Titans and battles

[~DeathJester~]

So, I've heard a lot about the power of titans on the tabletop and I was just wondering, have any amongst you here ever used a titan or faced one in a battle? What was it like for you, and your opponent? Tell us your war stories...please

[Brother Wolf]

Titans are a very rare commodity on 40K tabletops, much more often seen in Epic (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_EPIC_40_000_TITANS_24.html) where they can be played to full effect, (as well as not cost $300-$600 (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_TITANS_31.html)). About the only titan you could effectively play on a 4x8, (and I say that with some reservation), would be Warhound (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/cwarhoundp1store.jpg) scout titans. No way could you play the full bore battle titans. They would BE the battlefield (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Tyranids/hphant5.jpg), they are that big.

I'll let this play out a bit, but I have a hunch it may be off to Locksville, Tennessee for this thread.

[eleveninches]

The warhound forgeworld titans are smaller than i expected. I one in GW newcastle, and it was not very big at all.

Compared to the HUGE battle titan i saw in GW metro a few years ago, the thing was at least 5-feet high (compared to the warhound, which is barely 1 foot high). I'm not sure whether or not i've seen the 40k scale imperator titan (now that was an awesome epic model)

[Evistro]

i have versed a titan before... thing was insane. i had only 2 hormogaunt squads, 3 warriors and a hive tyrant. it was aliens vs humans (a small game, about 8 players) and one titan in the middle on the objective. one of my allies came in woth old one eye and took the sheilds down while some space marines from the other team finised it off with artillery. then my team and i got wiped out.

[BloodySloth]

Slightly off-topic, but that Heirophant is really sub-par. The head/arms are really badass, but the rest of the model is way, way too repetitive and predictable.

As for TT gameplay, I would imagine titans are either gimped excessively to fit the relatively small squad-based action, so expensive point-wise you couldnt afford anything else in your army, or both.

[Chip]

Me and my friends usally play HUGE battles, there's 4 of us and each has 2 armies (8 armies in total - 4 per side)

And since these are big battles of like 10,000+ pts per side I therefore ocasionlly throw in my chaos titan.

Its great, it really is :)
I have used it 4 times and only once it has gotton destoryed (Don't try stepping on a hord of geanstealers, their rendering claws could knock out a structure point with no hastle, well when there's a lot of them anyway) oh and that got worse when a carnifex lunged at the titan's leg.

Anyway, here's a pic of my titan: (rarther big)
http://myfilestash.com/userfiles/Mechafiler/Titan.JPG

[Evistro]

the titan i played was rediculously huge. it belonged to the owner of the store, he assembled it himself. this thing was massive, about a foot and a half tall (thet pretty tall for a game like that)

[rocket_Magnet]

back when i actually played TT, GW had about 6 warlord titans in circulation around the UK, they weren't very detailed or anywhere as hawt as forgeworld models, they were mainly wood and about 4-5'ft tall

there has never been a 40k imperator titan some crazy american tried sculpting one, i think its still WIP (even after 5 years) and an imperator titan 40k scale, should be in the region of 6-8' I mean a thunderhawk lands of top of a mini heli pad on the very top of it for godsake :) (well the other variant, not the vanilla imperator)

warhounds are spectacular, theyre the common as muck titans of the imperium, think of them as XXL sentinels. disappointing in scale you may think, but the detail inside them drool

[Voyager_I]

I've always wondered exactly how a multi-story, earth-shaking, mechanized walker fulfills a "scout" role in any sense...

[omega the end]

It can see over all the trees ;)

I too have wondered that as well Voyager I.

[Havock]

Well, it's the imperium of man, the same people who build flying cathedrals with guns.
Scout means "first to get in contact with the enemy" :p

[spacewolflord]

I wish that Epic had bigger Titans. The Warlord the big bad I kill one is just about the size of a Wrathlord and the Warhound is not even as big as a dreadnought. I know they have different scales but still. They need to make them bigger.

[GorkAndMork]

i one was in 4v2v4 mega battle, twas awesome. on one side, tau two tyranids and one eldar. then two space marines. the last team? ORKS! 4 ork players. the game was played out on 3 different like 8x4 ft tables. on the ork side it had two gargants. MAN they made my dudes look pathetic. on the tyranid/eldar/tau team. bio-titan. so manly, i think it was made out of playdo ^ ^.all three titants wre about 2ft-3ft tall.

as for there TT performance, well....the bio-titan has flees. the one i faced carried 30 genestealers UNDER its carapace. and the titan had like 14 structure points PLUS its 4-6 wounds. and had a super buff version of warp blast. it could also walk thru an army and everything he steps on within a blast radius is auto-killed.

The Gargants, BIG GUNS! each had like 7-10 guns, which had there gut cannons which were the range of the battle field i think. they are really good. they could easily blow apart a land raider a couple times in 1 shooting phase.

[~DeathJester~]

whilst on the topic of titans, can somebody clear up exactly what structure points are?

Thanks for all the replies. I've noticed how most titans are home-made as it were. I'm not surprised, but then I am one of the crazy ones to be saving up for an Eldar Revenant

[Lancer]

Structure points are essentially like wounds, but for superheavy vehicles. That way, a lucky hit from a lascannon or railgun doesn't instantly kill your very expensive superheavies.

