Emperor Battle Titan
"Have you seen me today?"
"It is impossible not to see you, princeps."
"It's impossible to kill me, as well. Remember that, Grimaldus."
- – Zarha, Princeps of the Stormherald, to Grimaldus, shortly before the Battle of Helsreach. The last part is unfortunately proven false
"Everybody gangsta, til the church start walkin."
- – An old saying
The Emperor Battle Titan is the second largest land based weapon the Imperium of Man, or any faction even, can field (the first is a triple tie between the Capitol Imperialis super heavy tracked vehicle, the Leviathan super heavy mobile command center and the Ordinatus super heavy mobile ordinance weapons platform with its countless flavours). We can't count the vaguely referenced Apocalypse-class Titans in that list since nobody knows anything about them but it is said to look like entire parts of a Hive City moving when it walks.
Comparable to an Imperial Cathedral on legs, according to Games Workshop its height is around 100 feet or 30 meters and "a matter of some dispute". To give you an idea on how bad the inconsistencies became, old sources varied between 43-150 metres (130-500 feet) tall (including the cathedral spires). This was of course, before high-quality models of Titans were released, with the only description authors got from Emperor Titans was a) They were described as big and b) They have to base the scaling of older artwork and even older models from Epic (Which was not the most accurate for scaling mind you). The only ones that suffered worse than this are the Ordinatus and Warlord Battle Titans.
Of course, with the release of new and updated Titan models plus their newer artwork which also included updated Emperor Titans walking with smaller Titans, folks could finally, properly, and reliably scale the size of this thing at around 50-60 meters. If you include the actual Emperor Battle Titan datasheet as canon, it would specifically be 56 meters tall. There are some who understandably, find the idea that the largest Titan in 40k being actually shorter than the Statue of Liberty... to be really underwhelming. As such, they refuse to believe this to be canon. This refusal seems to be running on a timer of course. With how GeeDubs have been releasing supersized Epic models onto the modern tabletop, it would eventually be only a matter of time that the Emperor Titan would get its own actual model. Remember, people thought the Warlord Titan was 200 meters tall...until it wasn't.
Anyways, describing the historical inaccuracies of the Titan's size aside, this walking cathedral still remains quite simply, the most devastating vehicle ever seen on the many battlefields of the galaxy. It is seen as a physical manifestation of the Emperor's will, and just like the Imperium itself, once they are fully deployed, they are relentless, unyielding, and unstoppable. It is similar in size to a Shark Assault Boat (the assault boat is probably not as wide, though), which is a long-range void boarding assault transport utilised in squadrons for ship-to-ship combat, typical capital ships that carry these vessels can deploy upwards of a dozen of these in addition to support weapons, which should tell you just how ridiculously huge both space combat and the land based Imperator are.
- Height: 56-65m; depending on spire configuration
- Crew: 12-24 crew plus 100 Imperial Guardsmen
- Weight: 5-7 kilotonnes; approx
Overview[edit]
In comparison to Battle Titans of all classes, the Imperators and Warmongers are rare with most Titan Legions only able to field three or four in a campaign (and even that is rare in the present day of 40k, with at least one legion having lost their Imperators entirely and never gained new ones). Captained by only the most battle-hardened and elite of Princeps, its interior is large enough for it to serve as a mobile headquarters, with room for dozens of operators and serfs. Their crews are composed of the finest crew members from other Titans within the Legion. The Titan Legion's Grand Masters often use Imperator Titans as their mobile headquarters from where they can issue commands or lead vital assaults personally. Imperators are most often employed as vast mobile fortresses, strengthening vulnerable sectors of the Imperial battlelines or to act as a reserve force; it can also transport around a hundred Imperial Guardsmen, several times that number of Skitarii, or dozens of Space Marines in its lower legs for either close defence or to assault a shattered fortress. Although woe betides any poor sod that is not a posthuman, because they are going to get the mother of all motion sickness when this thing moves around. Free vomit bags for everyone I guess.
