Update: The Sick Hiatus Continues

Another week and another round of visits to the doctors.  Looks like we completely failed to eliminate this bug.  I'm going to continue to take some time off from working on this, though I'll still be plugging away at my deep dives.  Hopefully I'll be back soon.

Warhammer 40,000 - Astra Militarum Imperial Armour Part 2

Almost done with my data entry, then I'll finally get to move on to logic and algorithm.  Though I'll likely need to take a break this week as I have a lot of doctor stuff coming up.  In the mean time, we've still got another Astra Militarum download to go through.

DATASHEETS

Avenger Strike Fighter - 130 pts

Time for the forces of the Imperial Navy!  Aircraft in 10th Edition aren't doing very well right now.  While they get the same benefits as Towering, they usually have to start off the board.  This means you don't get any chances at some good Turn 1 shooting with them.  Additionally, because of their movement rules, every model has a predictable "flight path."  Smart opponents have learned how to use this to avoid any bomber abilities and even keep completely out of line of sight.  The end result is that Aircraft need to either be very flexible, have awesome guns, or useful special rules to consider including.

This has none of these things.  While relatively inexpensive for its profile and the guns it's carrying, its main ability is to shoot back at an enemy that destroys one of your units.  The fact this keys off the Fly keyword isn't bad, but the fact it only triggers when a unit is destroyed is an issue.  Like I said, you can play around Aircraft pretty easily.  The number of times an opponent is going to destroy one of your units within 6" of an Avenger, and the Avenger will be able to do anything meaningful will be zero.  I don't even think the threat of it will affect your opponent's game plan much.

130 pts isn't bad for the body and guns it has, though.  If it didn't have to start off the board, it'd be a pretty nice vehicle on its own.

Voss-Pattern Lightning - 130 pts

While the -1 to Hit is nice, I don't feel like the hellstrikes make up for the loss of the bolt cannon and heavy stubber.  This just isn't bringing enough damage.

Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter - 190 pts

The shooting on this will be much more effective, at least when targeting enemy Flyers.  At BS4+, that +1 to Hit really helps.  But it's not a large enough improvement in toughness and fire power to justify being that much more than an Avenger.

Vulture Gunship - 225 pts

The fact this has the Hover keyword immediately makes it more interesting.  When your Aircraft has Hover, you can essentially treat it as Knight with better movement.  At that point, the question becomes whether it can survive to get its value in.

And unfortunately, I just don't see it happening.  It's not tough enough to survive enemy shooting and it just doesn't put out enough of its own.  If you're going to take one, I definitely think you take the gatling cannons though.  Those will at least reliably let you force some Battle-shock tests.

Marauder Bomber - 345 pts

I'm sorry if this is feeling really negative, but unfortunately Aircraft just really aren't in a good place, and this really isn't helping.  The fact you have to specialize its bombs really reduces its usefulness.  Your opponent could already easily play around the bombing run, now they don't even have to worry about it for all their units.  Even if you could reliably make the bombing runs, you're going to be doing a total of 6 mortal wounds on average during a game.  That just does not justify that price tag.

Marauder Destroyer - 375 pts

This at least is better.  The 6 average mortal wounds per game goes up to 8 and now threatens your opponent's entire army, and you get way more guns.  I'd definitely say this is the better of the two bombers.  However, the price tag is still way too high.  On a guess, I'd honestly say its at least 100 pts too much for what it will do.  That's the kind of cost issues we're running into with some of these.

Tarantula Battery - 35 pts per model

I've always kind of liked these, even if they've never been particularly good.  I think it's because I've always liked sentry guns in movies and games.  However, as cheap as these are, they're still too expensive.  A single gun in your deployment zone doesn't do a lot, even if it's a good gun.  GW may be charging a little too much for movement, but not being able to move a model is a big deal.  If you've got the points free, grab one of the demolition vehicles.  These are a pass.

Rapider Laser Destroyer Battery - 30 pts per model

Okay, now those Tarantula's really look bad!  These however are actually pretty good!  You'll need to get them into position so that you can use that Heavy ability, but then you'll be blasting away with a pretty good gun.  It's too bad Guard doesn't really have order splashing anymore, as you'll nearly always have better targets than this.  But if you want a cheap screener or list filler, this is actually a good deal.

Hades Breaching Drill - 110 pts

Interesting!  While I think this is overpriced, Deep Striking any Infantry unit is huge.  I especially like the fact that the setup range on this is 9", as it means you can potentially crowd in a large number of models around it.  No matter what unit you bring in with Subterranean Assault, you'll probably manage to successfully deploy it.  If you like the idea of making a gigantic block of Infantry to try and hold the mid board, this might reliably get it there.

Trojan Support Vehicle - 80 pts

I like this too!  It may have to wait until Guard vehicles are in a little better spot, but once they are this will be a useful piece of tech.  It's nice and cheap and it doesn't put out anywhere near enough shots for your opponent to want to shoot at it.  When they do, this is just tough enough they'll be grinding their teeth at the amount of fire power they have to use to take it down.  So this will either spend the game healing and buffing vehicles or taking shots that are meant for them.  Honestly not bad for 80 pts.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This might have seemed a little hum drum, but it's honestly just that Aircraft are in a bad spot, and half of this was Aircraft.  Honestly, if you really want to take some fighters, 130 pts isn't bad for the Avenger.  You're really going to have to work to feel like it's contributing much.  The rest of these were fun though, even if GW is asking way too much for the Tarantula.  I'm especially curious to see if anyone is making Breaching Drills work.

Drama Drama Drama!

Just a quick one today as I'm eager to work on this 40K project, and then get some more gaming in.

