Principia Titanicus

[Mandragola]

Interesting. Thanks for that.

[Sherrypie]

Tried out the new Ryza goodies in a grand slam of 2500 points, Favilla vs. Astorum. The heavy line of Ashen Gods' extermination engines held against the wild rush of half a dozen Warhounds and their masters, blunting the advance and pummeling the attackers into the dust in the end.

 

I wanted to test the new Extermigus maniple, but having currently only two Warlords in my colours I made a custom legio with the new rules to faciliate this:

1) swap a Reaver in for any one mandatory titan in a maniple.

2) get one reroll in Repair to manage the extra heat.

3) upgrade Warlords and Warbringer carapaces to fire in the whole Front Arc, since we're at an activation disadvantage and need the reach.

4) upgrade small blasts to stronger big blasts, makes Reavers fire effective Belicosas too.

 

A heavy Extermigus took the centre and kept firing while a lighter Lupercal at the flank raised hell and both sides filled the skies with bombers and artillery. Astorum went with a Mandatum and a Ferrox, pushing aggressively with Hounds that couldn't handle the fire and had mostly perished by the end of turn three when it became clear that while I couldn't really prevent his one Warlord at my lines chilling there, everything else he had was dying fast. At the end of fifth turn, with his casualties 7(+4 Cerastus Lancers who had evaporated on the first turn) to my 2, Astorum yielded the field.

 

Brutal stuff, if somewhat living on the edge as the extra heat picked up from sustained firing meant my reactors were glowing orange for the second half of the game through the whole line and some were pushing red at the end. Reaver Volcanoes and Warlord plasmas are pretty rad with the added Strength, pushing reliable Criticals all over the place if they don't get focused down.

 

[Mandragola]

Nice, thanks for the report. Interesting to hear about how this got on.

 

Reavers sound like they'd benefit quite a lot from being part of this maniple. A Legio like Gryphonicus could do pretty well, though of course they've got nothing to mitigate heat gain. You could take a load of lasers on a Reaver and thow out loads of S10 shots.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to running this for my Astorum guys where I can cool down reasonably easily, at least with the Warlords. I could see myself using Turbo laser destructors on the carapace, since that way I'd have the option of S10 lasers very far away.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Okay, I think I've settled on the custom rules I'm gonna use for my Legio - they're mainly chosen for theming, but inside that framework I do want to them to be relatively useful. For context, my main force is built around a Fortis Maniple with a twin Bellicosa/Apoc Missile Warlord & a pair of Volcano/Laser/Apoc Missile Reavers reinforced by a mid-short ranged loadout Venator Maniple.

 

Legio Traits:

• Gunnery Command - pretty simple here, as I've got a primarily 'sit back and shoot' list, getting +2 to First Fire is useful for the Fortis Maniple, especially for those 360 degree arc Reaver missiles in the early rounds, and my Legio's background emphasises their long-range engagements.
• Masters of Defence - I mainly chose this because it matched my Legio's background perfectly (they're expert Ork fighters) and to help counter knights/ any melee Titans that make it to my line, but honestly the ability to move at full speed when backing up sounds extremely useful for missions that make you move around a bit more, allowing my Titans to keep their guns front and not opening up flank/rear armour roll bonuses as they withdraw to my table edge.

Legio Specific Stratagems:

• Opening Salvo: - honestly, I just couldn't resist the appeal of getting an extra round of shooting in at the start of the game, allowing me to potentially drop voids on some Titans before the combat phase when combo'd with successful First Fire orders - obviously 2 heat is a big jump, but I'll likely only be doing this with the Reavers/Warlord for range reasons, and it actually allows them to make use of the 1st round's damage repair phase to hopefully vent some heat which might otherwise go unused.

Legio Specific Wargear:

• Plasma Rifling: - as my Fortis Reavers both have laser blasters, this was something of a must if I want to be able to fire all of their weapons in the Combat phase of the early rounds, and while it's kinda boring, pushing to gain range is probably more appealing to me than shieldbane.

Obviously the big drawback here is heat management - Masters of Defence costs a heat when you use reaction fire against being charged, Opening Salvo costs 2 heat per Titan using it and Plasma Rifling is another source of heat, but as most of these are primarily useful on relatively static Titan builds, I'm hoping the fact that I'm unlikely to be pushing for speed/turns should mean they aren't too unmanageable.

[Mandragola]

This is an interesting approach. You're basically trying to nova your opponent off the board before your own titans explode from overheating. It's very risky but might work.

