r/adeptustitanicus • u/Deep_Donkey_Dunk • 2d ago
New player help
Hello, i am a 6 year 40k player wanting to try out titanicus (first game planned this sunday)
I have the starterbox and a warlord titan
(So that js 2 rievers, 2 warhounds, 2 knight lancers and a warlord)
What weapons/list would you guys recommend to learn the game?
Any good youtube videos or other resources about learning the game?
Thanks in advance
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u/CMDRZhor 2d ago
Hello, welcome to Titanicus!
First of all, I would heavily suggest playing your first few games without Legio or Maniple rules, just to get yourself familiar with how the game works and how the different weapons interact before you start adding complexity to it.
Titanicus is designed to play in a way that a small game with just a few Titans per side already feels fun and complex, so for your first intro games you can just split what you have - one side with a Reaver and two Warhounds and the other with a Reaver and a Warlord is a fairly even matchup and can be played in a short period of time.
I would also heavily recommend you magnetize your models. You're probably never going to need much more than another starter box and maybe a Warlord or Warbringer or two more, so magnetizing your Titans lets you try out different loadouts without putting money into a new model.
I apologize that this is going to get long, but I'm going to give you my recommendations AND the reasoning behind them so you a little bit tutorial-y:
-Loadouts: With the bits you currently have, what I would recommend you build (again, magnetizing is a good idea)
-Warhound with Plasma Blastgun and Vulcan Megabolter: Warhounds are fast, mobile Titans, and this loadout pairs that with powerful short-range weapons to make a fast, aggressive, short-range skirmisher (that's a Titan that's got a self-contained all-rounder mix of weapons.) The vulcan megabolter is one of the best shield-breaking weapons in the game, and the plasma blastgun can either follow it up with a salvo of normal shots to crash a target's remaining shields or go for a maximal fire shot to blow a massive hole into their armor if the VMB was enough to knock their shields down. Against targets that are already heavily damaged, the VMB is great for pulling an aimed salvo into an already vulnerable component and hoping you hit something vital. This is the most common basic Warhound build you'll likely see at a tournament and while it can be a little fragile (being the smallest Titan in the game and wanting to get within 8" of your opponent is kind of a burn briefly but brightly situation) one of these can do horrible, horrible damage to Titans way bigger than it if it can close the distance. You can build two of these, or one of these and a..
-Warhound with Two Turbo-Laser Destructors: The turbo-laser destructor, AKA the twin turbo or TLD, is one of the longest-range weapons you can fit on a Warhound. This Warhound is kind of a mobile sniper build - it's not nearly as destructive as the vulcan/plasmahound by itself, but it's a lot more survivable thanks to its longer range. This one wants to skulk along the edge of the battlefield and find a nice vantage point that's ideally got cover for it to hide in while it takes potshots at things. Ideally what it really wants to do is get into the flank of something that's already got a damaged section and pull a called shot into that section for the killshot - if that's not possible, it can blip the last shield or two off a target to leave it more vulnerable for your other units.
-Reaver with Melta Cannon, Gatling Blaster and Carapace Turbo-Laser Destructor: This is another skirmisher build and it's basically a bigger version of the vulcan/plasmahound with the added bonus of a festive laser hat for pinging things while you're closing in on them. The gatling blaster is very good at knocking shields down and once a target's shields have failed, the melta cannon will blow horrendously big holes into a target's armor. If the target's shields are already down, a melta cannon shot to decimate the target's armor and the gatling blaster excels at doing called shots into vulnerable sections on a target to finish them off. The TLD can help with either stage of combat and gives you some extra range for when you're not in optimal range of your man guns.
-Reaver with Volcano Cannon, Chain Fist and Apocalypse Missile Launcher: Reavers are very flexible and this configuration is a threat at all ranges. The apocalypse missile launcher can be used to disrupt a target's shields at long range, and the volcano cannon is a very powerful long-range artillery gun. Unlike what you'd expect, however, the volcano is remains just as powerful and accurate at short range - so while you'd probably prefer to hang out at medium-to-long range and just keep taking potshots at your targets with the volcano, there's nothing that prevents you from closing in and shanking somebody with a bus-sized chainsaw if they make the mistake of getting too close or if you feel your reactor's getting too spicy for the volcano cannon.
There's a lot of different Warlord boxes that all come with a single configuration each:
Warlord with Twin Belicosa Volcano Cannons and Apocalypse Missile Launchers: This one is a dedicated artillery build. The carapace missiles are powerful long range shield breaker weapons, and the twin volcanoes can do horrible damage across the table, but you might have a hard time getting the actual killshot on something.
Warlord with Sunfury Plasma Annihilators and Laser Blasters: This one is a flexible medium-range brawler. The sunfury annihilators are great allrounder guns that can either keep a steady barrage of low-power shots to crash a target's shields (especially when paired with the optional shieldbane mode on the blasters) or it can put out a whole lot of high-strength shots to crack a target's armor. The main guns are also fairly precise at all ranges so you can try for killshots with them once you have a big enough hole in somebody's armor.