One of the best parts of any RPG are the characters.  From the witty companions who provide comic relief, to interesting villains you can't help but root for a little, good character writing can make up for a lot in a game.

Baldur's Gate has had its share of memorable characters.  From Boo and their ever faithful companion Minsc, to the cunning and menacing Jon Irenicus, the original PC games are full of interesting souls to fight along side and against.  Baldur's Gate helped cement this, not just through memorable cut scenes and dialogue, but was also one of the first games to popularize party banter.  This meant that while it was more powerful to travel with your own party of hand crafted PCs, it was almost always more fun to craft parties around your favorite party members.

However, this does come with some downsides.  In order for characters to be realistic, they have to have their own goals, motivations, views, etc.  If two characters conflict with each other, that conflict needs to be present in the game for the characters to feel real.  This is great for writing and entertainment, not so good when you're trying to put together your dream team.  Additionally, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 used characters to provide some balance to alignment.  Nearly all the best characters in each game, often both in power and writing, were evil.  So while being evil tended to be harder, you got some really good parties from it.

This second point seems to have been addressed right from the start by Larian.  At no point so far has the concept of alignment reared its complicated head.  The designator isn't in character creation or on any character sheet.  Even spells like Protection from Good and Evil refer to supernatural creatures and not alignment.  It feels much more like character interactions are determined organically, rather than just, "Your evil, I don't like you!"

The first point is a little bit harder.  As I mentioned before, I'm playing a pretty heroic type of character.  But at least two of my current party members are all business and don't have a lot of patience for my desire to help people, even if I argue that it'll benefit us in the long run.  Additionally, if characters aren't getting along, that can severely threaten party composition.

Here Baldur's Gate III has a few answers too.  The first thing you can do if you don't want to deal with a party member disagreeing with your tactics, is the classic table-top method of going behind their back.  If you can't get the Paladin to closely examine the fine yet rustic architecture, then what they don't know can't hurt them.  In BGIII, you can send party members back to camp by talking to them.  They can be a bit snippy about this, but so far it doesn't seem to affect relations.  That doesn't mean they won't have anything to say about my Paladin deciding to pursue an alternate objective, but it might keep them from being mad about the actual conversation.

I do somewhat wish BGIII had a more modern party interface though, if only at your camp.  It would be really nice if we could change party members through a menu when we leave camp and swap items freely between everyone while we're there.

Baldur's Gate allows you to address party composition too.  You can gain an NPC that travels alongside you and can respec your characters.  Simply get 100 gold, then talk to them with the character you want to respec.  This allows you to keep the original characters and still have a custom party, if even for a price.  There are apparently some narrative issues here though, as the game's story and dialogue will still treat them as their original class.

So there you have it!  Just wanted to talk about some fun ways BGIII let's you keep a lively, well written party, without having to suffer mechanically.  For now, I've still got a ton of data entry to do!

Something Old and Something New

I honestly thought I'd made a blog yesterday!  Shows you how out of it I can get.  At the same time, I'm not surprised.  This bug just won't die, and I'm starting to get really frustrated with it.  But I'm sure many of you think you know a better reason why I didn't get a blog up, and you'd be half right.

GETTING THAT WORK DONE

I actually got a decent amount of work done on project yesterday.  I've still got a lot of work on the main big one, which I'll discuss more in the future, but I think it's going well.  Still, I don't think it will be ready when I want it to be, especially with this bug and recent releases.  So I'm going to finally be running out of 40K content to cover.  So I'll probably be covering broader gaming topics in the future, and might even go into Combat Patrol.  I do also still plan on doing that "What I Got Wrong" article.

So you almost certainly know that Baldur's Gate III came out for PC yesterday.  As soon as I got up and gotten comfortable, I immediately setup the download.  But with the day one patch, that was over 200 MB, leaving me plenty of time to do some work while done.  However, I eventually needed to take a break, and the download wasn't done.  And I had some YouTube vids I wanted to listen to for research.  So I wanted something to relax to for a bit that would still let me split my attention.

And I'd just happened to have downloaded something else recently that I've been meaning to play.

LOOKING FOR THOSE SURVIVORS

I hadn't played Vampire Survivors or any of its clones yet.  But I have Game Pass, which means I have access to it.  So I decided to finally give it a try.

And yeah, I think it's a ton of fun.  I actually kept playing it after Baldur's Gate III finished installing.  It's actually kind of crazy how thematically similar the two games are.  Both are incredible call backs to classic games that are now being redefined in our current era.  But while Baldur's Gate is evolving and refining its formula, Vampire Survivor redefines it.  And the interesting thing is that it does so by taking away one of the most crucial systems in video games.

If you've never played the game, Vampire Survivor is a throw back to classic horde style Arcade Games of the past where wave after wave of enemies comes after you.  From watching gameplay, the game looks at first like it's reinterpreted these classic games by combining a twin-stick shooter with Rogue-like systems.  Not even the first game to do that, right?

Except it's not a twin-stick shooter.  There's only one stick.  There isn't even an attack button.  The only thing you can do in Vampire Survivor is move your character.

And it's crazy how much of a difference that makes in the game play!  It makes you completely rethink how you play a game.  Instead of focusing on wiping out the incoming enemies, instead you're focusing on planning out your build and determining the best paths to your objectives.  Every so often you encounter an enemy you really want to kill, and then you'll start focusing them down.  But the way you do so is completely different from any other game.

And there's so many other clever things they've done.  Instead of getting points or experience automatically, you have to pick it all up.  And the waves, of course, get more powerful as the time goes on.  So you have to balance making sure you're killing enough enemies and picking up enough XP with making progress through a map.  And then, of course, you have the items and builds and the recipes, plus old school style unlocks.

