Thought I would put this here.

I have decided to find myy old attempt of merging =][= rules and titan fights for a more detailed game with our beloved god-machines. alas I couldn't find it. So I have started writing my own game. this is based on D10s rather than D100 with the basic roll needed being a 10 after modifiers.

This is the first draft of all the rules in one place (other than my head). It still needs some cleaning up in terms of proses and explinations, and point values added, that is even before we get to balancing all of the different weapons and war engines.

My plans for the future are:
adding super heavy titan hunters
Changing from wounds to a hit allocation table in which you blow parts off of the titans.

Edit: added current version of the rules

I've tested the rules quickly in two games. Despite writing the rules I had to check the table a bit (but I expected to).

Firt game was:
Warhound with plasma blast gun and Vulcan mega bolter
Warhound with plasma blast gun and Vulcan mega bolter
Reaver with 2 Gatling blasters and chain fist

Against

Warlord with 3 missile pods and carapace landing pad (no rules yet)
Warlord with 2 Gatling blasters two las blasters

The board had some 5 buildings and some firelines.

Turn 1
Both Warhounds move forwards at battle stride and hit the missile warlord with their plasma blast guns causing a few points of damage.

The Reaver the also moves forwards at battle stride and attacks the same warlord, though its shields and armour deflect all incoming fire.

In response the missile warlord braces and fires off all three missile pods at the Reaver causing 15 points of damage and shorting a shield generator.

The second Warlord then angles past a building and its main guns finish off the Reaver.

Called it there

Second battle
Warhound with plasma blast gun and Vulcan mega bolter
Reaver with las blaster and two volcano cannons
Reaver with 2 Gatling blasters and chain fist

Against

Warlord with 3 missile pods and carapace landing pad (no rules yet)
Warlord with 2 Gatling blasters two las blasters

Same board
Turn 1
Warhound moves forwards towards the missile warlord and fluffs with the blast gun

Volcano Reaver braces and fires at the missile Warlord causing 25 points of damage

Missile Warlord returns fire and causing 7 points of damage after only locking on with two missile pods.

Gatling Reaver battle strides to gain sight to the missile warlord causing 1 point of damage with 5 hits.

Second warlord marches behind a building

Turn 2

The Warhound closes with the wounded missile warlord and finishes it with its plasma blastgun.

The volcano Reaver advance into the board, ready to catch the second warlord.

The final warlord, realising it has to do something marches around the building and brings its formidable armament to bare on the Warhound at point blank range. I check the range modifiers and realise that battle titan class weapons are not designed for point blank fire fights. The few shots that hit do no damage to the Warlord.

Musing

The rolling is reasonable simple and quick.

Most titan weapons do what is intended and slowly chip away at the enemy. Though the bigger weapons (missiles volcano cannons and PBGs) could be somewhat overpowered. Though the missiles and volcano cannons are present in larger numbers than normal (who takes two volcano cannons on a Reaver?).

The warlords were also very resilient. With 8 armour and D10+2 shields they can shrug off almost all incoming fire. More testing is needed, but I am probably going to drop the hardened voids from them.

Failing shields. Both games had few turns but in them over 30 shots were fired and only a single void was dropped. I might either drop void (and power fields to D8) or make them fail on 1 and 10.

Played two more games today with the first 4 edits, both against myself.

The lists used are at the back of the PDF (though in the game Vs the nids I didn’t use the shadowsword).

Played Vs the Eldar first. They work as expected. Their high manoeuvrability means they can stay away from the lumbering machines of the imperium.

Turn 1
Two of the Revenants advanced forwards to attack the warlord, and managed to bring down two voids and cause 20 points of damage. The third Revenant circled around a building ready to get a shot.

In response the Warhound ran forwards and failed to lock on and hit with its plasma blast gun, the Vulcan was out of range.

The warlord then braced, acquiring multiple locks on the first Revenant and fired off all it had. Despite multiple hits the Gatling Blasters were only able to cause a few points of damage. The las blasters in their carapace mounts were much more successful and destroyed the Revenant.

The Reaver then Advanced at battle stride and engaged the second Revenant. Despite failing to lock on and needing 9s to hit, the Reaver hit with6 shots and destroyed the Revenant

The Warlord regained a void

Turn 2
The Revenant moved at battle stride to the edge of the building and fired at the Warhound downing the void and causing 13 points of damage.

The Warhound moved behind cover

The Reaver moved at flank pace to get a visual on the Revenant

The Warlord moves at flank speed towards the other side of the building

The warlord relights its final void.

Turn 3
The Revenant repeats its last turn’s manoeuvre this time shooting the Reaver. Dropping a void and causing 10 points of damage.

