Principia Titanicus

[Mandragola]

One other thing I came across at the LGT is making the most of charging knights. The obvious thing is to move them straight towards the target but you don't have to do that, and it's far better not to.

 

You have a number of rules. You have to run in a straight line and maintain coherency. You want all your knights to get to range, preferably with side armour bonuses, and to maximise the number of bonus attacks you get.

 

Here's a diagram showing what I think is the best approach.

 

 

Essentially, by using the knight on the right as the recipient of the bonus attacks from the charge (remember the FAQ means only one knight gets these) and by running past the target instead of straight at it, you get another two attacks and you hit the enemy in the side.

 

It can also be helpful to have some knights attack from different sides of a titan. Normally you have to roll all of a banner's attacks for identical weapons simultaneously. It can be better to split them because that way some of them can get bonuses to strength due to structural damage caused by the others. Similarly, you can mix in alternative weapons, like the Acheron or Castigator's melee weapons instead of the standard lance.

 

Of course, this isn't a huge bonuse you're often losing a point of strength due to attacking from a better-armoured side or with a weaker weapon. It can be worth it if you've got enough attacks initially to track the target, but probably not otherwise. It's unlikely to really cost you though, and may be quite a big help.

[Noserenda]

Solid advice, it also minimises return fire which can present huge problems for your opponent.

 

When fielding an extermigus maniple a late activating lancer banner did just such a charge to flank my line, acastus killed my warhounds and then the warlords couldn't get the lancers in view, it didn't end well for me lol

[SkimaskMohawk]

One other thing I came across at the LGT is making the most of charging knights. The obvious thing is to move them straight towards the target but you don't have to do that, and it's far better not to.

 

You have a number of rules. You have to run in a straight line and maintain coherency. You want all your knights to get to range, preferably with side armour bonuses, and to maximise the number of bonus attacks you get.

 

Here's a diagram showing what I think is the best approach.

 

 

Essentially, by using the knight on the right as the recipient of the bonus attacks from the charge (remember the FAQ means only one knight gets these) and by running past the target instead of straight at it, you get another two attacks and you hit the enemy in the side.

 

It can also be helpful to have some knights attack from different sides of a titan. Normally you have to roll all of a banner's attacks for identical weapons simultaneously. It can be better to split them because that way some of them can get bonuses to strength due to structural damage caused by the others. Similarly, you can mix in alternative weapons, like the Acheron or Castigator's melee weapons instead of the standard lance.

 

Of course, this isn't a huge bonuse you're often losing a point of strength due to attacking from a better-armoured side or with a weaker weapon. It can be worth it if you've got enough attacks initially to track the target, but probably not otherwise. It's unlikely to really cost you though, and may be quite a big help.

Ya unfortunately like so many other things, the scenario of knights with the same weapons attacking from different angles requires some....player input into its resolution. They just didn't decide to expand on the base rule that tells you how to determine arc, so you need some cooperation on how to resolve it.

[Sherrypie]

You can't split them, they still explicitly come from the same weapon at once.

 

My fix has been rolling differing arcs as separate bunches and correcting the results at the Armour roll step. Say you get 4 attacks from the front and 6 from the side. Roll the four (say, three hits), then roll the six (say, four hits). Now just roll the four hits from a side, add one to them, and roll the three front hits as normal. All of these still hit only one target, without any successive bonus shenanigans. Easy and quick. The only hitch comes from hitting a location not all knights can see, which then means you just lose some attacks. Tough, should've chosen better.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Sherrypie

[Mandragola]

So, the Iconoclast. Should you get one, and how should it be used?

 

I find the Iconoclast a bit more interesting than the standard Warmaster. Initially it seems basically mad to spend ~1050 points on a single, slow-moving melee titan – and to be honest that’s probably correct. This thing is very limiting and has pretty minimal firepower for its cost. Also melee is extremely dangerous in AT, so you’re putting your massively expensive titan very much in harm’s way. That could go very wrong.

 

On the other hand, the Iconoclast is extremely good at melee. The really distinctive thing about it is the 4” range and bypass rule on its Desolator Chainsword. This allows the Iconoclast to chop up enemy engines from inside the protection of its own void shields and from too far away for them to hit it back with their own melee weapons. That’s really new and means that putting the Iconoclast in melee is significantly less risky than for any other engine. You’re going to see Iconoclasts charge things, wreck their target’s body to drop its voids and then take no meaningful damage when the enemy goes bang.

