Titanicus, What Reading A Book Told Me About Tabletop 40K - They're Boring!

[cadianshock]

So I am over way through Dan Abnett's Titanicus book from 2008. It is superb and I am looking forward to reading more of his stuff. But the Titans are boring and I think that also translates onto the table top too?

What do you think?

Full article here http://cadianshock.com/titanicus-reading-book-told-me-about-40k/

[Denzark]

So I am over way through Dan Abnett's Titanicus book from 2008. It is superb and I am looking forward to reading more of his stuff. But the Titans are boring and I think that also translates onto the table top too?

What do you think?

Full article here http://cadianshock.com/titanicus-reading-book-told-me-about-40k/

I've only gone up against 1 warhound (outside of apocalypse) and 1 stomper. For the latter I had a Knight. I had no idea the Stomper was 12HP until it was put on the table. That was exciting - cos the only thing that could really dent it was my D-fist - so I had to close it. I killed it for the loss of 5HP.

The Warhound was similarly interesting - trying to get Pask up close to rend the crap out of it with the punisher. Again, that made it quite tense trying to judge when to pop smoke and when to edge forward and risk damage going on Pask and not his squadron.

I guess Titans are boring if you have nothing that can deal with one. If your SH denial plan is good - and especially if it involves non-SH units - it can be a interesting challenge.

The upshot goes to prove why, harking back to another thread, you need to speak to your opponent pre-game- to establish if he has any quirks in his force you need to be ready for. If you turn up with all inf with nothing more than S7 you will be bored.

[mordecai]

Back a few years ago, with the 4th ed Eldar codex, I had a friend who brought an'grrath, a chaos warhound and two hierophants to every 13k apoc battle and I'd just barely beat them without titans. As the rules have progressed and I've aquired titans of my own, apocalypse battles have become either a "someone's dead by turn 3" or a "wow, we've been playing since yesterday?" kinda thing. My tyranids have only a hierophant to help them, though, so they usually lose in the bigger games. The titans are only exciting when they explode, it seems.

[YorkNecromancer]

Titans are great in Epic scale; the original rules for the Imperator, back in 2nd ed Adeptus Titanicus, were absolutely bags of fun.

Titans are duller than dishwater in 40K scale, unless you're playing a massive vehicle-based battle. And even then, you might as well be playing Epic anyway.

[Defenestratus]

Titans are great in Epic scale; the original rules for the Imperator, back in 2nd ed Adeptus Titanicus, were absolutely bags of fun.

Titans are duller than dishwater in 40K scale, unless you're playing a massive vehicle-based battle. And even then, you might as well be playing Epic anyway.

Of course thats one person's opinion.

Here's another one:

Titans are freakin awesome in games of 40k at any size if for no other reason than they are something different. Some of the most epic moments in my 40k (pun intended) memory are titan-related. Like when my Revenant titan took 27 Str D shots to the face from my friend's Imperator and was only minorly damaged. Or the time when I blew up my friend's Imperator and it laid down a 42" radius Str D explosion which left only Karandras alive on that table quarter (due to Eternal Warrior).... man we had buckets of laughs over that. Or the one time when a single Warp spider caught the attention of a Warlord titan, got assaulted and managed to not die in the combat, only to warp behind the warlord and strip it over its last remaining hull point :) EPIC LOLs.

Found a pic of the before and after titan blast.

Before:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YKhHQiRoGFI/T9EczIw9NXI/AAAAAAAAV_o/HV1qfqNYqf0/w1998-h1195-no/titan_before.jpg

After:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VdznNluDCls/T9Ec2D1MWII/AAAAAAAAV_w/VA_HW1pqEl8/w1998-h1195-no/titan-after.jpg

[jeffersonian000]

Titans are what 40k is all about. There is nothing that can compare to building these engines of war into battle, keeping them in the battle, and standing triumphant over your opponent's smoking wreckage! Anything smaller is just skirmishes, small pockets of conflict against the epic back drop that is Titan-scale warfare. 40k is more than just two patrols going bump in the night, it's the titanic clash of armies on a scale unimaginable to conventional forces.

If you find that "boring", well, there's alway Combat Patrol for ya!

SJ

[40kGamer]

Titans are great in Epic scale; the original rules for the Imperator, back in 2nd ed Adeptus Titanicus, were absolutely bags of fun.

Titans are duller than dishwater in 40K scale, unless you're playing a massive vehicle-based battle. And even then, you might as well be playing Epic anyway.

