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SamusDrake wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t think Titans pay points for weapons, so there’s no reason not to?

I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.

Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.


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leopard wrote:
Titanicus seemed to be decided by whoever landed the first solid blow with little real way to come back from it, encouraged sitting on shoot orders behind buildings such that anyone who moved to get a shot would be shot first

That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.

 Sherrypie wrote:


Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.

Page 28, last two paragraphs...yup. Cheers for that.


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 Sherrypie wrote:

That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.

Same here. Quite a few times my Titans have refused to go slightly into the night...

 Sherrypie wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t think Titans pay points for weapons, so there’s no reason not to?

I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.

Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.


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leopard wrote:
Titanicus seemed to be decided by whoever landed the first solid blow with little real way to come back from it, encouraged sitting on shoot orders behind buildings such that anyone who moved to get a shot would be shot first

That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.

Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.



What I'm loving about LI is its much more fluid when it comes to orders and actually playing, and a lot less demanding on sideboard space, I can't stress how much of a big deal that is in terms of getting in new blood, telling friends the 130 dollar warlord titan box didn't even come with a thick card terminal and they'd have to buy those separately was like watching most potential players interest in AT die in real time.

AT was, and is fun, though the point on cards being "extra" and, invariably, out of stock basically killed it locally. a few have it, doesn't get played much and seems a game you need to play a fair bit to get the hang of

but also then when you have played a fair bit, someone who hasn't has no chance

leopard wrote:
AT was, and is fun, though the point on cards being "extra" and, invariably, out of stock basically killed it locally. a few have it, doesn't get played much and seems a game you need to play a fair bit to get the hang of

but also then when you have played a fair bit, someone who hasn't has no chance

The strat card thing was what made the decision in the matched play book to have hands of cards so baffling, like outside of the starter strat cards, making a core game mechaninc like reliant on cards no one can get, it just seemed like everything was done to ensure it remained the nichiest niche game to ever niche. LI I can basically gift a friend some tokens and he's a third of the way there to being able to play.

yes have printed a few sets of tokens off here, really not a fan of cards, heck its why Flames V4 isn't a game I play..

"optional" command cards without which many forces flat out don't work or are not even possible.. where the details are not in the book

reference cards are fine, when all the information is in the damned book

I think AT was crippled by the "oh look, X Wing sells!" mentality, except GW being GW took the cards out of the box and made them virtually impossible to get hold of

Necromunda is similar with the tactics cards, its annoying

leopard wrote:
yes have printed a few sets of tokens off here, really not a fan of cards, heck its why Flames V4 isn't a game I play..

"optional" command cards without which many forces flat out don't work or are not even possible.. where the details are not in the book

reference cards are fine, when all the information is in the damned book

I think AT was crippled by the "oh look, X Wing sells!" mentality, except GW being GW took the cards out of the box and made them virtually impossible to get hold of

Necromunda is similar with the tactics cards, its annoying

At didn't know what it wanted to be, it ran a lot better stripped down more like a board game at like 3-7 activations, to add all the bloat on top of a game that is random af when titans die like all the faction rules, pretending knights were a faction and then book after book of paint swatches and slight rules updates when the more significant things really were the new weapon releases or unit releases.


LI for all its faults still feels like a fairly weel oiled machine, if you take away secondary objectives from most missions/scenarios they're fairly high speed low drag in terms of deployment or pre game stuff, the only downside of fixed objective locations is it can make board setup a bit stale/limited but it's nice and fast for events. AT, a lot of events used the open engine war cards which, as cool of an idea as they are, if you used like 7 cards for a mission it was just silly, even with the cards on hand as a reference it was like a lengthy choose your own adventure take on mission making, some planet effects or missions had paragraphs of stuff to read just on one card. LI is immediately much more accessible and if it shares any limitation with AT it's new players needing to get their hands on enough small scale terrain.

we have adapted the objectives to say no building can be within 3", to prevent infantry camping in a building claiming them

and yes the AT cards for tertiary objectives were odd, it wasn't a bad idea, but didn't seem to fit the size of the game

That's a shame you can't do that as I'm games of Epic I always liked placing objectives on specific things that meant something: factories, a runway, buildings, hill overlooking a valley etc. or perhaps on mini diorama counters. Rather than having 'patch of grass B' it felt it added some cool visual narrative to the game.

SamusDrake wrote:
There's a good point; does a Reaver have to take a carapace weapon in Titanicus? I've not noticed anything that says it must.

Page 53, all card slots on terminals must be filled.

 Pacific wrote:
That's a shame you can't do that as I'm games of Epic I always liked placing objectives on specific things that meant something: factories, a runway, buildings, hill overlooking a valley etc. or perhaps on mini diorama counters. Rather than having 'patch of grass B' it felt it added some cool visual narrative to the game.

oh it can be done, and when more stuff is out it will be, just at present infantry in a building take a bit of shifting, once more options land and stuff is back in stock.. easier

 lord_blackfang wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
There's a good point; does a Reaver have to take a carapace weapon in Titanicus? I've not noticed anything that says it must.

Page 53, all card slots on terminals must be filled.

