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So perhaps I'm just over thinking this in my head space, but are D weapons really that terribly powerful for their points? A lot of it I've been thinking about in relation to the revenant Titan. Four D large blasts, two at each target. If you hit, that's pretty much a guaranteed dead tank or unit. It can shoot at two different targets, but lets just brake it down one at a time. That's 450 points to kill a tank say. For that cost in the same codex I can get three hornets and a fireprism. That should kill a tank pretty dead with twelve ap2 strength 8 shots. Plus an ap1 strength 9 lance.

Moving on too the instant death wound for any model it hits. Take a Phoenix lord or terminator armor marine. So a stat line of three wounds toughness 4 with say a 4 plus invul. If I'm shooting him with twelve strength eight shots the way I roll hat turned out to be eight hits, six wounds, three unsaved. Being strength eight versus toughness four it ignored feel no pain. That still leaves the fire prism to shoot another target or to have winnowed down the unit the character is hiding in.

Speaking of units. Suppose your targeting that pesky ten man unit of havocs on the hill. Your D weapon hits them and scores a perfect ten hits. Causes eight wounds they just die a horrible death. Done. Fire prism and hornets throw out their twelve shots and a large blast. Eight from the hornets and another five to the prism large blast. Say you end with nine wounds they ignore armor and six of them die. That's still enough to cause a leadership and if you have placed your units right you have taken out the important models. In this case other units would work even better. Scatter walkers, artillery, heldrake IG has a boatload of infantry killers for cheap.

One of the big killer pluses to the D weapons is ignoring the invulnerable saves that have started popping up in 40k. In particular it absolutely wrecks the dreaded screamer star that does so well. That I cannot argue. However the four units I've been using as an example can do something the D can't. Your hornets can pop a transport. There's enough fire power to knock out any transport in the game except maybe a land raider. There should be plenty of fire power to knock out the unit inside after. The D weapon can't fire at the contents of a transport. Now perhaps it's my meta here, but I see a lot more transports with units in them then massive screamer stars or other invul super powers.

Moving into the defensive side of Titan versus units. I'm going to disregard the void shields everyone is using with the titan as you could be using them with the units as well. The four units I've laid out there have nine hull points just like the revenant for half the points. Barring cover ignoring which is fairly common. Cover holo fields are actually better then the Titan version once moved. The Titan cuts the number of hits in half. The codex holo fields cut the pens and glances in half. Then there is the benefit of multiple small units versus a single towering unit. It takes four units to destroy four units generally. While there are a number of single units that can take out a Titan in a single turn. When that Titan does die that's usually over half of your army. While losing any one of the smaller units will not singlehanded your army.

Final detail. The Titan can never score. Heavy and fast units at least have the ability to score in one mission each.

That is kind of my take on the reaction to D weapons. I have not gotten into the other various units in escalation I haven't researched them well enough to give an opinion yet. The revenant seems to be the D monster that everyone has been worrying about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Curious to hear what other people think.

D weapons are really that crazy.

The cost difference between a superheavy and other things on the board is not really enough to justify instakill weapons.

Every game of escalation I have seen is over in under an hour, even against opponents without superheavies. The D weapons are destroying the cardinal rule of 40k by making it too damn efficient.

I have witnessed D weapons do their work and its killing power is reliable. It also kills multiple wound targets like they are nothing.

It took my friend 2 monoliths and over 40 warriors to kill the revenant through glancing, but bby then the rest of the eldar had finished off his remaining men.

The problem is surviving to kille the big titan with big guns. It also takes one shot to kill a prism and i dont think the vehicles you listed can leap 36" and shoot.

So i guess the big difference is reliability. Unlike fire prisms and so on you know the D weapon will devestate its targets.

Okay. I think there are a few key details you are missing.

1) You completely ignore cover and invulnerable saves.
2) You ignore footprint, the board area occupied by your units is much larger than the titan.
3) mobility, the titan has the mobility that those units would have to turbo boost to match. This means it is almost impossible to stay out of LoS on most boards.
4) Reduced damage output due to taking damage from return fire.

When you take all these together your examples don't make sense. Take your havoks. When is the last time you saw havoks not in cover? The answer should be never if you opponent is even half competent. The D weapon ignores cover completely while your proposed units do not. The D weapon has better range so can hit from corner to corner on the board therefore limiting return fire. You should note that most S7+ weapons have a 36" range.