I'm onboard with Yorkie here. Titans are truly awesome.... in Epic where they were created and where they are best represented. I find titans and even superheavies to be tiresome in games of 40k... Unless you're playing Apoc on a gymnasium floor, then they're really cool.

[YorkNecromancer]

If you find that "boring", well, there's alway Combat Patrol for ya!

I won't lie - I really, really do. Smaller battles are my absolute favourite. 400-1500 points is the sweet spot for me; anything bigger tends to run on for days, and I just can't be arsed with games over three hours any more. It just leaves me (and my girlfriend) cold.

It's why I like Epic so much; you get highly tactical Titan combat in a 45 minute delight. Not to mention the cost of entry has dropped significantly so long as you don't mind third (http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/did-cybershadows-leviathan.htm) party (http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/did.htm) vendors (http://www.onslaughtmini.com) supplying you with higher quality models than GW's early-nineties stuff.

[cadianshock]

Thanks for the comments all! Good to get other angles on this, from all camps.

For me its about the narrative of the fight, the characters and the why. A Titan or Super Heavy (to a lesser extent) doesn't really feed that requirement for me, plus it can skew a game if a player isn't expecting it. And that looks set to happen more often with Super Heavies becoming more and more a part of regular 40K.

Also, where does it end....


"No, no, no. Titans, thats not 40K, thats small scale and is a side show compared to the huge, city sized ships in space that battle it out. A battle group of 50 Titans, boring, I mean the ships is what its all about, we were playing this one game where a ship exploded so massively it took out 2 planets!"

Bigger is not always better.

[Fueldrop]

Since I tend to play at 2,000 points or below and lack any superheavy options myself, I tend to view the enemy bringing a titan or baneblade to the table as a challenge. Sometimes not a fair challenge, but warfare is not always warfair after all.

That said, I just like some variety in my opponents. Fighting the same cookie-cutter lists every game gets old pretty quick and fighting something different can make my day.

[Ruadhan2300]

Generally my local meta doesn't emphasise superheavies very much. I'm That Guy with more money than sense and a tendency to shell out for the big stuff. but I'm a hobbiest more than a gamer, so I'm quite happy to leave the big stuff at home and bring infantry and light armour forces to table.
Titans take effort to transport :P
The usual convention in local meta is that superheavies require both players to agree to them, same with fliers. nobody likes to bring a list that flatly can't cope with what's arrayed against them.

[Brettila]

Have to agree with the Yorkster and Cadian, superheavies, titans, and I'll even argue Knights (being superheavies) have no place in games of 40K. Understand I LOVE to play Apocalypse. Unfortunately, a game of 40K is being waged over a grocery store parking lot. We just have no need of such models in what was described as a very small cross section of a huge conflict.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Personally I don't own any Titans, and don't bring my Baneblade to 2K or under games. Occasionally my one of my Machariuses will make an appearance, but often I feel they're not worth the points at that small a scale on a relatively small table. (Our local is a very small store, you're lucky if you can get a 6x4 to play on in there.)

Still, I love the challenge of facing off against Superheavies. Knights, Stompas and the like are so much fun to throw men at.

[Fueldrop]

Went toe to toe with a big chaos beastie today. 3++ rerolling failed, massive toughness, tons of wounds, gained extra wounds when it killed stuff.
Unsurprisingly, it was completely unbeatable without strength D, which I don't bring because I'm sporting.

It was definitely a change of pace as nothing I had could scratch it with any degree of reliability. Still, I only lost by a single victory point (15-16), so the game must have been fairly evenly matched. I'd get fed up with facing that thing regularly but for a one off it was fun.

[Chris*ta]

For me its about the narrative of the fight, the characters and the why. A Titan or Super Heavy (to a lesser extent) doesn't really feed that requirement for me

Hmm. Maybe it would help if people made their superheavies into characters more? Rather than just painting it up as a tank, only bigger. Having a characterful tank commander modelled, creating some of your own fluff, and so on ...

[jeffersonian000]

I have to disagree. 40k is a galaxy size battle field, with fighting occurring on scales from entire sectors down to personal combat. Just because you prefer fighting in a parking lot does not mean that the rest of us aren't fighting for the entire city block.

SJ

[Fueldrop]

There's also always the possibility that the super-heavy is being ambushed, or just happened to be passing through there when an attack began on an otherwise weak location. War is not predictable.

[40kGamer]

Superheavies are just so tiresome as killing them can easily become the focal point of the game. Since 7th came out I haven't played a single pick up or event game where there wasn't a Super heavy in the opposing army. It's to the point that I would recommend '40k' be retitled to 'Baby Apocalypse'.