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While primarily for gaks and giggles, I remember somewhere in the fluff that an Earthshaker artillery regiment single-handedly destroys a Chaos titan.

So, let's say you are up against a Reaver battle titan, but throw conventional wisdom out the door. Instead of investing in a titan or other Str D platforms, you invest an equivalent amount of points into Earthshaker carriages. How would this matchup play out on the TT: 19 Earthshakers vs a Reaver battle titan?

I guess it would depend on how they are arrayed and organized, and what the Reaver is armed with. If it's armed with something like a carapace Megabolter, a Titan CCW, and a gatling blaster, it's probably not all that scary, but if it's armed with triple bgarrel laser blasters and a carapace turbo laser, that's an entirely different story.

If you're playing on a 20'x20' board, with the Earthshaker carriage spread around singly, the Reaver just isn't going to be able to engage and destroy all those guns before it dies.

If we're talking a 6'x4' board, with the Earthshakers grouped up into squads, and the Reaver armed to the gills with Laser blasters? The Reaver Titan is probably going to win that.

Depends on how far apart they start, earthshaker has unlimited range and on really huge tables they get an ungodly number of shots across before getting shot back.

That being said, reaver has AV14, 18 HP and 4 void shields.

Earthshaker tosses S9 ordinance shots (roll twice pick highest on pens), and with large blast against a freaking reaver its nigh-impossible to miss. so lets assume 18 hits?

So, each hit has 75% to pop a void shield.
6 first shot have 83% to pop all void shield.

Then, taking off a hull point has a chance of 0.55% to work, the 12 remaining hit will probably take down around 6 hull points.


Assuming no casualties, 3 shooting rounds from said 19 earthshakers will probably take down the reaver.

Indeed, it depends on scenario as outlined above. Let the Earthshakers leverage that sweet, sweet 20 foot range and voila.

Also don't forget that Artillery Regiment can mean bastion-breacher Medusae as well. (Though I know you said Earthshakers regiment).

In real life, wouldn't a reaver have weaker armour on its roof? So it might be easier.

But given the range of the gun, then it wouldn't take that many.

I would think that considering the design of reavers to ground based engines of destruction, they would have fairly heavy armor on top to prevent things like airstrikes and shelling from getting though (if and/or when the void shields fail).

As for tabletop the other have about the gist of it, depending on terrain, scenario, and loadout, the possibilities range from, reaver doesn't stand a chance to reaver gonna kill EVERTYTHING.

Great assessments!

So, although unconventional, mass Earthshaker spam stands a chance. To bad it's monetarily cheaper to buy a Warlord titan than 19 Earthshaker carriages!

Sticking to the artillery/gun line theme, would a couple Medusas carriages armed with bastion breacher shells be a good mix-up or is their range to much of a limitation? How about a Primus Redoubt?

Fyi, the titan in this story was actually an emperor, and in the fluff it was shelled by an entire regiment for a full 24 hours. The emperor rules are really outdated now, but it might be a fun calculation nonetheless.

Hypothetically, if you get to shoot Earthshakers at anything 20' away, you're going to wreck it before it gets to you. Even if you're moving 4' per turn, the Earthshakers get 4 rounds of shelling. 5 if they go first. So potentially, you get your first round of attacks after being shelled for 5 turns.

WHATEVER IS LEFT gets to make their attacks, then you get shelled again, having lost a couple of Earthshakers, probably. So nearly 6 rounds of shelling to one round of fighting back. If you're moving 48" per turn. So any scenario revolves around how far away you start, and how quickly you can get to grips with the Earthshakers.

Basilisks aren't much good on the 6x4 table top, because they're fragile and you can't shell things for 6 turns before they attack you. But if you had the range... they'd be stupidly valuable.

If you're moving at infantry speed, from 20' away, and running 6" per turn, you're getting shelled for something like 16 turns before most long range weapons would be in range.

Well, most Titans can take weapons of similar ranges. So they can shoot back.

The longest ranged cannon is the Volcano Cannon which only has a range of 10'.
The Support Missile has an unlimited range but again that is only 1 shot.

Its the classic "6 Tower Defensive" all Ogre players will recognize. A MkIV Ogre only has 4 missiles, and its cannons are two short if range to take out those towers before multiple towers can range on the Ogre. Probably dated myself by referencing a Steve Jackson game.

SJ

It takes EXACTLY 4.56 Earthshakes to get to the center of a Reaver Titan

Tower defense 40k!

First wave - 1 Warlord Titan!

Go!

*Spends all points on Earthshakers*

So the Reaver goes down to heavy Earthshake bombardment given a good size board. How about a Warlord titan?

36 Earthshaker carriages vs a Warlord titan!