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TrollPie wrote:
Combat potential is simply the end result of well thought out logistics. The logistics involved in transporting 50 massive Titans to every single population centre on an entire planet-as in, hundreds of millions of square miles of land-would make your head explode.

This is 40k where GW draws the maps. Have you seen them? 3-4 cities are all that is on some GW drawings...
Plus, the munitorum keeps billions of guard regiments supplied, the mechnicum surely has no trouble to keep a few machines walking.

1hadhq wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
Combat potential is simply the end result of well thought out logistics. The logistics involved in transporting 50 massive Titans to every single population centre on an entire planet-as in, hundreds of millions of square miles of land-would make your head explode.

This is 40k where GW draws the maps. Have you seen them? 3-4 cities are all that is on some GW drawings...
Plus, the munitorum keeps billions of guard regiments supplied, the mechnicum surely has no trouble to keep a few machines walking.

They can create the supplies, but transporting them through the unreliable Warp across light-years of space with no idea when they'll arrive or even if they will is yet another logistical nightmare.

TrollPie wrote:

Arturius wrote:

TrollPie wrote:If this was a real life battle, the logical thing to do would be to focus all effort into gaining superiority in space then blasting the Titans from orbit. But that wouldn't make for an epic ground battle, and 40k is all about epic ground battles. So I imagine swarming the carapace with jump troops armed with every Fusion Blaster in the Tau Empire could take a Titan down. It would also look ridiculous.

If you don't have any space resistance, and if you don't mind reducing the planet to a smouldering heap, and if you have nothing else to do with three kilometers of death on a plasma engine, then yeah, go nuts, but it doesn't favor any one faction over the others.

-Loki- said a similair thing earlier on. Here:

TrollPie wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
If this was a real life battle, the logical thing to do would be to focus all effort into gaining superiority in space then blasting the Titans from orbit. But that wouldn't make for an epic ground battle, and 40k is all about epic ground battles.

Well, realistically, you don't want to be doing that either. Unless you're fighting on the planet for pure survival (say, against a Tyranid swarm), then you really don't want to be indiscriminantly bombarding the planet you're trying to win.

Except you don't have to bombard indiscriminately to kill a handful of targets. A single nuke or lance barrage while they're manouvering between cities and it's problem solved-a few miles of already unused land off the map isn't a bad price to pay for destroying multiple, near irreplaceable god machines.

First off, you pretty much do. Titans are really, really big, sure, but you're still talking about killing a fly on the wall by lobbing tennis balls from across a gymnasium. To actually destroy a Titan, you're going to need to throw a whole lot of firepower trying to hit one little dot on the planet's surface.

Second, again, this isn't a strategy that favors the Tau over the Imperium. It still requires complete space superiority in space, so it could just as easily be the Imperium's way of wiping out the Tau airfields that could be used to attack the Titans.

TrollPie wrote:
They can create the supplies, but transporting them through the unreliable Warp across light-years of space with no idea when they'll arrive or even if they will is yet another logistical nightmare.

not really.

Daily work of the uncounted souls keeping the military running.
In game - you never run out of supplies.
In fluff, supplies are never low if contact to the suppliers is secured. Only isolated units had problems and as I ve pointed out with the krieg artillery, years of fighting are not depleting the units of ressources as bad as you make it sound.

Arturius wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

Arturius wrote:

TrollPie wrote:If this was a real life battle, the logical thing to do would be to focus all effort into gaining superiority in space then blasting the Titans from orbit. But that wouldn't make for an epic ground battle, and 40k is all about epic ground battles. So I imagine swarming the carapace with jump troops armed with every Fusion Blaster in the Tau Empire could take a Titan down. It would also look ridiculous.

If you don't have any space resistance, and if you don't mind reducing the planet to a smouldering heap, and if you have nothing else to do with three kilometers of death on a plasma engine, then yeah, go nuts, but it doesn't favor any one faction over the others.