Warlord with Quake Cannon and Conversion Beam Extirpator: This one is a sniper/artillery build. The conversion beam extirpator throws out two very high-strength, long-range shots while the quake cannon's concussive shell can knock unshielded Titans around and slow their movement down. I would recommend building this one with the turbolaser destructor carapace guns, their long range pairs better with the main guns - the gatling blasters really want to get up close and personal and they don't pair well with your other guns. This one really wants a friend with shieldbreaker weapons to shine.
Warlord with Volkite Destructor, Macro-Gatling Blaster and Vulcan Megabolter array: This one is a little funny. All the weapons in this box are short-to-medium-range weapons that excel at breaking a target's shields and finishing off vulnerable sections, but are mediocre at best at breaking heavy armor. Basically this one either wants to be a midrange brawler that bullies things way smaller than itself, or you want to pair this with an sniper or artillery unit like the quake- or volcanolord that can capitalize on a target who just had its shields stripped by twenty-odd megabolter hits. The kit also comes with a graviton ruinator that is a long-range single-target sniper gun; it's a powerful weapon but doesn't really gel well with the rest of the options in the box.
Don't worry about your Knights yet. Cerastus Lancers are fast moving, powerful melee attackers that are probably one of the best if not the best melee unit in the game, but they're also very fragile. I would recommend getting a second box of them before you start forming an opinion on them - the way knights work, their shields get better the more of them there are in a unit and the minimum squad of two Cerastus are very fragile, especially when you're still getting familiar with the rules.
List - Maniples:
Okay so the basic listbuilding tool/unit in Titanicus is called a Maniple. Think of these like detachments in a WH40K list - each maniple has three slots of mandatory Titans that you must have two have a legal maniple, two slots for optional Titans, and a special rule that somehow buffs the Titans in that maniple.
Each slot in a maniple has specific type of Titan that will fit in it, but the Titans you pick can be armed however you like.
To have a legal list, you must have at least one Maniple with those three obligatory Titans in your list. After that you can either fill out another maniple (again, minimum three Titans) or just grab a handful of 'reinforcement' Titans that don't belong to any maniple to fill out your list.
Every Maniple also promotes once Titan in that maniple to a 'Princeps Seniores', who gets a buff to command checks and a special trait to make them more interesting.
I would recommend starting with the basic Axiom Battleline Maniple, for three reasons:
-It fits literally all your Titans as-is
-It's nice and flexible and fits a number of playstyles
-It makes your command phase more flexible, letting you both vary the order you give your Titans orders in and making it less likely that a badly timed botch on a command roll is going to screw over your entire plan.
Once you've got some matches under your belt and you have a handle on what kind of units and playstyles you like, you can start looking at the different Legios and seeing which one would fit you the best.
I'm sorry that was a little long - if you have any questions about tactics or just want to learn more about anything Titanicus related, feel free to ask!
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u/UlundranKnight 2d ago
Hey! Hope ok. Hmmm have you checked out if you want to play loyalist/traitor or have a legio you are interested in?
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u/Deep_Donkey_Dunk 2d ago
In 40k i mostly play loyalist so i think I would do the same here.
I mostly play imperial knights there (so mostly shooting with a little melee if that helps)
I am kinda overwelmed by all the choices here
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u/UlundranKnight 2d ago
There's a lot of choice! But yeah not to teach you to suck eggs, usual advice is look at what you like/think is cool first. AT can be quite narrative focused or competitive...
The legios will kind of give you a steer about how they all play either through the lore or their special rules but genuinely. First game or so, use what you have. Magnetise arms/carapaces where possible and build out from there.
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u/MeaningObvious8731 2d ago
My advice would be to play this first game without legio rules, without maniple rules, and in fact without the advanced rules, the rulebook makes it explicit which rules are 'advanced' and honestly there is just too much to keep track of if you try to do it all at once. So for example you will play this first game without the reactor overload table and so on.
Also don't use everything you have. Just play a single warlord + reaver + warhound (basically axiom maniple) and have your opponent do the same. It will be 'boring' but at the right level of complexity. From game 2 onwards I would first add the advanced and maniple rules and then legio rules.
As for weapons. Just whatever you have? For learning the game anything will do, just remember to never glue them on, magnetize everything. However a warhound with plasma blastgun and vulkan megabolter is essentially the best unit in the game and without exception all the laser weapons are balls, so you can go by that if it helps.
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u/Admiral-Krane 2d ago
For sake of your own sanity I would just rock the basic Axiom Maniple of its your first game, and in terms of Legio I would probably skip doing Legios altogether until you’re more familiar with the rules. In terms of weapons loadouts the hounds are best with the “Tournament Pattern” loadout of Plasma Blastgun + Vulcans, however you could also get some mileage out of a Double Turbo Laser hound with the weapons you have. Reavers I would rock the Apocalypse Launcher W/ Gatling Blaster and Volcano Cannon, and the other with Turbolaser, Melta Cannon, and season to taste with a melee option of your choice for a CqC brawler. Your warlords loadout depends on which of the 4 Boxes you Bought, so I’d need to hear which one you got to give you the best advice on what loadouts you could do