The Warhound moves at flank speed form behind its cover, turns to face the Revenant, firing off a snap shot before heading behind a second building, still trying to light its’ shield. The snap shot, despite no lock on hits the Fragile Eldar machine and causes 14 points of damage.

Sensing victory the Reaver doubles around the building to face the wounded enemy. Alas to bring its guns to bare it closes to much with the enemy and under the optimum range of its Gatlings. Failing to lock on all its’ shots miss.

The warlord continues to move around the building.

Both the Reaver and Warhound relight their voids

Turn 4
The Revenant fires point blank at the Reaver in front of it before darting back behind the building. All 6 shots hit. The first 4 shots knock down a void and bring the Reaver within 4 points of destruction. The 5th shot doesn’t penetrate the final void but does bring it down allowing the final shot to scalp the god machine.

The Warhound and Warlord continue to try to circle the enemy.

Turn 5
The Revenant confronts the towering Warlord and in a display of Eldar technology blow out the voids in the first 3 shots allowing the last three to easily finish off the machine.

Game called

Game 2
The imperial titans huddle in a group, facing two greater Hierophants and a Hierophant, with the second Hierophant on the flank ready to sweep in.

Turn 1
All 4 bio titans advance as quickly as possible, though this does leave the Greater Hierophant with pyroacid and the flanking Hierophant in the open.

The Warhound shuffles nervously to cover all approaches

The Volcano cannon armed Reaver braces and fires at both visible bio constructs. Locking onto the smaller titan. However its wiry frame means it avoids most of the incoming fire and only suffers 7 points of damage. The greater Hierophant is not so lucky and loses 20 points of integrity!

The Warlord braces and locks all weapons on the wounded Greater Hierophant shredding it with the Gatling blasters before the capacitors of the las blasters could warm up. (The warlord had hit with 7 of the 10 shots and each shot was doing D10-4 damage).

The second Reaver shuffled around to face the gap that the second Greater Hierophant would use

The wounded Hierophant regained 4 points of damage.

Turn 2
The three bio-titans continue their sprint towards the imperial engines and all hide.

Realising that the imperial machines do not need to move I stop the game.

I've played about a dozen games now. Mostly imperium vs nids.

I am at about a 50:50 win ratio, with the standard armaments I have used (haven't tried the dual volcano reaver in a while.

The nids seem to win if they stick together and have a screen of Hierodules. Whereas the imperium wins if the bio titans split up.

I have actually used tactics with the nids, rather than the 40K run at things approach, They have to hide behind buildings to allow their regeneration to kick in and rebuild eir integrity, whereas imperial titans don’t have that worry since voids protect them.

In several games the nids have reached the imperial titans with only a few points of integrity left, only to then rip apart their counterparts.

Still need to tweak the melee rules, since bio titans are hitting on 2+, whereas the imperial titans have 2 to 3 turns of about 7+ rolls.

the D10 rolling, especially against shields is giving a lot of variable results. Which I like

You can stride your warlord into the open daring the enemy to try only to roll poor for your shields and be shredded. At the same time a wounded 'hound's shields can stop almost anything.

Hi,
I did read your rules.
Some thougths out of my head.
- You roll a d10 to score a 10+. You have a rule that if you can't score a 10 (because you got a -1 for example) you may still hit if you roll a 10 followed by a 4+. While this may work in terms of chances, i don't see that this rule is needed. I dare to say that players would find this rule hard to remember and unnecessary.

- Your movement modes are complex. This may or may not be intended. However, i suggest you make a table with all movement modes AND the modifiers they cause.

- Characteristics; Something is strange with ballistics and ranged, you mixed those words.

- Allowing to shoot at any point in movement can cause exploits, Pop up behind cover shoot, back to cover...no return fire at all. (While this is a good and usual tactic, the point is, it allows no return fire at all, even if the victim would already be shooting streams of metall with a gatling in the direction of the cover.)

- For Limb Weapons i have good experience with the following: Front 90° AND the side of the limb 90°. Still amounts to 180° but it's rather important which side the limb is. If you go for detail i would strongly recommend it.

That's it for now. While i doubt I'll find the time to test your rules anytime soon, at least you know someone did read them.

Cheers,
Athistaur

Thanks for reading and input



I added the rule mainly because of the VMB and missile pods. Since they have dual modes sometimes you get the chance of hitting to be 10+ fo easy mode and 11+ (or about) for hard mode. If you always hit on a 10 then it means that in the really hard to hit circumstances then taking the harder route would be easier!. I was taking an idea from WHFB where you could get rolls to hit of between 7 and 9+ on a D6. I thought the massive variance was too complex so simplified it.

what would you suggest?

Should I leave it a simple 10 always hit and allow quantity to hae a quailty of its own?