When comparing weapons you should look at the units that are actually good. Shooting havoks is something no one cares about because anything will do. Shooting a Tau buff commander + broadsides, riptide, wraithknight, land raider, waveserpent, etc. These are all things that actually matter. In every single one of these cases the D weapon is vastly better and only become better the more you try to protect these units with skyshield landing pads and ADL.

The units you proposed are AV11 for most of those HP and AV12 for 3. They also go down to any explosion result and can get immobilized, shaken, stunned, and weapon destroyed. This means that after turn 1 you will never have full firepower. These units also cannot be buffed by a single guide. The titan is immune to all the result but explosion which only does D3 HP. It gets a 4+ holofield miss me IN ADDITION TO a cover save if you put it behind a large ruin, wraithknight, bastion, etc. The titan field is also usable against ignore cover serpent shields, Tau markerlights, etc.

Finally even assaulting the thing is not a garaunteed kill. Since it is a walker you hit the front armour rather than rear armour and the D3 smashes will destroy small elite units real quick.

The real killed is that the titan is as good at killing everything you listed and kills everything those units cannot even scratch. That landraider is less durable than a rhino as it is easier to hit. The screamer star is as durable as CWE jetbikes, etc. It just removes the entire concept of durability from the game and makes everything die unless it is a SH.

In short its the reliability to kill without being killed in return.

Welcome to the life of a guardsman lol

Thank you all for your responses, I look forward to continuing the discussion. I'll start with the points addressed below, numbering them off in response and attempt to make some new points myself. Cheers.

 ansacs wrote:
Okay. I think there are a few key details you are missing.

1) You completely ignore cover and invulnerable saves.
2) You ignore footprint, the board area occupied by your units is much larger than the titan.
3) mobility, the titan has the mobility that those units would have to turbo boost to match. This means it is almost impossible to stay out of LoS on most boards.
4) Reduced damage output due to taking damage from return fire.

When you take all these together your examples don't make sense. Take your havoks. When is the last time you saw havoks not in cover? The answer should be never if you opponent is even half competent. The D weapon ignores cover completely while your proposed units do not. The D weapon has better range so can hit from corner to corner on the board therefore limiting return fire. You should note that most S7+ weapons have a 36" range.

When comparing weapons you should look at the units that are actually good. Shooting havoks is something no one cares about because anything will do. Shooting a Tau buff commander + broadsides, riptide, wraithknight, land raider, waveserpent, etc. These are all things that actually matter. In every single one of these cases the D weapon is vastly better and only become better the more you try to protect these units with skyshield landing pads and ADL.

The units you proposed are AV11 for most of those HP and AV12 for 3. They also go down to any explosion result and can get immobilized, shaken, stunned, and weapon destroyed. This means that after turn 1 you will never have full firepower. These units also cannot be buffed by a single guide. The titan is immune to all the result but explosion which only does D3 HP. It gets a 4+ holofield miss me IN ADDITION TO a cover save if you put it behind a large ruin, wraithknight, bastion, etc. The titan field is also usable against ignore cover serpent shields, Tau markerlights, etc.

Finally even assaulting the thing is not a garaunteed kill. Since it is a walker you hit the front armour rather than rear armour and the D3 smashes will destroy small elite units real quick.

The real killed is that the titan is as good at killing everything you listed and kills everything those units cannot even scratch. That landraider is less durable than a rhino as it is easier to hit. The screamer star is as durable as CWE jetbikes, etc. It just removes the entire concept of durability from the game and makes everything die unless it is a SH.

1. I apologize if I didn't make my cover and invul saves points clear above. I'll try to reiterate them here and make it more apparent. When I discussed the independent character, I credited him with an invul save of 4+, what I would consider pretty standard to the models that also have eternal warrior. The theory that I was positing there was that while the D weapon managed the kill in a single wound, the comparable points of one D gun were able to accomplish the same objective, causing the three wounds that would kill him, and still have the fire prism equivalent of points left over. Now when it comes to the screamer star 2++ re-roll or the baron 2++ fortune seer star, I would agree that the D weapon is much better, and I believe that it will help to shape the meta away from such difficult to fight builds into a more balanced game. I hope that better address' the point I was trying to make about invulnerable saves.
Cover saves. I also tried to include this in the case of the Havocs sitting atop the hill. They could have just as easily been long fangs, broadsides, or any other heavy weapons specialist unit sitting in cover with a 5++. As the unit becomes more elite and smaller, trending towards those broadsides, the point actually becomes greater. The 9 wounds that I figured would be caused might change to 7 so I could continue to ignore their armor with the lance on the fire prism, but I would still be doubling them out with every successful wound. Or I could be using the large blast to try and take out shield drones before I got to the instant death pulse laser shots. (I might be wrong about that if broadsides are T5) Either way, the amount of damage to take out a squad is pretty close to the same between the two. Not perfect for my points value, but I was trying to match the same unit all the way through. It would be much more point efficient to be using for instance a heldrake as I mentioned up top. That would BBQ the same long fangs unit, ignoring their cover and if you helforged would all but guarantee the death of the entire squad.