-Loki- said a similair thing earlier on. Here:

TrollPie wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

TrollPie wrote:
If this was a real life battle, the logical thing to do would be to focus all effort into gaining superiority in space then blasting the Titans from orbit. But that wouldn't make for an epic ground battle, and 40k is all about epic ground battles.

Well, realistically, you don't want to be doing that either. Unless you're fighting on the planet for pure survival (say, against a Tyranid swarm), then you really don't want to be indiscriminantly bombarding the planet you're trying to win.

Except you don't have to bombard indiscriminately to kill a handful of targets. A single nuke or lance barrage while they're manouvering between cities and it's problem solved-a few miles of already unused land off the map isn't a bad price to pay for destroying multiple, near irreplaceable god machines.

First off, you pretty much do. Titans are really, really big, sure, but you're still talking about killing a fly on the wall by lobbing tennis balls from across a gymnasium. To actually destroy a Titan, you're going to need to throw a whole lot of firepower trying to hit one little dot on the planet's surface.

Second, again, this isn't a strategy that favors the Tau over the Imperium. It still requires complete space superiority in space, so it could just as easily be the Imperium's way of wiping out the Tau airfields that could be used to attack the Titans.

A modern supercomputer can already use mathematics to predict exactly where an object sent in to space will travel to. A Nuke or a weapon of similair power, guided by something that makes them look like a toaster in comparison will have no trouble hitting the right place at the right time-and even if it misses by a mile or two the target is still as good as dead, or at least badly damaged enough to become a drain on resources. Send in a second for good measure and it's job done.

This approach does give the Tau one crucial advantage- the Imperium is wasting resources putting things on the ground. And battle for a planet will be, realistically, decided in space-whoever controls it has the power to wipe out any target he likes at the push of a button while the enemy will be unable to respond with suitable firepower. But, obviously, 40k is about ground battles and mighty heroes, so the obvious strategies will be ignored in favour of the one that creates the most epic clash.


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1hadhq wrote:
In fluff, supplies are never low if contact to the suppliers is secured. Only isolated units had problems and as I ve pointed out with the krieg artillery, years of fighting are not depleting the units of ressources as bad as you make it sound.

That's my point-contact to the suppliers is never secured thanks to the Imperium's Warp reliance.
The Krieg artillery is only described vaguely so we have no idea of how constant and heavy the bombardment was. The Kriegians also had total control of the planet and so had a constant supply of resources.

TrollPie wrote:A modern supercomputer can already use mathematics to predict exactly where an object sent in to space will travel to. A Nuke or a weapon of similair power, guided by something that makes them look like a toaster in comparison will have no trouble hitting the right place at the right time-and even if it misses by a mile or two the target is still as good as dead, or at least badly damaged enough to become a drain on resources. Send in a second for good measure and it's job done.

If it was that easy, BFG ships wouldn't miss nearly as often as they do.

In any case, orbital strikes aren't that amazing as Titan-killers. After going through the entire atmosphere, they're given Strength scores between 8 and 10, with a good bit of time between firing. They're more than Ordinance 1, but even so, they're going to have a hard time keeping up a good enough rate of fire to take down the Titan's void shields faster than they're recharging, never mind actually killing one.

Tau can launch icefire missiles fairly accurately. I believe they work like battlesuits. (Actually well are at it, do battlesuits deepstrike form orbit?)

TrollPie wrote:

That's my point-contact to the suppliers is never secured thanks to the Imperium's Warp reliance.
The Krieg artillery is only described vaguely so we have no idea of how constant and heavy the bombardment was. The Kriegians also had total control of the planet and so had a constant supply of resources.

How about an example of units runninng low on fuel / ammo?
See, if you find one, its an event when the unit is cut off.
Thus its not the standard.
Krieg was sent as a backup to secure compliance and had most likely no support from the planet.
The rebels were shelled until they were dust. And then some more.
As funny as it is, your point of "!no supplies constantly!" when I point at the masses who produce and transport all the neccessary material followed up by "!but the had control over the planet and thus constant supplies!" reveals the flaw in your argument.
Can't have it both ways.

