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.

This pretty much proves what I said before, GW screwed up weapon progression in AT (yes, for legacy reasons, but still). Let's see, seeing titan guns can be roughly divided into small, medium and large:

Warhound: 2x S
Direwolf: 2x S, 1x M
Reaver: 2x M, 1x S
Nemesis: 2x M, 1x L
Warlord: 2x L, 2x M
Warmaster: 2x XL, 2x S

It's clear Reaver is too weakly armed (barely 1 step up from glorified scout titan) and Warlord is too heavily gunned (it's backup guns are heavier than frakking Warmaster ones and basically equal to whole mainline battle titan in weight). I'd move Reaver to 3x M to make it what it's supposed in fluff (versatile all rounder and mainline titan) and reduce Warlord to 2x L, 2x S to make it more realistic (and give Nemesis a niche).

Of course, better solution (perhaps in AT 2.0?) would be to give each titan number of reactor points to symbolize energy it can direct to guns and limit loadout by giving each gun energy draw number (would also rein in things all turbolaser spam which we don't see in fluff). Perchaps modified by Legio specific gear or pushing reactor. Then you could mount superheavy minmaxed loadout but there would be a chance one of the guns will fizzle. It would also give things like megabolters and missile launchers upside by giving them little energy draw and allowing you to reliably fire whatever other heavy cannons you have. Etc, etc...

JWBS wrote:
There's good 3d prints available in that iteration (updated looks) if you're really that keen.

The ones for Battlebling are very tempting, indeed!

 Irbis wrote:
This pretty much proves what I said before, GW screwed up weapon progression in AT (yes, for legacy reasons, but still). Let's see, seeing titan guns can be roughly divided into small, medium and large:

Warhound: 2x S
Direwolf: 2x S, 1x M
Reaver: 2x M, 1x S
Nemesis: 2x M, 1x L
Warlord: 2x L, 2x M
Warmaster: 2x XL, 2x S

It's clear Reaver is too weakly armed (barely 1 step up from glorified scout titan) and Warlord is too heavily gunned (it's backup guns are heavier than frakking Warmaster ones and basically equal to whole mainline battle titan in weight). I'd move Reaver to 3x M to make it what it's supposed in fluff (versatile all rounder and mainline titan) and reduce Warlord to 2x L, 2x S to make it more realistic (and give Nemesis a niche).

Of course, better solution (perhaps in AT 2.0?) would be to give each titan number of reactor points to symbolize energy it can direct to guns and limit loadout by giving each gun energy draw number (would also rein in things all turbolaser spam which we don't see in fluff). Perchaps modified by Legio specific gear or pushing reactor. Then you could mount superheavy minmaxed loadout but there would be a chance one of the guns will fizzle. It would also give things like megabolters and missile launchers upside by giving them little energy draw and allowing you to reliably fire whatever other heavy cannons you have. Etc, etc...

Direwolf isn’t 2 x S though. Looking at the weapon card, it’s a paired system, so only one. And thus far, no mention of them being swappable. So we’re left with a slightly upgunned Warhound at the price of tactical flexibility.

Yea, the Dire Wolf effectively has 1 vulcan mega-bolter and a neutron cannon/volcano cannon.

And that mega-bolter can lose half of it's shots if there's something in the way of one arm!

...well, that kinda looks like a crappy conversion, TBH.

 Albertorius wrote:
...well, that kinda looks like a crappy conversion, TBH.

Exactly that, looks like someone's tried to make the old Armourcast Warhounds and just thrown a load of parts together.

Really shocked by the quality control someone mentioned. The fact that it made it onto the official photos makes it even worse, and to be honest they don't have an excuse for this.

So as one of the Audax players in the room...



Sure it's resin, but I probably wouldn't spam them anyway. The Dire Wolf has been showing up a lot in fluff lately, so if this saves the plastic capacity for the Rapier....it's like a double win. And hell, maybe I'll get BOTH this year. So yeah...I'm good with this!

