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 ILegion wrote:
Well then things may have changed. I was an Armor officer for the last 5 years and saw them engage targets a 3k before and no one got fired. If you are engaging a M1 equivalent tank T-80, Markava, Leo, etc, then yes, engaging beyond 2.5 is probably a bad idea but against T-72 and what not our stand off range is so much better it'd be stupid to get closer even if you do miss.

And I agree on the Paladin. That's the point I was trying to get at.

yes, Most T-72 would crumble at range, I was thinking more along the lines for T-90 and up, T-72, TY-55 ect Don't really threaten us much, so yes I see your point there.

Also sincerely meant things may have changed. nkt trying to be argumentative.

The destructive potential for melee weapons in the WH40k universe (in crunch and in fluff) suggests that the Warhound being a lighter fighter is not actually all that big a disadvantage. If anything, its speed would be a boon.

Warlords are durable, but if you hit it with a sized-for-a-Warhound Power Fist (that is, larger even than that you'd find on a Imperial Knight), its going to feel it (and by feel it, I mean its going to explode into shrapnel) because it just got hit by a Powerfist larger than a Dreadnought whose disruptive effect powered by a Titan-level power source.

The fact of the matter is that WH40k melee weapons don't know the meaning of "overkill".

So I'm going to say that, IF a Warhound titan is capable of getting into range and swinging its attack, it could be effective. IF. The problem is that Warhounds are, despite being the fastest of the Imperium titans, is probably not fast enough to do so without getting exploded at range. Aside from Tyranids and Daemons, titan combat seems strongly oriented towards ranged combat. I'd applaud the realism if we weren't dealing with titan-sized bipedal war machines.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply put?

Warhounds aren't particularly suited to Titan Hunting

It's funny, as I reached this bit I was thinking of the part of Betrayer in which a few packs of Warhounds subdue an Emperor titan.

Slightly off topic, but has there been a single story so far with an Emperor titan that actually survives a battle...?

Overall, the fiction makes them out to be pretty useless.

 insaniak wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply put?

Warhounds aren't particularly suited to Titan Hunting

It's funny, as I reached this bit I was thinking of the part of Betrayer in which a few packs of Warhounds subdue an Emperor titan.

Slightly off topic, but has there been a single story so far with an Emperor titan that actually survives a battle...?

Overall, the fiction makes them out to be pretty useless.

Well storm of iron a emperor did reep a good talley.
1-2 warlords, a reaver ot two including one that was just melted by the plasma cannons.

The warhounds lasteed the longest along with a traitor warlord pair though.

...

And while a warhound is fast, in storm of iron one was not tjr moving fortress of larger sizes. The warhound took was more vunrable to regular heavy weapons like tanks, vindocatpr shells and one in end was crippled by related power fist attack to its knee/ankle area.

I'm not sure it makes Best anti titan boxer. It would need a second pair supporting and screening the first into a attack.

 insaniak wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply put?

Warhounds aren't particularly suited to Titan Hunting

It's funny, as I reached this bit I was thinking of the part of Betrayer in which a few packs of Warhounds subdue an Emperor titan.

Slightly off topic, but has there been a single story so far with an Emperor titan that actually survives a battle...?

Overall, the fiction makes them out to be pretty useless.

Plot convention. You can simply not introduce the game-winning piece and simply have it live up to its name by saving the day. As a Journalism and Creative Writing major, such a thing is a major no-no. THe Emperor Titan, by logic, should just show up and absolutely waste the enemy with its guns larger than they are, all 8 of them, but to do so would leave the less educated and more vocal audience asking "why didn't they do that to start with?" This of course has an answer in that there needs to be some tactics and stuff. But the fact is an Emperor-Class Titan is a plot-killer because its, realistically, an I Win button. Its the same reason C'tan were sharded in the Newcron codex, because they were ungodly stupidly powerful in a way that they removed tension because they were an I Win button, but when they were defeated, it was a huge plot hole because of their power level.

 Deadshot wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply put?

Warhounds aren't particularly suited to Titan Hunting

It's funny, as I reached this bit I was thinking of the part of Betrayer in which a few packs of Warhounds subdue an Emperor titan.

Slightly off topic, but has there been a single story so far with an Emperor titan that actually survives a battle...?

Overall, the fiction makes them out to be pretty useless.

Plot convention. You can simply not introduce the game-winning piece and simply have it live up to its name by saving the day. As a Journalism and Creative Writing major, such a thing is a major no-no. THe Emperor Titan, by logic, should just show up and absolutely waste the enemy with its guns larger than they are, all 8 of them, but to do so would leave the less educated and more vocal audience asking "why didn't they do that to start with?" This of course has an answer in that there needs to be some tactics and stuff. But the fact is an Emperor-Class Titan is a plot-killer because its, realistically, an I Win button. Its the same reason C'tan were sharded in the Newcron codex, because they were ungodly stupidly powerful in a way that they removed tension because they were an I Win button, but when they were defeated, it was a huge plot hole because of their power level.

Storm of Iron did also have consequences too admitly.

There I win button was also there if lost total morale killer to see the great god machine slain.
They had to put alot of effert into fixing after its first engarment trashed a leg up and fused it so it could not walk.

It was a good book but I aslo see because the i win button was also big ass headache to the villan too.

In Helsreach, the only thing that brings down the Imperator Titan is an equally large Gargant, and that was after the Imperator had overextended itself. Even then, it almost destroyed the Gargant.

Originally, fluff-wise...weren't Warhound Titans "Scout Titans" (as absurd as that notion is).

If that indeed the purpose/case, the objective is simple: shoot to break contact and run the other way. Attack (particularly in melee) would be the dead last purpose/aim/goal of a Warhound princeps.

Of course that doesn't work at all on a 40K battlefield where we've decided to scrap it out at 150 meters...so...

There's a story - which may have an element of truth, who knows? - that more senior officers in the army were once only issued pistols in the field, as a subtle hint that their role was not in the firefight but from a more detached position where they could concentrate on commanding their men.

As Warhound Princeps are generally referred to as being a fairly independent-minded, rather hot-headed bunch, NOT giving them close-range weaponry could be working on a similar principle!

But yes, they were meant to be light 'scout' titans, though I'd imagine that also translates as "it's still a titan and will ruin the day of the average small non-titan-supported detachment on a raid or flank guard"

Mind you, that's scouting for the even larger battle titans, in a battlefield dominated by Imperial industrial megastructures.

There's a two-page vignette in the 1st edition Space Marine where Ultramarines and Sons of Horus are fighting in a constricted valley. a single Warhound is a significant advbantage to the traitors, taking a heavy toll on Ultramarines armour and infantry - until a blast from a Warp Runners Warlord cuts it in half.

insaniak wrote:

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Simply put?

Warhounds aren't particularly suited to Titan Hunting

It's funny, as I reached this bit I was thinking of the part of Betrayer in which a few packs of Warhounds subdue an Emperor titan.

Slightly off topic, but has there been a single story so far with an Emperor titan that actually survives a battle...?

Overall, the fiction makes them out to be pretty useless.

it is just a thing, like the Eldar Avatars, plot devices of indestructible nature that through guts and moxy are defeated

Elbows wrote:Originally, fluff-wise...weren't Warhound Titans "Scout Titans" (as absurd as that notion is).

If that indeed the purpose/case, the objective is simple: shoot to break contact and run the other way. Attack (particularly in melee) would be the dead last purpose/aim/goal of a Warhound princeps.

Of course that doesn't work at all on a 40K battlefield where we've decided to scrap it out at 150 meters...so...

creed can hide a warhound behind a fence post, don't tell me they can't be scouts /joking

but seriously a scout titan is sort of ridiculous s unless you consider the things that can really hurt it. they can run up ahead, destroy pretty much any nontitan and then if the warhouds spot or find a big titan they can call it in for orbital bombardment or for the bigger titans to come in... scout does usually involve stealth though so yea they are not going to be particularly subtle.

Pilum wrote:
There's a story - which may have an element of truth, who knows? - that more senior officers in the army were once only issued pistols in the field, as a subtle hint that their role was not in the firefight but from a more detached position where they could concentrate on commanding their men.

As Warhound Princeps are generally referred to as being a fairly independent-minded, rather hot-headed bunch, NOT giving them close-range weaponry could be working on a similar principle!

But yes, they were meant to be light 'scout' titans, though I'd imagine that also translates as "it's still a titan and will ruin the day of the average small non-titan-supported detachment on a raid or flank guard"

I can easily belive this about the pistols. I know that, at least for CAV officers (pretty sure infantry to), they told us that if you're shooting your weapon you're wrong. Our job was to be on the radio fighting the platoon/company and reporting to higher, calling in IDF, etc. I was issued and M4 but rarely touched it on mission as I usually had a mic in each hand.


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 Elbows wrote:
Originally, fluff-wise...weren't Warhound Titans "Scout Titans" (as absurd as that notion is).

If that indeed the purpose/case, the objective is simple: shoot to break contact and run the other way. Attack (particularly in melee) would be the dead last purpose/aim/goal of a Warhound princeps.

Of course that doesn't work at all on a 40K battlefield where we've decided to scrap it out at 150 meters...so...

Pretty sure that is right. I remember reading stuff way back that said they were scouts for the bigger stuff so having CC weapons on them wouldn't make sense.

 ILegion wrote:

Pilum wrote:
There's a story - which may have an element of truth, who knows? - that more senior officers in the army were once only issued pistols in the field, as a subtle hint that their role was not in the firefight but from a more detached position where they could concentrate on commanding their men.

As Warhound Princeps are generally referred to as being a fairly independent-minded, rather hot-headed bunch, NOT giving them close-range weaponry could be working on a similar principle!

But yes, they were meant to be light 'scout' titans, though I'd imagine that also translates as "it's still a titan and will ruin the day of the average small non-titan-supported detachment on a raid or flank guard"

I can easily belive this about the pistols. I know that, at least for CAV officers (pretty sure infantry to), they told us that if you're shooting your weapon you're wrong. Our job was to be on the radio fighting the platoon/company and reporting to higher, calling in IDF, etc. I was issued and M4 but rarely touched it on mission as I usually had a mic in each hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Originally, fluff-wise...weren't Warhound Titans "Scout Titans" (as absurd as that notion is).

If that indeed the purpose/case, the objective is simple: shoot to break contact and run the other way. Attack (particularly in melee) would be the dead last purpose/aim/goal of a Warhound princeps.

Of course that doesn't work at all on a 40K battlefield where we've decided to scrap it out at 150 meters...so...

Pretty sure that is right. I remember reading stuff way back that said they were scouts for the bigger stuff so having CC weapons on them wouldn't make sense.

Part of there job is also acting as pest control for the bugger stuff and defending against thr lighter units, tanks, flanking infantry and such. Hence on top of yes anti titan weapons they take Vulcan mega bolters, flame storm cannons both heavily tailored for lighter targets vs the turbo laser.

Vs titan s there not as poweful. They can give tanks a real scare and make infantry seriously keep there heads down.

Its worth mentioning that a larger titan is not necessarily going to see an approaching Warhound, or be able to get a shot off.

Titans are not so huge that its impossible for them to find cover. A forest of regular earth trees would be sufficient to obscure up to Reaver sized titans, hilly terrain as well. And if you're in any kind of urban environment any Titan could potentially have cover.

A Warhound operating in stealth mode and creeping from cover to cover could definitely sneak up on a larger titan. Heck, Titanicus even has a group of LRBTs get ambushed by a titan which was using a combination of cover and a local weather system to hide from detection.

The Warhound has a melee weapon. It's called a 'foot'. Next question, please.

(More seriously: The Warhound is a heavy gun platform mounting pretty long-ranged weaponry that isn't expected to be operating alone and unsupported. It's a more specialized tool than a Knight, which may actually be running about by itself and need to adapt to different situations. The Warhound has no melee arms for much the same reason War Walkers, Sentinels, and Revenants don't, they don't contribute to the job it's designed to do.)


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 Grey Templar wrote:
...A forest of regular earth trees would be sufficient to obscure up to Reaver sized titans...

The loud crashing noises and the trees falling over might be a giveaway. I've seen forests tall enough to hide a Reaver, I've never seen any sufficiently spread out to let a Reaver walk through them without smashing a wide swath.

That's what Knights are for.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The Warhound has a melee weapon. It's called a 'foot'. Next question, please.

(More seriously: The Warhound is a heavy gun platform mounting pretty long-ranged weaponry that isn't expected to be operating alone and unsupported. It's a more specialized tool than a Knight, which may actually be running about by itself and need to adapt to different situations. The Warhound has no melee arms for much the same reason War Walkers, Sentinels, and Revenants don't, they don't contribute to the job it's designed to do.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
...A forest of regular earth trees would be sufficient to obscure up to Reaver sized titans...

The loud crashing noises and the trees falling over might be a giveaway. I've seen forests tall enough to hide a Reaver, I've never seen any sufficiently spread out to let a Reaver walk through them without smashing a wide swath.

Reavers can get a Power Fist/ Chaos flavour Power Claw (fist)

It's an infantry support Titan, not an anti-engine Titan.

Can it fight a bigger Titan? Yeah, but it's at a severe disadvantage. Can it gun down the SUPPORT of the enemy Titan? Yeah, and that's what it does best.

It doesn't want to get close to most enemies.

So warhounds dont have close combat weapons because they are too small, yet we have plenty of close combat weapons for the even smaller Knights...

id say mainly as they are scouts, bloody nasty scouts, but scouts non the less, so most of the weaponry is for stand off battles and skirting the edges of titan on titan combat

They are the pest control. They shred the enemy support, infantry and armour backing up the titans who can concentrate on the main enemy titans.

They aslo scout ahead and locate enemy Titan formations.
There not battle titans.

Hmm, ok...other question then: would the Traitor Feral Titans possibly use close combat weapons?

 Malika2 wrote:
Hmm, ok...other question then: would the Traitor Feral Titans possibly use close combat weapons?

Maybe. This is chaos. The chassis is not designed for close combat completely, and lightly armoured.
May work and be part deamon but also there not a match for battle titans straight up fighting..

But who says they would then only be used to fight bigger titans? We also have Knights with close combat weapons, and nobody seems to have an issue with that. If the whole reasoning is that these machines don't do close combat because they're too small/light, then Knights should be the last machines to have close combat weapons and such.

 Malika2 wrote:
But who says they would then only be used to fight bigger titans? We also have Knights with close combat weapons, and nobody seems to have an issue with that. If the whole reasoning is that these machines don't do close combat because they're too small/light, then Knights should be the last machines to have close combat weapons and such.

True. They would be good knight hunters.
But it also is one thing.
Armour per ton. To be light and faster that would have to be lower, and more vulnerable even to knight attacks.
There void shields can also be downed by regular weapons fire by tanks. Feral warhound would have to be more cautious of a supported battlegroup given it cannot do normal jink m scoot n shoot.


A knight likely has a higher armour per ton than a assult warhound. So better suited for closer battle.

There's also the matter of different development histories and (ultimately) intended typical mission profile. I'm an old Epic player but I've not read the modern codex, but a glance at wiki's shows that a knight suit is still ultimately derived from industrial mech suits, with adapted weaponry to match, and even then was really more to discourage comparatively small-scale raiding. By contrast, even the 'small' Warhound is a dedicated war engine.

Perhaps an analogy.

It's 1943. You're a captain in the Kriegsmarine, commander of a small flotilla of, oh, lets say half a dozen E-boats. On patrol, you come across a small convoy - good news, but it's guarded by a pair of River-class frigates. You know that last year, your Italian allies managed to score a particularly juicy prize, and your U-boat colleagues have knocked a couple out, so your torpedoes are more than useful. But it's mid-morning, open ocean and the fact remains that you'll have to get to a decent firing range in the teeth of those 4" guns, and the best you'll otherwise do is try to scratch the paintwork with your anti-aircraft cannons.

Do you order the attack?

 Malika2 wrote:
But who says they would then only be used to fight bigger titans? We also have Knights with close combat weapons, and nobody seems to have an issue with that. If the whole reasoning is that these machines don't do close combat because they're too small/light, then Knights should be the last machines to have close combat weapons and such.

They serve different purposes entirely. Knights were only called Knight Titans with the latest models because everyone and their dog erroneously called them Knight Titans for internet clarify because "Knights" was too vague for some people to deal with. I can't remember how many times in my early days I got told off for calling them Knight Titans.

With that in mind, hhere is the reason: Warhounds are Scout Titans, they scout titan battles and act as skirmishers on a collossal scale. They are the scout squad of Titan warfare, where Reavers are the Tacticals, Warlords the Terminators and Emperor Titans the Dreadnoughts. A Scout trying to fight a Terminator with his combat knife and pistol is folly, as is a Warhound trying to take on a Warlord in melee.

Knights are in this comparison more like an elite human fighter, a Stormtrooper or IG Veteran maybe. He can fight the Scout, maybe, and get a lucky kill, but a Space Marine, Terminator or Dreadnought? Madness. No, like the Stormtrooper, the Knight provides elite support to the main army, taking on equivilent opponents. He fights smaller superheavies like Leviathan Dreadnoughts, Gorkanaughts/Stompas, Wraightknights, Heirodules, Brass Scorpions. He provides heavy fire support and cuts down vehicles and monstrous creatures that pose a threat to infantry. But we would never try to take on a Reaver or Warlord, Emperor forbid. It would be utter suicide.

In short? Warhounds aren't really intended to engage other Titans in duels.

Instead, their function is to engage smaller threats, such as enemy armoured columns and infantry advances - the very things which can take down a Warlord or Reaver given time.

That some carry Turbolaser Destructors is to assist against larger Titans, and to prove a threat to enemy scout titans.

Typically, if they're off in the field Scouting, they're meant to either disengage on discovery of a larger class, or use their manouverability to keep it in check until a friendly Battle Titan can tackle it - possibly stripping it's shields off in advance.

They're a tactical nuisance. Too heavy for small enemy forces to successfully engage. Swift enough to outpace larger threats. Also better suited to urban warfare, where they can deal with enemy Battle Titans via hit and run tactics.

Close combat just doesn't really suit that role at all.