You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?
Their weapons are strong for how much they cost. They're also slower and weaker than Titans, and will face much greater impediments from terrain - unless you're playing on Planet Bowlingball, you're going to have to be a very Clever Girl to go "Reaver hunting" with these guys, since a lot of the time the Reaver you're hunting will be able to get a solid couple of turns worth of fire into you before you're able to see it properly over/around 2-story buildings. Plus they still have, to a degree, the same flaw all Knights have, in that they drop dead if a Warlord decides to take a serious look at them, and further they won't do hugely well up-close with melee Knights, so fire your Knight screen right into them and they'll have to choose between defending themselves or continuing to attack your engines.
Look I get some people are disappointed that the game isn't exclusively Titans, and that Knights are more than a minor inconvenience that your favoured big stompy deathbots can just wade through, but the way it is is the way it is.
Will any of these cards and dice have limited availability?
I wants to get the Knights, command terminal cards and (probably) the dice right now but I'd prefer to wait a couple of months getting the rest of the cards.
Ionstorm rocket pod is not a rapid firing weapon nor does it fire out 6 shot while the model itself only have 5 ready warheads
The model has a missile pod with lots of smaller missiles, just use that.
That is also not a rapid firing weapon nor does fire 6 shot in any publication of 40k. If there are anything to compare it's (the helios defense missile) a stormspear rocket pod that was made to target flyer instead of ground target.
Even if that was true, rule writer should not be confused between the weapons, just like how the sculptor for the knight upgrade kit can't tell which one is a Stormspear rocket pod, and which is an Ionstorm missile pod.
crnaguja wrote: So, some genius thought that 16 potential hits with str 9 at 48" for 200 is a good idea? Warhound with twin megabolters is 200 points, and it spits 12 shots at range 20". Acastus seems to be quite a bit underpointed
Well, they are the same geniuses who thought various FW characters and heresy tanks / dreadnoughts (costing anywere between third to half less than comparable 40K units, on top of having way better stats) are ""balanced"". So yeah, sounds about right, if anything, it's pretty tame by their standards.
Now waiting for the arrival of 'm-my leviathansderedeos acastus spam list i-is p-perfectly fine and anyone who hates it is just e-elitist j-j-jerk!' brigade
Chopstick wrote: Except for the Gatling weapons, which is a mess.
To be fair here, 40K range and accuracy of titan gatlings is based on firing on human, at worst squad sized targets. Titan sized target would make accuracy issues much lesser problem.
Yodhrin wrote: You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?
You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?
Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...
Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.
Regardless of the overall price, the two weapon sets should not be the same price when one is outright better than the other.
At this time the only reason to take the magna-las build is because that’s what the kit comes with and you don’t want to convert or proxy. And that should never be the case.
To be fair here, 40K range and accuracy of titan gatlings is based on firing on human, at worst squad sized targets. Titan sized target would make accuracy issues much lesser problem.
By range the Avenger got 24", which convert to equivalent of artillery tier weaponry. Their "real" range is 12". Meanwhile higher tier Gatling weapon like the 10 barrel Castigator and Vulcan Bolter have LESS range than the avenger. The Castigator cannon also had incorrect range, they'r the same as the Avenger.
By attack the Avenger despite having only 6 barrels shoot more than 10 barrels Vulcan Mega Bolter, despite all publication of 40k say otherwise, It did have more shot than Castigator Bolt cannon in 7th edition (less in 8th), because the Castigator have twin linked instead.
By power all the gatling should be equally capable of piercing through void shield according to their 7th ed rule. But due to the different approach to void shield in AT, they had to be tone down, along with attack number to avoid stripping shield too fast.
Even if it was for balancing, keep the power level between the guns correctly, lower tier gun had weird superiority over higher tier gun make no sense. Maybe at 12" range, the correct S and a price jump they wouldn't be as "OP" as rule writer think they are.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: Incidentally, is there any reason to buy two rules-sets if the wife and I are both going to be playing? I imagine a 2nd set of dice and consoles isn't a bad idea, but getting stuck with the extra, pricey, hardcover kind of feels inefficient.
Basically just trying to figure out if it is better to buy that, or the individual weapon/console packs? I suppose I could just photocopy the one set and laminate them...?
FWIW, we started by buying terminal packs and weapon card packs individually. However, we eventually picked up two Rules Sets because each set is kinda designed on the assumption only one player is using it. (Same deal as the X-Wing starter set.)
You can get by just fine with only one set, but you'll have to share a few things, like the arc templates, the battlefield asset plastic models (so you can't both take the same asset), the strategem cards and so on. The strategems are especially annoying because they include mission objective cards for Matched Play. This means that if both sides choose the same mission, you can't both take the same mission card for handy reference--which is also awkward since you're meant to choose secretly. Fortunately the mission objectives are in the rulebook too, so one player can use the cards and the other can refer to the book... but it's a little inconvenient.
It's also handy to have two rulebooks so you can both look things up during a game. Or rather, get frustrated flicking back and forth because the rule isn't in the place you thought it would be.
I wouldn't worry about it yet until you're sure you like the game. The thing is, if you do like the game, you're eventually going to want more terminals and weapon cards anyway. At some point it will become cost-effective to get a second rules set and get all the extras in a bundle--while also solving all the minor niggling firstworldproblems of only having one set.
In your case, since you've bought two battlegroups, you'll definitely need two extra terminals for the Warhounds and some extra Warhound weapon cards. (The Rules Set only includes enough for a pair of 'hounds.) But you can just use the printable PDF versions of the terminals from the Warhammer Community site for now, and photocopy the weapon cards if you like.
Also, make sure you check out the FAQ/errata document. There are several important rules fixes in it, including victory points for mission objectives.
And don't underestimate the power of blu-tack for holding Titan armour plates and weapons on, so you can play games before you've finished painting everything.
Yodhrin wrote: You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?
You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?
Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...
Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.
Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.
All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.
Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.
Yodhrin wrote: You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?
You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?
Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...
Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.
Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.
All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.
Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.
They just seem like a too much firepower for to little points. I mean, their gun has twice the firepower of reaver volcano cannon. And larger blast? I mean sure ok (although I think magma and ironstrom might be better then conversion beamer and mortar). Only thing these knights are afraid of is belicosa. And even then it one-shots them only on 5+. Just like the titans can have cover and hide, so can knights. Except knights dont have movement restrictions. I might be wrong, but when I compare 2 of porphyrion to a warhound, I dont see why would I take warhound (I will still take warhound cause they are cool). I mean they also have 36" vulcan megabolter. So there is a real possibility they will strip warhounds void shield even before they fire with magma cannons. And I am afraid that warhound without shields will have a hard time surviving a barrage from magma cannons. If it survives it will be heavily damaged.
Yodhrin wrote: You guys who're panicking about these and dumping on the rules writers are conveniently forgetting the glass part of glass cannon, no?
You mean, like the Eldar in last 3 editions, where 'glass' part never comes into play before 'cannon' killed you first?
Terrain works both ways, and even if it didn't, acastus player can easily trade several knights for a titan and still come on top. Knight screen? Funny that, acastus list will have screen of their own, or so many acastii they can devote half of them to blowing up your screen while still retaining as much firepower as the opposing titans have to trade fire with them until pest control knights are free again...
Acastus might theoretically be 'delicate', but please, show me one GW system ever made where unit with long range devastating firepower wasn't king regardless of toughness in a game between two equal players. You'd need map tailored to be anti-knight everywhere specifically to change that.
Nah, just a table with the amount of terrain people should always be using. It's not the designers problem if they make a game based around a reasonable amount of varied terrain and then players chuck down a couple of icecream tubs and kick off.
All the doomsday scenarios I've seen around these guys require them to be on Orders and stationary, with unobstructed line of sight, and preferably firing on an unshielded engine. In other words, an ideal scenario that will arise rarely, because you want to be using an Acastus like a long-range Warlord but they're both substantially weaker and only about a third the height of a Warlord so won't be able to see most of the board to shoot at it.
Which is the answer to your question as well - this game. This game has units with long ranged devastating firepower and yet everything remains viable. A dedicated long-range Warlord in ideal circumstances can do a monstrous amount of damage, and yet nobody seems to be arguing that long-range Warlords are ruining the game or radically undercosted or designed by idiots.
They just seem like a too much firepower for to little points. I mean, their gun has twice the firepower of reaver volcano cannon. And larger blast? I mean sure ok (although I think magma and ironstrom might be better then conversion beamer and mortar). Only thing these knights are afraid of is belicosa. And even then it one-shots them only on 5+. Just like the titans can have cover and hide, so can knights. Except knights dont have movement restrictions. I might be wrong, but when I compare 2 of porphyrion to a warhound, I dont see why would I take warhound (I will still take warhound cause they are cool). I mean they also have 36" vulcan megabolter. So there is a real possibility they will strip warhounds void shield even before they fire with magma cannons. And I am afraid that warhound without shields will have a hard time surviving a barrage from magma cannons. If it survives it will be heavily damaged.
Again though - the 3 esses; size, speed, survivability. Acastus are slightly smaller than the Warhound and their paired guns require unobstructed LOS from both to fire without penalty. Acastus are slower than Warhounds, and to engage at appreciable distance or against enemies in partial cover they need to be stationary and on orders. They're hefty for Knights, but still not anything like a proper Engine.
A Warhound can dash from cover to cover without exposing itself and still do its job as a skirmish-harasser providing as I said the table is done properly. A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range. Plus, almost all the "worst case scenario" situations for the enemy of an Acastus also leaves the Acastus completely exposed to that enemy, so if you must confront them it's up to you to ensure you do it with an Engine that can handle their alpha and flatten them in return.
This is why I think their actual impact on the table is not going to be titans exploding willy nilly every turn, it's going to be area denial. They can put out a scary amount of fire in the right scenario, but you can avoid that scenario without too much trouble, the key is whether avoiding it will deny you a section of the board you wanted to exploit as part of your battle plan. And that sounds pretty spot-on to me in terms of a unit like this - they're as strong as they need to be to be a genuine threat, but that threat is avoidable with some thought. If they were any weaker they wouldn't be enough of a threat to be worth avoiding, and the Knight player would only have diminished their force by including them.
There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?
Count me in the 'concerned' camp. On paper (cardboard), the Acastus do look undercosted and overpowered to me. Keen to hear people's actual experiences with them.
Does anyone know if the Acastus were playtested during the original development of the AT rules (which had extensive testing by GW/FW standards), or if they've only been added on since Hewitt left?
Yodhrin wrote: ... A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range.
I'm having trouble picturing this scenario. If the Reaver or Warlord can see the Acastus, why can't the Acastus can see and shoot it right back?
OK, the Titan might be partly obscured by terrain--say a building that comes up to its waist, or a tall but skinny bit of terrain that leaves only the weapons exposed to aim at the Knight. That means the Acastus will suffer a to-hit modifier when it returns fire. But it can still have a crack at the enemy.
And both Titans and Acastus have barrage weapons to ignore LOS.
I concede that volcano cannons and apocalypse launchers have longer range than Acastus weapons, but Matched Play games are on 4'x4' tables, so it won't come up that often.
And if you're using the terrain-destroying rules, Acastus would be pretty good at clearing away inconvenient buildings...
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The main thing that worries me is that because Knights break many of the basic game rules, they're unaffected by some of the risk/reward mechanics and limitations built into the Titans. It's not just the 360 degree fire arcs.
For instance, Knights don't have plasma reactors. On the Titans, the draining and maximal fire traits offset the more powerful weapons. Warhounds with twin plasma blastguns can be devastating, but if you power up the shots you may overheat and blow up. Reavers and Warlords firing their volcano cannons need to choose their shots carefully and won't have as much reactor power for movement, boosting shields, etc. I have a Reaver with twin volcano cannons and he's a lot of fun, not to mention quite useful as a psychological terror weapon, but he needs very cautious play (and usually a power-generator battlefield asset nearby) to keep him from going nuclear.
Plus, with plasma blastguns and melta cannons, their limited range means there's always the risk that a missed shot will scatter back into your own models, causing hilarity for young and old. It's like snooker with miniature suns.
But a banner of Acastus can cheerfully blast away with conversion beamers all day long without breaking into a sweat. Say you have a single Acastus. That's four 5" blast markers anywhere on the enemy's half of a Matched Play table within LOS. No reactor draining risk of overheating or limitation on movement (apart from wanting to get the order bonus). And not much worrying about scatter danger at long range.
Titans also fire their weapons one at a time when they activate. This is true even of squadrons--you activate one model at a time, and fire one weapon at a time. Say a Warhound fires its twin blastguns. If you don't go for a targeted attack on a specific location (which would mean a severe to-hit modifier), you're unlikely to hit the same location with both weapons. And blast weapons can't do targeted attacks anyway. That's why volcano cannons, plasma blastguns, melta cannons and inferno guns are great for damaging a Titan's structure, but not much good for finishing it off. For that you need a 'rib-kicker' like a lasblaster or a sunfury, which can target a damaged location and zap it for the killing blow. (You can also use a high-dice, low-Strength weapon for this to offset the to-hit modifier, if the location is already severely damaged and you're in a side or rear arc.)
But... if you have a full banner of four Acastus, that means sixteen 5" blast markers. And any blast that centres the hole over the target scores two hits rather than one. That's potentially 32 hits from a Strength 9 weapon.
OK, sure, say half of them miss and don't clip the target (or other enemies) despite being a big blast. That's still about 16 hits. Our void shields won't last long against firepower of that magna-tude. ( )
And unlike a Titan or a squadron, the beamers all fire at the same time. You treat all the weapons of the same type in a banner as a single firing weapon and add up all the dice for a single roll. All those beamers count as the equivalent of a single Titan gun. So if the enemy has already lost its shields, you only roll once for the weapon location. Every single one of those Strength 9 blasts is going to hit the same location. All your opponent can do is pray you hit a weapon, disabling it but inflicting no further damage (although we can assume it's really, really disabled). Because if it hits the head, body or legs, that's a dead Titan.
Of course, you can't knock the shields down and destroy the Titan this way, because all the beamers fired at once. But hey, that's OK, we have secondary barrage weapons too! Fire those first to get rid of the shields.
Or, because the best kill is overkill, you could mix magna lascannon Acastus with conversion beamer Acastus into the same banner (assuming they're Household Support). Two different weapons--so you fire one after the other. That gets you three 'firing weapons' instead of two for shield/structure combo-ing. Use the rocket weapons first, then the lascannons, then the beamers. Oh, and you're on Split Fire orders? Don't mind if I do.
Somebody please find some holes in my argument, 'cos I don't like where this is going.
I mean, it struck me as odd that the Warlord Titan's sunfury plasma annihilator doesn't have a blast despite it being traditional for GW plasma weapons. But if it did have a blast it would probably be too powerful. Four shots = four blasts = eight potential hits per sunfury = a Warhound with twin blastguns strapped to your arm, except all the hits would strike the same spot, which is usually even better. (It would also mean no really good rib-kicker for a Warlord arm weapon, of course.)
Yet now we have these crazy Knights with their crazyguns for cheaps. I am uneasy and ambivalent.
That's not to say they're invincible. You could activate first (or with first fire) and wipe them off the board before they get a shot in. It might still work.
Actually, that’s a point; I understand the Warlord plasma gun doesn’t have the blast rule simply because it covered too much real estate in markers in testing; how’d these guys slip by? I just don’t have that many…
Eumerin wrote: There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?
We're happy to give it a shot.
