Today in Titanicus I...

[Mandragola]

Yeah dice can be a bit of a problem I once lost a reaver to titan hunter infantry in the first game of a weekend event. It exploded and took out my warlord. This was not ideal in a 1000 point game. 

[Wisesamwise]

Cant recover my old username so new name... 

TIAT... Well last week... I also played in the Bottom of the barrel tournament! 1850pts and 6 strats is an interesting building space. 

I ran a traitor Vulpa Ferrox, with knight support.  I didn't take any pictures, so shamelessly stole one from BoBs facebook page of my own titans. 

Battlegroup Perseus

- Reaver: Melta, Laser blaster, missile pod - Princeps

- Reaver: Melta, Gatling, VMB

- Warhound: VMB, Plasma

- Warhound: VMB, Plasma

- Warhound: Plasma VMB

- Questoris Knights x 4, Each has 2 x Thermal lances and rocket pods. 

- Cerastus Knights x 3. Lancers

Outflank (2), Warp displacement, Concealment Barrage, Tracer cloud.

Its not an optimal list, and certainly doesnt take advantage of Vulpa's strengths. But I like it.

The Questoris are a laugh and are a massive gamble. I have run them for the last year and I really should just replace them with another titan or more lancers. But when things go well - Dominant strategist to take priority, Outflank, warp displacement, get in shields, roll above average with thermal lancers, don't hit weapon, don't die from resulting explosion - they are amazing. But a lot things have to go my way, which is never ideal on such a large chunk of points that is rather squishy. 

 

Game 1 against Tom: Traitor Astorum Mandatum, Warlord 2x Sunfurys, Missiles. 3x VMB plasma hounds, 2 x 3 lancers. I think everything had the corruption that lets them push for free once per turn. Primary was capture 3 points in the opponents objective zone, 10VPs per point. Secondary for Tom was kill my princeps, I had table quarters. 

Tom put a pair of hounds on my left with a lancer as support and stacked the right with the warlord, other hound and lancers. I set up so all 3 of my hounds and lancers could threaten the left and the reavers in cover on the right to goad the warlord into making less then optimal shots. My Questoris were outflanking onto the right hand board edge. 

Tom pushed really aggressively up either flank, and the warlord into the middle. I was more cautious, staying in cover and denying shots where possible. I did push a hound, got double heat and lost my shields though (that never reignited). I got a lucky maximal fire shot on some lancers and wiped the squad.

Turn 2 I got a charge order on my lancers and were in a position to warp displace and charge either Toms warlord or his warhounds. I chose the warlord, got the side arc and max move bonus attacks and deaded the warlord. Shots were fired, but not much happened. 

Turn 3 I got the charge again with the lancers and killed a hound, taking the right flank. All my guns were now pointed at 2 warhounds. Tom saved everything. His remaining lancer unit got into my deployment zone and started doing the primary objective. I did the same with my questoris

Turn 4. 1850pts cant drop shields on 2 hounds

Turn 5. I bundle a hound with questoris and lancers, the lancers do kill it but I lose a knight and 2 questoris. I get a rear shot in shields into the other hound and kill that also. I spread out and get all the table quarters. 

45-30 to me! 

 

Game 2 against Dans corrupted Vulturum as described above already by Adelard. Primary was drop 2 objectives within 18inches of the centre each. Most scale gets the objective at the end of the game. Secondary for Dan was virile messenger, I had to kill 2 titans in the first 2 turns. 

Not going to lie, that Warmaster is scary. And I forgot the plasma has that range. and I didn't realise those tiny gatlings had that many shots either. 

Dan was really aggressive and pushed everything up the middle. He crippled a hound in his opening salvo with the warmaster but didnt kill it. I killed the hound covering Toms (my) left flank with concentrated fire. 

Turn 2 was brutal. I put a tracer cloud in front of the warmaster, in an effort to control where it went. But Dan just stuck it in there. I also got the charge order off on the lancers, within charge range of the warmasters front arc. I couldnt get the side due to building cover. I think this was Dans plan, have me charge that front arc, tank the damage and take out my lancers with the giant chainsword. He warp displaced a hound back and tucked behind the warmaster to cover the side that had a reaver and hound now uncontested. Lancers warp displaced and did a max charge into the rear of this hound, also within the voids of the warmaster! They skewered the warhound in the movment phase and then battered the warmaster in the combat phase. I had hoped to get some crits with the rear attack and take out the shields but I was unlucky. Everything fired at the warmaster and with the tracers I was hitting like a daemon. Did a tonne of damage but it lived. I lost the injured warhound. 

