Loyalist Legions Book

[Sword Brother Adelard]

The head is behind the Suzerain?

[Taliesin]

It is encouraging that its 176 pages, that is quite the change from usual. We can only hope it has the extra lore and art that we are hoping for, 2 more weeks before it arrives!

[The boater]

The head is behind the Suzerain?

See I was think that at first glance too, but the Suzerain isn’t up high enough. You should be able to see at least part of the head as they are quite close to the cowl. The shoulder is even weirder, as it looks like it has smaller segments, instead of the normal slabs

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'm not seeing any of that tbh, looks pretty normal to me, the titan is looking to it's right, out left as we look at it. The shoulders aren't visible, just the cowl above the head.

[Gederas]

Price confirmation, book is 50, Warmaster is 160, Battleforce is 185 (all in USD)

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Gederas

[schoon]

I'm very pleasantly surprised to see the book this "early," and that it's got such a weighty page count.

 

Granted that a good portion of that will be a retread of the Legios we already have, but I'm sure they've done a little adjustment here or there, even on those.

[Marshal Loss]

Granted that a good portion of that will be a retread of the Legios we already have, but I'm sure they've done a little adjustment here or there, even on those.

I certainly hope so! There isn't much that needs tweaking, but it would be a bit of a disappointment if they passed up the opportunity to do so here.

[Taliesin]

The Titan legios hardly have any lore in the supplements, which is basically the one bad thing about them and really surprising. It stands to reason that that is what has been significantly added to for this book.

[Marshal Loss]

Article posted

 

 

The next section details every maniple available to Loyalist battlegroups – 18 of them, collected in one place for the first time, and fully updated to make this the number one place to find these rules.

Next up, and forming the bulk of the book, are the many Loyalist Titan Legions and Knight Households. 

16 Titan Legions are detailed, ranging from the famous to the obscure. Each gets background, alongside a mixture of special rules that let you represent their particular character and specialisations on the tabletop. These include Legio Traits, Stratagems, Wargear, and Personal Traits for your Princeps. Take the Legio Trait for the Iron Skulls of Legio Metalica, for example.

Legio Metalica’s rules are appearing for the first time in this volume, and like the other Legios, there are some stunning full-colour illustrations of their war engines as well.

If you prefer fielding dozens of Imperial Knights, the book has you covered too, with background, rules, and illustrations for 12 Households, including four that are new to the game – House Coldshroud, House Terryn, House Procon Vi, and House Krast. Each includes a table of Knightly Qualities to personalise a High Scion or Seneschal, like this quality for House Terryn.

The rest of the book collects together and updates a bunch of essential rules and information, including all 50 Stratagems that Loyalist forces can make use of, comprehensive weapons charts, Titan upgrades, and the rules for the Psi-Titans of the Ordo Sinister.

[Brother Casman]

Finally, rules for the Legio Metalica! Nice to see I got the colour scheme mostly right, too.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

10 pages for each legio too, so looks like we'll get a decent chunk of lore for them!

 

(also looks like we'll have the option to swap the warmaster's carapace AA guns for mortars which is neat)

[Gore Crow]

Don't be fooled, it's not 10 pages of fluff per legio - the knight houses are interspersed between. 

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Don't be fooled, it's not 10 pages of fluff per legio - the knight houses are interspersed between.Ah

 

Ah. Still, 6 pages for each legio & 4 for each house might mean we get a background page? 1 rules, 1 background, 4 colour plates?

Edited April 6, 2021 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[Gattopardo]

Hmmmm. I'm leaning towards there not being very much (or indeed any) additional background in the Legio sections. Hopefully I'm wrong.. The section on Titan upgrades is, however, very very interesting. And the Warmaster looks decidedly better without the AA guns....I think. Although it's always difficult to tell without the model in your hands; hopefully the kit has the options.

 

I like the Metalica scheme and that teaser of their Legio trait is pretty interesting. It's the same as Vulturum's Scent of Blood, but it doesn't cost any strategy points, doesn't require you to have inflicted critical damage, can be used in any phase, and can be used repeatedly. Quite good, although the fact you take two heat means you'll need to take larger engines if you want to use this. 