I'll pit my mandatory Venator maniple(1 Reaver, 2 Warhounds) against 7 Acastus - using Questoris as substitutes. I shall play to win as the maniple(its my pride and joy) and my brother will do the same as the Acastus(he prefers the simplicity of Knights).
Eumerin wrote: There's been a lot of discussion about the new knight, and what sort of an effect it'll have on the table. We have the rules for it now. Has anyone taken the time to proxy it and fight a couple of battles with it to see how it handles in an actual game?
We're happy to give it a shot.
I'll pit my mandatory Venator maniple(1 Reaver, 2 Warhounds) against 7 Acastus - using Questoris as substitutes. I shall play to win as the maniple(its my pride and joy) and my brother will do the same as the Acastus(he prefers the simplicity of Knights).
To quote Capcom's 1943...May we fight bravely!
So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.
Yodhrin wrote: ... A Reaver can pick a piece of cover that allows it to see the Acastus without the Acastus being able to target it and blow them away. A Warlord can do that even more easily from a greater range.
I'm having trouble picturing this scenario. If the Reaver or Warlord can see the Acastus, why can't the Acastus can see and shoot it right back?
OK, the Titan might be partly obscured by terrain--say a building that comes up to its waist, or a tall but skinny bit of terrain that leaves only the weapons exposed to aim at the Knight. That means the Acastus will suffer a to-hit modifier when it returns fire. But it can still have a crack at the enemy.
And both Titans and Acastus have barrage weapons to ignore LOS.
I concede that volcano cannons and apocalypse launchers have longer range than Acastus weapons, but Matched Play games are on 4'x4' tables, so it won't come up that often.
And if you're using the terrain-destroying rules, Acastus would be pretty good at clearing away inconvenient buildings...
You measure LoSfrom the weapon in AT. Most people I've seen have tended to agree that the "elbow" is the best place to draw a line from, since that mostly ignores the weapon's posing and removes any nonsense about titans waving their guns above their head to get better LoS from the tip of the barrel.
Given that and the height difference between them, it's entirely possible to position a Reaver such that intervening terrain allows your guns to draw LoS to the Acastus, while their guns - their main arm guns at any rate - cannot draw LoS back. And, again, since the arm weapons are Paired the negative modifiers can stack up very quickly - firing half the dice at 6's to hit is quite a lot less scary.
Most of your objections, and this is a theme among people I've seen decrying the Acastus, seem to be less about the Acastus and more about the fact Knights exist at all as anything more than something Titans step on. Knights don't follow the rules in the same way as Titans, no. That's rather the point, they provide a different style of play, and demand a different kind of tactics. I wonder how all the people who lament Knights "breaking the game" by not acting in exactly the same manner as Imperial Titans are going to react when they eventually do add Xenos engines? Seriously, go play BFG against an Eldar fleet some time if you want a taste of what's to come, by the end you'll think playing against Knights is akin to a glass of lovely cold cider on a hot sunny day by comparison
Chopstick wrote: So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.
Its the Kobashi Maru, Chopstick! The challenge has been laid down and I shall take as much of the enemy with me!
Seriously, that is a good point. I've overlooked the Ferrox light maniple, which would allow for close-range attack bonuses. Titandeath features a third option - the "Janissary" maniple - with the same titans, but I don't own a copy of Titandeath for its specific rules. The Lupercal maniple would also be a good test - 3 titans vs 6 knights for a 660 point match. The rules for them were posted in news articles from January, and I do have a third "DIY" hound to use...
Chopstick wrote: So you're so confident that you'd win you used a maniple that'd have no use in that match.
Its the Kobashi Maru, Chopstick! The challenge has been laid down and I shall take as much of the enemy with me!
Seriously, that is a good point. I've overlooked the Ferrox light maniple, which would allow for close-range attack bonuses. Titandeath features a third option - the "Janissary" maniple - with the same titans, but I don't own a copy of Titandeath for its specific rules. The Lupercal maniple would also be a good test - 3 titans vs 6 knights for a 660 point match. The rules for them were posted in news articles from January, and I do have a third "DIY" hound to use...
Janissary allow you to choose a knight banner within 6" of a titan in movement phase, after that titan moved you can activate the banner.
With overcharged cannon and ferox light it's not hard to delete an acastus or two with the plasma gun. But if the battlefield is too big the hound might not be able to get within range
Janissary allow you to choose a knight banner within 6" of a titan in movement phase, after that titan moved you can activate the banner.
With overcharged cannon and ferox light it's not hard to delete an acastus or two with the plasma gun. But if the battlefield is too big the hound might not be able to get within range
I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.
I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower. An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.
It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.
Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.
Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.
This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.
Mandragola wrote: I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.
I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower.
Then what have we been doing for the last few pages? There's plenty of disagreement over that claim.
An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.
They have enough firepower to perform their role, which IMO is area denial and punishing Titans that just strut around believing Knights aren't worth their bother. Make them weaker and Titans will ignore them. Make them more expensive and you'd be better just going back to spamming regular Knights. Rather than comparing one weapon to another in isolation, try considering the unit as a whole and in its proper context.
It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.
In what universe is it bizarre to point out terrain as a factor - if your Acastus is hiding it almost certainly isn't shooting and, fun fact: tall things can see over obstructions small things can't, while still being hidden from the small thing by said obstruction. As for moving, if it's "kiting" then it's not on Orders and so *at best* will have a 50/50 chance of hitting, assuming its enemy is advancing directly towards it down a completely open corridor at optimal range. Which actually leads into...
Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.
Huh, it's almost as if the entire point of the unit is to give rise to situations where the Knight player has the opportunity to make the Titan player choose between sub-optimal courses of action, rather than just autopiloting through the game deleting banners. Target priority, in MY wargame?
Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.
This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.
Yup, only belicosas, nothing else. Well, except for "don't play on Planet Bowlingball". And "deploy your Engines so that the ones that can handle Acastus fire are the only practicable targets". And "use terrain to maneuver to minimise their opportunities to fire at you". And "use terrain to push in a couple of Warhounds in a pincer and maximal plasma them in the face". And running a screen of your own Knights with themal cannons and a meltanipple or two.
Mandragola wrote: I’m interested to see how the game goes. Plasma blastguns in squadrons are one of the very few guns that can threaten an Acastus knight, so that could conceivably work. I seriously doubt it though.
I don’t really think there’s any debate that Acastus knights have too much firepower.
Then what have we been doing for the last few pages? There's plenty of disagreement over that claim.
I’d characterise what we’ve been doing as arguing, not debating. The factual analysis is entirely one-way. There’s one group of players observing that up to 16 S9 hits a turn from a 100 point model looks excessive, with various comparisons, tests and modelling (not much of it on this forum, to be fair). Another group says everything will be fine and we shouldn’t worry.
I find this outlook extremely odd. I guess if GW/FW had a history of perfectly balanced rules then we could be asked to give them the benefit of the doubt. This obviously isn’t the case. It’s very easy to play the “grownup” by laughing at all the people who are worried about what looks like bad rules – but it doesn’t automatically make you right. There have been lots of occasions in the past when GW really have messed up rules, resulting in some models or factions dominating games. It’s obviously possible that they’d have done it again in this case.
Mandragola wrote: An Asterius hits as hard as four Mori Quake Cannons (albeit without the quake and concussive rules) and it can fire them all twice a turn – before you consider its mortar as well. They have radically greater firepower than warhounds and arguably more than reavers, despite costing a fraction of the price. Not even a warlord can chuck out 8 S9 large blasts a turn.
They have enough firepower to perform their role, which IMO is area denial and punishing Titans that just strut around believing Knights aren't worth their bother. Make them weaker and Titans will ignore them. Make them more expensive and you'd be better just going back to spamming regular Knights. Rather than comparing one weapon to another in isolation, try considering the unit as a whole and in its proper context.
Ok so your point isn’t that the Acastus has more firepower than titans that cost two or three times as much. You just think that’s ok. I disagree.
Mandragola wrote: It’s bizarre to suggest that terrain will benefit titans over knights. Fun fact: it’s easier to hide small things than big things. The knight has more range, meaning the titan is forced to advance towards it, but the knight can just waddle backwards 7” and kite the titan. And the knight has a 36” range vulcan mega bolter that doesn’t need LoS – which is nice. If the knight moves second it can try to get out of the titan’s fire arc, or too close for carapace weapons, but the titan doesn’t have those options.
In what universe is it bizarre to point out terrain as a factor - if your Acastus is hiding it almost certainly isn't shooting and, fun fact: tall things can see over obstructions small things can't, while still being hidden from the small thing by said obstruction. As for moving, if it's "kiting" then it's not on Orders and so *at best* will have a 50/50 chance of hitting, assuming its enemy is advancing directly towards it down a completely open corridor at optimal range. Which actually leads into...
Line of sight is two-way. If you can see me then I can almost always see you. The shape of the Acastus is such that it’s going to be extremely difficult to see it without its guns getting a line of sight on you back, as they are mounted pretty high up on it. If you can’t see its guns it’s going to be at least 50% obscured and you’ll be at -2 to hit. You might be able to see only one of its guns but that’s just as likely when firing back at the titan.
Meanwhile of course it’s entirely possible for the Acastus to get a building between itself and a titan, in such a way that the titan’s arms aren’t able to see it. An Acastus can weather things like apocalypse missiles very easily. Most of its guns fire blasts, so even some of the ones that scatter will hit.
If you’re moving around terrain it helps to be small, to have 360 degree line of sight and to have weapons that don’t need to see their targets. Terrain therefore helps the knights more than it helps the titans.
Then of course there’s the simple fact that there will be more knights than titans. If the knight player has any sense at all they’ll be spread out, with lines of fire covering lots of the board from different directions. So you might hide from some of them but hiding from them all will be challenging. If you do manage to get yourself behind some kind of redoubt then you’ll eventually have to get yourself out again too if you want to advance, which might not be easy.
The point on orders is flat wrong, obviously. The Acastus also gets BS 3+ on split fire orders. It can still move in any direction because it has no facings. It can still fire all its guns at one target if it wants, or maybe fire its arm guns at something without shields while stripping them from another titan with its missiles/mortar.
All of which is to say that yes, terrain makes a difference. It helps the knight more than it helps the titan.
Mandragola wrote: Oh and there’s another downside to advancing towards a knight army. The knights! So your warhounds and reavers are full-striding towards a midfield crowded with lancers and Questoris knights, all armed with nasty things to chop and poke at your knights with. Sounds sub-optimal to me.
Huh, it's almost as if the entire point of the unit is to give rise to situations where the Knight player has the opportunity to make the Titan player choose between sub-optimal courses of action, rather than just autopiloting through the game deleting banners. Target priority, in MY wargame?
It’s not really a question of target priority. You have to kill the melee knights first because they are in the way, and the Acastus aren’t in range anyway. But this means the Acastus get free shots at your titans. The titan player isn’t making choices about priority – they are taking the only option available.
But actually, why would you take melee titans now? What’s the point in paying 170 points for two lancers, who could potentially get 8 S8 hits if they manage a 12” charge, when you could have a Porphyron for 70 points less that can get 8 S8 hits every time it fires? Why bother running all that way just to do something you could achieve from your deployment zone?
You can field 18 Acastus knights at 1750 points. How would you beat that list, assuming a competent player was running it?
Mandragola wrote: Knights in general are pretty soft against some guns – those with very high strength and blasts - but they are actually very resilient to low-strength attacks. When you combine their ion shields and the fact that you never get bonuses to damage them for structural damage or attacking them in the side or rear, low-strength weapons do little or nothing to them. This means that in practice a titan army that’s been taken to deal with enemy titans will find that a lot of its weapons are kind of useless against knights.
This counts double for the Acastus with its better armour, seven structure points and better ion save. A vulcan mega bolter averages less than one damage per turn against it. This didn’t matter when the knights had to get across the board to attack the titans, running the gauntlet of melta cannons and plasma blastguns. But if knights can outshoot titans from far beyond most titans’ effective range, there’s a big problem. It leaves Bellicosas as the only real counter to them, and not a cost-effective one.
Yup, only belicosas, nothing else. Well, except for "don't play on Planet Bowlingball". And "deploy your Engines so that the ones that can handle Acastus fire are the only practicable targets". And "use terrain to maneuver to minimise their opportunities to fire at you". And "use terrain to push in a couple of Warhounds in a pincer and maximal plasma them in the face". And running a screen of your own Knights with themal cannons and a meltanipple or two.
Yes, only bellicosas. Nothing else can kill an Acastus outside of 24”, except very slowly with lasers (which can’t get better than a direct hit). To get closer than that you need to get past the other knights, which will be mean to you. You might get to them eventually with other engines but even then you’re realistically looking at plasma weapons and meltas to threaten them.
Plasma hounds can threaten Acastus knights, if they get close enough. Two double-plasma hounds cost about as much as five Acastus knights. To get their squadron bonus they have to both target the same one. That one knight is probably dead, but the other four (or like 3.8) are fine.
By the way, what do you imagine that those questoris knights are going to accomplish against Acastus knights?
Oh and what are these units that “can handle Acastus fire”, exactly? A warlord costs about as much as five of these things. It can’t just ignore through 30 S4 attacks and 20 S9 blasts (potentially up to 80 S9 hits if they first fire. 80!!). Oh but that's ok because somehow the 5" tall model with a 4" move that can do a single turn is going to outmanoeuvre 5 smaller, faster models that can move and fire in any direction. The warlord player can just use terrain. Easy peasy.
Whatever Mandragola, you're certain you're right, I'm certain you're picking and choosing unrealistic scenarios so your mathhammer will support the conclusion you've already drawn based on a sentiment that Knights shouldn't be able to threaten Titans as anything other than a Light Brigade bum-rush. Agree to disagree.
Yodhrin, Mathhammer has its limitations, but in this case it reveals that the Acastus weapons are *extremely* powerful for their points costs and chassis compared to what we've seen in the game to this point. There are certainly other factors and game contexts to consider, but I think my previous statement is pretty hard to contradict. So I don't think it's outrageous to say that an outlier like that is a little concerning for game balance at this time. Note that's a different thing than proclaiming that 'the game is broken now'.
Time will tell. If it turns out that they're genuinely abusable, then the worst abuses will take place within Knights armies, where they can be spammed. That seems somewhat limiting, and both gaming groups and events will be able to implement controls to rein them in. Of course, my hope is that they aren't abusable.
gorgon wrote: Well, if anyone was like me and didn't jump on the stratagem cards right away, they're now sold out.
This is not how you grow a game or support vets, Gee Dub.
Yes, the best way to grow a game is to... have less demand than supply
Ideally supply should equal demand. It's true there's no point having warehouses full of cards that can't be sold, but neither do you want disappointed would-be-customers all over the world who can't buy your products.
Demand is somewhat predictable. You could look at how many copies of other products you'd sold in the past to get an estimate of the player base.
The problem seems to be that the supply chain is very slow. Apparently we can't produce cardboard here in the UK - it has to be shipped from far away, very slowly and with very long lead-in times. I'm not convinced this needs to be the case.
And the packaging of stuff is weird. Why sell every terminal in packs of five, for example, when hardly anyone needs that many? The screamingly obvious solution is to put the terminals in the boxes with the models.
The upside with these stratagems is that you don't really need them. That's not the case for the knight ones, which have unique stratagems that aren't written down anywhere else. I still can't quite believe they didn't write the households' stratagems into the Molech book.