TrollPie wrote:
A modern supercomputer can already use mathematics to predict exactly where an object sent in to space will travel to.

This also assumes that the Tau have such orbital superiority that they can maintain orbit for long enough to hit a small moving target.

even if it misses by a mile or two the target is still as good as dead, or at least badly damaged enough to become a drain on resources.

Sadly, in 40K this does not appear to be the case. Unless its planet killing weaponry, which I don't think the Tau are said to have and almost certainly won't use. There doesn't really seem to be many weapons capable of doing such a large amount of damage over such a large area.

This approach does give the Tau one crucial advantage- the Imperium is wasting resources putting things on the ground.

As you pointed out, this is 40K and so is not an advantage since the Tau will be doing the exact same thing. Otherwise the Titans wouldn't even be deployed.

Again, this is not a question whether tau kill titans, its a question of how. And the how question is too vague to be properly answered.

If the tau have air-superiority (i.e. control of space) then they can probably use spaced-based weaponry to deal with it.

If the tau control the ground, they can probably use mass fire to deal with it

If the tau are being fiesty, they can try rigging up a weapon (though this would assume a stalemate or lull in the fighting)

If they have the ability, they could also attempt sabotage. All of these methods can work, given other factors.

Perhaps the better question to ask is: how successful are tau against a titan's retinue/the imperial navy? How often are they in a position to use any of these tactics?

1hadhq wrote:

TrollPie wrote:

That's my point-contact to the suppliers is never secured thanks to the Imperium's Warp reliance.
The Krieg artillery is only described vaguely so we have no idea of how constant and heavy the bombardment was. The Kriegians also had total control of the planet and so had a constant supply of resources.

How about an example of units runninng low on fuel / ammo?
See, if you find one, its an event when the unit is cut off.
Thus its not the standard.
Krieg was sent as a backup to secure compliance and had most likely no support from the planet.
The rebels were shelled until they were dust. And then some more.
As funny as it is, your point of "!no supplies constantly!" when I point at the masses who produce and transport all the neccessary material followed up by "!but the had control over the planet and thus constant supplies!" reveals the flaw in your argument.
Can't have it both ways.

Kreig is a seige based army, an army litterily bred for attrition warfare. Kreig armys also take years to deploy and that's at an uncontested landing zone, ia4(?) I belive. Krieg armys would be deployed with a surplus of suplys from the getgo due to the nature of their doctorin, fething terrible example of a "logistics arn't a problem for the imperium."

Against the Navy, the Tau are at a bit of a disadvantage. Ship for ship, class to class, hull to hull, the Imperium has the edge in Naval warfare. Tau vessels tend cheaper, which means most BFG matches will have more Tau ships than Imperial, but that's a matter of deployment and application, rather than total ships. The Tau armada is a tiny fraction of the ships in the Imperial Navy, but also worrying about a tiny fraction of the space.

Again, though, the usual issue is that it's not as easy as some people make it seem to get the sort of total space superiority you'd need to just bombard the planet's surface at will. More often, at least in the fiction, a fleet will move to drop off their invasion force, and then move out to avoid being blown out of the sky, or to drop another invasion force somewhere else, or to deal with the other guy's navy somewhere else.

Who is to say you need to have space superiority to deliver a MAC round or two on a planetside target and bug out? I'm sure the tau fleet (if the ground situation was bad enough.) Would break off a taskforce to distract&detain while a speciaised ship delived its rounds down range. Concerning accuracy, the Tau have markerlights for their rifles, why wouldn't they have a combat air controler(space in this example)with equipment to target interatmosphere targets?

