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Miniatures Adventure => Future Wars => Topic started by: Pictors Studio on July 21, 2021, 04:29:08 PM

Title: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Pictors Studio on July 21, 2021, 04:29:08 PM
We have finished the first two weeks of our three week AT campaign. 

Here is the back ground:

Zhao-Eminarii is, if not unique, then very different from most other Forge Worlds. 

The industrial heart existed on the Southern continent and its tendril of mechanization only extended to the island chains leading away to the North-East and North-West. 

Much of the rest of the planet was covered in green swaths of forest and it was only in the extremely dry areas in the center of the largest continent that any industrial activity of note took place. 

The rolling green hills of the continent were home to a population of hundreds of millions instead of the billions on most imperial world.  They were left mostly to their own devices by the devotees of the Machine God.  The population was viewed by the mechanicum not as a resource to produce workers but as one to produce subjects.  The higher percentage of psykers that Zhao-Eminarii developed among its populace more than offset their lower numbers.  Not knowing why the population expressed this mutation in such numbers the Forge Domini of the world wanted to leave as much of the planet undisturbed as possible. 

Having lost contact with most other colonies of Zhao-Arkhad as well as with the Forge World itself, Zhao-Eminarii was surprised to see a small Imperial fleet enter the system with several titan transports.  Aware of the current civil war tearing the Imperium apart but unsure of where individual loyalties lay, they made hesitant contact with the potential invaders.  It was soon established that the Legio wanted nothing more than a place to rest and refit after a brutal running battle away.

Cautiously the Forge Domini allowed the Legio to land their titans at the repair facilities in the center of the largest continent.  The Iron Vigil kept many of their titans on this world at that station and so the two forces formed a hesitant understanding. 

Questions were not asked and information was not volunteered.  The new comers agreed to move on when their titans and ships were once again fully functional. 

Thus began an uninterrupted six solar months of repair work both in the orbital docks above the planet's surface and in the repair cradles beneath. 

It was then that a second fleet translated into the system at the Mandeville point. 

The new fleet was made up of fragments of the fleets of Legio Astorum and Legio Atarus.  Immediately the ships of the previous invaders not under repair moved to defensive stations around Zhao-Eminarii. 

As the massive engines of the allied fleet burned pushing the ships towards the center of the system, a message flashed out to them from the Forge Domini asking what it was that brought the Warp Runners and the Firebrands in system.

Their reply indicated that their quarry was the Legio that had first come to Zhao-Eminarii for help.  They were here to destroy them.  A response requesting mediation between the two factions was ignored and no other communication was accepted by the allied fleet.  With little choice in the matter the Forge World prepared for war.  The few Legio Xestobiax that garrisoned the world were moved to strategic locations while the enemy moved closer.  A request by their guests to provide assistance could not tactically be refused and so the two titan forces entered into an uneasy alliance for their mutual survival.



(https://preview.redd.it/codibojq36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=1d01e22af1be8a821ef7967e99c829de70dea17b)

The titans of Legio Astorum have been sent to attack a force field generating station hidden in the wooded hills East of the great desert in the large continent.  The station provides a defensive field that is projected over one of the orbital platforms.  If it is destroyed it will make the task of attacking the platform by the allied fleet much easier.  This platform can keep the allied fleet at bay but can also provide powerful ground support to repel the invasion.

(https://preview.redd.it/htw0tdsq36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=77da9c7c6baf12b968e58086749be1d1cb6ee3b8)

(https://preview.redd.it/zok8rzxq36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=81945d63e3590bc8c4bb97afa7a7edb2c6f4023b)

Things did not go well for Astorum despite having a bright outlook at the beginning.  The traitors were unable to effect much in the way of damage at first but then their infantry and the the range of the enemy took a toll on the advancing loyalists.  When everything was said and done the loyalists just couldn't get to the shield generating station in time.

(https://preview.redd.it/jblpco8r36b71.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d8c223b95acbc94853cddc7f46a264eadc90de4)

(https://preview.redd.it/geugt5er36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6b32ce086ec2c580ca709db04ff3af25b482723f)


The loyalists had to pull back, leaving the orbital platform protected from the fleet.  They left some burning titans in their wake but were able to salvage some of the damaged engines.

(https://preview.redd.it/zcg6syir36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=09fa4fa90526a7487862ec659b3e2721ddda6f3a)


Legio Atarus has landed in just off the coast of the Southern continent and is attempting to force their way into the main Forge Fane of the planet. 