Ruleswise, I'm still chewing on it. S7 Shock is kinda interesting in certain scenarios, provided the chassis gets an extra pip on the reactor. I'm more interested to learn exactly how it's classified. It's *probably* an Auxiliary Titan, but you never know if it might come with a rule that allows it to replace a Warhound in an existing maniple or something.

Ruleswise, I'm still chewing on it. S7 Shock is kinda interesting in certain scenarios,

Don't forget that it's also Bypass, so it ignores shields entirely. So if that S7 beats armor of anything, it's shut down, and everything else gets to pound at it while it's defenseless.

This thing is going to be very scary if it can get a flank shot on something.

I quite like the dire wolf, not a bad design.

Although has anyone commented yet how similar it looks to the Dire Wolf in Battletech/Mech Warrior?

 Stormonu wrote:
Eh. My favorite look for the Warhound is still this one:

Spoiler:

There is a really cool resin parts maker (sadly, I forget the name) who does a conversion kit for the new plastic warhound, so you can have that domed body, or even the weapons angled at 90 degrees. Looks very cool, I shall try and fish out the name.

 Pacific wrote:
I quite like the dire wolf, not a bad design.

Although has anyone commented yet how similar it looks to the Dire Wolf in Battletech/Mech Warrior?

 Stormonu wrote:
Eh. My favorite look for the Warhound is still this one:

Spoiler:

There is a really cool resin parts maker (sadly, I forget the name) who does a conversion kit for the new plastic warhound, so you can have that domed body, or even the weapons angled at 90 degrees. Looks very cool, I shall try and fish out the name.

It's Adeptus Dad. I think he may have sold the design to BB. There's other none BB stuff on his site though https://adeptus-dad.github.io/

Ughhh Dire is certainly the word - thats a terrible looking model :(

A must not buy IMO its as bad as some of the awful tau suits - some arms with built in defense bolters would have been much better - hopefully someone will make some

Unfortuantely I think the actual BattleTech Dire Wolf model is a bit small

...do we have different grades of volcano cannon these days, and I've just missed it?

Could've sworn it was a Warlord-scale weapon normally, though I guess there's the Shadowsword version as well.

 Dysartes wrote:
...do we have different grades of volcano cannon these days, and I've just missed it?

Could've sworn it was a Warlord-scale weapon normally, though I guess there's the Shadowsword version as well.

There are volcano cannons (reaver, Shadowsword, Dire Wolf now) and Bellicosa Volcano cannon (Nemesis Warbringer, Warlord).

Rihgu wrote:

Ruleswise, I'm still chewing on it. S7 Shock is kinda interesting in certain scenarios,

Don't forget that it's also Bypass, so it ignores shields entirely. So if that S7 beats armor of anything, it's shut down, and everything else gets to pound at it while it's defenseless.

This thing is going to be very scary if it can get a flank shot on something.

I think flank/rear plus coordinated strike is what you want with this. Really gotta boost that shot as high as possible since the shutdown roll is still only a 3+. I don't know if it comes with squadroning, but I don't care either since Audax can do that and other stuff anyway. Thing is, I don't like perma-squadroning when I can do all those shenanigans with Lupercal maniples. If it comes with some kind of rule where it can replace a WH in existing maniples, that would be awesome. If not, I'll have to chew on it. Maybe one of them as a reinforcement Titan and squadroned with a reinforcement WH will be a way to go.

Edit: Squadroning it with a Rapier (when that's released) might make even more sense. Presumably cheaper. Outflanking the Dire Wolf also makes sense so they have a harder time keeping it in their front arc. Very theoryhammer without the full rules, but seems worth a try.

axotl wrote:

Spoiler:

NOOOOOOOOO it's from Forge World based on the last bit in the article. Not more resin. So spoiled by those beautiful Titanicus plastic sprues. Praying it's a plastic box, but I don't think they ever have said "from forgeworld" without it meaning resin (as opposed to specialist games or what not).