Newabortion wrote:Who is to say you need to have space superiority to deliver a MAC round or two on a planetside target and bug out? I'm sure the tau fleet (if the ground situation was bad enough.) Would break off a taskforce to distract&detain while a speciaised ship delived its rounds down range. Concerning accuracy, the Tau have markerlights for their rifles, why wouldn't they have a combat air controler(space in this example)with equipment to target interatmosphere targets?

I think you need to demonstrate something that suggests the Tau do have better planetary bombardment capabilities than anybody else, rather than the reverse. As is, literally every faction in the 40K galaxy has the ability to shoot at planets from low orbit. Saying the Tau would use it on Imperial forces is no more of an argument than the opposite.

Unless I missed something I wasn't saying they do have better planetary bombardments, from what I read it seems the arguement was if it could be done. I was just sugesting that they would not need complete space supremacy to deliver rounds down range at an inner atmosphere target. The more I look at past posts I guess I really am missing your point? I'm not trying to be a dick or sarcastic but could you elaborate?

Alright... basically? People have been saying that the answer to "how would Tau deal with a titan legion" is "orbital bombardment."

My response is that, in WH40K, anyone can deal with anything via orbital bombardment. It's a non-answer. If they're in a position to sit in orbit and bombard the hell out of a planet, it doesn't matter which faction you're talking about or what the target is. 40K spaceships carry apocalyptic levels of firepower as a rule. It makes these sorts of questions meaningless, because any "how would faction X deal with situation Y" could be answered with "mass orbital bombardment."

However, what I'm getting from the books and the games suggests that quick, single shots from orbital bombardment isn't even very good for taking out titan-level threats. It can be a useful assist for your ground forces, but even if you can hit anything from orbit (and there's always a pretty good chance of scatter), the rules for an orbital bombardment hit seem hugely unlikely to take out even a warhound-scale titan.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Newabortion wrote:Which brings us back full circle to the fact they would be forced to engage in gorilla tactics, attack the suporting units and the machine will sucome to war of attrition,

Guerilla warfare only works when the civilian population will support and feed you. If the civilian population is Tau, they will be exterminated by the Imperium and cannot offer support. If the civilian population are is Human, there's a good chance they support the mighty God-Emperor of Mankind over the Great Good of the Tau. Even if they do support the Tau, the Imperium will come down hard on them. Without support from local population, the Tau will not be able to find food and such. Not to mention that that would require the Imperium to not defend its supply lines, and leave any command centres of the Tau vulnerable to being wiped out.

howcan it fire without ammo? "well then it'll just stomp around,duh!" well then it will run out of fuel.

As said, many of its weaponsd raw power from the reactor. Which, by the way, will not run out of fuel (or at least, not any time soon).

Randomonioum wrote: Its been said that they have to return to 'refuel', or some such, I forget the actual phrasing.

I would assume that they return for maintanence (if they've been in battle, or simply to check) and also to refill any solid ammunition. I'm not sure if the crew need sleep, or how much they would need if they do.

Also, according to an old White Dwarf magazine Imperator Titans are powered by a "minature sun" and are capable of "dealing death to whole armies at a time". I love the hyperbole of Games Workshop. Interestingly, it also says that Emperor Titans are only 25 to 40 metres tall.

Of course, megabolters and the like will have ammo reserves that can be depleted. But if the ammo is depleted, think how much damage its already done. At that point, killing the titan is almost certainly a pyrrhic victory.

Which aren't their most powerful weapons, unfortunately for the Tau.

They aren't "25 to 40 meters tall"

40m is the approximate height of a reaver.

Warhound 25

Reaver 40

Warlord 60

Imperator too much variance to peg a number. The lowest I have heard (before your post) was 85, the highest I have heard (seems improbable) is 150m.

Either way, NOT 25m tall.

BTW, has anyone else noticed how GW has completely forgotten that Warmongers exist? And knights (9m)?


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Arturius wrote:Alright... basically? People have been saying that the answer to "how would Tau deal with a titan legion" is "orbital bombardment."