(https://preview.redd.it/i9r67knr36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b82867a6bc83dc0976d5c600b0cd44881103342c)

(https://preview.redd.it/7z4kzbxr36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=bbdd73bc44531aa2e0b9eaeab8c82967eba555de)

Legio Xestobiax was able to tie up the loyalists as they made their way towards the central manufacturing areas of Zhao Eminarii Prime. 

(https://preview.redd.it/llx2na2s36b71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=77e856a978ca8492255a2a6e8d855fb0f5f4afae)

With the density of the urban landscape both sides escaped with minimal loses. 

After learning that the orbital station was still functioning and protected Atarus decided to make another push to end the campaign in the heart of the city while Legio Astorum pulled back from the planet to make a desperate assault on the defense platform itself.

Neither attack went well.

(https://preview.redd.it/tpaghmdglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=35009bfecc7803c69216b2acc80a8717fec351c0)

The traitors pulled out the big guns to limit the penetration of the Firebrands into the city.  The two might Warmaster titans clashed in the ruins of the battlefield.  Only one emerged from the wreckage.

(https://preview.redd.it/6qbgbugglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=157f461004e77a4b8c08087a5ee9bb64c649dc62)

With support from the orbital platform the traitors managed to get through the defenses of the loyalist machines.

(https://preview.redd.it/3anxmllglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=751d552648074c6f2cf6652b7f4b076da8253851)

The warlords on both sides fell quickly in the massive conflagration.  They were soon joined by many of their fellow titans in short order.

(https://preview.redd.it/pdku83oglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=85238781e6ab52dad681adc31d14f6c12f1aef68)


Atarus pushed on and things could have gone either way when an orbital strike took out the shields of their Warmaster.

(https://preview.redd.it/nuvatnqglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=53a68eca106a313582e6ee7e553377e12bb5b45a)

(https://preview.redd.it/2b7jjvsglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f6cd3fb7b0fb8a3cb5c499aa598d4caa894b8b62)


That was when things went decided south for the Loyalists.  The full fury of the traitor Warmaster was turned on the Atarus Warmaster and reduced the engine to a pile of smoking debris.

(https://preview.redd.it/zz2a3ryglkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=93dcade08129dc60d7be6991a262b7b7a19151f5)

The few remaining titans tried to extricate themselves from the situation but only two Warhounds made their escape and not without damage.


The situation was not much better for the loyalists in their attack on the Orbital platform.

(https://preview.redd.it/sn7w9y0hlkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=a986a0c335168cef498a1cdd1779228444bb6a2f)

While the Warp Runners managed to penetrate deep into the workings the force of legio Xestobiax. 

(https://preview.redd.it/o5a4aq3hlkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6c2588ab1105b0ed62179bf29ea4887cae97f603)

With a substantial force in place the Loyalists faced off against the Iron Vigil as they moved to destroy the invaders before the Warp Runners could do significant harm to the stations defenses.

Soon the defenders were able to mass fire on several of the invaders titans, killing them.  The two Iron Vigil Warlords had merged their void shields to stand in defiance against the massed fire of all the enemy war machines.

(https://preview.redd.it/1s95jo7hlkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=75f12131eed1d33be520dba8c83a6293b747b131)

They were not prepared for a charge by a unit of knight lancers.

(https://preview.redd.it/expmswchlkc71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ea8860bab93414da5db39925cab711176fd555e1)

Even as multiple titans burned behind them, the Cerastus knights charged into the titans that towered over them.  Their ferocious charge carried away one of the legs of the Warlord and caused it to topple into the other Warlord, smashing it's torso and causing extensive engine damage resulting in the collapse of its shield. 

Concentrated fire from the Warp Runner Warlord destroyed the second Xestobiax Warlord and the resultant explosion killed the remaining loyalist knights. 

Even with this victory the Warp Runners saw their chances of maintaining their station limited and as more traitor engines appeared they effected their escape.




Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Chief Lackey Rich on July 21, 2021, 05:52:31 PM
Makes me miss the old days when Epic was GW's third core game.  Outsold 40K locally for years and years until the lag between Titan Legions and the poorly-received E40K rules killed the fan base.

New AT is certainly impressive to look at, although I find the model costs daunting, to put it mildly.
Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Pictors Studio on July 22, 2021, 02:03:31 AM
I've never seen the model costs as that big of an issue, actually.  The game is so much fun that if you came up with a cost per fun unit it would be well worth it.  I have four Legios now with a total of about 30 Titans of various sorts plus a bunch of knights, probably about 20 of them. 

