Warlord Battle Titan

A Warlord Battle Titan taking part in an enormous assault with Space Marines. It's the cover of a book by Dan Abnett, did you expect anything less?

The backbone of the Adeptus Titanicus, the Warlord Battle Titan is the Imperium of Man's primary battle titan, undertaking the majority of the frontline combat action, it stands at approximately 33 metres tall (100 feet), and will be a enormously significant presence in any battle. It is a newer and more powerful model of Battle Titan than its smaller brother, the Reaver. It is crewed by a Princeps, Steersman, Moderati, and Sensori. Also comes with 1 techpriest, along with 4 Servitors manning the weapons. Most Warlords you see in art, especially older art, is the blocky Lucius Pattern Warlord, but the more curvy one sold by Forgeworld is called the Mars-Alpha pattern. Just in case you were confused.

Weaponry

The Warlord Battle Titan has four weapon mounts: two for the arms and two carapace weapons.

Possible arm mounted weapons are the Sunfury Plasma Annihilator, Morai Quake Cannon, Belicosa Volcano Cannon, Macro Gatling Blaster, Saturnyne Lascutter and the Arioch Power Claw (with built-in Vulcan Mega-Bolter).

Possible carapace mounted weapons are the Apocalypse Missile launcher, Vortex Missile Bank, Vulcan Mega-Bolter, Plasma Blastgun, Melta Cannon, Gatling Blaster, Inferno Gun and the Turbo-Laser Destructor

Forge World wants a word with you...

RIDE THE FUCKING LIGHTNING!!

FORGE WORLD JUST RELEASED A FULL BUNDLE OF LIKE 5 TITANS FOR THE COST OF ONE WARLORD TITANS. RIP APOCALYPSE. ALSO TITAN LEGION GAMES ARE NOW POSSIBLE WITHOUT BEING A DRUG LORD. As for April 2015, Forge World, our favorite "sell your liver to buy our AWESOME products" company has decided to add the Warlord Titan as a playable unit in the Horus Heresy ruleset. It's up to the reader to decide what to think about it.

7th Edition / Horus Heresy Games

The Titan itself is nothing short of an unstoppable death machine, with a bunch of unique rules that were apparently made for the sole purpose of making it impossible to be taken out by anything besides another Warlord Titan. To clarify:

• It has THIRTY Hull Points and AV 15/15/14 in addition to its six void shields, and gets a 5+ invulnerable save against any attacks that breach its shields.
• It can aim its Blast weapons wherever it likes, rather than being forced to only target enemy units which lets it vaporize Invisibility spamming Deathstars.
• In addition to the normal Super-heavy Walker rules, it can't be hurt by Haywire attacks, dangerous terrain, or any non-witchfire psychic powers, can never be locked in an assault, and can only be hit by infantry and MCs in assault on a roll of 6+ (5+ if the unit assaulting it is a GC or another super-heavy walker). Oh, and it has Armored Ceramite too so melta weapons won't do shit either. Additionally, its Stomp attacks use a Large Blast template.
• The only thing keeping it from being completely broken is the fact that its base cost is 2750 points, which can increase up to 3050 points.
• Nearly all of its weapons options are free, and it has a pair of built-in weapons that allow it to Overwatch on top of giving it the ability to fire Snap Shots with them at BS2. You know, in case someone ignores the whole "assault is worthless against it" thing.
• In the absurdly rare event it ever does get destroyed, it produces a 36-inch blast that has a 1 in 3 chance of being Strength D no matter how far you are from the center of the blast.

As ridiculous as it already is to own a Reaver Titan, never mind deploy one into the tabletop, anyone who has the cash to buy a Warlord would probably be better off using that money on something they can actually use, as the odds of finding someone stupid enough to go up against a Warlord are roughly equal to that of the Traitor Legions renouncing the Dark Gods and returning to the light of the Emperor. It's possible a group of friends or perhaps entire gaming clubs could put money together to buy a Warlord, and while that's probably the only way to make buying one reasonable, again, finding another group of friends or gaming club that would (or could) go up against it would be problematic to say the least.

The price of this whale penis of wallet rape comes to a glorious total of £1,240, $2000 USD and $2629 AUD. That's about as expensive as a used car in good condition or a few months of gas. It's almost as if the Warlord is actually an elaborate prank on GW's part, and whenever one actually sells the Forge World crew filling out the order slow whistles and says "Bugger all, some dumb wanker actually bought that?"