 

One slight curiosity here is that the Chainsword will be attacking with BS outside of 2”, and therefore hitting on a 2+, but only on a 4+ when using WS inside 2” range. So at that point you can switch to your siege drill or grav imploder to get higher-strength hits. I think that’ll be needed against the tougher engines, where S10 from the Chainsword isn’t all that amazing, though with 4 dice, preferably with a couple more from charging, it might well be enough.

 

I’m not sure it’s obvious which weapon to put in the Iconoclast’s other hand. The drill is phenomenal if you need to kill a Warlord or another Warmaster. The grav gun is a bit worse, but gives you the option of staying outside between 4 and 2” and shooting, which could be interesting. And of course in general it’s pretty useful to have some kind of gun and it does have S12 in melee, which is still very nasty. Between that and the chainsaw nothing much is likely to survive melee, regardless of which weapon you pick.

 

The carapace gatlings on the Iconoclast really stand out to me. They’re vastly better than the revealator missiles on the Warmaster, which are really hard to use. A 12-shot S6 ordnance gun is excellent both as a shield-stripper and as a finisher. The only downside is that it has a corridor arc and (usually) a 12” minimum range, meaning you’ll hardly ever get to fire this and the grav gun at once. If you put a plasma blastgun and VMB in the shoulders of an Iconoclast it’ll have very meaningful firepower, especially thanks to the blastgun bizarrely getting +1 to hit at long range.

 

So what’s this thing for? Well I think it’s actually very useful in missions where you need to control part of the board, as nobody will want to get in its way. If you’re playing a scenario game or some of the missions in the open war deck then it could be very useful.

 

For more standard matched play games I think it’s a harder sell. It’s worth noting that it comes in a fair bit cheaper than a shooty Warmaster, and that does make it a little bit easier to fit into lists. You can have an Iconoclast and a minimum Ferrox maniple at 1750, for example, without having to take absolutely the cheapest weapons possible. You probably shouldn’t do this, but I’m pretty sure people will anyway.

 

In larger games it probably becomes more viable, and also less dominant. Nothing in AT is invincible so it will remain to be seen whether one of these is better for taking a point than a couple of Warlords or a Ferrox maniple of two reavers and two hounds. My guess is that it won’t be the best choice but rule of cool is a thing, especially in AT, and it may well find its way into lists on that basis – and fair enough.

 

I'm looking forward to the opposite end of the scale and seeing how Armigers do. Next update will focus on corrupted titans.

[Noserenda]

You could also potentially double up on the main weapons too if you really wanted to commit to a certain playstyle, i can see double chainswords or double grav fist both having adherents. 

Im still thinking double plasma  is the best armpit combination, though i did consider double melta for the Iconoclast im not sure its that much better than plasma most of the time and is shorter ranged, plus using it nearby invites scatter onto your fat arse :D 

[Mandragola]

Double Chainsword is an interesting option, and worth considering. I guess in that case you'd never need to actually go into melee range and you could just mince stuff from 4" away. Your biggest problem would be getting a second card.

 

Double plasma for the shoulders is tempting, but expensive. The VMB is such a great gun that I'd usually want one, but the plasma definitely gets the job done. Nothing else comes anywhere close to the power of those two though, sadly. The melta is basically half as good as the plasma, due to having only one shot.

[The boater]

Double Chainsword is an interesting option, and worth considering. I guess in that case you'd never need to actually go into melee range and you could just mince stuff from 4" away. Your biggest problem would be getting a second card.

 

Ill likely make a double sided copy of the card. Im planning a dual chainsword and plasmas for a vulpa Warmaster.

[Noserenda]

Yeah once you have one card you can just proxy or write the rules on a bit of paper. The second chainsword would be the trickier problem, though now i think of it there are plenty of options for that, a second fist might be trickier until the 3rd parties get on it.

[The boater]

Battle Bling has quite a nice looking one. Two in fact

[Sword Brother Adelard]

How are people finding the Corrupted Titans in the wild?

 

My friends and I took loyalists to an event yesterday, and all found that the corrupted titans are scarily good. Particularly builds around overwhelming rage and Preternatural Grace. I didn't see the negative to command checks for being corrupted come into play at all, because there were so many ways for them to auto pass orders, or negate the negatives with more positives. Corrupted melee lists in particular were scary fast, and super reliable.

[Brother Dallo]

I’ve mainly seen Frozen Soul, and took Frozen Soul and Preternatural Grace myself. I saw one Writhing Carapace on a support Reaver, which didn’t do a huge amount.

