Principia Titanicus

[Mandragola]

From the rumours I’ve heard, it might not be too long before you get rules for Ursus claws, meaning you don’t need to use the flamer rules for them. I don’t really think they’d function anything like flamers, but that’s really your call to make. Count them as whatever you like.

 

I haven’t had enough experience with knights to say whether the different versions are good. Lancers do seem like the ones that are most straightforwardly powerful, but there are probably cases where the others make sense. I’ve been giving the idea some thought as I plan my own knight army, and here are some examples.

 

I think a High Scion’s banner should probably have a Castigator and/or an Acheron in it. From my understanding of the coordinated strike order, you can use it to fire a very high-strength shots, which could be quite a nice option to have – though maybe not better than just charging. I think you’ll want mostly lancers though, for the shields and better melee attacks. To be honest I don’t quite know what happens if a unit with mixed weapons does a coordinated strike. As ever the Molech book is maddeningly unclear.

 

I think it makes sense to mix Acherons in with lancers – though of course that can’t be done for banners taken as part of a lance. There are quite a few advantages to having a second kind of weapon to fire, which gives your opponent a separate set of shield saves to roll. Of course, this doesn’t apply to Castigators, because their guns are too weak to do anything. In combat you can do your charge attacks with the lancer’s better melee weapon, but it’s actually quite nice to be able to have two sets of melee attacks in the combat phase.

 

I think Castigators mainly make sense in a lance that’s set up to do coordinated strikes. Just take a couple of them as a banner and then a couple of banners of questoris knights with avengers. Cerastus knights have a better command value than Questoris for some reason, so you can get the lance’s order off quite reliably. The 7 S5 shots two Castigators fire are a good shield breaker and the whole banner is likely to be able to take the shields from a battle titan, ready for the murder turtles to open up on it.

 

One lesson I took from Blood and Glory is to take a missile launcher on one questoris knight per banner. Those few extra shots give your opponent another shield save or two, and a choice of whether to push their reactor again. I think that’s well worth doing.

[Fajita Fan]

In a household list knights within a banner cannot mix weapon loadouts except for the additional extras like Questoris missiles and meltas. The only banner than mix is the Senechal’s command banner and then you can’t do a coordinated strike order, they have to fire their pea shooters individually.

 

I have a pair of bolt cannons converted for a pair of Cerastus leading two more banners of shooty Questoris knights in my household, they’re magnetized to swap for shields should they prove kinda useless. I want to see if the shields on a 2 man banner are more important than the gun so they actually survive the first time someone shoots at them. My Senechal’s banner has three lancers and a flamer (he’s supposed to be a “chaplain” with a mace/flamer) but I probably should have magnetized his arm.

 

I cannot see much reason not to use Acastus knights as solo banners as it gives me more activations and targeting opportunity. One thing I’d like to see in light of your experience is how a household can move most effectively against a heavily gunned titan army (e.g. lists with a lot of meltas and volcanoes). I’m pretty awful at the movement phase so this will be my steepest learning curve but I’m leaning towards not running MSUs to hopefully boost a few early shield saves. All of my early knight household lists had MSU to spam as many targets as possible but the freedom of solo Acastus knights may alleviate the sparse activation issue.

 

I think I’m off Sunday so this might be something good to roll out on the table, I don’t even need a friend for this.

[Sparika]

Another remark. As I was looking at the forgeworld warlord's carapace weapons, I did a bit of mathammer on the paired laser blaster against paired turbo laser destructor. Before that, I was wondering why would they release two similar weapons and what is the actual diference between laser blaster and turbo laser since they have the same strength and similar range. So I finally looked at the details.

 

The laser blaster can each shot 3 times, for a total of 6 shots, while the paired turbo laser can only shot 4 times. They have the same strength and are both shieldbane(draining). However, I realised that the turbo laser do not have the to hit penality at long range. So would it be possible that the turbo laser could effectively compensate the lack of shot with an increased accuracy?