At the same time, I'm NOT seeing the usual print lines and artifacts from the for sure Resin kits, which transfer over to the model - I was SHOCKED to start discovering my FW Titanicus Knights and Armigers all have bits of 3d print support that hadn't been properly cleaned and patched prior to making the Forge World Master Mold. They're really phoning in the quality on the FW parts, vs say Aeronautica which somehow get much higher quality casts. I've bought 1 of every forge world release for AT and AI, and the difference is stark.

Edit - well this is for sure a resin cast in the article. You can see the casting line screw up on bottom of the radiator of the neutron laser behind the top armor panel. And a 3d print line. Hope that's not the master...

It could also be a hybrid kit.

This popped up on one of my socials just now



It solves my issue with the symmetrical legs, I would only need to swap out the arm weapons on this.

well, dont know how it will fit in the game, but from a pure visual point, i`ll take it.

JWBS wrote:
This popped up on one of my socials just now



It solves my issue with the symmetrical legs, I would only need to swap out the arm weapons on this.

Ha, that’s a rejected design I’ve done for Vanguard Miniatures. There is some concept art out there of an Mk2 version of that design.

 Malika2 wrote:


Ha, that’s a rejected design I’ve done for Vanguard Miniatures. There is some concept art out there of an Mk2 version of that design.

Ah! Very good, I commend you on your work here Sir.

It looks awful. I could forgive sticking with the warhound theme if there was some meaningful cross-pollination like being able to take warhound arm weapons. But no, it's got a single paired megabolter and the ardax name thing is just confusing. The other problem is based on the weapons cards the carapace weapons aren't even corridor arc, that sorta bugs me conceptually seeing as the vibe is like heavy scout sniper, especially with the +1 to hit. Unless there's a swap for the bolters, it will basically have 2 options, 1 of which seems like an auto take given the bypass. Really hoping these are aux and not in squadrons tbh. If it had its own unique head at least the design wouldn't look like a weird kitbash. What bugs me the most about it being so ugly is, in a time with rapidly expanding 3d design and printing, you'd think with so few released fw and gw would take their time and make something really iconic when they get a chance to add something truly new into the world. Instead we get something that, honest to god looks like they bought a file on cults and slapped gw marketing on it. Just it being resin basically guarantees its easier to convert one from a plastic hound an and extra reaver weapon.


The upside is there are already some great 3rd party options that could work. Coincidentally this thing is 50% off currently and all it needs is some vulcan megabolter arms. I'd probably give it a head swap too.

I like that this design minus the claws actually looks like a scout sniper titan, the weird body makes sense when you think of keeping the head out of los and lifting the tale up over cover to sneak shots in without presenting much to shoot back it or much to give ones position away of auspex, I can really buy this thing sneaking around like a warhound. The fw dire wolf, less so.



https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/miniatures/sci-fi/close-combat-scout-titan?fbclid=IwAR0hNzWTheyXehxePHTRAPxTdppCoRjmXMamNeUnDnCXiXA-jpEERYk538Q


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Malika2 wrote:

JWBS wrote:
This popped up on one of my socials just now

Spoiler:

It solves my issue with the symmetrical legs, I would only need to swap out the arm weapons on this.

Ha, that’s a rejected design I’ve done for Vanguard Miniatures. There is some concept art out there of an Mk2 version of that design.

That thing is way better than the GW Malika, any chance you can release stl's of that thing?

There’s two reasons I won’t release the STLs for it: (1) the design contains a few elements which are remixed from existing Vanguard Miniatures components (meaning I don’t own the rights to those) and (2) it was designed in scale with old forumware Titan models which scale is slightly bigger than the old Epic Titans, but still tiny compared to the current Titanicus stuff. This means that if you’d print it, you’d have to upscale it, meaning many details and other aspects will look odd compared to the rest of the range.