Well done. Its rather amusing how the paragraph, on page 53, refers to page 53 of the manual.

But it never crossed my mind before as it seemed bizarre why one wouldn't take at least the missile launcher. Its just the idea of adding a weight feature, and how a Reaver might lose some to become faster. And even if one could, I suppose one would have to add some detail to the top to cover up the connection, where a magnet may reside...

But yes, cheers for that.

 Crablezworth wrote:

Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.

Can't agree with that at all, really. I know your local scene has a particular taste on mirrored missions, whereas I find the variation and asymmetry in AT missions great in general and moreso in accordance with the way that game in particular is designed to operate in as situations develop on the table. As for the impenetrability, eh. AT is an involved game from the get-go, but for missions you just pick one of the multiple ways to generate a mission and go, I can't see how that's particularly hard. You don't need to know whether to pick the rulebook or the deck or the campaign book or the matched play guide, they all work. I've never had a problem with a new player not being able to give their opinion on what to play by just proposing this or that.

Now I’ve got my infantry painted and based, I can better visualise what a Formation might look like.

Man, the Demi-Company is really restrictive compared to what I have and what’s commercially available.

Definitely going to have to field a Legion Armoured Company I think.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.

I can't see how that's particularly hard.

It's actually a massive ask, I get the benefit of endless, limitless mission variables and tertiery's ect but this borders on asking me to build a game for them. This is the sandbox problem, this is the problem of video games like arma 3, if there's no limit to scope or guidance, it really just a collection of stuff/assets/models and maps, and that's arma's problem, for the limitless possibilities it represents, few people are making a game out of it, most mods are just assets, there have been great mods in the past like dayz, but sadly a game few play is what happens with sandboxe's . For weekly or semi regular gaming, the scope needs to be realistic. LI is much more grounded in that regard, there's only 12 missions/scenarios currently.

LI you can summarize what happened over the course of a battle faster than you could read a titanicus mission, I made custom missions with the open engine war cards with fluff descriptions and even I hate them, it took 5 minutes to read the damn mission/scenario and even longer to comprehend it. LI you can look down, see the deployment map of objectives and the scoring and you're rolling dice. Don't get me wrong, I fear LI has perhaps thrown the baby out with the bathwater compared to AT in terms of missions, the lack of much variance in deployment maps is something I don't love about LI, AT didn't lack for creativity and options in that area, it just had way way too much.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now I’ve got my infantry painted and based, I can better visualise what a Formation might look like.

Man, the Demi-Company is really restrictive compared to what I have and what’s commercially available.

Definitely going to have to field a Legion Armoured Company I think.

May humbly suggest fielding as many kratos as possible, they're great

Oh I have eight of those. Well. Four built, four to be built today.

Second box was a proper blessing. FLGS’ system said they had no stock, yet I found one on their shelf. So naturally I snaffled it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh I have eight of those. Well. Four built, four to be built today.

Second box was a proper blessing. FLGS’ system said they had no stock, yet I found one on their shelf. So naturally I snaffled it.

Accurate hull lascannons are great.

I’ve gone with Autocannons to make my Kratos nice all-rounders.

This may prove folly in the future, but I don’t really care

eight Kratos...

bully...

Just buying what I can get my digits on!

Kratos are evil...

this opinion is in no way shaped by an opponent who runs a detachment of four that tend to obliterate whatever they are pointed and and have enough dice to be a very good flak battery too

First list scrawled, based on what I now have assembled.

Whilst infantry are dirt cheap, I’m impressed by how quickly they tot up. Also, the Demi-Company is not as restrictive as I first thought. And I’ve some space left to squeeze in the next eight Tactical Legionaire bases that are waiting to go. Think I’ll add in Plasma Gunners and Missile Launcher as their upgrades, and then expand the Terminators and Assault Marines which currently stand as Support detachments in their own right.

I’ll also admit to having been a bit dubious about how you expand Tactical Detachments with bells and whistles. But visually, I now really really like it!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
First list scrawled, based on what I now have assembled.

Whilst infantry are dirt cheap, I’m impressed by how quickly they tot up. Also, the Demi-Company is not as restrictive as I first thought. And I’ve some space left to squeeze in the next eight Tactical Legionaire bases that are waiting to go. Think I’ll add in Plasma Gunners and Missile Launcher as their upgrades, and then expand the Terminators and Assault Marines which currently stand as Support detachments in their own right.

I’ll also admit to having been a bit dubious about how you expand Tactical Detachments with bells and whistles. But visually, I now really really like it!

the tactical bodies are largely ablative wounds for the more useful rocket launchers and plasma guys, though can do work up close. you don't need many more than your opponent but you do want to out number them when assaulting.

there is certainly going to be a balance point where more bodies doesn't really help but fewer means breaking easily, not found it yet

running eight stand units here, which I think are a bit small, I do have a couple more but need more Rhinos to run them, or to have one unit on foot but to date the mobility, and ability to shrug of small arms is useful

 Sherrypie wrote:
Can't agree with that at all, really. I know your local scene has a particular taste on mirrored missions, whereas I find the variation and asymmetry in AT missions great in general and moreso in accordance with the way that game in particular is designed to operate in as situations develop on the table. As for the impenetrability, eh. AT is an involved game from the get-go, but for missions you just pick one of the multiple ways to generate a mission and go, I can't see how that's particularly hard. You don't need to know whether to pick the rulebook or the deck or the campaign book or the matched play guide, they all work. I've never had a problem with a new player not being able to give their opinion on what to play by just proposing this or that.

