LameBeard and son start Adeptus Titanicus

[LameBeard]

Nice! It is looking good.

Isn't it missing a bit of torso armour on its left flank?

Yes it is missing those torso plates, left off for painting separately - but they can still squeeze on past those defensive guns - so I don't think that is a mistake. If you look on the 'blue' side you can see the holder for the tilt-shield has been cut off, having been mistaken for a bit of sprue. So we need to improvise there.

Anyway we have a few updates. First a picture of the Warlord with one magnetized volcano cannon arm. You can see the plates need some sort of wash or panel lining, but I think the scheme is going to look really effective.

And I magnetized the weapons on my Warhound. It was a bit tricky because I wanted to use 3mm (too small to drop in, too big to use pin vice) but I got there in the end. I put wires on everything except the mega-bolter, so I can run every combination except plasma/inferno. I'll build the next Warhound in a mirror image to allow me to have a pair of identical weapons if I want. No real progress on painting. I'm also a bit worried the right arm points too far back, so I'm going to have to check those plates fit over the pipes.

We also played a test game to start learning the rules: basic rules only, Warlord vs. 2 Warhounds (one plasma/vulcan, other laser/inferno).

Here are my take-aways:

1. It looks like it will be a really fun game as I hoped - risk/reward, manouvere and manipulating fire arcs all a nice touch. Needs terrain though - on a small board it was a bit easy for the Warhounds to split up and one of them to get up close behind the Warlord. I guess the orders system will help that a bit.

2. My son learned the hard way sometimes it's best to let your opponent go first.

3. My son did realise early on he needed to be conservative with the volcano cannon. Even then he ended up in the red with his reactor. Twin volcano cannons is exactly as you guys have said - really pointless build. So of course my son now wants either the upgrade sprue or a forgeworld weapon (plus weapon card pack). So much for saving money.

4. I think Knights will be fun too - I can see 'screening' being a lot more fun in this game than 'horde of gretchin in front of my orks' type of screening in some editions of 40k.

5. Am I playing the plasma blastgun correctly? As I read it, if I hit, that means the hole is over the base, so one dice turns to two. So it's effectively 4 dice at S8. And if it misses I might get lucky and still get one hit if it doesn't scatter too far, or get unlucky and hit myself. Generally seems a bit cumbersome - in our game the misses did nothing. But in larger games where two Warhounds might be next to each other, it might get a bonus hit. It just seems a bit too good for the points? I didn't even remember the maximal ability which is again really useful, because when taking down shields you don't need to risk it, but once shields are down you can go to S10 and it's really not that dangerous on the reactor?

I already felt like this about 30k/40k/Kill Team: I don't mind the blast templates, throwing a grenade with the template is cool, but doing it too often slows the game down. Seems annoying that the plasma blastgun just looks like a must-take. The twin lasers with only 2 dice same strength seems a bit underwhelming in comparison.

One more treat for you guys, an excerpt from White Dwarf 110

Oh the shame of it!

Edited May 9, 2021 by LameBeard

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

Excellent work so far. I don't know if you're into watching battle-reports, but mini-wargaming had/has a series on Titanicus, and their first episode of Titanicus bat-rep when it came out a few years ago was with Luca, probably the only presenter on there that I enjoy, it was super easy to follow and pick up on the rules from that battle-report. 

Yes, terrain plays a big role. 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Your assessment of the Plasma Blastgun is spot on. They're great, maybe even undercosted.

 

The Vulcans are definitely undercosted too.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Brother Adelard

[Mandragola]

Agreed on the blastguns. They'd arguably be the best option for Warhounds even if they didn't have blast, thanks to the maximal fire rule. As it is, the ability to land up to four S10 hits, often with other bonuses like side armour, coordinated strikes and the Ferrox maniple, makes them an extremely powerful gun. They're not just the best gun a Warhound can have, they're significantly more effective than anything a Reaver or Warbringer can have on its arm either.

 

I don't find scattering too cumbersome. The good thing is that there usually aren't too many actual models on the board in AT, so it's usually pretty clear whether you've hit anything or not. It starts to be a problem if models fire loads of blasts, like the acastus does. It's another argument for removing blast from both models, though the more compelling one is that both weapons are far too powerful as a result.