[The boater]

They did a great job keeping the Scheme the same as the original. I absolutely love the rule, but I worry it will be kind of a double edged sword (really great for alpha strikes but lowers your overall activations when you use it). Glad I picked up a set of the transfers, as Ill definitely make a maniple. Their knight house has a great rule as well.

 

I am really excited about upgrades and weapons charts. It will just be nice to have them handy and I really hope they release a print out version of the cards... Still more than a little irritating that there isn't cards for the Ursus Claw and Shock Lance. 

 

All and all good stuff.

 

Edit: My one complaint is that I don't think we are going to see background for the legions in the book... 6 pages with 5 titans to show off and one rules page means it probably isnt gonna be there. But on the plus side, if its not it means we get a boat load of new artwork for everyone.

Edited April 6, 2021 by The boater

[Marshal Loss]

Don't be fooled, it's not 10 pages of fluff per legio - the knight houses are interspersed between. 

Good catch. Will keep my expectations down then, although more art is still welcome

[Mandragola]

Losing activations in the combat phase isn't ever really a problem. It's a good thing, usually, to activate sooner. It lets you kill enemy units before they fire and have your own units attack before they are killed. All good. The movement phase is different, of course.

 

There's some interesting stuff here. I wonder why they're giving us the weapon option section. Could it be to alter the prices, perhaps? I can see that they might think that guns could have different values on different engines, due to their speed, reactor power or whatever. Maybe it's an opportunity to rebalance things slightly.

 

And it's very nice to get universal and loyalist wargear. If nothing else, that'll help fill out the last few points in lists.

[Gattopardo]

I'm not sure it's such a worry in terms of lowering your activations. First, you choose when to use it, so you're never forced to. Secondly, you're only going to use this when it's impactful. For example, if you use it to finish off a wounded enemy engine, and that engine hasn't yet had its own activation, you're overall flat as you've taken two activations of your own but you've also got rid of one of your opponent's activations.

It might also be quite good in the movement phase. You could do a double charge for example (not necessarily aimed at the same target). And I'm sure there are lots of other possibilities.

It's a good ability I think, and fun, as your opponent knows about it and will be aware of the possibility you might use it (and in some circumstances will be able to pre empt it to some degree).

 

EDIT: what Mandragola said, basically.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Gattopardo

[The boater]

Losing activations in the combat phase isn't ever really a problem. It's a good thing, usually, to activate sooner. It lets you kill enemy units before they fire and have your own units attack before they are killed. All good. The movement phase is different, of course.

 

Yeah I'm thinking that for the movement phase, it'll only really be helpful if you know you can bring down an engine before it gets to activate. The idea I have in my head is one titan charges then uses this rule to have a first fire titan finish it off. It'd work with with a double charge or two first fire orders. Of course you'd telegraph the move a bit in the orders phase, but if they don't have something to stop your orders, it wouldn't matter. Definitely great in the combat phase

 

Edit: Gattopardo, you beat me to it

Edited April 6, 2021 by The boater

[Taliesin]

I actually think the 6 pages per legion does indicate there will be additional background, especially since thats whats been explicitly promised in the article 2 weeks ago ( and again today).

 

I also dont think we're gonna get 4 pages of art plates for every legion, so there will be room aplenty.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Taliesin

[malika666]

Don't be fooled, it's not 10 pages of fluff per legio - the knight houses are interspersed between.

Exactly, and then also with some big colour scheme pics of the Titans and Knight, and you might be lucky if you have just one or two pages of actual background, if not less.

[Marshal Loss]

 

Don't be fooled, it's not 10 pages of fluff per legio - the knight houses are interspersed between.

Exactly, and then also with some big colour scheme pics of the Titans and Knight, and you might be lucky if you have just one or two pages of actual background, if not less.

 

In fairness, a single page of background for each Titan Legion would still be a leap in the right direction given the paucity of the current material. I know we'd all like more but at this point I'd take it tbh

[Noserenda]

Im pretty keen to see the wargear tbh, having just built Reavers with a landing pad and extra shield booster respectively :) 

[schoon]

That Table of Contents looks great to me.

 

It'll be nice to have so many of those rules in one place, and there's some tantalizing chunks - Titan wargear? Yes, please!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

A friend reckons the new weapon lists may have points updates, which would be an interesting idea.