Re: Titans for DSII?

On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Mark A. Siefert wrote:

> Hello Everyone:
>	I was curious if anyone has come up with any rules ideas for
WH40K
> Titans for Dirtside II?

Yes (or, well... only Gargants and Eldar Titans, really; I haven't tried

any Imperials in battle yet...). All my notes are back home, so this'll 
be a little unstructured and unspecific, but here goes:

Titans is the GW term for large combat walkers. These are almost 
exclusively two-legged - there are, or were, two small Eldar centauroid 
Knights too, but they're not 'official' any more. Most Titans have two
to 
four weapon mounts, and are effective in close combat - being trod upon 
by something twenty meters tall wouldn't be too good even for a MBT,
much 
less an infantry man!

Although Titans are classified into broad classes (Warlords, Phantoms 
etc), different Titans within a single class can have widely differing 
weaponry. Therefore, my basic idea was to make a standard 'chassi', or	
template, for each class; each template would have hardpoints of a 
certain class and couldn't mount any weapon bigger than that. I haven't 
come very far on this project, though.

Basically, Titans (Impy/Eldar) are size lots walkers (of course); I've 
used:

Size 7: Warlords, Phantoms, Warlock Titans (and possibly the Squat war 
	machines too) 
Size 6: Reavers, Slasha Gargants
Size 5: Warhounds, Revenants, Mekboy Gargants
Size 4: Knights, Stompas

Modular vehicles: Imperators, Mega- and Great Gargants (... Great 
Gargants are four modules (two feet, belly/lower arms, head/shoulders OR

two feet, right sid and left side); dunno about the Mega and Imperator 
yet)), and of course the Squat Land Trains.

The weapons shouldn't be too hard to work out - DFFGs work very well as 
the various Melta/Plasma weapons, Lasers as Lasers (so a HEL-5 could 
represent an Imperial Defence Laser as well as an Eldar Pulsar), and so
on.

I have introduced some new mobility categories - Fast Walker (IIRC, I 
gave it 15" movement; this represents the fastest scout walkers and 
knights and shouldn't be allowed on bigger walkers), Fast Skimmer
(Jetbikes 
are supposed to be _fast_) and pop-up skimmers (can be added to any 
skimmer vehicle; but it is a very distinctive trait of the Eldar army, 
and I really didn't want to make my Tempests VTOLs <g>); I don't
remember 
the costs and speeds for them now, but I'll get back on this.

The most difficult part (IMO) are the various protective gadgets used on

Titans. As Mike and Jon put it - 'you might as well write TARGET in neon

letters'... 

For those of you who haven't played GW's Space Marine, there are two
main
schools of Titan protection: Shields and Holoflage.

Imperials and Orks use energy shields which deflect/absorb the energy of
incoming attacks; and each attack so deflected weakens the shields. 
Enough concentrated fire will wear them down completely, leaving the
Titan/Gargant vulnerable to attack. Imperial shields are more reliable
than Ork ones, but the basic idea is the same. 

Eldar use another idea entirely: they DO write 'target' in neon letters.
Trouble is, they don't write it on the Titan, but rather in the air some

meters to the side... :) Anyway, their Titans are protected by 
broad-spectrum 'hologram shields' (I use the term 'holoflage', but I 
don't remember where I got it from...), which disturbs enemy targetting
- 
the faster the Titan moves, the better the protection. However, it gives

no protection whatsoever from area attacks, so artillery is a very good 
way to kill Eldar Titans.

In DSII terms, Ork/Imperial shields are 'extra hits' - each valid hit 
takes down one shield. (Imperial shields are supposed to be able to be 
restored during the battle, but as I said I haven't really used Imps.) 
When all shields are down, the next hit will be able to damage the 
Titan/Gargant. I've played a little with 1 shield = 1 mass/slot/whatever

the term is in DSII; it seems to work fairly well. A size 7 Titan would 
have about 6 shields (gargants could be more, though); while a size 5 
Warhound should have 2 shields.

For the Eldar, things are different. The Holoflage gives the Titan a 
secondary die (which it needs, since its primary die is a D4 and 
everything counts as 'close range'...); the size of this secondary die 
depends on how far the Titan moved in its last activation:

Moved:				     Die: ECM equivalent:
Moved half or more of a 'full move': D12  Superior
Moved, but less than half:	     D10  Enhanced
Fired from overwatch:		     D8   Basic
(ie, didn't move at all)

While a D12 is very high, this corresponds to 'Charge' orders in Space 
Marine; this causes all direct-fire shots to miss on a D6 roll of 2 or 
higher. The slower speeds correspond to Advance (miss on 3+) and First 
Fire (miss on 4+) respectively.

Space Marine doesn't use special rules for missiles, but the holoflage 
should work as some sort of ECM. However, this too might be too weak 
(...since the Titans have very little space for point defences), and 
holoflage is supposed to be VERY effective against all direct fire 
weapons (including missiles).

I gave this gadget a mass of 2 - it should probably vary with the size
of 
the walker, but I couldn't fit the weapons I wanted onto a Phantom if
the 
holoflage was bigger than that!

The Phantom template would look something like...
Size 7 Fusion Powered Combat Walker, armour 6 (or 7; haven't decided 
yet), Anti-Personnel Charges (don't even remember the acronym right
now), 
Holoflage; two Enhanced and one Superior targetting system.
Hard points:
 2 Arm mounts: Class 5 hard points (each able to mount a HEL-5, DFFG-5,
or
one of those nifty Eldar weapons - Tremor Cannon (-5), Distortion Cannon
(-5) or Power Fist - for close combat against other Titans!)
2 Wing mounts: Class 3 hard points (able to mount either a HEL-3 or an 
Artillery-2; no extra arty ammo, and only smoke or frag rounds
available. 
Eldar use lasers to kill armour, not arty...)

(...and here is the reason I had to make the holoflage so small; I have
a 
Phantom with two Pulsars and two Wing Missile Launchers (arty-2), and 
wanted it to fit into the template <g>)

Cost-wise: Titans are EXPENSIVE. They are supposed to be - a Phantom
should cost (and be able to beat about half of the time) ten tracked
MBTs;
a Warlord (with four hard points and six shields) should be able to take
on fifteen MBTs. (I'm using the Leman Russ or Predator as a measuring
norm...) I don't remember what cost I gave the holoflage gadget, but the
final cost for an armed Phantom landed around 1500 points.

Oh well. I'll get back on this topic when I've typed my notes in. It'll 
take a while, though - far too many reports to write in school right now
:(

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari