Welcome back to Goonhammer’s series for aspiring Titan Principes. We here at Goonhammer’s own Collegia Titanica know that Adeptus Titanicus can seem intimidating to players unfamiliar with its particular quirks, but this series aims to equip you with everything you’ll need to play out epic clashes on the battlefields of the far future with your very own Titan Battlegroup. In this series, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look at the various Legios of the Collegia Titanica – exploring their origins and how to use them on the tabletop, from maniple selection and their loadouts, through to how to command them on the field of battle to secure ultimate victory.
The Tiger Eyes are feral by nature, which is reflected in their rules – not to mention their incredibly sick 80s livery. They have incredible alpha strike potential and lend themselves well to a wide range of strategies. Read on to see how you can turn these ferocious warriors’ legendary furor to your own ends.
Who are Legio Fureans?
To understand why the Fureans are infamous for their ferocity, you need to look at where they came from. From the founding of their Forge World Incaladion during the Age of Strife they were constantly beset by conflict, be it civil war or endless waves of xenos invasion who coveted their abundant mineral resources.
Incaladion enslaved human stock from neighbouring feral worlds and as part of this adapted some of their more primitive and occult practices. From one of these tribes is where the Low Gothic name for the Legion came from, “Tiger Eyes”, who worshipped the Titans as gods.
When reunified with Imperium, they were one of the most distinguished non-martian Legios during the Great Crusade. Thanks to these successes, the powers that be turned a blind eye to their occult rites and heretical practices, an oversight that they would regret when Horus turned traitor. In hindsight it isn’t surprising that they would heed the Warmaster’s call.
Painting Legio Fureans
Genola: Legio Fureans is known for their striking yellow and black flames color scheme. It looks intimidating but it’s actually not that difficult to pull off with some time. This isn’t necessarily the best or only way to paint Fureans, but I think it gives pretty good results without an airbrush, and uses GW paints that can be found relatively easily. I wanted to keep my Fureans simple and go with a more ochre/orangey yellow, but if you want a brighter yellow, I might recommend taking a look at the paints used in HTPE: Imperial Fists.
The Skeleton
I assembled the skeleton of the model and sprayed it with Leadbelcher, shaded it all over with Nuln Oil, drybrushed the edges with Runefang Steel, then went back to pick out the details with Balthasar Gold. I washed the Balthasar with Nuln Oil to give it a slightly grimy appearance. Any weapons or metallic parts were done the same way.
The Armor
To paint the yellow armor, I primed the panels on the sprue with Wraithbone spray, then basecoated the armor panels with Averland Sunset. It may take several coats to get them fully covered, but your patience will pay off with a smooth orangey-yellow armor panel. Then, I shaded the recesses with Iyanden yellow and highlighted rivets and edges with Yriel Yellow.
To paint any black armor panels, I used Corvus Black, shaded the recesses with Nuln Oil, and highlighted edges and rivets with Mechanicus Standard Grey.
Flameo Hotman!
To paint the black flames, I took guidance from SRM’s guide to flames from HTPE: Details and searched “flames vector” on google for inspiration on the kind of shapes I wanted for the flames. Then, I painted the outlines using Corvus Black, and filled in the rest on the armor panel with the same, adding additional coats until I got even coverage, and like with the black armor panels, shaded the recesses with Nuln Oil, then cleaned up with some more Averland Sunset. Again, it’s important to take your time here and use a good pointy brush for clean, sharp tips on the flames.
For painting an inverse color scheme with yellow flames on black, I painted the entire panel yellow first, then flipped the armor panel upside down and carefully traced the negative outline of the flames in black
The Trim
Finally, like the details on the skeleton, I painted the trim using Balthasar Gold, washed with Nuln Oil, and then edge highlighted with Sycorax Bronze.
All that is left is for decals to be applied, the titan based, and any weathering done should you choose, and you’ll be ready to offensively surge all over the enemy.
Fureans in Adeptus Titanicus
Tactical Overview
The Tiger Eyes’ machine spirits were notoriously feral, taking on the disposition of generations of previous Princeps that had piloted them in the past. This is represented by the Machine Rage trait, which makes their Titans’ machine spirits awaken when they roll a blank on the Reactor die in addition to the “Machine Spirit Awakens” symbol. It still doesn’t generate any heat, though. In exchange, if a Legio Fureans Titan fails its command check to quell its machine spirit, it can choose which result on the Awakened Machine Spirit table to apply rather than having to roll for it.
This is an interesting trade off, making your Titans less likely to do exactly what you tell them, but giving you the security of knowing that, even if they don’t follow your orders exactly, at least they’ll ignore them in the way that is least damaging to your battle plan. This also has the fun effect of making pushing for using Voids to Full! all the more useful – if your machine spirit awakens, you can interrupt your opponent’s activation to shoot them in the face for their trouble.