Turn 3. I think Dan emergency repaired the warmaster, which, combined with the normal repair, got him pretty healthy again. I could see that my one shot to finish him was slowly slipping away.  My questoris thermal lanced the last warhound and everything else moved to surround the warmaster. Again I did heavy damage but it lived. 

Turn 4. A lucky crit to the leg caused the warmaster to spin and face my reaver and warhound that currently had been sneaking up behind. I failed my orders but had priority, so moved the hound to block the charge on the reaver. Turns out it wasnt enough. Warmaster charged the reaver and killed it. I rolled a 10, and the resulting explosion killed my hound which also exploded. My lancers followed the warmaster, and in the combat phase killed it. 

The game went to 5 and I moved to all the objectives. 45-10

 

Game 3 against Russ and his loyal Astorum Regia maniple. Warlord with a claw, sunfury and gatling, Warlord with a quake, volcano and missiles. 3 warhounds with stuff. I think 2 VMB plasma, maybe a VMB and turbo laser. and then a support hound with an ursus claw and VMB. Primary was to hold the centre. Secondary, I had secure the point in my deployment zone, Russ; Virile messenger.

Russ put quake warlord and hound on the left, which I put opposite 2 hounds and a reaver + my outflanking questoris, and the rest on the right.

With war march though I know Russ can redeploy pretty quickly.   

Turn 1 I blocked the left hand fire lane with concealment barrage and pushed forward with everything, but kept in cover as much as possible, neutering Russ's superior long range firepower. He pushed into the centre with the clawlord and a supporting hound and readied the left flank for my on coming hoard. My full striding lancers went all the way up the board into the opposite deployment zone, sitting behind the virile hound and were ready for charges next turn.

Turn 2 My Lancers get the charge order and Russ moves his Claw lord so if I charged the warhound next to them, then he would obliterate the knights. Or if I charged the warlord then the charge would be in the front arc. I actually don't think I was in range, so charged the knights, as my last activation, and put them deeper into the enemy deployment zone.  The virile hound got full stride order but during the move phase war march, he failed the machine spirit roll and just stood in the open.  My push forward had left the centre completely open as all my units were within ~8inches of the board edges, so Russ pushed the ursus hound into the centre, which next turn would threaten the rear of my right flank and was in a good position to deny me VPs by taking my objective. To save the virile hound, and possibly score vps,  Russ pushed it to within my opposite hounds shields. I promptly killed it. The outflanking questoris rolled low on their warp displacement (3inches) and were left in the open, they still fired everything but only took some shields off. As my knights had fired and I was threatening the warlord and hound with 3 titans in close proximity, Russ decided to shoot at this blob. I lost shields on a hound but otherwise was fine. 

Turn 3 Russ used the long retreat to get some extra fallback movement away from my questoris and back to his table edge, though I still got them under his warlords shields. And I use tracer cloud to force the centre warlord and hound to split. My left flank now converges on the centre, and as I out activate I can move my most important pieces last. 

My questoris activate first in the combat phase. This is the moment I have been waiting for all tournament: To be within fusion range of a warlord with no shields... Its time... Oh this is going to be brilliant... I rub my hands with glee... And I whiff. 3 hits. 1 is a superficial and the other two result in a direct and devastating hit...NAFF! I kill the centre and ursus claw hounds, and lose a questoris to a turbo laser. My lancers are now in a position to charge either warlord next turn.  

Turn 4 I charge the rear and kill the clawlord with the lancers, losing 2 knights to the resulting explosion. I am in a dominant position with most of my titans untouched. Russ surrenders. 40-5

3 wins for me! Lancers were the MVPs, 2 Warlords, a Warmaster and 3 Warhounds met their ends to these bad boys! 
I won a golden barrel for my first place prize, and also got a painted barrel for best painted!! Thank you everyone who voted for me :) 

Great event! Lots of fun. Thank you everyone for the games and to BoB for running! Looking forward to the next one.  

[Mandragola]

Great stuff, congrats on your victory! It’s particularly impressive if those Questoris are as ineffective as they seem. I’d have thought melee weapon and thermal cannon might work better, but lancers are obviously the best option. And I do like my armigers.

Fraters do need to start taking pictures though if possible. Those engines look great and it would have been really nice to see them in action!

[Wisesamwise]

When things go right they are amazing. 

I have had the questoris in the back of a warlord, hit 6 times and roll 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10. to the body and vaporise the titan. But I have also done the same and hit a weapon... 