 

So I made two tables to simulate each weapon for scenarios 100% visible, 25% obscured, 50% obscured, aiming location (so +0, -1, -2, -3) at both short (+0) and long ranges (+0/-1 depending on the weapon).

According to my result, the paired laser blaster will output approximately 1 more hit at short range in any scenario and is also better at long range when not aiming an unobscured target. Both weapons are equivalent when at long range when there is only a -1 du to 25% obscured or due to aiming unobscured target. The remaining cases are long range obscured target and aiming or long range obscured target at 50% with a difference of 0,333 hit (0,666 for 50% and aiming which is impossible with the laser blaster).

 

The result show that the laser blaster and the turbo laser are indeed slightly different weapons with the paired turbo laser more confortable at long range (between 18" and 32") and versus difficult (smaller ?) targets and is also cheaper. What I don't know is if this is actually useful. If I want to sit and snipe shield, I can take the even cheaper apocalypse launchers. If I want to use the shieldbane capacity, I would not use it when the average hit I will get is 1,33 or even 0,33.

 

It seems to me that laser weapons are adaptable weapons, not particularly good at anything, and in that role, the laser blasters are overall better than the turbo lasers.

 

Any input ?

Edited January 8, 2020 by Sparika

[Mandragola]

That's really interesting. I'd been wondering about whether to take those guns and it's useful to hear a bit about some maths for them.

 

As for whether it's useful, I really don't know. As you point out, apocalypse launchers are the obvious choice for a long-ranged warlord. The situation in which it might make sense would be on something like a bellicosa/quake warlord, which sort of lacks a weapon to do targeted shots with. That could potentially use the lasers to snipe at locations where the volcano cannon had hit, to try and finish off damaged titans.

 

I'm just not convinced though. The missiles are just so much better for shield stripping, due to their accuracy and number of shots, that they beat the lasers at that job pretty convincingly. And the lasers just don't seem all that destructive the rest of the time really. They aren't bad guns but they don't really impress me.

 

One thing I've discovered relatively recently is just how scary Fureans warlords with laser blasters on the roof can be. Their targeter wargear removes the hit penalty that you'd usually have outside of 16", turning them into very scary guns indeed. It's also a very expensive option, with a 50 point gun up there, plus the cost of the targeter, so you'll be looking at something like 550 points for that guy. It's a truly dangerous titan though, especially since you can do targeted shots with something like a sunfury that hit on a 4+ outside of 12". Things will suffer, a lot.

 

I think shieldbane is pretty awful by the way, as I think I said earlier. You're doing near-guaranteed damage to your titan, in the form of heat, for a chance to take down a shield. It's not a good enough trade, for me.

[Fajita Fan]

That's some good analysis.  Because they're 45 points and have a dead zone in the effective range band I kinda wanted to avoid too many laserblasters but one of my three traitor Warlords is always carrying a pair.  It's probably going to be slow for me at work tomorrow night so I might just do a similar spreadsheet of all the carapace weapons. :)

[Sparika]

The formula I used was x=(4/6 +1/6*RANGE_PENALTY + 1/6*TARGETING_PENALTY)*DICE so it is only about hitting a target. Both lasers are equal or comparable in every other aspects so it make sense to compare only their number of hit. But then, to compare with another weapon you would have to factor in the strength or the shield level. I'm interested in what you find though. ;)

 

I agree on shieldbane, and that's probably a reason why I have difficulties fielding reavers.

 

On the subject of knight, what do you think regarding the necessity to use a knight banner to effectively fight against a knight lance? For instance, I could see a use for a banner used in the role of screening titans from charging banner, keeping them close/behind titans and ready to intercept approaching knights.

[Reyner]

My close range Tempestus Warlord is going to use Laser Blasters on the carapace - along with a Sunfury and Macro Gatling Blaster as a direct contrast to my Defensor long range support Warlord with missiles, volcano and quake cannon. The plan with my Tempestus Warlord is to get in close as quick as it can and hopefully when it dies pass the command roll well enough to shoot back and kill its killer - from hells heart I stab at thee!