[LameBeard]

Thanks Mandragola. I think the Reaver angle is interesting too. I’ve seen a nice-looking Reaver plasma arm on eBay. I was thinking about rules. Maybe 3 dice (it had 3 barrels), Maximal and no blast would make it worse than the warhound weapon but still interesting and still weaker than the warlord 4 dice version?

 

I realised I read my sprue wrong, I don’t even have the missile launcher option for Reaver, so I’m thinking about 3rd party bits all round.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks Mandragola. I think the Reaver angle is interesting too. I’ve seen a nice-looking Reaver plasma arm on eBay. I was thinking about rules. Maybe 3 dice (it had 3 barrels), Maximal and no blast would make it worse than the warhound weapon but still interesting and still weaker than the warlord 4 dice version?

 

I realised I read my sprue wrong, I don’t even have the missile launcher option for Reaver, so I’m thinking about 3rd party bits all round.

 

If you have the Reaver that came in the Precept maniple, you don't have the Apocalypse Missile Launcher. 

[LameBeard]

 

 

I realised I read my sprue wrong, I don’t even have the missile launcher option for Reaver, so I’m thinking about 3rd party bits all round.

If you have the Reaver that came in the Precept maniple, you don't have the Apocalypse Missile Launcher.

Yup. I was late to realising. I think at a quick glance the head confused me. So the “other reaver” has my favourite-looking melee weapon, carapace weapon, and shooty weapons. Haven’t checked out rules yet, but am thinking about the starter set just to get that sprue.

 

For plasma “house rule” I think the way to go might be:

Warhound: lose maximal

Reaver: 3 dice, gets maximal, but no blast

[Gattopardo]

I do agree the plasma blastgun is powerful - probably too powerful (and so is the VMB to be honest). I recently managed to one shot an unharmed Reaver with a coordinated strike by two Warhounds - three vulcans took down the shields and then four overcharged plasma blastgun hits to the body resulted in four crits (with the +1 from the coordinated strike). This was an above average roll, but not outrageously so. It honestly feels a bit much to one shot a Battle Titan with a Warhound gun - which is something that the supposedly most powerful guns, the Belicosa and the Melta, can never do.

 

I think the logical change would be to remove blast from the plasma. That way it could target, but it would never be able to do more than two hits or still get a hit when it misses. This would also make it less effective against shields, which would be a good balancing change. The alternative is to up the points cost but that doesn't deal with the oddity of a Warhound having a more powerful gun than anything a Reaver can bring.

 

VMBs probably just need a points hike.

[SkimaskMohawk]

I feel like they wanted to have the blast rule as its called a plasma blast gun. But I think dropping it to 1 shot would solve the issue of a warhound potentially killing medium titans with one volley compared to the bellicosa or melta as you pointed out.

[Mandragola]

Yeah giving it one shot would be a good solution too. I'm not sure which I prefer to be honest. The blast option would be pretty good for a Warhound weapon, but clearly not as good as a Reaver's melta, and that's probably about where you'd want it in terms of effectiveness. It would also be significantly different to any of the other Warhound guns, whereas leaving it with two non-blast shots would make it pretty similar to the turbo laser.

 

Shame us lot don't write the rules, eh?

[LameBeard]

This is a good idea too. And since I don’t play competitively, in a sense, we do write the rules. I appreciate the hard work that went into writing the rule book and cards, but happy to improve on them in a way that works for me. My son will probably cry if I ever one-shot his Titan with a Warhound!

 

The other thing I was thinking was: centre hole of blast - full strength hit. Under template but not hole: half strength hit. Would keep shield stripping power but really dent destructive ability and the “missed but still bringing pain” rule.

 

Yes it’s a bit more fuss but I think it fits the fluff that being on the edge of the blast should be less painful. Does “maximal” kick in on the to hit or the armour roll, I forget?

