Emperor Battle Titan - has anyone actually used one?

[The Silent One]

Thisis an old post but for the 4000 points of an emperor I could take 17 monoliths with av14 all roun rather than 13 at the back an loving metal, deep strike all of them too his feet and rip him to shreds with my particle whip and get up to 17 squads through my eternity gates, perhaps 170 lychguard with war scythes penetrating on a 6 on the back armour. Or doom scythes deployed right forward hope I get First turn. Go forward the full 36 inches he can't shoot me. Then next turn open fire with my remaining doom scythes with there strength 10 ap1 guns and rip him up again. And if only take 21 doom scythes I'll get imotekkh the storm lord and seize initiative on a four plus. And if I do the monolith thingy I'd have the game in my hand. The only problem is the money factor. That'd cost me $4369(nz dollar) so in a world where I'm really rich I'd cut up the Titan =>

Someones confident , but thats all in theory really, you'd still have to be very lucky because don't forget about the void shields it has, the models it'll be carrying in its feet and it probably won't be the only thing in the army. In all honesty it would probably rip 17 Monoliths apart due to its access to a load of STR D at a stupidly high range. I'd put money on an Emperor Titan over any amount of units combined worth 4000pts anyday.

[MightisRight]

Titan vs 267 scarab swarms ;P.

But seriously, now that monoliths can mishap, and the fact the the titan's feet will probably be swarming with guys, that monolith tactic probably wouldn't work so great.

What could ruin it's day against necrons is crypteks. They can get unlimited range entropic attacks, which could really be a bummer for a titan.

[CaptainSarathai]

In the few Apoc games that I've played, I've seen everything from Reavers and BioTitans, up through to the Imperator classes. I've got to say, Warhounds are fun, I love seeing them, I love fighting against them, they seem pretty balanced. Reavers aren't even that bad, and Titan vs. Titan duels are just phenomenal to watch. But Imperators are a bit broken, even at 4k.
What you all forget is that they aren't the only Superheavy on that side of the table. So you end up with one of two things happening:
1. Everybody panics and blows away the Imp as soon as possible, meanwhile the Baneblades, Warhounds, Shadowstorms, etc all move into effective range and wreak havoc.
2. The Imperator commander isn't a total moron, and his team actually supports him. The combined arms take down most of the threats that might worry the Imperator, and then in subsequent turns it just runs rampant around the board.

One of the best games of 40k that I ever played was a massive multi-table affair which took up most of a college community center. It combined 40k, Epic, and BFG, alongside books like PlanetStrike, Apocalypse, Cityfight, and Imperial Armor to create a simply unforgettable 14 hour gaming marathon. There were two 6x8 tables, one with a planet in the middle for the BFG game, and one with a city in the center for Epic. If your BFG fleet was over the planet you could deepstrike models and make orbital strikes, and if an Epic formation entered the city it returned X-points worth of models as reserves, plus Titans and the likes could bombard the city (count as Orbital strikes, or the appropriate 40k/IA weapon, depending). The rest of the tables were "linked" to create a massive 30x16 city ruin play area. Moonscape boards were used in some cases to represent heavily shelled parts of the city that just "weren't there anymore".
In this entire battle, there were only 2 Imperators on the 'Good' side, and 1 Chaos Imperator on the 'Evil' side. They were actually able to utilize their long range weaponry, but their actual firepower was mitigated by the fact that reserves were being brought in almost constantly to replace the losses, and there were so many fliers and orbital strikes available (plus huge titans outside the city firing in) that the Imperators were really fighting for their own survival just as often as they were going on a fire-frenzy in the enemy ranks.

It was a great game, I have some pretty epic memories from that day, and I think it contributed to ruining "regular" 40k or Apocalypse for me forever after.

[Bdoydie]

I agree that in theory Titans are awesome, but they do have major flaws if not used properly (like most units) you you dont have enough infantry round their feet to keep things at range you are doomed, I know a guy who has a reaver titan and it got destroyed by genestealers. All the firepower in the universe will do you no good if its on one giant model with a "Kill me quick" sign above its head, and 4000pts on one model unless you are playing at least 5K I can justify, yes the model would look amazing and could kill loads, but if your opponent knows you have it and they have written the proper list even if you get first turn you are in trouble, because if you are playing a 4K game and your entire army is in one model, they just have to get one unit into close combat and you are screwed, although that unit does have to be able to damage it. But if they don there is nothing you can do exception sit back and start rolling for saves.