God-Emperor save us all.

8th Edition

Because it apparently wasn't good enough in 7th, the 8th edition Warlord was upgraded with the Macro rule, an invul save, more than doubled its hull points, starts the game shooting at BS2+ and can move 18".

• It has 70 wounds (yes, 70 wounds) at toughness 16 (This means a Lasgun or a Bolter has the same chance of wounding it than a Meltagun or a Power Fist) with a 3+ invul against everything that doesn't come from a melee weapon, including mortal wounds. The invul drops to 4+ after 10 wounds, and 5+ after 30 wounds, but frankly its 2+ armour save won't care much.
• All but 2 of its weapon options have the Macro special rule, which double any damaged caused to other Titanic keyword targets. It's instakilling Imperial/Renegade Knights with each weapon and leaving other Titans on the verge of destruction.
• All of its weapon options are free, but then it costs 4,000 points. Chapter Approved! 2017 has massaged this up to 6K, a 50% increase in points.
• It has 5x4 attacks in close combat at S16 doing 3 damage each unless you give it a dedicated close combat weapon, in which case it becomes 5 attacks at S32 doing 12 damage each.
• It can simply walk out of combat whenever it likes to no negative effect and can shoot non-Titanic units within 1" of it normally. And it comes with guns that let it Overwatch.
• All enemy models within 9" gain a d6 to their morale checks, so anyone not simply slain by its attacks has a high chance of pissing themselves and fleeing.

Warlord-Sinister Pattern Battle Psi-Titan

A rare picture on what the Psychic Titan will look like, courtesy of Inferno. Tl;dr, the Mechanicus Emperor saw the wonder that is the Eldar Warlock Titan and 'borrowed' its design philosophy.

"While the Warlord-Sinister appears to be a singular creation in form and function, the concept of the 'Psi-Titan' however is not an entirely unknown one, at least in the annals of the Great Crusade's foes, and even the more obscure reaches of the Mechanicum's own Titan lore. In the depths of pre-Unification history, there are numerous occluded references of what might be described as 'Psi-Titans'; in this case, Titan engines designed to be piloted by and amplify the powers of a single psyker as experiments and unique relic engines of war. Though now long suppressed by Martian orthodoxy, what became of the machines themselves or the sub-cults of the Omnissiah who created and piloted them remains unknown. Among the psychically potent xenos species with which Mankind has warred, psi-construct war engines were known to be possessed by both the Eldar and the Fra'al, and more tenuously by the now exterminated Vaxal'rek, some of which easily matched the Titans of the Imperium in scale if not always in form."

– Horus Heresy: Inferno

As if regular Warlords weren't bad enough, the Emperor decided to create a new breed of Titan. The Psi-Titan.

The important thing to note is that they are PSI Titans, not PSYCHIC. In a Psychic Titan the pilot is a psyker. In a Psi Titan the pilot is an untouchable because otherwise they would die from the sheer amount of screaming in the warp from all the tortured shackled Alpha psykers that are used to power the thing. Yes, a Psi-Titan works by chaining a bunch of Alpha-grade Psykers to the Titan and bleeding them dry to fuel the Titan's weapons and protect it from harm, the third most Grimdark thing in all 40k to date, after the Dark Eldar and, of course, the Daemonculaba.

The Technology for the Ordo Sinister Psi Titans is exclusive to the Emperor - aside from the Warlord titan it is mounted on. The Big E demanded a whole bunch of (25, to be exact) Warlords for the Ordo Sinister until eventually the Mechanicum reluctantly gave them up. They were kept a strict secret until their deployment, with only two instances of Psi-Titans fighting before Prospero, one instance a single one is used to bring a whole planet in submission through the sheer manifest terror of a few dozen tortured psykers enhanced through forbidden technology. The other, three where deployed against demented Eldar (the forerunners of the Dark Eldar) from an adrift craftworld in active combat, utterly wrecked said Craftworld although losing one of their own in the process.