Many Faces of the Omnissiah dares your opponent to hide from you during early turns by letting you “bank” a re-roll for each activation you don’t use during the first round. Short- and mid-ranged Titans often won’t have great options for targets in round one, and if you can set them up in 50% cover or better, foregoing a less effective combat round for a re-roll that could potentially come in useful in the clutch later on in the game. You generally won’t want to forego your movement phase, but depending on your loadouts and the matchup, taking the re-roll in lieu of a less effective combat phase could be worthwhile.
Soggy: I’ve found myself using this ability more than I thought I would when my opponent has cleverly denied my attacks or I find myself not needing to move my last titan which is playing a fire support role. To be extra jammy, you could use this reroll in conjunction with overloading your shields to reroll the 1s.
Offensive Surge is in the running for one of the best stratagems in the game. It allows each of your Titans to fire one of its weapons twice in a turn at the cost of increasing its heat by 1. This is potentially game-changing, drastically increasing the output of one of your maniples. You’ll want to pile your heavy hitters into a single maniple to take the greatest advantage of this stratagem possible, and will need to plan your movement carefully. Opponents will be expecting you to set this up, so you’ll have your work cut out for you, but if you manage to pull it off the rewards are worth it.
Hunting Auspex is a 20-point upgrade that reduces penalties to hit against targets over 12” away by 1, to a minimum of 0. This includes range penalties, the effect of cover, and accuracy penalties on your weapon cards. It also includes indirect fire penalties, letting you do cheeky stuff like blind-fire an apocalypse at long range and still hit on a 3+. If you have a fire-support Titan or otherwise expect to be taking a lot of shots from outside 12”, this often translates to a flat +1 to hit for 20 points, which is well worth the investment. You won’t take this on everything, but it’s almost always at least worth considering.
Soggy: My favourite use of this is when coupled on a brawler Warlord princeps with the Swift Killer personal trait.This enables your princeps to have a free pivot before firing with no penalty at targets over 12”, allowing you to catch flanking titans by surprise.
In the lore, the majority of the legion consisted of Mars-pattern Warlord and Warhound chassis, although their rules in AT have strong synergy for Reavers. The Tiger Eyes have two useful Personal traits available to them which both pair well with a Reaver Princeps Senioris.
Titan Stalker adds 1 to the Princeps’ armor rolls when targeting a Titan within 12” of equal or larger scale. Fantastic on a short-ranged or melee Reaver and in combination with the maniples that give an additional bonus to armour rolls such as the Ferrox and Lupercal. Humardu Savage adds 2 to the strength of the Princeps’s smash attacks. Your Reaver is now performing STR 11 smash attacks – stronger than a powerfist. Turns a melee-focused Princeps into an absolute monster and gives significant close-range threat to an otherwise longer-ranged Princeps.
Their third personal trait, Trophy Taker, requires you to disable weapons in melee to get any use out of, and if you’re close enough to be making smash or melee attacks, then you’re usually either going for the kill or desperately trying to stay alive.
Maniple Choice
When building a Fureans Battlegroup there aren’t any really incorrect options. If you are intending to make the most powerful alpha strike possible with Offensive Surge, you may want to have one larger maniple rather than multiple small ones fishing for different traits. Warhound Titans don’t combo the best with offensive surge as it can really tax their short Plasma Reactor track, so bear that in mind if you go to use it.
While they are pretty flexible there are some great combinations that we would be remiss not to mention:
- The Knife Fighters Ferrox trait of +1 to armour rolls combos nicely with the Titan Stalker personal trait. Ideally this would be on the Reaver to get the most use out of it, but you could put this on a Warhound which would then get +3 when performing coordinated strikes at targets it’s close enough to.
- A Brawler Warlord Princeps Seniores with Swift Killer loves to have a Hunting Auspex to pick off flankers, particularly when they get to fire one of their guns twice thanks to Offensive Surge. Consider taking a heavier maniple with some chonky bois to make the most of this.
- Reavers are probably our favourite chassis run as Fureans, despite this being somewhat less accurate to the lore. They have a forgiving enough reactor that Offensive Surge won’t immediately put you in danger and both Titan Stalker and Humdaru Savage pair nicely on common roles that a Reaver fills. Hunting Auspex can also make all of those Laser weapons sing at long range. This all comes together to make options like the Corsair or Ruptura very tempting.
A double Ferrox at 1500 points is solid, and if you want to run one, consider the list we included in our Legio Tempestus focus, swapping out Stormborn for Titan Stalker and running it as a single Ferrox with a support Warhound. However, we’ve talked up the merits of the Ferrox maniple a lot in prior articles, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to show off something a bit different from what you might be expecting, but which still takes advantage of the unique rules Legio Fureans offers.