My response is that, in WH40K, anyone can deal with anything via orbital bombardment. It's a non-answer. If they're in a position to sit in orbit and bombard the hell out of a planet, it doesn't matter which faction you're talking about or what the target is. 40K spaceships carry apocalyptic levels of firepower as a rule. It makes these sorts of questions meaningless, because any "how would faction X deal with situation Y" could be answered with "mass orbital bombardment."

However, what I'm getting from the books and the games suggests that quick, single shots from orbital bombardment isn't even very good for taking out titan-level threats. It can be a useful assist for your ground forces, but even if you can hit anything from orbit (and there's always a pretty good chance of scatter), the rules for an orbital bombardment hit seem hugely unlikely to take out even a warhound-scale titan.

Heavy weapons kill titans. Fact. Railguns are heavy weapons /convo


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Newabortion wrote:Who is to say you need to have space superiority to deliver a MAC round or two on a planetside target and bug out? I'm sure the tau fleet (if the ground situation was bad enough.) Would break off a taskforce to distract&detain while a speciaised ship delived its rounds down range. Concerning accuracy, the Tau have markerlights for their rifles, why wouldn't they have a combat air controler(space in this example)with equipment to target intratmospheric targets?

MAC? THIS ISN'T HALO! IT IS A RAILGUN AND HAS LITTLE/NO SIMILARITIES TO A MASS DRIVER. DO YO WANT THIs CONVO TO START AGAIN?

Otherwise I agree with your post


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nomotog wrote:Tau can launch icefire missiles fairly accurately. I believe they work like battlesuits. (Actually well are at it, do battlesuits deepstrike form orbit?)

They deepstrike from mantas/orcas. They may also go from low orbit, but I haven't seen a referrence yet.


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Arturius wrote:

TrollPie wrote:A modern supercomputer can already use mathematics to predict exactly where an object sent in to space will travel to. A Nuke or a weapon of similair power, guided by something that makes them look like a toaster in comparison will have no trouble hitting the right place at the right time-and even if it misses by a mile or two the target is still as good as dead, or at least badly damaged enough to become a drain on resources. Send in a second for good measure and it's job done.

If it was that easy, BFG ships wouldn't miss nearly as often as they do.

In any case, orbital strikes aren't that amazing as Titan-killers. After going through the entire atmosphere, they're given Strength scores between 8 and 10, with a good bit of time between firing. They're more than Ordinance 1, but even so, they're going to have a hard time keeping up a good enough rate of fire to take down the Titan's void shields faster than they're recharging, never mind actually killing one.

Maybe on the TT, but in fluff they would be obliterated. In Nemesis, it mentioned the Space Marine ship's conventional, non-planet killer weaponry being able to flatten continents.

Spaceship weaponry aiming at moving targets smaller than about a kilometer is damnably difficult, by the rules and by the fluff. Of course, titan movement really doesn't qualify as 'moving' by the space-level distinctions... but it barely qualifies as 'target,' either. Long-range weaponry is designed for ship-to-ship actions, not hitting particular points on a planet's surface.

Yes, heavy weaponry will bring down a titan, but it needs to be focused and continuous. You need to hit a titan with enough firepower to bring its shields down before you can even start to smash the structure, and you need to keep making direct hits, constantly, or the shields power back up and you're right back where you started.

Tau ships would have a better chance to hit a moveing target on a planet because unlike logic would dictate, they put there rail guns in turret battery. rather then fixed main guns. So they can rotate all around with out turning the ship and they fire a lot of shots.

Arturius wrote:Spaceship weaponry aiming at moving targets smaller than about a kilometer is damnably difficult, by the rules and by the fluff. Of course, titan movement really doesn't qualify as 'moving' by the space-level distinctions... but it barely qualifies as 'target,' either. Long-range weaponry is designed for ship-to-ship actions, not hitting particular points on a planet's surface.