2.Footprint. It's true that the footprint of my units on the board is greater then that of the titan, however it is also more dispersed. I do not have to have all of them clustered together to make them fodder for big powerful explosions. Another positive to the small multiple units is the ability to hide them completely behind terrain. Denying an opportunity to shoot at them entirely. It would be a very special board that would be able to do that for a titan. Another bonus of greater footprint is the ability to deny board to your opponent.

3.Mobility. The revenant has a crazy mobility it is true, jumping 36 inches across the board to gain line of sight on any hidden opponents. However, if an opponent jumps that far, especially ahead of his other forces, he is opening up his titan to being assaulted, shot at in his rear armor, and within closer range to heavier weapons. It is true that position wise the tanks I mentioned can only move 12" per turn. However in deployment the hornets can scout, and after any 12" movement they still have 48" ranged guns. There aren't many places on the standard board that you can't hit. In keeping with that the fire prism has 12" of movement and can fire a full 60" after that. If it is necessary to get somewhere super fast the hornets having star engines naturally they can out pace the revenant.

4. Reduced damage output. I agree, as you destroy the tanks you are going to decrease the damage that the army can put out. However if we swell the points of the example to 900 to match that of the revenant, that is a lot of army that can be shooting. I would dare to put any MSU 900 point army against a titan and expect to win. 900 points of efficiently spread out damage potential, be it melta weapons in shock troops, long range artillery, infiltrating saboteurs, or powerful tanks, they will be able to continue putting the hurt on a titan, causing that really pretty fragile 9 points of hull damage before it crashes to the ground. In example, while a bit lucky I'll admit, I took out said titan with 700 points of army, 400 of it got D to the face and didn't make it, but the other 300 put that titan down.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/568437.page

5. Examples were given of various more important targets.
Tau buff commander and broadsides. I think the same grouping of units could do a number on that beefy squad. Might not kill them all in one go, but neither would the D cannon. A roll of 1 still doesn't wound.
Wraithknight. I was scared to put my knight on the board against the titan for good reason, he would take it out well before it could do anything most likely. However the counter to a knight. How about rangers. Not only are they still wounding the knight pretty easily they have cover saves against general fire and are scoring. Something a little stronger? Wraithguard? Want range those 12 shots from hornets will still put 4 wounds on the knight, 2-3 get through if has the invul.
Land raider: War walkers with lances 210 points takes out 240 just as easily as 450-900.

Fragility of my suggested units and guide:
If you like to you can always put the hornets in a squadron and then yes guide them. However, I don't like to require a unit to beef up my guys to make them function. In my opinion if you need to ad another 100 point unit to babysit, either the units isn't working right for it's points, or it isn't being utilized properly. At least when I'm analyzing and attempting to compare units. As to their fragility, it is true that 100 point models are going to be less resilient then a 900 point model, and that's as it should be. However can you destroy that 900 point model easier or nine 100 point models? A squad of fire dragons, or other anti tank unit can take out a titan in one turn possibly. They are also only going to take out one unit a turn of your nine.

Summary:
What I'm trying to state is not that titans suck and a squad of hornets and other units are better. I'm saying that they are comparable. A titan and in particular D weaponry can be beaten. Just as screamers can be beaten. Just as necron air force can be beaten. Just as a balanced eldar force can be beaten. The more I go through it and the more I time passes, the less impressed with D weapons I am. I believe that they will soon be just another unit on the table, and a neat build that has in some way brought balance to the game.

It is absolutely not my intention to insult or be obtuse in my arguments. Perhaps future games, and or counterpoints here will change my point of view. I look forward to hearing more from everyone.

*Certain* armies have essentially had D weapons since at least their 6th edition update. So when I see them crying about 2+ing their models off the board, frankly I think it serves them right.

 Swastakowey wrote:
In short its the reliability to kill without being killed in return.