The Emperor Battle Titan comes in two models: the standard 'Imperator' is an all-round assault and support vehicle, whereas the 'Warmonger' specializes in long-range fire support. The Imperator is commonly seen leading frontline Titan assaults, while the Warmonger rains artillery on the foe with its city-levelling firepower. It's unknown which variant was designed first as this knowledge has been lost down the long millennia of the Imperium's existence. However, it is well documented that both the Warmonger and Imperator Emperor Titans were both utilised extensively long before the outbreak of the galaxy-wide conflict of the Horus Heresy.
Their only difference is in weaponry; the Imperator have shorter ranged weapons, while the Warmonger is armed with long-range artillery and missile platforms. A third Emperor with an aircraft carrier deck on its back was planned and showcased as part of the build-up to the release of Titan Legions, but sadly Titan Legions was an overly complicated trainwreck of a system and the planned line of super-Titan variants was canned as soon as people stupid enough to buy a box containing more counters than Battle for Armageddon realized this.
More can be read below.
Variants[edit]
Imperator-Class Titan[edit]
The previously mentioned 'all-rounder' of the two known Emperor Titan classes. The Imperator is one of the more iconic and recognizable warmachines of the Imperium. The Imperator is a Titan whose expertise resolves around tactical flexibility and relatively close-range assault bombardment (For Titan standards anyway). As such, the Imperator is armed with weapons that excels in providing immense covering fire for allied Imperial troops to take strategic positions and areas of interests, taking on and wiping out entire superheavy divisions and rival Titan legions by itself thereby relieving allied troops from immense pressure, breaching fortified and heavily armed fortresses and allowing infantry stationed within the Titan's legs to safely assault the broken defenses and acting as a giant, mobile DISTRACTION CARNIFEX that can defend a crucial geostrategic area for the Imperium. Essentially, if you have a Imperator at your back, nothing could technically go wrong in your campaign.
Likewise, Imperators are not normally equipped to fight other Titans in close combat. Instead they rely on their deadly firepower to cripple opponents before they get too close, not as if the lack of an CQC matters anyway as the Emperor both outsize and outmass its lessers to the point that the Imperator can just knock over smaller Titans with its massive and THICC legs before crushing them under its equally massive feet.
The Imperator-Class Titan carries two primary arm-mounted weapons, the Hellstorm Cannon and the Plasma Annihilator, both of which can one-shot anything that is NOT a Warlord Battle Titan or above. Its large cathedral-like superstructure can carry a vast assortments of secondary but no-less devastating carapace weapons which includes from a wide and diverse range of ass fucking such as the Apocalypse Missile Launcher, Gatling Blaster, Inferno Gun, Laser Blaster, Melta Cannon, Plasma Destructor, Quake Cannon, Volcano Cannon, Vortex Support Missile and the Vulcan Mega Bolter.
Warmonger-Class Titan[edit]
As briefly mentioned, the Warmonger is the second class of Emperor Titans that has a very specific niche in the battlefield. Whilst the Imperator specializes in flexibility and adaptability, the Warmonger specializes only on long-range firepower and bombardments. Pretty much every thing in the Warmonger's arsenal is designed for cracking open heavy fortified defences from a safe distance before letting other Titans and military personnel to finish up the stragglers. The Warmonger's specialization also means that allied infantry within the Warmonger's legs behave differently, rather than acting as offensive front-liners the infantry instead act as defensive countermeasures against enemies that are closing in from all sides. Hence, the Warmonger acts as a giant, walking artillery platform. Seriously, this thing is an entire battery of Basilisks, Manticores and Deathstrikes on stilts.
This capability makes this particular Emperor Titan a magnet for enemy air support and with such a big ass target situated beyond the maximum range of enemy Titans, the only weapons that could conceivably hit the damn thing are ICBMs, Voidships and Aircraft. However through the act of Just as Planned, the Warmonger has a healthy array of anti-aircraft systems, not to mention a sufficient number of Void Shields, to keep these threats at bay.
