In the wake of the release of the Loyalists supplement an updated FAQ has dropped for Adeptus Titanicus. Now sitting at a titanic 11 pages, we’ve reviewed the changes and have picked out the most important changes they’ve made since the last one.
Merging Void Shields
Tucked away in this FAQ is a massive change to the way that merging voids in a Squadron works. Before this change, you would choose whether or not to merge voids on an attack-by-attack basis. Now, you have to choose on an activation-by-activation basis, which will create some seriously tough decisions.
By way of example, think about a Warhound equipped with a megabolter and plasma blastgun firing at a pair of squadroned Warhounds in base-to-base with voids up. Previously, a canny player might elect not to merge voids against the megabolter, then merge against the blastgun if the target’s voids dropped from the bolter fire. Following this FAQ, though, if you don’t merge against the megabolter, you won’t be able to merge against the same attacking Titan’s blastgun, regardless of the result of your saves against the megabolter.
This change appears to be targeted with nearly laser-precision at our own Bair, who has earned no small amount of notoriety around these parts for using (Condit: Some would say abusing) merged voids with his Legio Vulcanum. We anticipate that it will significantly decrease the anticipated survivability of Titans who rely on merged voids to stay alive, while at the same time cutting down the number of decision points and streamlining attacking into squadrons. It’ll certainly hit Warhound squadrons hard, but merging voids was never really the real selling point with Warhound squadrons anyway, and over-reliance on it is often fatal.
Bair: I mean, this makes sense, having played a lot of Vulcanum I got used to how merging shields worked previously but this is just gonna save a lot of time. It will make squadroned shield sharing generally less effective, but especially for larger Titans like Warlords that’s probably a good thing, however it will hurt Warhounds a bit.
Soggy: Combined with the changes to the Lupercal maniple, I’m starting to wonder who upset someone with Warhounds at GW. On the flipside, merging voids is now safer thanks to the adjustment to the Quake Shells stratagem no longer going off every turn.
Other Changes
The Voidbreaker (X) weapon trait has been clarified, and it’s now clear that it triggers once per attack so long as at least one hit is scored. This carries over to Knight banners – regardless of the number of Knights Styrix firing volkite into voids, they will only add a single additional hit so it’s probably better taking multiple banners of two instead of larger banners of four for more shieldbreaking action. This interaction means that the upcoming volkite weapons are a bit less impressive than some people thought they might be, but it also keeps Legio Atarus’s new and improved Infernus Missiles from being completely over-the-top busted, which is nice.
The Mori Quake Cannon and Natrix Shock Lance have seen corrections to make their Acc values match those on their weapon cards, though the Warbringer’s carapace weapons appear to still be misprinted in the book as being front arc instead of corridor arc – given the inclusion of the Tracking Gyroscopes upgrade in the Loyalist Legios book and the fact that there are no other changes to the statistics of the various weapons, this seems like it may have been unintended. Hopefully there’ll be clarification one way or the other soon.
In addition, a pair of stratagems were clarified to make sure they work properly – Legio Ignatum’s Guard the Gates, and the Loyalist-specific Martian Servitor Clades. Guard the Gates now works like you’d expect, and the change to Martian Servitor Clades clarifies that it is intended to work until the end of the next stratagem phase, allowing you to roll a few extra dice in your damage control phase, push like mad, then go on Emergency Repairs while still keeping those two dice. It’s a neat trick, and one that is welcome on a 3SP stratagem.
The remaining changes are largely to bring the content in the old books in line with the new Loyalist Legios book, allowing players who don’t have access to that book to use the changes to their legion rules and to the various stratagems on offer. It doesn’t include the new wargear upgrades, but if you just wanted to get updated versions of your legion rules and available stratagems, they’re here meaning you don’t necessarily need the new book.
Final Thoughts
That’s about it for the rules changes this time around. While the change to merging voids is huge and will really take the wind out of some strategies that were previously hard to crack, most of what’s here is pretty straightforward.
On a related note, we’re glad to see this FAQ come out so quickly after the Loyalist Legios book. The level of support Games Workshop has consistently extended to Titanicus is great, and providing the changes that were made with the Loyalist Legios book to everyone rather than just those who bought the new book is nice to see.
