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How do!

So here’s a wee experiment thread. And what I’m looking to explore is what’s in your collection, the options you have for Fielding it, and how much it’s cost you so far.

I’m approaching this from a neutral standpoint. I really don’t know how the cookie is going to crumble, and I’ve got no particular point to make. But I’ll kick it off all the same.

To start, I’ll set out what I’ve got, and the price, including where I’ve bought from a 3rd party (for me, Darksphere. But exact source doesn’t massively matter)

Rules Set - £35 (GW direct)
Box of Questoris Knights - £20 (GW direct)
Warlord Titan - £65 (GW direct)
Titan Battlegroup - £75 (Darksphere Mail order. £80 if bought in store)
Warlord Upgrade Sprue - £26 (GW direct)
Melta Reaver - £35 (GW direct)
Titandeath - £20 (GW direct)

Now I’ve not worked out Points, as with the weapons available that can fluctuate a fair amount. I also cannot be arsed. But, in terms of the Maniples I can currently field, and not allowing for Legion Traits which allow substitutions and that?

From the core book, I can...

Max out an Axiom Battleline Maniple.
A Myrmidon Maniple
A barebones Venator Maniple.

So that’s all three,

From Titandeath, where things get a bit more specialised?

One Reaver short of a barebones Corsair
I can field a mid-range Janissary (further Warhound maxes it)
I can field a mid-range Regina (again, a further Warhound maxes it)
One Warhound short of a Lupercal Light Maniple.

So for a total spend of £276, and with no particular thought put into it, there’s little of the game’s options I can’t field. And if I was to get finnickety over the available Legions, I may be able to tinker with things further, but again, I just cannot be arsed right now.

Now, £276 of course isn’t loose change by any stretch. But, if I run my collection as a shopping list through my preferred FLGS? It comes down to, erm....a far more pleasant £207.75. A decent saving, I trust you agree. Though that figure does reflect having the second Warlord as the Plasma one, rather than having to buy the sprue separately. It’s just a smarter move if you ask me, and how I’d do it if I had a clean do-over.

And remember folks, that’s for everything, rules included (all too often left out such calculations). If you’re playing in a group, you can probably share those quite happily. Strip them out, and we’re down to a relatively piffling £165.00

So buying smart, and arranging a group, it may not be as daunting to get started as many first thought (and they had good reason to think that).

And you know, if next month I splash out on another Battlegroup? I can max out pretty much all the Maniples. Which is pretty good. Sure I’m more limited in which ones I can field at the same time, but welcome to reality!

But how about you? What’ve you racked up, and what Maniples can you Field for investment?

As to whether it’s the value would be players have in mind, I’ll leave to them.

Pointwise you are around 2.5k. Ie you have enough for biggest matched play games. Issue is just 2 warhounds. 2 ways to fix it. Pay another reaver and swap that warlord into another discount box also giving 3rd reaver unlocking corsair maniple. Or swap warlord and melta reaver for it and get melta sprue separately later. Also keep in mind discount box isn#t permanent addition.

Issue with plasma warlord box is lack of standard weapons. Volcano's one can live without but missiles are lot more useful than laser blasters that are rather niche

But what’s your spend, and your resulting options?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But what’s your spend, and your resulting options?

I'm not best comparison seeing i have now enough to literally have everv maniple at full with mortis and most with victorum(can"t dofull myrm#don or corsair). Price would take some calculations seeing some are euro, some pounds and discounts vary but roughly what i have:

Gm box
2 discount box
Individual warlord
4 reaver
2 melta reaver
4warhound box
4 box knights
4 box cerastus
2 warlord weapon sprue
Ruleset
2xeach weapon card set
2.maniple terminal set
1xwarhound terminal set
Knight terminal set

Yes a lot but gives me 2 legions with bucketload of options. Thus all ineed is opponent. Not opponent who has titans of his own

Nice!

Just don't use that as example to "entry" level that is 2 players cabable of playing around 4000-5000 pjs games(mortis around 4500, victorum around 3300 and knight around 1800 or so)

Also enough terminals to put everything on table at once and enough weapon cards we shouldn#t run into issue of weapon being too popular even with 2 sides combined.

At most one needs half of that and even then oniy if he wants literally everything. More akin to owning 10k 40k army. Though better as at has less bad choices(warlord fist, knight avenger cannon, cerastus castigator bolt cannon and warlord vulcan's ae bit dubious)

Well, we can shift parameters a bit to include ‘if you max it out’?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, we can shift parameters a bit to include ‘if you max it out’?

Haha. Well to get every single maniple at full you need:

3 warlords(myrmidon maximum)
5 reavers(corsair maximum)
5 warhounds(lupercall maximum)

Every other maniple can be built in full by mix of that.

