I took a quick look at the new 40k Apocalypse book today out of curiosity, specifically the titan sections. It describes the desperate time during the Armageddon war when the Legio Metallica Titans were outnumbered 3 to 1 by enemy Gargants and fought bravely was almost nearly wiped out.

Their leading Princeps Mannheim accounted for 3 stompas before his titan was crippled and "even then Mannheim took his machine right into the centre of the Ork forces before his reactor melted down." They weren't pissed at him for this but happy with his action - he gets posthumously awarded the 'Emperor's Star' for 'bravery and loyalty to the Imperium' and he 'remains a shining example of the dutifull warrior to all'.

It sounds like guiding a possibly about to blow up Titan towards the enemy is indeed appropriate and well regarded, not bad form as you put it above. The background seems familiar too, I'm 90% sure it was taken from the original Armageddon background from a couple of decades ago, not anything new.

You confuse fluff with gameplay though. Fluff wise it's great showing that he goes down with the ship and takes some enemies with him, the same is true in BFG with regard to Admiral Rath and his emperor BB flagship against the Nids. In a game setting though it becomes highly frustrating when you do everything right and your opponent gets the benefit. It's bad form to make rules that encourage situations that would be frustrating to players. Would you like playing a game where your opponents battleship has a special rule that removes 1/3 of your fleet if you kill it? I think you'd find that pretty frustrating and that is what we want to avoid here with the titans.

I realize this is a scenario that happens relatively rarely in game, but lets be honest here, the critical rules for titans have been in place for years, I see no point in making changes now when they work and there simply isn't a good enough reason to do so. Armies have enough difficulty with taking down multiple large titans most of the time that adding more damaging critical effects seems unwarranted especially to a titan as difficult to kill as an imperator.

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-Vaaish

I tend to agree with Glyn on this. There are a number of similar game-play situations where players make the best of a bad situation by manoeuvring to have the greatest impact on opposing forces - eg Broken units use their withdrawal move to screen objectives with their ZoC.

So, I see no reason to prevent the player from advancing his "doomed" titan into the midst of the enemy horde in a final 'glorious do-and-die' act. Note the current rules prevent a broken WE from moving into 5cm of enemy which mitigates the situation somewhat.

I kinda agree, honestly. If you're playing with an Imperator, you've already accepted a certain willingness for things to be insane. Plus, the damn thing isn't exactly speedy and hard to avoid.

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I've been looking over the Titan options as I'm hoping to paint up a Titan Legion in the coming months.

The Gatling Blaster stands out currently as a comparatively poor weapon choice, which is a shame considering it an iconic, deadly looking weapon. It's the same price, range and shots as the Turbo Laser Destructor which has the better AT value. AT is generally more useful and worth more than AP while it's generally a bit better to focus Titans on being good at one thing, with some focussing on killing infantry, others vehicles, rather than having a generalist titan.

I was wondering how if it could be improved. Making the weapon free would go too far and make it comparatively too good and the stats can't be changed as the rulebook Warlord has it.

I had a thought though and thought it worth suggesting – what if 0-1 Gatling Blaster per titan were free but any further cost 25 points each?

Agreed.


Not a bad idea, though frankly I think it's the TLD that is undercosted.

Any generalist weapon will be "comparatively poor" but that's kind of the point. Titans with load outs that aren't specialized work as security nets to give you some capability with both AP and AT should a specialized titan go down. It's not something that is uncommon with armies like IG dropping off Deathstrikes. I can't count the times I've had a reaver dropped turn one. Of course what weapons are useful depends on your gaming group, so a weapon that might be a poor choice in your group might be the mainstay of another. What I can say is that the GB at 25 points is about right for the cost.

A bit of history. At one point the TLD was 45cm same as the VMB, but that changed to the current 60cm at some point in the official rules. I remember Ben saying that the TLD was great at 45cm and 25 points but at the time he didn't have much headway changing the range due to the official rules and the range of lists that change would affect. In fact, the 60cm TLD has been a source of contention in the list for a long time. Most players, me included, don't see the TLD as an issue, but Ben didn't like it being a mainstay weapon and changed it to 35 points IIRC and did some other tweaks that didn't gain traction.

