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Its absolute nonsense, of course, but I have been playing with the idea of creating (kit bash and 3d print) a tripod from the war of the worlds story, to use in a game or diorama. My understanding is that they are 100 - 150 ft tall (depending on if you use the book or latest movie), which is comparable to a reaver titan. Has anyone got any ideas (nothing is out of bounds here) for weapons or other rules and power levels vs titans. Also, would you go with having them as a xenos that is encountered on some random planet or, full on heresy, have the mechanicus discover a load of the tripods burried under mars, from an extinct martian race? Could then have them adapted (more heresy) and used by human pilots. Might be acceptable to them if they have no idea they are alien tech and instead believe them to be some long forgotten archeotech.

I imagine the Heat Ray would probably have the stats of a Volcano Cannon. Black Smoke dispensers would probably equate to some sort of blast weapon - probably 32" range, (2)D6 attacks, S4 AP- D1.

Could either do them as the Martians themselves (perhaps having hidden away on another planet or having been enslaved and only recently escaped) or having become AdMech equipment, having been found on Mars and thought to be archeotech (as per your second proprosal).

Triarch Stalker v. Epic Marines...

 Stormonu wrote:
I imagine the Heat Ray would probably have the stats of a Volcano Cannon. Black Smoke dispensers would probably equate to some sort of blast weapon - probably 32" range, (2)D6 attacks, S4 AP- D1.

Could either do them as the Martians themselves (perhaps having hidden away on another planet or having been enslaved and only recently escaped) or having become AdMech equipment, having been found on Mars and thought to be archeotech (as per your second proprosal).

I like these idea. In general power terms, purely subjective of course, how do you instinctively feel the tripods would compare to a reaver titan?

Lbspeller wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
I imagine the Heat Ray would probably have the stats of a Volcano Cannon. Black Smoke dispensers would probably equate to some sort of blast weapon - probably 32" range, (2)D6 attacks, S4 AP- D1.

Could either do them as the Martians themselves (perhaps having hidden away on another planet or having been enslaved and only recently escaped) or having become AdMech equipment, having been found on Mars and thought to be archeotech (as per your second proprosal).

I like these idea. In general power terms, purely subjective of course, how do you instinctively feel the tripods would compare to a reaver titan?

Like, fighting each other? I think the tripod would get wrecked.

A Royal Navy ship takes on THREE tripods, and manages to destroy two of them before being destroyed itself. And this is a ship from the late 1800s! That suggests a Tripod as they exist in the book would be totally outmatched by the standards of 40k.

I'm partial to the ones in the 50's movie.

I've found models that are the PERFECT size to use as Necron Destroyers, it's really made me want to build a maxed out Destroyer list with them.

Tripods as seen in War of the Worlds don't really fit with the 40k aesthetic. Based off of their performance in most media, a Tripod is strong, but not, like, win-a-battle-by-itself strong, and yet they're also ridiculously massive, on a scale that only the largest 40k vehicles can compete with. (If 1" = 6, then a Tripod would be 25" tall, making it 3" taller than a Warlord Titan.)

In the book, though, Tripods can be killed by early 20th century warships, and in the most recent major film adaptation, one is killed by a bundle of grenades that get past its shields. If those shields are equivalent to void shields, then that's hardly a difficult task for most 40k armies. We even know what they're constructed out of - an aluminum alloy which is 'much stronger' than aluminum, but still aluminum-based.
Heat rays sound like something equivalent to a lascannon - "Whatever is combustible flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently that explodes into steam."
Then there are the poison gas canisters it fires, which are again deadly, but not absurdly so.

So what we've got is a vehicle that is massive and would dominate most game boards it's placed on, but has less firepower or durability than an Imperial Knight. It's got the range and mobility to trivialize a 40k board, but would meet its match against a squad of Devestators with a few lascannons.

If I were to try and make rules to use them in 40k, I would either try to scale them down *drastically* (Making them maybe 1/6th the size) or beef up their power level significantly to compensate, but you can only beef them up so much because you'll quickly run into another issue with 40k rules, which is that guns don't scale infinitely. As the Reaver and Warlord titans prove, it's difficult to balance something that large, because without templates from previous editions, you can only ever kill one thing at a time per gun.

I'm assuming that the Martian's tech is on par for 40K tech - more like the recent movie than the book. Could assume that if they were real that their technology continued to develop, but some catastrophe prevented them from destroying mankind (perhaps a lost 2nd invasion occurred some time during the Dark Age of Technology).

Statwise, I'd consider it being a bit of a glass cannon - could be taken down by Leman Russes, but if it fired them first it could vaporize them.

Something along the lines of:

Move: *
Weapon Skill: *
Ballistic Skill: *
Strength: 8
Toughness: 8
Wounds: 45
----- (30-45: M 32", WS 4+, BS 4+)
----- (15-30: M 24", WS 4+, BS 4+)
----- (8-14: M 18", WS 5+, BS 4+)
----- (1-7: M 12", WS 6+, BS 5+)
Attacks: 3
Leadership: 10
Save: 4+

A Tripod is a single model, equipped with a Heat Ray, Black Smoke Launchers and a Titanic Stride.

WEAPONS
Titanic Stride: Melee, User, AP -3, D3; Make 3 hit rolls for each attack made with this weapon instead of 1

Lashing Tendrils: Melee, Melee D6, AP -3, D2; A target hit with this attack cannot Fall Back on its turn

Heat Ray: Range 180", Macro D6, S 30, AP -6, D12; Any wound roll of 6 with this weapon inflicts an additional D6 Mortal wounds on the target

Black Smoke Launcher: 30", Assault D6, S4, AP -, D1

UPGRADES

The Martian Tripod can take Lashing Tendrils and Force Fields

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Ulla: Once per battle, the Martian Tripod can utter a bone-chilling battle cry. If it has 30+ wounds remaining, the Tripod gains +1 WS, +1 BS and +1 Attack. If the Tripod has fewer wounds, it may use the statline as if it were undamaged. This effect lasts until the end of the round.

Force Field: The Martian Tripod gains a 4+ Invulnerable save against Ranged attacks

---------------------------------------------------------

Veteran and Ace versions exist; Veteran Tripods have +1 WS and +1 BS. Ace versions have +2 WS, +2 BS and +1 Attack.

I have no ideas on points.

(Note: I am partial to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds - if you want more ideas, I suggest hunting down information on the (Jeff Wayne's) War of the World RTS game; it has an entire technology tree and variant tripods that could prove useful for creating an entire tripod army. Also, check out "All Quiet on the Martian Front" for an epic-scale version of WotW models and ideas).

The you just play the Virus Outbreak strategy card and win immediately