Anyway in the absence of all of that, if you want AT stuff you have to preorder it on day one, preferably in the morning. Shouldn't be that way, but it is. The same thing will definitely happen when the new carapace weapons finally land as well.
gorgon wrote: Yodhrin, Mathhammer has its limitations, but in this case it reveals that the Acastus weapons are *extremely* powerful for their points costs and chassis compared to what we've seen in the game to this point. There are certainly other factors and game contexts to consider, but I think my previous statement is pretty hard to contradict. So I don't think it's outrageous to say that an outlier like that is a little concerning for game balance at this time. Note that's a different thing than proclaiming that 'the game is broken now'.
Time will tell. If it turns out that they're genuinely abusable, then the worst abuses will take place within Knights armies, where they can be spammed. That seems somewhat limiting, and both gaming groups and events will be able to implement controls to rein them in. Of course, my hope is that they aren't abusable.
But my point is exactly that - there are other factors to consider, and just "math'ing" some arbitrary gun vs gun scenario in total isolation doesn't tell us anywhere near as much as some people have been insisting. It's like the folk who insist the Arioch claw is fine and great and doesn't even need the Megabolter that it should clearly have, because, hey, it's good in close combat, while completely ignoring how rare CC is for a Warlord and the opportunity cost of having one less Warlord-grade ranged weapon.
To illustrate what I mean, come at the issue from the other direction: your goal is to create a Knight that can threaten Titans at range sufficiently that a small number can act as a deterrent/board control and a large number(by the game's standards), played well, can make actual engine kills. It can't be as survivable as a Titan, but it has to be survivable enough that it doesn't drop dead if a Titan farts in its general direction. It has to have a point cost that makes it worthwhile to take compared to just spending the same amount of points on more zergrushing Quaestoris. How would that Knight differ from what we've got here in the Acastus?
If its ranged firepower is weaker, Titans can just ignore it and so it's not worth the cost even if it were discounted. If it were less resilient its opportunities to actually fire would drop to virtually zero. If it were more expensive you'd be better off just reverting to Bannerspam.
You could probably find another balance of the various elements such that the Acastus was a bit weaker, a bit cheaper, a bit this or that etc, but then people would just be complaining that 3 Acastus can do XYZ instead of 2 of them.
The core issue is that Acastus are designed to do one thing - threaten Titans at range - and a lot of people(not saying this is yourself, just a general observation about the "debate" so far here & elsewhere) don't think Knights should be allowed to do that thing at all. No version of the concept will be accepted, because they object to the concept itself, and the mathhammering is just a way to avoid acknowledging that.
Availability has become a game within a game. Although I don't field Warlords, I was keeping an eye on the quake cannon and gatling blaster for a friend. In the UK, you guys had periodic 'blips' of availability that usually ended almost immediately. In the US, we went for 6(? or 8?) weeks with zero available. Every day refreshing the page. This after our prices got jacked and we were told how we'd benefit from a US-based warehouse. That's also no way to operate, although I still cut them some slack since resin production is what it is.
Honestly, I'm not raging about any of this (although I may get more rage-y if I struggle to procure Ursus claws when they're released ). But for the items that come through GW, it's baffling to me why they don't have a better handle on demand one year later.
RazorEdge wrote: In wonder if we get the options on simplified Rules for Infantry and Vehicles instead of Epic.
That would be awesome, and fine by me. A rare case where drip-feeding rules lets one game be many different things for many different people! Maybe rock-papper-scissors it so that tiny Devastator Squads blow away Knights easily, but literally can't touch Titans, etc... Take that Poryphrion!
gorgon wrote: Yodhrin, Mathhammer has its limitations, but in this case it reveals that the Acastus weapons are *extremely* powerful for their points costs and chassis compared to what we've seen in the game to this point. There are certainly other factors and game contexts to consider, but I think my previous statement is pretty hard to contradict. So I don't think it's outrageous to say that an outlier like that is a little concerning for game balance at this time. Note that's a different thing than proclaiming that 'the game is broken now'.
Time will tell. If it turns out that they're genuinely abusable, then the worst abuses will take place within Knights armies, where they can be spammed. That seems somewhat limiting, and both gaming groups and events will be able to implement controls to rein them in. Of course, my hope is that they aren't abusable.
But my point is exactly that - there are other factors to consider, and just "math'ing" some arbitrary gun vs gun scenario in total isolation doesn't tell us anywhere near as much as some people have been insisting. It's like the folk who insist the Arioch claw is fine and great and doesn't even need the Megabolter that it should clearly have, because, hey, it's good in close combat, while completely ignoring how rare CC is for a Warlord and the opportunity cost of having one less Warlord-grade ranged weapon.
To illustrate what I mean, come at the issue from the other direction: your goal is to create a Knight that can threaten Titans at range sufficiently that a small number can act as a deterrent/board control and a large number(by the game's standards), played well, can make actual engine kills. It can't be as survivable as a Titan, but it has to be survivable enough that it doesn't drop dead if a Titan farts in its general direction. It has to have a point cost that makes it worthwhile to take compared to just spending the same amount of points on more zergrushing Quaestoris. How would that Knight differ from what we've got here in the Acastus?
If its ranged firepower is weaker, Titans can just ignore it and so it's not worth the cost even if it were discounted. If it were less resilient its opportunities to actually fire would drop to virtually zero. If it were more expensive you'd be better off just reverting to Bannerspam.
You could probably find another balance of the various elements such that the Acastus was a bit weaker, a bit cheaper, a bit this or that etc, but then people would just be complaining that 3 Acastus can do XYZ instead of 2 of them.
The core issue is that Acastus are designed to do one thing - threaten Titans at range - and a lot of people(not saying this is yourself, just a general observation about the "debate" so far here & elsewhere) don't think Knights should be allowed to do that thing at all. No version of the concept will be accepted, because they object to the concept itself, and the mathhammering is just a way to avoid acknowledging that.
I see what you’re saying but I’m not seeing what you’re seeing from my side of the “debate”.
I’ve got no problem at all with a knight that can shoot titans dead at range. Every model in the game should be capable of doing its job. An Acastus is nearly the size of a warhound and not as quick, so it would be reasonable for it to have roughly a warhound’s firepower. I don’t have any problem with it’s durability either - it’s meant to be chunky. I think it should probably have only about a 4-6” move and limited turns though - and definitely fire arcs - but that’s not how FW have decided to go with this.
But it shouldn’t have far more firepower than a warhound. It’s guns, which are smaller than turbo lasers, powered by a weaker reactor and weaker in every other format (30k, 40k and apocalypse) should not be much more powerful than a warhound’s. Its missile launcher, which is roughly equal to a whirlwind in 40k, should not be more powerful than a reaver’s apocalypse missile launcher in AT.
The result is a knight with firepower equivalent to a reaver Titan, if not better. And the platform it’s on really isn’t fragile enough to call it a glass cannon. A shot from a bellicosa has less than a 50% chance of killing one of these guys - worse than that if it’s in cover. They are extremely resilient against anything with less strength than that. Lacking any facings or damage bonuses for damage means they will tend to lose less structure points than a Titan would against anything that doesn’t kill them outright. I think their toughness against a typical all-rounder list is probably about equal to a warhound - though weaker against some guns and tougher against others. I guess you’d fire the volcano cannons at these things and the lighter guns at other stuff - though guns like Vulcan mega bolters aren’t very good against any knights.
And that might still be ok if their points cost reflected their power. It doesn’t, in my opinion. It seems to me that this unit is neither believable or balanced.
We had our game, and I loaded up with the best weapons available. Sorry to say but it was a straight up massacre.
That said, my opponent was very lucky in his rolls for initiative and location hits. On turn two all three knight banners lit up the Reaver like a christmas tree - all weapons knocked out and scored directly on the legs, leading to the worst possible outcome - catastrophic meltdown. Yet, two played at that game and my two hounds hammered the lead banner( three knights ) and destroyed one, and almost had a second. With the luck of the devil, he once again won the initiative on the third turn and I lost both of my hounds as a result.
This is certainly not the kind of game we'll be playing in future as I only have a single box of Acastus on order and will definitely leave it there. Our next game will have the following house-rule for points...
As a light-hearted idea for funsies on Acastus hunting, aka how to burn up real damn fast:
- take a custom Legio with Multiple Warhead Launchers (upgrades Apocs to fire thrice at much with Str 3)
- take a Warlord with double Sunfuries and Apocs (plasmas to make sure the next step works)
- use the Experimental Weapons stratagem to make those Apocs Maximal Fire
- optionally, also use the other stratagem to change that MF bonus to +4
- deploy over 30" away for that sweet 2+ hit chance
- let rip with 30 Str 5(7) missiles, cause 25 hits and get 5 heat from MF
- a singular Acastus actually has real bad saves, taking 17(21) hits in and suffering 6(14) points of damage out of the 7 required for a kill
- combine with a trait/stratagem from Defensor/Fureans, smash that First Fire / Emergency Repairs button and hope there is a plasma station nearby stopping you from blowing yourself up
- ???
- profit?
That Warhead thingy might also actually be a good place to try out the Warmaster's Beneficence for +1 Str on the first volley, not necessarily in this context but damn if those 25 hits aren't going to shred some Voids nicely if you want to go for a long range alpha strike with Volcanoes and such. Suck that, Fortis maniple
Automatically Appended Next Post: More musings on the Custom Legio rules and making melee great again.
So, the current plan for getting those Warlords into melee (next level tactical genius, yo) is:
- Splinter Legio (Astorum) to get extra speed, turn traitor.
- Motive Mastery to ensure most of your line, not just Seniores, will consistently push forwards and Charge everything.
- Warchest to buy Vulpa's +2 Str disruption fields.
- War Doctrine to maybe buy Mortis' March of the Dead for more speed or Fortidus' Red Skies for proper nuclear blasts when you die. Really this can be almost anything to finetune your list to suit the battle or fluff you like.
- As other stratagems, now that we are traitors War Lust and the Charge bonus ones are pretty nasty.
So even before we consider Maniple bonuses, our first turn movements can be easily over half the field. Say we deploy 6" from our table edge.
- Warlord moves 4" (MoD) + pushing for 6" (plus 2" from Astorum and another 2" from War Lust) + pushing Full Stride for another 10". This is a Warlord. It is now 30" from your table edge, very much ready to make 8" Charges next turn.
- Reaver takes the same thing with 6"+13"+13" and is now 10" from the ENEMY table edge.
- Warhound can burn itself for 8"+16"+16" and be 2" away from the ENEMY table edge. If the deployment allows 8", you can score Vital Cargo on your first turn.
This paintrain WILL crash against the opposition on turn 2 and some Charges will go off. Supplemented with some Cerastus to herd enemy fallbacks so you can still Charge or hit again in Combat phase there is some nice potential to bring RIP AND TEAR back to the fore. Also, as the obligatory anti-Acastus mention, we are now close enough they might scatter blasts on their own lines if they want to chuck those 20+ Blasts around. Profit!
SamusDrake wrote: We had our game, and I loaded up with the best weapons available. Sorry to say but it was a straight up massacre.
Thanks for doing the batrep, it’s useful to have some real-world experience to go on.
There are obviously a lot of ways the game could have gone differently. Still, to have killed all three titans by turn three, for the loss of only one knight, certainly adds to the case that the knights are seriously powerful things.
Thanks for doing the batrep, it’s useful to have some real-world experience to go on.
There are obviously a lot of ways the game could have gone differently. Still, to have killed all three titans by turn three, for the loss of only one knight, certainly adds to the case that the knights are seriously powerful things.
You're welcome!
It was a comical game and I think more dedicated players would have gone further, but I reckon there is going to be an errata very soon for slight tweaking in the points. For the time being, though, now is a great time to be a knight player!
Is there any possibility that this is simply a misprint? Or multiple misprints?
The fact that the guns are not only super-strong (on paper), but unfluffy (e.g. why do the lascannons have blasts? and why are they the same price as the obviously superior beamers?) makes me wonder if it's not a case of poor playtesting but rather a simple copy-paste mistake. We have the precedent of the incorrect fire arc on the Warlords' gatling carapace card.
The similarity of the magna lascannons and the conversion beamers looks suspiciously like something's been misprinted somewhere.
Of course it could be both.
Or maybe the image of the terminal on GW's site is incorrect / a beta pic, and we're all panicking over nothing, and the actual terminals have different stats and costs?
@Yodhrin: I too had high hopes for an artillery Knight that could lend support at long range, and was eagerly awaiting the Acastus release. I'm not sure why you think we naysayers have an ideological opposition to Knights being anything other than cannon fodder. An all-Knight force obviously needs to be able to duke it out with a Titan battlegroup for game balance purposes. The Acastus was presumably meant to fill that gap.
I just wasn't expecting... this. Although reports of overpowered, undercosted stuff in other Forgeworld rulesets did make me a little wary. As did the news that the rules team for AT now is not the rules team who did the core game.
As well as worries about power and points cost, I'm also concerned that it may well make the enjoyable AT core gameplay, which is BFG-like in its strategy and tactics, largely irrelevant and thus not much fun. You can just sit back and blaze away. Job done. It reminds me a little of the turret problem in FFG's X-Wing (speaking from hearsay here). A game designed around movement and planning ahead, due to limited fire arcs, suddenly had the fun sucked out of it when you put 360 degree shootiness like the Millennium Falcon on the board.
Still keen to hear more actual experiences.
Fortunately, the mirrored factions of AT mean it's in every player's interest to agree on house rules that provide balance. Otherwise the other guy will just show up with the same trick next time and turn the tables to prove the point. If the Acastus prove to be as game-breaking as some of us think, we should be able to limit their abuse.
Zenithfleet wrote: Or maybe the image of the terminal on GW's site is incorrect / a beta pic, and we're all panicking over nothing, and the actual terminals have different stats and costs?
This is a possibility. Have a look at the Traitor Titans of Legend cards - the group shot has them all saying "Left Arm" whereas the closeup of Hammer of Tyrants has "Belicosa Volcano Cannon", not "Left Arm".
So as a brand, brand new player... i'm super confused by some of the releases for this game, and with everything seemingly so prone to selling out I keep having this FOMO sense that I need to just blind buy stuff?
Am I correct that these new Titans of Legend are completely new content that didn't appear in any book? Essentially just a way to get some "new" units into the game that don't require models? That sounds like a good value-added item if it lets you use your existing models in totally new ways. Am I understanding that correctly?
How about the strategem and resource cards? Were those in any of the books released to date, and now are just getting handy printed cards, or is this likewise all new content?
Finally is there a resource that at least lists ALL strategems, and where they appear? I've heard that the strategems are spread all over the place, but from batreps it seems like those and battlefield resources/assets add so much to the games longevity.
By the end of the week i'll have two Axiom Maniple bundles for the wife and I, one rules-set, and the two expansion books, but I feel like there's still so much I should get to see the full picture of the game, and bunches keep selling out if I don't over-spend right now.
There’s very little content outside of the core and expansion books. So far as I know, these two stratagem card packs don’t include any strats that aren’t already in the books. The knight stratagem cards do include some house-specific stratagems that aren’t anywhere else.
These special titans don’t appear anywhere else, so they are new content that only appears on cards.
Ultimately all the rules you need are in the three books, the rule set (with its weapon cards and terminals) and the online terminals you can download (for the Cerastus knight and hopefully the Acastus). These special terminals are decidedly optional.
FWIW I’ve got everything, but that’s due to an unhealthy need for completeness.
Mandragola wrote: There’s very little content outside of the core and expansion books. So far as I know, these two stratagem card packs don’t include any strats that aren’t already in the books. The knight stratagem cards do include some house-specific stratagems that aren’t anywhere else.
These special titans don’t appear anywhere else, so they are new content that only appears on cards.
Ultimately all the rules you need are in the three books, the rule set (with its weapon cards and terminals) and the online terminals you can download (for the Cerastus knight and hopefully the Acastus). These special terminals are decidedly optional.
FWIW I’ve got everything, but that’s due to an unhealthy need for completeness.
I very much share that need. In particular, I find the greatest satisfaction in tabletop games when I have just loads of options and get to try things from a massive pool.
I was initially hesitant with AT at launch because it was one faction, and at the time only a couple models. What finally got me interested was them hitting a critical mass of decisions/choices. Maniples, Legions, Households, Weapons.... I mean its still a game with essentially six model kits in total, but all those options make it replayable. But its that same reason that makes me also feel that much more compelled to get anything that offers a significant choice.
Probably within the year, the wife and I will have a cross section of all the models in some numbers, and its just not a game where you're really expected to buy models indefinitely... But that makes small-print run rules that much more alluring.
So, anyway, the new custom Legio rules.
Looks good; choose four traits from across four categories, no more than two in one category is a good mix and the traits themselves are all things you’d want to do or have with no outstanding auto-takes or “why would you even”’s.
Honestly though, the best part are the options to *ahem* borrow traits from existing ‘canon’ legios which means first that the system can’t be outpaced easily by the published ones and second that the published legios will need to stay in line lest someone discover a broken combo.
A++, more like this, please.
Mr_Rose wrote: So, anyway, the new custom Legio rules.
Looks good; choose four traits from across four categories, no more than two in one category is a good mix and the traits themselves are all things you’d want to do or have with no outstanding auto-takes or “why would you even”’s.
Honestly though, the best part are the options to *ahem* borrow traits from existing ‘canon’ legios which means first that the system can’t be outpaced easily by the published ones and second that the published legios will need to stay in line lest someone discover a broken combo.
A++, more like this, please.
Mr_Rose wrote: So, anyway, the new custom Legio rules.
Looks good; choose four traits from across four categories, no more than two in one category is a good mix and the traits themselves are all things you’d want to do or have with no outstanding auto-takes or “why would you even”’s.
Honestly though, the best part are the options to *ahem* borrow traits from existing ‘canon’ legios which means first that the system can’t be outpaced easily by the published ones and second that the published legios will need to stay in line lest someone discover a broken combo.
A++, more like this, please.
Some stuff jumped out at me (keep in mind I play all Warhounds). Elite Magos is a 50% boost in repair dice for Warhounds, plus the boost to ER command checks. That seems really nice. Macro Magazines makes double Vulcan WHs even more fun for shield-stripping. War Doctrine has a lot of potential usages. And Survivors is interesting and something I'll probably experiment with.
Fury of the Fallen jumped out for me in a bad way. It seems unbelievably situational.
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
Well, providing support for the games we own is what White Dwarf is for, and has been for the last 30-40 years. How to paint models, new missions, stories, rules for new characters and even small games, are what it provides.
Quite frankly, WD hasn't covered AT since February and I'd say its high time they did something for it.
I suggest getting the epub version. I've got paper versions of WDs I need for rules and they don't last well - plus it's another book to carry. A copy on your phone is way more convenient.
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
No, you need three pages of a white dwarf for optional custom Legio rules, if you want to use them.
But yeah, how dare they put supplementary game rules in their monthly gaming supplement.
I'm glad they're putting stuff in WD, but since these days the one Specialist Games-related rules article is probably the only thing in the whole issue I actually care to read, I won't buy them blind. I'll hold off until I can read them thoroughly and decide if it's worth the six quid, given there's every chance these are a pseudo-beta like the initial GSC, Venators, and Chaos gangs for Necromunda were.
Certainly look like a min/max-er dream. You can pick a trait/stratagem/wargear from other legios, youn turn generic stratagem into your legio stratagem at -1 cost.
The tradeoff is that they don't have their own Princep Seniores personal trait and had to use the 6 generic one from the rulebook.
Sherrypie wrote: I put some thoughts above about a highly mobile melee Legio with custom rules, any toughts?
Astorum's trait + Gryphonicus's Motive Sub Reactor.
For those on the fence on purchasing this month's WD, Ingrid from Bitzbox has a butchers...
...just skip to 8:00 for the AT article. I'm personally totally revved-up for this one( first issue since Christmas ) as it comes with other awesome stuff such as Chaos Demons for Kill Team. Been looking for enough excuses to purchase a full set of minis for Duels of the Crystal Labyrinth and a Thousand Sons/Tzeentch themed kill team! Oh, a bit on Deathworld Jungles - might be useful in Lost Patrol projects...
gorgon wrote: Yeah, we're gonna see some *interesting stuff* coming from War Doctrine.
It seems like they made an attempt to add some anti-Knight options (Dark Reputation, Multiple Warhead Launchers, etc.).
Multiple Warhead Launcher is worthless against knights. at S3 you deal 1 structure damage on an armour roll of 6 to a Questoris/Cerastus and is completely useless against Acastus. Assuming their Ion Shield somehow fail to deflect the puny S3 hit.
They can't even drop shiled.
The only thing they would be useful for is to kill tiny marines, if tiny marines ever show up.
Edit: I still find Fury of the Fallen baffling. Maybe I'm missing something? It seems like the idea is that if the Titan is sure to die, you move close, push up your reactor level however you can, trigger it, and let loose twice with whatever functioning weapons you have before hopefully getting a magazine detonation or meltdown. Without activations throwing any of this plan off. Cinematic, but it sure seems like a lot has to go right there for that to work.
Or for the same slot, you can get an extra repair dice for all Titans all game long plus the command check boost for ER. I know which one I'd pick. Shoot, with Splinter Legio, you can take the Astorum trait too and start getting rerolls. Warlords with 5 repair dice plus 2 rerolls seem awfully solid.
All the fun is on the traitor side, joyless loyalist.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dual Vulcan Warhounds with Macro Magazines and Interfector Static Rounds (through Warchest): for when you absolutely, positively have to get those shields down.
Sherrypie wrote: I put some thoughts above about a highly mobile melee Legio with custom rules, any toughts?
Astorum's trait + Gryphonicus's Motive Sub Reactor.
But too bad you're now a filthy traitor
That's entirely worthless, though, as the sub reactor can only be purchased on a Reaver that was swapped in place of a Warhound, whereas the Splinter(Astorum) + Motive Mastery + War Lust does wonders against any lineup if they don't play Vox Blackout.
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
Well, providing support for the games we own is what White Dwarf is for, and has been for the last 30-40 years. How to paint models, new missions, stories, rules for new characters and even small games, are what it provides.
Quite frankly, WD hasn't covered AT since February and I'd say its high time they did something for it.
Is it support for the game or another way they make us spend more money on things they should have put in a rulebook to begin with? I want my rules for this game to not take the 40K route and have them in rulebooks & on cards only. This is starting to become a big mess already,
So GW can take a hike with their WD. I am not using any rules published in there and probably won't play against any such rules.
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
Well, providing support for the games we own is what White Dwarf is for, and has been for the last 30-40 years. How to paint models, new missions, stories, rules for new characters and even small games, are what it provides.
Quite frankly, WD hasn't covered AT since February and I'd say its high time they did something for it.
Is it support for the game or another way they make us spend more money on things they should have put in a rulebook to begin with? I want my rules for this game to not take the 40K route and have them in rulebooks & on cards only. This is starting to become a big mess already,
So GW can take a hike with their WD. I am not using any rules published in there and probably won't play against any such rules.
Well, that's a bit harsh. And, I think, a minority viewpoint. The return of White Dwarf to the format of 'Rules Supplement' is what people have been crying out for. As a retailer, sales of the magazine have increased due to this return to the good old days.
So you think they shouldn't do rules content in their magazine, which has done that for decades as its best content, nor count that as support for the game? Riiiight. The horror, the company producing a game is supporting the game! Gah!
Scans of those relevant pages are online already if your problem is with paying for them, or is this an ideological problem that there shouldn't be any cool content outside clearly defined expansion books?
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
Well, providing support for the games we own is what White Dwarf is for, and has been for the last 30-40 years. How to paint models, new missions, stories, rules for new characters and even small games, are what it provides.
Quite frankly, WD hasn't covered AT since February and I'd say its high time they did something for it.
Is it support for the game or another way they make us spend more money on things they should have put in a rulebook to begin with? I want my rules for this game to not take the 40K route and have them in rulebooks & on cards only. This is starting to become a big mess already,
So GW can take a hike with their WD. I am not using any rules published in there and probably won't play against any such rules.
Well, you're maybe in luck because they used to publish compendiums for the rules that were found in WD, so if you don't want to buy WD, once every year or two you could buy a little book with all the extra stuff consolidated in one place.
TBD wrote: Wtf, I need a White Dwarf now for special AT rules?
Well, providing support for the games we own is what White Dwarf is for, and has been for the last 30-40 years. How to paint models, new missions, stories, rules for new characters and even small games, are what it provides.
Quite frankly, WD hasn't covered AT since February and I'd say its high time they did something for it.
Is it support for the game or another way they make us spend more money on things they should have put in a rulebook to begin with? I want my rules for this game to not take the 40K route and have them in rulebooks & on cards only. This is starting to become a big mess already,
So GW can take a hike with their WD. I am not using any rules published in there and probably won't play against any such rules.
Well, that's a bit harsh. And, I think, a minority viewpoint. The return of White Dwarf to the format of 'Rules Supplement' is what people have been crying out for. As a retailer, sales of the magazine have increased due to this return to the good old days.
But we're drifting off topic....
I know I'm glad that WD has returned to having actual game content in it - its the only reason I subscribed again!
I'm especially grateful when it has stuff for the 'smaller' games in it, like AT and KT...
The WD rules are surprisingly flexible and was able to match up ones for my battlegroup quickly. Feel like its complete now!
Its a shame AT doesn't see much love in WD, because I'd like to see more Titan-Knight maniples or just anything AT-related. But, so far I'm very pleased with the new crusade rules.
Chopstick wrote: I'm waiting for cerastus upgrade, (hopefully soon)
Questoris upgrade sprue is more of a decorations for a knight banner than something that is actually useful for them. (and their army)
Goodness me, I am with you on the cerastus upgrades!
Thinking about it, all they had to do was a single sprue containing some rocket pods and meltas for the Qs and the weapons for the Cs, and I think we would have been happy. Yet, as the Qs have a separate sprue, I'm wondering if the sprue for the Cs will have not just the weapons but also new carapaces with variant shoulder pads?
Chopstick wrote: I'm waiting for cerastus upgrade, (hopefully soon)
Questoris upgrade sprue is more of a decorations for a knight banner than something that is actually useful for them. (and their army)
Goodness me, I am with you on the cerastus upgrades!
Thinking about it, all they had to do was a single sprue containing some rocket pods and meltas for the Qs and the weapons for the Cs, and I think we would have been happy. Yet, as the Qs have a separate sprue, I'm wondering if the sprue for the Cs will have not just the weapons but also new carapaces with variant shoulder pads?
I'm still hoping for the demand to be high enough to justify a third weapon sprue for the warlord, and maybe a mini sprue with the extra reaver carapace weapons.
That'll be interesting. Hopefully they'll have seen the difficulty of keeping the resin gatling and quake cannons in stock, and switch to plastic. It might increase the lead-in time though.
Mandragola wrote: That'll be interesting. Hopefully they'll have seen the difficulty of keeping the resin gatling and quake cannons in stock, and switch to plastic. It might increase the lead-in time though.
They would still probably show up sooner than the resin ones on the us site
Not sure if it has been posted here yet or not but there is a kickstarter for Titanicus-scale terrain in its final couple of weeks. Some very nice looking hard plastic kits and great value STL sets if you have a 3D printer as well.
On a somewhat related question, was it ever confirmed that the Aeronautica Imperialis reboot would be in a similar scale to Titanicus? It would be nice if my current terrain worked for a couple of different games after all!
On a somewhat related question, was it ever confirmed that the Aeronautica Imperialis reboot would be in a similar scale to Titanicus? It would be nice if my current terrain worked for a couple of different games after all!
The question is is there any reason not to make them at the same scale? When they made AT they clearly leave room for future expansion like tiny infantry and stuff.
Commander Cain wrote: On a somewhat related question, was it ever confirmed that the Aeronautica Imperialis reboot would be in a similar scale to Titanicus? It would be nice if my current terrain worked for a couple of different games after all!
No, there has thus far been no official word on this.
Though it would certainly make sense, when has that ever been a deciding factor...
Commander Cain wrote: Not sure if it has been posted here yet or not but there is a kickstarter for Titanicus-scale terrain in its final couple of weeks. Some very nice looking hard plastic kits and great value STL sets if you have a 3D printer as well.
On a somewhat related question, was it ever confirmed that the Aeronautica Imperialis reboot would be in a similar scale to Titanicus? It would be nice if my current terrain worked for a couple of different games after all!
More musings on the Custom Legio rules and making melee great again.
So, the current plan for getting those Warlords into melee (next level tactical genius, yo) is:
- Splinter Legio (Astorum) to get extra speed, turn traitor.
- Motive Mastery to ensure most of your line, not just Seniores, will consistently push forwards and Charge everything.
- Warchest to buy Vulpa's +2 Str disruption fields.
- War Doctrine to maybe buy Mortis' March of the Dead for more speed or Fortidus' Red Skies for proper nuclear blasts when you die. Really this can be almost anything to finetune your list to suit the battle or fluff you like.
- As other stratagems, now that we are traitors War Lust and the Charge bonus ones are pretty nasty.
So even before we consider Maniple bonuses, our first turn movements can be easily over half the field. Say we deploy 6" from our table edge.
- Warlord moves 4" (MoD) + pushing for 6" (plus 2" from Astorum and another 2" from War Lust) + pushing Full Stride for another 10". This is a Warlord. It is now 30" from your table edge, very much ready to make 8" Charges next turn.
- Reaver takes the same thing with 6"+13"+13" and is now 10" from the ENEMY table edge.
- Warhound can burn itself for 8"+16"+16" and be 2" away from the ENEMY table edge. If the deployment allows 8", you can score Vital Cargo on your first turn.
This paintrain WILL crash against the opposition on turn 2 and some Charges will go off. Supplemented with some Cerastus to herd enemy fallbacks so you can still Charge or hit again in Combat phase there is some nice potential to bring RIP AND TEAR back to the fore. Also, as the obligatory anti-Acastus mention, we are now close enough they might scatter blasts on their own lines if they want to chuck those 20+ Blasts around. Profit!
Vox Blackout says 0 charges on the turn you want to, and no emergency repairs for the extra heat you might have built up.
xttz wrote: Has there been any official word (maybe on FB) regarding when the Acastus terminal will be included in the free downloads?
If and only if the physical terminals sell out quickly enough that GW judge waiting for a second print run would take long enough to be detrimental to model sales, probably.
Well, we had relative radio silence on AT for a long old time.
First showed up at a Warhammerfest (I want to say 2016, may have been 2015). I know this, because I was there. And I broke the news on BoLS, who promptly did a 'get in here now' drivel post, and credited my pics and report to A.N.Other. Why yes, I do bear a grudge!
Then? Pretty much nowt. We knew it was coming, but we didn't start to see models until relatively close to release.
More musings on the Custom Legio rules and making melee great again.
So, the current plan for getting those Warlords into melee (next level tactical genius, yo) is:
- Splinter Legio (Astorum) to get extra speed, turn traitor.
- Motive Mastery to ensure most of your line, not just Seniores, will consistently push forwards and Charge everything.
- Warchest to buy Vulpa's +2 Str disruption fields.
- War Doctrine to maybe buy Mortis' March of the Dead for more speed or Fortidus' Red Skies for proper nuclear blasts when you die. Really this can be almost anything to finetune your list to suit the battle or fluff you like.
- As other stratagems, now that we are traitors War Lust and the Charge bonus ones are pretty nasty.
So even before we consider Maniple bonuses, our first turn movements can be easily over half the field. Say we deploy 6" from our table edge.
- Warlord moves 4" (MoD) + pushing for 6" (plus 2" from Astorum and another 2" from War Lust) + pushing Full Stride for another 10". This is a Warlord. It is now 30" from your table edge, very much ready to make 8" Charges next turn.
- Reaver takes the same thing with 6"+13"+13" and is now 10" from the ENEMY table edge.
- Warhound can burn itself for 8"+16"+16" and be 2" away from the ENEMY table edge. If the deployment allows 8", you can score Vital Cargo on your first turn.
This paintrain WILL crash against the opposition on turn 2 and some Charges will go off. Supplemented with some Cerastus to herd enemy fallbacks so you can still Charge or hit again in Combat phase there is some nice potential to bring RIP AND TEAR back to the fore. Also, as the obligatory anti-Acastus mention, we are now close enough they might scatter blasts on their own lines if they want to chuck those 20+ Blasts around. Profit!
Vox Blackout says 0 charges on the turn you want to, and no emergency repairs for the extra heat you might have built up.
Yup, Vox Blackout is a nasty speedbump for full-on melee lists, but even without Charges you might still be able to pull off some regular attacks as you are deep in their lines already. It's also not going to be a regular thing that folks always take, just like Sabotage isn't always there despite some claiming so.
Extra heat isn't a problem as such, Reavers and Warlords can handle three pips without a sweat and the Astorum run considers Machine-Spirit Awakens to be worse than two heat so chances for four heat aren't that high. This style of Legio is also pretty obviously okay with suicide runs, so racking up some heat in preparation for turn 2/3 core meltdown to take 'em with you can be viewed as a desirable thing from time to time. Who needs shields anyway, when you're in their grill ;P
More musings on the Custom Legio rules and making melee great again.
So, the current plan for getting those Warlords into melee (next level tactical genius, yo) is:
- Splinter Legio (Astorum) to get extra speed, turn traitor.
- Motive Mastery to ensure most of your line, not just Seniores, will consistently push forwards and Charge everything.
- Warchest to buy Vulpa's +2 Str disruption fields.
- War Doctrine to maybe buy Mortis' March of the Dead for more speed or Fortidus' Red Skies for proper nuclear blasts when you die. Really this can be almost anything to finetune your list to suit the battle or fluff you like.
- As other stratagems, now that we are traitors War Lust and the Charge bonus ones are pretty nasty.
So even before we consider Maniple bonuses, our first turn movements can be easily over half the field. Say we deploy 6" from our table edge.
- Warlord moves 4" (MoD) + pushing for 6" (plus 2" from Astorum and another 2" from War Lust) + pushing Full Stride for another 10". This is a Warlord. It is now 30" from your table edge, very much ready to make 8" Charges next turn.
- Reaver takes the same thing with 6"+13"+13" and is now 10" from the ENEMY table edge.
- Warhound can burn itself for 8"+16"+16" and be 2" away from the ENEMY table edge. If the deployment allows 8", you can score Vital Cargo on your first turn.
This paintrain WILL crash against the opposition on turn 2 and some Charges will go off. Supplemented with some Cerastus to herd enemy fallbacks so you can still Charge or hit again in Combat phase there is some nice potential to bring RIP AND TEAR back to the fore. Also, as the obligatory anti-Acastus mention, we are now close enough they might scatter blasts on their own lines if they want to chuck those 20+ Blasts around. Profit!
Vox Blackout says 0 charges on the turn you want to, and no emergency repairs for the extra heat you might have built up.
Yup, Vox Blackout is a nasty speedbump for full-on melee lists, but even without Charges you might still be able to pull off some regular attacks as you are deep in their lines already. It's also not going to be a regular thing that folks always take, just like Sabotage isn't always there despite some claiming so.
Extra heat isn't a problem as such, Reavers and Warlords can handle three pips without a sweat and the Astorum run considers Machine-Spirit Awakens to be worse than two heat so chances for four heat aren't that high. This style of Legio is also pretty obviously okay with suicide runs, so racking up some heat in preparation for turn 2/3 core meltdown to take 'em with you can be viewed as a desirable thing from time to time. Who needs shields anyway, when you're in their grill ;P
Heh, I will personally never build a list without Vox Blackout with the current state of the game, but some might, I guess. The heat won't come only from pushing for movement, but also any Voids to Full in turn one. You'd also need to weather a full turn of firing with no worry of having to manage heat for defense from the opponent, again without any possibility of Emergency Repairs on turn 2. If he manages to eliminate an activation or two of yours, it could very well mean no melee range attacks at all on turn two and another full round of firing from the opponent.
I personally think Molech was a heavy nerf to melee builds, simply because it added VB.
Listened to the AT Twitch feed today, and though there was no news concerning future product (excepting that they might expand the "Create Your Own Legio" rules in White Dwarf this month), it was an interesting look into Legio creation.
From colors to background to Traits, Wargear, etc.
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
They were mentioned at some point, but if memory serves its just a possibility at the moment. For the time being I'd say a new Titan is next on the release schedule....
Those Armigers are awesome to behold. Could probably do them as a pack of six, three helverins and three warglaives, and would bulk out a Household force nicely.
Personally, I'd love some just to use as P2 mechs in Horizon Wars.
Nurglitch wrote: Those seem a bit big, but where did you get them?
Printed them off myself . Perspective is a bit wonky there so they look a bit bigger (and actually, the size of the 28mm ones surprised me, they are much bigger than I first thought):
Size wise, I went from images, as I have no 28 knights of any size:
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
They were mentioned at some point, but if memory serves its just a possibility at the moment. For the time being I'd say a new Titan is next on the release schedule....
I hope a titan is up next. This is, after all, supposed to be a game about Titans. And with the recent releases, one could be forgiven for thinking that the focus was on knights...
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
They were mentioned at some point, but if memory serves its just a possibility at the moment. For the time being I'd say a new Titan is next on the release schedule....
I hope a titan is up next. This is, after all, supposed to be a game about Titans. And with the recent releases, one could be forgiven for thinking that the focus was on knights...
To be fair, all the Knights have had so far is an under supported expansion and a late Knight addition. The Dominus maniple was disappointing and DOM was released with GW expecting players to build a household from only two Knight types, with no upgrade options nor a discounted box set. And now we have a Knight with a severe points inbalance. In all honesty, its been a bit of a balls-up on the Knight front
Also, the titans were not forgotten - they recieved new maniples and legios in DOM and they did release the Warlord resin weapons at the time when DOM needed a Knight release. Oh, and they have just released the character-titan terminals as well...which makes me wonder if the next expansion will focus on character building.
Still, looking ahead we do have the Reaver carapace weapons to look forward to, and they have said that they have "inbetween" titans in the works - one of which has been named as the "Rapier".
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
Probably eventually, but not now, right now it's only FW knight. So you're looking at Cerastus, Mechanicum Questoris, Atropos, Knight Asterius. And then we'll see Dominus and Armiger. Giving that it's 3-4 months for each release. Knights and the like are important part in AT release, as they're small kit, took less time to produce, so they're used as filler content in AT while the team busy making Titan kits.
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
Probably eventually, but not now, right now it's only FW knight. So you're looking at Cerastus, Mechanicum Questoris, Atropos, Knight Asterius. And then we'll see Dominus and Armiger. Giving that it's 3-4 months for each release. Knights and the like are important part in AT release, as they're small kit, took less time to produce, so they're used as filler content in AT while the team busy making Titan kits.
Wait, according to who?
That's pretty awesome if true, but I thought someone asked about FW Knights at the last panel and got the answer "They'll be released eventually but we don't know when and haven't even decided if they'll be resin or plastic yet."
Also, now that the Moirax is revealed/released there is a potential Mecanicum Armiger option for AT as well.
Nurglitch wrote: Speaking of, are they going to have Armigers in AT?
Probably eventually, but not now, right now it's only FW knight. So you're looking at Cerastus, Mechanicum Questoris, Atropos, Knight Asterius. And then we'll see Dominus and Armiger. Giving that it's 3-4 months for each release. Knights and the like are important part in AT release, as they're small kit, took less time to produce, so they're used as filler content in AT while the team busy making Titan kits.
Wait, according to who?
That's pretty awesome if true, but I thought someone asked about FW Knights at the last panel and got the answer "They'll be released eventually but we don't know when and haven't even decided if they'll be resin or plastic yet."
Also, now that the Moirax is revealed/released there is a potential Mecanicum Armiger option for AT as well.
From people who claimed to interview the team, Cerastus (acheron, castigator) already done, in plastic. Mechanicum questoris is WiP, no words about the other, but my speculation is FW team will do FW knight before GW knights. I'd love to be proven wrong as Dominus and Armiger are my favorite.
One interesting snippet from one of the designer interviews was that part of the plastic/resin decision was what expected production would do to FW's capacity.
AT releases have thus far been popular enough to both warrant the mould cost and the disruption of FW's production capacity.
My opinion only - but I suspect new Titan classes have been delayed by the choice to go plastic instead of having FW spin the resin.
schoon wrote: One interesting snippet from one of the designer interviews was that part of the plastic/resin decision was what expected production would do to FW's capacity.
AT releases have thus far been popular enough to both warrant the mould cost and the disruption of FW's production capacity.
My opinion only - but I suspect new Titan classes have been delayed by the choice to go plastic instead of having FW spin the resin.
You're not wrong. Due to the long development time required for plastic products, any such release we've seen so far would have been underway before GW knew how well AT would sell on release at the end of last summer. They may have been able to tweak the production numbers slightly, but the decision on how many molds would be milled would have been made prior to last August. That's likely why we haven't seen any major plastic releases beyond Knights and a terrain sprue - they were waiting to see how popular AT would be before committing to any major tooling on the level of the original Warlord / Reaver.
The fact that late last year they hired someone specifically to work on resin upgrades implies that they saw enough demand for Chris Drew to keep working full time on more complex kits. The soonest we could expect to see these would be from towards the end of this year.
In the designer interviews of a year ago, they seemed intent on releasing some new Titan classes, yet those have been conspicuously absent from the expansions thus far.
One possible reason for the delay would be the work up of the models in plastic as opposed to resin.
Well, since release, we've got the Cerastus Knight Lancers, Knight Porphyron, two new weapon sprues, and a pair of resin weapons.
There's really not much more to come in terms of kitting our our Reavers and Warlords - though I suspect we might see further weapons for the Warhounds.
So I'd say once the last resin weapons are out (and I'm 80% sure we've at least seen the digital for those) we can reasonably expect rumblings on a new Titan.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So I'd say once the last resin weapons are out (and I'm 80% sure we've at least seen the digital for those) we can reasonably expect rumblings on a new Titan.
Rapier, Nightgaunts and Carnivores & Seige Titans were all mentioned in the Titandeath novel, and the Punisher (tripod) Titan was in Beast Arises - The Beast Must Die.
schoon wrote: In the designer interviews of a year ago, they seemed intent on releasing some new Titan classes, yet those have been conspicuously absent from the expansions thus far.
One possible reason for the delay would be the work up of the models in plastic as opposed to resin.
Well if they are going to be plastic then anything started around the time of game release or after it would still be well ahead time.
True - once the Knight weapons are released (including the Cerastus options and the Asterius) there's not much else. There's rumours of Chaos conversion kits but we've not seen anything yet. Also, the last I heard was that the Warbringer Nemesis Titan was still years off.
There was that 'little' terrain set that got previewed the same time as the acastus, but I think that (and the knight upgrade sprue) is it. We're on tenderhooks for the next reveal.
Last year's GENCON preview was almost exclusively 3rd-party licensed card games like Munchkin. The WHW preview is likely to be largely focused on 40K itself.
I reckon the next AT reveal will be NOVA at the end of August.
While I think a lot of people would love to see a return to Epic, with all the 40k fixtures, the AT developers have made strong points about avoiding that. Its largely a case of how to keep titans feeling like titans while still making lesser units viable in the game.
Part of it comes down to the dice and model counts. Games have certain granular limits. An individual soldier or even a squad can't be less viable than having a single die to try and roll a single value on that die to succeed at that mechanic. And if you do have something that minimally viable, what should it be worth in the game? And how do you balance taking an army filled out with only that minimally viable unit against the single biggest model. If the single big model plays the way it should, everything dies and they shouldn't be a threat at all; so it will likely have to be neutered in some way to maintain the lowest units viability. Its part of the reason Titan don't tend to do to well in 40k.
I'm looking forward to Aeronautica and I really hope they use it as an opportunity to expand on the variety of aircraft for the different factions.
While I think a lot of people would love to see a return to Epic, with all the 40k fixtures, the AT developers have made strong points about avoiding that. Its largely a case of how to keep titans feeling like titans while still making lesser units viable in the game.
Part of it comes down to the dice and model counts. Games have certain granular limits. An individual soldier or even a squad can't be less viable than having a single die to try and roll a single value on that die to succeed at that mechanic. And if you do have something that minimally viable, what should it be worth in the game? And how do you balance taking an army filled out with only that minimally viable unit against the single biggest model. If the single big model plays the way it should, everything dies and they shouldn't be a threat at all; so it will likely have to be neutered in some way to maintain the lowest units viability. Its part of the reason Titan don't tend to do to well in 40k.
I'm looking forward to Aeronautica and I really hope they use it as an opportunity to expand on the variety of aircraft for the different factions.
There are infantry in AT, they're in the form of battlefield asset infantry taking cover in building. And they didn't roll a single dice to attack.
These aircraft however, Isn't infantry, they're flying warmachine with weapons capable of stripping void shield as well as easily putting glancing hit on titan from the rear, And they also carry big and powerful bomb. The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Chopstick wrote: The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Thats what the Helios Missiles on the Acastus Knights are for as well as the icarus weapons on the Questoris knights. Not forgetting the AA guns on the Nemesis Warbringer
Your basic infantry don't need to be able to hurt a titan. They need to be able to hurt something that can hurt a titan. If your infantry can take out a Shadowsword, or a knight, then they have a place on the battlefield.
Chopstick wrote: The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Thats what the Helios Missiles on the Acastus Knights are for as well as the icarus weapons on the Questoris knights. Not forgetting the AA guns on the Nemesis Warbringer
Warbringer is a new Titan (after they realize the flaw in the decade old Titans) and the other isn't Titans. The titans themselves (any of them) should have weapons to fight against any target, like the (new and updated) Knights.
While I think a lot of people would love to see a return to Epic, with all the 40k fixtures, the AT developers have made strong points about avoiding that. Its largely a case of how to keep titans feeling like titans while still making lesser units viable in the game.
Part of it comes down to the dice and model counts. Games have certain granular limits. An individual soldier or even a squad can't be less viable than having a single die to try and roll a single value on that die to succeed at that mechanic. And if you do have something that minimally viable, what should it be worth in the game? And how do you balance taking an army filled out with only that minimally viable unit against the single biggest model. If the single big model plays the way it should, everything dies and they shouldn't be a threat at all; so it will likely have to be neutered in some way to maintain the lowest units viability. Its part of the reason Titan don't tend to do to well in 40k.