[NosMo]

here is the details from my old game stores mega battle with 2 titans

Man are those guys crazy....I really miss them
hmm.. cant insert links for some reason.
Go to adeptusarizona and search for titans some great pics

NosMo

[Lyngbakyr]

I was so (un)fortunate as to face a Warlord Titan not long before 2nd Edition was phased out of production. Using a Tyranid army of equal point value to the Titan alone, I attempted a frontal assualt in a desparate attempt to down the bugger, bugger all being precisely what I accomplished with these addle-pated tactical decisions. Even though the Warlord was an ancient Armorcast design, it effectively towered over the battlefield, eliminating all issues related to line-of-sight.

It was essentially over the moment the Vulcan Mega-Bolter started spewing carnage across the field. Squads evaporated as they advanced under its 72" umbrella of life-suppressing projectiles produced by those nightmarish sustained fire rules. Synapse creatures were incinerated beneath the ungodly damage of the Volcano Cannon (I recall something along the lines of 2d20. Second Edition was... liberal with multi-wound weaponry). I never did get into contact with the it; my forces waffled a few feet from the destroyer, rooting for bagles in the tall grass or whatever it is my Gaunts did without strict control from the Hive.

I have avoided conflicts with anything larger than a Lehman Russ battle tank ever since, so I know little of how Titans fare in 3rd edition. I assume that they are still just as devestating as they ever were.

[spacewolflord]

Nothing was as powerful in 3rd as in second. I mean they went straight D6 game play.

[FallenHero]

Lyngbakyr...that was the best story ever. Made me laugh for some odd reason.

[Lyngbakyr]

Ah, it was a fight to remember (regardless of how poorly I fared at the hands of that preposterous polystyrene... I'm sure there is a word that starts with "P" and has mildly scathing qualities, but my alliteration engine fails me). I saw similar destruction visited on my fellow gamers as they suffered through a few more battles. The beast annihilated all comers - Imperial Guard, Salamander Space Marines, and Eldar falling just as surely as I had.

It never was destroyed (the IG did include a Shadowsword, also an old Armorcast model. Suffice to say, it missed). However, the real world intervened to finish its career once and for all as the Warlord was snuffed beyond repair in an uppercut-related incident. I wasn't the perpetrator, I swear! But... I couldn't state on the Witness' Stand that I was dissapointed.

[ironclawed1]

Titans are desgusting indeed
My friend owns an old warhound and reaver from armacast, i have an old eldar scout from armacast they dominate battles and should only be used in the larger k++++ games.

[GorkAndMork]

quickly off-topic. is the shadow sword like an uber form of the baneblade? or is it some huge flying vehicle of death?

[Zarathustrian]

Shadowsword is a Titan killer variant of the Baneblade chassis.

[Touristo]

The Shadowsword is a super-heavy Imperial Guard tank akin to the Baneblade, but vastly different in that instead of weilding a huge array of different weapons for engage multiple targets of varying types, the Shadowsword's primary armament is a volcano cannon, which is a massive titan-sized weapon(laser, I believe?) designed specifically for killing titans and other super-heavy vehicles.

[GorkAndMork]

aaaaaah. ok. so not even that could stop that monstrosity?!?

[ZellFish]

Is it even legal in the 40k rules to use any kind of Titan in battle? I mean, what does it count as? Monstrous Giant Huge Vehicle Beast? And, I can only imagine the point costs..

As a side note, links to Forgeworld shouldn't be allowed on these forums. I always get sidetracked.. :(

[Exetus]

To be honest, to make the game any fun, you have to field large armies on both sides so that the titan does not rule the tabletop. I have and field a Warhound titan because people WANT to play against it. With structure points and void shields, it provides a challenge to even the most anti-armor gamers. Often times I will take on two or three opponents in 4000pt games jsut because they're fun.

Also, the effectiveness of a titan varies greatly and depends largely upon the weapons that you equip it with. You can configure them for anti-tank or infantry and I have found them to be very good at either, but not both. For instance, taking two vulcan megabolters would give a horde army opponent fits with a total of 20 shots with the capability of rending per turn... enough to wipe out a squad of some of their best troops.

However, when facing them, give them too many targets to shoot at. You only have 6 turns =P.


*edit* Yes it is legal to use titans IF your opponent agrees. If your opponent agrees to it, you are allowed to use ANY of the rules from the Forgeworld rulebooks. This includes sentry towers, super heavy vehicles and titans. And if you are wondering, a titan counts as a Titan. And anything that is Superheavy or higher is counted as a separate force organization chart, not taking up a heavy spot in your original FOC.

[spacewolflord]

Wouldn't Shining Spears which makes all armor 12 work well against Titans if they could get up there?

[Exetus]

A lot of things would work well against a titan if you oculd get them close enough to engage it in hand-to-hand. That's why players usually have a screening unit that travels with the titan to intercept attempts to do just that. It doesn't have to be something strong, necessarily, just something that can get in the way long enough to tie up the unit in question. And you almost HAVE to try and engage a titan at close quarters where most of its weapons cannot track you because of their minimum range, because the frontal and side armor is so high and the void shields can absorb anything with the possibility of coming back up... in addition to having the tech priest fix it as well...