firing the missiles normally you just pick any point on the battlefield within range of the missiles (so within 120"!) and arc, but not line of sight. Then you place the 5" blast marker (no need to roll to hit or scatter) and it blocks line of sight for the remainder of the turn.

 

In practice, what this means is that when a Reaver with these activates in the combat phase (or potentially on first fire), it can fire with its arm weapons and then just place a template wherever it wants on the battlefield to block line of sight.  So each Reaver can just stop one of my titans firing by popping a blind missile right on top of them (or in front of them). Obviously this tends to happen to Warlords, or squadrons of Warhounds, or whatever. I recently took an Extergimus maniple for my Astorum for the first time, and they're honestly pretty brutal against it, as they effectively mean that my battlegroup is down by nearly a third of its firepower for two turns.

 

To be honest I'm struggling to come up with counters to this. Generally I try to bait them out early in the game - this does mean I have reduced firepower in the early game, but at least it means they're not available for key shots in the mid to late game. And of course if I've got priority then I'll try - more than I otherwise would - to activate the titan with the largest amount of firepower, or that's lined up the most important shots, first. The other things I've thought of are to take Dominant Strategist as the trait for my Seniores, so that I can seize priority in the combat phase to get off a key shot when the titan would otherwise have blind missiles dropped on it; to take missiles on my Warlords' roofs so that they can still fire indirectly even when blinded; to take Warp Displacement so that when my opponent thinks he's blocked something off, I can play the strat to pop out from behind the blind missile and shoot (I've not actually tried this option yet). Another option I guess is to take an Arcus maniple so that the Warbringer can't be prevented from firing.

 

Generally the most reliable counter that doesn't require a big investment in stratagem points (Warp Displacement - which I couldn't use with my Astorum anyway) or a princeps trait, is just to take light maniples - maybe a Lupercal + Ferrox, or Lupercal + Arcus - so that the blind missiles are only blocking a smaller percentage of my firepower. It definitely seems to steer me away from heavier maniples. And don't take a Venator, as the Reaver is obviously going to get the blind missiles dropped on its head. Tactically I can see that would be best, but it's a bit of a shame, as I like the heavy Titans.

 

Overall I'm not totally sure what to do though - ideas welcome.

[Mandragola]

That's an interesting problem. Warp displacement is certainly one way round it, though obviously not for loyalists. I probably wouldn't worry too much about having apoc missiles since they still won't do all that much with the -2 mod to hit.

 

One thing you can do as a loyalist is change a titan's orders once per game. You might be able to use this to switch a titan to full stride if it gets blocked. I think this might only work if you're already on some sort of order though, and Warlords often aren't. And of course you still wouldn't fire, you'd just move a bit.

 

I'm afraid you sometimes just have to take the pain with things like this. Extermigus is a very powerful maniple but it does have counters and this is one of them. Your best response is probably to stay mobile and maybe pack an Arioch claw so there's some melee threat in your force. Try and avoid having any of your engines isolated so that your opponent can blind it and outflank.

[Gattopardo]

That's an interesting problem. Warp displacement is certainly one way round it, though obviously not for loyalists. I probably wouldn't worry too much about having apoc missiles since they still won't do all that much with the -2 mod to hit.

 

One thing you can do as a loyalist is change a titan's orders once per game. You might be able to use this to switch a titan to full stride if it gets blocked. I think this might only work if you're already on some sort of order though, and Warlords often aren't. And of course you still wouldn't fire, you'd just move a bit.

 

I'm afraid you sometimes just have to take the pain with things like this. Extermigus is a very powerful maniple but it does have counters and this is one of them. Your best response is probably to stay mobile and maybe pack an Arioch claw so there's some melee threat in your force. Try and avoid having any of your engines isolated so that your opponent can blind it and outflank.