 Malika2 wrote:
There’s two reasons I won’t release the STLs for it: (1) the design contains a few elements which are remixed from existing Vanguard Miniatures components (meaning I don’t own the rights to those) and (2) it was designed in scale with old forumware Titan models which scale is slightly bigger than the old Epic Titans, but still tiny compared to the current Titanicus stuff. This means that if you’d print it, you’d have to upscale it, meaning many details and other aspects will look odd compared to the rest of the range.

Makes sense, I'm seeing an opportunity for some enterprising desginer to whip up a conversion kit for existing plastic warhounds. Wouldn't need to do too much, something to cradle the carapace gun that fits, bolter arms and maybe a better head.

Forgeworld eeew, wallet is saved.

"And there was this Titan there all along you've only just found out about! The reason being, it was so ugly no commander dared field one."

 Crablezworth wrote:
I like that this design minus the claws actually looks like a scout sniper titan, the weird body makes sense when you think of keeping the head out of los and lifting the tale up over cover to sneak shots in without presenting much to shoot back it or much to give ones position away of auspex, I can really buy this thing sneaking around like a warhound. The fw dire wolf, less so.

Cool design, but it just looks like a modernization of the old Slaaneshi Subjugator Titan. It doesn't look like a heavier WH titan (it looks lighter), and doesn't really even look Imperial. I'd like to see some of those design notes make it into the Rapier kit, where they'd make more sense.

I think it a bit much for the neutron laser to have both Bypass and Shock. No skill involved and just point and poke at the biggest enemy to shut them down. I would drop the Bypass so that it would still require dropping target shields first.

 gorgon wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I like that this design minus the claws actually looks like a scout sniper titan, the weird body makes sense when you think of keeping the head out of los and lifting the tale up over cover to sneak shots in without presenting much to shoot back it or much to give ones position away of auspex, I can really buy this thing sneaking around like a warhound. The fw dire wolf, less so.

Cool design, but it just looks like a modernization of the old Slaaneshi Subjugator Titan. It doesn't look like a heavier WH titan (it looks lighter), and doesn't really even look Imperial. I'd like to see some of those design notes make it into the Rapier kit, where they'd make more sense.

It looks like a JadTitan destroyer conversion, like the tank destroyer versions of various panzers.

 gorgon wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I like that this design minus the claws actually looks like a scout sniper titan, the weird body makes sense when you think of keeping the head out of los and lifting the tale up over cover to sneak shots in without presenting much to shoot back it or much to give ones position away of auspex, I can really buy this thing sneaking around like a warhound. The fw dire wolf, less so.

Cool design, but it just looks like a modernization of the old Slaaneshi Subjugator Titan. It doesn't look like a heavier WH titan (it looks lighter), and doesn't really even look Imperial. I'd like to see some of those design notes make it into the Rapier kit, where they'd make more sense.

I know, my point is without the claws and a different head ist already better in terms of design. I agree the plating looks more chaos but even a less rounded more boxy version would still be better imo.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
I like that this design minus the claws actually looks like a scout sniper titan, the weird body makes sense when you think of keeping the head out of los and lifting the tale up over cover to sneak shots in without presenting much to shoot back it or much to give ones position away of auspex, I can really buy this thing sneaking around like a warhound. The fw dire wolf, less so.

Cool design, but it just looks like a modernization of the old Slaaneshi Subjugator Titan. It doesn't look like a heavier WH titan (it looks lighter), and doesn't really even look Imperial. I'd like to see some of those design notes make it into the Rapier kit, where they'd make more sense.

It looks like a JadTitan destroyer conversion, like the tank destroyer versions of various panzers.

I just like that looks believably like a hunter of sorts, the kind of titan that would shoot and re-locate quickly.

Trivia: molecular anaylsis show that dire wolves never had genetic flow with actual wolves, instead, the closest animal to them are north African jackals.

GW/FW have not done themselves any favors with the static pose on this.

IMO, this union of Warhound and Warbringer needs some better feet, slightly longer neck, and some arms that have a little more oomph.

That Neutron Laser sounds like a "Duh!" pick - perhaps a little over powered.