[Fajita Fan]

On the subject of knight, what do you think regarding the necessity to use a knight banner to effectively fight against a knight lance? For instance, I could see a use for a banner used in the role of screening titans from charging banner, keeping them close/behind titans and ready to intercept approaching knights.

When Cerastus lancers came out it seemed like Questoris knights were one of the safer things to use as screens since you know lancers want to get close and S8 thermal cannons with the fusion rule hurt at close range.  There's a player at my store who I think has several banners of just thermal cannons to melt faces.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Would like some advice on my first Maniple which is Regia.

 

Going for a full Maniple 2 Warlords and 3 Warhounds, I want 1 Warlord (The Queen) to have the Power Fist (Other weapons are optional), Her consort can be any config as can their Warhounds.

[Fajita Fan]

Others can speak far more authoritatively than me but I’ve begin setting up a bunch of models to roll out skirmishes to get a real feel for ranges, angles, and combinations. This game has a lot of synergy on paper but I think there’s even more on the table.

 

One thing I didn’t realize was how hard it can be to line up Warlord carapace weapons. They have really narrow firing arcs and I suck in the movement phase which makes lining up shots challenging*. If you can line up a Warlord on First Fire you could fling 20 missiles at something before lighting it up with a volcano/quake combo. Likewise spending all those points on laser blasters means that a Warlord needs to activate last so it gets decent shots.

 

Knights are fast. Like really fast. Cerastus knights fly across the table, especially since they can move around terrain with much more freedom than titans and can flank with alarming quickness. I’m actually really curious about the Regia maniple because sinking 500 points on Warlords would scare me to use the Warhounds as bodyguards to guard against getting stabbed in the liver by flanking knights. Take those plasma guns on them, they hit hard and are probably the safest way for a Warhound to deal with knights. Maybe I’m blowing the threat out of proportion?

 

*This might be more a “me” problem, your mileage may vary

[Mandragola]

I really like the Regia maniple and use it a lot, so I can pass on the results of that. It’s great to be able to use a warlord’s shields to protect a warhound or, less often, to have a warhound protect a warlord. The ability to have warlords share orders isn’t that relevant, as warlords tend to pass command checks and you’re unlikely to want to have them both on the same order – or to keep them close together. So the maniple doesn’t really do what the fluff says, but it’s still cool.

 

It’s not too bad for activations, despite having two warlords. You don’t need to squadron the warhounds so you’ll probably have 5-6 units. And your units will be tough, so you ought to be able to keep your activations for longer than your opponent.

 

There are a couple of other downsides. The main one is that warlords and warhounds don’t look like they want to hang out close together. Hounds are fast and effective up close. Warlords are slow and long-ranged.

 

This caused my only loss so far in AT. I managed to have my warlords and warhounds get in each other’s way and my opponent had hold the line. By the time we had to stop at the end of turn 3 nothing had died and I had barely made it out of my deployment zone. I can report that a warhound is extremely safe, trapped behind a warlord in your deployment zone.

 

This showed me I had to plan the moves for my whole battlegroup, often a turn or two ahead, not just think about each model one at a time. That’s always the case in AT, but it’s especially important with maniples like Regia and Fortis, which require big engines to move close to one another. That’s when things can easily go wrong.

 

I get around the speed issue by using the war march ability for my Legio Astorum to have the Warlords keep up with the warhounds, and giving them weapons that work together well. It’s harder without war march, but still possible. For example a melee warlord on full stride is the same speed as a warhound that pushes its reactor, and if the warhound is unlucky and rolls double heat it can still use the warlord’s shields when its own ones collapse.

 

I try to mainly give my titans weapons around 24” range. So for the warlords that means I mostly like gatling blasters on the roof, plasma and gatlings on the arms. For the warhounds the “standard” plasma and Vulcan option works brilliantly, though you could also use lasers. Flamers should definitely be avoided though, as a warlord definitely can’t keep up with a flamer hound.

