As it seems people would like to say a lot more than the 2/3 poll allows Here is a chance!

Fundementally I don't think a list made of Titans is balanced in the context of the tournament scenario and worsens it overall. I think that a list made of cheap weapons and scouts is no more a Titan legion than the common all scouts/terminators/thunderhawks/warhounds is really a space marine chapter. Yes its allowed, but it shouldn't be the most common!

On the first point you may agree or you may not. If you don't I wish I could play you (and grind you into the ground under my steel shod feet Rug! Sadly no idea when returning to London ) - and I can of course if you can use vassal

But by simply upping hull costs and thereby restricting activations (i.e. warhounds) you simply end up with less incentive to take a warlord and I think ultimately end up where we started testing all those years ago with lists that draw a lot.

Or of course players then switch to playing some titans and more support activations (ironic considering peoples statements) which seems to be getting away from what people want - 100% Titans. Better I think to keep the flexibility and bring in a 2/3's cap.

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glad you made a seperate thread on this, but i feel the poll thread speaks for itself. people want ALL titans, and this list delivers. anything making me take non titan formations is gonna stop me from wanting to play a TL at all.

TRC, I can see why you keep trying to highlight this suggestion but the poll really does speak for itself.

2/3 limit on titans is not supported by most players.

On the first point you may agree or you may not. If you don't I wish I could play you (and grind you into the ground under my steel shod feet Rug! Sadly no idea when returning to London    )

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Claerly the poll shows that the 2/3 limit is not a popular idea.  And I'd like to thank everyone that contributed their explanations.  As much as anything else I wanted to know why people didn't like the idea.

And, without wishing to put words into anyone's mouth, it seems it is a matter of the conceptual idea of having a list that is all titans.  The majority want a list that can field all titans.

So I will take that as a necessary component of any future suggestions.

That said...

As for TRC being a great player and that being the reason for his TL wins.  I put it to you that I, a player with no tournament experience and a fraction of TRC's overall EA knowledge and experience, was able to beat TRC's tournament winning Marine list quite easily. (Batrep)

Actually its Daves wining tourny army (with the razorbacks changed because I couldn't figure out why they were with the scouts).

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As for TRC being a great player and that being the reason for his TL wins.  I put it to you that I, a player with no tournament experience and a fraction of TRC's overall EA knowledge and experience, was able to beat TRC's tournament winning Marine list quite easily.

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Let me say this. I don't like the 2/3rds proposal, though I wouldn't complain about it if it was deemed necessary.

However. I feel that Epic:Armageddon is sufficiently detailed system that it's possible to arrange a lot more subtle restrictions than that.

For instance, with few exceptions, lists with lots of one type of unit do not fare well in Epic:A. Contrast that with Warhammer 40,000, where usually the use you'll get out of one unit increases exponentially the more of them you can cram into your list. That's because the game has a lot more dimensions to it's tactics, and one unit can't typically do everything.

Titans, on the whole, are the closest to breaking that principle, and for a good reason. Despite that, I think there are enough possibilities to introduce - or expand upon some existing ones - holes in their capabilities, such as would lead to a choice of an AMTL player to either go with a full Titan army, while receiving some - perhaps slight - disadvantage but still having fun with his awesome looking army, or add Skitarii support formations to fill those holes. That would be a lot more fun and interesting than having a hard cap because you'd be taking Skitarii units precisely because you needed them for some reason - not because you were forced to.

Some ideas on how it could be possible to go on about it it.

One of the Titan weaknesses is their sorry state of AA. Downgrade CML AA capability even more (to one shot?) or remove it altogether, and make the Princepses rely on ground flak formations for AA coverage (say, Hydra batteries). There's always Thunderbolts too but you can't hold ground with them.

Introduce a ground based Supreme commander Tech-Lord. Leave it available for Titans - on Emperor class only. Thus it's a hefty investment and players will have it available but will also have a cheaper, easier option outside Titans.

