Warhounds 2 Warmasters

An article series that focuses in on a different element of the Adeptus Titanicus system and tries to answer questions that… well, questions that I think people might ask or be interested in.

Ed Commentary: A long time ago, nearly three years now, I was given the opportunity to write a guest article for Maximal Fire. It was a privilege to do so and I enjoyed the article immensely. Since it was published it has been read a few hundred times which surprised me as I felt I had a middling talent, at best, with writing and that there simply wasn’t much of a desire for somewhat amusingly delivered analysis of a single unit-type for a niche-within-a-niche game system. Go figure. With new weapon options and the evolving direction of the blog, I felt it was time to bring home an article series I enjoyed, update it to cover new options and perhaps see the series continued to include an article on the Reaver, Warbringer and Warlord. The Direwolf and Warmaster will need to be very well behaved, but I wouldn’t rule it out…

Article resumes in 3, 2, 1…

So, take aim and prepare to fire – on Maximal – as we take a closer look at the first target in our cross-hairs: the smallest of the Titan classes currently available, the seemingly humble; Warhound Scout Titan.

A Warhound Titan (also known as the Gun-Dog, Chicken-Kicker, Hot-Dog or just plain old ‘Hound) is a bi-pedal Titan that stands, or more typically runs, on four-toed feet and back-jointed legs. Sporting a gun-mount on either arm, and a vaguely hound-like head, they look sleek and deadly and are often posed running or prowling and, as per my first few Warhounds, shooting the floor in front of them with determined relish.

In game terms – to be clear, this is prior to the application of any Legio Traits, Wargear or Stratagems – we have the fastest Titan on the market with a normal movement of 8 inches and a boosted* movement of 12 inches AND the most manoeuvrable with three normal 45° turns or five boosted 45° turns. Complementing this movement and all of these manoeuvres is the small, round base on which the Warhound is mounted; giving us a very mobile and very flexible gun platform.

*Boosting for movement, manoeuvres, shields, or for some weapon attacks on a Warhound even once is a gamble as a single poor reactor dice** roll can net you 2 increases to your reactor heat. This will place you in ‘Amber’ on the reactor track – which is enough to result in death for a Warhound if you roll poorly… which you already have shown a capacity for by rolling 2 heat in the first place.

**Reactor Dice have a fair number of nicknames around the community and around our local scene have been dubbed ‘Spice-Dice’ by my better half. It has stuck and all manner of Spice names are now blessed or cursed in some measure when the time to roll these most fickle of die is upon us.

Defensively speaking, the conversation is somewhat short. We have three Void Shields to protect the Titan and losing a single Void Shield will bring the saving roll down (up?) from a 3+ on a D6 to a 4+. Once those Voids are down, Warhounds are vulnerable to every single gun that an enemy Titan might happen to have equipped as their lowest armour value is 10 – their body or legs, which occur 66% of the possible Location Dice rolls when taking fire – and so a Vulcan Megabolter with a Strength of 4 can still deliver Direct Hits on rolls of 6. Realising and appreciating the inherent fragility of Warhound Titans is key to finding your (Full) stride with them.

Taking the meagre defensive capabilities of the Mechanicum’s own ‘Goodest Boy’ into account, success will often depend on making the most of a Warhound’s smaller stature to take advantage of cover and, when the time comes, sneaking up into a larger Titan’s Scale (thus denying them the use of any carapace weapons if they choose to fire upon said Warhound) and then getting within voids to deliver punishing shots directly into the target.

Fragility aside, it isn’t all Doom (of Molech) and Gloom for these nimble Titans. Warhounds have a selection of abilities that other Titans typically cannot do – most notably; Squadroning. And can be built in a wide variety of ways to fulfil a number of different roles.

A word on Squadroning. You can elect to Squadron up 2-3 of your Warhounds (Lupercal and Legio Audax Canis maniples operate differently) before the Deployment phase. These Warhounds are locked into this configuration for the duration of the game and are activated at the same time in all phases. Running a Squadron of Warhounds provides access to Squadron Orders, Co-ordinated Strikes and Merging Void Shields.

Squadron Orders – if you want to place the same Order on two or more Titans within a Squadron, this can be the way to go. A Squadron Order is a single dice roll – there have at times been some confused takes on Squadron Orders, so we’ll take a moment here to make sure the operation is clear; You determine the Command Value for the Squadron Order by using the Highest Command Value if the Titans selected – a Warhound has a basic Command Value of 5+ but through a variety of means this might be made Higher (worse), in which event we have to use the Higher value. We then apply +1 to the result of the roll for every Titan after the first that is receiving that Squadron Order. If you have a Princeps Senioris in the Squadron, you can also apply their +2 to the result on top of this.

Example:

Two Warhounds are Squadroned and choose to take a Full Stride as a Squadron Order. One of the Warhounds is the Princeps Senioris. You will need to roll a D10 to give the order and will need to score 2 or higher (5+ Command Value +1 for the second Titan taking the order and +2 for the Princeps Senioris).

Co-ordinated Strikes – if you choose to attack an enemy target with more than one member of your Squadron in the Combat Phase (you can’t do this under First Fire Orders in the Movement Phase). You have to nominate the target and declare a Co-ordinated Strike before you roll dice – you can’t change your mind and select another target if the first Warhound gets lucky and kills the target. All Armour rolls for attacks made by Warhounds performing the Co-ordinated Strike get +1. Combining this bonus with Side/Rear Flank attack bonuses and hitting an already damaged areas of a Titan allow lower strength weapons – such as the Vulcan Mega Bolter – to do damage and even deliver finishing blows to much larger Titans.