 

I think some of the upgrades are priced to move and there are others people will almost never take.

 

I haven’t encountered anything gamebreakingly good, but I do think Traitors are now more competitive than Loyalists. I think it’s a bit early to say if they need any significant nerfs or restrictions.

 

Dallo

[The boater]

I think the prices are fair for them, but they have been brutal. I have been getting a ton of use out of the Preternatural Grace/ Immaterial Shield with the warlust strat. Warlust was always a bit of a gamble for me before cause you likely are running at full stride (so a significant number of titans not shooting) and you have to push reactor, but now I can get warhounds on the other side of the battlefield with no heat, and the Shield makes them hard to hit so more likely to stay alive. I cannot stress enough how painful it is to have a squadron of three warhounds in your side (or even rear in one game) at the beginning of turn two, and god help you if they got the virulent messenger secondary Obj as its a almost guaranteed to make it to your deployment zone.

 

Im a huge fan of the organic protrusions upgrade as well. I don't think Id ever take it on a titan with an existing CCW (Unless playing with Lanaskara rules for that sweet slap then Smash on the charge) but its a fun upgrade on a warhound, and a Great upgrade for a Reaver. My favorite loadout now is a Dual Gatling reaver with turbo laser on the roof and organic protrusions. Its Fast, can slap (reasonably hard at Str9) and has three guns for about 315pts + whatever base mutation fits your fancy. 

[Orpheus Black Blood]

The Warmaster Iconoclast, I love it, i like close combat and this seems like the epitome of close in Titanicus.

 

As for weapons and ancillary reactor system my preferred options would be double Desolator Chainsword and double vulcan megabolter (cheap) with Kinetic Transducers or maybe Dedicated Void Shunts. With the double Chainsword you can attack in melee with a 2+ and be outside of melee relatiation and protected by your void shields in case of detonation. Add to that the +1 strength on the charge from Kinetic Transducers and it can fell any titan in one turn:

 

On the charge against a Warlord and asuming 6'' movement:

 

Desolator chainsword: 6 attacks hitting on 2+ asuming perfect distribution of 1,2,3,4,5,6 against the body it will go:

 

1: superficial

2: 13, direct hit

3: 14, devastating hit

4: 15, devastating hit

5: 16, critical hit

6: 17+rending, critical hit

 

This will place the warlord in the last body and last critical point, correct me if i am wrong. Now you have a warlord with only one crit to go and without void shields. The warmaster can take it out in the combat phase or another titan can with a called shot. Depending on your position you could attack another titan and leave the crippled one to a support warhound or reaver.

 

Warbringers, Reavers and Warhounds would be oneshoted on the charge.

 

With the correct positioning, if you are in the midst of things, you even could split fire and attack two titans with the Desolator Chainswords and the megabolters or the Cruciator Gatling Array, the two chainswords should make short work of the lesser titans and the megabolters and Gatling are good shield strippers to take out shields on another titan and support the shots of your colleages.

 

This loadout has no draining weapons so it can use all it's reactor for moving around and voids.

 

The Krius Grav Imploder it's like a short range super Volcano Cannon, it could give some versatility at 8'' or less, but i see some problems, for me this titan it's all about called shots outside 2'', and if you make a called shot with the Grav Imploder you are going to be using 2 5+ dice, not very reliable and expensive. If you don't call the shot chances are that you will only land one shot in a random location. Comparing 2 strength 12 5+ called shots with 4 strength 10 2+ called shots i think it's a no brainer.

 

The Krius Siege Drill it's brutal 3 3+ strength 13 fusion hits that would translate in 2 criticals on average, i like it a lot but you have to enter that 2'' bubble and be vulnerable to detonation, would it be viable? i think it could, if you don't die from explosions.

 

Plasmatic locomotors seems like a good choice, but you are going to want to use Power to Locomotors or Power to Stabilisers and that would translate in your range weapons suffering a -2 to hit, is it worth it? Don't know.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Orpheus Black Blood

[Mandragola]

Thanks for that interesting post. I think you're right to say that the chainsword is the most interesting of the Iconoclast's weapons. That ability to deliver melee attacks from inside the protection of your own shields is really huge. Nothing else can do that - so far at least.

 

I'm not sure whether it makes sense to bring two of them though. I certainly see why you're suggesting it, but arguably the fact that they're so effective in the right situation means they aren't really needed. A charge from one of these guys is likely to kill most targets anyway, or else get them to a place where they won't survive another serious hit - such as what the first chainsword will deliver in the combat phase.