If Reavers are so good, then just up the price of the damn hulls already. Jesus. I don't think we even need to stick to the same prices of Titans as they are in Marine and Guard lists. The balance equation is entirely different in a full Titan list. So price increases should never be out of question.

In any case if you have Skitarii formations perform some relatively important roles that can't be done by Titans equally well people will either take those Skitarii formations or suffer disadvantages.

And that is the more Epic way of balancing lists

I don't think that focussing on the Tournament scenario is completely valid as a way to determine balance when introducing a new list.

The fact is Titan lists aren't currently allowed in most Tournaments so current Tournament lists aren't designed with the possibility of facing them. If you allow a Titan list into a Tournamant then the other lists should alter to take account of the fact that they may face a list with only WE's.

It's a general problem with all the experimental non-tournament legal lists (Although the AMTL list is probably closer than most to a final list). Players simply haven't had time to adjust and form strategies and if you assume the best players and lists win tournaments then without getting Titan lists in a tournament you won't see general tournament lists designed to cope with Titan lists.

On general list modifications, I want to be able to field all titans some of the time. If the weapon price brackets aren't working then change the brackets.

Titan Lists are Titan Lists - not 'more Titans than usual' lists, but pure-Titan lists, personally I've never seen anything in the games I've seen played to suggest that the AMTL list is in any way overpowered - yes you can create nasty lists from it, but its not entirely unbeatable and the answer is not to simply throw away the entire Legio concept in exchange for ballancing mechanisms.

There are other ways to smooth out issues other than cutting a third of the Titans from the list.

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You do realize that the core purpose of the "army lists" is for play in the Tournament Scenario?

There's two main "branches" when developing an army: the army's rules (unit stats, special rules) and the army's point values.  Despite people using them for all kinds of other stuff, the purpose of the "army's point values" is to allow for a balanced "Tournament Scenario" experience for two players who meet up randomly.  Any other purpose those values are put to is just icing on the cake, since anything else falls under the aegis of "friendly games" where concerns can be, theoretically, worked out with discussions before a game.

The Tournament Scenario is the only place "balance" is REQUIRED in EPIC, so that's why that focus occurs.

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How about limiting it to Warlord Titans only? Helps make the Warlord a more attractive choice (thus helping to reduce potential activations) and means the only AA available to a Reaver/Warhound list is the Thunderbolts.

I know that back in the day Reavers were able to take the CML, but certainly it doesn't seem to be an option currently in 40K, and I suspect there are very few people whose Reaver models would be made out of date by this... possibly because the CML replacing the shoulder pads never looked good, IMO at least.

I think one of the problems is that some lists have trouble dealing with big WEs - Marines especially, Orks and Feral Orks also in my experience.
Against these armies, all-Titan lists tend to do pretty well (again, Marines especially - Orks can still swamp the board with units and activations).

But against Guard, especially a couple of the local players who field several Shadowswords, all-Titan lists can suffer.

I can't think of an easy way to resolve this - it's not a problem with the AMTL list per se, but more the fact that the game was not originally designed with massed WE lists in mind.

So, we could drop AMTL altogether - but to me, Titans are Epic.

One possible solution could be to alter the victory conditions slightly for AMTL, something like: Break Their Spirit  Titan Legions are  convinced of their superiority, secure in their God-like power. As a result, the destruction of any Battle Titan Breaks Their Spirit.

That wouldn't change things for Guard or Eldar all that much, as they could probably take down the biggest, baddest Titan anyway - but for Marines and Orks, it provides a choice of targets. Might just help them gain the BTS objective, anyway.

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Or we could go all extremely radical and make EVERY Battle titan count as a BTS goal - so you if can frag several of them, you get that many objectives.

(Making only Emperor and Warlord titans count for this makes Reavers even more desirable so that's not a very sensible solution though admittedly less radical).

One possible solution could be to alter the victory conditions slightly for AMTL, something like: Break Their Spirit  Titan Legions are  convinced of their superiority, secure in their God-like power. As a result, the destruction of any Battle Titan Breaks Their Spirit.

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I think it's a great idea; both rules and flavour-wise.

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