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The current list is a well balanced force. Its hard to say what it needs considering your opponent is yet to reveal his battlegroup list, but yours is at least a jack-of-all-trades. Its also able to cast a wide net without skimping on the armour and fire power.

I would go in - initially - with a split group approach; Your Warlord and Reavers will hammer the enemy and draw their fire, while the Hounds and Knights act as a strike group.

For sheer comedy I would go for a trio of Acastus.

We used the new Knight Acastus Knights Porphyrion and they seemed far too overpowered, more so that we thought they broke the game so I just want to check we are using them right. We had them armed with the Twin Conversion Beam Cannons.

So, rolling to hit, is x4 strength 9, 5" Templates per model at range 24 - 48 ? This seems incredible and more devestating than Titan weaponry.

And if you miss, you potentially can still hit because of the template scatter.

Thoughts ????

And the can be taken in banners of 1 model for 100 points so you can absolutely spam activations to outmaneuver your opponent.

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
We used the new Knight Acastus Knights Porphyrion and they seemed far too overpowered, more so that we thought they broke the game so I just want to check we are using them right. We had them armed with the Twin Conversion Beam Cannons.

So, rolling to hit, is x4 strength 9, 5" Templates per model at range 24 - 48 ? This seems incredible and more devestating than Titan weaponry.

And if you miss, you potentially can still hit because of the template scatter.

Thoughts ????

That is indeed correct. People have been troubled by this since the profiles were first previewed.

If you want, you can do me a huge favour and play test the following alternate rules for them:
They should use the points values and options from the terminal, just swap for the weapon profiles above. Let me know if you do use these and how you like them?

The guns need to cost more than 20 points, probably 40. They're better than turbolasers!

Banners of two minimum like Cerastus?

We've been playing the Acastus with the following point modifications...

> Banner 90 pts, 80 pts for each additional Knight.
> Porphyrion loadout 35 pts
> Asterius loadout 40 pts
> Twin Lascannon upgrade 15 pts.

> Banner is 1-3 Knights.

...so maxed out a Porphyrion will be 140 pts and an Asterius 145 pts. A pair of Porphyrions will now cost 270 pts so the Warhound is the cheaper option at 200-240 pts. So while the two Acastus will brutally wipe out a Hound, they are only in a position to give a Reaver a bloody nose. If you go to a banner of three - to destroy the Reaver, it will cost you 400pts. In turn they will be blown away by a Warlord but once again dish out a bloody nose.

The weapons on this fellow are at an insanely low price. Essentially the Porphyion is strolling around the battle field with a missile rack that outspecs the Questoris' Rockpod(15pts) and cannons that are almost as effective as a Warlord's sunfury(45pts) but both for only 20pts. His base price(without weapons) includes cannons that cause automatic strength 4 hits within 6" of a target...yet the Questoris has to pay 15 pts for str 8, 3" with the meltagun. And then the Asterius has further improvement but once again for the same price of 20pts.

Another consideration is the coordinated strike order, which makes these chaps even more dangerous. Four Acastus are deadly enough without c-strike orders, and you get three of them for -30pts, which doesn't help the already controversial cost issue. Three seems to be enough for a full banner...

So, +10 pts for the fact the Knight is already armed, 20 pts for a powerful long range weapon, 15 pts for a missile rack and another 15 pts for a futher cannon attack. Then 5 pts for a slight advantage for the Asterius.

140 points for a fully loaded Porphyrion might still seem too low, but it is a single Knight that does not have the advantage of speed and melee that the other Knights have. Also, its primary cannons are not a single weapon, but paired. In a one-on-one encounter with a Warhound, its not going to survive simply because the Hound has the advantages of a Titan(reactor, crew, shields, legio and maniple traits) and is faster.

Give it a try and it should lead to a more balanced game. Lets us know your results!

I think what would be a good fix to the Acastus would just be to get rid of the blasts.

Honestly it makes no sense with the scaling; other weapons which use the 3" blast in 40k are single-shots in AT, yet the Acastus MagnaLas keeps its blasts. Ditch the blasts and suddenly it becomes less accurate, forcing the player to lock down more to use Split/First Fire.

For the Porphyrion I would just ditch the blasts and make it 4 shots, for the Asterius I would make it single-shot on short range, 3" on long.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
And the can be taken in banners of 1 model for 100 points so you can absolutely spam activations to outmaneuver your opponent.

