Hypothetical Titan Question

[Nabterayl]

I've always been curious why people seem intimidated by the larger titans. For instance, for the price of a single Emperor titan, a body might field 24 reasonably equipped Hammerheads, 75 blaster-equipped battlesuits, 47 power klaws on bikes, 50 double-multi-melta Land Speeders, the list goes on.

I'm asking because I've never actually played a game with anything this large, so maybe there's a practical reality that I'm not getting, and I'm curious. I understand that the really large titans can lay down an impressive amount of Destroyer firepower, but at the same time it seems like most of the time there's a price-equivalent option that would virtually guarantee their destruction several times over on all but the very largest of boards. Am I not seeing something?

[DarkLink]

If you mathhammer it out, Titans are well worth their points. Even if you take, say an equal number of points of Broadsides in cover, the titan may well still win out. And who actually has that many broadsides, anyways.


Plus, an Imperitor class titan can literally cover, like, 3-4 square feet of board with Str D pie-plates. No other 4000 points in the game can even come close to matching that. The Imperitor could easily be 8000pts and stil be well worth it.

[Nabterayl]

If you mathhammer it out, Titans are well worth their points. Even if you take, say an equal number of points of Broadsides in cover, the titan may well still win out. And who actually has that many broadsides, anyways.


Plus, an Imperitor class titan can literally cover, like, 3-4 square feet of board with Str D pie-plates. No other 4000 points in the game can even come close to matching that. The Imperitor could easily be 8000pts and stil be well worth it.

I see the utility of the firepower; what I wonder about is the survivability. Is it really that hard to get inside the void shields with several dozen Deep Striking meltas, high-WS powerfists (e.g., an Imperator has a 19% chance of killing a nob in a reasonably equipped hunting squad CC), or other go-to fast-moving deathstar hunting solutions?

I know there's a real-world pricepoint issue here, but we're also talking about somebody facing a large titan in the first place, which is its own pricepoint issue.

[plasticaddict]

Void shields (8) aren't the problem. High armor value (14/14/13) combined with structure points (12) and self repair capabilites are the problem. Add in the models that an Emperor can carry with three fire points in each leg for close defense and you have a tough nut to crack. Now I can put my 21 Hammerhead gunships on the table for the same cost but I wouldn't count on them being able to take down the Titan. And I'll put a Hammerhead up against any unit in the game.

[Sir Biscuit]

Really, there is simply a lot of value in the ability to kill large piles of things very dead, very quickly.

I own a Warhound titan. Mars Pattern, Twin Turbo-Laser and Plasma Blastgun. It's unbelievably good. Let's talk about each of the aspects that make it so deadly, and so worth it's points:
1.) It's mobile. It moves 12" a turn, and can fleet up to an additional 2d6". Remember, it's movement counts as a tank shock as well, so it can't be penned in by mass infantry. This means that it can almost always get the angle it needs to get a shot off, and it's pretty safe from powerful melee threats that could bring it down, and most melta weaponry.
2.) Melee. A titan doesn't have a lot to fear in melee. Remember, all titans follow the rules for normal walkers, which means that any melee attack is made against the front AV14, and grenades/melta bombs are difficult to attach. The stomp attack means that anything without an invuln save is going to lose 40% of their unit each melee round. In addition, it can't be locked in melee (except against other titans and monstrous creatures!) so it's mobility is not decreased by engaging in it. Against tanks it charges it's 2 S10 ordinance attacks. Ka-boom.
3.) Range. It has loooooong range. It's shortest weapon fires 72", but both can fire 96". When you move 12" and can fire 72", you don't fear a lot of long-range weaponry. Especially with Void shields. More importantly, this range means that anywhere you are on the board, you can still inflict terrible damage.
4.) Raw killing power. Those guns do NOT mess around. Melta guns, even twin linked ones in half range, are piddly anti-tank compared to a twin turbo-laser. Make no mistake, that gun WILL kill whatever tank it shoots at, and will horrendously cripple superheavies. If it fires at infantry, they go away. AP2, auto-wound, ignores cover twin large blast templates kill just about anything. The Blastgun's no slouch either, and is what I think of as my "anti-infantry" weapon. Two 7" or one 10" at S8+ means that I instant-death marines en-mass, while denying an armor save, and no horde stands a chance. Remember, LOS is measured fro the guns, and in this case those guns are pretty high off the ground... the enemy will not be receiving cover saves from intervening units, and will not be able to hide behind their tanks.