In more practical terms if you want flexible force that can take several maniples in full or parts IMO nothing beats 2 of that discount box. For price of 2 warlords, 2 reavers you get those and 4 warhounds. That allows you to run:

myrmidon near full strenght(missing 3rd warlord but at standard 1250-1750 pts point range not common. It is POSSIBLE to have 3 warlord+reaver but not much room for weapons)
axiom full
venator full
regalia full
janissar full
lupercall 4/5 full

So ONLY thing you will miss is corsair(the 3-5 reaver one)

To this then you could go for one of these ways depending on what you want and how much you want to spend:

a) regular warlord, 1-2 plasma sprue(3 is overkill for flexibility. Even I MYSELF dropped that idea with prices despite initially planning to get every sprue for every titan), regular reaver+1-2 melta sprue
b) plasma warlord, 1-2 melta reaver. 2 standard warlord sprues is IMO very good idea(apoc missile launcher is just soooo flexible). However 3 warlords is so rare 1 not being able to field that isn't that bad and after all in future resin upgrade weapons come to give you more options. For reaver again apoc missiles are sooo good though reaver laser is bit less worse(lack of shield busting weapons is bigger issue though...).

If you don't think lack of 3rd warlord is big issue(it's needed just for 1 maniple and even that only really for big 2000+ pts games) then just get 1-2 plasma sprues. 1 is just fine, 2 is giving you obviously biggest flexibility but more than half arm weapons as plasma? Not my thing. And laser blaster for both is something I would pretty much never do. For reavers it's bit harder to go for as you can get more hulls and both sprues have flexible options but as long as you have 2 standard kits and at least 1 melta sprue cannot go wrong. For myself I have 3 version 1 and 2 version 2. Should be enough flexibility. Maybe get 3rd melta sprue one day.

Then for command terminals rule set gives you 2 of each which isn't quite enough. Getting axiom terminal pack gives you enough for everything but full corsair maniple and full lupercall. 2 axiom terminal packs is enough for even those. Or get individual ones from elsewhere.

For knights 2 of both packs gives you decent knight support with 2 different roles. Questors can be made either shooty(though the fact they come only 1 of each gun and 1 is pretty much useless hurts there...) or h2h(2nd h2 weapon is pretty easy to convert. I use cataphractii terminator lightning claws) mode. At h2h they are at their best vs warhounds and reavers. Lancers make mockery of any titans but questors are more cost effective vs those 2. Lancers meanwhile are more effective vs warlords(mind you questors CAN kill those as well...Just not as point efficiencly as lancers) and questor knights. So if you want to protect titans from knights take lancers. Questors struggle vs other questors and even worse vs lancers(vs lancers questors...well lancers gets 3+ save vs 5+ questors get vs lancer and every hit past shield hurts questor. Meanwhile questor only 2+ wound rolls damage. And lancer causes twice as much 2 damage hits than questors...In short even # of attacks where questors win doesn't compensate).

Too bad the discount box is pretty much certain to be limited time :( That's soooo good deal unless you are looking at specific maniple only or cheapest(cheapest army would be 3 boxes of warhounds likely. Maybe 4 if you don't want to play with handicap bonuses)

Rules set - $51 (Amazon)
Titan Battlegroup - $120 (Ebay w coupon)
Titandeath - $30 (FLGS w my discount)

Total - $201 for 1250 points, rules, and expansion

And can have 3 maniples already. Albeit janissor requires some knights to actually make any sense! WYSIWYG already indeed can be made to that 1250 or so so can be taken to most events already. Albeit you are at quite a point disadvantage but handicap rule helps.

Have to add a Warhound weapon card pack to most of these to be able to use all the weapons from even a single box

Or pack of pure white cards for lot cheaper if money is issue

Or a photocopier...

rule box
1x questoris knights.
1x cerastis knights.
1 box of hounds
1 reaver.

so im missing a few terminals for the full size venator maniple, but apart from that i can use the demi venator mainple.
add one warlord that is my next one and i can use demi axiom or venator.

not all games must be above 2000p. i belive you can have a quality game below 1000p, thats why you have the venator maniple.

I bought into the Grand Master box, and picked up some kits along the way. My collection so far:

2x Warlord Titans
2x Reaver Titans
2x Warhound Titans
6 Questoris Knights
2 Cerastus Knights

Pre Titandeath, I tended to favor the Axiom (although I despise the Reaver platform) with plentiful Banner support. I love the Warlord because it's just iconically "GOD MACHINE" to me, and my playstyle tends to favor max aggression; I lean towards flanking tactics and tend to out-activate my opponents because I bring more smaller units like Warhounds and Banners vs Warlords and Reavers.

With the new book (and the Narrative scenarios favoring 2000/2500+ pt matches), what I'm working towards now:

2x Warlords
4x Warhounds in a Lupercal Maniple
2 Cerastus Knights
2 Cerastus Knights
6 Questoris Knights

I love the Lupercal Maniple because it gives me flexibility to activate the Warhounds in anywhere from 1 to 4 activations, and I can aggressively push pairs of the Cerastus into enemy Titans and trust that they'll get the job done (I had a pair of them take out 2 enemy Warlords from 100% to 0 the last game I played. Admittedly they both died in the process, 1 to each, but they got the job done).

I've painted my Legion as Xestobiax, but for the rules I intend to run them as Legio Mortis. The 3 point Strat to give my Warhounds and Warlords a free move pre-first turn will really play into my aggressive strategy.