Oh yeah, did I mentioned again that the Titan is commanded by a psychic Blank. Don't know how that hasn't killed off the strapped psykers yet. But whatever the case may be, you can bet your ass Eldar players are beyond pissed that the filthy Mon'Keigh manage to get a psychic Titan before they (A species who actually HAD a psychic Titan that is still awaiting a modern update) did.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

Have you ever wanted your Warlord to be capable of psychic cheese on top of all its other cheese? You're in luck, because Forge World has introduced the Warlord-Sinister Pattern Psi-Titan. Making its mundane cousin look cheap at 3250 points base, it gains the following new tricks:

• Psychic Pilot, with ML3 and the following powers:
  • A 6 bolter-shot equivalent Nova with Soulblaze and Ignores Cover.
  • A blessing that allows it to regenerate Hull Points on a 5+, because it wasn't hard enough to kill already.
  • A witchfire which hits all units within 24" of a point with a Haywire hit (for vehicles-EVEN FLYERS) or d6 Heavy Bolter shots (PER 5 MODELS) if it's infantry.
• Forces Ld checks for all units within 12" of it.
  • Anyone insane enough to try and charge it takes the test with a -3 penalty.
• Swaps one of its default Volcano Cannons for a new weapon, the Sinistramanus Tenebrae. It's an absurdly long-ranged apocalyptic mega-blast that's Strength D, with Fleshbane on its middle circle and Poison 4+ on its outer circle, and AP 1/2/3 for its respective ranges. Oh, and the innermost circle is a Vortex so a lucky roll on the Destroyer table probably won't save you.
• Its death explosion has a 50/50 chance of being Strength D, so there's an even better chance that it'll fuck over anyone nearby if it goes down.

Chaos Warlord Titan

LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKKKYYYYYYY!!!!!!

Just like all the other Titans, Chaos has its own spin on the Warlord Titan. To differentiate these corrupted Warlords from their Imperial counterparts, the Imperium has designated these war machines with different class names that have been happily adopted by these Titans' Renegade crews. In fact, it has four- one for each of the Dark Gods. Even though there are different versions of the Chaos-altered Warlord-class Titan, the most commonly seen variant operating with the Forces of Chaos is the Banelord Titan, 'Cause you know, GeeDubs has a Slaaneshi hard on for Khorne and all.

• Banelord-Class Titan: The most common of the Chaos Warlord Titans is devoted to Khorne and has two additional guns- one in its mouth and another on the tail that is attached to its back. On top of the guns normal Warlord Titans get, it can also equip a Havoc Missile Rack, a Hellstrike Cannon, and a Doomfist.
• Warplord-Class Titan: Not much is known about these, except that they're dedicated to Tzeentch.
• Plaguelord-Class Titan: We don't know much about the Warlord Titans dedicated to Nurgle either, other than that they exist.
• Painlord-Class Titan: No fluff on Slaanesh's dedicated Warlords either. You'd think GW wasn't putting effort into this.

They are the remnants of those Traitor Titan Legions who sided with the Renegade Warmaster Horus during a particularly fun night and whose blasphemous names still echo with dread thousands of Terran years later. The majority of these monstrous war engines have seen millennia of service with Chaotic foces and have long since become utterly corrupted by the touch of the Ruinous Powers and the Warp.

• 

  Banelord in all its derptastic and ragebound glory.

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  Plaguelord conversion in its Epic Style of rot, decay and Nurgle's love.

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  Warplord conversion. Don't ask why it has a Flamer for a dick.

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  Painlord. Cause if you want some Titan-grade tits, go full throttle.

Meanwhile in 8th Edition...

In 8th edition our special horned junkies finally receive their own Warlord Titan with all the rules to compensate. Seeing as how 8th edition is more focused on the Imperials vs Chaos, it is natural for the forces of Chaos to have the Chaos Warlord Titan to balance the scales of play. At 70 Wounds, 16 Strength & Toughness all round, 5 Attacks, Leadership of 10, a 2+ Save with the Movement phase of 18" and being able to carry weapons similar to that of the conventional Warlord. This thing is a rape machine incarnate. Unless you got your own Titan legion, this 2 feet hulking bastard is going to lay waste on a single turn. It is time to pile up on those heavy duty Titan-killers and big guns lads cause this thing is going in dry.