[Djones9916]

In the few Apoc games that I've played, I've seen everything from Reavers and BioTitans, up through to the Imperator classes. I've got to say, Warhounds are fun, I love seeing them, I love fighting against them, they seem pretty balanced. Reavers aren't even that bad, and Titan vs. Titan duels are just phenomenal to watch. But Imperators are a bit broken, even at 4k.
What you all forget is that they aren't the only Superheavy on that side of the table. So you end up with one of two things happening:
1. Everybody panics and blows away the Imp as soon as possible, meanwhile the Baneblades, Warhounds, Shadowstorms, etc all move into effective range and wreak havoc.
2. The Imperator commander isn't a total moron, and his team actually supports him. The combined arms take down most of the threats that might worry the Imperator, and then in subsequent turns it just runs rampant around the board.

One of the best games of 40k that I ever played was a massive multi-table affair which took up most of a college community center. It combined 40k, Epic, and BFG, alongside books like PlanetStrike, Apocalypse, Cityfight, and Imperial Armor to create a simply unforgettable 14 hour gaming marathon. There were two 6x8 tables, one with a planet in the middle for the BFG game, and one with a city in the center for Epic. If your BFG fleet was over the planet you could deepstrike models and make orbital strikes, and if an Epic formation entered the city it returned X-points worth of models as reserves, plus Titans and the likes could bombard the city (count as Orbital strikes, or the appropriate 40k/IA weapon, depending). The rest of the tables were "linked" to create a massive 30x16 city ruin play area. Moonscape boards were used in some cases to represent heavily shelled parts of the city that just "weren't there anymore".
In this entire battle, there were only 2 Imperators on the 'Good' side, and 1 Chaos Imperator on the 'Evil' side. They were actually able to utilize their long range weaponry, but their actual firepower was mitigated by the fact that reserves were being brought in almost constantly to replace the losses, and there were so many fliers and orbital strikes available (plus huge titans outside the city firing in) that the Imperators were really fighting for their own survival just as often as they were going on a fire-frenzy in the enemy ranks.

It was a great game, I have some pretty epic memories from that day, and I think it contributed to ruining "regular" 40k or Apocalypse for me forever after.

I can completely understand how that would make every game from that day forward just seem a pale shadow. I was actually in awe reading that, just marvelling at the amount of thought that had to go into it to make it run smoothly.

[CaptainSarathai]

I was a section commander during the game because of the size of my army (my friend and I registered together, with a total of almost 10k between us in Marines and Guard), but I had nothing to do with the planning of the event. From what I was told, it took about 6 months and was meant to bring together the gaming groups of two colleges and a few outside stores.
If you can remember or participated in "The Battle for the Rock" - the Dark Angels themed megabattle that GW did a few years back, this was similar to that but far more successful and less of a clusterf**k. I attribute the failure of the DA megabattle to poor GW planning but also to the number of players involved.
Our game started out rough - the pacing between turns of BFG and Epic, versus the turns for the 40k guys was getting a bit ridiculous. Eventually it was decided that for every player turn of 40k that was played, there would be two full turns of BFG and Epic. Communication was worked out by "sector", a 5-table cluster. Anyone tasked with defending/asaulting that sector reported to their Sector Command, who reported to the Lord Solar or Warmaster, respectively. The Lord Solar and Warmaster oversaw the entire battle, with the Fleet Admiral of the BFG table reporting to him. The LS/WM as standing by at the Epic Table as their commander.

Highlight of the game was definitely the IA stuff. Getting to see Thunderhawks in action, as well as the monster dogfights between Fighters (apparently it's relatively easy to scratch build Fighta Bommaz, so Orks had air-superiority the whole time) above the city. There was also a "real" Titan Legion formed of 3 Warhounds around an Imperator and massive Guard armored company. The two guys who fielded that mess were considered "Titan Princeps" and were a sector of their own. The other two Emps just walked around alone (and subsequently died for it). The final charge of the Destruction forces almost made me feel bad for Orks - their whole team put all of the Orks on the front line and used them for meatshields. There was a pretty awesome Waagh! cheer, and then someone got the bright idea to put the song "Being Green" by Kermit onto the speakers once the Orks got into bolter-range. The last surviving Ork barely made it across the midline of the battlefield, amidst cheers from both sides ferverently hoping that he'd pass his cover saves. If I remember, it was the hull-mounted Flamer on a Chimera that took him down.