 

Similarly, a quake cannon isn’t great if you’re going forwards, though you could team a quake warlord with a laser warhound. A quake warlord makes more sense in a Fortis maniple, which is sort of similar to the Regia but with reavers instead of warhounds.

 

Draining weapons like the bellicosa are a bit problematic because you really need your reactor working on your shields, which are also protecting the little guys. It remains a good gun, especially for killing knights, so it’s often worth bringing one in your maniple. But stay away from shieldbane.

 

Apocalypse missiles on the roof of a warlord are always fine because they’re so cheap and they are still great shield breakers. Gatlings are generally an upgrade if you can afford them, but if your warlord is only going 6” on turn 1 then you might not get range, which is never an issue for missiles. If a warlord has a bellicosa then it should almost certainly have missiles as well, giving you the option of standing back and blasting stuff.

 

A melee warlord can work in a Regia maniple. It’s kind of a terrible idea to put a melee weapon on a warlord, as you sacrifice a vast amount of firepower, but if you’re going to do it then Regia is probably the right maniple. The warlord can advance along with warhounds and, since it won’t be shooting much, should be able to devote all its reactor power to shields and its legs. This can be dominant where controlling the middle of the board is important, but useless against a gun line. It’s pretty sketchy against knights too, as they can disarm your warlord and take it to pieces.

 

Another problem is the points cost. The full maniple comes to something between 1600-1650 points. That leaves an irritating amount of points left at 1750. I generally take 2 warhounds in the maniple and then a reaver as a reinforcement, which comes nearer to 1750. You might be able to fit a knight banner in along with the full maniple, but I think you would have to make a lot of sacrifices with weapons if you wanted it all to fit. If you put a melee weapon on the reaver it can protect your titans from close assaults and leave your warlords free to shoot stuff dead. Alternatively you could equip the reaver for long-ranged support, but I don’t think that’s the best set up for them. I’d go melta/chainfist ideally.

 

At Blood and Glory I brought two warlords (one set up for melee), two warhounds and Lucius Praetorian as a reinforcement. The list proved extremely durable and over the course of three 1750 point games and a 6-player mass battle I only lost two engines in total, both to attacks from inside 2". My shields held up very well. I managed to table two opponents and handed out a decent amount of damage in the other games.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Lots of food for thought Mandragola

 

i was magging everything here is my paln

 

Legio Trait: Splinter Legio (Legio Vulcanum) Two-faced God
Legio Trait: Fury of the Fallen
Legio Specific Stratagem: (Legio Vulcanum) Symbiotic Command
Legio Specifc Wargear: Chasmata Pattern Laser Destructors

These were my custom traits... I know the Laser Blasters arent probably a great wargear choice so I am open for another suggestion.

 

For my Regia

 

The Queen

Power Fist/Gatling - Volcano/Plasma - Carapace (Open to any)

 

Consort

Volcano/Mori - Missiles (Open to other suggestions)

 

Warhound 1

Dual Lasers to snipe with?

 

Warhound 2

Plasma Blastgun - Vulcan MegaBolter

 

Warhoud 3 - To switch in and out if fielding 2 Warlord/2 Warhound

2x VMB or PBG

 

I am happy to buy FW weapons to better suit any or all my Titans in this Maniple.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Wolf Guard Einar

[Mandragola]

Interesting list. I’ve got some thoughts.

 

I’m not sure if your “two faced god” trait works. Is that the thing that gives you a second Seniores? If so they can’t be in the same maniple as your main Seniores. Since all your titans are in the maniple, this isn’t going to work. If you did take a Reaver outside the regia maniple then it would be eligible to be a Seniores.

 

Your other traits are fine. There’s nothing stopping you swapping them around if you want and having the option to upgrade the lasers doesn’t force you to do it. They could be useful on your quad-laser hound if it hangs around with your bellicosa/quake warlord. It’s actually a nice combo to have the sniper hound do targeted shots after the warlord’s blasts land. You’ll have the points available if fielding 2 warlords and 3 hounds.

