Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a bunch of questions following a debate with my friend

what is the talest imperial titan and how tall?

what is the talest type of gragant and how tall?

in a battle which would win in A close quarters B long distance C in general fights?
please answer so my friend and i can stop bickering whilst battling

 waaagh blitz wrote:

what is the talest imperial titan and how tall?

Imeprator Titan: 55.5 meters.

what is the talest type of gragant and how tall?

"Mega Gargants rival the size of an Imperial Imperator Titan" Codex Titanicus (1st Edition)

in a battle which would win in A close quarters B long distance C in general fights?
please answer so my friend and i can stop bickering whilst battling

Imperator Titan, one simple reason: technology.
"just like most Ork technology the Mega Gargant is extremely crude and lack the scientific sophistication of human or Eldar Titans." Codex Titanicus (1st Edition)

Human and Eldar Titans were always better than the Ork ones when it comes to construction and effectiveness.
If you do not believe me read "Titan" Graphic novel from Dan Abnett, there one Imperial Titan in it's many years of service was able to destoy many more Ork Titans, some even in close combat.

Get "Final Liberation" and duke it out on your PC. As far as I know, it's abandonware, so ... download here

The question on who wins cannot be answered without more information, such as the exact classes of Ttian and Gargant involved.

Using the old 2nd edition Space Marine Epic rules:

Imperial Titans had 3 potential vulnerable hit locations, their head, reactor, and their legs. A maximum damage result to any of these 3 locations would destroy the Titan, whether it was Warhound scout class Titan all the way up to Imperator Titan. Ork Gargants could not be destroyed in 1 hit, no matter how lucky. The way they worked was they had to be worn down through cumulative damage, and eventually enough "Fire" damage results would accumulate and result in destruction. The Gargant's performance would degrade, and the slide would be precipitous near the end with the Gargant often reduced to an immobile burning hulk barely hanging together.

Orks had power fields which were more numerous than Imperial void shields, but power fields flickered (1 in 6 chance of penetrating the power fields).

Imperial weapons were more varied, with Ork weapons being mostly a variation of mid-range cannons. The Orks had a few funky force field weapons but these were gimmicky and not really a huge threat to equivalently sized TItan targets.

Now there was one weapon that was potentially very deadly in Epic vs. Imperial (and Chaos Titans). That was the Great Gargant's belly gun which had a variety of shot types. There were 2 shot types that were particularly problematic. One was the chainshot, which directly inflicted damage to leg locations, giving the possibility of a one shot kill to equivalently sized Titans. Imperator Titans were slightly more durable due to a wider hit location table, so were not susceptible to this particular tactic. The other was the solid ball round which could potentially smash through all void shields in a single hit, leaving an Imperial Titan hideously vulnerable to follow-up fire.

What does this mean in the final result?

For any Titan under Imperator size class, the Gargant holds the initial advantage, and the Imperial Titan must wear its opponent down or aim for disabling hits to weaponry to disarm its opponent's weapons. An Imperator Titan against a Mega-Gargant holds the advantage due to the sheer damage output of the Imperator as well as its range advantage over the Mega-Gargant's mostly medium range weaponry. If the Imperator can stay out of medium range, the Mega-Gargant had little that could get through the Imperator's thick void shields. A more even match was probably 2 Mega-Gargants vs. 1 Imperator.

It depends whether you are asking from a Table-top or fluff point of view. In the fluff, each individual Titan was better than an individual Gargant of similar class. However Gargants are not standardised in any way (apart from them all having big, big guns ). Also in the fluff the Orks tended to have a lot more Gargants than Imperial Titans, they far supparse the Imperium in ability to mass produce heavy armor, but that tends to only happen in the bigger Waaaaaghs. Think WW2, with the Imperium being the German Panzer divisions and the Orks being the Soviets. The Orks can afford to win the battle of attrition. They produce Gargants wherever they want, out of anything they want, and customize them to personal preference and whatever needs to die, or whatever is the most Dakka. Often the same thing for Orks

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:

 waaagh blitz wrote:

what is the talest imperial titan and how tall?

\
If you do not believe me read "Titan" Graphic novel from Dan Abnett, there one Imperial Titan in it's many years of service was able to destoy many more Ork Titans, some even in close combat.

I would not use any of Abnett's early comic output as a citation. He's one of, if not my favorite Black Library author, but at the time he really didn't have as firm a grasp on the universe as he did in the coming years. It took a few issues before anybody editing it pointed out that Titans are god machines, not the Machine God.

 Oakenshield wrote:
It took a few issues before anybody editing it pointed out that Titans are god machines, not the Machine God.