 

My book still hasn't arrived so I haven't seen all these rules in detail and I'm only going off what you say. But the fundamentals of your list are you start with a lot of draining weapons and then add more ways to heat up your titans, with extra shots and plasma rifling. 

 

This is kind of the complete opposite of how I like to play, so it's a bit difficult to comment on. I haven't tried it and I probably won't. But here's what I think will happen:

• You'll fire a bunch of guns on first fire, taking out a lot of shields. Some enemy engines will lose their shields straight off but you'll gain a lot of heat.
• Your opponent will advance and/or hide as best they can.
• Repair phase. You regen some heat but maybe not all of what you generated by now. Your opponent will regen a few shields but not back to full.
• You'll be able to take the remaining shields off some titans. You'll hit them with some blasts and do some structural damage and crits, but be unable to do targeted shots to pick on damaged locations. Enemy engines will be carrying crits here and there and often without shields. You'll probably have killed an engine or two, especially if there are warhounds or something. If your opponent plays knights they'll have been virtually tabled by now.
• You'll carry on getting hotter.

Either you will have done your opponent enough damage to kill them by now or you're in big trouble from turn 2 onwards. Your titans will be very hot and your opponent will be coming into range with things like vulcan mega bolters, plasma blastguns, melta cannons, gatlings and sunfuries. You won't be able to put much power into boosting your shields so, while it will take time for your opponent to break into a Fortis maniple, they'll get there in the end - assuming your shields don't drop anyway due to heat.

 

I can't honestly recommend this approach. I think you're surrendering the movement phase and giving your opponent control of the board. I think that the skill in this game really comes from moving titans, not just rolling dice to see what happens, and I think you lose an awful lot by first firing on turn one. It's very difficult to kill titans in cover at range, because you can't target damaged locations. The enemy will tend to end up with a few crits here and there but still standing, while other engines can advance and cause you real pain with their more effective, short range guns.

 

That said, give it a try and let us know what happens. A fun thing about this game is that you can try something out one day, then come back the next week with different guns on your titans and different traits, and it's an entirely different force. You lose nothing by experimenting.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

This is an interesting approach. You're basically trying to nova your opponent off the board before your own titans explode from overheating. It's very risky but might work.

 

My book still hasn't arrived so I haven't seen all these rules in detail and I'm only going off what you say. But the fundamentals of your list are you start with a lot of draining weapons and then add more ways to heat up your titans, with extra shots and plasma rifling. 

 

This is kind of the complete opposite of how I like to play, so it's a bit difficult to comment on. I haven't tried it and I probably won't. But here's what I think will happen:

• You'll fire a bunch of guns on first fire, taking out a lot of shields. Some enemy engines will lose their shields straight off but you'll gain a lot of heat.
• Your opponent will advance and/or hide as best they can.
• Repair phase. You regen some heat but maybe not all of what you generated by now. Your opponent will regen a few shields but not back to full.
• You'll be able to take the remaining shields off some titans. You'll hit them with some blasts and do some structural damage and crits, but be unable to do targeted shots to pick on damaged locations. Enemy engines will be carrying crits here and there and often without shields. You'll probably have killed an engine or two, especially if there are warhounds or something. If your opponent plays knights they'll have been virtually tabled by now.
• You'll carry on getting hotter.

Either you will have done your opponent enough damage to kill them by now or you're in big trouble from turn 2 onwards. Your titans will be very hot and your opponent will be coming into range with things like vulcan mega bolters, plasma blastguns, melta cannons, gatlings and sunfuries. You won't be able to put much power into boosting your shields so, while it will take time for your opponent to break into a Fortis maniple, they'll get there in the end - assuming your shields don't drop anyway due to heat.

 

I can't honestly recommend this approach. I think you're surrendering the movement phase and giving your opponent control of the board. I think that the skill in this game really comes from moving titans, not just rolling dice to see what happens, and I think you lose an awful lot by first firing on turn one. It's very difficult to kill titans in cover at range, because you can't target damaged locations. The enemy will tend to end up with a few crits here and there but still standing, while other engines can advance and cause you real pain with their more effective, short range guns.

 

That said, give it a try and let us know what happens. A fun thing about this game is that you can try something out one day, then come back the next week with different guns on your titans and different traits, and it's an entirely different force. You lose nothing by experimenting.