Don't get me wrong I agree with the general sentiment here that strength D is indeed the be all, end all of escalation. That said, Titans truly have zero reliability of not getting killed. Their armour, hull points and defences are actually quite weak for their points cost. 100 point flyers in this game come with 3 hull points. A Wave Serpent gets 3 for 115 and can jink and doesn't really suffer from penetrating hits. A Revenant gets 9 for 900 points. What's points efficient and reliable about the superheavies is their killing power and in some cases mobility. There's simply no other escape than blowing up the Titan before it blows you up -- And it won't take the Titan long.

No, they are indeed very durable for their points. Simply because they keep putting out 100% damage until they keel over - meanwhile the same points of other troops do less and less as they take damage themselves.

All because of the absolutely thoughtless decision to remove damage results from supers.

 Dakkamite wrote:
No, they are indeed very durable for their points. Simply because they keep putting out 100% damage until they keel over - meanwhile the same points of other troops do less and less as they take damage themselves.

All because of the absolutely thoughtless decision to remove damage results from supers.

Just pick an anti-tank gun. Better than that, pick a few guns. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill 900 points of moving Wave Serpents. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill a Revenant Titan.

Don't just throw opinions out there and hope that they stick. Superheavies, for their points costs, are closer to fragile gunships than well armoured tanks. The difference is that while those Wave Serpents are hitting you a couple dozen times per turn with S6 and S7 and weak AP, the Revenant is autokilling your most expensive units and vehicles left and right.

I agree with you in the fact that D weapons are not as impressive as everyone thinks (but maybe thats just because I have access to the ultimate counter to loldar titans i.e. massed AT fire in the forms of haywire stormteks and crescents of doom everywhere) I feel that they can be dealt with easily and have their drawbacks (their platforms are often expensive or have low VoF or both) and can be taken down like any other tank (again that my just be the cron player in me talking since I have been using my pylon for ages in appc games to deal with SHs and now I can use it in normal games in addition to my fancy gauss and haywire weapons for the ultimate tank hunting experience)

I think that if we give the internet time to flame away a bit and simmer down to realize it isnt as bad as they think we will start to see some more tactics by more people about how to fight these things

EDIT: Double Post

 A GumyBear wrote:
I agree with you in the fact that D weapons are not as impressive as everyone thinks (but maybe thats just because I have access to the ultimate counter to loldar titans i.e. massed AT fire in the forms of haywire stormteks and crescents of doom everywhere) I feel that they can be dealt with easily and have their drawbacks (their platforms are often expensive or have low VoF or both) and can be taken down like any other tank (again that my just be the cron player in me talking since I have been using my pylon for ages in appc games to deal with SHs and now I can use it in normal games in addition to my fancy gauss and haywire weapons for the ultimate tank hunting experience)

I think that if we give the internet time to flame away a bit and simmer down to realize it isnt as bad as they think we will start to see some more tactics by more people about how to fight these things

EDIT: Double Post

When all your guns glance you have little to fear...

 Therion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
No, they are indeed very durable for their points. Simply because they keep putting out 100% damage until they keel over - meanwhile the same points of other troops do less and less as they take damage themselves.

All because of the absolutely thoughtless decision to remove damage results from supers.

Just pick an anti-tank gun. Better than that, pick a few guns. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill 900 points of moving Wave Serpents. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill a Revenant Titan.

Don't just throw opinions out there and hope that they stick. Superheavies, for their points costs, are closer to fragile gunships than well armoured tanks. The difference is that while those Wave Serpents are hitting you a couple dozen times per turn with S6 and S7 and weak AP, the Revenant is autokilling your most expensive units and vehicles left and right.

There *are* supers out there that are not the Rev titan Therion.

A properly kitted out stompa can tank an unholy amount of Lascannon shots.

In all of your arguments you shift between different configurations of 900 pts to compete with the titan. You cannot do this in a tournament or game. So in one situation 900 pts of something can outperform the titan, barely in all of your examples. However what happens in actual gaming is 900 pts has to go to some AV14 killers, AP2 killers, ignore cover killers, etc. 900 pts of revenant kills anything not flying as well as or better than 900 pts of anything else.

1) The problem is that you are using the best case scenario to represent your case. Most of the SM chapter masters have a storm shield (3++) and most gunline elements have a 4+ cover that can go to a 2+ from being in area terrain ruins or an ADL. Getting this far up is not hard to do and is not something reserved for CD.