Yes, heavy weaponry will bring down a titan, but it needs to be focused and continuous. You need to hit a titan with enough firepower to bring its shields down before you can even start to smash the structure, and you need to keep making direct hits, constantly, or the shields power back up and you're right back where you started.

The Titans would be fairly easy to lock on to...and energy signature that big...


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nomotog wrote:Tau ships would have a better chance to hit a moveing target on a planet because unlike logic would dictate, they put there rail guns in turret battery. rather then fixed main guns. So they can rotate all around with out turning the ship and they fire a lot of shots.

Railguns are main guns, and count as lance, but they can swivel, so they are better than lances.

im2randomghgh wrote:BTW, has anyone else noticed how GW has completely forgotten that Warmongers exist? And knights (9m)?

Since GW is doing the main range of 40k and no Specialist games anymore, it's small wonder. They barely get the chance to write about Titans, so the variants like Warmongers, while probably not forgotten, are left aside.

As to Knights, I wouldn't be surprised if GW dropped them from the fluff, but for now they're just not mentioning them. I'd be super happy if Forgeworld took the idea into Imperial Armour though.

A smart tau commander would sabotage a titan, as it is the cheapest way to kill that asset. Stealth suits, I'd think, should be able to do it.

Another smart commander would fire rail batteries from many miles away, at ballistic trajectories, to overload the shields and hopefully penetrate the titan.

A tau commander could also fight a massive ground campaign against the titans retinue, allowing all artillery to perform massive bombardment against the titan.

And a tau ship firing a rail volley from space, or even just dropping something big from space onto the titan should work. yes, if it's moving, it'll be tough, but if the bombardment hits surrounding area, then you hit the titans retinue, and it is easier to destroy as it is not as guarded.

-Loki- wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:BTW, has anyone else noticed how GW has completely forgotten that Warmongers exist? And knights (9m)?

Since GW is doing the main range of 40k and no Specialist games anymore, it's small wonder. They barely get the chance to write about Titans, so the variants like Warmongers, while probably not forgotten, are left aside.

As to Knights, I wouldn't be surprised if GW dropped them from the fluff, but for now they're just not mentioning them. I'd be super happy if Forgeworld took the idea into Imperial Armour though.

IKR? Knights would be sick. They are small enough that they could even be implemented into non-apoc games of around 2000 pts.

And Warmongers are my favourite titans. Just saying.

im2randomghgh wrote:
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nomotog wrote:Tau ships would have a better chance to hit a moveing target on a planet because unlike logic would dictate, they put there rail guns in turret battery. rather then fixed main guns. So they can rotate all around with out turning the ship and they fire a lot of shots.

Railguns are main guns, and count as lance, but they can swivel, so they are better than lances.

No, railguns are Weapons Batteries. Ion cannons are Lances.


Imperial ships have both fixed guns and turrets as their ship weapons batteries. its just that the size of the ship usually limits their aiming in directions other then the sides. Lances are almost always turret mounted.

1hadhq wrote:
Centuries?
A city is levelled in minutes.
Imperial positions may take some time, because their fortified but still centuries is far off.
A lonely group of regiments from krieg bombed a renegade hive into oblivion and beyond in 10 years,( one who died in 8 and 2 years were spent to make sure...)
Titans simply outrange a lot of things, so they can take their time and clear the path before the masses of skitarii swarm in.

Ok, so this rules out Static defence against Titans.

Randomonioum wrote:

Newabortion wrote:

1hadhq wrote:
The machine is the impersonification of the omnissiah.
The omnissiah provides, so it can never run out of ammo nor fuel.

BTW, some weapons may use ammo, but some don't. Same with fuel. Giant flamers may use fuel, but the engine isn't running on gas...

Well TBH I don't/didn't know they are omnipresent infinite resource machines of uberdeath/giveupnow, Sorry for my ignorance.

