Our own Princeps Adie has brought us a classic to share, and rather than rehash his excellent work we're sharing his article as a guest feature. If you want to see more of Princeps Adie's blog, give it a visit.
"I'd been following the touching story of Nate, a young man who was diagnosed with 2 brain tumours neither of them are operable, one of the many side effects of these tumours is memory loss. Like many of us, Nate is Warhammer mad and uses the hobby to escape some of his everyday struggles, something i recognised early on as a kindred spirit. He had been visiting many GW stores while touring around the UK, while down here in England i'd mentioned to Nates mum that I'd be happy to arrange a game for Nate, one for his scrap book that he wouldn't forget i'd hope, taking up position in the Princeps thone and commanding Legio Victorum to sound their Warhorns and walk in anger against the Heretical Chaos Space Marines of the Black Legion, roughly 4,500 points of armour and demon engines!!! My buddy Chris (grimdark_future_studio on IG) very kindly took up the offer of a Titanic scrap and brought his army down, and Nates brother Cam took control of those. Store Manager Grant of Games Workshop Doncaster agreed to provide the 6x4 Gaming table very kindly on a cold Sunday November morning and the plan was in place, Nate had no idea what was waiting for him! (Had to have a quick blast out Warhammer World in Nottingham the day before because I didn't have the rules for the Titans!!)
Legio Victorum was already at the store following Armies On Parade.
With the Warmaster Chris by Cams side they went Titan hunting and took the first turn roll off. Already on the backfoot the Titans directed full power to Void shields and braced for an almighty barrage of firepower coming their way!
Legio Victorum did take some damage in the first turn with the entire Black Legion force focusing everything it had directly at the Reaver Titan, "Vow Of Zealous Fury" Luckily for us the damage sustained wasn't enough to drop a bracket, so the Black Legion would be standing infront of a battle Titan firing at its full strength for a turn at least, directing all power to primary weapon systems!!
Princeps Nate did exactly what experienced Titan crews would do, scan the sector for prey of its own kind, Titans revel in showing their might against rival God-engines. With no enemy Titans here, Princeps Nate spotted the next best target, a Heretical Knight Castellan, much feared in 8th edition 40k as the King of meta winning tournament lists boasting an obscene amount of high strength fire power, it absolutely had to be removed at all costs. Nate charged up the Laser blaster of Zealous Fury and unleashed all hell on the big Knight, with a salvo of laser fire at full strength. Thanks to the Macro rule of 8th edition when damage was doubled against Titanic units, the Knight was absolutely obliterated entirely with over 60 wounds inflicted, killing it 2x times over and leaving a smoldering ditch where the war machine had been stood! The rest of the turn was spent just tickling wounds off enemy armour. I'd taken a good mix of anti infantry and anti vehicle weaponry and we wasn't facing any infantry! (Although it was a friendly game, we didn't want to proxy any Titan weapons but a Volcano cannon would have been glorious instead of Gatling blaster) by the time the silence fell on the sector we had managed to inflict some substantial damage to the Black tide. I completely let Nate choose his targets and didn't interfere with any of his decision making, it was his day and I wanted it to stay that way.
The next turn saw the Black Legion drop a bracket on the Reaver Titan and the engine really started falling off a cliff, either wiping out targets entirely or catastrophically missing its mark, when you're only packing two weapons to take out a sea of enemy armour, one doing nothing at all was very hard felt blow! A lot of enemy armour had been whittled away or crippled enough to not need to worry about them so much. Both engines paying a lot of attention to a very large demon engine, a Lord Of Skulls, and a traitor Baneblade, perhaps taking an eye off the reamining Questoris Knights which was moving down the flank!
Turn 3 was a brutal for us with some really poor saves, I hadn't had the time to digest the rules for the engines properly and let Nate down a little with a lack of understanding with the Void shields really work but the Reaver was dragged down to just 4 wounds remaining, and the Questoris Knight with Thunderstrike Gauntlet got into close melee combat with the Titans legs crippling the walker and ending the day early for the God-engine! It had moved forwards with the intent of its reactors going thermonuclear among the enemy lines and causing mass devastation but instead rested in peaceful slumber. Important lessons was learned for the young Princeps, Knights do pose a real threat to Titans and you can't ignore them.
Turn 4 was called a draw, the family had a long drive ahead of them back to Scotland and Nate was looking visibly very tired out, we had lost our primary Firepower with the primary battle Engine, and the enemy had been mostly crippled in return, I think they had 3 Vindicators still at full strength, the Warhound was still in its top bracket and was effectively removing wounds here and there from everything it looked at but was far from killing anything out right, it lacked the all out destructive power output of the Reaver and the forces left I do believe would have dragged the remaining engine down in a few more turns with 35 wounds to get through, but time had run out! Other players that had the table booked was waiting for their slot, a draw between the brothers probably led to a much nicer drive home and I think was the best outcome of a very friendly fun game. Princeps Nate, we needed that turn 1 advantage, that extra turn of firing at full power and things might have been a bit different, at least another Knight or two gone maybe!!
Its not often you see Titans on the battlefield so it was fun to see what they could do, and hopefully continue to raise the profile of the Titan Owners Club in our area. It was fun to represent them again just a few weeks after Armies On Parade and felt a lot of positivity towards what we do and the models!
I hope Nate has a day to remember for his Warhammer scrap book! Thats the most important thing! Last time I heard there was rumours of potential Titan ownership for him! That would be amazing to see!!
As for the Titans, the stricken Engine of Vow Of Zealous Fury was collected up and the tech priests have worked tirelessly to get her restored to former glory, and she is still on active duty with Legio Victorum, purging xenos and heretics, though rumour has it she has a new found hatred of Knights and the machine spirit awakens at times when she scans Knight banners on the horizon, the crew works hard to real her back that Zealous fury she's named after!"
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