Welcome, Princeps!
Today we’re starting
our review of the newest supplement for Adeptus Titanicus, Crucible of
Retribution. We’ll walk you through the book itself, the
lore found in this supplement, and all of the new goodies in this mission-heavy
add-on for the beloved game.
THE BOOK
The fifth supplement in Adeptus Titanicus, Crucible of Retribution, is a hardback book that details the cold war and eventual devastation of the Belt of Iron. Side note: we saw a special Mechanicum Knight on the cover of the previous book, but this time we see an image of a model of them in the back pages of this book. Still portents of things to come?
Coming in at just 100 pages, the new expansion is very much an expansion of options instead of building up new mechanics or bulking out rules for factions and forces. So, what’s new?
- New lore on the Belt of Iron and the planets and systems that comprise it
- Four new narrative missions for the Belt of Iron
- Fifteeen (15) new narrative missions for various conditions
- Legion rules for eight (8) Titan Legios; 4 Loyalists, 3 Traitors, and 1 Succesionist/Blackshield
- Lore and rules for four (2) Knight Households
- Two (2) new maniples, including one that is a modified Axiom maniple
It is interesting to note this time that there are NO NEW appendices, weapons, or even rules for specific warzones. However, the 15 missions represent fights on Death Worlds, Forge Worlds, and Hive Worlds, and somewhat take the place of the warzone rules. This also vastly increases the number of missions that players have available when they don’t wish to play the campaign-based missions. This particular aspect is what makes Crucible of Retribution feel like an overall expansion rather than a mechanic builder.
THE LORE
We receive another two-page map that shows the absolute scale of the Belt of Iron. Granted, it’s not the most detailed map, but it is well-drawn and helps to show just how large a warzone this book covers. The warzone itself is so large that it wasn’t just one string of battles like Ryza or Molech, but a two-Segmentum-spanning assault that took years. Twenty-six (26) pages of lore cover the planets and the timeline of this epic conflict. That is by far the most pages dedicated to the lore of any Titanicus supplement.
We alluded to the cold war nature of the Belt of Iron previously and this is due to a lot of long-standing enmity between the Forge Worlds that dominate and comprise the seats of power in the Belt of Iron. When the Imperium of Man first arrived during the Great Crusade it took a lot to get many of these Forge Worlds to bend the knee to the Emperor, something that lingers well beyond the Compliance of those worlds having happened. Further, some of these Compliance actions were brought about through open war with members of the Belt of Iron that acquiesced to the Imperium earlier than others and subsequently acting as arbiters of the Imperium’s enforcement of Compliance. Hate breeds hate as they say, and this led to a festering anger among the inhabitants of the region. That anger would eventually lead to the battlelines being drawn and ultimately the decision of supporting the Emperor, the Warmaster, or the planet’s own freedom.
The cold war, like that fought by the United States and Soviet Union of old, initially begins with shadow skirmishes that eventually ends in full-scale war with Titan Legions deciding the fate of the Belt of Iron, leading to what becomes known as the Cataclysm of Iron as the worlds tear themselves apart. Where we really have to give this book props is that the lore is deeper than usual and given a lot of attention. The return of the timeline system is a very nice touch along with the bevy of pages dedicated to planetary descriptions and images.
Crucible of Retribution is off to a great start.