 

So overall I think you definitely want at least one chainsword but maybe not two. The fist would be useful against the heaviest of targets, like another Warmaster. It's a bit harder to see a use for the gun, though to be fair if there isn't another warmaster then any gun is arguably better than a redundant melee attack. Not sure.

 

I also think a plasma blastgun is an excellent choice for an arm. Honestly there's a case for bringing two. With that and a VMB an iconoclast has firepower rivalling a Warlord titan. I think it's well worth having a good ranged threat for those times when charging headlong into the enemy isn't the best option.

[Orpheus Black Blood]

You are right, my thoughts about the double chainsword are that even against another warmaster you could finish it in one turn with the charge (you would have a +2 to strength after the first complete attack) and another attack or two from the chainsword protected from the possible explosion. The problem i see with the Siege Drill is that if you destroy another warmaster with it you probably are going to take a very big hit in form of a detonation in return, so i don't think it's worth it, but it's very cool XD.

[Gattopardo]

I can see your point. It's certainly bad news to be close to a Warmaster when it dies. On the other hand, it's swingy. You could suffer few hits, or the hits could do some fairly irrelevant damage to a weapon (a 1 in 3 chance for the Warmaster), or it could wild fire or wander off in a different direction. I wouldn't equip an Iconoclast just for this contingency, although I suppose it might be different if my regular opponent often used one.

 

The Iconoclast is definitely in an interesting spot though. With a respectable shield stripper on the roof and the options of VMBs and the (absurdly accurate) PBG in its shoulder mounts it still has a lot of firepower. It's got genuine threat at range. So you can chug up the field pumping out shots without necessarily needing to charge straight for melee. It's obviously in a good position in missions where you need to control the centre of the board. By contrast, the regular Warmaster suffers a bit for having to take two Suzerains. They're very powerful but would be much better paired with a weaker gun with more shots - something like a Warlord Macro Gatling would actually be ideal. The Suzerain is great but you really only need one. With only 3 shots you only need a slightly below average roll when you're targeting and you can miss entirely.

I'm actually a bit undecided about my Warmaster. I'd bought one when it was first released and built it with the idea of painting it to join my Gore Crows. Now the Iconoclast is out and I sort of think it's actually more interesting than the regular Warmaster, but I don't want to spend another £80+ on a Titan I'd use very rarely, if at all. I also managed to get hold of a Psi Titan recently and that would be a much better use of my hobby time, to be honest. I like the Warmaster from a modelling perspective but until 2k+ games are happening regularly it's hard to justify spending time on the thing. For my Gore Crows for example I'd be much better served spending time and money on a couple more Warlords to let me run an Extergimus maniple, which I think would be pretty good (my thinking being that any maniple that increases damage output is good for Gore Crows as it helps trigger Relentless Killers, which then obviously increases damage output even more).

[schoon]

...something like a Warlord Macro Gatling would actually be ideal.

 

I'd expect that they'll be expanding the Warmaster's arsenal over time. It's too much of a gold mine not to, AND it expands its versatility.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

We played a small tournament event at my FLGS last week, where I placed second. (Quite the turnaround from my event before Christmas where I went 0-3!)

 

We were inspired by some of the issues we perceived at the event, and massively tried to dense up our boards to reduce firing lanes for Extergimus lists and charging lanes for traitor lists.

Another thing we went all in on was craters and difficult terrain just to slow down charging lists as best we could.

 

The biggest change I made to my list was changing allegiance. I ran as traitors for the first time, and took two corrupted titans with just the base corruptions, and the problem I see with them is that they are just too reliable. Thanks to strats like War Lust and Bloodthirst, plus tricks like beast of aeons and Noble Lineage, I found that I just wasn't having any issues with the machine spirit, or failing orders.

 

Which annoys me a little, corrupted titans should be less reliable, and more likely to go mental, and it's kind of skewing the meta a little.

 

I'm not sure what the fix is, but one suggestion seems to me to make it impossible to positively modify a corrupted titans command value.

[Mandragola]

We played a small tournament event at my FLGS last week, where I placed second. (Quite the turnaround from my event before Christmas where I went 0-3!)

 

We were inspired by some of the issues we perceived at the event, and massively tried to dense up our boards to reduce firing lanes for Extergimus lists and charging lanes for traitor lists.

Another thing we went all in on was craters and difficult terrain just to slow down charging lists as best we could.