I think for the next event I will just try a knight household.  Or go for 2 lancers and some armigers. 

[schoon]

Thank-you for the AAR. Sounds like a great event!

...and kudos on the handsome Titan force!

[Tar Aldarion]

Wow, congrats to your victorious Event, wisesamwise! Sounds like skill and happenstance were both on your side.

 

I've just had a 1500 points clash against a friends' Laniaskara. Despite knowing that he would almost certainly be spamming Cerasti, I just wanted to give my Pallidus Mor Direwolf his debut. Chance to shutdown warhounds should be almost 50:50, he whiffed like 5 or 6 attempts. Apart from that, it was an uphill for me from the start: my arcus with direwolf and reinforcing reaver (Vortex missile also whiffed its debut) vs his knight heavy (3×2 cerasti plus 1 acastus) Laniaskara on a small table of just about 48x30" (the largest he had readily available at the time) with wrath and ruin primary objective (gain 3 tokens in enemy deployment).

I got a turn 1 warp displacement charge by a reaver on steroids, which the poor warhound, who had simply moved up to shield the direwolf that had just failed to shutdown the very reaver, somehow survived. A phase or two later he succumbed to the battering, but managed to take the reaver with him on wild fire before disabling the direwolfs bolters by falling straight into him. Very AT'esque.  Other than that, it was most bloody and we ended up fishing for objectives with only an acastus and a warbringer, respectively. I was able to secure two quadrands for my secondary and 5 VP, but no primary because I hardly ever managed to get out of my corner, let along into his deployment. He wracked one of my primary tokens and got some secondary for killing something. A bloody, bloody 14:5 for the dark gods and, despite some of the circumstances rather disfavouring me, lots of fun.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Tar Aldarion

[General Zodd]

Sounds like a very violent game, Aldarion, glad you enjoyed it! Can I assume neither you nor your opponent were using the newish Loyalist or Traitor Legio books? In there it has an updated set of battlegroup creation rules. One of the things it’s introduced is a maximum of two knight banners per maniple. I’m assuming at 1500 your opponent did not have the points for two maniples after buying all those knights!

Obviously you guys should play what makes you happy, and it might be your opponent doesn’t have a lot of other titans yet, but in the interests of a more balanced game, that’s a restriction I’d consider raising with him?

[Tar Aldarion]

On 9/19/2022 at 7:59 AM, General Zodd said:

Sounds like a very violent game, Aldarion, glad you enjoyed it! Can I assume neither you nor your opponent were using the newish Loyalist or Traitor Legio books? In there it has an updated set of battlegroup creation rules. One of the things it’s introduced is a maximum of two knight banners per maniple. I’m assuming at 1500 your opponent did not have the points for two maniples after buying all those knights!

Obviously you guys should play what makes you happy, and it might be your opponent doesn’t have a lot of other titans yet, but in the interests of a more balanced game, that’s a restriction I’d consider raising with him?

Uh, man, you are right! Apparently, it helps a lot when you can read, and even more so if you do. ;-) I guess I always skipped forward to the fancy legios, corrupted titans etc., never realising that small tweak in battlegroup creation. A lack of titans is not why he liks to field upwards of four banners. It´s really just his favouring fast, punchy skirmishers, I think.

Nonetheless, I don't think I've found any game unenjoyable, so far. Sometimes, fighting uphill is actually even more satisfying, methinks. Like that one where I'd lost a super-duper corrupted Krytos Brawlerlord - about a third of my army, pointswise - in turn one to the unstable ground or so battlefield effect where parts of the table just randomly collapse. Eventually, I'd even won that one, miraculously. :D However, games against the endless horde of knights tend to become somewhat repetetive. You're often reduced to just stand and shoot as many before they reach you, especially if they're followed by a wave of melee titans. So, yeah, I'll carefully raise the issue prior to the next game.

 

 

[Mandragola]

The limit on banners was a pretty subtle change that could easily be missed, especially since most of us don't tend to field enough knights for it to be relevant. If your friend likes running loads of knights maybe he should make a household list with some supporting titans rather than a titan force with supporting knights. Just bear in mind that  force cannot contain both knight lances and titan maniples.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

It caught us all out locally. Our Audax friend always ran three banners of lancers. (All converted daemons, including an Angron) now he has to just run two banners of 4.

He's a devious player. He plays the Audax really in your face with the forward deployment, drops a blind barrage in front of his full striding lancers, runs the lancers into it turn one, then in turn two charges them out of it. You don't get chance to deal with them because you're already embroiled in warhounds.