 

Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought - so at least it looks like I haven't missed anything. Using the Loyalist allegiance ability is a good thought but like you say, it's probably less useful on Warlords than it might be on a Reaver or Warhound. So for example you could first fire with something and then reposition it with full stride if it gets blinded.

 

In other games I've found the effects a bit less devastating (though still good) - for example, they were used to stop a squadron of Warhounds firing - that was annoying, especially as they'd almost certainly have killed a Reaver that was standing in front of them - but at least it meant they weren't being shot at (and the next turn they ran up to the enemy Reaver they would have shot if they weren't blinded and killed it). Lupercal would probably be a good counter - on the turn when I get in position to do a lot of shooting, I could squadron them all and do a ton of damage before my opponent could react. I'm thinking something like a Lupercal & Ferrox (or maybe Arcus or Venator) - so I'd have two princeps traits, one of which could be Dominant Strategist to stop my engines being blinded before they can shoot. Assuming I did at least one crit I could (with my Vulturum) then play Scent of Blood to activate something else - like the Warbringer in an Arcus maniple - and get loads of shots off in a row.

 

I'm not sure I'd describe them as fun to face though, mainly because there's so little you can do about them. A Titan just gets shut down at a point where you can't really do anything to react and you can't hide from them in advance, either. Personally, I feel that you should at least have to roll to hit, and scatter the template if you miss - which would introduce a bit more actual decision making into how you use them (do you go for the clear shot or blind the thing that's out of sight at -2 to hit, for example). I presume this is why Concealment Barrage got rewritten so that you had to place the template in the Strategy Phase, rather than just being able to say "no, that Titan can't shoot".

[Mandragola]

To be honest I'm not at all a fan of the crusade legio rules. It's weird that they include stuff like this that no other titans can do, but which actually feel kind of generic and like anyone should arguably have access to. If blind missiles exist everyone should have access to them. If the concealment barrage exists then that's how they should work and there's no need to add in a bit of wargear that only a few Legios get, when in reality anyone could have it.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea they started to add generic wargear in, but imo it should have been a thing the entire time. It gets weirder when you realize every legio can overcharge their maximal weapons or experiment on every day ones, or strap extra armour on a location, but not realize smoke tipped apoc missiles are a good idea.

[schoon]

Another thought would be to have enough fast-moving Warhounds - or another Reaver - that could get LOS around the Blind template by flanking moves and/or spread out your forces such that any one template doesn't completely shield his Titan.

[Gattopardo]

Schoon, the problem usually is that it's my Titan that gets blinded (although obviously firing them on your own wounded Titan could be a very good move in the right circumstances). It's a large blast marker, so it completely obscures anything if you centre it on the base.

 

Although it's annoying, it's not always a killer effect, because he obviously can't shoot anything he's blinded, and sometimes for other reasons activating a Titan with blind missiles early in the combat phase isn't the right thing to do.

 

I agree with the points about custom Legios. Some of the wargear in particular feels like it should be generic - obviously that's what happened with tracking gyros, so I'm not sure why Blind Missiles, Autoloaders, and Macro Magazines aren't widely available too. Some of the others more plausibly wouldn't be used by all Legios I guess.

[Gattopardo]

Ok, so I've been thinking about this Blind Missile problem a bit more over the past few days. I think it's something that needs to be taken into account at list building stage really. So, I've come up with the following battlegroup (at 1750).

 

Legio Vulturum Battlegroup

 

Arcus Battleline Maniple

 

Warbringer Nemesis titan with Belicosa Volcano Cannon, 2x Melta Cannon, Tracking Gyroscopes - 475 (Princeps Seniores - Princeps trait Dominant Strategist)

Warhound titan with Plasma Blastgun and Vulcan Mega Bolter - 220

Warhound titan with 2x Vulcan Mega Bolter, one upgraded to carry Storm Frag shells - 225

 

Ferrox Light Maniple

 