Well they are, they are the God Machines of war under the service of Machine God and Ommnisiah.
Abnett is only bad when it comes to Astartes stories ( even if Iron Snakes are awesome the scrip for Ultramairnes was.... medium-core. Not to mention the stuff he write that is in conflict with current fluff ), this is a Mechanicus story and it is awesome.

As far as "citations" and "hard facts" are concerned. it's fairly important for discussions like these to remember that there is no canon for 40k, anyways. Any novel, comic, RPG book, even the codices themselves all present different and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the setting, so OP and his friend would first have to settle on what sources they wish to operate on.

Also, I'm sure the term "Abnettverse" doesn't come from nowhere. Servitor-Navigators, anyone? And aren't Abnett's Marines 10 feet tall or something?

Godkiller, a giant gargant ("towering over an Imperator"), destroyed the Imperator Titan Stomherald in Helsreach. One has to note, however, that the Imperator had been blasting holes in Ork contraptions for months at that time, while the Godkiller was relatively fresh.

 Lynata wrote:
As far as "citations" and "hard facts" are concerned. it's fairly important for discussions like these to remember that there is no canon for 40k, anyways. Any novel, comic, RPG book, even the codices themselves all present different and sometimes conflicting interpretations of the setting, so OP and his friend would first have to settle on what sources they wish to operate on.

Also, I'm sure the term "Abnettverse" doesn't come from nowhere. Servitor-Navigators, anyone? And aren't Abnett's Marines 10 feet tall or something?

An absolutely valid point, but I must point out those early Abnett comics (Titan and Inquistor Ascendant, I'm looking at you) neither mesh with any other source, or even his own later writings! I feel like Abnett really fell in love with the setting as you can see the huge leaps he made in the short time between writing Inquisitor Ascendant and Eisenhorn.

I'll trust your judgment on that; I've never read much of his works - still have the Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus lying around, tho ... one of these days I gotta tackle it. (right now, a bunch of old Battletech novels I recently acquired are keeping me busy)

By the way, given that Gargants are built by Orks ... I actually wouldn't be surprised if their quality, resilience and firepower varies heavily from one to another - even where they might superficially look similar! I'm sure this is not covered in the rules (beyond the usual amount of weapons customisation), but it would fit the fluff and thus explain (read: excuse) performance differences between various sources.

 Lynata wrote:

By the way, given that Gargants are built by Orks ... I actually wouldn't be surprised if their quality, resilience and firepower varies heavily from one to another - even where they might superficially look similar! I'm sure this is not covered in the rules (beyond the usual amount of weapons customisation), but it would fit the fluff and thus explain (read: excuse) performance differences between various sources.

Excellent point! I can't recall ANY rules for a Gargarant, though. I've only seen rules for the Stompa and the Kustom Stompa rules in Imperial Armor 8, Raid on Kastorel-Novem, that allowed you to kustomize your stompa quite a bit. Likewise, it's reasonable to assume that not all Gargants would be created equal.

As Almightywalrus said, a Gargant defeated an Imperator Titan in Helsreach, but you have to add the asterisk that the Imperator had fought for many months and the Gargant was "fresh".

Granted, the only time I ever toyed with a gargant was with in Final Liberation - I thought anything available there would also be present in the Epic 40k rules. Come to think of it, those old books are damn elusive, even moreso than the original Rogue Trader!

Ah, I never played Epic, so I don't know how customizable Gargants are or aren't in that.

Me neither. Maybe Kaldor can help out.

Damn, I wish Epic would receive more support and a makeover from GW. It seems like such a fun game.

http://www.netepic.org/netepic.html

NetEpic is a fan developed evolution of the original 2nd edition Epic rules, with clearing up of unclear areas or conflicting rules. For the main canonical 40K races, it is still essentially 2nd edition so one can get a feel for the Gargant rules through there.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Godkiller, a giant gargant ("towering over an Imperator"), destroyed the Imperator Titan Stomherald in Helsreach. One has to note, however, that the Imperator had been blasting holes in Ork contraptions for months at that time, while the Godkiller was relatively fresh.

The Godkiller had just completly destroyed another hive before it walked all the way to Helsreach. I believe there had to be a couple of titans there to do some damage to it. Also Stormherald was fighting things that were below its status. Not like a mega-gargant so. Its weapons outranged the orks by quite alot. The only time I read of Stormherald actually taking a bad hit was when they walked into a trap and didnt have back up. Other then that Stormherald was quite fine for the rest of the novel really.

First off Epic was by far the best full battle-tactics game that GW ever put out.