They do need simplifying. I might make it into a table with minimum and maximum stride, extra turns and I could add in the perception modifiers. I wanted all of the lock on modifiers in one place, but I can repeat them so you know what you are getting yourself into.

the plan was that you could choose 1 of 3 rates of movement. higher rates of movement increase distance covered, but reduce the chance to lock on. Added to these are reverse and turning on the spot (so agile titans can't eaily hide behind slower ones).



Probably, damn dyslexia, where have I screwed up so I can fix it?



Most titans have limited turn arc which means shooting in the middle of a movve isn;t that useful for getting into cover. Unless you are running for the cover and take a shot halfway across the open ground.

The only titans that can really benifit from easily jumping in and out of cover are the Eldar, who deserve it (pansy xeno cowards) and nids who wouldn't want to jump back into cover, rather keep on running at the enemy.

I am planning on added overwatch rules to catch opponent engines trying this tactic.



I think I get what you mean. each weapon limb has 180 degrees fire arc, but not directly forwards. so each arc is ofset from the centre by 45 degrees.

I like the idea, as it stops a warlord from firing its left limb diretly to its right. I might use a reduced version of this. So a left limb can fire from 90 degrees left to 45 degrees right and visa versa.



well thanks for reading them. Feedback isreally useful and appreciated. nce I start getitng point costs sorted you should give it a go. games with 4 titans a side take about 30 to 45 minutes.

Suggesting on the 10+ thingy:
In your case i would choose the route of saying: No hit possible. It is unlikely enough to hit with a 1 in 10. You don't need the added complexion in my opinion.
What you COULD add would be a special rule for some weapons that those weapons always hit on a 10. This way you could point out differences between weapons even stronger and could judge on a case by case basis if a shot of 11+ should be able to hit.

On the movement modes:
Maybe follow something like the titans in epic 40k. You may trade speed against turning. Keep some of the orders and i think your fine.

The mix up:
I didn't mean you wrote the words wrong. I mean that you sometimes used the word ranged and sometimes the word ballistics for the same thing which was confusing. (And if you didn't you need to clarify the difference)

cheers,
Athistaur

Thanks. I have decided to make 11+ impossible rolls, except for exploding titans.

I think I have sorted the ballisitics thing, change in name half way through caused the problem.

I have also started working on broken down unit lists and actual army lists. In doing so I have found that non imperial units have few weapons. Any help on adding extra?

Attached are first drafts of the titan explosion charts and a redraft of the movement brackets.

Played another test game today.

Battle Group A
Reaver with 2 Gatling blasters and a chain fist
2 warhounds with Vulcan mega bolters and plasma blast guns

Vs

Battle Group B
Warlord with 2 carapace plasma cannons and 2 arm mount plasma destructors

It was quite terrain heavy (played on a 4 by 4 board). Which limited the long range potential of the warlord and reduced its destructors to luck shots.

First few turns had the Titans of Battle group A moving forwards trying to hug the buildings for cover. With one Warhound moving off to one side to hit the warlord from the flank.

The warlord spent these turns moving into a position to gain a line of fire (forgetting it can fire through buildings). It once got a line of sight to the lone war hound but failed to hit.

Battle group A then moved in with the Reaver and one Warhound moving in from the front and other Warhound moving in from the flank. The initial volley failed to penetrate the warlords shields. The warlord hehn braced and fired at all three titans. Damaging the front Warhound and nothing else.

The next turn had the Reaver continue to advance to use its chain blade whilst the two war hounds braced and continued to fire. Incoming fire knocked down a void and caused 4 points of integrity lost.

The warlords return fire destroyed the frontal Warhound (causing it to fall) damaged the Reaver and took 9 points off of the second Warhound.

The Reaver ran into the warlord as the Warhound continued to pummel it from range removing the last two shields. The reaver caused a lot of damage with its chain fist and its’ gatling cannons. After the combined beating the warlord was on 28 points of damage.

In response the Warlord simply continued to blast at its two enemies. Taking to Reaver to within 2 points of destruction and missing the Warhound.

The Warhound continued to fire at the shieldless warlord causing 6 points of damage with its Vulcan mega bolter! Then a further 14 points of damage with its plasma blast gun, putting he Warlord 3 points over its integrity.

The warlord then suffered a magazine explosion, which luckly failed to reach the Warhound and damage the Reaver.


Thoughts
Still need to tweak the to hit modifiers for the heavier weapons at short range. They still need some chance to hit. Might add 10s always hit, but if you need more than 10 to hit then the enemy has +2 armour.

When I set up the test I thought that the Warlord would easily win, however as the battle progressed I realised how hard it was to get pass armour and shields. The warlord didn’t have the weapons to strip shields and even with 2D10+4/6 damage the D10 voids +6/7 armour was enough to hold off most of the damage.

The Warlord stood up to a massive beating and it was only when the voids failed did it go, which is what I want to show.