 

Yeah that's all fair, I'll really have to get a few games under my belt with this build before I know if it's viable or not. There are definitely a few things I can do to mitigate its shortcomings though - I will say that outside of the Fortis maniple, I do have 4 Warhounds that I can use to pad out the list to the appropriate points level (two twin turbolaser, two vulcan/plasma) as well as a few knights, which I can use to push forwards and manoeuvre around the board a bit more, to potentially take advantage of damaged locations opened up by the Fortis, or at least delay closing Titans for a bit.

 

I'm also pondering whether fielding the Fortis as the new Perpetua maniple might be a decent way to mitigate some of the heat buildup (pretty much the same constituents, but always enacts Emergency Repairs on a 2+ & gains an extra servitor clade in the Damage Control phase if they didn't move), although whether it's worth the trade-off in survivablity is questionable, especially when the Fortis' void sharing stuff could potentially allow me to vent heat with repair rolls I'd otherwise need for voids. Another option I'm considering is just augmenting the Fortis maniple with a cheap plasma generator battlefield asset - getting one Titan to dump a load of heat with the generator and then focus its repair rolls on maintaining voids that are shared across the maniple while the other, hotter Titans dedicate their repair rolls to loosing heat could work, and with the Fortis maniple's tendency to clump together, I might even be able to have two Titan's in the generator's 1" radius for dumping D3 heat in the movement phase.

[Sherrypie]

Battlefield assets that could help with heat management are something I definitely have to try with the Extermigus, could give Warbringers or artillery Warlords some extra leeway to pump out more strengthened shots if one is parked on a good firing lane from the get go.

[Mandragola]

Assets could definitely be useful. Maybe a good option would be to take the new Perpetua maniple to manage heat, with a void shield generator to help the shields. This would also mean you wouldn't have to clump up quite so much. It would let you at least spread out so you had different fire arcs, and your opponent couldn't just hide everyone behind the same rock.

 

Setting up a Fortis and then fist firing seriously hands the initiative to your opponent. They can tell where they need to hide from as soon as you put one titan in the maniple down on the board, and then you don't move in turn one. It's not ideal.

[Bromosel]

Did you already test the Warlord with 2 Belicosas? This is a super hot combination. Personally I favor a Belicosa Sunfury Combination. I think your combination relies too much on good repair rolls and assets. The big problem is, and as Mandragola already mentioned, that you get very hot very early. I think that the "important shots" come in the mid or late game. I saw a lot of players who underestimated the effects of heat and damaged their titans and practically took them out of the game. There are also some situtations where you cant rely on standing and shooting and even you have to boost your movement. It is nearly impossible to cool down your Titan, when he is the heat of battle...

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Assets could definitely be useful. Maybe a good option would be to take the new Perpetua maniple to manage heat, with a void shield generator to help the shields. This would also mean you wouldn't have to clump up quite so much. It would let you at least spread out so you had different fire arcs, and your opponent couldn't just hide everyone behind the same rock.

 

Setting up a Fortis and then fist firing seriously hands the initiative to your opponent. They can tell where they need to hide from as soon as you put one titan in the maniple down on the board, and then you don't move in turn one. It's not ideal.

 

Yeah, Perpetua with void shield generator is a good shout - one thing I am kinda relying on in the early game is the apoc missiles' +1 accuracy at long range to making the

Barrage trait less costly to use. Assuming I can keep a target in the Warlord's firing arc for the first round, the Fortis/Perpetua maniple can potentially be kicking out 60 dice worth of missiles in the first turn from Opening Salvo/ First Fire/ Combat phase, so while that initial round would be static, I'd be more willing to manoeuvre around the board from the 2nd turn onward, once some voids have dropped (especially as I can also backpedal at full speed thanks to Masters of Defence).

 

Did you already test the Warlord with 2 Belicosas? This is a super hot combination. Personally I favor a Belicosa Sunfury Combination. I think your combination relies too much on good repair rolls and assets. The big problem is, and as Mandragola already mentioned, that you get very hot very early. I think that the "important shots" come in the mid or late game. I saw a lot of players who underestimated the effects of heat and damaged their titans and practically took them out of the game. There are also some situtations where you cant rely on standing and shooting and even you have to boost your movement. It is nearly impossible to cool down your Titan, when he is the heat of battle...