All "Titan" class walkers for all races are really about the same;

Fixed shielding capability
Customizable weapon builds

Gargants came in 4 flavors, 5 if you count stompas
Mega-
Great-
Slasha-
Mekboy-

The main differences being how heavy the armament choices are and how many Power Fields they get. All Gargants have a belly gun and as Iracundus was good enough to point out was the main concern of Imperial and Eldar Titans. Some of the other weapons available weren't neccessarily titan killers but the Super-lifta-droppa on the Mekboy Gargant was hell on super heavies. If you could ever get through a titans shields it would do nasty things to them as well. Interstingly, the 40K Stompa is really probably a mix between the Mekboy and Slasha Gargants based on size and armaments.

Imperial Titans come in 4 sizes not counting the Knights

Imperitor-
Warlord-
Reaver-
Warhound-

The Reaver and Warhound titans are the little guys and we used primarily against Super-heavies or just to try and drop down opposing Titan shields. The Warlord and Imperitor Titans carry some of the best titan-killer weapons, Defence Laser and Vortex Missile. Lots of other good options available as well, these titans packed more firepower than any other. In addition, the Imperitor Titans oftern carry infantry as well.

Eldar Titans have 3 variants

Warlock-
Phantom-
Revenant-

The premise on Eldar Titans is you can't hurt me if you don't hit me. They lack the ablative shield technology and instead rely on Holofields. The faster an Eldar Titan moves the better cover save it receives; standing still 4+, moving 3+, running 2+. Most Eldar weapons have very good range and good strength, their main weakness is against blast weapons which Pulsars, and Tremor Cannons have better range than. Both the Heat Lance and D Cannons are immensly powerful, but only at short range. The Eldar Tactic is to take a turn closing in while running and knocking down shields, when the shields are low or dropped it moves in with a Heat Lance and fries the poor target. Warlock Titans get the bonus of being able to use Psychic powers, the most useful Eldritch Storm blocks line of sight and movement over an area equivalent to a titan base.

In short the bigger the Titan the better weapons and more shields it got.

Having played a lot of Epic and know a lot of the early fluff I would say that in a Titan dog fight I would take an Eldar Warlock Titan with a Pulsar, Heat Lance, 2x Wing-mounted Lascannons. over any other titan one on one.

 Inquisitor Lord Cuthbert wrote:

Gargants came in 4 flavors, 5 if you count stompas
Mega-
Great-
Slasha-
Mekboy-

The main differences being how heavy the armament choices are and how many Power Fields they get. All Gargants have a belly gun and as Iracundus was good enough to point out was the main concern of Imperial and Eldar Titans. Some of the other weapons available weren't neccessarily titan killers but the Super-lifta-droppa on the Mekboy Gargant was hell on super heavies. If you could ever get through a titans shields it would do nasty things to them as well. Interstingly, the 40K Stompa is really probably a mix between the Mekboy and Slasha Gargants based on size and armaments.

There was another walker class below the Slasha and Mekboy Gargants: the Stompha, which was treated more like a Knight or Dreadnought. However it in 40K Apocalypse seems to have merged to blur the boundary with the Mekboy and Slasha Gargant. The Mekboy Gargant was interesting in Epic in that it had a Kustom Power Field that was virtually impregnable in the beginning but that had increasing risk of burning out as the game wore on.

Eldar Titans have 3 variants

Warlock-
Phantom-
Revenant-

The premise on Eldar Titans is you can't hurt me if you don't hit me. They lack the ablative shield technology and instead rely on Holofields. The faster an Eldar Titan moves the better cover save it receives; standing still 4+, moving 3+, running 2+. Most Eldar weapons have very good range and good strength, their main weakness is against blast weapons which Pulsars, and Tremor Cannons have better range than. Both the Heat Lance and D Cannons are immensly powerful, but only at short range. The Eldar Tactic is to take a turn closing in while running and knocking down shields, when the shields are low or dropped it moves in with a Heat Lance and fries the poor target. Warlock Titans get the bonus of being able to use Psychic powers, the most useful Eldritch Storm blocks line of sight and movement over an area equivalent to a titan base.

I don't know of anyone that ever took the Heat Lance except for fluff reasons, and the D Cannon was too inaccurate and unreliable. The Tremor Cannon was also mediocre unless you took 2 for an auto-hitting weapon but even then it was underpowerd. Though immensely powerful against Titans at close range, the Heat Lance was overkill on other smaller targets and had only 1 shot. The Warlock Titan's Psychic Lance, while ignoring armor, was also too short ranged and a single shot. I never saw anyone take the Eldar Power Fist as it was a waste of a weapon slot for a CC weapon (and the shuriken cannon in its knuckles). A twin-Pulsar armed Titan on the other hand was an absolute terror to enemy Titans of all races since it had 2d6 100cm -2 Armor Save Modifier shots. In other words, it could down shields quickly at long range and overwhelm armor through a flurry of decent strength hits since Warlord Titans had 6 shields, Reavers had 4, and Warhounds had 2. As for wing weapons, it was always the lascannon wings as these complemented the Pulsars in taking down shields. In fact, in 40K Apocalypse, with the FW Eldar Phantom Titan, it still is one of the best armament loadouts.