The Warmonger-Class Titan being a giant walking artillery platform is thus, armed with weapons that can hit from the end of the horizon (Although this comes at the price of less weapon loadout and diversity). Its primary arm weapons comes equipped with a Doomstrike Missile Launcher (8 Doomstrike Missiles) and a Vengeance Cannon (a fuckass huge gun powerful enough to be considered a potential threat to low-orbiting voidships), weapons that could conceivably wipe out an entire town in one shot or severely cripple an Imperator Titan. Its secondary weapons are dominated mainly with four ECKSBAWKSHUEG Quad Autocannons for anti-air defence, and a Fire Control Center to link up with either scouting Vox-casters or orbiting Voidships so that either of the two can scout and accurately pin-point enemy positions so that the Warmonger can just point and shoot. The amount of space being taken up by air-defense means that the Warmonger is restricted to only three or four carapace weapons rather than the Imperator's six.
Known Emperor Titans[edit]
Because of their awe-inspiring awesomeness and absolute carnage they reap on the battlefield, a number of Emperor Titans have walked countless worlds and fell on countless others in Black Library books. A few of them are listed here. As you can see below, it should be noted that if an Imperator Titan is in a book and it's Imperial, it's going to die.
- Dominatus: The Dominatus was an Imperator-class Titan from an unknown Titan Legion that fell in battle, fighting against the Forces of Chaos during the failed defence of Lorn V. Laying broken and forgotten for millennia, the lost Titan was rediscovered by the Imperium, and so, the Cadian 412th Imperial Guard Regiment, under the command of General Sturnn was dispatched to retrieve it. With the aid of the Eldar Farseer Taldeer of Craftworld Ulthwé and her warhost, who was on Lorn V for her own reasons, General Sturnn's regiment fought their way through both the Chaos Lord Crull's Blood Legion of Khorne Chaos Warband and the Warboss Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter's Orks, reaching the fallen Titan before their enemies. Powering up the slumbering god-engine, the Imperial forces were forced to fight the ancient menace, known as the Necrons, which had begun to emerge from beneath Lorn V's surface. Despite the Farseer's betrayal, Taldeer convinced General Sturnn to aid them against this new threat, and so, they made use of the Dominatus' powerful weapons into the Necrons' advancing Monoliths, thus defeating the Necron forces. But in the process, the ancient Titan's core was ruptured in the process, causing it to explode spectacularly, killing General Sturnn and the majority of the Cadian 412th. The Eldar had managed to flee back into the Webway just before it exploded. Those few survivors of the decimated regiment quickly spread word off-world of the treachery of the Eldar Farseer, and to the present day, their regimental banner bears a black ribbon to mark their failure to recover the ancient Imperator Titan. To this day, Sturnn's death has been met with rejection and butthurt by /tg/ as he was too cool a guy to be killed off.
- Exemplis: The Exemplis was the last remaining Imperator Titan of the Legio Ignatum, worshiped by the Adeptus Mechanicus as an avatar of the Omnissiah. The Exemplis saw its last action on the world of Tanakreg against a large Word Bearers Traitor Legion warhost of the Dark Apostle Jarulek. Despite the horrendous casualties it inflicted upon the heretics, the Chaos Space Marines managed to board and destroy the Exemplis after attacking its more vulnerable components.
- Mettalum Olympus: The Mettalum Olympus was a notable Imperator Titan and an absolute BOSS of a Emperor Titan; commanded by Princeps Goethe, it managed to almost single-handedly hold off a Tyranid invasion on the ash-choked plains of Horst Prime. Surrounded by an entire horde of Hierophant Bio-Titans, instead of dying like a bitch, the ancient Titan allowed the Tyranids to breach its plasma reactor when the Hierophants were close enough. The resultant explosion vapourised everything within a kilometre, leaving a crater that is still visible from orbit.
