I can't wait for 'proper' Adeptus Titanicus to make its comeback.
At the same time, a '
40k scale' titan engagement is awesome to see, but less fun in practice than in theory. We have rather too many Titan and knight players in our local group, and have been expending a bit of thought on this (began last year in this post
here) and have the following suggestions plagiarised from various bits of
40k rules:
Game Size:
40,000 point games are fine in theory but are a logistical nightmare. Adepticon Titanicus is a huge event which takes a lot of planning and essentially renting a specific venue.
3,000 points is a nice value because you get to field several canonically supported titan forces - e.g.
Warlord Titan
Hammer Of The Emperor (Reaver + 4 x Knight)
Venatarii Maniple (Reaver + 2 x Warhound)
2 Warhound Packs (4 x Warhound)
2 x Household Detachment (8 x Knight)
Enough 'game pieces' to keep the board interesting but actually make the game playable.
Board Size:[/u]
With the above recommended game size, increase the normal board size but not by much. 8' x 6' is essentially buildable with two Realm Of Battle boards instead of one, and is just big enough for titan class guns to encounter range issues, and for a 12" move to take time to get places, without taking forever. This is the size recommended by
Imperial Armour: Apocalypse for titan-on-titan games.
Terrain:
Follow the advice for the old
Spearhead expansion. 25% terrain remains a good idea, but consolidated into fewer, larger pieces rather than lots of 'scatter terrain', and try to 'cluster' terrain more than you normally would to provide open areas and terrain areas on the board.
Nothing smaller than a building ruin is going to provide meaningful cover, and difficult terrain doesn't affect superheavies (much). Recommended - split terrain 50/50 between a few small fragment ruins (1-2 x 2-3 'floor tiles' and only 1-2 stories high in
GW building terms) that are essentially 'aegis lines' and 'big buildings' which are at least 3 stories high (in part or full) because ruins need to be that big if they're going to block lines of fire to a knight, or provide meaningful cover to a warhound or reaver. If you don't have 3+ story buildings, designate (and mark) some ruins as being that tall.
Friendly Troops Dug-In (Special Terrain Type):
Friendly infantry occupying ruins - is something that both players can agree to use. If so, you get to place squads in three ruins in your deployment zone or no-man's land, a maximum of one of which can contain an objective. The number of models and their type is kind of irrelevant - they're just a marker. If a ruin has troops in it, you count as controlling that objective if no superheavy is in range to control it (no, they can't contest an objective with a titan), and the ruin counts as dangerous terrain to enemy units which (unlike 'normal' dangerous terrain) may not be ignored due to
Move Through Cover - causing 1 hull point damage on a roll of a 1 (the
Immobilized result being ignored due to Invincible Behemoth). Saving Throws (of any kind) and Feel No Pain may not be used against Wounds or Hull Points lost to this rule.
Ruins occupied by infantry can be shot at as if they were a unit. If the ruin is hit by a Primary Weapon, or if hit by any other weapon and a 5+ is rolled after the hit is scored. infantry in the ruin are pinned down and do not count for either effect until the start of the firing player's next shooting phase.
Mission:
Apocalypse-esque objective rules with secondary missions from
Escalation: 5 Objectives placed using standard rules. Each player receives points each turn equal to the turn number for each objective destroyed. Additionally, one point is received per 3 hull points of damage done to a single unit.
In addition, we're looking at a few 'bolt on' rules to help make titan fights more interesting. Right now, the major issues are:
a) Titan matches tend to devolve into 'firing line' shooting matches
b) He who shoots first wins
c) There is no reason to take anything other than the highest rate of fire destroyer weapon available
d) Titan Close Combat Weapons are utterly useless
e) Manoeuvre is almost irrelevant
f) Large area blast and hellstorm weapons gain no benefit when firing at a single large target
g) Titans have no 'depth' and are just a stack of hit points. There is more detail to two 150 point tanks shooting at one another than two 1500 point titans doing the same.
These are addressed in several ways.
Firstly, by removing all the supporting units completely, the titans have to move up the field to take objectives. A knight kill is worth 2 points - which is good on turn 1 - but on turn 6 a single objective is worth the same as taking out a reaver titan. Therefore they must move up the board, which means their arc of fire and side armour becomes relevant, and moving closer to models with titan close combat weapons is an unfortunate necessity.
Secondly, blast weapons are increased in effectiveness in a manner stolen from Epic: Armageddon. A model hit by a blast takes 1 hit (of course). A model hit by the centre hole of a 7" blast takes additional damage - losing an additional D3 hull points if any are lost, and losing an additional void shield if any are lost. A model hit by a hellstorm template or the centre hole of a 10" blast takes additional damage as above, but takes
D6 additional hull points or loses D3 additional void shields. The
All Power To Weapons rule is embodied as a standard part of the Vulcan Mega-Bolter's rules; any titan with one may fire it twice for 30 shield-stripping shots if it doesn't move. Since a Warhound's Vulcan Mega-Bolters gain Primary Weapon (essentially Ordnance), a Warhound with one or more Vulcans can play 'sprint and shoot' alternating between
Agile and
All Power To Weapons, which makes it quite a useful unit despite not having any anti-titan guns.
Thirdly, void shields are significantly improved - because void shields pretty much even out the damage between S8-10 Primary Weapon hits and Destroyer hits, making them more significant makes non-destroyer weapons more attractive. Because this makes non-destroyer weapons more important, armour facing (and hence manoeuvre) becomes more significant, and because void shields don't work in assaults, titan close combat weapons become more important. Secondly, making void shields more durable helps reduce the 'two titans blow each other to scrap in two shooting phases' issue which limits the length and interest of the game. Essentially plagiarising the Overcharged Void Shields rule from
Adeptus Titanicus, an active void shield is not automatically knocked down on a Destroyer Hit or Glancing/Penetrating hit, but only if the titan fails a 3+ roll after doing so.
Lastly, to try and add some granularity, a damage table is reintroduced. The fact that a titan ignores crew shaken or weapon destroyed makes sense - a gun bigger than most land raiders is not going to be substantially inconvenienced by a single krak missile hit. However, when faced with a serious 'critical hit' it seems fair that they should suffer loss of combat effectiveness. As a result, a titan has to roll again on the damage table, but only if it suffers an
Explodes! result on its first roll. Shaken, Stunned and Weapon Destroyed results may be ignored by each Primary Weapon on a 4+, and each Immobilized and Stunned result halves (cumulatively) the units' move (in the latter case only for one turn). Explodes causes an extra D3 hull points loss and rolls again. This makes AP1 weapons especially nasty, as they can (theoretically) cause a lethal chain reaction, and are far more likely to cause system damage. This makes AP1 'big guns' like the titan Melta Cannon much more tempting, and helps create a gap in lethality between a warlord titan's Bellicosa Volcano Cannon and a 'normal' turbolaser shot.
The Empire 
1500 pts
: 
Taghmata Omnissiah(5,5k)