Just came back from a 1850 pts game of AT (it took 3 times as long as a 1500 pt game of LI on the table opposite)

Have to say, as a community who are just getting into AT it's pretty confusing, nobody online seems to be playing quite the same rules, the book that sounds like it would be the definitive matched play document is out of print, and nobody can give me a straight answer on how many stratagem point I get.

Yep, sounds like the typical "specoalist" game in the modern day after a few too many rulebooks.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve gone with Autocannons to make my Kratos nice all-rounders.

This may prove folly in the future, but I don’t really care

Autocannons are ok, but the range band doesn't mesh as well with the battlecannon at 20 inches, the lascannons are ideal because they do. The autocannons are still decent, but i wouldn't recommend them for all kratos. I'd avoid bolters unless you're doing the melta turret. I'd especially avoid bolters in the hull if you're doing battlecannon, the autocannons or las in the hull have the accurate trait where as the bolters in the hull do not, you can always take bolter sponsons but just keep in mind the hull ones really do compete with superieror choices in the auto/las because they're effectively twin-linked, you re-roll misses.




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chaos0xomega wrote:
Yep, sounds like the typical "specoalist" game in the modern day after a few too many rulebooks.

AT can be a great game sorta stripped down, but its in some ways an objectively sillier game, like how knights work is just overly punitive to knight banners, you can like see 1 knight of 3 and kill all 3 on account of how activations and weapons fire are resolved, LI is actually much more gradiated and thoughtful in terms of wound pools and los.

Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.

Is there still time to rip off the las and put bolter sponsons? At least all bolter works well with melta turret, especially for clearing infantry out of structures.

 Crablezworth wrote:

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.

Is there still time to rip off the las and put bolter sponsons? At least all bolter works well with melta turret, especially for clearing infantry out of structures.

Nah. All set in place. I’ll just make do with a suboptimal load out.

 ingtaer wrote:
Been looking at putting together a detachment of command and tacticals, tacticals, missiles in 3x Storm Eagle. 8x Assault in TH, 4x Contemptor in TH and having two fire raptors run interference/fire support. All the planes can act like skimmers so can use the terrain as cover. Major downside I can see is obviously points but can anyone think of other weaknesses? Maybe need some redundancy or trade 2 Eagles in for another TH?

your biggest problem is going to be getting shot down. you can do pop up attacks with skimmers. i dont remember is dedicated transports can do that. but a TH is scary if it can.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Finally had a flick through of the core book and the rules for the Knights appear to be better implemented this time around, and should have been a primary force. Titans feel slapdash and would keep their use to a minimum, if used at all, as they're far better implemented in Titanicus.

Might be having a game on Sunday to give it a whirl, but it would have to be open play with AT and AI models as I can't get hold of any LI kits at this time, unless its a bunch of Melta-Reavers.

Thinking of 1K points of 4x Thunderbolts, 2x Cerastus and a Warhound. The second force would be 2x Acastus and 3x Questoris.

Knights are far far far better than in AT and much closer to the prowess they show in like 30k/40k, but that's also where I'm gonna totally disagree and say a knight only faction in LI wouldn't only be boring, but massively broken. I'm not just saying this to say it, the core problems of LI are unit costing in general, especially not costing most weapons, knights make a mockery of this, even with weapons/upgrades they pay for. I'd go as far to argue that they largely outshine the titans, they're that good. Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong. Moriax and styrix have cc weapons with ap -5 rend and wrecker (3), like who needs a titan when a knight can like one shot a structure. The atrapos's cc weapon is just as insanely good and is also a gun lol, and it has macro extinction protocols, giving it re-rolls to hit against titans knights and super heavies AND it can re-roll a dice of its choice very fight.

i one shot a knight with 3 of the marine fighters. 12 dice hitting on 4s half with rerolls. -1 AP. but to be fair it almost 300 points in AC against 180 in knight


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leopard wrote:
personally I prefer the way Flames of War handles closing fire

this is a game that has no overwatch, no reaction fire mechanic

essentially unit "A" charges unit "B", they move up, make contact. unit "A" then gets to shoot at them. using normal shooting rules (which rules out using area effect barrages etc due to proximity). hits resolved as normal, if more than five hits (or now eight for larger units, used to be ten, and slightly different for armour) are scored the assault is pushed back 2" and the combat never occurs

this is combined with a "pin" mechanic that reduces rate of fire

works quite nicely and is quick

anti aircraft fire is likewise quick, a unit declares its firing AA, it is resolved, it is then marked up as having fired and doesn't get to fire again. and not all weapons can fire in an AA role, and quite a few that can are reduced to a single dice

i love flames. they also have the best missions.