Yeah, I got addicted really quickly.

THE MAIN EVENT

After dinner, I finally sat down to enter a new Baldur's Gate adventure!

And wow, it felt like coming home.  For all the improved visuals and cutscenes, the new version of D&D, the new turn based combat, the modern dialogue systems, it still feels like a Baldur's Gate game to the core.  I'm still enjoying exploring, meeting the new characters, putting my party together, and, of course, planning my way through the RPG systems.

For my first character, I've of course gone with trying to make an Erdrick.  I'm using a Paladin with the Oath of Devotion in this game, as I have in prior games.  What took me by surprise though, is I also got to make a Morrigan for my game too.  I haven't met her in game, let alone figured out what her purpose was, but that was a delightful surprise.

Since the game has only been out for a day, I'm not going into even the tiny slice I've played so far.  For now, I have five characters at my camp, and have completed my first dungeon.  It's quite the cast, so far, and I can't wait to see what secrets this rogues' gallery is hiding.

But that'll be it for now I think.  I'll probably talk about the game more in the future.  I'm going to try and get some more work done before The Sword Coast calls again.

Warhammer 40,000 - Astra Militarum Imperial Armour Part 1

Over the history of Forge World, the model line has been used for many things.  Its original purpose, of course, was selling titanic figures that couldn't be cast in plastic or pewter.  But as GW finally abandoned pewter, discovering it could use fine cast resin as an "adequate" replacement, they expanded the Forge World line.

Guard are one of the factions that have historically "benefited" from the existence of Forge World.  Not only are they the original faction to receive rules for using Titans, but their super heavy tanks were originally Forge World kits too.  As GW focused more and more on Cadians as the pattern for most Guard regiments, other classic regiments ended up going to Forge World.  This tentatively allowed GW fans that didn't want to go with the now standardized regiments to still get some official models.

Now there are far more options available for customizing the look and feel of a guard army, and GW has decided they don't want Forge World to be a supplement for their basic games anymore.  The Baneblade has been out in plastic for some time now, our first heavy plastic tank came out in 9th with the Rogal Dorn, and we've finally gotten plastic Krieg as well as the return of Rough Riders.

Still, Forge World models aren't a thing of the past yet.

DATASHEETS

Death Korps Marshal - 60 pts

For 10 points more than their Cadian counterpart, the Marshal loses the ability to take a bolter, gets a 5+ FNP which they share with their unit, and a free Insane Bravery.  For some reason, the Insane Bravery is capped by this rule to twice per phase, but it's still nice to see the unshakeable nature of the Death Korps represented in some way.  I just don't think it's worth more than a Castellan.  It's not much of a tax, but its till feels like a little bit of one for taking a proper Leader for you Death Korps.

Death Rider Squadron - 70 pts for 5 models (14 pts per model)

By contrast, their Riders are 10 pts cheaper.  Their melee isn't bad either, and their Ridemaster can take a plasma pistol.  They can also reposition if an enemy gets too close, though this is not going to keep them from being shot off the table and the Attilan ability to Fall Back and Shoot and Charge is superior.  Still, 14 pts for fast moving, hard hitting, 2 wound models is pretty good.

Death Rider Squadron Commander - 60 pts

And if you take a unit of Death Riders, you should definitely take one of their officers.  For the same price as the Marshal, you get a faster and hard hitting model that grants Infiltrators to their unit.  In addition, you get DEV WOUNDS on the charge, for some extremely good melee threat.  I think Death Riders are actually really good.

Carnodon - 160 pts

For 35 pts less, the Carnodon isn't quite as tough as a Russ but is a little faster.  Unfortunately its weaponry is pretty underwhelming.  Autocannons just aren't what they once were, and none of its other weapons really have much output either.  You could potentially consider loading it up with some volkite and hoping to spike out some mortals, but I just don't think its worth it.  Guard vehicles, other than indirect, are proving to be over-costed, and this is not exception.

Cyclops Demolition Vehicle - 25 pts

This thing actually might be worth taking now.  With an 8" move and 4 wounds, you can use this as a mobile screening unit and there's nothing stopping it from running secondaries either.  You can only take three of them, but that's 75 points for 3 units deterring movement, scoring missions, and eventually turning into a one time smite.  They're honestly not bad.  At worst they're decent point fillers.

Malcador - 250 pts

The Leman Russ's big brother is bigger and tougher, but certainly isn't meaner.  They have similar loadouts but the Malcador trades a pair of Autocannons for an inferior main gun.  If the Leman Russ were properly priced, and it's not, I'd say this needs to be at least 15 pts cheaper.  As things stand it's probably at least 25-40 pts more than it should be.  Even then, the Russ is a smaller target that punches just as hard.

Malcador Annihilator - 270 pts

The Demolisher cannon has certainly proved itself to be worth at least 20 pts more than a standard battle cannon, and the Malcador didn't even have that.  Additionally, this tank gets IGNORES COVER if you get close, which is fantastic in 10th Edition right now.  Though with the loss of Armour of Contempt from the basic Malcador, it'll be harder to get in range.  This is unfortunately still overpriced.

Malcador Defender - 310 pts

For 40 pts more than the Annihilator you lose some heavy firepower but pack a whopping 21 heavy bolter shots.  You also get improved Overwatch, but Guard already have good Overwatch units that are far cheaper.  While this will make an impressive road block, you don't spend 310 points for a screening unit.