Reaver titan with Melta Cannon, Laser Blaster and Vulcan Mega Bolter, upgraded to carry Storm Frag shells - 335 (Princeps Seniores - Princeps trait Iron-clad Tyrant)

Warhound titan with Plasma Blastgun and Vulcan Mega Bolter - 220

Warhound titan with 2x Vulcan Mega Bolter, one upgraded to carry Storm Frag shells - 225

 

Total 1,700 - so a few points left over for other upgrades

 

I think that's actually a pretty capable battlegroup generally. It's got more Warhounds than I'd normally take, probably, but has a good mix of shield stripping and damage output. It's possibly a little reliant on Warhounds to finish stuff (although they do have a lot of dakka to help them do that). Obviously it's helpful to have two maniples and thus two personal traits. I could take Enigmatic (Vulturum specific) on the either of the Princeps - that would help outmanoeuvre in deployment, which would be good. The basic idea is that Dominant Strategist - in addition to being generally useful - is very helpful to steal the initiative in the combat phase to get shots off before blind missiles get fired, and Iron-clad Tyrant is helpful on the Ferrox to try to get Full Strides or possibly Charge orders off, to mitigate the Hounds' poor command values. The Warbringer needs to advance to fire the Meltas obviously, so it's perhaps a different use of the Arcus than the obvious idea of parking it behind something on the backlines, but the idea is that he can march forward firing indirectly without needing to worry about manoeuvre. And of course two Meltas and a Belicosa only scattering d6" is pretty nasty if the Hounds can drop shields. By putting tracking gyros on (assuming Loyalist Legios is wrong) he's harder to arc-dodge and can possibly take First Fire or Split Fire orders a lot too. Costs a lot of points though.

 

In terms of Strats, I'd consider stuff like War Lust to help the Ferrox get up the table quickly, and possibly Bloodthirst. Warp Displacement and Scent of Blood (Vulturum specific) also in contention. And of course if I'm facing Warlords, Overcharged Cannon on the Ferrox Reaver's VMB to push it to Strength 9 on Maximal.

 

There's no melee weapons in the list, which is perhaps a weakness, though the Ferrox Reaver is still pretty threatening in close. 

 

This collection of Engines could also be played as an Arcus + Venator which I think would also work well, though I'd probably swap the VMB on the Reaver for a Turbo Laser in that case.

 

I've persuaded myself to give this a try now. Thoughts welcome.

[Mandragola]

This looks an interesting list. I get the idea of the Warbringer that doesn't need to see, adn that's a fun response to blind missile spam. It is also the price of a solid midfielder Warlord.

 

Give it a go and let us know how you get on.

[Gattopardo]

This looks an interesting list. I get the idea of the Warbringer that doesn't need to see, adn that's a fun response to blind missile spam. It is also the price of a solid midfielder Warlord.

 

Give it a go and let us know how you get on.

Thanks. Yeah, it's kinda absurd to take a 475 point Warbringer (that can't strip shields effectively, or do targeted shots!). It's very hard to see how that Titan can really be worth it, compared to other things that you could buy with 475 points. Having said that, a minimum Arcus / mimimum Ferrox actually leaves quite a few points to spare at 1750, so I don't have to make compromises elsewhere to fit the Warbringer in. And I can see those high strength blasts doing quite a bit of damage if the Warhounds can drop shields - which they should be able to. I did consider a dual Arcus list, which works if you take Quakes on the Warbringers. I think I prefer the Arcus / Ferrox option though, just for a bit more variety. It's a shame there isn't a maniple that has two Reavers and one Warhound as the mandatory components, as that would've been perfect to go with the Arcus.

 

I'll hopefully get to try this out fairly soon, I'm very curious to see how it works out.

[Mandragola]

Yeah give it a go and see what happens. Honestly, I think a Mandatum with a plasma/gatling/missile Warlord would be a better choice for the cost (the Warlord can strip shields and do targeted shots of course) but give it a go.

