Warhounds 2 Warmasters

I spend enough time on the Maximal Fire Discord, the various Facebook AT groups and Reddit that I am surprised I don’t have to pay rent.

I try to be a positive aspect of the hobby (in the same way I try to avoid pizza, I am not always successful) and respond to as many starters or queries as I have mental capacity for. I try to engage with and support members of the community to continue to grow the hobby and the local/nearly local scenes and, as anyone that has messaged me previously can attest, I am certainly more than happy to spend hours sending screeds of data, suggestions and work with whoever to refine and refine and refine a list they are working on until it meets their intended hobby goal.

I try to keep more in depth suggestions limited to those Legios I have first hand experience of – but as that continues to grow I have had the alarming point raised that I am definitely heading towards one of the largest AT collections after the Forge of Mars (he finished titan 130 last week -, my hero!).

So, one of the questions that crops up again and again is a run down of the titans and Knights that feature in the wonderful and whacky game of ours. I responded to someone this week on Reddit and someone noted it was comprehensive enough it almost constituted a guide in and of itself. So…. I’ve taken that comment, changed the formatting and filled it out a little and it is below. Like so many posts, I’ll aim to update and correct as rules change, titans and knights are released and word-harpies flock to my grammatical errors. Ka-kaww!

The summary is not exhaustive, in any way. It doesn’t seek to be and it tries to detail the titan prior to Legio rules alterations.

A summary of the Titans:

Warhounds are scout titans. they move fast, have tiny reactors and only a handful of void shields but can be equipped in some powerful loadouts (vulcan megabolter and plasma blastgun being the ‘tourney pattern’ apex build. These titans can squadron up with other Warhounds and thereby activate at the same time, giving bonuses to attacking the same target and are even able to share shields.

Direwolves (Forgeworld Kit) are heavy scout titans. They deploy after all other titans, outside of the typical deployment areas. They can take the Neutron Laser. A weapon that can overload and turn off an enemy titan for a turn. Slightly slower than a Warhound, these guys provide some meta-breaking options against some of the most commonly seen powerful forces.

Reavers are pretty fast and have decent reactors. They can be built to fill pretty much any role and can truly excel as melee titans – very much capable of killing another titan in one go with a well timed Charge order. Load one up with 2 Gatling Cannon and an Apoc Missile launcher or Vulcan Megabolter up top and you have a mid ranged shield-stripping Pro. A volcano cannon, laser blaster with turbo laser or Graviton up top is my gun line-sit-at-the-back build of choice. The kit is a hit of a pig compared to the others on offer, but I suppose one of them had to be!

Warbringers are heavier version of a Reaver. They can take a Warlord scale gun up top which packs some serious punch. They aren’t beloved by the majority – you need to have a deeper understanding of the game to really get the most out of them – but they are the stars of 2 of the most interesting Maniples (force organisations) on offer. Shame about the head on the titan.

Warlords are the original chonks. Big reactors, big shields, big guns. They take a decent amount of time to kill are pretty much slowly moving death bubbles – costing more than twice the points than the Warhound titan. They aren’t invincible by an stretch. Get out of their fire arcs, and attack their sides or rear and they’ll take damage – killing one often feels like a marathon as they rarely go down in one attack.

Psi Titans (Forgeworld Kit with a Warlord Titan base) are Loyalist only. They are an uber buffed Warlord titan and a crutch to lean on if you don’t want a level playing field 😉 They are what they are – the last 5 tournaments of note have all had the Psi Titans feature heavily on the Podium placements. Warfare 2022 being the only one I can think of that did not have one present.

Warmasters are a super-massive titan that realistically are best used for narratives. They are nearly double the cost of a Warlord and aren’t better than a Psi. I love the model, just the rules are underwhelming in the extreme – I’ve managed to make one work in one or two very edge case instances, using Legio Traits, wargear and Strats and at the end it barely felt worth it. Still, an awesome model.

Iconoclasts are a Warmaster variant built for melee. They are even less useful in game (never getting away from the bottom 5 in any event they have been used to my knowledge – if anyone is aware of any cases elsewise in the UK, please let me know) and are even more awesome looking. I’ve never regretted buying one, I’ll likely never regret fielding on again as I’ve done the math in detail for folk and they are garbage compared to a melee Warlord with the right options, which are 600pts cheaper.

A Summary of the Knights:

Cerastus Lancers: The pokey boys you get in the starter set. They are fast, more durable than others and have high-strength pokey sticks. They are useful and look good. Top lads.

Cerastus Acheron: They swap lance and shield for chainfist and flamethrower. They aren’t worth the points as a support Banner, they just don’t perform. HOWEVER, for those adventurous types willing to try out maniples less used, the Ignis Maniple buffs these burney little buggers to usefulness.

Cerastus Castigators: They swap lance and shield for sword and Bolter. The bolters is so low strength it cannot affect Void shields. There are borderline useless as support Banners to Titan forces, Knight households might feel they can make use of them.

Acastus Porphyrion: Murder-Turtles. Most of the community hate these being used in support of Titan forces. As others have mentioned, they are overpowered for their points cost and you’ll likely see a rant or two posted every month in any forum you wish to subscribe to. They have range, damage and (like all Knights) a 360° fire arc (Knights ignore several of the key rules features of Titanicus, which makes some people wonder why they don’t just have their own system – for me, I enjoyed seeing 2 Knight players match each other at a recent event and the look on their faces as they realised was absolutely worth having them there).

Questoris – expensive. You get limited options and ideally need to buy 3 boxes to be able to meet loadouts. As support banners they are underwhelming. In Knight Households, they often form the core of lists.

The following are Forgeworld Knights:

Atrapos – very expensive (45£ for 2!) They look like buffed Cerastus and so, look awesome and have Quake guns and laser cutters and can self repair.

Maghera – look like buffed questoris. I’ve heard good things but not used/fought them. As with all FW knights: pricey.

Styrixx – same as Maghera

Armigers – 3 of these tinniest of boys is £35. The same cost as a Direwolf Titan. They are cheap to run, can be killed by bolters and it is extremely embarrassing in those instances that someone gets them behind you and kills your Warlord with them. They are gorgeously detailed – but there are plenty that feel they are a step too micro for Titanicus.