I'm looking forward to Aeronautica and I really hope they use it as an opportunity to expand on the variety of aircraft for the different factions.
In Epic 40kGW borrowed the battery table from Battlefleet Gothic, so you added up the amount of firepower each unit in the detachment contributed, and cross-referenced that with the target being attacked. So there was no 1:1 infantry stand to dice ratio like in Epic Space Marine. In Epic Armageddon that got tossed in favour of each stand getting one or two ranged weapons equivalent to whatever heavy weapons they might have, and then Close Combat (CC) and Firefight (FF) thresholds for hitting another unit in an assault. I get the impression that much of it has been used in the latest Apocalypse, if slightly rearranged.
Although in 40k I've noticed one of the best Tyranid units is the Ripper, because it's very very cheap, and therefore doesn't take away much from the rest of the army in doing its job of deep striking onto objectives, and otherwise providing something to hold objectives to you can spend more points on taking them.
Well, I had just noticed they had released more details on the sister game Aeronautica...not really intending to spark off another discussion about Epic 40K.
Personally, I'm just happy to be adding some 40K flyers to our sessions of Horizon Wars, as well as a chance to play AI itself. Speaking of which, I like the board!
Making a prediction...Aeronautica could be between...£55-£75?
Chopstick wrote: The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Thats what the Helios Missiles on the Acastus Knights are for as well as the icarus weapons on the Questoris knights. Not forgetting the AA guns on the Nemesis Warbringer
Warbringer is a new Titan (after they realize the flaw in the decade old Titans) and the other isn't Titans. The titans themselves (any of them) should have weapons to fight against any target, like the (new and updated) Knights.
How is the Warbringer better suited to engaging non-Titan targets? The Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster, and Missile Pod were the anti-everything-else weapons of yesteryear.
Chopstick wrote: The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Thats what the Helios Missiles on the Acastus Knights are for as well as the icarus weapons on the Questoris knights. Not forgetting the AA guns on the Nemesis Warbringer
Warbringer is a new Titan (after they realize the flaw in the decade old Titans) and the other isn't Titans. The titans themselves (any of them) should have weapons to fight against any target, like the (new and updated) Knights.
How is the Warbringer better suited to engaging non-Titan targets? The Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster, and Missile Pod were the anti-everything-else weapons of yesteryear.
He speaks specifically of anti-aircraft effectiveness and doubtless refers to the two AA defence turrets on the Nemesis pattern Warbringer.
I do agree that Titans should have AA options, just not before there are air units in the game, yeah?
Chopstick wrote: The problem with aircraft in AT is that Titan lack weapons to deal with aircraft, and having a Titan punching aircraft out of the air is ridiculous.
Thats what the Helios Missiles on the Acastus Knights are for as well as the icarus weapons on the Questoris knights. Not forgetting the AA guns on the Nemesis Warbringer
Warbringer is a new Titan (after they realize the flaw in the decade old Titans) and the other isn't Titans. The titans themselves (any of them) should have weapons to fight against any target, like the (new and updated) Knights.
How is the Warbringer better suited to engaging non-Titan targets? The Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster, and Missile Pod were the anti-everything-else weapons of yesteryear.
He speaks specifically of anti-aircraft effectiveness and doubtless refers to the two AA defence turrets on the Nemesis pattern Warbringer.
I do agree that Titans should have AA options, just not before there are air units in the game, yeah?
I just think it's silly to say that when the Warmonger Titan was an Emperor Class Titan back in the Epic Titan Legion days, even if we ignore the Imperator's Defense Laser, which is specifically an AA volcano cannon.
How is the Warbringer better suited to engaging non-Titan targets? The Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster, and Missile Pod were the anti-everything-else weapons of yesteryear.
They were equipped with both anti air turrets and ardex defensor gun, compared to other titans, this is a HUGE improvement. The carapace gun can't rotate well and have trouble targeting at close range. The warlord might have a few defensor turrets, but for a Titans of its size, it could easily fit in more. They wouldn't need to have dakka to lit up a whole neighborhood (even though they should, given that smaller unit can), but at least show that you(designer) actually had thought about it (like anti-air, anti leg-swarm measure)
When you look at something like updated Questoris Knight, you can clearly see a well-thought out design.
SamusDrake wrote: Well, I had just noticed they had released more details on the sister game Aeronautica...not really intending to spark off another discussion about Epic 40K.
Personally, I'm just happy to be adding some 40K flyers to our sessions of Horizon Wars, as well as a chance to play AI itself. Speaking of which, I like the board!
Making a prediction...Aeronautica could be between...£55-£75?
I fully expect 90-100 quid. That's 9 brand new plastic miniatures that aren't little, plus custom plastic bases with movable doodads in them, plus the play area, plus sheets of heavy cardstock tokens, probably some cards as well. On top of that, it's a pretty "niche of a niche" title, so they'll be anticipating and pricing for reduced volume even if there's a chance it could take off(no pun intended) like Titanicus did. I'd be surprised if they don't charge Blackstone Fortress levels for it.
How is the Warbringer better suited to engaging non-Titan targets? The Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster, and Missile Pod were the anti-everything-else weapons of yesteryear.
They were equipped with both anti air turrets and ardex defensor gun, compared to other titans, this is a HUGE improvement. The carapace gun can't rotate well and have trouble targeting at close range. The warlord might have a few defensor turrets, but for a Titans of its size, it could easily fit in more. They wouldn't need to have dakka to lit up a whole neighborhood (even though they should, given that smaller unit can), but at least show that you(designer) actually had thought about it (like anti-air, anti leg-swarm measure)
The Imperator Titan had defensive arrays of bolter weapons and lascannons, back in Epic Titan Legions. I believe it rolled 24 dice for bolters when 1D6 per stand of 5 marines was standard (although hitting on 6s and ranged 15cm compared to Marines hitting on 5+ and 50cm). Not to mention transport space for Tech-Guard.
I fully expect 90-100 quid. That's 9 brand new plastic miniatures that aren't little, plus custom plastic bases with movable doodads in them, plus the play area, plus sheets of heavy cardstock tokens, probably some cards as well. On top of that, it's a pretty "niche of a niche" title, so they'll be anticipating and pricing for reduced volume even if there's a chance it could take off(no pun intended) like Titanicus did. I'd be surprised if they don't charge Blackstone Fortress levels for it.
Apart from the minis and the board, its looking very, very light. Just a few tokens, simple dice and some pamphlets. It will also be a product in a popular market - aerial combat - with the bankable 40K universe behind it.
Looking at the competition, one could get both X-Wing and Blood Red Skies for £70...
Edit; to be fair there is two card decks in the video.
Padre wrote: Has anyone heard anything at the events, or has it been mentioned elsewhere, if any of the AT-scale Titan weapons will be made at 28mm scale?
Would love to see those carapace Gatling Blasters on my Warlord...
I believe FW stated at one of the events that they were designing the weapons at 28mm scale with full detail and then shrinking them for AT. Which is kind of backed up by the new 28mm version of the Reaver\Warbringer Volcano cannon, which matches the version on the AT Reaver sprue, so hopefully they will get 28mm releases.
I'm also very keen on some 28mm carapace gatling blasters as I think they look very cool.
edit - In fact I have a feeling I heard that the image of the gatling blasters we've seen was actually the 28mm version, though I may be wrong.
I broke my ban on ordering from the US FW store and grabbed 2. Otherwise I'll never get the chance again. Too bad no restocks on the warlord weapons at the same time, naturally.
Honestly, with how unimpressive this looks, I don't know if I'd bother. Two cost 26-30 pounds depending on postage to your location - meanwhile, IG Manticore costs 32 (and can be bought for less than that), comes with 4 similarly sized rockets, and after you used the bits you have still whole Deathstrike kit you can keep or sell for virtually free upgrade. Guns are one thing, but rockets come in so many boxes even someone awful at kitbashing can make their own launcher looking just as good for much less than FW demands.
Honestly, with how unimpressive this looks, I don't know if I'd bother. Two cost 26-30 pounds depending on postage to your location - meanwhile, IG Manticore costs 32 (and can be bought for less than that), comes with 4 similarly sized rockets, and after you used the bits you have still whole Deathstrike kit you can keep or sell for virtually free upgrade. Guns are one thing, but rockets come in so many boxes even someone awful at kitbashing can make their own launcher looking just as good for much less than FW demands.
I've got a Manticore stashed away somewhere, so I haven't looked at it in a while. I'm pretty sure each missile is longer than a Reaver's hull though.
I've ordered a couple of the missiles. Might give them a go one day.
Manti core missile is about the height of the reaver. Even a hunter killer missile would be a bit long. Some of the shells from the Baneblade or vindicator might be a good start.
While I think a lot of people would love to see a return to Epic, with all the 40k fixtures, the AT developers have made strong points about avoiding that. Its largely a case of how to keep titans feeling like titans while still making lesser units viable in the game.
Part of it comes down to the dice and model counts. Games have certain granular limits. An individual soldier or even a squad can't be less viable than having a single die to try and roll a single value on that die to succeed at that mechanic. And if you do have something that minimally viable, what should it be worth in the game? And how do you balance taking an army filled out with only that minimally viable unit against the single biggest model. If the single big model plays the way it should, everything dies and they shouldn't be a threat at all; so it will likely have to be neutered in some way to maintain the lowest units viability. Its part of the reason Titan don't tend to do to well in 40k.
I'm looking forward to Aeronautica and I really hope they use it as an opportunity to expand on the variety of aircraft for the different factions.
Shouldn't be threat? Ummm...books are full of non-titans being threat to titans...so no titans being impervious "ignore anything non-titan" would NOT be fluffy
That's a 40k Imperial Knight, and it used 3rd party bits.
That's a render, the whole thing is a 3D sculpt. That said, you can't just rescale stuff by a simple percentage, if it's 40K scale you need to edit the model to close up tiny holes, enlarge panel lines and rivets etc, thicken up some parts before it's appropriate for AT scale.
Like waiting for warlord weapons from fw? Some people have offered workarounds, but it's still a joke.
OMG, that is absolutely diabolical!
Even still, the terminals are being sold by GW instead of FW, so hopefully it shouldn't be as bad. They did say a while ago that the Knight terminals would be available again around the release of the Acastus Terminals...so it sounds like the restock has been planned in advanced(I suppose it all is, but they did mention it).
Does anyone know if the content of the Loyalist and Traitor Command Terminals and Stratagem Cards are available in any places other then the command terminal and stratagem card packs?
Alpharius wrote: Does anyone know if the content of the Loyalist and Traitor Command Terminals and Stratagem Cards are available in any places other then the command terminal and stratagem card packs?
Are they in any of the already released books?
Online via GW?
Thanks!
My understanding is that the Loyalist and Traitor Titans of Legend are only available on the command terminals but the Loyalist and Traitor stratagem card packs are basically bundling together stratagems available in the different books already published, either being Legio specific, Loyalist or Traitor specific or neutral (available for both like titan-hunter infantry for instance).
If anyone can confirm this is the case, that would be cool.
Ah, the UK is just home turf so it should on the US site shortly. Hang in there, my friend!
Like waiting for warlord weapons from fw? Some people have offered workarounds, but it's still a joke.
Got emails today that the warlord arms were in stock in the us webstore. Clicked the link within a minute of the email arriving. Temporarily out of stock. GG Forgeworld. So glad the higher prices from a us distro location are being put to good use. So much more convenient.
Got emails today that the warlord arms were in stock in the us webstore. Clicked the link within a minute of the email arriving. Temporarily out of stock. GG Forgeworld. So glad the higher prices from a us distro location are being put to good use. So much more convenient.
I must say that is a bit much and I'd personally send them a complaint.
Are there third parties making Titanicus-compatible pieces aside from Warcradle's scenery?
Ah, the UK is just home turf so it should on the US site shortly. Hang in there, my friend!
Like waiting for warlord weapons from fw? Some people have offered workarounds, but it's still a joke.
Got emails today that the warlord arms were in stock in the us webstore. Clicked the link within a minute of the email arriving. Temporarily out of stock. GG Forgeworld. So glad the higher prices from a us distro location are being put to good use. So much more convenient.
Apparently, they made two of each, and one each got sold to Bill in accounting, so....
But hey, at least you got the email! I've been registered for a while and never even got that! It's like you're in the club!
Edit: just checked and the knight terminals have sold out again, too. GW is really, REALLY bad at both sending emails (didn't get one for either product) and estimating demand for their AT stuff. Hooray.
While I can't really defend GW's seeming inability to anticipate demand for AT products, they are guessing with information that's 9 months old with production and shipping times...
schoon wrote: While I can't really defend GW's seeming inability to anticipate demand for AT products, they are guessing with information that's 9 months old with production and shipping times...
The problem from our perspective as customers isn't so much that they keep consistently failing to properly estimate demand, that's just an annoyance. The problem is their response to that failure is seemingly completely random and we never get told what it's going to be.
Will they reprint the product? Sometimes, but they won't tell us either way, or they will tell us but not until enough time has passed that a lot of folk have gone ebay hunting and paid scalperscum over the odds for them. Will they put a high-res print-ready version up on WHC for free? Sometimes, again they won't tell us unless and until they put up the article. Will they just let it vanish into the ether, never to be mentioned again? Yup, that too.
This has been a consistent enough problem that by now they should have developed a policy to deal with it, and "make more up-front" is only one possible solution. They could set up their contract with the printers they use so as to give them an option to do another run at shorter notice. They could do exactly what they did way back in the day with plastic casting and buy up a small British printing business for the expertise and initial machinery and bring their printing - at least for cardstock products - in-house, and build in some capacity for production surges on products they underestimate demand for. They could carry on exactly as they are ordering only small print runs, but acknowledge openly that will be the case, that the print run is just for people who really like physical doodads, and commit to putting the high-res print files up for free as soon as the initial run sells out, in every case. Hell, they could sell us the digital version, so long as it's a standard option.
There is talk (not sure whether its reality though) that that is one of the things they're planning for their new factory space, being able to do at least some printing in house
schoon wrote: White not strictly AT news, it's worth noting that Aeronautica Imperialis has been confirmed to be 8mm scale - consistent with AT.
Yes, it seems to be either a hint that Titanicus and Aeronautica are part of something bigger in the future, or maybe just information to ensure customers are not disappointed to see small versions of 28mm kits.
For the time being, I reckon that next August we could see a third epic game focused on tank warfare. This would allow for both new narrative missions for Titanicus and a possible combined arms game focusing on knights, aircraft and tanks...
schoon wrote: White not strictly AT news, it's worth noting that Aeronautica Imperialis has been confirmed to be 8mm scale - consistent with AT.
Yes, it seems to be either a hint that Titanicus and Aeronautica are part of something bigger in the future, or maybe just information to ensure customers are not disappointed to see small versions of 28mm kits.
For the time being, I reckon that next August we could see a third epic game focused on tank warfare. This would allow for both new narrative missions for Titanicus and a possible combined arms game focusing on knights, aircraft and tanks...
Something I noticed on the downloadable terminal PDFs is that they all say copyright GW 2020, despite being released in May 2019. Perhaps they were redesigned as part of a new starter box / relaunch next year?
Chopstick wrote: Still no sight of that knight upgrade pre-order. Maybe next week.
Hoping this will be previewed alongside AI tomorrow. GW loves putting lots of specialist games stuff all together.
Well if it's confirmed to be 8mm it's bigger scale than the AT which is 6mm.
Okay, going forward here is a list of acceptable names for AT's scale...
EPIC scale.
Little scale.
1/4 28mm scale.
Non-28mm scale.