Malcador Infernus - 235 pts

Our least expensive Malcador variant actually comes it at only 15 pts more than a Demolisher.  However, what you're actually comparing this to is a Hellhound.  The inferno gun is a bit of sidegrade from the inferno cannon.  It does pack more guns though, including the ability to still bring two autocannons or lascannons.  However, its only special rule is to get a final shot with its inferno gun with a 3+ on death.  Take the Hellhound.

Earthshaker Carriage Battery - 80 pts

At first I thought this was just a mini Basilisk that couldn't move very well.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing, you don't need to move these.  Then I noticed that they only hit on 5s.  That part's not as good.  Now they're Regiment, so you can target them more easily with orders.  But do you really want one of your regimental officers kept babysitting these?  Unfortunately I think the full sized Basilisk is probably better.

Medusa Carriage Battery - 80 pts

An alternative to the Earthshaker, the Medusa is a bit of a side grade.  The weapon is all around more powerful, but doesn't have anywhere near as much board presence.  And at Move 4, you're not exactly rolling it out onto the board.  Additionally, Battle-shocked is usually not as useful a debuff as shaken is.

Stormblade - 415 pts

Now this is a big tank!  Basically a Baneblade that's been modified to carry a Titan's plasma blastgun, it has similar firepower to the other Baneblade variants.  The Shadowsword currently seems to be the most popular variant, so that's the one I'm going to compare this to.  Now the plasma blastgun is certainly no volcanno cannon, but it's still a good general purpose weapon that can threaten both Infantry and Vehicles.  My only problem is I'm struggling to find a place for it.  It's just not really bringing anything your army really needs.  Still, it's the most affordable of the super heavies, so if you really want to field one and don't want to spring 25 points more for a Shadowsword, it's not a bad option.

Macharius - 310 pts

The classic heavy tank option has a chassis closer to a Baneblade than a Rogal Dorn, but firepower similar to it's smaller cousin.  So basically you're trading toughness for fire power at a cost of 25 pts.  Again, now that we've gotten a chance to see how Guard vehicles are performing, I'm feeling like this is just too expensive.

Macharius Vanquisher - 285 pts

Okay, now we might be getting somewhere.  While the vanquisher cannon is a single shot weapon, you get re-roll hits and wounds with it to drastically improve its reliability.  And if you've got someone that can give out orders to tanks, you can further improve that reliability.  Honestly I'd take this over a Rogal Dorn.

Macharius Vulcan - 310 pts

A tank with a vulcan mega-bolter!  This thing can absolutely shred infantry, but so can tons of other guard options.  Again, it's a lot of points for something Guard doesn't really need.  I like that it doesn't suffer any penalties for Big Guns though.

Praetor - 275 pts

The power of indirect is you don't need to be in the line of fire, so the tougher chassis doesn't really help this thing.  So we're left looking at just its gun to justify taking it over any of the other indirect options.  The first nice thing is that if you've got a source of tank orders, it's hitting on 2s with Take Aim.  The foehammers are also pretty interesting, wounding big targets on 4s even with its low strength.  But again, you'll want your indirect to be sitting back and firing without needing orders, and you have other ways to get that bonus.

Crassus - 180 pts

You're actually getting a bit of a discount on transport capacity with this.  In exchange for the mobility and flexibility of multiple Taurox, you get a tougher model that can transport a ton of guard in bulk.  And while not as fast, it does have Fire Support, which I'm very fond of.  However, I'm struggling to figure out how all those guard are going to disembark from this thing.  35 models is a lot!  Still, if you need to transport a full Infantry Squad with command, attachments, and bodyguard, this will do it!

Colossus - 160 pts

Huh?  A direct fire mortar?  What?

So unfortunately that means we're comparing it to the Leman Russ, which is tougher and has more guns.  However, as weird as the gun is, it's not to be sneezed at.  Any big target you get a decent hit on is probably going to be taking mortals.  This means this thing can pretty easily punch above its weight.  It's pretty swingy for 160 pts though.

Valdor - 285 pts

Again, we're trading toughness for guns with the Rogal Dorn again.  Only this time, we've actually got a pretty good main cannon to justify it.  Hitting with 2 shots on 3s with HEAVY, the Valdor punches at S16, AP-4, and DmgD6+1.  And as a kicker, if you're targeting a Monster or Vehicle, you get to re-roll the damage.  It's probably a little overpriced, but I feel like this is a little closer to fine than the other options are.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There are many guard players out there that long for the day when they can field a wide variety of different vehicles and regiments for their army.  We're getting there again with the infantry, and we've started getting better access to vehicles too.  But unfortunately guard is in a position where their vehicles are struggling to make up their cost.  It doesn't help it's far more difficult to get buffs on tanks now, and they even took away Ursula's ability to give strats to them.  I feel nearly the entire Forge World line needs to come down in price.  Yes, both prices.

However, Death Riders look like a lot of fun, and there were a few vehicles that might make cool alternatives for roughly the same value as their plastic counterparts.  Hopefully we'll see a bit of an overhaul soon.

Warhammer 40,000: Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Armour

I'm slowly starting to feel a little better.  While recovering, I've been putting little bits of time into some brainless parts of my various 40K projects, and I'm hoping now I can get some more serious work done.  But for this blog today, we're doing Titans!

Who doesn't love big stompy robots?  And 40K has some of the biggest and stompiest!  Titans, unfortunately, are usually relegated to casual games and often then only the largest scale ones.  Even the smallest Titan takes over half your army to field in points, leaving only a few units to actually play the game with.  And for all their grandeur, the 40K Strength/Toughness system does mean that they will eventually get shot down.  Now at least, the vast majority of weapons will be wounding your Titans on 5s and 6s while still allowing your Titans a decent save against them.

Without further ado, let's see what the surviving Legios of the 41st Millennium can field.

