Clash of the Titans

Well hello dear readers and apologies for the long bout of radio silence! A mixture of enjoying country life...

 ... getting stuck in to a new job (albeit on a short term casual basis) ...

... and generally being completely knackered of an evening has meant that it's been a bit quiet round here.

However, I have not been entirely idle! I've managed to get down to meet up at least once a month with my old gaming group consisting of various old salts up and down the M1 between York and Nottingham - far too good a bunch to lose regular gaming contact with. There is therefore a bit of a backlog of games and pics to share of the games I've been playing which have included such curiousities as Space Fleet and Adeptus Titanicus as well as old stalwarts like Rogue Trader.

It is the speed with which Bring Out Your Lead 2016 is approaching that prompts this post and as I'm running a game of Adeptus Titanicus on the Saturday (and may be persuaded to play the odd game on the Friday afternoon unless I get a better offer!) I thought I'd best prove that I'm both alive and have played the game at least once to check that it all works!

My combined Traitor force of Fire Lords Warlord Titans and Warlords and Warhounds of the Deaths Heads Legion.

Big thanks to Mark Evans and Steve Casey for being my guinea pigs and agreeing to meet up for a game of Adeptus Titanicus at Warhammer World back some time towards the end of June(!).

Steve Casey brought along some amazingly converted Nurgle Warlord Titans - should be some better shots from the front later on hopefully - and Mark brought along an entire legion of his Void Sepernts!

It proved to be a great game and surprisingly quick to play once we'd become more familiar with differences between this and later editions of epic - along with the various crunchy looking damage tables!

Thinking carefully about which Titan had which orders was crucial to avoid traffic jams as there is a strict order as to who moves and shoots when. Don't put your lead Titan on first fire when you need to be advancing across the table but are hemmed in by tight city streets for example!

The weapons worked well and were dead easy - the bigger the Titan, the more dice to hit you get.

Faster and more maneuverable Titans like Warhounds and the lighter armed Night Gaunt variant of the Warlord can prove very nasty in sneaking up and outflanking enemy forces - fire arcs are very important in returning fire and fighting in close combat.

However, brave charges into No Man's Land often end fairly predictably!

We all know what happened to the Light Brigade...

Nemesis Warlord Titans are absolute beasts when it comes to shooting - it just takes them a while to get to the front line.

Correct spacing is imperative when patrolling lest you be caught by a weapon that uses burst templates!

And never charge a firing line of more than one Nemesis Warlord!

It was good to see some innovative weapon arrays - although I'm not sure two close combat weapons (Laser Burners) and two support weapons (the big missiles which can be loaded with many exotic payloads!) was quite what Mark intended!

This Night Gaunt was looking to take advantage of his maneuverability by carrying the deadly but very short ranged Melta Cannon and a Chainfist.

Close combat could be deadly - especially when you're up against a bigger opponent and are relying on improvised attacks because you don't have a close combat weapon.

One of Steve's brilliant Nurgle Titans!

Our game turned into a bit of a scrum as the three forces converged...

Sometimes the little guy does come out on top!

Papa Nurgle wasn't too up on rust prevention unfortunately...

Buildings provide good cover or if you go "hull down" - your Titan is partly hidden by a buildling - the enemy suffers a -1 to hit penalty.

I think we slightly misread the close combat rules and consequently it was absolutely brutal. That's not to say that it's a walk in the park if you play it by the book though!

Good use of cover means that the majority of your force makes it into the melee.

But beware of chain reactions as those reactors go critical!

It can get a bit toasty...

Oh and Plasma warheads in your support weapons are guaranteed to light up the town!

All in all I was really impressed with how playable the rules were despite the various tables you had to consult, the myriad of dice modifiers there were to take in to account and the various bits of book-keeping you needed to do as each Titan lost void shields and incurred damage.

I know some of you have already expressed an interest in coming along for a game on the Saturday (6th August) but here's the link to the website which Gaj has set up to aid in booking slots for games - well done that man!

I will have painted and magnetised forces (around three Titans each) for up to 6 players and I reckon we should be able to play a game to a suitable finish if we get started at about 10am and wrap it up by 2pm - thought I'd sorted that but it looks like the website still says till 4.30pm. Feel free to bring your own Titans if you have them - we'll just have to come to an arrangement as to how they're armed so that we have some balance between each players' forces. Otherwise I hope to be down at the Foundry for midday and if you're around then we can get a game going on the Friday afternoon.

Hope to see you down there for some giant robot action!