Certainly the cost for the Warlords and Warmasters is high, but with some of the boxed sets they have put out the cost to field a titan army has been reduced significantly. 

The last set they put out basically contained the titans you would need for only $180.  A whole army would only need knights added to it and the rules and you're good to go.  A total of $300 would get you pretty much everything you would need. 
Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Chief Lackey Rich on July 22, 2021, 11:49:32 AM
I've never seen the model costs as that big of an issue, actually.  The game is so much fun that if you came up with a cost per fun unit it would be well worth it.  I have four Legios now with a total of about 30 Titans of various sorts plus a bunch of knights, probably about 20 of them. 

Certainly the cost for the Warlords and Warmasters is high, but with some of the boxed sets they have put out the cost to field a titan army has been reduced significantly. 

The last set they put out basically contained the titans you would need for only $180.  A whole army would only need knights added to it and the rules and you're good to go.  A total of $300 would get you pretty much everything you would need.

The $185 maniple box was limited release and is already gone.  The normal prices are nowhere near that low, and honestly, even a $300 buy-in for "all you'd want" is prohibitive - and that won't buy you a table's worth of terrain, the supplemental books, extra weapons so you can vary your loadouts, or the steady leakage of even-more-expensive Forge World exclusive stuff, so it isn't really "all you need" by most definitions.  When I compare it to the original AT (six warlords, plenty of weapon options, and enough terrain to do a small table) the new brand is prettier but nowhere near the same bargain as the old one was. 

I'm clearly not the only one who feels that way.  The game has struggled to draw the same player base that the old one did, especially once Space Marine dropped and the Epic range really took off.  Their staunch determination to stick to the Heresy Era and Knight/Titans only and even then only Imperial stuff is a serious ball and chain tied to what could have been a real resurgence in 6mm 40K setting gaming.  It's extra baffling since they've snuck a bunch of same-scale aircraft into production under the Aeronautica Imperialis line, which has failed hard on its own but might have some life if they were integrated (along with vehicles and infantry) into a new Epic rules set.

AT by itself at its current prices will never be more than a secondary game with a constricted fan base.  A new Epic that stretches beyond the all-Imperial Heresy and draws in a significant fraction of 40K fans is where GW needs to go if they want it to grow to a sustainable point - which I'm not 100% convinced they do.   
Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Pictors Studio on July 22, 2021, 07:24:43 PM
It really is all you'd need, it might not be all you want.  The starter set is $150 contains two reavers, two warhounds and two knight lancers plus the rules, strategic markers, dice, rulers, cards and so forth.  You add one Warlord and that gives you about a 2,000 pt force with the rules to use it.

The set comes with both variants for the Reavers so all of the Reaver arm weapons and two of the most useful carapace weapons come in it.  All of the useful Warhound weapons are in the set. 

They did a good job with the Warlord right out of the gate giving it the most useful weapons.  We had 6 Warlords in the last pair of campaign games, 5 of them had two volcano cannons and apocalypse missile launchers. 

The other one had twin sunfuries and I think the player only went with that because he had 3 of the 6 Warlords and wanted one with a slightly different load out.

Of course if you want the sunfury one you can get that instead of the volcano one for the same price.

The Forge World weapons are not necessary and in my mind kind of "meh".  I have a bunch of them and the only ones I use are the carapace gatling cannons and I'll probably replace those with apocalypse launchers when I get around to it.

As far as terrain goes you don't need a table full of terrain to play the game and I honestly have a tough time justifying an asset as expensive as a titan going into densely packed terrain that could be full of infantry waiting for the titan to move so that they are inside its void shields.

In the first week the table consisted of about $50 worth of terrain and most of that could have been replaced with rocky outcrops made out of insulation foam.

You do need a game matt if your FLGS doesn't have terrained tables, I suppose.  So if you are starting from scratch with no gaming stuff you will need to spend another $60 or so. 

The setting is something that draws me to the game.  I would not have been as interested in a 40K epic reboot as a 30K Civil War titan game.

It keeps the sides fairly even, there isn't the need for a ton of special rules to deal with phantom titans or ork gargants.  There are some special rules that, at least in our experience, we forget about 75% of the time with the different Legio special rules, but we played the game for a full 18 months before we even tried those.

I'm not sure you're correct about the popularity of the game.  Our local store can't keep the starter set in stock and it is currently sold out on the GW website.  The Forge World stuff is constantly out of stock and I've been trying since its release to get my hands on a Psi-Titan and keep missing it.