 

I was going to repeat my recommendation to go with 2 warhounds and a reaver, because there are 2 hounds in the box. But now I see you’ve got 6 warhounds and 5 reavers, so that isn’t so relevant. It’s still a good option in my opinion. Ultimately, you’ve got enough titans that you can play around and see what works best for you. There’s no need to come up with the perfect list right now.

 

My advice would be to get yourself a macro gatling blaster, quake cannon and maybe some gatling blasters for your warlords. The warlord VMBs and turbo lasers are a bit less useful. I guess the lasers might make sense with your extra range, but I still prefer missiles. A VMB for a reaver would be useful too, since you have so many of them.

 

The best legio for a Regia maniple might well be Fureans. They’ve got a special character warhound called Iben Faruq who is extra dangerous for enemy warlords. That means they’ll try to kill him, so hiding him under a warlord’s shields is a great approach. Fureans also has a great stratagem that lets every titan in a maniple fire one of its guns twice, which is most effective if you’re running a 5-titan maniple.

 

I think you’ve been considering Atarus. They have a great colour scheme but beware their legio bonuses of… nothing much. They get to start fires that are too weak to hurt anything (fair enough, because titans) and they’re marginally more likely to get priority on turn one, when it doesn’t really matter. Having said that, the “maniple of one” strat could be entertaining. I think you can use it to have a melee warlord decide it’s in a Forex maniple for a turn, to use its BS in melee instead of WS and hit at +1 strength. That’s probably just silly, but it would be fun. I’m pretty sure it’s legal as Atarus are allowed to bring Forex maniples, even if Warlords aren’t usually in them. It’s a very flexible strat that also lets you have a titan pretend to be in a Corsair maniple and move backwards, and various other things. Great colour scheme, too, and nice transfers.

[Brother Captain Arkley]

I’m not sure if your “two faced god” trait works. Is that the thing that gives you a second Seniores? If so they can’t be in the same maniple as your main Seniores. Since all your titans are in the maniple, this isn’t going to work. If you did take a Reaver outside the regia maniple then it would be eligible to be a Seniores.

 

 

You are 100% right I read it wrong so fault is completely mine. Yeah that could be a great idea and it could be the start of a 2nd Maniple for bigger games.

 

 

Your other traits are fine. There’s nothing stopping you swapping them around if you want and having the option to upgrade the lasers doesn’t force you to do it. They could be useful on your quad-laser hound if it hangs around with your bellicosa/quake warlord. It’s actually a nice combo to have the sniper hound do targeted shots after the warlord’s blasts land. You’ll have the points available if fielding 2 warlords and 3 hounds

 

 

The sniper hound was my main reason for picking the upgrade up, i could add the Las blasters (upgraded) to the Quake/Volcano Warlord or do you think Missiles would be a better choice?

 

I was going to repeat my recommendation to go with 2 warhounds and a reaver, because there are 2 hounds in the box. But now I see you’ve got 6 warhounds and 5 reavers, so that isn’t so relevant. It’s still a good option in my opinion. Ultimately, you’ve got enough titans that you can play around and see what works best for you. There’s no need to come up with the perfect list right now.

 

 

 

I wanted the ability to make any maniple available. I doubt I will get to field everything

 

My advice would be to get yourself a macro gatling blaster, quake cannon and maybe some gatling blasters for your warlords. The warlord VMBs and turbo lasers are a bit less useful. I guess the lasers might make sense with your extra range, but I still prefer missiles. A VMB for a reaver would be useful too, since you have so many of them.

 

 

 

OK I will get them ordered ASAP. I love how the gatling blasters look on the top of Warlords, I need a Quake Cannon purely for reasons.