DATASHEETS

Warhound Titan - 1100 pts

Costing over half of a Strike Force army, the scout titan of the Legios comes with 40 T13 Wounds, a 2+ Sv, a 5+ Invuln against ranged attacks, and two massive guns.

You might be wondering why such a massive piece of tech only gets an Invuln against ranged attacks.  This is to represent both the main means of protection Titans have and their primary weakness in the lore.  Titans are protected by a bubble of warp distorted space called a void shield.  Void shields are fantastic at deflecting and destroying incoming projectiles and energy attacks, but they can be traversed by properly protected infantry and vehicles.  They also take a tremendous amount of energy to power and can be overloaded.  In past editions, void shields provided better protection but could collapse just as they do in the lore.  For 10th edition, GW has decided to just represent this with a plain 5+ Invuln.

For our guns, we have the inferno gun: a 24" flamer that hits at S7, AP -2, and Dmg3.  Averaging 10.5 hits, this thing will scoop even tough 5 man units and has a decent chance to pull 10 man units off the table too.

For slightly larger units, we have the vulcan mega-bolter.  While not as good against elite infantry, even Space Marines will have to fear the shear number of shots it puts out.  Anything not wearing power armour is going to take massive damage, obliterating many 10 man units.

For monsters and vehicles, we have the plasma blastgun.  At an average of 10 shots and the BLAST ability, this thing is a serious threat to Infantry too.  But even on its basic profile, it hits at S9, AP-3, and Dmg4.  That number of shots means that even wounding on 5s, this thing can melt most vehicles.

Finally we have the turbo-laser destructor: D3+3 shots at S20, AP-3, and Dmg2D6.  While outclassed by many anti-vehicle weapons in the game, that will still reliable reduce even the toughest vehicles in the game to scrap.

Let's not forget that as a Titan it has Towering and so it can strike nearly anything on the table with everything but the inferno gun.

The Warhound also comes with two abilities.  The first is the second price you pay for fielding a Titan that we saw in the Faction Focus.  If you want to use a Stratagem on a Warhound, you'll have to pay twice the CP for it.  This effectively means you're likely not using any strats on it.  The second is flank speed, which allows it an automatic +8" on an Advance, making it a pretty fast piece of tech.  However, you're likely going to just put two plasma blastguns on it, stand it where ever you can fit it in your deployment zone, and use every turn to blast away with it.

Now here's the part where you're expecting me to tell you that despite all of that, it's just now worth it.  Except . . .

Here's the thing, most opponents will have enough fire power to bring this thing down.  Especially with other Towering and Titanic units being so potent right now, every army has to have an answer to something like this.  But this thing has twice the wounds of many of those rival units.  More than likely, it will survive the first round of firepower, after which it will remove two threats from the board.  That makes it more likely to survive the next round and allow it to scoop up two more threats.  There will definitely be games in which this thing earns its points back before your opponent manages to bring it down, if they even do.

The main problem is that this is over half your army.  It will be sitting in your deployment zone, scoring your backfield objective, and that's it.  You likely won't have a lot of units to play Tactical Missions, so you'll be relying on Fixed for Secondary scoring.  And you'll have to hope the units you're blasting off the board are enough to make sure you're winning on Primary.

There is legitimately a world in which you can play competitively with a Warhound Titan, but you're definitely going to have to work for it.

Reaver Titan - 2200 pts

The only Titan I've faced across the table in an actual game of 40K, many moons ago in the days of 2nd Edition, Reavers are definitely scary.  Reavers go up to T14 and have 60 Wounds to the Warhound's 40.  They come stock with an apocalypse launcher and can pick two other guns to fire with.  We'll start with that apocalypse launcher.

Like the Basilisk, this gun has the range to hit your friends army on the other side of the LGS.  It's an INDIRECT FIRE weapon, but that doesn't really matter.  Unless you're on a board specifically designed to allow units to hide from Towering, you're going to be direct firing this.  Still, it allows a little proof against terrain.  With 3D6 BLAST shots at S7, AP-1, Dmg2, it's a serious threat to all light infantry.

For heavier armour, you've got the gatling blaster.  Firing 12 shots with SUSTAINED HITS 1 at S8, AP-2, and Dmg3, even Terminators are going to need to worry about this thing.

The laser blaster is next with 8 shots at S20, AP-3, and DmgD6+2.  This is probably the go to weapon for the Reaver, as this will allow you to deal with most armoured threats, including enemy Titans, but still has enough shots to deal with Infantry.

Next is the melta cannon: D6+2 BLAST shots at S13, AP-4, Dmg6, or Dmg10 at 24".  Honestly this is just such an odd duck.  While the high AP is nice, you're going to want to stand back in your deployment zone and blast across the board, so you're never really going to get much use of the MELTA rule.

Then there's the volcano cannon, which you might have seen on some other kits.  It can still hit the next table over with 120" range, D3+1 BLAST shots at S24, AP-5, Dmg14.  Honestly, if you're in a game where you can bring a Reaver, you probably want at least one of these.

Finally, you can give a Reaver a power fist, striking with 6 S20 attacks at AP-4, Dmg14, or sweeping with 12 S12 attacks at AP-3, Dmg6.  You're not going to do this though.  Not only are the guns better, but this hits on 4s.  Even if it hit on 3s, I still wouldn't take this.  Those big stompy feet will punish anything that tries to tie this up in melee, and the Reaver can Fall Back and Shoot and Charge.