Fantastic Voyage scale.
Adventures of the Mini-Goddess scale.
Incredible-shrinking-man scale.
Tinker-bell scale.
The scale formly known as 8mm scale.
Episodeofblakes7whereOracreduceshissize scale.
Something I noticed on the downloadable terminal PDFs is that they all say copyright GW 2020, despite being released in May 2019. Perhaps they were redesigned as part of a new starter box / relaunch next year?
Oh yes! It does indeed say 2020. You could be onto something there...
To be fair all it says is that they are the same scale, which we all knew/assumed already (save for the handful of people going nuts over a few mm difference in scale). In general it sounds like the game is going to likely advance the Xenos line a lot faster than AT did.
This is likely because GW realises that they don't have an exhausted number of air units they can just throw at people in Imperial VS Imperial games. It might also be that advancing Xenos earlier here is a lot cheaper than in AT and thus they are going to use it to test the potential popularity of Xenos.
Personally I'd be very excited to see Tyranids appear!
Overread wrote: It might also be that advancing Xenos earlier here is a lot cheaper than in AT and thus they are going to use it to test the potential popularity of Xenos.
It would be a mistake for GW to assume that the volume of sales for any given faction in Aeronauticus could give them useful information concerning the demand for that same faction in Adeptus Titanicus.
I myself would happily purchase an Ork force for Titanicus; however, I have no interest in Aeronauticus as a stand alone product.
Overread wrote: It might also be that advancing Xenos earlier here is a lot cheaper than in AT and thus they are going to use it to test the potential popularity of Xenos.
Ork Gargants take up a lot of sprue space for their size, but Eldar on the other hand would not. A single knight sized sprue could probably fit a revenant with all the options, and even a few extras, if not two. A Phantom would need more options added to take up the space of even 2 of the 3 warlord sprues.
Well if it's confirmed to be 8mm it's bigger scale than the AT which is 6mm.
Okay, going forward here is a list of acceptable names for AT's scale...
EPIC scale.
Little scale.
1/4 28mm scale.
Non-28mm scale.
Fantastic Voyage scale.
Adventures of the Mini-Goddess scale.
Incredible-shrinking-man scale.
Tinker-bell scale.
The scale formly known as 8mm scale.
Episodeofblakes7whereOracreduceshissize scale.
...I think that just about covers it!
Whatever works as long as the misinformation about 8mm stops. Epic has never been 8mm. 6mm has been the official date for epic(though before it didn't follow it uniformly so titans were more like 2mm scale). AT was 6mm from the day 1.
and it matters. If people make terrain for 8mm it's 33% too big!
Overread wrote: It might also be that advancing Xenos earlier here is a lot cheaper than in AT and thus they are going to use it to test the potential popularity of Xenos.
Ork Gargants take up a lot of sprue space for their size, but Eldar on the other hand would not. A single knight sized sprue could probably fit a revenant with all the options, and even a few extras, if not two. A Phantom would need more options added to take up the space of even 2 of the 3 warlord sprues.
If memory serves, the Phantom wouldn't be much off the Wraithlord in terms of size? Maybe a bit smaller?
My hope is they'd make it more posable than Imperial Titan - especially as it doesn't have the same sort of dedicated, ablative armour platng.
If memory serves, the Phantom wouldn't be much off the Wraithlord in terms of size? Maybe a bit smaller?
The 28mm Phantom is taller than the Warlord IIRC; it's head is level with the top of the carapace while the holofield fins stand a fair bit higher. That would put it level with a 28mm Knight (although far less bulky).
Spoiler:
Of course the most recent fluff I can find says it's 10-15 metres shorter than it should be!
Well if it's confirmed to be 8mm it's bigger scale than the AT which is 6mm.
Okay, going forward here is a list of acceptable names for AT's scale...
EPIC scale.
Little scale.
1/4 28mm scale.
Non-28mm scale.
Fantastic Voyage scale.
Adventures of the Mini-Goddess scale.
Incredible-shrinking-man scale.
Tinker-bell scale.
The scale formly known as 8mm scale.
Episodeofblakes7whereOracreduceshissize scale.
...I think that just about covers it!
Whatever works as long as the misinformation about 8mm stops. Epic has never been 8mm. 6mm has been the official date for epic(though before it didn't follow it uniformly so titans were more like 2mm scale). AT was 6mm from the day 1.
and it matters. If people make terrain for 8mm it's 33% too big!
I've sent an email to Forgeworld to provide a clear mm scale for Aeronautica and Titanicus. That should help going forward.
I would really love to get into AT and I really like Legio Astorum. I hope they re-release the transfer sheet and make Lucius Pattern head options for the Warlords. Until then I dont really want to commit to them.
I have now received a reply from Forgeworld and they have informed me that neither 40K nor Titanicus directly adheres to any scale, even though 40K is similar to 28mm scale.
They told me that 40K and Titanicus scales are best referred to as "40K scale" and "Titanicus scale" respectively. Also they are pleased to say that Aeronautica models are "Titanicus scale". Sadly...they have no information as to whether Aeronautica models will have rules for use in Adeptus Titanicus. Oh well, I did at least ask!
So, the final word is that Adeptus Titanicus does not "directly adhere" to neither 6mm nor 8mm scale or any other scale for that matter. So from now on, if anyone caught saying "its 6mm" or "8mm" - we must report it to a member of the Dakka staff who will then have them scheduled for a firing squad...JUST KIDDING!!!! No, we just tell them that the models are not any specific scale and it is simply "Titanicus Scale".
Adeptus Titanicus is mere days away, and soon, battlegroups of Warlord Titans supported by Questoris Knights will be waging war on tabletops across the world – and we thought it was high time to talk about the game’s astonishing models. Chris Drew from the Specialist Games team is the man responsible for turning the huge Warhammer 40,000 models into their 8mm scale counterparts – and here he is to talk about the process.
I guess I should add the titans in AT2018 are 8mm in epic scale they where 6mm with the infantry approximately 8mm and tanks out of scale somewhere in between.
Adeptus Titanicus is mere days away, and soon, battlegroups of Warlord Titans supported by Questoris Knights will be waging war on tabletops across the world – and we thought it was high time to talk about the game’s astonishing models. Chris Drew from the Specialist Games team is the man responsible for turning the huge Warhammer 40,000 models into their 8mm scale counterparts – and here he is to talk about the process.
I guess I should add the titans in AT2018 are 8mm in epic scale they where 6mm with the infantry approximately 8mm and tanks out of scale somewhere in between.
Thats the article I referenced last year and along with Wayland games labelling it also as 8mm it seemed official enough. Yet, social media posts basically said "its not really". Asking FW directly by email(check the above post) they said that AT does not directly adhere to any scale and is best described as "Titanicus scale".
In this case, its FW's word against WH Community...the makers of the game and the GW media channel. 8mm was mentioned regarding the height of space marines - that much was said - but it seems that might have been mistaken as Titanicus' actual scale.
Beyond that, things that are rumoured or would most likely make an appearance + speculation
Warlord Carapace Turbolasers
Saturyne Pattern Lascutter
There was that rumoured Warlord Volkite weapon
They could do a ruined building sprue
Warbringer
There were also mentioned Legio resin upgrades
Other missing Knight variants (Styrix, Castigator, etc)
Armiger Knights
Psi Titan
And that’s stuff that exists or makes sense to make.
Then there’s the mystery light titans that eventually turn into the Subjugator Slaanesh Titans and the close combat claws for Warhounds which have both been mentioned by the devs previously.
Perhaps a class between Warhound and Reaver?
Beyond that, things that are rumoured or would most likely make an appearance + speculation
Warlord Carapace Turbolasers
Saturyne Pattern Lascutter
There was that rumoured Warlord Volkite weapon
They could do a ruined building sprue
Warbringer
There were also mentioned Legio resin upgrades
Other missing Knight variants (Styrix, Castigator, etc)
Armiger Knights
Psi Titan
And that’s stuff that exists or makes sense to make.
I forget if it was from a seminar or Twitch stream, but they did mention the Cerastus variants are being done as a new plastic kit while the alternate Acastus build would 'probably' be a resin upgrade pack.
Adeptus Titanicus is mere days away, and soon, battlegroups of Warlord Titans supported by Questoris Knights will be waging war on tabletops across the world – and we thought it was high time to talk about the game’s astonishing models. Chris Drew from the Specialist Games team is the man responsible for turning the huge Warhammer 40,000 models into their 8mm scale counterparts – and here he is to talk about the process.
I guess I should add the titans in AT2018 are 8mm in epic scale they where 6mm with the infantry approximately 8mm and tanks out of scale somewhere in between.
Thats the article I referenced last year and along with Wayland games labelling it also as 8mm it seemed official enough. Yet, social media posts basically said "its not really". Asking FW directly by email(check the above post) they said that AT does not directly adhere to any scale and is best described as "Titanicus scale".
In this case, its FW's word against WH Community...the makers of the game and the GW media channel. 8mm was mentioned regarding the height of space marines - that much was said - but it seems that might have been mistaken as Titanicus' actual scale.
Well in that case miniature makers screwed up the scale because if you actually MEASURE the titan and calculate it you will find out that it's pretty much spot on to 6mm scale. Tad under it actually going(was it like 5.8mm or something).
So if AT is supposed to be 8mm scale then the models need to be redone in actual scale...Because they are too small then for 8mm scale.
Seeing we have warhammer community team saying something when they are known to make big errors and actual measurements...guess which one I believe. Known error source or actual measurements of real model.
Oh god, this again. The problem is that 40k is not and never has been a scale model game. Never. Just look at how the same 40k models have crept up in height over the last 30 years, or how many marines you would actually fit in a Rhino.
Just because they took the old "28mm" titan designs and shrunk them down to 1/4 size that doesn't suddenly make them scale models! They may well look consistently in scale with each other, as that's pretty easy with such a small pool of unit designs. But if GW just start adding tanks and infantry with the same 'divide by four' approach then AT/Epic will have exactly the same issue as 40K.
Well in that case miniature makers screwed up the scale because if you actually MEASURE the titan and calculate it you will find out that it's pretty much spot on to 6mm scale. Tad under it actually going(was it like 5.8mm or something).
Calculate based on what? Some random fluff number for titans which some author plucked out of thin air? Such numbers mean nothing. In BL books the exact same ship doubles in length between books.
The models are 1/4 of 40K height. Normal humans in 40K are about 32 mm tall* and 32/4=8. Thus AT (and AI) is roughly 8 mm scale.
*(There is pretty huge variety, they're 29-35 mm tall. Most modern basic troops are in the 32 mm ballpark though.)
Well in that case miniature makers screwed up the scale because if you actually MEASURE the titan and calculate it you will find out that it's pretty much spot on to 6mm scale. Tad under it actually going(was it like 5.8mm or something).
Calculate based on what? Some random fluff number for titans which some author plucked out of thin air? Such numbers mean nothing. In BL books the exact same ship doubles in length between books.
The models are 1/4 of 40K height. Normal humans in 40K are about 32 mm tall* and 32/4=8. Thus AT (and AI) is roughly 8 mm scale.
*(There is pretty huge variety, they're 29-35 mm tall. Most modern basic troops are in the 32 mm ballpark though.)
Calculate based on things like floor and door height on the newly released Titans and buildings, along with the 'random fluff number' for Titans, which just so happen to match up with each other and look better than 8mm scale. Trying to use relative scale to 40k, which already doesn't control for scale well, is a fool's errand. If you're looking for something meaningful, nothing gets that more than: it looks better on the table top. Using terrain, models and buildings scaled to 6mm does that better than 8mm, ok?
Calculate based on things like floor and door height on the newly released Titans and buildings, along with the 'random fluff number' for Titans, which just so happen to match up with each other and look better than 8mm scale.
But 40K versions of those titans have those same doors and floors, except in 1/4 size. And they clearly have 32mm people inside them.As for buildings, floor height and doors size in 40K setting varies a lot, most things being huge regardless, so you really can't base much on that.
Trying to use relative scale to 40k, which already doesn't control for scale well, is a fool's errand.
It is more sensible approach than just making up your own scale, instead of sticking to one the model makers actually use. And any scaling errors in 40K become pretty insignificant when you reduce the models to 1/4 of size.
If you're looking for something meaningful, nothing gets that more than: it looks better on the table top. Using terrain, models and buildings scaled to 6mm does that better than 8mm, ok?
If you personally fell that way then is fine reason for you to do so, it is not a fine reason for insisting that it actually is 6 mm scale.
Sooo, just ignoring the earlier posting of a screenshot of one of the FW guys stating outright that the fluff numbers are actually taken quite seriously and thought about a lot?
It's odd how selective you are in treating what FW/GW do and say as gospel Crimson. Random puff blurb from an article: gospel. Size the models end up being made at due to various factors: gospel. Guy who actually designs the Titans: nah, pff, totes rubbish brah, who cares, fluff nonsense.
They do as said have other factors to consider when making the 40K models like sprue/mold/box sizes, whether it's vaguely practical at the size of tables most people use(though that's seemingly less of a concern for them these days), cost of materials, trying to keep it within an attractive pricerange, detailing, errors from the days of physical model construction or personal license from the 3D sculptor etc, everyone acknowledges that, but none of that changes the fact that the changes they make based on those things does often take the models away from the size they "should" be. It's not gibbering lunacy to consider scale important, or to wish they had chosen to make things consistent with the proper numbers, or to make purchasing decisions based on those sentiments, or to derive a scale from the main feature of the game that started all this - the Titans - and consider that the scale of the game.
SamusDrake wrote: Moving forward, nothing for Titanicus at NOVA...I forget the next big event for reveals.
Anyone?
I would surmise that we won't get anything new AT wise until 2020.
That would be a shame with four months still left to go.
I do not think they expected it to be as popular as it has been. I am also in the camp that believes GW is releasing way to many different products at the current time which leads to long wait times for new models.
IIRC we still have a new Blood Bowl team and Warhammer Underworlds release due in the coming weeks. GW like to drop specialist game stuff together, so I expect to see them appear with the repackaged Knights. Hopefully followed by the remaining FW releases.
Well in that case miniature makers screwed up the scale because if you actually MEASURE the titan and calculate it you will find out that it's pretty much spot on to 6mm scale. Tad under it actually going(was it like 5.8mm or something).
So if AT is supposed to be 8mm scale then the models need to be redone in actual scale...Because they are too small then for 8mm scale.
Seeing we have warhammer community team saying something when they are known to make big errors and actual measurements...guess which one I believe. Known error source or actual measurements of real model.
Yes, and Forgeworld has explained to me(via a reply to an email I sent them) that AT is "not directly adhereing" to any scale, so my point is that the WH Community suffered a case of miscommunication on the "8mm" part. I get the feeling that you were replying more to Smaug's post than mine in this instance, as I doubt you would have overlooked my previous post regarding FW's response to the matter.
But once again - Titanicus scale is not 6mm nor 8mm scale. Its best described as "Titanicus scale". Same with 40K - its not 28mm but just "40K" scale. And that is from Forgeworld themselves.
Nostromodamus wrote: At least 1/3rd* of the this “news & rumours” thread must be made up of scale arguments by now. Can we just drop it or take it elsewhere?
*1/3rd is Epic wishlisting and the final 1/3rd actual news.
Thats fair enough and I shall refrain from discussing it any further in this thread.
Yodhrin wrote: Sooo, just ignoring the earlier posting of a screenshot of one of the FW guys stating outright that the fluff numbers are actually taken quite seriously and thought about a lot?