Now, let's talk tactics, and survivability:
1.) Do not start the titan on the table. Do not start the titan on the table. DO. NOT. START. THE. TITAN. ON. THE. TABLE. In apocalypse you have ABSOLUTE control of your reserves. You can avoid certain death by putting on in turn two or three. (Or, if you take careful planning, turn one after you see what the enemy has.) Once you see if the enemy brought any counters, bring him out far, far away from them. Kill them with your guns or just stay out of range. It's not hard on a massive Apoc table.
2.) Support the damn titan. It's good at killing things, but it can be easily overwhelmed if you have it running about on its own. Lots of things can deep strike and smash a chunk out of you, so make an infantry buffer. Often, my titan walks onto the field and into a waiting circle of 50 spread out guardsman. Deep strike now, suckers.
3.) You will take damage. Welcome to 40k. Everything dies. Don't panic and run your titan into the enemy when this happens. Relax, and just keep firing. Void shields regenerate and you're not done until SP3 disappears. Don't charge into the enemy line once you're low either... that chance of an apocalyptic explosion is very low.
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Now, this is all for a smaller titan, but I think a lot of the same lessons apply.

If you are playing with a bigger titan (really, any titan that takes up the lion's share of your points) then let your opponents go first. Bid a million billion on deployment time. See what they do. If they put their counter on the table, excellent. If it ranged reserve. If it's not, deploy far away from it.

Since the majority of your army is invested in the titan, you'll want an asset that makes it better. Replacements is the obvious candidate, but let's be honest, you and your group will patch that so it doesn't work on superheavies. So then, the one we want is either a Strategic Redeployment or Careful Planning. Careful Planning is nice, as it allows for a first turn walk-on. Strategic redeployment is probably the better option, however, as it allows you to dash away before nasty enemy close-rangers can get to you. In addition, it allows you to keep the enemy out of the minimum range of your carapace weaponry.

Second, you'll want some techpriests. Get some. You already bought a gigantic titan, so spare a little more for some damn support. Techpriests can only repair one thing on your titan, but it's an important one: destroyed weapons. Especially with a titan like the Imperitor, you will likely lose 1/2 or more of your guns before you run out of structure points. This must not happen. Firepower is life. Have them in Rhinos, or, if you're running the Imperitor, simply have them stand in the legs. Hurray.

Now, how do you deal with a hard counter to your titan? Like the list you made? Mostly, you don't worry about it. No one's going to bring that many land speeders, or claw nobs, or battlesuits. It's even less feasible than the titan. If they do, you outbid them for time. You can see the enemy reserves, take second turn, bring the titan on at the beginning of your third turn. They can't hold back their counters, and they will be at your mercy when you come on.

Because, let's be honest, what survives a full Imperitor barrage? Once it's on the board and the threat isn't imminent, I have trouble coming up with something that can stop it.

[gridespider]

Nice.

Thank you for those tactics on titans. Its good to know there are other owners of these metal Gods, who dominate the table.

[Nabterayl]

Thanks, Sir Biscuit. That was just the sort of balanced consideration I was hoping somebody would post. Reading between the lines, then, it sounds like what you're telling me is:

1. An Emperor probably would lose to 75 deep-striking BS4 twin-linked fusion blasters in a one-on-75 match,
2. but if one were playing a 4,000 point game, one would be foolish to make one's entire army an Emperor titan (because you wouldn't be able to support the titan with anything), and
3. in a game large enough to justify taking an Emperor, the Emperor's supporting elements would be sufficient to prevent a points-equivalent non-superheavy hard counter from performing its job until the counter's own supporting elements (whose job it would be neutralize the Emperor's supporting elements) were dead at the Emperor's hands - er, guns.