 

My 1750 point Mortis list (yet to be fielded, due to the Pandemic) is a Ferrox and a Mandatum with Penumbral Reaper. It's a highly aggressive list that will nearly always use March of the Dead to get moving before turn one really begins. It's not really intended as a super-powerful list but I must say that I feel Penumbral Reaper seems more of a threat than that Warbringer.

 

The Mandatum also buffs the Warhounds quite a lot. I've always had an issue with the Arcus (and Venator FWIW) that they don't do the Warhounds any good. They just buff the Warbringer or Reaver, and not by particularly huge amounts. I think that maniples like Ferrox are inherently more effective because all the engines benefit.

 

One option you could consider would be a full Ferrox maniple with a Warbringer as a reinforcement. Get two Reavers in there, probably both with melee weapons - though something like melta and gatling can also be great in Ferrox, where the smash attacks alone do great work. I think you ought to be able to fit all of that into 1750.

 

Edit: tried to correct all the times I'd written "Warmaster" when I meant "Warbringer".

Edited July 14, 2021 by Mandragola

[Gattopardo]

Thanks. Yeah I agree with that really, of course a plasma / gatling Warlord is better all round, but the ability to fire indirectly is important. I'll probably try the Mandatum as well - but not for a while, because my Vulturum Warlord is still on its sprues in an unopened box. It does look a promising maniple though. Interesting point about the Arcus and Venator, you're right that the Warhounds don't benefit. That does mean there's little incentive to take a full maniple. I think they are better in lists with two mimimum sized maniples.

 

Full Ferrox plus Warbringer is another option of course. I tried two Reavers and two Warhounds with Warbringer support at 1500 and I liked that a lot, so taking the same list but with an extra Warhound would be very logical. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's better to give the Reavers in the Ferrox guns rather than melee weapons (or maybe just take a melee weapon on one of the two Reavers rather than both). They don't need the hit bonuses from melee weapons as much, given that they always use their ballistic skill, and by taking guns you aren't forced to engage within 2", although you still can of course.

Edited July 18, 2021 by Gattopardo

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ferrox is an excellent maniple. You already want to get in close with warhounds so it offers a great synergy; in my last game my reaver got one shotted by a ferrox warhound. Now granted there were a couple of other factors like side armour, macro charges and vanguard fighters, but it still would have blasted the reaver.

[Sherrypie]

Ferrox is love, Ferrox is life. Even more so with Clawlords swapped into it, so they will actually hit with the fist every once in a while :D

[Mandragola]

I've tried out a few new-ish things lately, including some of the wargear upgrades and volkites.

 

I took a Warlord, Warhound and Reaver volkite to the LGT yesterday. I didn't have high expectations of the smaller Exterminator. As most people have observed it's basically just a worse VMB. When actually using the thing you see just how much worse it is though. That -1 modifier to hit at long range is just so bad for a gun like this because it takes away any realistic chance of doing targeted shots. So while you can do a more or less ok job of taking down shields you can't use it as a finisher with anything close to the effectiveness of a VMB. Overall I think you can still put one on the roof of a Reaver if you want for rule of cool and you'll be ok, because a Reaver has other guns. But on a warhound it really feels like too big a step down in power.

 

The Warlord one is great though, and I expect to use them a lot. In its first game with this thing my Warlord got three kills - two Warhounds and a Warmaster (whose face had recently been punched in very hard by an Arioch claw). This is a super-reliable finishing weapon and a perfectly good shield stripper if required.

 

I'm not sure if it's better than the macro gatling, but that's a truly awesome gun. The MG is quite a lot better if you're just trying to do damage, say against knights or if there's no obvious location to target, though it's kind of bad in those situations really. The choice between the two isn't easy.

 

The other thing I've now seen used a few times is tracking gyroscopes on a Warlord. I think these might be a kind of mandatory upgrade for Warlords, though I hate to admit it. The extra flexibility you get from them is just transformational. I'd been trying to avoid using them because it's kind of fun to take the challenge of getting Warlords pointed at stuff but there's no question that they're worth the price, every time.