BTW your figure for shooting a buffmander/broadisde unit is off by a lot. Your proposed exchange will cause 3.6 wounds to a buffmander...the titan kills the buffmander and ~4 additional broadsides. If there are drones you do even worse but the titan does alright with his pheonix missile launcher added in (BTW he also probably keeps the buffmander from tanking due to the possibility for him to get killed)

2) The problem with your footprint is it also allows the opponent to target one part of your army. Or if you have void shield gens it becomes harder to get them all in.

3) 12" is never enough to get around LoS blocking terrain unless you are very close to it. Or repostion so flyers bypass you. Check out Reece's most recent game against Jy2. It shows a perfect example of why this mobility is so crazy good.

4) I would have to read your batrep to comment on it (if I get time I will) but the revenant is actually tougher than all of those units combined if used correctly. You have to be very very careful though as deathstar units are always finesse units. In fact deathstars are the least forgiving of mistakes.

5) See here is a perfect example. Say the opponent brought 2 land raiders and then the next opponent brings a draigowing and the final opponent brings an O'Vesa Star. Very possible tournament. Are you going to rewrite your list each time to exchange brightlance warwalkers with hornets depending on the list or is the revenant the more TAC option where he kills each of these with ease.

Guide is something most people have in the list anyways. It is not required but it's effects sure are multiplied with a revenant.

The titan holofield says that you have the equivalent of 18 HP on AV12 for the revenant. Your propose units are mostly AV11 HP and equal HP. The revenant is actually tougher in almost every way.

I am not saying the revenant cannot be beaten or that it in some way allows you to pay to win. It dues however kill any build that is not titan ready. Titan ready meaning max flyers, extreme MSU, and lots of AT weapons.

 Dakkamite wrote:

 Therion wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
No, they are indeed very durable for their points. Simply because they keep putting out 100% damage until they keel over - meanwhile the same points of other troops do less and less as they take damage themselves.

All because of the absolutely thoughtless decision to remove damage results from supers.

Just pick an anti-tank gun. Better than that, pick a few guns. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill 900 points of moving Wave Serpents. Then do the math how long it takes them to kill a Revenant Titan.

Don't just throw opinions out there and hope that they stick. Superheavies, for their points costs, are closer to fragile gunships than well armoured tanks. The difference is that while those Wave Serpents are hitting you a couple dozen times per turn with S6 and S7 and weak AP, the Revenant is autokilling your most expensive units and vehicles left and right.

There *are* supers out there that are not the Rev titan Therion.

A properly kitted out stompa can tank an unholy amount of Lascannon shots.

And lets not forget about the dreaded warhound and reaver titans that are av14 and have voidshields ie a stompa+1 since they have better armour and better shields (it can be argued that they have better weapons but I dont see it) that can take a plethora of lascannons (your better of using them to kill what little ground troops they have while you have the chance) and can be buffed with psykers or just PFGs from DA and multiple void shield generators (but then again what doesnt get stronger with voidshield generators)

 ansacs wrote:
In all of your arguments you shift between different configurations of 900 pts to compete with the titan. You cannot do this in a tournament or game. So in one situation 900 pts of something can outperform the titan, barely in all of your examples. However what happens in actual gaming is 900 pts has to go to some AV14 killers, AP2 killers, ignore cover killers, etc. 900 pts of revenant kills anything not flying as well as or better than 900 pts of anything else.

I'm not sure if this was intended to me, but if it was:

Try to separate the issues from eachother. The argument was that superheavies have both the firepower and the survivability to match their price tag. I didn't argue against the firepower, so I can isolate the survivability and compare it to other vehicles. Make no mistake, noone will play a standard army in escalation, but everyone have had the pleasant experience of trying to kill Wave Serpents. So run the math and get the point by point survivability against random anti-tank firepower for the Wave Serpent. Then do the same for the Revenant. You'll find that the Revenant is made of stuff far more fragile than the Wave Serpents. This only proves that there's nothing extraordinary about the survivability of superheavies such as the Revenant -- Quite the opposite. The firepower on the other hand is something that noone is used to unless they played Apocalypse. Especially on a platform as mobile as that. That's what's extraordinary.

The titan holofield says that you have the equivalent of 18 HP on AV12 for the revenant. Your propose units are mostly AV11 HP and equal HP. The revenant is actually tougher in almost every way.

Wave Serpent is AV12, ignores penetrating hits on a 2+ and gets a 4+ save from moving. That'll be over 45 hull points for 900 points then, using your math.