- Praeco Deictus: An Imperator Titan of the Legio Crucius, which had survived the grim days of the Horus Heresy and had won countless victories on thousands of worlds for the Imperium. The Praeco Deictus was destroyed, along with other Titans of the Legio Crucius, defending the Hive World of Kado from the Forces of Chaos. During the fighting, a hundred Slaanesh Hell-Knights infiltrated the main Hive City and emerged to attack the Imperator Titan from its vulnerable rear, turning it into a pile of molten slag. You wish we were joking, but suffice to say, Praeco Deictus suffered the most embarrassing defeat of any Emperor Titans on the list. Seriously it is one thing to lose against those flamingo walkers, but to lose against them in a seriously suggestive sexual position is just a whole new low. Don't believe us? Just imagine a bunch of giant walking dildos penetrating the rear end of another giant humanoid walker until it climaxes and explodes...
- Stormherald: An Imperator Titan of the Legio Invigilata, this titan was (and that was is rather significant) active during the Battle for Hive Helsreach during the Third War for Armageddon. Piloted by Princeps 'Crone of Invigilata' Zarha, this titan is essentially only important in two parts in the book in which it is prominently featured (Helsreach). The first is where it is booby-trapped by a bunch of Orks, the booby-trap in question being several Hive Spires filled to the brim with explosives detonating and falling on said Titan. This essentially causes The Crone to become half-subsumed into Stormherald's Machine-Spirit, only being saved by the Black Templars' Reclusiarch (Grimaldus) demanding her not to fall. And so she didn't. The titan then disappears from the book for 150 pages or so, until the Mega Gargant Godbreaker turns up in Helsreach and proceeds to wipe Armageddon's dusty wastelands with a pair of Invigilata's Warhound Titans. The Crone is none too happy about this, and (after being ordered to by Grimaldus and the guardsman in charge of Helsreach's defence) proceeds to engage in a manly and testosterone-fuelled duel to the death with Godbreaker... Which consists of the two machines standing at opposite ends of the kilometres-long Hel's Highway and shooting at each other. Stormherald's fate is sealed when a Moderati (later executed by his comrade) fires its plasma annihilator too early and misses, allowing Godbreaker to wail on Stormherald until the latter finally crashes to the ground like a fuckhuge walking cathedral would be expected to. Later, after the siege of Helsreach reaches a stalemate following the destruction of Godbreaker by the Ordinatus Armageddon, Grimaldus flies over the wreckage of Stormherald in a Thunderhawk and displays ACTUAL HUMAN FEELINGS in that he's regretful that the titan's corpse rests in enemy-held territory, and nothing can be done to retrieve the god-machine's carcass. And as far as anyone knows, the body of the Titan (and the crone) are still there.
- Casus Belli: First introduced in the Gav Thorpe novel "Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah". Attached to the Legio Metalica, Casus was deployed against heretek defenders on the world of Necomedua (not Necromunda) which had gone rouge (not rogue) at some point following the Great Rift, and basically single-handedly face-fucked entire legions of traitor land forces, vehicles (including a Baneblade, which is STEPPED ON), an entire city wall, and even a few Titans. This was all a ruse, though, as the traitors planned not to destroy it or withstand the Imperium but capture the Titan itself. Their attempt, unsurprisingly, failed when one of the Magi aboard did some pretty bad-ass stuff (and thought outside the box for once) and was backed up by a random lower-deck girl with what basically amounts to a futuristic monkey wrench. Also the most hilariously/depressingly named as it represents the fact that the only thing besides religion (read: quintillions of peoples' worth of passive psychic power over ten thousand years making it real) holding the Imperium together is war.
Chaos Emperor Titan[edit]
Most of the Traitor Emperor Titans have mercifully been destroyed, but the small handful that remain are as deadly as their Imperial counterparts, if not more so. Most of them have been possessed by Greater Daemons, making them essentially supersized Daemon Engines which have transformed these great war engines into towering leviathans of Warp-corrupted steel and Adamantium, a true incarnation of the power of Chaos in the material realm.
While they are (very) rare, they are still in prime condition and are able to seriously fuck shit up. They possess similar weaponry to their loyalist counterparts but with a few extra quirks. One of which is the ability to shoot Daemons like an Angry Marine Titan, possessing several unique Chaos exclusive weaponry and lastly being possessed by the aforementioned Greater Daemon, making it tougher, almost immortal and even harder to kill.