The only thing is I'm waiting for the Mori-Quake Cannon weapon options to become available to the Warlords before I can round out the list (that and Adepticon prep is eating up all my time atm).

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Or a photocopier...

Can you do that for sturdier than paper? That's the nice thing about cards

tneva82 wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Or a photocopier...

Can you do that for sturdier than paper? That's the nice thing about cards

Just glue the photocopy to cardstock or cardboard?

tneva82 wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Or a photocopier...

Can you do that for sturdier than paper? That's the nice thing about cards

No idea, but as you were alluding to a case of money being an issue then photocopies are probably the cheapest way to go, though likely not the most desirable.

True. I was aiming for the midway. Blank white cards are still lot cheaper than official cards while being sturdier than paper so if I were saving money that's the route I would take.

Missing the rule set but do have the following...

3 Questoris Knights
2 Cerastus Knights
2 Warhounds
1 Reaver

...which was £90 from Wayland Games.

In a nutshell, if there was an AT group in and around suffolk then I'd probably get the ruleset and become the bane of all Warlord lovers in the county. At the moment, I'm using that lot for another game in two groups of...

1 Questoris Knight.
1 Cerastus Knight.
1 Warhound.

...the Reaver is just a character I've fancied since last August and although I'm not in a position to play AT, I still would like a centerpiece titan in my collection. Apparently hes the most all-rounder unit in AT, which doesn't hurt...

tneva82 wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Or a photocopier...

Can you do that for sturdier than paper? That's the nice thing about cards

Print onto sticky A4, then peel off and stick to card. It got me all the cards I'll ever need, though for the hassle, it would have been easier just to buy the packs.

Anyway, GM box £140, 2 x Warhound boxes for £30 each, 2x Reavers for about £28 each, all 3rd party/eBay.

That's 2 different legions if I host a game, otherwise they can combine for 2 warlords, 2 reavers, 4 warhounds, 6 knights and a boatload of terrain for about £250. Will want a lot more games before I buy more, I think.

There's also the Dominus Maniple in the Feb white dwarf.

Minimum 1 warlord two reavers one knight banner
Optional 2 warhound 1 other knight banner
But looking at the rules you would want two banners.

Irritating that for a knight themed maniple it's core is so costly. If the Reaver was optional rather than the warhound it's be more accessible

Captyn_Bob wrote:
There's also the Dominus Maniple in the Feb white dwarf.

Minimum 1 warlord two reavers one knight banner
Optional 2 warhound 1 other knight banner
But looking at the rules you would want two banners.

Irritating that for a knight themed maniple it's core is so costly. If the Reaver was optional rather than the warhound it's be more accessible

Agreed.

Perhaps 1 Warlord, 1 Reaver and two banners? That way a banner of Cerastus can play bodyguard to the Warlord while the Questoris play forward with the Reaver. If its a mixed maniple then why not do it 50/50, and leave the optional as it is?

Looking ahead to Doom of Molech, theres a Knight-only maniple but no indication of the minimum. Really hoping GW has a value-boxset in the works as a Questoris / Cerastus set would be nice.

SamusDrake wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
There's also the Dominus Maniple in the Feb white dwarf.

Minimum 1 warlord two reavers one knight banner
Optional 2 warhound 1 other knight banner
But looking at the rules you would want two banners.

Irritating that for a knight themed maniple it's core is so costly. If the Reaver was optional rather than the warhound it's be more accessible

Agreed.

Perhaps 1 Warlord, 1 Reaver and two banners? That way a banner of Cerastus can play bodyguard to the Warlord while the Questoris play forward with the Reaver. If its a mixed maniple then why not do it 50/50, and leave the optional as it is?

Looking ahead to Doom of Molech, theres a Knight-only maniple but no indication of the minimum. Really hoping GW has a value-boxset in the works as a Questoris / Cerastus set would be nice.

1 warlord, 1 reaver isn't even maniple so no maniple bonus and in matched play still require legal maniple

He was just suggesting that was what the White Dwarf Maniple could/should have been.

Uhm every maniple is 3-5 titans. Why wd one should be snowflake on that?

tneva82 wrote:
Uhm every maniple is 3-5 titans.

How does 3-5 titans plus 1-2 Knight banners classed together as a single maniple, agree with that?

As you point out, a maniple is supposed to be 3-5 Titans, but when you have a Titan-Knight maniple it makes sense that one or two of those Titans are to be removed to make room for the Knights.

GW box, reaver box x 2 + warhound box = X (.85) = Y ` 500

 Nostromodamus wrote:
He was just suggesting that was what the White Dwarf Maniple could/should have been.

It may well have been the intent when it was being written up. But remember, we now know Doom of Molech is promising all Knight maniples (which sounds vaguely dirty), so it could be they had to go back and do something different in WD?

It's also the Maniple bonus. Being able to push damage onto your Knight Banners keeps your Titans fighting longer, and makes it much harder to focus them down quickly (especially in an objective game where you need a Titan to grab-and-go on an objective).