@Therion
It was the OP but did you factor in the 3+ cover from standing behind a void shield gen and the 4+ before that?

I get 46 for a serpent (which cannot stand behind a fortification and expect to do well) and 120 for a revenant. Ignore cover weapons don't help the serpent much. The revenant holo fields are huge as it can get saves on top of it. The biggest durability buffer for a revenant is the height + range mean it can fire across the table and few LoS blockers have any real effect.

[(HP*cover save*titan holo)/pts]*1000

I can't see that the Revenant will be getting cover saves (atleast not from terrain) in most games, so I didn't factor that in. If it's got a 3+ cover save it can't be killed with conventional weapons. That I will concede. The D weapons vs holo-fields are always a crapshoot. Sometimes your Pylon will blow it up right away, sometimes it'll bounce off and the Revenant will wipe out everything that doesn't fly.

I would say any game you take a void shield relay you will get a cover save as you only have to obscure 25% of the model. Heck the GW ruin is almost tall enough to obscure 90% of the model.

Then there are skyshield landing pads, psychic buffs, and bastion (just the head visible).

 Therion wrote:
I can't see that the Revenant will be getting cover saves (atleast not from terrain) in most games, so I didn't factor that in. If it's got a 3+ cover save it can't be killed.

Well the recommended size from GW DE is the size of one of those gun battery fortifications (cant remember the name) without the gun so it shouldnt be getting cover from cheesey void shield generators conveniently modeled to give the titan perfect cover but have optimal LOS (think of a cardboard cutout of a revenant minus the guns and the real loldar titan sits behind it and shoots away) and if you face someone doing something like that either the person isnt worth playing or your TO just lets all cheese fly and in that case model your generators to block everything from hitting your precious ig artillery while it pew pews away with its pie plates

BTW the "recommended" size from facebook will not even allow a 40mm base model into the "battlements". Not to mention that a single one of those or both together could be considered a single battery...which is it?

Same as last time. I'll try and address your points and try to get my point across.

1. I have been primarily taking the 450 points value of one D cannon on the revenant. If we spread that out to the full 900 points of the Titan, I have plenty of points to afford all those units I have named and more. For 900 points I can take say two hornets, fire prism, three lance walkers, nightwing, wave serpent all kitted out and a really good fire dragon squad. I still have twenty to thirty points left over to throw around. With that many units it's possible to effect the entire table much like the revenant. Can deal with tanks, troops, characters, and has great anti-air weapons to boot. Something the Titan has a lot of trouble with. I still cede the 2++ invul issue. I believe that is offset by the greater threat that an army of units provides compared to the destructive nature if super heavies.

2. That is all I have time to respond to at the moment due to dastardly work. I'll get back to it again tonight when I get home. Cheers.

 ansacs wrote:
In all of your arguments you shift between different configurations of 900 pts to compete with the titan. You cannot do this in a tournament or game. So in one situation 900 pts of something can outperform the titan, barely in all of your examples. However what happens in actual gaming is 900 pts has to go to some AV14 killers, AP2 killers, ignore cover killers, etc. 900 pts of revenant kills anything not flying as well as or better than 900 pts of anything else.

1) The problem is that you are using the best case scenario to represent your case. Most of the SM chapter masters have a storm shield (3++) and most gunline elements have a 4+ cover that can go to a 2+ from being in area terrain ruins or an ADL. Getting this far up is not hard to do and is not something reserved for CD.

BTW your figure for shooting a buffmander/broadisde unit is off by a lot. Your proposed exchange will cause 3.6 wounds to a buffmander...the titan kills the buffmander and ~4 additional broadsides. If there are drones you do even worse but the titan does alright with his pheonix missile launcher added in (BTW he also probably keeps the buffmander from tanking due to the possibility for him to get killed)

2) The problem with your footprint is it also allows the opponent to target one part of your army. Or if you have void shield gens it becomes harder to get them all in.

3) 12" is never enough to get around LoS blocking terrain unless you are very close to it. Or repostion so flyers bypass you. Check out Reece's most recent game against Jy2. It shows a perfect example of why this mobility is so crazy good.

4) I would have to read your batrep to comment on it (if I get time I will) but the revenant is actually tougher than all of those units combined if used correctly. You have to be very very careful though as deathstar units are always finesse units. In fact deathstars are the least forgiving of mistakes.