Beating the Warlord

• Pick up the Warlord, then swing with all your might. At the worst you'll give the smug owner one hell of a concussion.
• If anyone has any theoryhammer on taking this monstrosity down, it would be appreciated.
  • Bring your own warlord, a Reaver with nothing but D Spam weapons, or (bare minimum) a Shadowsword.
  • The Space Marine Legion list now has a titan killer par excellence in form of the Falchion upgraded with the Neutron Wave Capacitor for 560 points a pop. Take at least 2 and support with a sprinkling of other units to keep the void shields down and watch the Warlord never shoot as it suffers from continual shock pulse D hits courtesy of those tasty twin-linked Volcano Cannons. Cerberus swarms can also be used to a similar but less reliable effect. As can Valdor tank hunters, but you're depending utterly on getting first turn.
  • Ordinati Minoris are practically made for trolling Titans. The Ordinatus Dispersion Shield reduces the damage of D strength weapons for three straight turns. Starting at -3, than -2 on the turn after that, and -1 on turn three. For troll points taking both the Sagittar and Ulator cost 975 points less than the Warlord. This will force him to focus on destroying one of the Ordinati as fast as possible. By turn 4 he will have lost his Void Shields while at least one Minoris will still have their own shields up. If he didn't focus on an Ordianti your opponent will have screwed himself big time.
  • fuckin spam the D
  • resign
  • karate kick it
  • flip the god damned table
  • cock shot the child size shit show
  • run away screaming
  • Sly Marbo
  • a trollshark firing at max range
  • Weep because officially you can only use one grenade per squad in close combat.
• 7th Ed approaches:
  • Serious attempt, Non apocalypse
    • Take 30 Tactical terminators with Chainfists, in a first company task force of 10-10-10 with black templar chapter traits. Optionally add Typhoon missiles for the void shields - 1500, 1730~ for adding in 2x 5 man sternguard squad w/ drop pods for step 3. Optionally add grav for popping void shields
    • take allied guard for 3 priests - 75 (195 including CS & Veterans tax, optional lascannons for void shields)
    • Take 3 conclave of level 2 librarians - 810 - optional grav pistols/combi meltas for void shields
    • roll electro displacement for each conclave, adding whatever if you get it early. Place librarians in a drop pod - optionally give them jump packs to reduce scatter effect or use bikes if not going for 1ctf drop pods. Drop in front of the titan
    • Electrodisplace large termie squads. turn 1 charge
    • Avg 25~30 hits from 74~96 attacks with zealot - Variance introduced due to over watch which if it only kills one termie, increases one squads effectiveness by 20% thanks to BT's RAGE.
    • Avg 20~ pens with preferred enemy armourbane (NOT melta) and another 5-7 glances
    • 10~ more hull points from Explodes!! results thanks to AP2.
    • 2735 pts of plastic > 3050 pts of resin. Add in termie captains with chainfist and combi melta (void shield) or CF/LC for better margins.
    • save 1-2 terminators from resultant Titan explosion. Save yourself from resultant owner rage explosion. Gold plate models and never use again.
  • Serious Attempt, Non Apocalypse 2: Boogaloo
    • Since Apoc is nigh upon dead these days, and the Cadian Battlegroup formations are a thing, take the emperor's fury, with 3 Shadowswords.
    • Pair said shadowswords with an emperor's fist, chock full of vanquishers, all within 12" of the tank commander, for BS4 shenanigans
    • Void shield generators bitches...
    • Group up, and HIT IT TIL IT DIES!
    • It's not guaranteed, but hell if it won't be fun. Besides, Shadowswords are titan hunters, it's kinda why they were built...
    • Alternatively, just take 6 shadowswords, since you could probably get them for the same points cost that the Warlord Player paid to get it on the table.
  • Serious Attempt, Non Apocalypse 3: Battle of the Bank Balances
    • Take 3x Galant Lances, 2925 pts w/o upgrades
    • start 12" from the board, move 12, charge with a reroll
    • 54 st D attacks (rage), avg 27 hits
    • 22~ non 1 results on D table, or more importantly 4~ Devastating Hit results on D table; 24+ 4~24 HP
    • Weep, for in victory is defeat.
  • How I Did It:
    • 8x D Reaver, Marauder, 3x vendettas in reserve, 12' table hammer & anvil
    • Master of the Fleet attached to coms array hiding behind a bastion for no line of sight
    • turn 2, marauder + Vendettas outflank (warlord trait) break void shields
    • Reaver gets 8 hits, scores 3 6s and one failure - 18 HP down, 8 more for D's D6 results - 26/30 hp
    • Fails save aganst 3 of the 4 solid hits, - 5 HP, 1 explosion result, 32 hp down
    • Titan Explodes, kills Mortarion on a 6 D roll.
• You could just field 5 Tau'nars w/ Heavy Railcannon Arrays?