There were several well known Chaos Emperor Titans during the Horus Heresy such as the following....
- Aquila Ignis: Commanded by Princeps Camulos of Legio Mortis, this titan participated in the battle for the Magma City against the loyalist Legio Tempestus. It got destroyed when the city was flooded with lava to deny it to the traitors. The only component of the titan to survive was its Hellstorm Cannon, which was sent to Kronus and later controlled by the Imperial Guard during the events of Dark Crusade.
- Abominatus "Despoiler of Worlds": Abominatus is what you get when an Imperator-class Titan gets possessed by a Bloodthirster. Its main armaments (the Hellstorm Cannon and Plasma Annihilator) along with its main battery function in an identical fashion to its Imperial counterpart. However, since it's a Khornate's wet dream, it also packs an outsized Scorpion Cannon and Manglers, fuckoff-huge Titan-sized power claws designed for maximum Titan-to-Titan rip and tear. As Abominatus is part daemon and part machine, this makes it particularly resistant to psychic attack as well.
- Augmenautus Rex: The Chaos Imperator-class Titan Augmenautus Rex fought against the Legio Invicta and the Legio Tempestus forces defending the Forge World of Orestes in 779.M41. It vaporized the Legio Tempestus Warlord-class Titan Orestes Magnificat with a single shot as an opening move. The Princeps of the Legio Invicta Warlord-class Titan Sicarian Faero, Vancent Kung, linked his MIU with those of Titans from four battlegroups to take down the Augmenautus Rex with an assault coordinated by a single mind. Such a measure, although forbidden (due to the extreme risk of the Princeps going completely insane from the strain of piloting multiple Titans at the same time), was required as the Imperator-class Titan's Void Shields were so potent that they would have withstood a more dispersed assault. Once its shields were down, it took ten minutes of solid firing by dozens of Titans (ranging from Warhound to Warlord in size) to bring the Rex down, and even then it took two more loyalist engines with it.
- Bubonis: As its name implies, Bubonis is the Daemonic Plague Titan of Nurgle - an Imperator-class Titan that fused with a Greater Daemon of Nurgle. Must be a real bitch to take down given the already obscene toughness of Nurgle combined with the ridiculous defence of a Emperor Titan.
- Dies Irae: The most infamous of these monstrous war machines was the Imperator-class Emperor Titan Dies Irae (literally "Day of Wrath" in Latin/High Gothic) which stormed the battlements of the Imperial Palace during the Siege of Terra and had been assigned to to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet, the Warmaster Horus' own fleet, throughout the Great Crusade. It was eventually destroyed 10,000 standard years later in the 41st Millennium, during an Iron Warriors campaign against the Imperial world of Hydra Cordatus, tearing through twelve Imperial Titans before finally falling in a mutual kill against the Warlord-class Titan Honoris Causa (and even then, Honoris only 'won' because Dies Irae was still suffering from severe damage by another Warlord, which had headbutted it then had its reactor melt down at point-blank range).
- Skylok: A really unusual Chaos Emperor Titan. The Skylok is a Winged Titan of Tzeentch, which was a unique Chaos Imperator-class Titan, that was created through its fusion with a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. As you can imagine, seeing a flying 50+ meter tall walking cathedral of Tzeentch is not only Awesome but terrifying as well. Sadly, we still don't have a canon image of it or anything beyond a couple mentions, despite the extreme potential for awesome it provides.
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The Dies Irae. The Ghazghkull of Chaos Emperor Titans. The one-man wrecking ball of Rape.
Origins[edit]
The Imperator was one of the two showcase Titans for the Epic expansion Titan Legions, which aimed to take the system back to its Adeptus Titanicus roots of having small numbers of really expensive models battle it out rather than large numbers of dirt-cheap plastic infantry and tanks. Coming in the heyday of the Second Edition "moar rules = bettar" design philosophy, the Imperator came in a box with roughly half a dead forest's worth of cards, counters and rules and featured an insidiously complicated double-sided datacard for the player to perpetrate accountancy on every turn with plasma tokens and garrison troops and a whole load of other shit that made firing a Conversion Beamer in Second Edition seem simple by comparison.