Merging Void Shields – When a Warhound within the Squadron has it’s base touching the base of another Titan in the Squadron, it has the option to Merge Void Shields. This is declared when an enemy declares either of the base-to-base Warhounds as a target of an attack and the Void Shields remain shared for the duration of the attack. This can allow a Warhound with a lower Shield Save value or even one without any active Void Shields of it’s own to still benefit from the save available to it’s base-to-base Squadron-mate. You can choose freely how to allocate any failed saves. No, you cannot allocate failed saves to a Titan with no active Void Shields, don’t make me get the rolled up newspaper…

Now that we’ve covered a Warhound’s abilities, we can take a look at some of the more common load-outs that we might expect to use ourselves or find ourselves facing across the table. This list won’t be exhaustive but I’m always happy to hear about more options so please, drop a comment if you know fancy adding to the list 🙂

Tourney-Pattern
This build is ‘by the numbers’ solid and able to perform and adapt to either removing Void Shields or stacking up damage to a target seamlessly. A Vulcan Megabolter to strip Voids Shields and for making finishing ‘Targeted Shots’ to damaged locations and a Plasma Blastgun to drop multiple high-strength hits onto a target to cripple or outright destroy them.

Alt-Tourney Pattern

With the release of the Swarmer Missiles weapon, a longer ranged more cautious Tourney Pattern has become available. Trading the shot-ranged reliable shots of the Vulcan Megabolter for the extreme-range of the Swarmer, this build is able to contribute to attacks on units almost anywhere on the table as opposed to being limited to 24 inches as with the traditional Tourney Pattern build.

Shield-Strippers
These come in a small variety of flavours, all of which taste suspiciously like the actinic Ozone discharge of recently overloaded Void Shield generators. These can be cheap and cheerful with two Vulcan Megabolters, flexible with a Vulcan Megabolter and Turbo-laser or even spicy with a Vulcan Megabolter and Volkite Eradicator. However, with the release of the Swarmer Missiles weapon the most effective approach, by a significant margin, is simply running two Swarmer Missiles on a Warhound and offering two volleys of  5 shots with Rapid to any target with Voids up and within the incredibly generous 40 inch range.

Sniper
These can stay much further back, redeploying at a moment’s notice to add pressure and damage outside of other Titan’s preferred ranges. These can feature double Turbo-lasers, double Graviton Destructors or sport one of each for a little variety. Either way, they can provide a reliable and sustained nuisance from the questionable safety offered by more distance. Try to keep out of Apocalypse Missile Launcher firing arcs where possible with the addition of Conversion Beamers and Swarmer Missiles, these builds further diversified and there has never been a better time to show that Warhounds are just as capable at reaching across the table to touch their targets… with hard-hitting Ordnance and rays of unimaginable destructive energy.

Hot Dogs
For those amongst you who care little for the survival of Warhounds and want to throw dice against Lady Fate herself, Hot Dogs might be the build you are looking for. Typically sporting two Plasma Blastguns, a Volkite Eradicator and Plasma Blastgun or even two Volkite Eradicators (!) you can all but guarantee that your reactor will be in the Amber to Red in record time. This can be useful to run a Warhound in, boosting for movement and shields and weapons to Red-line them and then use supporting Stratagems and Traits to ensure they explode in as spectacular a fashion as possible, carving out a hole in the opposition’s forces… if all goes to plan. Once more, with the addition of Conversion Beamers to the Warhounds arsenal, you have the option of spicing up the reactor at long range before barrelling into the enemy line to offer conflagration and nuclear fallout to your opponent. Lovely.

Dom Hounds

I hate that this name stuck. This build relies on controlling their target by applying the Quake effect through another of the added weapon systems: Shudder Missiles. Typically coupled with Swarmer Missiles to endure the Void Shields are down before the Shudder Missiles are employed, this build will rarely offer significant damage to an opponent and is much more concerned with limiting the effectiveness of Knight Banners or forcing shield-less Titans to a crawl. This build isn’t too common within the wider meta at events, but jumps in popularity among Legio Krytos players.

There are a fair number of other builds that exist, but they are only really possible through using Legio or Maniple Traits, Stratagems, Corruptions and Wargear and so may be mentioned as part of a focus on those areas in future articles.

With all of this information sloshing about in your noospheric tank, you should now be able to start to consider how a Warhound can be built to perform a role and how that role might gain leverage when used in conjunction with any Maniple special rules or simply running a Warhound as a support titan alongside your main force.

Learning these interactions between a specific Titan, a specific Maniple and a specific Legio can be engaging and rewarding aspect of Adeptus Titanicus, not to mention a route to victory for some or a vital aapect of defence when creating plans to counter an opponent’s force; forewarned is forearmed, after all.

Discovering lesser-known combinations, entire new builds or simply finding one that just feels ‘right’ for your own natural playstyle is one of the many great experiences of this hobby.

This has been Targeted Shots and I hope that this has either proven useful or entertaining. I get bonus points if it managed to be both. Until next time, may your Spice-Dice be blank and your hit rolls be boxcars.