Am I getting that about right?

[SotonShades]

From my experience using my Warlord, it's usually the case that there is something that is significantly less points that will take it out!

First game I used it, it got taken out by a single Ork Stompa in two rounds of combat. Another good example was the last game I played, where it was taken out in a single round of combat by a flank marching Brass Scorpion. Ok, in both these cases my opponants rolled really well and I rolled exceedingly badly, but these models are a fraction of the cost of my Warlord, and in both games the Warlord didn't come anywhere close to earning its points back. In the first game it actually took out more models when it went Apocolyptic and rolled 32" for the blast radius than it killed before it died (unfortunately not the Stompa that killed it...)

On the otherhand, in a single game I have used it to take out 5 Stompas, a Warhound and two Eldar Revenants, plus a score of smaller models that been around them.

It does appear to be rather hit and miss with these large titans. Either people are so scared of them (but know how the game works well enough) that the majority of their early battle plan revolves around taking them out, OR they simply assume they cannot take it out and do their best to ignore it.

Sure it has 6 void shields, but they are only AV12 and only require a glance to pop... I know for 2500 points I would be quite upset if I didn't at least glace 6 AV12 vehicles a turn using a balanced list, let alone a titan-hunting force! And let's not forget that once you are within 12", those shields count for nothing. A fire Dragon squad in a Waveserpent has actually got a pretty decent shot at crippling a Warlord in a single round of shooting if they get close enough. Most units geared up for tank hunting do... and lets not even get into Monstrous/Gargantuan Creatures that get into combat...

They can skew the balance of a game if you try to use them without your opponant(s) knowing beforehand, but if you try to win by bringing something that big without giving your opponant a chance to bring something to counter it; well, it's just not in the spirit of the game really.

Another good point Nabterayl and Sir Biscuit have made; these guys are for big games! Personnally I wouldnt want to use a Warhound in a game much less than 5000 points... they just become a points sink otherwise. As for a Warlord, 7000-8000 as a minimum? I've yet to run it in a list under 10k (except for a Walker War game where i have no idea as to what the points cost was, but all I had was a Warlord and 5 Space Marine Dreadnoughts). I am going to assume the GW didn't spend a whole lot of time playtesting the rule for the Imperator and Warlord, making these behemoths as balanced as they possibly could be, but this is Apocolypse! Balance is out the window in favour of having fun. Just don't be a douche with them. Half time they will rule the battlefield, taking almost no damage and decimating the enemy. The other half, your opponant will somehow get the drop on you and neutre what is undeniably an exceedingly powerful asset. that is war folks.

[tjkopena]

Disrupter Beacon is also a very important stratagem, to keep the opponent from Deep Striking directly onto your Titan and getting inside its void shields. Without that cover it's fairly vulnerable to Sternguard w/ Combi-Meltas in Drop Pods and that sort of thing.

[Faultie]

My problem with them is that dedicated anti-titan units are often not super-effective against non-titans.
What I've relied on is flying Shaper Councils with Eviscerators (20x WS4 S8+2d6 attacks for ~330 pts). Alternatively, you can get them on foot w/ hounds, and still have them assault first turn, and it gives a few ablative wounds as well.

The problem is, in melee with anything else, they can get chopped up pretty fast. Also, after their first-turn-assault, they're often dead, even with T4 or 6th Sense. Thus, by taking these, I end up reacting to my enemy's list instead of building my own.
That said, they can really om-nom some titans, and super-heavy non-titans are even more om-nom-able.

It is also important to remember that there is no +1 to pen for AP1 on the super-heavy vehicle damage table.