Combine that with a Warlock Titan's Witch Sight power (enemy shots have -1 to hit), and Eldar Titans were incredibly hard to hit...except when subjected to barrage weapons such as the Imperail Guard Artillery Company formation. Again, weight of fire in Epic counted for a lot, so all those Basilisk shots were actually deadly in quantity.

Heat lances were pretty awesome on Phantoms and Warlocks, but you need ot get close for them to be usefull. If you plan to stay at 75+ cm range then twin Pulsars is best, but running forward to get close (0-25 cm) then popping off 4 lascannon shots and a 1D6 Pulsar usually removes 6 void shields leaving the Heat Lance an open target with a 2+ to hit and a -5 save modifier typically results in dead Warlord Titan. I agree that the D Cannon is too unreliable due to scatter, but when it does hit it is usually pretty devestating. Nothing wrong with the Power Fist but Pulsars and Lances are just better choices, if you knew that you were facing lots of infantry then maybe the fist is better with the additional shuriken shots. The Psylance deals very good damage but is just hard to hit with reliably.

I still think that Epic was the best game system and its sad that GW does not support it anymore.

An Eldar Titan running forward would have sacrificed at least a turn's worth of shooting, and even then its 2+ holofield could be negated completely by barrage weapons which were not that rare on an Epic battlefield. That is a big package of points there that is then underperforming, and at potential risk of being blown up before it can do anything at all. Hence it was almost always better to engage at long range, and stay on Advance orders to enable movement and firing. The only exception was if you had the Titan Legion rules for Titan crew skills and had the Hip Shot skill or whatever it was called that allowed Eldar Titan crews to shoot while on Charge orders, at a -1 to hit.

Furthermore, number of shots was a better bet against Tyranids and their Titans, or Orks and their Gargants. Neither of these races had Titan equivalents that were vulnerable to one shot kills in the same manner as Imperial or Chaos Titans. Therefore it was better to inflict many hits and potentially affect multiple damage locations than trying to bank everything on one devastating hit to one location.

willhman wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Godkiller, a giant gargant ("towering over an Imperator"), destroyed the Imperator Titan Stomherald in Helsreach. One has to note, however, that the Imperator had been blasting holes in Ork contraptions for months at that time, while the Godkiller was relatively fresh.

The Godkiller had just completly destroyed another hive before it walked all the way to Helsreach. I believe there had to be a couple of titans there to do some damage to it. Also Stormherald was fighting things that were below its status. Not like a mega-gargant so. Its weapons outranged the orks by quite alot. The only time I read of Stormherald actually taking a bad hit was when they walked into a trap and didnt have back up. Other then that Stormherald was quite fine for the rest of the novel really.

It's almost like you read a completely different book.

Megagargants are shown as being equal to Emperor Titans in the old Codex Titan Legions days, but i doubt GW would promote that today.

 Lynata wrote:
Also, I'm sure the term "Abnettverse" doesn't come from nowhere. Servitor-Navigators, anyone? And aren't Abnett's Marines 10 feet tall or something?

Abnett's Marines are more like eight feet tall, going by descriptions. I can't recall them being described in meters/feet myself.

kronk wrote:
willhman wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Godkiller, a giant gargant ("towering over an Imperator"), destroyed the Imperator Titan Stomherald in Helsreach. One has to note, however, that the Imperator had been blasting holes in Ork contraptions for months at that time, while the Godkiller was relatively fresh.


The Godkiller had just completly destroyed another hive before it walked all the way to Helsreach. I believe there had to be a couple of titans there to do some damage to it. Also Stormherald was fighting things that were below its status. Not like a mega-gargant so. Its weapons outranged the orks by quite alot. The only time I read of Stormherald actually taking a bad hit was when they walked into a trap and didnt have back up. Other then that Stormherald was quite fine for the rest of the novel really.


It's almost like you read a completely different book.

i think willhman meant before the fight inbetween the gargant and the titan not after

and also about my earlyier question

Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
waaagh blitz wrote:

what is the talest imperial titan and how tall?


Imeprator Titan: 55.5 meters.

55 meters realy cause that is like half the height of the jet d'eau and that isnt what i would call the height of a "god machine"
i mean in the space marine game the titan towers above the space marines like it is a kilometer tall

 waaagh blitz wrote:


i think willhman meant before the fight inbetween the gargant and the titan not after

Oh, I see. Sorry for the confusion.