5) See here is a perfect example. Say the opponent brought 2 land raiders and then the next opponent brings a draigowing and the final opponent brings an O'Vesa Star. Very possible tournament. Are you going to rewrite your list each time to exchange brightlance warwalkers with hornets depending on the list or is the revenant the more TAC option where he kills each of these with ease.

Guide is something most people have in the list anyways. It is not required but it's effects sure are multiplied with a revenant.

The titan holofield says that you have the equivalent of 18 HP on AV12 for the revenant. Your propose units are mostly AV11 HP and equal HP. The revenant is actually tougher in almost every way.

I am not saying the revenant cannot be beaten or that it in some way allows you to pay to win. It dues however kill any build that is not titan ready. Titan ready meaning max flyers, extreme MSU, and lots of AT weapons.

Your analysis of the Revenant is extremely flawed. I don't think anyone is foolish enough to think of a Revenant as "450 points to kill a tank".

Revenants are easily capable of killing 1500-1850 points all on their own, throughout the course of a game. Yes, it's basically 450 points for 2 D templates at a single target, but you forget it's shooting every turn, it can reach anywhere on the board, and I do mean anywhere thanks to 36" jump and long weapon range, it can kill ANY target, including Riptides, other superheavies, and seercouncils and screamerstars which can easily withstand 2000+ points of shooting, and it's the only superheavy that can roll a save against enemy D weapons due to holofields.

Revenant is easily the star of Escalation and the strongest and most overpowered unit in the game, belonging to the strongest and most overpowered army in the game. Hopefully this will change with Forge World's Lords of Wars which include Imperial titans.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/L/lordsofwar.pdf

Just so you are aware it is already out. Pretty much all of Forgeworld's Apoc units. Very nice and every army but Tau has a great escalation option.

Got a question about D weapons, Probably stupid but Idk why it confused me. But say you fired a shadowswords large blast at a squad of marines and hit 5 of them. Would you then roll 1 dice in total nd that be the wounds that the squad takes or do you roll 1 dice for each model, and are you able to "look out sir" d weapon shots?

Can someone give me the downlow on the dreaded Reaver titan? IA: Apoc is one of the few books I don't have/can borrow

I find it hilarious how much hate D weapons are getting compared to how little (proportionally) the rerollable deathstars have.

Look at it this way:

If you get hit with a sD weapon you have a 16% chance to "deal with it" (i.e., 1-in-6 chance they roll a 1 to wound on my infantry).

If I come across a rerollable 2+ save I have a 3% chance to "deal with it" (i.e., 1-in-36 chance they roll double 1s and I actually cause a wound).

I am over 400% more likely to be able to deal with a titan than I am a seer or screamer star, AND the titan takes up more points meaning there are fewer other threats for me to worry about.

Ignoring the fact that someone can, in fact, take both the Revenant AND a mini-seer council, I would happily choose to face the titan over a rerollable 2+ deathstar every day of the week.

The reaver is a 1450 pts titan. It is basically two warhounds tapped together in terms of firepower, durability, etc. Good but so high points you are practically playing Apoc by the time you can actually take it and an actual army.

@quiestdeus
That is an incredible over simplification. A complete misuse of math and a little silly.

That is similar to me saying that because a lascannon has a 1/6 chance to pen a land raider I have a 1/6 chance to win the game...it is completely false analogy.

 ansacs wrote:
The reaver is a 1450 pts titan. It is basically two warhounds tapped together in terms of firepower, durability, etc. Good but so high points you are practically playing Apoc by the time you can actually take it and an actual army.

@quiestdeus
That is an incredible over simplification. A complete misuse of math and a little silly.

That is similar to me saying that because a lascannon has a 1/6 chance to pen a land raider I have a 1/6 chance to win the game...it is completely false analogy.

But what hes pointing out is even though the titan has D strength weapons effectively its only going to kill off 2 units a turn or against a mech list it will only kill 2 vehicles a turn. The rest of the army is still able to retaliate against the titan and once you kill it basically there wont be much for the rest of your opponent to deal with.

Now I know my IG army can throw down a light of firepower but statistically I could shoot down that titan in a game where as I would be lucky to kill of half of a screamer star in a game. Let alone I would be forced to bring barrage just to try and snipe the heralds out of the screamer star, and I think its absolutely ridiculous that I have to take specific units to be competitive or good. I should be able to take any units I want and strategically beat my opponent but in order to beat top tier armies Im forced to take vendettas and artillery.