Arioch Claw Warlord

[Captain Idaho]

This is something that looks great but it is hard to justify when you consider that your slow moving centrepiece will be 1 gun down for much of the game.

 

However, I want to like it so if someone can give me reasons to take this over (say) a 2nd Plasma Destructor, I'm all ears. :)

 

What kind of build does the rest of the Titan have, what maniple does it operate in, what other Titans and builds do you use etc.

 

Happy for real life experience as well folks.

[Mandragola]

I took two warlords to Blood and Glory last weekend. One had plasma and bellicosa with missiles on the roof. The other had macro gatling, claw, and Vulcans. They were in a Regia maniple with two plasma/Vulcan hounds and I had Lucius Praetorian as a reinforcement. I play Astorum. To be honest I didn’t expect much of my Clawlord. I was pleasanatly surprised.

 

Game 1 was against knights. It bullied these quite nastily really. A Charge can quite easily kill a whole banner so it provided a bubble where knights really didn’t want to be, which gave great protection to my other guys. It did need to activate early to keep the knights from smashing off its power fist, but they didn’t manage to do that.

 

Game 2 was against a Fortidas Forrex maniple with a warlord instead of a reaver. So we had Clawlords on both sides! Unfortunately they didn’t get to fight each other because I shot the enemy one dead, though this meant that a chainfist reaver and knight were able to double team my shooty warlord. My Clawlord swatted a warhound, got the killing blow on the enemy warlord with a targeted gatling shot and then punched out the reaver that had taken out my other warlord.

 

Game 3 was a scenario from Titandeath where we had to try and move to this pylon in the middle, but the bad guys could trigger a solar flare and force us to retreat. The presence of my clawlord thundering towards the centre forced my opponent to trigger the flare in turn 2, which blinded my titans (-2 to hit on all attacks from then on) and changed our victory conditions to hugging the board edge to score. It actually got my only kill, smashing an already-damaged warhound that had been sent to block its path, but I think it had a big part in winning me the game by forcing my opponent to trigger the flare.

 

Game 4 was a 6-player multi player game. I had Vital Cargo, which I gave to Lucius Praetorian. I had the Clawlord and two warhounds face off against an enemy retrieval objective, backed up by a lance of knights and a couple more allied warhounds. Together, we dominated that side of the battlefield and the enemy hardly tried to take the head. To be fair, this was more due to a bizarrely lucky plasma blastgun shot that killed 5 or 6 enemy knight lancers (taking out 3 with a scattering shot) than it was my Clawlord. However, he kept my two warhounds safe under his shields and then ate a charge from an enemy reaver (which he survived, albeit with quite big dent to the chest) to save some knights.

 

In the end I came away with 4 wins. My only casualties were in the game against the Ferrox maniple, where I lost a warlord and warhound, in exchange for the whole enemy battlegroup. I also wiped out the knights in game 1 without loss. Only that warhound died in game 3 and I’m not sure if I got any engine kills myself in the multiplayer game – I did a ton of damage but I think allied engines claimed the kills.

 

The regia maniple was excellent. Warhounds have very point-efficient shooting so if you keep them safe under a Warlord’s shields they can maintain pretty devastating fire. A big part of the Clawlord’s contribution was down to having no weapons that drain its reactor, so it could always push for shield rerolls. It absorbed a lot of punishment in the multi-player game but it was still very much in the fight at the end of the game.

 

I’d definitely use this titan again. I’m not sure what other weapons to give it though. The VMBs on the roof are cheap, and good for shield stripping, but they leave the titan with nothing much to hurt enemy engines at range. It’s also really hard to choose between a sunfury and the gatling for the titan’s other arm. I like the gatling’s accuracy, which is great for finishing off enemy engines in melee, but it probably needs something with more strength.

 

It does help a lot to play Astorum, for the option to War March. It makes your threat bubble on turn 2 much bigger and lets you keep up with the warhounds. An Astorum Warlord can do this pretty safely as it’s almost guaranteed to get its reactor back to the green.

[Fajita Fan]

I’m going to start by pairing mine with a plasma so it can always aim point blank. It’s going to want to be inside someone’s shields anyway and the plasma seems to have a decent chance of blowing off a damaged leg or head.

 

Mandragora I’ve struggled with Gatling blasters on top of a Warlord but I think I’ve got a couple of extras I can model for it. Think they’d be much use for brawler Warlord?