[Noserenda]

Ooh yeah i dont think any of us had noticed it too, i definitely violated in one of our recent campaigns as i wanted to field my new lancers... ooops! 

[Noserenda]

TIT i finished off Urmi Kaliushma "The wave of hot death" Warbringer titan for my Fuerans. She fell afoul of getting base coat + a bit of flair for an event last minute which is always really hard for me to come back to and properly finish, still not perfect but passable and thats whats important :P 

Anyhow too burned out today to do a proper blog post but wanted to share the milestone, now i can buy an Iconoclast if i ever manage to scrape that much cash together! 

306780755_10160243890350797_4781300039260865081_n 

[Sherrypie]

Solid table job, Noserenda

Speaking of Iconoclasts, mine is starting to shape up.

Excidium Ultimum (Ultimate Ruin), stride forth!

[Noserenda]

Oh damn Sherrypie, that is one beautiful god of war :D 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Having tried to get a knee up before on a Warmaster, I have an idea of how much work has gone into doing that!

[Sherrypie]

Cheers Noserenda and Adelard, hopefully it'll get stomping soonishly after I've worked out how much freehand is too much :D

The leg wasn't too bad, surprisingly. Mainly just removing some nubs and checking that the toe pistons can still reach the shin, as those really don't have much flex at all if the main foot is even slightly tilted. The armour panels for example are much more forgiving than they are in Reavers or Warlords.

[Mandragola]

I love the pose on the Warmaster. Mine is still panels-off in a box waiting the day I get motivated to finish it. Sticking the panels on early would make my life a lot harder with painting but it feels good to actually see the complete model.

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, it's all standing with blu-tack at the moment. Had to pose it for the crowd before priming ;)

So many sub-assemblies...

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Last night two of us took to the local gaming club to test out one of the custom narrative missions we have written for our narrative event next month. (Tickets available still, it's Bristol UK)
This was the deployment:

I had 1500 points of Ventus Titans to defend a city shield generator (The tall civitas building in the back of my deployment zone.) my opponent has 1750 points of Audax warhounds and "Knights" (My opponent is a MASSIVE Khorne fan, all of his knights are proxies, he uses various different models to represent Bloodthirsters, and one is in fact Angron himself., he uses 4 little Epic Engines of Khorne (I can't recall exactly what they are called) to proxy Armiger Warglaives)

His deployment line is roughly where the knight banners are, all of his warhounds are deployed under the Hunting Pack rules. To try and balance the points deficit, I have a Titan Hunter Infantry Strat, and two Scatterable mine strats, they did nothing all game tbh. His basic plan as an Audax player is to overwhelm you with activations and models. The Warhounds are all over you turn one, and he plays super aggressive with them, meanwhile, the Knights will advance on a full stride behind the cover of a concealment barrage, (The Green 5" template).

Turn One however, went beautifully for me, and at the end of it we were a bit worried for the balance of the mission. The VSG is super tough, you need a 13-15 strength hit to have a chance of taking a hit point off it on a 5-6, if you land 16+, it's a 3+, we gave it 5 hit points. Its shields are impenetrable outside of 6" In turn one alone I managed to kill 3 Warhounds! The one on the left at the front died to the Warhound in front of it, a combination of a charge and a PBG. In reply, the Warhound behind the big rock did some nasty damage to it with the Ursus Claw.

The Dire Wolf, on a First Fire, took a pot shot at the Warhound on the Audax right hand flank, and, despite rolling a one on the armour roll, I rolled a 6 on the shutdown roll! In the Combat phase the Melta Reaver, needing a 6 to hit with the Melta cannon missed, but rolled a 1 on the D10 for scatter! After that, the Gatling and Vulcan had little trouble finishing it off.

In the centre, the Audax Warhound faced off against my central Warhound. I did a fair bit of damage in the exchange, managing to strip the shields and leave it fairly damaged. The coup de grace was then delivered by the Audax bolters on the Dire Wolf, thanks to the terrain, and the -1 on Audax hounds turn one, I needed 5s to just hit him, even with my Legio trait +1. Luckily I landed 4 hits thanks to Rapid, and rolled body for the damage, doing just enough to take it out. At this point I was feeling reasonably confident. Here was the scene after turn one:

Turn 2 however, was a different game. The unmolested lancers hit my right (his left) flank like a truck, despite Angron failing the charge, the second banner managed to surround my combat Reaver and poke him to death in the combat phase. The Warhound on that flank charged the Warhound which had spun it, but was then surrounded and torn asunder by the Warglaives  (those things are no joke!) on the other flank, the Reaver and Warhound made short work of the Armorcast Warhound, but I now had two banners of lancers in charge range of the VSG, and nothing on the right flank at all, with only a Dire Wolf to try and intervene:

Turn 3 went as one would expect, I tried my best to reposition my left flank to defend, the Lancers charged the VSG, taking out three of its hit points. in the Combat Phase Angron's banner mullered the Dire Wolf, and my Melta Reaver, trying desperately to kill the Knights surrounding the VSG with the Melta missed and critted it instead! One hit point left! I managed to take out 3 of the lancers with a lucky PBG, but that still left two from one banner, and Angron himself standing next to the VSG. Here's the board at the end of turn 3:

Turn 4 was brief, but bloody. My opponent played with me a little, our last remaining Warhounds had a shoot off, mine won, just, with crits all over his tracks. Then, with the choice between using  Angron alone, or the two bloodthirsters, he elected, for narrative reasons, to try to see if Angron could break the VSG. Which he did, with a mighty 6 on the hit point roll:

We decided to play out the turn, and the last activation of the game were the Warglaives, who had by now swarmed my Reaver. Again, they were no joke. Tearing it apart with the chainglaives alone.

Clearly however, my Reaver Princeps, having seen the magnitude of the Legio Ventus failure this day, decided that scorched earth was the only way out for them. All of the safeties came off, all of the dials turned to red and a catastrophic meltdown ensued. The ensuing explosion killing every single other model on the board. The Armigers: Wiped out. The Lancers: Gone. Even my limping and broken Warhound, ruined:

What. A. Game. 

[Mandragola]

Wow, that's a lot of damage handed out. Khorne would be more than satisfied. Thanks for the great report and pics.

For playtesting I think you might want to look at a Legio other than Audax as the attacker. They're extremely hard to keep away from things like this but something like a Krytos gun line might struggle (or not, if you're using the rules for destroying terrain).

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Audax was in some respects a bit of a stress test.

What do you think about giving the VSG a shield track? Say 10 shields of 3+?

[Sherrypie]

Looking nice there.

I probably wouldn't put a shield on the generator, as it's an extraneous thing to track while you're already tracking the hit points for the thing. Just increasing those is a solid lever to tweak how demanding it is for the attacker to do something about it, but it's not like the shields wouldn't fit if you prefer to have more variability in it. Generally, these simple "defend a point" scenarios suffer more from not requiring the defender do much except to sit and shoot as much as possible, whereas you'd usually want some incentive to actually manoeuver on both sides to make the game more engaging. It's a bit like how in real sieges you'd constantly get sorties and sudden attacks from the ostensibly defensive belligerents in an attempt to break and disrupt the attackers' rhythm by acting against their control of the battlefield.

[Noserenda]

I had a much tougher objective in our campaign weekend and it was killed half the time from memory, certainly in one game the attacker instagibbed it in turn 2. I used the following rules...


"Destroy the Lander! The Attackers Drop ship has landed just off map and is vulnerable while it disgorges its precious cargo. It is presumed to effectively fill all the space along that board edge; can be targeted by the defenders as usual, and will be hit by scattering templates etc that fall into this zone. It has the following statistics:

Close in Voids 3+0 4+0 5+0   3 Servitor Clades for repairing shields only
12-15 Direct Hit: Lose a structure point 00000 00000
16+ Critical Hit: Lose a structure point, add a critical damage. 0000000
                        Every time it suffers a critical roll D6+Critical damage. On an 8+ it explodes"


It was quite a popular scenario though, with both sides broken into waves a bit Hope that helps! 
 

[Brother Dallo]

Today in AT, I was brushing up on the rules for an event tomorrow and I came across a rules question.

Can weapons which ignore void shields make targeted attacks while voids are up? I’d previously thought they can (which seems to be the general position), but the wording of Targeted Attacks states “Before making the Hit roll against a unit without active void shields, the controlling player ca declare that the attacking unit will make a Targeted Attack.”

 

Key point being you can only declare a targeted attack against units with non-active voids.

Any FAQ etc which overrides this?

Dallo

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'd say with Warp, it's clear within the Warp rule that you can target; the specific rule overrules the general rule.

With Bypass, I'd say that the use of the word 'bypass' itself implies that you essentially treat the target as voidless. That's arguably the intent. But it is definitely less clear.