True, although I worry more about maxing out the banners, because of the way Knights work. They fire all weapons of the same type in the banner at once, as if they're a single weapon. This removes two of the important balancing aspects of Titan weapons:

a) each weapon will probably hit a different location unless you try for a targeted shot at -2 to hit
and
b) blast weapons can't do targeted shots.

In my last game my Warlord got hammered for four full turns by an enemy Warlord with a quake and volcano, with bruised locations all over the place, but the random location damage of the incoming blasts couldn't finish it off (and the carapace apoc launchers couldn't quite roll well enough to hurt the damaged parts). It didn't die until the very last activation of the last turn, when a Reaver pinpointed the heavily battered legs with its turbolaser for the killing blow. (Whereupon we rolled a 10 for Catastrophic Damage. Who put the reactor in the kneecap?)

However, officially, a banner of Acastus all armed with conversion beamers fires all of them at once as if they're a single beamer. Which means that you only roll once for hit location. Which means every single one of those overpowered blast shots will hit the same spot, even if they scatter and clip the base.

The lack of a reactor also removes the risk/reward aspect of Titan play when using the really powerful weapons.

I like the various alternative profiles for the Acastus weapons. I do think that allowing them a longer range than 24" would be OK (particularly the lascannons) because that lets them fulfill an artillery-support role in a pure Knight force. Say 32" or 36"?

(I will admit that even though the official conversion beamer profile is overpowered IMO, it warms my heart to see them in the game. It was always my favourite gun in Space Crusade. )

All this?

Feed it back to GW. There's nowt wrong with discussion and adopting house rules from there. But its worth far more if you're also feeding it back to source.

And it's not as if it's terribly difficult for GW to amend the rules. Issue an Errata, and modify the reprinted terminals. Bob's yer uncle

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All this?

Feed it back to GW. There's nowt wrong with discussion and adopting house rules from there. But its worth far more if you're also feeding it back to source.

And it's not as if it's terribly difficult for GW to amend the rules. Issue an Errata, and modify the reprinted terminals. Bob's yer uncle

When the paint dries and I get a few games in I plan to do just that very thing. The NOVA Open is coming up, do they have an AT bracket? I'm going to laugh if the guys who go CONVERSIONBEAMERSPAMPEWPEWPEW blast their way to the finals.

Speaking of paint drying here’s progress on Legio #1. Still tons of detail work to do and boy does the Warlord look funny with no armor on his legs but everything up top.

Lovely work, Fajita. The household is really coming together.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All this?

Feed it back to GW. There's nowt wrong with discussion and adopting house rules from there. But its worth far more if you're also feeding it back to source.

And it's not as if it's terribly difficult for GW to amend the rules. Issue an Errata, and modify the reprinted terminals. Bob's yer uncle

I would do, but I've pestered GW quite a bit for the time being!

I'm sure they will refine it themselves and from feedback gathered from the various game events.

Cheap walmart color shifting craft paint + necron models = Xenos campaign



*edit: damn work WiFi is giving me errors

AT Necrons! Right on!

Looking good, Fajita. That's shaping up to a proper force

Thank you guys, I just wish you guys were all in the DC area. The AT community seems a really fun bunch, I hope we never become like the Average Internet 40k Community.

Got a question for you guys.

I'm building two Legios and wondered if they were balanced against each other.

They both come to 1365pts each.

Legio Tempestus

Warlord with 2 Sunfury Plasma Annihilators and Paired Laser Blasters

Reaver with Reaver Titan Chainfist, Melta Cannon and Turbo Laser Destructor

Reaver with Reaver Titan Power Fist Gatling Blaster and Apocalypse Missile Launcher

Warhound with 2 Turbo Laser Destructors

Legio Mortis

Warlord with 2 Belicosa Volcano Cannons and Apocalypse Missile Launcher

Reaver with Reaver Titan Power Fist, Volcano Cannon and Turbo Laser Destructor

Reaver with Gatling Blaster, Laser Blaster and Apocalypse Missile Launcher

Warhound with 2 Plasma Blastguns

So are they balanced against each other and what should I add to each battle group to get them to 2000pts?

Thanks

I’m no pro but you might mix and match those Warlord guns. Volcano cannons can generate a lot of heat!

Also the first list very obviously wants to get close but doesn’t have much in the way of shield blasting. You mix in some Gatlings or Apoc launchers to knock down shields.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
I’m no pro but you might mix and match those Warlord guns. Volcano cannons can generate a lot of heat!