Unfortunately my calculous for the Reaver doesn't work out as well as the Warhounds.  Basically, this is a Warhound that has a better chance of lasting through the game.  But you're going to be removing, at most, a third unit off the table each turn.  And honestly, that's not going to happen very often.  You may still want to bring this in truly massive games where you know there will be other Titans.  But unless that's the case, this just isn't worth the cost of two Warhounds.  And even if there are enemy Titans, we have another challenger to consider on the next datasheet or so.

Warbringer Nemesis Titan - 2600 pts

For only 400 pts more than the Reaver, the Warbringer has 20 more wounds and can bring all the same weapons, other than the apocalypse launcher and the power fist.  But instead of the apocalypse launcher, the Warbringer brings 2 anvillus defence batteries, 3 ardex-defensor maulers, and either a quake cannon or volcano cannon.  Let's start with the small guns.

Both the anvillus and ardex-defensor are statted for anti-infantry, though the anvillus can also do pretty well against light flyers.  You get a total of 34 shots between them, but crucially it's 5 different guns so you can split their fire as you need.  This gives the Warbringer some automatic ability to deal with infantry, allowing you to focus the rest of its weapons on removing armour.

And I just got a massive sense of deja vu there . . .  Did they preview this bad boy earlier?  Oh well!  On to the big gun!

For the Warbringers carapace weapon you can take either the quake cannon or an upgraded volcano cannon.  The volcano cannon is the same as the one you can get for its arms, but strangely doesn't have HEAVY and gets 2 more shots.  Honestly, this makes it only moderately better than the arm cannons, which will normally be hitting on 2s.

The quake cannon is more general purpose, firing D6+6 BLAST shots at S16, AP-4, Dmg4.  This makes it good against nearly all targets, though you'll miss the higher damage against enemy Titans.  It also has INDIRECT, though again, you have Towering.  Finally, it has an absolutely silly range!  480"  That's 40 feet!  Most local game stores won't have a room that big!

But wait!  There's more!

It has the rule Titanic Fire Support!  This lets you pick some lucky unit that survived this things Shooting and grant your army improved AP on Critical Wounds.  It's honestly not much, but it will still help.  And if your army has a lot of ANTI-X . . .

This thing is so much better than a Reaver.  And in any game where you'd field a Reaver, it will just purely outclass it.  If you're playing a massive game where you know your opponents will have Titans, this is what you bring.  Otherwise, you're probably still better with a pair of Warhounds.

Warlord Titan - 3500 pts

Finally we arrive at the big boy, the mightiest unit you can field on the table.

At least until we get an official model for the Warmaster.

And then maybe one day the Imperator.

But for now, this is the largest single model in the game.  Also, it's ironically the one you're most likely to have?  Although this thing costs as much as some used cars, if you're going to save up for a Titan, you might as well save up for this one.  Also, the NOVA Open Charity raffles have given one of these away at least once a year for a bit now.  I think they're technically giving two away this year, though as a diorama.

But that's 3500 pts!  That's more than even an Onslaught game of 40K!  Can this thing possibly justify itself?

So in case you didn't check out the reveal, let's start with that wound count.  The Warlord skips over T15, and goes straight to T16 and 100 Wounds.  Plasma will only be wounding this on 6s.  Nothing but a dedicated anti-tank gun will wound it on better than 5s.  Even at 3500 pts, an army is going to struggle to bring it down.

And this thing brings some truly frightening fire-power!

You start with two of either the apocalypse launcher or the laser blaster.  Interestingly enough, the laser blaster on the Warlord is completely inferior to the Reavers.  But still, you get two of them.  The apocalypse launcher is all upgrade though, firing 20 attacks at S8, AP-2, D2.  So you're scooping two 10 mans a turn.

The Warlord then gets a pair of those ardex-defensor maulers the Warbringer has.  So there's even more anti-infantry you can use to deal with smaller threats.  It then gets two ardex-defensor lascannons.  These are just normal, single shot lascannons that can poke at a bigger target each round.  Now, let's get to those arms.

The Warlord can take an arioch power claw.  You're probably not going to, but this is an all around better option than the Reaver's power fist.  First, it doesn't cost you a gun, firing 20 attacks with SUSTAINED HITS 1 at S6, AP-1, and Dmg2.  Again, you can kill a lot of infantry with that.  And should something be stupid enough to get close, it sweeps with 12 attacks at S12, AP-3, Dmg8, or strikes at S20, AP-4, and Dmg24!  There's not much in the game that can survive that.

Still, you've got big guns you can put on this thing, and that's probably what you're going to do.

The macro gatling blaster puts out an eye watering 30 shots with SUSTAINED HITS 1 at S9, AP-2, Dmg3.  This will take out nearly any infantry unit and most vehicles too.

Next is the mori quake cannon: 3D6 shots with BLAST at S16, AP-4, Dmg 6.  Another decent all purpose weapon that won't kill huge blobs of infantry but will wreck most other things on the table.

Then we've got the sunfury.  This one is another all rounder, firing 2D6+6 shots with BLAST at AP-3.  Its standard shot hits at S10 and Dmg5, while supercharging it goes to S12, Dmg8.  Any of these guns would be extremely useful on the table.

But let's face it, if you've got a Warlord there's a good chance your opponent is bringing something big.  So you know you're going to take at least one belicosa.  This absolute beast fires D3+3 shots at a whopping S32, AP-5, and Dmg18!!!  An invuln and some extremely lucky die rolls is your only chance to survive this.

So despite being a massive 3500 pts, if you're play games with Titans a Warlord is actually your best pick.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

So while I was writing this up, Exile Con started.  I stopped working on this to relax and enjoy the live stream.  But my head started plucking away at the numbers.  And, well, when my head starts doing that . . .