 

The best legio for a Regia maniple might well be Fureans. They’ve got a special character warhound called Iben Faruq who is extra dangerous for enemy warlords. That means they’ll try to kill him, so hiding him under a warlord’s shields is a great approach. Fureans also has a great stratagem that lets every titan in a maniple fire one of its guns twice, which is most effective if you’re running a 5-titan maniple.

 

 

 

Given i am running a splinter Legio I guess these special characters are limited to their respective Legio? I am open to a splinter of any Traitor Legio i picked Vulcanum it just sounded cool.

 

Regia maniple just seems right for my first one i just love the premise of it and its rules.

 

My colour scheme is pretty set Incubi Darkness/Rakarth Flesh. I was going to use a bulls head (Gorgons from D&D) for the main icon, but again I could be willing to switch the name from Gorgons and use the Fureans icons...

 

I think you’ve been considering Atarus. They have a great colour scheme but beware their legio bonuses of… nothing much. They get to start fires that are too weak to hurt anything (fair enough, because titans) and they’re marginally more likely to get priority on turn one, when it doesn’t really matter. Having said that, the “maniple of one” strat could be entertaining. I think you can use it to have a melee warlord decide it’s in a Forex maniple for a turn, to use its BS in melee instead of WS and hit at +1 strength. That’s probably just silly, but it would be fun. I’m pretty sure it’s legal as Atarus are allowed to bring Forex maniples, even if Warlords aren’t usually in them. It’s a very flexible strat that also lets you have a titan pretend to be in a Corsair maniple and move backwards, and various other things. Great colour scheme, too, and nice transfers.

 

 

I was but like a real life friend pointed out to me I do prefer my own schemes in the long run. the melee Warlord is your fault anyway After seeing yours in that pose.

 

Edited January 17, 2020 by Wolf Guard Einar

[Mandragola]

Shadow and Iron has been out for a few days so I thought I’d scribble down some thoughts on the Psi-Titan. As ever, this simply reflects the ravings of a random wargamer and should be treated with exactly as little respect as it deserves.

 

To start with, it’s “just” a Warlord titan. It’s not really any tougher than a standard Warlord and actually has more ways to kill itself, should its risky psychic schenanigans go wrong. The added value of this beast comes from killing more things, not from living longer.

 

So far as anyone can tell, the claw seems to be built into its cost but it pays the full price for any other gun it takes. I don’t personally rate the claw on this guy, for a few reasons, so I think it’s worth buying it a gun. Not a bellicosa though – the Sinistramanus Tenebrae already drains your reactor when you fire it. You’ll look silly if you cook your 750 point titan, which will happen fast if you use a Bellicosa twice a turn. I’m not honestly sure which gun is best and there are good arguments for all three. A Sunfury is always great and the model comes with a couple of them, so that’s a good start point.

 

The psychic powers the Psi-Titan has are part of why I don’t like the claw on it. Three of them require your titan to stand still (or not activate in the combat phase if using repairs) so the claw is useless. Quickening does let you move 6” and attack with a weapon but note that there’s no way to full stride with a Psi-Titan, so it’ll take a long while to get anywhere.

 

And then there’s just the fact that it’s really dangerous to be near stuff in this game. They hurt you more up close (in general at least) and they explode in all sorts of amusing ways, which will be very costly for your Psi-Titan.

 

So there are four psychic powers. They are basically: a slightly improved repair orders; quickening, which allows you to move 6” with two turns and then attack with any weapon, antipathic tempest - a quasi-large-blast with the quake and concussive rules that ignores void shields that you can put anywhere you can see, and Death Pulse, a panic button that hits everything near you with a warp hit.

 

I really like quickening. It’s awesome for a Warlord because it lets you point your carapace weapon right at something immediately before firing. And with a 6” move you’re likely to get something into range. It makes you want a decent gun on your carapace and/or right arm. You probably want slightly different guns, so you can have options of what you do.

 

Antipathic tempest and death pulse both activate when the Psi-Titan activates in the movement phase, instead of moving it. So you could view them as different versions of First Fire, I guess – bearing in mind that actual First Fire isn’t allowed so you can’t fire your left hand twice in a turn no matter what. But this means priority and order of activations matters a lot.