Also the first list very obviously wants to get close but doesn’t have much in the way of shield blasting. You mix in some Gatlings or Apoc launchers to knock down shields.

Do you think adding a Warhound with 2 Vulcan Mega Bolters to the Tempestus army would help it with shield busting?

Then it can only bust shields and will have a harder time hurting the hull of something that’s not already injured from a flank. Overall people have found it more effective to split up weapon types.

Mandragola at B&C has a great bit to read on AT tactics.
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/357441-principia-titanicus/#entry5358595

 Fajita Fan wrote:
Then it can only bust shields and will have a harder time hurting the hull of something that’s not already injured from a flank. Overall people have found it more effective to split up weapon types.

Mandragola at B&C has a great bit to read on AT tactics.
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/357441-principia-titanicus/#entry5358595

Thanks for the link. That was really useful.

Fajita, those golden boys are looking excellent.

Also pleased to see the giant spider robots of doom make their debut!

… A quick word of caution to everyone about the new Loyalist and Traitor dice sets. I don't usually bother with fancy dice, but this time I girded my wallet and picked up the Traitor set, intending to mix them into my regular AT dice.

At the moment, just using the standard amber AT dice, we keep mistaking the special dice for regular dice and rolling the wrong ones ("oh look, I rolled two hits, a scatter arrow and a First Fire order...") The problem with the official dice is the AT symbol on the '6' face, which makes it look like a special die and vice versa.

Being all cunning (thanks to playing Orks in Epic for years), I planned to use the regular dice from the standard set and the order/reactor/scatter/location dice from the Traitor set so they'd be easy to distinguish on the board.

Unfortunately, the Traitor dice don't have enough contrast between the dark red main colour and the brass inset markings. They're a bit hard on the eyes unless you're playing outdoors at noon. This is particularly true of the ones with smaller details, such as the location die and the orders that look similar (like First Fire vs Split Fire). We tried mixing them with the regular dice during a club game, but found the low contrast annoying enough to stop bothering.

I suspect the Loyalist dice may have a similar issue, although not as serious.

Then again, your eyes might be better than mine.

My Plan B is to replace the regular amber D6s with standard dice from a third party.

Other mutterings about other poorly chosen graphic-design features of AT ensued, including the black-on-brown names on the Titan terminals, not to mention the very small dark blue readouts on black screens for various stats and special rules. I think this indicates that an ageing process is happening in my general vicinity.

nothing that prevents you from painting the dices you know, i did it on some of my regular D6s where the contrast is too low.

but i agree, the contrast on both sets are too poor and its the reason why i havent bought any of them even tough i dont like the original dices.

For those of you, like me, who don't like the terminals here's a set of printable ones you can mark up like BT or laminate for dry erase markers.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/356057-erasable-titanicus-terminals/

 Fajita Fan wrote:
For those of you, like me, who don't like the terminals here's a set of printable ones you can mark up like BT or laminate for dry erase markers.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/356057-erasable-titanicus-terminals/

Very nice!

The Knights are much easier in this respect as one just has the weapons, points list and general information as a single sheet, and then have each banner as a separate strip of card to hold four items - banner type, unit number, order and a D6(or higher) to record the current number of structure hits. Saves a lot on table space!

My cardboard is all warped from heat and it’s annoying to use.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
My cardboard is all warped from heat and it’s annoying to use.

It is surprisingly messy to cut. A recent project(game board) has made me a big fan of very thin plasticard and I might fancy a plastic banner terminal from left over materials. Just need a solid plastic back and then cut out the pits for the dice and tokens to sit in.

Or print a better looking terminals, laminate them, and use dry erase markers instead of paying for warped cardboard with little plastic thingies to lose.

 Fajita Fan wrote:
Or print a better looking terminals, laminate them, and use dry erase markers instead of paying for warped cardboard with little plastic thingies to lose.

That's certainly a good option.

I had tried to print and laminate the official ones, back them with magnetic strip, and use little magnetic pushpins to track damage and shields. Too much effort IMO, the ones Martin made are really nice.


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As I struggle with weapon glows on my loyalist legio I took out my traitor princeps senioris just to mock up dual claws. He’s just blue tacked together and those laser blasters are just 3D printed proxies. Sadly I’m now missing my defiler 8 pointed star that I had set aside for this guy’s roof. I’m terribly sad right now because I can’t find it in any of my bits boxes but I had wanted to mark this guy with a giant chaos star supported by chains.