A lot of the titans weapons draw power from the reactor. And they arent using promethium to power a titan, they have their own on board reactor. Which TECHNICALLY should allow them to run effectively forever, but I dont know about coolant restraints and the like. Its been said that they have to return to 'refuel', or some such, I forget the actual phrasing. Of course, megabolters and the like will have ammo reserves that can be depleted. But if the ammo is depleted, think how much damage its already done. At that point, killing the titan is almost certainly a pyrrhic victory.

Ok, at the polor opposite which is guerrilla warfare has been smacked down as a possible solution.

Grey Templar wrote:the general method of Titan operations is fairly fluid.


Main Battle Titans like Reavers and Warlords will form the main line and will pound enemy positions from dozens of kilometers away, warlords can even engage from over the horizon with their ballistic weaponry like Vortex Missiles.

Warhounds form the advance force. They are grouped in pairs that are given an enormous amount of personal libery in their prosection of the enemy. they never remain still for long and their rapidly moving forms will be difficult for Tau stealth teams to sabotage by climbing on, much less track down in the first place.


Warhounds are small enough to take advantage of actual cover, 45 feet high at rest. Buildings and Trees can provide large amounts of concelment.

Ok, so now any possibility of any kind of stand up fight has now been debunked as unwinable, so if the tau can't defeat the titan on the ground they must resort to attacking with something that cant be retalilated against, or if it can then you must make your attack count. So lets bomb the fether from space.

Arturius wrote:Alright... basically? People have been saying that the answer to "how would Tau deal with a titan legion" is "orbital bombardment."

My response is that, in WH40K, anyone can deal with anything via orbital bombardment. It's a non-answer. If they're in a position to sit in orbit and bombard the hell out of a planet, it doesn't matter which faction you're talking about or what the target is. 40K spaceships carry apocalyptic levels of firepower as a rule. It makes these sorts of questions meaningless, because any "how would faction X deal with situation Y" could be answered with "mass orbital bombardment."

However, what I'm getting from the books and the games suggests that quick, single shots from orbital bombardment isn't even very good for taking out titan-level threats. It can be a useful assist for your ground forces, but even if you can hit anything from orbit (and there's always a pretty good chance of scatter), the rules for an orbital bombardment hit seem hugely unlikely to take out even a warhound-scale titan.

I thank you explaining, I finally got what you when while I was takeing a shower. Basicly if it was so easy to orbital bombard someone/something it would be done all the time.
I have to disagree with you, you can't always deal with a tactial problem via barbardments, why the feck would you destroy the land your trying to aquire, so by the arguement that "It can't be that easy/simple because if it was everyone would be doing it

It makes these sorts of questions meaningless, because any "how would faction X deal with situation Y" could be answered with "mass orbital bombardment."

all races could and do have the ability to bombard or presision bombard but they don't do it because it pretty much destroys the land or objective you are trying to gain. They don't do it because it wouldn't acomplish their objective for them and would be horrible over kill.

Now the objective of the Tau trying to take down a Machine that "Can't be hurt due to shields, run out of ammo, run out of gas, and can FIRE WEAPONS FROM ACROSS THE HORIZON WTF. I would say the Tau would find it pretty reasonable to employ a bombardment from space to kill it.

Newabortion wrote:
Kreig is a seige based army, an army litterily bred for attrition warfare. Kreig armys also take years to deploy and that's at an uncontested landing zone, ia4(?) I belive. Krieg armys would be deployed with a surplus of suplys from the getgo due to the nature of their doctorin, fething terrible example of a "logistics arn't a problem for the imperium."