 

Gyroscopes give you some really important freedom in an activation-based game. They mean you can afford to activate a brawler Warlord fairly early in the turn with a good expectation that it'll get to fire. They also make it much easier to get shots off if you're using repair, first fire, split fire or even charge orders, all of which restrict your ability to point at things.

 

I think they also slightly change the calculation for what guns to have on the Carapace. Without them Missiles are almost always a good option. They're cheap so you don't mind too much if you don't fire. But with Gyros I think there's a stronger case for paired gatlings. Those 15 extra points to get gatlings instead of missiles give you two extra shots, sometimes even benefitting from a bonus to hit, S5 and Ordnance - in exchange for range. I don't tend to have too many problems getting Gatlings into range myself, though missiles do remain the better choice for support. VMBs might also be a good choice to try and get some points back, but I think they're still a bit questionable.

 

Ultimately, a Warlord that fires its carapace guns more often is way more dangerous. That's how you strip shields with a Warlord, meaning you get to hit the target's armour with your sunfury instead of void shields. You're also tougher because you can sit still on repair orders and still do tons of damage.

 

To be fair this might be slightly more of a thing for me than most people. I play Astorum, who can run fast and Mortis, who get a pre-game move. If you're playing Defensor and firing from your deployment zone, get yourself some apocalypse launchers.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Our local group has been discussing how to fix eradicators. Current thinking is to house rule Voidbreaker to work as WarCom said it would, and give them Beam (Draining)

But that may be too good. It needs playtesting really, but so far I think I'm the only person who bought any for a Warhound!

[Mandragola]

Beam is transformational, for sure. It turns it from a pretty inaccurate weapon to one that automatically hits. I think that would be a fair change for the Reaver and Warhound ones. Doing that I wouldn't alter the effect of voidbreaker though - you'd essentially be getting a gun that's a slightly worse shield-stripper than a VMB, but a slightly better finisher.

 

Of course, using a draining weapon on a hound is a bit questionable, but that's kind of the point.

 

One issue with giving the smaller version Beam is that it makes it about as good as the Warlord one. I'd actually consider having the eradicator lose a dice if it was given beam, so that there was still a reason to take the Warlord version.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thats not a bad idea on the dice front, but then I'd probably leave voidbreaker as working per hit, so it would max out at 6. I don't mind it being that good, because I'm paying 20pts for it either on a chassis that dislikes heat, or one which can't use it in close range.

 

Which is exactly why we added Draining, it's a really good trait, so needs a commensurate risk to counter the reward. AT rarely gives you anything good for free/no downside, and draining a Warhound is always a danger.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Beam is definitely strong; I played my first game with a beam weapon the other day so with my anecdotal experience it allowed me to target critically damaged areas with no downsides and guarantee hits, and also do some cheeky out of los shots. I will say a huge portion of its strength tie into how you much terrain you use and if you want scatter terrain like 6/8mm crates and barrels and cars to count towards the beam reduction. Or even scenarios where theres terrain at shin level; should that reduce the beam or not?

 

 

It's also one of the very rare scenarios where knight banners are less vulnerable than titans, as the unit needs to be destroyed for the piercing effect.

Edited September 26, 2021 by SkimaskMohawk

[Noserenda]

We play beams hit buildings like models, which was handy when my split firing warlord planning a nice surprise on some knights managed to abjectly fail to kill an av11 building with her fist and smash attacks and least winged one with the volkite after it took the building down :D 

[SkimaskMohawk]

We play beams hit buildings like models, which was handy when my split firing warlord planning a nice surprise on some knights managed to abjectly fail to kill an av11 building with her fist and smash attacks and least winged one with the volkite after it took the building down :D

Well the whole optional destructible building thing is another can of worms; beams don't need to kill the building to pierce through though.