[General Zodd]

Maximal affects the ‘to hit’ roll, so you declare if you’re using Maximal before you roll any dice, then any rolls of a 1 to hit cause you to up your reactor level by one. Rolling a 1 for armour just leaves you sad, it doesn’t leave you hotter.

[LameBeard]

Thanks. So another reason why getting two for one with blast is so efficient - you only got hotter on those to hit roles.

[Noserenda]

Yeah about half the Blast weapons in the game could stand to lose it, The various knights being the worst examples.

[Mendi Warrior]

 

Nice! It is looking good.

Isn't it missing a bit of torso armour on its left flank? 

Yes it is missing those torso plates, left off for painting separately - but they can still squeeze on past those defensive guns - so I don't think that is a mistake. If you look on the 'blue' side you can see the holder for the tilt-shield has been cut off, having been mistaken for a bit of sprue. So we need to improvise there.

 

 

I had not even seen the tilt-shield support part was missing. Stating the obvious, have you checked on the sprue or in the pile of the "to be discarded" stuff? Otherwise, a bit of sprue with a 2mm diameter drill to make a tiny hole should do the trick. You don't really see this part once the tilt-shield is in place.

 

There are quite a few pieces where you have to be super careful when cutting them from the sprue as you risk cutting a bit too much (e.g. the "rivets" on some of the feet, ...).

[LameBeard]

Mini update for you all - I did some painting. Really would like to spray a bit more if the rain would stop, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen for a while.

The green is a first experiment. I have very few green paints - am I going to have to buy the perfect one? If so, what is it (for Defensor's stripe, that is)?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

That looks pretty spot on to me. I think you got lucky.

[General Zodd]

I was going to say the same, I think that’s the one!

[LameBeard]

Another mini update. I carried on with the green, trying to fade it into yellow (by hand) like I saw on some of the artwork. The masking was not perfect, but now I just need to get a move on, and I still can't spray outside because of the weather!

Question for you all. How are we painting the eyes on Warhounds? Like big Space Marine lenses? If so, I'm wondering on colour, because red might be too close to the orange, and blue might be too close to the green. Mind you I will probably do the plasma glow blue so it could match that.

[Mandragola]

I probably wouldn't want the eyes to match the plasma, as they're very different things. So if adding any colour, I'd pick something different. That said, you can quickly end up with a lot of colours and that can look bad. Personally I haven't got round to doing the eyes to be honest, and I don't think it shows.

[LameBeard]

Here is the Warhound as it stands, just before varnishing.

What I still have to do:

• Decals
• Washes / weathering
• Eyes and plasma glow (and laser glow? I saw someone on this forum do that and it looked cool)
• Drybrush base and fix to base
• More varnish over decals?

And I'm busy tomorrow so that only leaves Monday to do it - seems unlikely I will hit the deadline.

In other news, my son got wise and asked me to order him the plasma Warlord sprue. I've allowed him to buy just a single Sunfury from me. The rest will be saved for *my* Warlord or resold. I'm a bit surprised there are no individual AT weapons for sale on ebay or bits stores, so if I do sell them, I'm sure someone will snap them up. I mean the official ones of course. I also treated myself to the Reaver plasma from Battle Bling. I was pretty astounded at the quality - so smooth, such detail. I am looking forward to building that Reaver once the Warhound is done.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Warhound looks good. What does the diagonal green stripe symbolize? The forests of the Titan Princeps' home planet?

 

Edited: Mistakenly referred to a "Knight House", when "Titan Princeps" is more appropriate.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Bjorn Firewalker

[LameBeard]

The Warhound looks good. What does the diagonal green stripe symbolize? The forests of the Knight House's home planet?

Thank you. Legio Defensor seems to have vertical green stripe as standard - and I’ve followed that on the leg. So I don’t know if the green has symbolism. But the diagonal I introduced just to put a little twist on it - the idea is each Titan will vary the standard scheme slightly to reflect the Princept’s personality or personal heraldry.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

The Warhound looks good. What does the diagonal green stripe symbolize? The forests of the Knight House's home planet?

Why do you keep calling them Knights Bjorn?

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

Decals are really addicting. Excited to see what you do with it!