All titans vs no titans

[Valkyrion]

Any tips for a narrative game where one side is all titans and knights, the other side has nothing heavier than a Thunderhawk or Baneblade?

We were thinking maybe abolish the max 6D6+CAF rules for infantry only, so they could take down titans in close combat, and maybe an easier victory condition for the no-titan player.

How would the maths change if one side was Titans only (no knights) and the other side could take Knights?

 

Or is it just a no-go from the get-go and we should just play a normal game instead?

 

[Noserenda]

Could be fun as a last stand scenario if nothing else? 

I was considering something similar as part of a campaign ripping off Operation Market Garden (A Bridge too far!) with Space marines replacing the various Paratrooper forces and in some cases facing titans, in that case at least they would have some significant terrain advantages :) 

[Cleon]

I think it'd be much more fun for the non titan player when the Shadowsword comes out (unless I missed it it got warcomm previewed but no release date) as then they at least get a top quality gun.

[Valkyrion]

This is more or less 3000 points; 3 Warhounds, 2 Reaver, Warbringer, Warlord.

 

a) If you didn't know you were facing this, could an average 3000 legion list defeat it?

b) if you did know you were facing this, could you tailor a Legion or Auxilia list to win easily? You are allowed 30% knights as normal, but no titans. 

[Sherrypie]

Titans don't generally bring as much dakka to the table as an equivalent bunch of tanks would. A list-tailored Auxilia list full of Vanquisher tanks and hidden Basilisks would chew them up pretty badly at long range.

 

Knights are probably the worst in terms of points efficiency, being both costly and fragile.

[Interrogator Stobz]

We've had a couple of games Titan and Knight heavy. Due mostly to my ongoing inability to buy SM units.

 

Titans are internally unbalanced, with the big ones far better than equivalent points of small ones.

 

Knights are all around sub par.

 

SA tanks are very effective for their points. They shoot enough to drop void shields then do damage.

 

Haven't tried SM ones at any scale but they seem worse.

Nor Infantry.... I guess massed Missile Launchers will do OK.

 

Edited May 1 by Interrogator Stobz

[Gillyfish]

One of the main issues with earlier editions of the game was the survivability of the big stuff. Second edition was probably the nadir, where a few tactical squads could happily chew through a Warlord's shields, opening them up for lucky shots from tanks.

 

Titan Legions introduced a rule whereby units had to have a -1 save modifier to affect shields which helped a little bit. This edition has preserved elements of the shield point and has added multiple wounds, but it still sounds like they go down pretty quickly (full disclosure: yet to have a game of the new edition), but battle reports I have read and seen all seem to indicate that titans can dish out a lot of firepower but are still quite fragile, despite the changes. I guess time will tell whether that is definitely the case, but it is interesting that others seem to have commented in much the same vein.

 

Titanicus probably still winds out for the sense of durable land battleships.

[Crablezworth]

13 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

We've had a couple of games Titan and Knight heavy. Due mostly to my ongoing inability to buy SM units.

 

Titans are internally unbalanced, with the big ones far better than equivalent points of small ones.

 

Knights are all around sub par.

 

SA tanks are very effective for their points. They shoot enough to drop void shields then do damage.

 

Haven't tried SM ones at any scale but they seem worse.

Nor Infantry.... I guess massed Missile Launchers will do OK.

 

 

Ya the titan's are costed on a curve, with the warmaster and psi titan being particularly oddly costed. 

 

And ya titans I feel would get chewed up. 

 

 

Part of the problem as well is a big disparity in activations, even with titans splitting fire, if the tail end of every turn is the enemy basically activating one detachment after another because the titan side has run out, you get to a point where its just overwhelming. Not to mention the firepower some flyers can put out for their cost. 

 

 

Titandeath changed a few things, one of those was giving each voidshield a 5+ inv save, so they become more than just ablative wounds that regen. The concern there is, any leg up it may give warhounds/reavers/direwolves it sorta spoils the bigger titans, warmaster in particular with its 12 voidshields. 

 

 

I think a problem too is, the game values resilience in terms of point costs, but is poor at valuing weaponry/firepower and this can be seen from the leman russ all the way up to titans, it's also something not always evenly applied, like if you look at the point difference between say a contemptor and a leviathan dread, or the cost and stats  or scale of armigers/moirax. 

 

 

 

Best suggestion for balancing things is something to limit activations on the non-titan side, like forcing some detachments into reserve. Could consider doing the same too to balance out larger titans if they're too dominant in early game. 

 

 

[DuskRaider]

I think if you bring a couple Titans as an auxiliary force to complement an Astartes or Solar Auxilia force they can be very powerful, but you start to see the power and points disparity when you bring an exclusively Titans force against either of the other two. 
 

I don’t think that Titans are as underpowered as they were in the original Epic, but they still have a hard time holding their own against massed tanks. Lore wise, they should be a bit more powerful when compared to the size of the armies they’ll be facing around 3,000 points or so, but even in the books we have seen massed tank companies fell Titans. Tallarn is a great example of this, and even then they were supported by small numbers of Titan Legio components. 
 

Titanicus is a better representation of what a God Engine should be, how difficult they are to down and just how powerful they can be in the hands of a capable Princeps. If they were to directly translate that to Imperialis, it would be nigh impossible for Astartes or Auxilia to defeat them in a battle unless it was on a much larger scale. 

[Crablezworth]

I do think the game certainly functions better if both players make a list at a given point level and then add titans/knights. It's not perfect as it mostly defaults to mirror match, not necessarily weaponry wise, but if both players agree to add like a reaver and a hound they might have different loadouts. 

 

I think the problem too is titans should feel a certain way and they don't, there's nothing fun about close combat and titans, if anyone should just be stepping on infantry wholesale its titans and instead its this weird grindy lets roll dice thing. Tanks too suffer a bit from this, what should be like a thump and a stain on a tread is instead like a saving private ryan level assault regardless of if the models are lasgun solar aux dudes or like terminators, and even weirder when its axe guys or ogryns, none of of that feels right when a units resilience, which it pays a lot for, gets tossed out. It's also the weirdness of how smooth resolving shooting can feel compared to the almost homework level of CAF. 

 

It's a bit of an specific detail but, as much as like the rules about tians removing obstacles, because so many boards are seemingly so structure heavy it can sorta contribute to taking the wind out of titan's sails, what in my mind would be a reaver no caring and just b-lining through a dense urban sprawl sees it instead having to go around or destroy every structure one by one in its path is sorta a length affair. Again we're back to homework for war gods, just feels like the fun meter is off a bit. Also as cool as titan removing obstacles they end their movement on is, it sorta runs counter to scatter terrain being glued to a base, so it sorta has to switch to just allowing them to move over but not end on, similar to how objective work where they're not impassable but nothing can end over top of them. This is ofcourse only true unless one feels like making a destroyed version of everything, which already is abit taxing with structures.  

[Valkyrion]

Apologies for yet another inane question, but because I don't like Knights in 40k, I'm trying to segue in as many Titan level units into LI as possible whilst maintaining the focus on the legions, so how balanced is this;

Warlord with 4 guns, Reaver with 3 guns, 3 warhounds (approx 2000 points)

vs

Warlord with fist, Reaver with fist, 4 lancers, 2 acastus (approx 2300 points)

 

The clue should be in the points, but we all know GW doesn't always work like that, and i'm thinking the power fisty titans are worth a bit less than their all gun counterparts?

 

FWIW, the armies they'll be alongside are roughly 2000 points of astartes, but with a maximum of 20 activatable detachments including these potential titans.