As usual for Titans, the Imperator was roughly 1/700 scale in a system that was largely around 1/350, meaning that it would be hard for even a single Epic-scale Terminator to fit inside the model's head. Since most 40K-scale Imperators are based on scaling up the Epic model without realizing it's half the size it should be, they tend to replicate this. Needless to say, the price was correctly scaled to the Imperator's size in the fluff.
Some neckbeards have tried to kitbash a true 1/48 Imperator titan, and found that at 6'10"/2.1m tall, it would just be easier to make a titan costume and stand on the table.
Above assumes you consider Imperator titans on the higher end of the fluff massive scale, the kind of which you see in things like Dawn of War where humans are mere ants crawling around over the top of it. Games Workshop back in the original incarnation of Apocalypse did a 4000 point datasheet for the Imperator Titan which included a scale comparison with a Warhound and a guardsman, where if you built it, it would be almost three feet tall, so on the smaller end.
The size differences given in the fluff are often to do with varying levels of artistic license, as in the older Titan comic books a normal Warlord Titan was absolutely MASSIVE (despite saying it stood over 100 feet/30 meters tall), but when depicted in the Space Marine video game and running around on a slightly smaller Warlord Titan's shoulders it certainly never gave that impression at all. Though that might have been done to make the game actually run without turning your computer into a ball of chaos daemon hellfire that eats your face with burning teeth before setting your entire city ablaze. Also, different authors can't make up their minds as to how tall Titans really are, with one Imperator Class Titan (the Dies Irae) being described as both 43 meters tall and 140 meters tall in different novels. (43m is 141' 1" so maybe that's what they meant...)
Weaponry[edit]
While the classic Epic Imperator had completely fixed armament with no options at all, more recent rules for the Imperator/Warmonger Titan allow it to be armed with a choice of 2 arm weapons and 6 carapace weapons.
Possible arm mounted weapons are the Plasma Annihilator, Hellstorm Cannon, Vengeance Cannon and the Doomstrike Missile Launcher
Possible carapace weapons are the Laser Blaster, Plasma Destructor, Inferno Gun, Vulcan Mega-Bolter, Gatling Blaster, Melta Cannon, Quake Cannon, Volcano Cannon, Apocalypse Missile launcher and the Vortex Missile.
Gallery[edit]
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Size comparison of various titans.
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Finally found the damned rules!
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Rough size scale of the Emperor Titan next to the Imperial Navy. The small smudge on the left is the Emperor Titan. All of a sudden, the Titan crew suddenly felt like it ain't the biggest kid on the block.
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In days gone by, an Imperator stomps around firing its deadly trouser cannon.
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If you wanted to actually use an Imperator back in the day you just had to figure out what the hell any of this meant, and this was only the front side. Also, notice that it loses an attack die for being hit in the dick.
| Vessels of the Traitor Legions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spaceships | ||
| Space Station | Blackstone Fortress | |
| Super Battleships | Abyss | |
| Battleships | Battleship (Gloriana - Planet Killer) - Ark of Omen | |
| Cruisers | Light Cruiser - Cruiser Heavy Cruiser - Grand Cruiser | |
| Escorts | Escort | |
| Others | Silver Tower of Tzeentch | |
| Combat Spacecraft | Doomfire Bomber - Swiftdeath Fighter | |
| Landships | ||
| Siege Carriers | Siege Carrier | |
| War Machines | Chaos Harvester - Nurgle Plague Tower - Woe Machine | |
| Titans | Questor Scout Titan - Slaanesh Subjugator Feral Scout Titan - Ravager Battle Titan Chaos Warlord Titan - Chaos Emperor Titan Skull Reaper | |
| Troop Transports | Mastodon | |
| Superheavy Tanks | Baneblade - Fellblade - Plaguereaper Tower of Skulls | |
| Airships | ||
| Flying Fortress | Harbinger | |
| Aerospace Vessels | Stormbird | |
| Seaships | ||
| Oceanic Battleships | Oceanic Battleship | |