• 8th Ed Approaches:
  • Take 1,000 Imperial guardsmen (also 4,000 points, and about the same price assuming $1/guardsman) which on 25mm bases edge to edge will occupy slightly over 8 square feet. If you space out your army correctly it will be physically impossible for the warlord to step out of combat and so it'll only wipe out a single squad of guardsmen a turn, whilst you can simply throw in another 10 dudes to gum up its leg actuators after the rest have zapped it. Each lasgun having a 1/72 chance of wounding it, and a minimum of perhaps 600 shots every turn, not counting first rank second rank or rapid fire bonuses.
  • 9 Shadowswords ( 3870 pts ). This is a bit risky as the Warlord can feasibly kill all of them in 1 turn of shooting, and will almost certainly be going first.
  • Drop Pod Dev Grav Spam (13 Squads ) Average 10 wounds a turn causing d3 damage each
  • 2 warhounds with dual turbolasers (3800) 6d3 shots with a 27~% of causing 2d6 X 2 damage each
  • 30 Dark Angel Librarians on Bikes (3930) using smite and mind worm for d3-d6 + 1 Mortal wound a turn each.
  • 100 cyclops demolition tanks (4000) each will do an average of 1 wound, gradually increasing as the void shields drop. probably the most expensive method at £1400
  • 70 Death Company with Thunder Hammers and Jump Packs will kill the beast on Turn 1 and cost 2520 points. Add some Guardsman for anchors and Deep Strike them behind the Warlord.
  • How I did it (8th)
    • Volcano Cannon/Laser blaster/Plasma Blastgun Reaver Titan
    • 3x Knight Gallant
    • 3x Manticore
    • 3x Vendetta
    • MoO,Trojan, MoF & Company Commander
    • Turn 1 to Warlord & Voidravens - Lost 2 knights to Warlord laser blasters, 2 vendettas to sunfury annihilator; made miracle save vs Belicosa Cannon on Reaver, lost 2nd MoO manticore to Voidravens.
    • a Broodlord
    • Manticores with 19 shots knock off a mere 3 HP
    • MoO with 6 hits manages 6 HP
    • Master of the fleet drops out of surviving vendetta gets 6 on his fuck you roll and causes 3 <unsaved> mortal wounds
    • Warlord Downgrades to 4++ save
    • Reaver opens up with laser blaster and Pcannon first doing damage only through 6's mortal wounds from laser blaster
    • Command point reroll 6 shots from volcano cannon causes 5 wounds, 2 get through
    • 2 x 12 x 2 damage with one shot
    • Gallant Charges in, survives overwatch, FIST OF GLORY .... Titan has 8 wounds left. Knight gets stepped on.
    • Warlord staggers back and unloads everything on the Reaver , knocking it down to 5 hp after making 7 6+ warlord choice FNP saves
    • Reaver Overloads plasma blastgun, burns 3 wounds off itself and 4 off the Warlord hitting on 6s
    • Trojan augmented final Manticore gets 11 shots off, hits with all, wounds with 3, titan fails save vs 2
    • Entire club comes to a halt to see damage roll, 5&6
    • GG
  • Take a Night Lords Patrol Detachment of Sorcerer, Cultists and Raptors; a Nurgle Patrol Detachment of Malefic Lord, Plague Marines w/ Icon and Noxious Blightbringer and a Auxiliary Super-Heavy Detachment of a Hellforged Cerberus Heavy Destroyer. The Night Lords and Nurglites will knock the beast down to 2 Leadership, meaning the Cerberus will auto-wound and deal an average of 50 wounds. The Warlord is now crippled and will die next round. All for 1135 pts.
    • If you're worried about losing units before they can debuff or attack, just spam more of them and/or invest in Dreadclaws. You have 4855 points more, after all.

Gallery

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  Now I am become Forgeworld, destroyer of wallets.

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  A Warlord that can fit in the palm of your hand, for those who can't afford FW.