 

Honestly, it's a cost/availability thing - I had a Warlord kit with twin Bellicosas, so I built it as such - I know building a force that way is never gonna be super optimal, but I try and be as economical with part/costs as I can (the only kits I've bought for AT are the Starter set & Battlegroup set, but that got me 2500 points worth of minis for £150). Also if firing a volcano is only gonna drop 2 void shields at best, I'm not averse to just not firing it rather than pushing the reactor - I've tried to outfit my Titans so they have consistent range bands across all their weapons, meaning if I need to open fire with everything I usually can, so missing out on one or two needless shots here and there to spare my reactors is okay.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Assets could definitely be useful. Maybe a good option would be to take the new Perpetua maniple to manage heat, with a void shield generator to help the shields. This would also mean you wouldn't have to clump up quite so much. It would let you at least spread out so you had different fire arcs, and your opponent couldn't just hide everyone behind the same rock.

 

Setting up a Fortis and then fist firing seriously hands the initiative to your opponent. They can tell where they need to hide from as soon as you put one titan in the maniple down on the board, and then you don't move in turn one. It's not ideal.

Presumably, a Fureans maniple with their re-roll banking could have some fun with that tactic? Stand still and fire for the first turn, then use the re-rolls as and when.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra

[Mandragola]

Maybe. It’s kind of hard to imagine a reroll for a shot being better than an actual shot, or several of them. The premise of this build is to fire a ton of shots on turn 1 if the enemy is somehow silly enough to stand in front of a Warlord on first fire. Fureans do the opposite - rather than firing multiple times on turn 1 they fire 0.

 

I think the Fureans “do nothing” trait is pretty bad, or at least I can’t see what it’s for. I guess it could be useful for a melta or some other thing that really needs to hit. Fureans are great, but mainly that’s due to hunting auspexes and their stratagem, not their traits - though the machine spirit one is very cool and quite good.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Mandragola

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Maybe. It’s kind of hard to imagine a reroll for a shot being better than an actual shot, or several of them. The premise of this build is to fire a ton of shots on turn 1 if the enemy is somehow silly enough to stand in front of a Warlord on first fire. Fureans do the opposite - rather than firing multiple times on turn 1 they fire 0.

 

I think the Fureans “do nothing” trait is pretty bad, or at least I can’t see what it’s for. I guess it could be useful for a melta or some other thing that really needs to hit. Fureans are great, but mainly that’s due to hunting auspexes and their stratagem, not their traits - though the machine spirit one is very cool and quite good.

Well, if the titan isn't moving anyway... And the re-roll doesn't, afaik, specify type of dice. So the possibilities are nearly endless.

[Mandragola]

 

Maybe. It’s kind of hard to imagine a reroll for a shot being better than an actual shot, or several of them. The premise of this build is to fire a ton of shots on turn 1 if the enemy is somehow silly enough to stand in front of a Warlord on first fire. Fureans do the opposite - rather than firing multiple times on turn 1 they fire 0.

 

I think the Fureans “do nothing” trait is pretty bad, or at least I can’t see what it’s for. I guess it could be useful for a melta or some other thing that really needs to hit. Fureans are great, but mainly that’s due to hunting auspexes and their stratagem, not their traits - though the machine spirit one is very cool and quite good.

Well, if the titan isn't moving anyway... And the re-roll doesn't, afaik, specify type of dice. So the possibilities are nearly endless.

 

You have to forgo your activation, not just not move. You don't get the reroll if you go on first fire orders.

 

You're right that it seems to be any dice roll, so it can be more useful than just a roll to hit.

[Sparika]

Small report on my use of a Ordo SInister Warlord. Well, it's expensive. :D

 

The battle was against a friend not really familiar with the rules and using my miniatures on both sides, so we skipped some Titanicus Rules and did not use specific Legio trait/Princeps/... The battle was a 3 Reaver + Warlord Sinister against 2 Warlord + 3 Warhound. The Warlord sinister was armed with gauntlet and carapace lasers.

On turn 1 it only moved to get into position.

On turn 2 it fired on the ennemy Warlord. Given that it can target a location and automatically hit, bypassing void shields with strength 10. It is quite brutal.

On turn 3 it fired againt on the ennemy Warlord and killed it!

On turn 4 sadly it got his Sinistramus Tenebrae destroyed. I decided not to fire it first and so lost my opportunity to fire.

I'm not sure exactly what I did with it afterwards, I think that on turn 5 I shot a Warhound but failed to kill it. This also lost me my opportunity to kill the second Warlord in turn 6. But the Warhound was the only was the menace since it was armed with weapons capable of targeted fire. The Warlord had missile + 2 volcanoes.

Finally, the Ordo SInister Warlord got killed on turn 6.

 

It was fun, but really expensive.