So between presentations and during ones I was a bit less interested in, I pulled out my damage calculator, looked up the units that have been dominating top tables at the big events recently, and plugged the numbers.  Then I saw how good they were at taking down these bad boys.  I then tested the Titans against each other.  I had to fudge some things, like Unparalleled Foresight and Lay Low the Tyrant.  I've still got a more sophisticated method for doing these calculations coming.  But for now, these numbers should be close enough.

And honestly, I was really surprised!

GW said they had come up with new methods for determining pts that should provide more balance, and for Titans they actually seem to be working!

Each Titan saw an increase in efficiency and survivability roughly in line with their points cost.  So a Reaver is actually roughly equal to two Warhounds, Warbringers are just that little bit better than Reavers, and Warlords do make up their massive points cost.  They're still not as good as the best units in the game, but they're honestly not bad either.

You've got some real threat to deal with if you try to bring one though.  Aeldari and Custodes in particular just laugh these things off the board.  Necrons and Tau are also a really serious threat, especially Doomsday Arks and Broadsides respectively.  For Knights, it really depends on their loadout.  Beast Snaggas were the real surprise for me.  They've actually prompted a future blog in which I look at my worst calls so far.  They're almost as good point for point at taking these down as Eldar units are!  

And then, of course, there's Shalaxi.

But overall, I was really pleased with the theoretical performance of the Titans.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Titans unfortunately don't have a place in competitive play.  Competitive games of 40K are nearly always fought at 2000 points, so Warhounds are your only option.  The games use dense boards with ample cover, and many events have begun making sure some of that cover provides resources against Towering.  You'll be struggling to fit your Warhound's massive frame in your deployment zone, and you won't have the units to score the objectives you need to win.  And if all that wasn't enough, there are other units out there right now that are way better at dealing damage then the massive guns a Titan brings.

But if competitive play isn't your thing, there's no reason not to enjoy some casual games where these big boys come out to play.  They're honestly not bad units, just not the best ones.  And if you and your opponent have agreed to setup a game where they can be fielded, you can make sure the terrain allows you to actually deploy and move them.  Any such game that includes an epic duel between two God Engines is sure to be memorable.

Exile Con 2023 Part 2

In case you couldn't tell, Path of Exile II was definitely the star of the show of ExileCon 2023, the majority of its time and panels dedicated to it.  But it was not the only game getting coverage.  As I said in the last blog, GGG still plans to support the original Path of Exile for the foreseeable future.  And League Start is just a little over two weeks away.

PATH OF EXILE: TRIAL OF THE ANCESTORS

https://www.pathofexile.com/ancestor

In the new expansion, we'll be traveling with our old friend Navali to the Karui afterlife.  There, under the gaze of Hinekora, we will join with the greatest warriors of the Karui tribes in a great Tournament!

Yeah, it's time for a DBZ afterlife tournament arc!

Yes, that's right, Navali returns alongside her Silver Coins.  Only now, instead of prophecies, we'll be gaining entry into the tournament.  There, we'll assemble a team, plot out our strategy, and try to defeat the enemy Chieftains for game changing rewards.

Path of Autobattle

GGG loves riffing on popular trends in gaming.  From Pokemon to Battle Royal, many of their leagues, events, and April Fools jokes have been the devs trying to interpret something in their game.  We've had an endless dungeon, tower defense, Rogue-like, and I'm sure we'll get more in the future.  Some people are already saying Path of Exile II is a Souls-like!

In this new form of endgame content, we'll be putting together a team of legendary warriors and beasts, each with their own unique abilities, to defeat our enemies.  The goal of each game is to destroy the enemy totems before they destroy yours.  And if you die or fail, it's not game over.  The tournament is double elimination, so you get a second chance at victory.

Yes, you heard right, dying doesn't count in the tournament!  Since Hinekora is watching over you as her guest, you can't permanently die in this content.  Hardcore characters can experiment and try different strategies without fear.

Sweet, Sweet Loot!

But of course, what do we get for fighting in this tournament?  To start with, each Chieftain you can challenge has their own rewards you can earn if you defeat them.  This means even if you don't win the tournament, you'll still be rewarded for your time.  Additionally, challenging various Chieftains will be part of how we earn new heroes to join our team.

One of the new items you can get from these battles are Tattoos.  These Tattoos are used on specific small notables on your passive tree to change their bonus.  So you can turn a +10 Strength node into a Fire Resist node, or a +10 Int node into a Lightning Damage node.

If you win the Tournament, Hinekora will offer you special rewards.  One of these can be special tattoos that can change one of your +30 Attribute passives into a new large passive.  But that isn't the only new unique reward you can earn this way.

Probably the most common item you'll earn from winning the Tournament is an Omen.  These are one use consumable items that are automatically spent when you obtain a certain trigger.  It could open a Town Portal when you die or give you a huge damage boost when you level up.  Chris immediately put the obvious fear to rest during this announcement.  You can only use one Omen in any given area, so their won't be any benefit to filling your inventory with them.

But the chase item will almost certainly be Hinekora's Lock, a special currency item that let's you know the result of the next currency you use on an item.  This is an extremely powerful effect, as it drastically improves your most valuable currencies, so I'm betting these will not be easy to get.  The most obvious use would be to drop one of these on the item you're trying to perfect and then you might be able to check what each of your currency items will do to get the best effect.

Not So Forbidden Anymore

Like any expansion, the Trial of the Ancestors isn't the only content we're getting.  The first big announcement is that Sanctum League has gone core.  You will now be able to find Sanctums as tradeable items.  Each Forbidden Tome you find will grant you access to the first floor of the Sanctum.  After you complete that floor, you'll receive a new Tome that locks in your current Sanctum run.  You can then use that Tome yourself to keep your run going, or trade it to other players if you don't think you can make it.