It's odd how selective you are in treating what FW/GW do and say as gospel Crimson. Random puff blurb from an article: gospel. Size the models end up being made at due to various factors: gospel. Guy who actually designs the Titans: nah, pff, totes rubbish brah, who cares, fluff nonsense.
They do as said have other factors to consider when making the 40K models like sprue/mold/box sizes, whether it's vaguely practical at the size of tables most people use(though that's seemingly less of a concern for them these days), cost of materials, trying to keep it within an attractive pricerange, detailing, errors from the days of physical model construction or personal license from the 3D sculptor etc, everyone acknowledges that, but none of that changes the fact that the changes they make based on those things does often take the models away from the size they "should" be. It's not gibbering lunacy to consider scale important, or to wish they had chosen to make things consistent with the proper numbers, or to make purchasing decisions based on those sentiments, or to derive a scale from the main feature of the game that started all this - the Titans - and consider that the scale of the game.
I'm sure they consider the fluff sizes, but those are way too random, inconsistent and unreliable to base any exact calculation on. They just work fro eyeballing the super rough ballpark and 'this thing is bigger than that thing' type of stuff.
And I do consider scale to be important. If I wouldn't, I hadn't built a true scale marine army painstakingly converting every bloody model. Thank Emperor for the Primaris, so I don't need to do that any more. But if there is no super compelling reason to think otherwise, I choose to believe my own eyes. When we are shown a 32 mm Princeps standing on a balcony of a 40K scale titan, or when we see how 32mm scale pilots fit in knights and aeroplanes, then I believe what the sculptor is telling me: that this vehicle in is in that scale, instead of developing a conspiracy theory of a huge section of 40K models being 25% undersized but crewed by similarly undersized giant people. And of course AT/AI models being fourth of the size, they will be fourth of the 40K scale. 40K Imperial Knight is about 16 cm tall (not counting the missile pod) and we know how a 32 mm pilot fits inside it, so we know it is in the same scale than 32 mm normal humans. From this we can conclude that the 'real world' height of the Knight is about nine metres.
schoon wrote: From the 4pm BST Twitch Stream with Andy Hoare:
* 5 AI factions in development (including the two in the basic game)
* New AI factions should come pretty fast
* Battle of Calth - will be a new AT book
* AI and AT are 1/4 scale of Warhammer 40K - the scale is consistent - Space Marine is 8mm and normal human is 6mm
So we do have another book on the way, and if they're talking about it now then it's likely due before the end of the year. Does anyone know much Heresy fluff about Calth, and what we can expect?
Please no posts about how you're not buying either game because you've calculated a human should be 6.471mm instead of 6mm. No one cares.
xttz wrote: Crossposting this from Aeronautica thread:
So we do have another book on the way, and if they're talking about it now then it's likely due before the end of the year. Does anyone know much Heresy fluff about Calth, and what we can expect?
Pretty much True Messengers (Loyalists) with bits of Legio Oberon V Firemasters (Traitor)
Loyalist Knight House is Vornherr and the traitor house I forget.
Expect weird terrain and rules for titans being bogged down or possibly Dæmonworld type effects. Beyond what we've seen, I have hopes for a ruined buildings sprue.
HOPEFULLY it also encompasses the greater Shadow Crusade, thereby paving the way for the greatest Legio (Audax) to make an appearance with Ursus Claws locked and loaded. And hopefully that means we get the Rapier Titan kit as part of that release, since (IIRC) a team member clarified that Audax is limited to *scout* Titans, not to Warhound Titans specifically. That clarification makes it seem like something is afoot.
But that's a lot of hopes. I think at least the first part makes sense, though. My guess was that the next book would be in Q1. If it's sooner, that's certainly cool.
Hurray for Battle of Calth. No idea what it will bring to the game - character/hero titans and knights? Audax? Rapiers? Hopefully with the psychic 40K stuff on the horizon they might cover that too.
Got a feeling we could see a minor Errata/FAQ to at least address the cheap point cost for the Acastus. Could be other issues that need resolving, but none that I can think of as of yet.
White Dwarf is once again disappointing. Didn't expect anything last month, but I was hoping the Crusade leigon article was a sign of improved support for the game. Hopefully something next month...
It would be a kick in the nuts not to have the Q's weapon sprue on sunday's Coming Soon article...
Anyone else going to add the aeronautica turrets and bunkers to titanicus for more variety? The manticore battery subs for an apoc missile easily, and the hydra turrets are amusingly the asset from the defense batteries from the war bringer titan, so we may see that a bit sooner than expected 8f part of it is already scaled down.
MajorWesJanson wrote: Anyone else going to add the aeronautica turrets and bunkers to titanicus for more variety? The manticore battery subs for an apoc missile easily, and the hydra turrets are amusingly the asset from the defense batteries from the war bringer titan, so we may see that a bit sooner than expected 8f part of it is already scaled down.
Yes. They're great for objectives or narrative goals of nothing else.
MajorWesJanson wrote: Anyone else going to add the aeronautica turrets and bunkers to titanicus for more variety? The manticore battery subs for an apoc missile easily, and the hydra turrets are amusingly the asset from the defense batteries from the war bringer titan, so we may see that a bit sooner than expected 8f part of it is already scaled down.
Yes. They're great for objectives or narrative goals of nothing else.
...and you can even use them for AI
They told me that about the planes too but I still dont believe them.
Incoming book on Calth ? I'm really excited.
Hoping to see Legio Praesagius & Suturvora transfers alongside it. I've held advancing on the paint of my AT stuff because I was hoping for this...
Here's hoping bit faster than that. Been dying to get my hands on those since the day I got grand master edition. Been my #1 weapon I have been waiting for!
Well, thats good news. If local GW stores would order them in then I'd treat my Reaver, but thats £11 + p&p...probably £3.50 on top of that. Enough for a plastic weapon sprue or a substantial contribution to a new Reaver set...
But not to be a negative-neville, I'm thinking of using left over avenger cannons from a set of Thunderbolts, and some plasticard...omg, I've got spare pieces for an apocalypse missile launcher on my desk!
tneva82 wrote: Now about those warlord gatling carapace weapons...
I think they're drip feeding these out to keep on top of demand. Couple of months for those I reckon...
Yeah, I think they're going to stretch out these weapons, accessories, small terrain bits out for a while. Then the next campaign book early in 2020 and a bigger batch of releases around that.
eldritchx wrote: Calculate based on things like floor and door height
Yeah, because all doors are the same size, eh? By that argument, this dude is 3 mm scale:
Don't be obtuse. Doors can be larger, sure, but even you must agree that they can't be smaller than a human's average height. Unfortunately for your argument, that's exactly what happens if you try to peg scale at 8mm.
doors shorter than the height of an average person were fairly common in primitive socieites, as the give the folk inside an advantage over any intruder trying to get in,
it's certainly plausible that some societies in the Warhammer universe operate in similar fashion (or just make the lower classes bow as the come in to buildings 'owned' by their betters even if it is a factory they normally work in
Don't be obtuse. Doors can be larger, sure, but even you must agree that they can't be smaller than a human's average height. Unfortunately for your argument, that's exactly what happens if you try to peg scale at 8mm.
Why people even try to arque? What is gained by claiming it's 8mm? (which is easy to disprove. Scale isn't arbitary number. It's calculated. We know size of titans. Just measure titan and see what the scale is). Less terrain options as 6mm is far more popular scale than 8mm anyway. If you decide to change scale to 8mm you need to up size of titans, terrain etc by 33%. For what benefit?
tneva82 wrote: Why people even try to arque? What is gained by claiming it's 8mm? (which is easy to disprove. Scale isn't arbitary number. It's calculated. We know size of titans. Just measure titan and see what the scale is). Less terrain options as 6mm is far more popular scale than 8mm anyway. If you decide to change scale to 8mm you need to up size of titans, terrain etc by 33%. For what benefit?
I guess we're doing this again. We're know the models are one fourth of their 40K height. In 40K normal humans are around 32mm tall 32/4=8. If they ever make infantry in this scale, it will be about 8mm tall. Ergo, AT is in 8mm scale.
Don't be obtuse. Doors can be larger, sure, but even you must agree that they can't be smaller than a human's average height. Unfortunately for your argument, that's exactly what happens if you try to peg scale at 8mm.
Not true.
Take a ruler, put it up against a door on one of your Civitas buildings. Even if you measure the step at the base, the top of the door doesn't come up to 8mm. Do the same for the new Warlord Titan access hatch. It's demonstrably true.
As for why tneva, the only useful relevance for scale, as far as I can imagine, is as a guide for purchases of third party products and scratch building or printing terrain, in the hope of having things look as fitting as possible. Assuming that these are accurately scaled themselves, buying or producing at 8mm is going to yield doors, windows and doors that are weirdly larger than the GW products.
If people personally don't care about this, that's fine - you can be ok with miniature representation of infantry somewhat too tall for doors or buildings that don't quite match up. What's the profit in arguing for such a representation though?
In the end, arguing based on 40k scale or what GW really meant when they said this or that doesn't make any difference. It won't change the fact that things accurately scaled to 8mm won't quite match up with the current GW models. And if GW produces 8mm tall Marines at some point, that does fit the fluff description of them. If they produce baseline humans 8mm tall, that's their prerogative (and I would say inaccuracy) but I haven't seen any reason to believe they would do the latter.
Ah, Now I understand what you mean. You mean the small hatches on the actual doors. Those and vehicle access hatches are probably smaller than standard doors, this is true for all 40K vehicles as well.
And the reason to think that any future infantry would be 8ish mm tall is that GW has clearly stated (and this can be verified by existing models) that the scale is simply one fourth of 40K scale, so there is no reason to think they would deviate from this if they ever made infantry.
And for the people who are tired of the scale discussion, there isn't any actual news to be had. I don't know why nothing is happening, they previewed those knight upgrades ages ago, and they still haven't released them, right?
Chopstick wrote: Meh, just a filler article, and even as a filler, writer somehow manage to left out the arioch claw.
Show us some cerastus pic, or that mystery titan that they've been working on for a year now, if there were any titan being worked on at all.
Yeah, its not much but it's still an AT article nonetheless, and at least FW hasn't completely forgotten about the game...
...and yes, this game feels a bit dead at the moment. The article is pointing out the painfully obvious and then telling us to purchase a unit thats been out since the game's launch. I haven't got a Warlord in my collection, but most players do have at least one of the big chaps in theirs.
Apart from the rocket pods for the Questoris, there isn't much to be excited about. Even a sneak peak of a forthcoming Titan would go a long way right now...
To be fair, the Acastus kit was released about two months ago. I agree that AT could use a more substantial release alongside a new campaign book, but my guess is that we'll be waiting until early 2020 for that.
I could see how the market for Warlords might be a little saturated for a while on the heels of the GME re-release.
tneva82 wrote: Oh and why it claimed apoc launchers have most dice? Gatling blasters have even more! Just release the darn weapon!
See this is the thing; for a game that is only in need of weapon upgrades, they are struggling to do even that. Given the new releases for Necromunda, Blood Bowl and LOTR, AT has only had one new unit for 2019.
On the other side of the coin, I guess having to produce terminals and weapon card sets was a distraction for the production of the models. Urgh, less said about the Knight Terminal issue the better...
The line has always been 'something every quarter' hasn't it? Not specifically a model every quarter.
And is it really ONLY the Acastus this year? Molech? Warlord Melta? The new bulidings? The FW weapons? Dice?
Its not the release schedule I'd have hoped for, certainly. but it think GW Prime's constant releases make it look worse. Even more so if the team have to look after Necromunda (do seem to ahve had more models but resin figs might be different process?), AI (probably stole a lot of the Plastic development time for FW), BB (don't think they've had a massive amount either - Elves and Halflings?)
is the pace of new releases hurting sales in specific gaming groups? Almost certainly - there are a lot of games out there to steal gaming time/attention away, and lots of things people want (when am I getting Calth and my Presagius transfers!!). The idea is to have a viable product for longer, with ongoing releases, rather than everything at the start and no reason to buy anything after 12 months, as thats part of what killed off the old specialist games)
I don't think the sky is falling yet. The AT group on Facebook still seems to be going strong.
And the Acastus was early/mid July so, based on the quarterly releases, we should be seeing soemthing new soon! (Calth seems likely! New models? Who knows)
And remember - the more specialist games we want, the less time they have to develop stuff for the existing ones! (as i understand it, they need to prove that the cost of extra staff is covered before they can hire)
Deathwatch101 wrote: The line has always been 'something every quarter' hasn't it? Not specifically a model every quarter.
And is it really ONLY the Acastus this year? Molech? Warlord Melta? The new bulidings? The FW weapons? Dice?
I didn't say it was the only AT release this year, but that with only one "unit" this year(so far) the rest are just accessories, and thus there shouldn't have been much for them to be struggling with. Well, thats what I meant, anyway.
But yes, hopefully theres something to look forward to this side of christmas other than a repackaged Questoris kit.
Some new Cerastus would be spanking brilliant, but damn I'm really interested to see what this "Rapier" titan actually looks like. Apparently its slightly smaller than the Warhound?
SamusDrake wrote: Some new Cerastus would be spanking brilliant, but damn I'm really interested to see what this "Rapier" titan actually looks like. Apparently its slightly smaller than the Warhound?
Probably the base for the subjugator/questor design.
Compared to the warhound, lacking the large shin plates and the torso is proportionally smaller, with the head mounted directly. Two larger mounts on the sides, these days probably acastus weapon scale, and a tertiary smaller weapon mount, plus some secondaries.
Nurglitch wrote: Any ideas if there's ever going to be Lucius patterns produced, or maybe just Warlord Carapace Turbo Lasers?
Ever? That's a long time.
But they've said in design reviews that they have MANY bigger fish to fry before looking at different patterns of the same Titans - essentially nixing the idea.
I reckon the nemesis war ringer is going to make a surprise appearance soon. It’s pretty much done. Any other new Titan classes will make an appearance at the weekender.
Fun fact: the AA guns ground defences in Aeronautica look to be identical to the AA guns on the nemesis Titan. Right down to the mounting...
zedmeister wrote: I reckon the nemesis war ringer is going to make a surprise appearance soon. It’s pretty much done. Any other new Titan classes will make an appearance at the weekender.
Fun fact: the AA guns ground defences in Aeronautica look to be identical to the AA guns on the nemesis Titan. Right down to the mounting...
That would be champion if it is the Warbringer. Saying that, although it shares weapons with the Reaver...that would be only four, and thats two from each weapon sprue. Maybe it would be the first resin titan?
zedmeister wrote: I reckon the nemesis war ringer is going to make a surprise appearance soon. It’s pretty much done. Any other new Titan classes will make an appearance at the weekender.
Fun fact: the AA guns ground defences in Aeronautica look to be identical to the AA guns on the nemesis Titan. Right down to the mounting...
That would be champion if it is the Warbringer. Saying that, although it shares weapons with the Reaver...that would be only four, and thats two from each weapon sprue. Maybe it would be the first resin titan?
I'm hoping the delay in the warbringer is due to designing a second and maybe third carapace gun mount. I would love to see a sonic obliterator like the ordinatus, and a massive support missile rack would be pretty cool.
Still hoping some of these cool mini weapons will show up in full scale at some point...
)
Although reports of overpowered, undercosted stuff in other Forgeworld rulesets did make me a little wary. As did the news that the rules team for 
. Perspective is a bit wonky there so they look a bit bigger (and actually, the size of the 28mm ones surprised me, they are much bigger than I first thought):
And hopefully that means we get the Rapier Titan kit as part of that release, since (
