It's another AdTit game against The Claw, concluding our little narrative campaign in which two traitor forces, Legio Mortis and Legio Magna, battle to control the forge world of Esteban V. While the Warmaster's attention has turned to the road to Terra, the two Legios sent forces to secure the spoils of worlds previously cleansed of loyalists. Magna lay claim to Esteban V, being close to their homeworld of Esteban VII (but not Esteban III, one time home of Legio Tempestus - there are a lot of Estebans in 40k!), while Mortis claim it due to status and seniority as one of the original Titan Legions.
After their initial landing, Mortis forces soon encountered and engaged Magna at Gate 7, the entry to a huge underground manufactorum. Mortis took the site, but were unable to defend it against the Magna counter attack. A larger battle ensued in the desert flats below Gate 7, where Mortis were once again able to claim the ground. Magna struck back decisively though to take control of the Spaceport supplying the Manufactorum. With the fate of the planet in the balance, the two forces turned to the polar city of Bolsunder, the planet's last remaining population hub, to decide this war once and for all.
We decided to play a 2000 point, semi-matched play kind of scenario - we both took the primary objective to destroy the other player's most expensive model as soon as possible, with the secondary objective of controlling quarters of the board. We also had some points for stratagems each this time, and The Claw took a tertiary objective to get some bonus points for engine kills as one of them. My most notable pick was the Blind Barrage.
Legio Mortis forces included a Lupercal Light Maniple of three Warhounds and a Perpetua Battleline Maniple with a Warlord and two Reavers, one set up for melee and the other for armour busting ranged firepower. All three of my larger engines were Corrupted Titans for the first time. The Warlord had Corrupted Soul and Preternatural Regeneration to get a load more repair dice, the melee Reaver picked the Overwhelming Rage mutation for obvious reasons and had some Daemonic Bile to spit all over it's opponents, and the ranged Reaver took Warp Conduit so it could effectively smite something and grab the Empyrean Shroud for a -1 to hit at range. There were a few other upgrades here and there but that was most of it. I think the Perpetua maniple seems to go well with Corrupted Titans since it means emergency repairs always go off on a 2+ regardless of other command check modifiers, like the ones all Corrupted Titans get.
On the other side of the battlefield Magna fielded a Fortis Maniple once again, this time with two Warlords (including one double traitor - a salvaged and repurposed Mortis engine!) and two Reavers, all with an assortment of ranged weapons and some upgrades. They were accompanied by another banner of Knight Lancers - presumably not the same ones that got blasted to bits in turn one last time!
Deployment - the forces line up. It looked like the larger buildings on the left would be the focus of the fighting while the sparser right flank would be less contested. My Warlord was set up deliberately back a little from the front lines, I did not intend for it to move much and I expected it to weather most of the firepower coming it's way with all it's bonuses to repair rolls.
Turn one, the lighter Titans and Knights moved up - the Lancers hiding themselves from the Mortis Warlord's First Fire order! Magna took minor damage to the merged shields on their twin Warlords, while the Mortis one took a battering, losing it's shields and taking some heavy head damage already!
Turn two, operation protect the Warlord. I dropped the Blind Barrage on it while it Emergency Repaired to get shields back and lose some heat.
Elsewhere the Knights engaged the angry Reaver, taking minimal damage from it's swinging fists...
Then taking it out with lances and shield blows to the head! A huge explosion did more damage to the Knights than the Reaver did, as well as hurting the Magna Reaver behind! ENGINE KILL!
The Mortis Warhounds got a measure of revenge, downing the shields on the Titan and blasting it with Maximal fire Plasma, the blasts killing off a couple more Knights and destroying the Reaver! Good work Warhounds!
Going into turn three things were heating up, both sides losing a Reaver and both sides' Warlords had been taking heavy fire so shields were low - one of the Magna ones lost it's shields entirely due to a reactor overload - time to capitalise. My Warlord stripped the remaining shields, before the Warhounds on the left flank (the one on the right got destroyed by it's opposing Reaver) blasted into the target Titan, the Plasma nearly doing the job.
But return fire knocked out my Warlord! Felled for the first time on the surface of Esteban V, the death of the Mortis Princeps Senioris put Magna firmly in control.
However, my remaining Reaver was able to get a bead with the Melta Cannon around the blue building and finish off the damaged Magna Warlord to even the score - that meant both sides had destroyed the enemy target on turn three, so it was going to be a tight one!
Going into turn four I hid the Warhounds from the enemy Warlord and finished off the remaining Knight that was harrassing my Reaver - which took heavy firepower but since it was shrouded in psychic energy most of it missed.
With both key targets destroyed in the same turn, and few units left to control the board, our primary and secondary objectives were a dead tie. However, Magna had a tertiary objective - the few extra points there for killing my engines was enough to give them a win by the tiniest of margins!
With that, the remaining Mortis forces withdrew to follow the call of the Warmaster. So Esteban V would be the realm of Legio Magna for the rest of the war, and perhaps now the two might put aside differences and bring their fury to bare on the Loyalists?
This was definitely the closest game of Titanicus we've had, absolutely down to the final moments and a fitting finale. Obviously we both had a blast, plenty of classic Titanicus moments like explosions and machine spirits (or in this case daemonic entities) taking over, and as always the games look awesome. The Corrupted Titans are a lot of fun, but this time I was particularly impressed by my Warhounds, especially the always entertaining Plasma blast guns.
Anyway, that's it for our narrative, I hope you've enjoyed it! We definitely did and I think it served the purpose of helping us slowly learn and relearn the rules over the past two years! I'm sure there will be more AdTit down the line, but for now, thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.
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