GGG has also made improvements to Sanctum.  One complaint I had with the mode was that it completely nullifies your character's defenses.  So if you're playing a melee bruiser that relies heavily on Damage Reduction and Life Gain to clear content, Sanctum was all but impossible.  Now, your defenses will grant you a persistent passive effect within the Sanctum, allowing for builds that previously couldn't do well to possibly have a chance.  The encounters have also been rebalanced, and new rooms and encounters have been added.

Guardian and Chieftain Changes

While Guardians were still played, they'd clearly fallen behind the other Ascendencies.  And Chieftain has been struggling for a while now!  So this League, GGG is trying to improve these two Ascendencies.  Guardian is mostly an upgrade on what it could already do.  The largest change is that two of the Guardian passives give you access to all new minions.

Chieftain has been reworked from the ground up.  And while some of the passives are similar to what existed before, some are completely unrecognizable.  The Chieftain still has lots of ways to build pure fire if you want to dive deep into the Avatar of Fire archetype.  But Tukohama now gives your body armor Level 30 Ancestral Call and Level 20 Fist of War, allowing for 7-link Strikes and Slams before you add in Uniques.  There might be some real potential here!

Your Atlas Your Way

As part of GGG's continued effort to allow us to craft the endgame experience we most enjoy, they've added 16 new Keystone Passives to the Atlas Tree.  Most of these greatly overhaul an endgame mechanic in fun and interesting ways.  I won't get into all of the ones Chris revealed, but by far my favorites were the two Keystones that let you set off one massive explosive for Expeditions and that let Tormented Spirits possess you respectively.  Probably the one I was least enthused for is the one that lets us craft the Vaal Side Areas.  Though I did perk up a the mention of a Unique Vaal Side Area . . .

The Build Ideas!  They Won't Stop!

We're finally getting some meaningful meta shakeup in the form of 14 new Support Gems.  Each of these looked really cool, and provide significant new ways to modify your skills.  I'm sorry, but I am going to go through all of these!

Corrupting Cry supports War Cry skills and causes them to inflict Corrupted Blood on enemies in the radius.  Your exerted attacks also inflict Corrupted Blood.  Could a melee Bleed build finally be viable again?

With Returning Projectiles Support, Bow will probably still dominate the Bleed meta.  This support skill does exactly what it says on the tin, piercing all enemies on the return flight.  The most obvious use is to combine with any Projectile skill that does something on hit.  Kinetic Blast sounds fun to me!

Minion builds are hurting, but the Fresh Meat Support might help with that.  It gives an immediate buff whenever you summon the supported minion, granting Adrenaline, Increased Critical Strike Chance, and increased Critical Strike Damage.  SRS is back!

Flame Wood might be a fun one to try with the new Chieftain.  It causes supported totems to fight back with a mortar shot anytime they're attacked.  What's that?  They changed Arohongui so that your totems automatically taunt enemies?  Well isn't that interesting!

And while we're talking Totems, Sacrifice Support causes the spell to use a portion of your life, or a totem's life, when cast.  In exchange, the spell deals a portion of the sacrificed life as additional Chaos Damage.  I wonder if there's a way to get that Exploding Totems mod from the last league . . .

And if you're interested in the changes to Guardian, Frigid Bond supports a Link skill to cause the Link between you and your target to deal a Cold DOT.  Sounds like it goes great with the rework of Harmony of Purpose.  Might wanna grab some of those Omens that have Cast on Death effects though.

Yet even with all of those, I think I'm most excited about Locus Mine.  Locus Mine causes the supported Projectile Skill to shoot towards your location when detonated.  I love Explosive Arrow, and this might be a fun new way to play that skill.

Yeah.  I'm glad Baldur's Gate III is coming out soon, or this game would steal my life again.

PATH OF EXILE MOBILE

Being developed alongside PoE2, Path Mobile was completely overshadowed by its big brother's development.  Honestly, probably as it should be, but I do want more real games on Mobile.  Still, only one presentation was streamed to show how GGG's attempt at making a Hardcore game on the platform is going.

And it was without a doubt the worst presentation of the show!  I feel really bad for the presenters, as the feed was a stuttering mess.  Still, we did see a little of the game and how it's shaping up.

Path of Exile Mobile will take place around 20 years before the events of the original game.  In it, you play a sentenced Exile that is intercepted by Dominus.  The one day High Templar has discovered an Atlas Device and is looking for expendable recruits to explore it.  From the looks of things, the story will heavily involve many of the villains of Path of Exiles lore and might possibly shed more light into the creation of The Shaper.

The game looks like Path of Exile through and through.  Subtractem died multiple times during the hands on, and encountered some really hard enemies.  There also appears to be some potentially meaningful narrative choice in this game too.  Though telling Dominus you're not interested seems to result in your immediate death.  But when finding one of Dominus's agents in the Atlas, Subtractem was able to kill him instead of helping him report back.

My greatest concern here is definitely the controls.  I'm hoping you'll be able to use gear like the Backbone to play the game with a proper game controller.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Tempted as I am, I'm finally making progress on my game queue.  I've only just started painting Leviathan!  Slowly but surely I'm making meaningful progress towards many of the gamer goals put off so I could keep playing my favorite ARPG.  And as I said earlier, Baldur's Gate III comes out Sunday!  So I can't let Ancestors pull me back for another go.  Additionally, I'm still not happy with where loot is in the game, and there was no word on fixes coming for it.  Also weekend long marathons on League Start are definitely not good for my migraines.

This is the kind of logic I have to employ to not get sucked back into another month long binge!