I think the game is in a good place.  It has a lot of active support in on-line communities and there is an increasing amount of third party terrain available for it.

It won't ever surpass the level of interest in 40k or AoS or even probably Necromunda but it certainly has a strong player base. 
Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Pictors Studio on July 29, 2021, 06:11:20 PM
On the last day of the campaign the loyalists were routed everywhere they attacked.  With their forces pinned down in Zhao-Embarii Prime the loyalist commanders made a desperate decision.  The engines of Legio Astorum would make a breakout towards the southern polar region where the defensive platform did not offer as much protection for the planet.  Meanwhile Legio Astorum would try to tie down as many of the Traitor engines as possible by moving towards a densely populated portion of the city.

The Warp Runners managed to break through and with the Tiger Eyes in pursuit made their way towards an isthmus that would lead them to a safe landing zone where mass haulers awaited them to pull them from the planet.

(https://preview.redd.it/7opu73pmivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=de798f5c80a82d63c090abb268604f5c1ca75387)


Forming a bulwark with their Reaver and Warlord titans the Warp Runners attempted to break up and slow down the pursuit of the Legio Furrean forces. 

(https://preview.redd.it/fvwueoymivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=82ed206957cb42b36d155566389a4ce0b7c1fe79)

Each time a Tiger Eye titan approached the Isthmus they were reduced to wreckage by the Legio Astorum engines.  All stops had been pulled out and defensive measures were littered across the mouth of the land bridge. 


(https://preview.redd.it/s1l2ii8nivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=b902e04b65a64de973c5cb4630855623527a66fe)

Eventually three of the massive machines fell in defiance to the Tiger eyes but at that point it was too late for the pursuers, the rest of the quarry had escaped


(https://preview.redd.it/p0geu0vnivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=05c3b50dbb597a9033ce0f19d811575ad5db0f64)

Not only had the Warp Runners got to their LZ, they had inflicted massive amounts of damage on their antagonists, completely out of proportion to their ability. 

In the end the Warp Runners lost a Reaver and a Warlord while the Tiger Eyes lost a Warhound, a Reaver and 6 Cerastus knights. 

Title: Re: Adeptus Titanicus campaign
Post by: Pictors Studio on July 29, 2021, 08:37:22 PM
Clustered in an important administration zone in the capitol, the Firebrands hoped that their position would force the enemy to be careful in how they approached and that they would be able to sell their lives dearly.
(https://preview.redd.it/ayla8e0livd71.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=254a917204a36597519854a1faa9a4f5d3ceba20)

The forces brought against the loyalists were overwhelming.  Three Warlord titans loomed over the skyline of the city as the defiant Firebrands looked on.  The battle started with a punishing barrage that saw voidshields collapsing in the first few seconds and the armour ripped and melted from the structures of the massive engines.

The monorail splintered as stray shots ripped through it, the buildings around the loyalists saw their windows all blown out in moments despite the thickness of the armourglass.

(https://preview.redd.it/51em1y9livd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=246df33556310ccfb714b20fe1f8c4ce7ebb82c1)

The Loyalists had taken as much advantage of the urban cover as they could and soon one of the buildings in front of the Atarus warlord crumbled into ruin as the combine firepower of the Xestobiax titans melted its support beams.

Now completely exposed the loyalist titan received even more punishment from the two Warlords it faced. 

(https://preview.redd.it/hjnnu6plivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=2e1ecc3adcbbd66f1805068d7b19fb5ba735cf95)

The loyalists were not defanged though and a counterpunch was soon delivered.  Against the trio of Reaver titans approaching from the East ran a banner of knights.  Their lances shredding the armour and substructure of the enemy engines as they charged into them.  With support from the Firebrand Reaver the trio of Iron Vigil battle titans were soon reduced to smoking wreckage.

(https://preview.redd.it/owprpcxlivd71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6ff779f8faa17a82962b231dc3f2bcd1f510643c)

The loyalist Warlord fell to a banner of traitor knights moments later and soon only a crippled Reaver titan remained to the loyalist forces. 

Roaring a defiance through its warhorns that could be heard even above the thunderous fusillade going on around it, the Reaver also spoke with its weaponry, blasting a traitor Warhound off its feet before succumbing to the overwhelming firepower of the enemy.

Their sacrifice had been absolute, but they had bought time for the Warp Runners to escape.