Legio Fureans Battlegroup – 1485 pts
Arcus Batteline Maniple – 1315 pts
Nemesis Warbringer Titan – 415 pts
- Princeps Senioris – Favoured by Fortune
- Volcano Canon
- Mori Quake Canon
- Volcano Canon
- Hunting Auspex
Warhound Titan – 240 pts
- Turbo Laser Destructor
- Turbo Laser Destructor
- Hunting Auspex
Warhound Titan – 220 pts
- Plasma Blastgun
- Vulcan Megabolter
Warhound Titan – 220 pts
- Plasma Blastgun
- Vulcan Megabolter
Warhound Titan – 220 pts
- Plasma Blastgun
- Vulcan Megabolter
Knight Banner support – 170 pts
Cerastus Knight Banner – 170 pts
- Cerastus Lancer x2
This list is centered a single trick, but it’s a doozy: the Warbringer packs some very dangerous blast weapons and can fire them indirectly as long as one of the Warhounds can see the target. Combining the Hunting Auspex upgrade with the Coordinate Relay trait of the Arcus maniple allows the Warbringer to stand behind terrain on Split Fire orders, arcing fire on all of it’s weapons and only suffering a -1 for indirect fire for targets beyond 12”. And if it misses, its shots deviate d6 instead of d10, giving you a decent chance of putting at least one hit on your intended target even if your hit roll sucks.
Soggy: Knight players might as well not bother setting up against this Warbringer as cover will offer them no respite.
Being centered around a single model is risky, although your opponent should find it hard to dislodge when fully obstructed behind cover. They’ve been given Princeps Senioris for the command bonus for orders along with Favoured by Fortune to ensure those powerful shots land. Avoid deploying too close to the sides of a table as your opponent may consider using Outflank to get behind you. Make sure you’re also keeping an eye on your reactor track – firing both volcano cannons every turn could quickly get out of hand.
Most of the Warhounds have been given the flexible megabolter/plasma blastgun loadout to ensure they can skirmish with anything in the midfield. One Warhound has been equipped with turbo-lasers and a Hunting Auspex so it can make called shots to finish off weakened targets. You’ll probably want to put the dual turbo-laser Warhound in a squad so it can make coordinated strikes, and can consider putting the remaining two Warhounds in their own squadron depending on your opponent’s list.
Play the plasma/bolter Warhounds more aggressively, as they’re able to contribute in their own right, and reserve the turbo-laser Warhound for situations where you’re likely to set up a kill. If it goes down, you’re left relying on the megabolters for called shots, which can be tough until you get to the last spot or two on a given structure track.
If that isn’t enough for your opponent to worry about, we’ve also got a banner of Cerastus Lancers in there. These should force your opponent to focus on them in early rounds while your Warhound get into flanking positions and start spotting for the Warbinger. And if they’re able to cross the table unharmed, their shock lances will deal incredible damage to anything they charge.
In terms of Stratagems, Offensive Surge may seem tempting but remember this will immediately put all of your Warhounds at risk of orange-lining, but firing twice with a pile of plasma blastguns (or even megabolters into an already-damaged target) can be devastating, and an extra two turbo-laser shots making called shots on 4+ could make the difference between letting an enemy Titan off at the end of its structure track and securing the engine kill.
Some solid options would include things that will help you strip voids for your Warbringer to cripple such as Strafing Run or an Apocalypse Missile Strongpoint.
A concealment barrage is a good call as you could use this for different defensive purposes – your Warbringer has indirect fire, so it doesn’t care about being in smoke or it can be used to help deliver your Cerastus Knights upfield to make their charge.
If you’re concerned about the reactor track on your Warbringer, you could swap one or both of the volcano cannons for laser blasters. They’ll also offer you some more reliable short-ranged firepower if you’re concerned that someone might close on you.
Playing against Fureans
Be incredibly mindful of Offensive Surge, with the recent change in strategem points in the FAQ it is more likely to be used. Try and prevent a solid alpha strike opportunity before you manage to cripple some of their Titans. However, keep in mind that this stratagem will eat up three of their stratagem points, meaning you’re less likely to have to worry about other tricks.
On the flip side, if your Fureans opponent plays enough stratagem to take them below 3 remaining stratagem points, then you know they don’t have Offensive Surge on deck, and you should feel free to play a bit more aggressively.
Remember which Titans have Hunting Auspices on them – there’s less reason for you to worry about cover as you might only be hindering yourself. They’re also potential threats at ranges that you might otherwise discount – a plasma Warhound hits on 3+ at targets outside 12”, and laser blaster Reavers get their full BS even at long range.
Unleash the Beasts
Legio Fureans are an aggressive legion whose rules let them put out some of the most devastating alpha strikes in the game with very little downside. We think they’re a great option for a player whose main focus is on quick, hard-hitting play.
As always, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