 

Some notes

Although the titan can repair itself, it cannot do it once you have crits on the location. When I tried to repair it, it was actually too late.

The sinistramus tenebrae is the main weapon you want to fire but you cannot do split fire. Since the sinistramus bypass void shields, the laser are kind of useless if the ennemy has them up since you don't care actually.

I also did not move forward enough (the ennemy refused my Sinister flank) and so I was not able to use the gauntlet. And so the command penalty did not came into play.

[Sherrypie]

The fist is pretty useless on the Psi-Titan, given it cannot Charge and has range bazillion on its big gun. I've used carapace lasers and they were fine up the midfield, but they are also expensive on an already expensive model and need supporting models to preferably already have the shields taken down if you couldn't do that with the Sinistramanus first by hitting the target with a VSG burnout.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

 

 

Maybe. It’s kind of hard to imagine a reroll for a shot being better than an actual shot, or several of them. The premise of this build is to fire a ton of shots on turn 1 if the enemy is somehow silly enough to stand in front of a Warlord on first fire. Fureans do the opposite - rather than firing multiple times on turn 1 they fire 0.

 

I think the Fureans “do nothing” trait is pretty bad, or at least I can’t see what it’s for. I guess it could be useful for a melta or some other thing that really needs to hit. Fureans are great, but mainly that’s due to hunting auspexes and their stratagem, not their traits - though the machine spirit one is very cool and quite good.

Well, if the titan isn't moving anyway... And the re-roll doesn't, afaik, specify type of dice. So the possibilities are nearly endless.

 

You have to forgo your activation, not just not move. You don't get the reroll if you go on first fire orders.

 

You're right that it seems to be any dice roll, so it can be more useful than just a roll to hit.

 

Well, if your enemy is moving into cover so you don't get much out of the Combat Phase anyway, you'll stil earn a re-roll there. So not entirely useless.

[Sherrypie]

The Furean trait is absolutely useful, as it allows you to make more use out of those empty moments that are bound to happen every now and then. Maybe the terrain is in the way, maybe you couldn't get that Full Stride off this turn and couldn't shoot anyway from far away, perhaps you want to take ambush position for the second turn. I wouldn't build a plan to force it, but I would be glad it's there for a reroll or two when combined with the fact that Tiger Eyes aren't otherwise suffering from weak rules.

[Mandragola]

Oh, the Fureans trait is certainly useful in those situations. I’m just saying it’s not particularly great if you’re building a list designed to go nova on turn one. That kind of list will feature a lot of long-ranged weapons that are able to get shots off in probably both the movement and combat phases rather than getting rerolls.

Edited August 5, 2020 by Mandragola

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, it's more of a midgame bonus than an alpha strike enabler. If for some reason one would care about having rerolls for days, the better route would be to just declare yourself a traitor and start piling on various stratagem blessings on your engines.

[Fajita Fan]

This kind of back and forth would make a great WC article.

[Sherrypie]

This kind of back and forth would make a great WC article.

Implying anyone was ever allowed to say anything remotely useful or profound on that site :D

[Doctor Perils]

So, I'm getting my next GW order ready with Ryza and a few other AT goodies... My question is whether Acheron Knights are worth getting? I really like the model and would fit the lore I'm getting ready for my custom forge world, but I've never used nor faced Knights. I'm also not sure I like them 55€ worth ;)

 

These would be to support my new shooty-warlord-heavy maniple, as opposed to Knights as the main component of the army :)

[Mandragola]

To be honest you definitely don’t need the new cerastus box. I’d probably recommend lancers if you want a melee knight.

 

There’s a case for having the second knight in a cerastus be an acheron or castigator, but I think the first should generally be a lancer. You get the better ion shield save and better strength for charges. But you don’t really need all of them to be lancers - subsequent knights don’t need shields for the unit to benefit and there’s actually kind of a benefit to having extra kinds of weapons. The Acheron would swing after the lancer and therefore gain the benefit of any structural damage it did, whereas all lancers have to roll simultaneously against the best armour value. I’m not sure that makes the Acheron better, but it probably makes it at least equally good in melee as a second lancer would be - and it has a really big flamer too.

 

I think a good support banner might be one of each type of cerastus, or maybe two lancers and an Acheron. Always a lancer to lead the banner. The castigator’s bolt cannon is devastating once you have a really badly damaged location on the target, but before that it’s harmless.

[Doctor Perils]

Thanks - on balance, I'll go with the lancers for the moment and look into getting Acherons when/if I choose to expand further