 

People will be less keen to have their warhounds and knights run up close to a Psi-Titan that’s activated Death Pulse and you can move friendly units out of the way first. But Antipathic Tempest is far more powerful I think, as chucking out quake and concussive attacks can really mess people up, right from the start of the game. It’s particularly effective against Warhound squadrons, as well as Regia and Fortis maniples that want to keep close together. Hitting an enemy Warlord or Warbringer with a concussive strike after it moves gives you a 2/3 chance that its carapace gun is now pointed at nothing much – though I think you have to damage them, which is not guaranteed at S8. In fact I think this will often be a better option than death pulse if the enemy is nearby because a warp hit to a random location isn’t likely to actually stop titans.

 

And of course Necrotechica lets you rebuild your titan from the ground up, with an extra repair dice and +1 to all of them. Fixing structural damage is a huge bonus that nobody else can do and should I think be prioritised above most things, with the possible exception of an orange reactor. But It also means you’re not going anywhere.

 

The Sinistramanus Tenebrae is a beast of a gun, with a horrible disadvantage. So far as I can tell, if you roll a machine spirit result you go straight to the psychic overload table without rolling a command check. But also I think you still fire your gun because it’s not the same as awakening the machine spirit. If you do live long enough to fire, you get to put 3 S10 hits on any location of an enemy titan that you want. Pick the body and hope to cause two crits, bringing the shields down for other stuff to hit – unless the target is already damaged elsewhere of course.

 

All of this means that I think a Psi-Titan wants to be tucked away safely in the corner of the board, not rushing up the middle. The obvious load-out for it might well be missiles and a quake cannon, though that will not get you too many engine kills and maybe you need it to, given its cost. For mine I’ve ordered a macro gatling cannon in the hope that a combination of the Sinistramanus Tenebrae and the (possibly quickened) roof gun will take the enemy’s shields down. I find the MG gives me a lot of engine kills by putting shots into a location that’s already badly broken. I’m torn between using missiles or gatlings on the roof. The missiles are just so annoyingly good that they’re probably the best option, though the extra dakka from gatlings is also great. I do like the sunfury but a bad hit roll while on maximal fire could be extremely bad news.

 

You’re only allowed one Psi-Titan per maniple and that means that there’s no way to have >1 of them even at 2500 points. At 1750 you’ll only be able to have one maniple, and you can’t field it at all at 1250. Don’t buy too many of these things, except for painting purposes! So what maniple should you run it with? That’s not obvious.

 

The simplest answer is probably an Axiom maniple. The Psi-Titan doesn’t care if someone else fails an order and the Axiom guys don’t either. Together the Psi-Titan and minimum Axiom come to around the 1750 mark, so you’re good to go.

 

If you want to be a bit more aggressive you could get a Forrex maniple. The Psi-Titan will benefit from having friends running a skirmish line ahead of it. You might be able to squeeze in two reavers and two hounds at 1750, or you could take a minimum maniple and some knights.

 

There are quite a lot of other options of course, though not everything is possible. Regia, Myrmidon and Ruptura maniples are all too expensive at 1750. Fortis can be done doesn’t look good for me – your opponent will just point everything at the Psi-Titan.

 

Ultimately there aren’t any major combos, which is appropriate. The Psi-Titan isn’t meant to play well with others.

 

A final note is that Vox Blackout is a very effective stratagem to use with one of these guys around. It still gets to use psychic powers while nobody else can do orders. To be honest I find it a kind of unfair stratagem (like many in the Molech book) so it might feel a bit unsporting to use.

[noigrim]

Can you move and then cast quickening?

 

I infer that is powers instead of orders from your description

Edited February 20, 2020 by noigrim

[Mandragola]

Nope. Psychic powers are a lot like orders. You cast them instead of doing an order, then like an order they take effect later in the turn. One crucial difference is that you can still do them even if you’ve failed an order and even if the strategy phase gets ended by Vox blackout.