1)
Krieg not kreig
2)
imperial armor does not invalidate 40k codices. Its the other way round.
nothing suggests armies take years to deploy after arrival.
3)
The setting prefers the combatants in the spotlight, but this does not mean the other guys do nothing.
If logistics wouldn't work usually, armies would be lost on such scale that no recrutement level could counter the losses.
Its a challenge to keep them all fed and armed, but its not impossible.
4)
A clever commander would handle a legio like the maginot line. Instead of opposing it, keep it distracted.
To give up a world and leave would be fluffy for Tau if you count their 4th ed background.
The issue here is too many want to "win" by killing the machines. Something that makes them a real target.
But there are different ways to victory and the thread does not provide a location or a description of the opponents.
5)
IoM,Chaos, Eldar, orks and nids have their own "titans", necron are unknown yet and Tau got a different theme.
Maybe the Tau are designed to evade that fight?

[quote=im2randomghghBTW, has anyone else noticed how GW has completely forgotten that Warmongers exist?

im2randomghgh wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

Newabortion wrote:Which brings us back full circle to the fact they would be forced to engage in gorilla tactics, attack the suporting units and the machine will sucome to war of attrition,

Guerilla warfare only works when the civilian population will support and feed you. If the civilian population is Tau, they will be exterminated by the Imperium and cannot offer support. If the civilian population are is Human, there's a good chance they support the mighty God-Emperor of Mankind over the Great Good of the Tau. Even if they do support the Tau, the Imperium will come down hard on them. Without support from local population, the Tau will not be able to find food and such. Not to mention that that would require the Imperium to not defend its supply lines, and leave any command centres of the Tau vulnerable to being wiped out.

howcan it fire without ammo? "well then it'll just stomp around,duh!" well then it will run out of fuel.

As said, many of its weaponsd raw power from the reactor. Which, by the way, will not run out of fuel (or at least, not any time soon).

Randomonioum wrote: Its been said that they have to return to 'refuel', or some such, I forget the actual phrasing.

I would assume that they return for maintanence (if they've been in battle, or simply to check) and also to refill any solid ammunition. I'm not sure if the crew need sleep, or how much they would need if they do.

Also, according to an old White Dwarf magazine Imperator Titans are powered by a "minature sun" and are capable of "dealing death to whole armies at a time". I love the hyperbole of Games Workshop. Interestingly, it also says that Emperor Titans are only 25 to 40 metres tall.

Of course, megabolters and the like will have ammo reserves that can be depleted. But if the ammo is depleted, think how much damage its already done. At that point, killing the titan is almost certainly a pyrrhic victory.

Which aren't their most powerful weapons, unfortunately for the Tau.

They aren't "25 to 40 meters tall"

40m is the approximate height of a reaver.

Warhound 25

Reaver 40

Warlord 60

Imperator too much variance to peg a number. The lowest I have heard (before your post) was 85, the highest I have heard (seems improbable) is 150m.

Either way, NOT 25m tall.

Your sizes are off. From the apoc datasheets we can easily calculate that the Warhound is at max 15 metres, the Reaver around 25, the Warlord around 35 and the Emperor at max 55 metres ( including the cathedral on it's back ).

Those datasheets aren't accurate.

im2randomghgh wrote:
They aren't "25 to 40 meters tall"

40m is the approximate height of a reaver.

Warhound 25

Reaver 40

Warlord 60

Imperator too much variance to peg a number. The lowest I have heard (before your post) was 85, the highest I have heard (seems improbable) is 150m.

Either way, NOT 25m tall.

"Warhound model, 250mm tall, would stand around 15 meters (45 feet) in real life."
Reaver = 22.3m ( Imperial Armory, Reaver Titan Specifications )
"A Warlord Titan is approximately 33m (100ft) tall according to the scale diagram in the Apocalypse Rulebook"
"Other accounts have stated it to be in the region of 200 meters (656 feet)" - this is from BL novel. And we all know that in a mtters of fluff Codex and Rulebooks > BL Novels.
"According to the scale diagram from the Imperator's Apocalypse datasheet, Imperator Titan stands approximately 39" tall on tabletop, equivalent to 55.5 meters (166ft) in real life."
"Dies Irae, the famous Chaos Imperator Titan that laid siege to the Imperial Palace, was stated as being 43m (130ft) tall"

You need to check your numbers again...