 

The biggest change I made to my list was changing allegiance. I ran as traitors for the first time, and took two corrupted titans with just the base corruptions, and the problem I see with them is that they are just too reliable. Thanks to strats like War Lust and Bloodthirst, plus tricks like beast of aeons and Noble Lineage, I found that I just wasn't having any issues with the machine spirit, or failing orders.

 

Which annoys me a little, corrupted titans should be less reliable, and more likely to go mental, and it's kind of skewing the meta a little.

 

I'm not sure what the fix is, but one suggestion seems to me to make it impossible to positively modify a corrupted titans command value.

That's interesting. I do think it's unfortunate that corrupted titans are more reliable rather than less so. The fact you're removing reactor dice rolls and all but ignoring command checks thanks to strats does create an effective option with few downsides - other than cost.

 

I guess you want to avoid draining weapons, but realistically that's not a huge loss. Volcano cannons just aren't great, dakka is better than shieldbane lasers and the warlord volkite isn't really better than the macro gatling.

 

One area where you'd suffer a bit is with shield saves. For non-corrupt titans it's nearly always good news to fail a command check when boosting your shields but for corrupt ones things get a bit more dicey - and it'll happen more often. But overall that's not a huge price to pay.

 

I suppose one counter could be to take vox blackout vs corrupted stuff. If they play bloodthirst you drop vox blackout so they can't charge. It's a hugely powerful strat against any melee force really but probably even better against corrupt stuff. Sabotage might be a fun alternative.

 

Well done with your second place finish by the way. Good effort. I'm going to be taking my Astorum to Beachhead in a couple of weeks so I should have an event of my own to report on. It's been very tricky to get games in recently but I've got a couple lined up next week - unfortunately after list submissions need to be in.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I went Corsair and Ferrox, three double melee reavers and one with chainfist and Gatling.(points and lack of melee weapons) two warhounds one with VMB, PBG, another with VMB, UC.

Each titan had bastion shielding, to avoid pushing as much as possible, the hounds take Hunting Motives for the same reason, I try and avoid pushing Warhounds for the first two turns if I can, otherwise they don't last the game.

[Noserenda]

Sooo titan advice! 

Ive got a weaponless Warlord and plan to pick up odds and ends to rectify that, originally i planned to make her a Psi titan for if i run my Fuerans as filthy loyalists but im not so certain at this point.

I already own the following warlord loadouts:
Missiles, Quake Cannon, Volcano cannon
Gatling, Plasma, Plasma
Missiles, Melee, Volkite

So really what im asking is what would you pick as a loadout, Psi titan or regular, ive got one arm Gatling cannon on the way but it wouldnt be the end of the world if i dont use it. Oh and i dont magnetise, obviously :D 

[Mandragola]

I'm alarmed at the idea of not magnetising Warlords, but ok. Each to their own.

 

My favourite Warlord load-out is a sunfury, macro gatling (or possibly volkite) and either gatlings or missiles on the roof. It's a set up that can strip shields effectively, do a bunch of structural damage with the sunfury and then finish off a wounded enemy with dakka. Tracking gyroscopes help a lot but aren't absolutely necessary.

 

A Psi-titan is also an option. That comes with a Warlord of course, unless you get printed stuff or scratch build something. That would be a good option for your macro gatling though. It would also give you a couple more sunfuries to play around with.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Missiles Melee Volkite is a strange mix, first off, I don't rate clawlords at all, but I'd have thought roof gatlings better for that arm combo.

 

I'm building my Extergimus list, and I think it will end up being:

 

- Double quake, Apocs.

- Volkite, Plasma, Vulcans

- Plasma, Macro Gatling, Gatlings

 

I honestly don't know what I'd give a fourth, or when I'd ever use it unless I was doing a massive narrative game.

 

I am also building a Psi titan, and that will have a few options, but I'm leaning towards Volkite and top gats, maybe Apocs to complement the range on the tenebris.

[Noserenda]

Missiles on the Clawlord is because i had a conversion in mind more than any particular plan with that one :D (Valkyrie rockets pods) I dont magnetise as im building mine more as characters with histories and stuff and it certainly feels like Titans in the fluff dont hot swap their weapons. :) Id be getting the Psi Titan bits off Battlebling, (and someone 3d printing lion pads) forgeworld not selling a conversion kit version of the Psi titan is a bit cheeky, ive only ended up with a fourth Warlord because it was a bargain (thus no weapons) anyhow.

So im thinking Triple gatling Psi Titan or Triple Gatling & Plasma regular warlord. Im tempted by a double quake/missiles Warlord too, but maybe down the line :D