 

So a titan that has channelled quickening gets to move at its boosted speed (6”) and do its boosted number of turns (2) and then attack with any weapon, in the movement phase. But it only moves once during the turn, no matter what. If doing one of the blast powers then that goes off in the movement phase when the titan activates and it doesn’t move at all. If doing the repair then it’s allowed to move, but then it can’t activate in the combat phase. You kind of want it to.

 

This gives you some flexibility on when your powers happen. You can drop your quake blast on a warhound squadron after it moves, to try and mess up their facings. You can hold back death pulse to deter attackers from closing in. Or you can do either one as your first activation if you’d rather just blow stuff up.

[noigrim]

Then as you said melee sinister is quite a secundary option

[Fajita Fan]

I plan to try mine with a Corsair maniple since it fits with 4 Reavers at 1995pts.  This one wants sorta wants to get within 24" so it requires the enemy to play along but that will depend on their list and the mission.  Could knock back the psi-titans gatlings to missiles and get another Reaver laserblaster.  

 

 

Reaver

Melta Powerfist Megabolter  

 

Reaver

Melta Gatling Turbolaser  

 

Reaver

Laser blaster Gatling Missiles  

 

Reaver

Volcano Gatling Missiles  

 

Psi-titan

Plasma Gatlingblaster 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[Mandragola]

Plasma and gatling blasters looks like a good option for Psi titans. A sunfury is probably the best gun for quickening except if shields are up, in which case gatlings are good.

 

It’s sort of a shame there’s no maniple of a Warbringer and two Reavers. That would fit nicely with a Psi-Titan at 1750. Ruptura doesn’t work, though at 2k it might, and a full Ruptura plus Psi-Titan would work at 2500.

 

I usually play at 1750 though, which means I’ve got roughly 1k to spend on a maniple once I’ve got the Psi-Titan. I also generally like Warlords and Warhounds, so the new Mandatum maniple is worth looking at. But I’ve found that comes to just over 900 points, which only leaves room for something like an Acastus knight.

 

And so I end up with either the Axiom or Ferrox maniples. I think you probably want something that can fight a bit, so a melee reaver would be handy. I don’t like to leave home without a Warlord, so the Axiom probably makes most sense – though I find it sort of a boring option.

 

To be honest at this kind of points value it’s tricky to field the Warlord Sinister. It’s always weird to have a single unit using almost half your points. The game becomes very much its performance. But then maybe that’s a good thing in my case as I tend to be a bit of a control freak and this thing is the opposite of reliable.

[Fajita Fan]

Given my collection of loyalists I can field a Corsair or Mandatum with a psi-titan. This thing feels more like a fun than competitive model anyway and I’m just a beer and pretzels kind of player to begin with.

[noigrim]

You can always field a swarm of warhounds to compensate

[schoon]

I've only just now discovered this thread.

 

Excellent insights by a number of folks!

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Thoughts on the Mandatum maniple?

 

And ideas for what to do with the new starter box and its contents, including what to add. I'm leaning toward running Astorum, mostly because I really like the colour scheme, but using the WD rules to run Loyalist splinter Tempestus is also speaking to me.

 

EDIT: Additional question. Do command terminals and whatnot come with the various titans (such as the Warlord), or are they a purchase on their own?

Edited February 22, 2020 by Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra

[Fajita Fan]

Command terminals do not come with the boxes but there’s thread in here with printable PDFs made by macrossmartin that are excellent (I’m on mobile). I laminated them and have dry erase markers :)

 

Mandatum maniple requires your Warlord to run up with the Warhounds and the Warhounds to be tethered within 12” of it for the benefit. It restricts your speed and freedom of movement slightly but seems pretty cool, this might be a nice time to use the Legio rule that let you swap a titan for another class and still get the benefit. An all Warhound maniple with this ability could be fun or even throw in another Warlord for a Regia alternative with the same titans.