Imperial Armour Compendium - Imperial Titans

Welcome, Princeps, to the beginning of our coverage of the new Imperial Armour Compendium that recently came up for pre-order.  We’ve been blessed to receive a preview copy to show you guys some of the upcoming stuff for your Titans in 9^th edition Warhammer 40,000.  Now, let’s dive in with the bread and butter of our experience, the Titans!  We’ll start with the Imperium Titans and work through Chaos Titans, Eldar, and Tyranids little by little.  At the end we’ll give you a review of the overall book.

“Two brand new factions for the first time in print” was indeed not what it implied.  In truth, these two factions (Chaos and Imperial Titans) had already received rules in the previous Index books from 8^th edition.  However, these factions have received the treatment of the Games Workshop studio to create the rules giving a lot more consistency with the overall game.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t get the major disappointment out of the way first.  There are no Titan Legion traits/tactics.  So, for those hoping to get some extra flavour to your Legio Astorum, Legio Ignatum, and the like, we don’t get that.  Maybe we’ll be fortunate that an Index Titan Legions or something will come out at a later time in White Dwarf.

Originally the thought had been to compare old stats to the new in depth, but we’re just going to dive right in and only call out major changes when they are truly worth it.

The Points and Power

In the “golden days of yore” (depending on your perspective) before the current style of 40k stats it was widely considered that Titans were very undercosted.  Under the new system they have felt vastly overcosted and there were further increases when the current edition dropped.  This book adjusts Titan points again and this time we feel they are much better.  We’ll go into more detail shortly, but here are the rough changes to the Titans.

• Warhounds – You still aren’t taking these guys to any ITC tournaments; no points cost or power level changes.
• Reavers – Shedding a quarter of your points cost and power level, the first of the Battle Titans looks considerably better and definitely sets itself up as the “cheap” Battle Titan that can still do a lot of damage.
• Warbringers – We finally get 40k rules in the new edition with all of the weapons. The weird half points, half stats are gone, too. However, this Titan didn’t come out on the best end of the stick. The power level drop wasn’t spectacular either.
• Warlords – A drop of nearly a fifth in points is quite the bonus for this Titan. The power level drop, which doesn’t even amount to a tenth, not so much.

The Stat Changes

What one hand giveth, the other taketh away, right? Yes…and no.  While most of the stat changes we’re about to list here do seem bad and seem to justify why the points came down, you’ll find that these changes are greatly offset, especially once we look at the massive jump in wounds, the NEW void shield rules, and your weapon buffs.

• Double digit stats for your engine (not the weapons) are gone.
• Warlords at S16 and T16 are no longer there and the same can be said for the other Battle Titans with their high S and T values. This does make your nigh-on-invincible God-Engines squisher to higher strength weapons but only a tad so when you think about it. The real loser here was the Warlord, but all Titans are at least S and T 8 at the minimum now.
• 2. BS2+ is gone now.
• Okay, that hurts. The super accurate initial fire of the Titans was something that made them absolutely deadly in the early turns.
• Your 3+ armor has been replaced by 2+!
• If you run a Warlord this isn’t a big change but any of the “lesser” Titans are now shaking with glee. However, the Warlord’s wounds jump is astronomical, probably in part due to the fact its armor save couldn’t get better than it already was.
• Macro
• Either you loved this rule or hated it. If you loved it, you’re going to be angry. If you hated it, you’re very happy since now it’s gone and has not been replaced by anything as yet we can see.
• Wound Brackets
• There are fewer wound brackets now and they are MUCH more generous on the decay table. Further, your void shields aren’t tied to them!

Wounds and Void Shields

Okay, so those stat changes made you easier to scratch in terms of toughness.  However, your shiny new 2+ armor save is great and if you’re a Warlord your wounds jump is insane to make up for the “stayed the same armor”.  We’ve mentioned the wounds a few times now, so what has the new book given us to offset the toughness nerf:

• Warhound - An increase of 43 percent in wounds; coupled with the new 2+ armor this increases the durability of the Warhound to the point it’s a scrapper that can take a few hits now.
• Reaver - Only picking up a sixth of the wounds is not a great jump but it’s definitely helpful, especially because of that new armor save.
• Warbringer – A 54 percent increase in wounds on top of the 2+ armor save makes this siege beast a huge winner in new wounds.
• Warlord – Adding nearly three-quarters of your old wound count clearly takes the cake. As far as we know, this is the first TRIPLE DIGIT wound model in the game. Durable, much?

We won’t lie, void shields in 8^th edition were a mess.  Initially the save was great but once the wounds started coming off and the decay kicked in your void shields were effectively garbage and nothing more than whispered prayers.  Now, void shields always work on a 5++, using your 2+ armor when it works better, and essentially offer you ablative wounds against shooting attacks.  Did we mention they regenerate until the shield is lost?  

The new void shields are MUCH better and will prove a tougher nut to crack before they can get to your new boosted-wound Titans.  Now the changes to the stats make a lot more sense and these changes to wounds and void shields more than make up for reduced toughness.  Further, with Macro gone, Titan vs Titan is no longer just point and delete, and choosing the firing order of your weapons just became even more important.

Weapons

So, there is ONE really bad thing that happened to Titans weapons.  If they don’t have a model for it, it’s not in the book.  Ouch.  We’re going to hope that if they add missing Titan weapons from previous editions that we at least get them in the 40k app as GW has mentioned before.  Oddly, for some reason the Warlord’s Macro Gatling Blaster is missing, which we think is an interesting error of omission (or at least we hope so).

Overall, there aren’t many changes to weapons.  All Macro weapons have gone to Heavy but this won’t be a problem for Titans since they ignore the movement penalty.  While there are some changes, we won’t detail them here but it’s safe to say that other than the reduced AP on the Vulcan Mega Bolter that any changes to weapons ended up being positive for damage output, number of shots, or other stats.

Final Thoughts

Titans got much better!  Yes, some of the stat changes hurt, but overall the vast increase in wounds, upgraded armor save, better weapons, and brand new void shield rules make Titans an absolute threat that may well justify their new points cost.  It’s safe to say that now it will take an overwhelming amount of firepower to kill a Titan and that their weapons will cause plenty of fear on the tabletop.  Long live the kings.