[Mandragola]

I like the macro gatling for point blank aimed shots. That +1 to hit effectively makes it twice as accurate. You’re using your 5+ WS and have -1 to hit for targeting, even at melee range, with a non-melee weapon.

 

So the plasma only hits on a 6 but the gatling hits on a 5. You’ve got no guarantee that the plasma will hit at all but the gatling should average 2 hits.

 

The ordnance trait on the gatling gun is also really useful here. It’s incredibly frustrating when you do hit to roll a 1. You’re very often trying to just get that one or two more points of damage through on a location that’s just been punched, so you pretty much anything but a 1 will generally result in a crit or two.

 

On the other hand, the gatling gun doesn’t do all that much against undamaged titans at range, or against knights. The Sunfury is probably the best all-round gun for a warlord so this loss of effectiveness is quite an issue. With only the macro gatling and whatever’s on the roof (which is quite often unable to fire anyway due to arcs and minimum range) the titan can feel quite harmless.

 

I’m not sure how much you actually need the gatling gun for melee anyway. You don’t if you charge, usually, because there's nothing left - especially after you punch in the combat phase. And with plasma you’d have the option of firing a non-targeted shot first in the combat phase, then punching that location with the fist.

 

Overall there are probably two ways to run a Clawlord. You either go all out rushing, in which case you may as well go for a gatling gun and something cheap on the roof, or you want more of a midfield controller, in which case you want good guns. For that role I think I’d suggest a plasma arm and gatlings on the roof.

 

The best all-round armament might well be sunfury, claw and roof gatlings. Those roof gatlings are significantly more effective against things like knights than Vulcans or missiles. They won’t be able to shoot much up close because you’re a warlord, but if there’s an enemy warlord that hasn’t quite died after being punched and has a structurally-compromised location, then the roof gatlings are pretty likely to finish the job. S5 actually is quite a lot better than S4 in these situations, and the ordnance trait roughly balances out against the rapid trait that VMBs have.

 

Canny opponents will always try to disable your claw before it swings. This tends to mean you want to activate your clawlord early in the combat phase, before that can happen.

[Mandragola]

Sorry for double posting. Another interesting Clawlord is Penumbral Reaper, the Mortis warlord. He comes with a set load out of Sunfury, fist and laser blasters and costs (I think, I haven’t got the terminal) 25 points more than he would normally. He has 4+ WS, gives friendly titans within 12” +1 to command checks and lets them reroll 1s in melee.

 

I think this could combine pretty well with the Mortis War March strat (to let them all move at the start of the game) and a bunch of other titans that want to be up close to stuff – such as a Ferrox maniple. You’d have a real command of the centre and good command values for most of your stuff.

 

The reaper itself has a 2+ command stat (thanks to its own aura) regardless of maniple so it doesn’t particularly need to be in a maniple. At 1750 you could either fill a minimum Axiom and Ferrox, or take a full Ferrox with the reaper as a reinforcement.

 

I’m vaguely thinking of making this list, as an alternative option to my Astorum guys. Could be fun.

[Fajita Fan]

While not strictly an awesome combo right now I am building a right powerfist for my loyal Warlords, one of whom will be painted as an Ordo Sinister psy-titan using the Volcano or quake cannon rules to represent its left arm psycannon. Those aren’t guns meant to be used up close but I’ll give it a shot.

[Captain Idaho]

It's cool to see folk haven't dismissed the Clawlord out of hand (see what I did there?) and I've built a magnetised arm just in case I want to mix it up.

[Fajita Fan]

Long fingers or short?

[Captain Idaho]

Short. Legio Praesagius are much more sophisticated and trim their nails.

[Mandragola]

I'm thinking of replacing my Warlord's short fingers with long ones. They're definitely cooler.

 

That or I'll build Penumbral Reaper and give it long claws to look a bit more evil.

[Gore Crow]

I love my clawlords! I run with Vulpa rules so everything is a gun down and rushing forwards. I'd much rather people shoot my warlord, and he does command a lot of attention.

Just friendly games with my friends, mind. No tournaments or events yet.

[Fajita Fan]

I might mock up long talons on the knuckles with short fingers like a lightning claw...

[Captain Idaho]

Just a shame the Vulkan Mega Bolter on the end doesn't work.

[Fajita Fan]

That could make it a bit more useful.