So the three weapons we are dealing with here are these:

Vulcan Megabolter 4x 3/5 45cm
Gatling Blaster 4x 4/4 60cm
TLD 4x 5/3 60cm

I think the GB comes out a bit in front of the VMB with the extra range and AT capability even though the VMB is +1 better naturally against infantry. I typically use the GB over the VMB on my reavers and especially my warlords and I find it a useful weapon due to the extra 15cm if I have the points. When it comes to the TLD I believe that you can use the same argument against any weapon in the battle titan weapons except perhaps the Quake cannon. People tend to take TLD over laser blasters, plasma cannons and most anything. In my mind that doesn't mean we change all the weapons.

Basically, the GB is a fine weapon and properly costed. It doesn't need a gimmick special rule to make it more popular. If you want to look for a weapon to change, it should be the TLD and it should go back to 45cm range.

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-Vaaish

I'm aware of most of the history you mention but the TLD absolutely definitely isn't going to be changed back to 45cm at this point as it's now 60cm in the rulebook, tournament pack and all the lists. It's pointless discussing it.

TLD could be costed at 35 if needs be. I'm dubious if it needs it, 25 points seems probably ok to me; a twin TLD Warhound is already rather expensive at 350. TLD is a good choice for a Warlord due to the range but I wouldn't take more than one on a Reaver, I'd rather go for Laser Blasters or Plasma Cannons.

I'd go for 2 and 1 (either way round) of Vulcan Mega-Bolters and Inferno Cannon for a cheap Reaver over Gatling Blasters myself. I still maintain focussed titans are a slightly better way to go over generalists, even if the enemy kill a Reaver on the first turn most 3k TL armies will have 5-6+ titan formations and other similar ones can take up the slack. Still, if you think Gatling Blasters are fine as is keep them that way I guess, I disagree, but will just not take them much.

Not that long ago the change to the Warhound critical was pushed through and updated across the lists so it's not entirely out of the question to see the TLD go back to 45cm.

We tried the TLD at 35 and it didn't really change much except for the total number taken to get lists to end at an even point value.

Basically where we are is that without completely rethinking the weapons on titans ( seriously, a gigantic Gatling cannon shooting rounds the size of a russ turret still lets the russ reroll the armor save and is effectively the same as a battle cannon) and moving to the weapon mount system Ben proposed and had shot down we aren't going to see any significant changes in the Titan weapons.

Your proposal might get someone to take a GB if they need to free up points but it still won't make it popular with the focused loadout crowd.

The alternatives I see for changes to make it more useful would be this:

reduce TLD to 45cm (fixes some other issues like making the laser blaster significantly better than the TLD and might get people to take plasma more often)

bump the GB up to 5-6 shots instead of 4 so it gets the same kind of boost the laser blaster does over the TLD.

Both of those require a nice global update to see happen, though we could just put them through in the AMTL list and see where it takes us.

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-Vaaish

That would be a nice idea.

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be workable right now. We'll see how the wind blows later but for now I'm making a combination of point adjustments to the TLD, GB and Apoc launcher.

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-Vaaish

Hey Vaaish,

I've been going through the AM list PDF. Would you be interested if I documented the typos? Along those lines, I notice that, at times British spelling conventions are used, and at other times the American spelling is used instead. (e.g. armor vs armour) Should I bother suggesting a standardization, and if so which one should we stick with?

Sure, I'm all for fixing typos. I'm sure there are plenty I missed when I retyped it into indesign. We should probably standardize spelling, so lets stick with British. Some of that probably crept in since Ben is Uk and I'm US.

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-Vaaish

Vaaish: what do you think about adding Crusaders instead of Sentinels and Avengers instead of Marauder bombers? Maybe that can get a more unique feel to the list?

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I suggested crusaders a while back but most folks aren't for significant unit changes to the AMTL list.

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-Vaaish