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.
This week we’re looking at Legio Oberon “Death Bolts II”, who were introduced to the game in the Shadow and Iron supplement and have a great set of rules to complement any playstyle.
Who are Legio Oberon?
During the Great Crusade, Legio Oberon stood vigil over their newly commissioned Forge World of Anvari. Eventually joining the exploratory fleets, they would fight alongside the Sons of Gulliman in a series of successful campaigns – expanding their strategic acumen thanks to the guidance of the Primarch of the XIIth Legion.
Legio Oberon would rally to the muster of Calth, where the loyalists were found flat footed by the betrayal of the Traitors. For the following Shadow Crusade and the Crusade of Iron, Oberon would counter the ferocity of traitor legions with their tactical genius.
Soggy: Legio Honorum, or the “Death Bolts I,” were introduced in the following supplement Defense of Ryza, but I’ve not got further information about the link between them.
Painting Legio Oberon
We asked the_colorful_crustacean (Insta) how he painted up his Legio Oberon Battlegroup.
Metals: Leadbelcher base followed by the drybrush of Stormhost Silver
Armour Panels: Trollslayer Orange base then masked various stripe patterns and airbrushed Abaddon Black all over the armor panels I had masked. Then I washed the recesses of the orange with Agrax Earthshade, being sure to JUST keep it where the panels met the trim.
Eye Lenses: Lothern Blue, followed by layer of 50/50 Lotern Blue and Baharroth Blue and final highlight of Baharroth Blue.
In terms of masking, it’s actually really simple. I used Tamiya masking tape because I knew it had to be pretty small stripes, but you could cut normal masking tape and it would also work! I simply cut a length of tape then divided it into some amount of equal sections, then cut then into triangles by dragging from one corner to the middle of the opposite edge with my knife. You can be more exact if you want but I mostly eyeballed it.
For diamond shapes you do the same thing, just do it do both ends of your piece of tape!
Oberon in Adeptus Titanicus
Tactical Overview
Being Efficient Planners, Legio Oberon Titans get a +1 on Command checks for each other engine that has successfully issued the same order earlier in the same Strategy phase, to a maximum of +3. This trait allows you to take orders on your Princeps and then duplicate them across the other titans on the field. Oberon lists generally want to set themselves up to issue the same orders to more than one Titan a turn, such as a Corsair going on Split Fire orders (it’s basically all you want or need with a Corsair anyway), and this trait will help you do that.
Soggy: Certainly not a game breaking trait, but this could allow for some battlegroups to pass some First Fire or Split-Fire orders that they might not have otherwise.
Bair: I agree not game breaking, but handy when you want the same orders at similar times even just if it’s a second Titan wanting the same order, the amount of times I’ve failed an order by 1 is almost enough to drive me insane.
Legio Oberon Titans take to the field in close coordination, forming an Armoured Phalanx. This trait allows an Oberon Titan that has another within 2” subtract 1 from incoming Armour Rolls. Reducing the strength of opposing attacks is a solid ability, but it does require you to stack your Titans up in close proximity, which is really asking to be hit by Blast weapons, Quake Shells and other Concussive weaponry. As a bonus, this does pair nicely with shield sharing via a Squadron or Regia maniple or the Fortis maniple’s Titanic Fortress trait.
Bair: As a Vulcanum player primarily, I love this for the Regia. It doesn’t help the shields break any slower, but when the shields ARE finally broken those initial hits are going to be harder to get in.
Legio Oberon has two interesting stratagems to pick from, one of them is definitely a bit more spicy than the other. Thanks to their careful planning, Oberon can execute a Decisive Action for 2SP. This stratagem allows you to issue a whole pile of free orders to your Oberon Titans depending on which turn you’re in. If used in the first turn, you can choose from Full Stride or First Fire otherwise, you pick between Full Stride or Split Fire. The fine print here is that you have to issue the same choice to all Titans you choose. The spread of options is pretty good, letting you either close the distance or unload from a distance, which will help you adapt to your opponent’s battleplan. Not an auto take, but definitely worth considering.
Their most impressive trick is Strategiser, a 3-point stratagem that allows them to counter an opponent’s stratagem if it costs 2 stratagem points or less. Yes, Agents of Vect has come to Titanicus. Just having the threat of this stratagem can have impacts on how your opponent plays. Be mindful that they might try to bait it out of you and also consider what Legion they are playing and what the scenario is – this stratagem has no effect on big 3SP stratagems like Offensive Surge or March of the Dead, but there aren’t that many generic 3SP stratagems that are worth taking. Important to note though that this does entirely remove multi-turn stratagems such as Scatterable Mines or Quake Shells from the game, often the stratagems that are a threat to Oberon’s Armoured Phalanx rule.
Bair: Extremely effective as long as you don’t try and save this too late into the game, the opponent might just decide to take a load of end-game tertiary objectives or multi-use stratagems where it matters much less if you stop one of 3 obscuration barrages.
Legio Oberon Princeps can use their Tactical Genius trait to give them an additional +1 SP when selecting stratagems. Extra Stratagem points are always useful, letting you afford some of the more expensive stratagems such as Strategiser or another Obscuration Barrage.
Condit: This puts you at 6SP for a game in the 1250-1750 bracket, which opens up a lot of options. I frequently find myself wishing I had just one more point to do something that could be incredibly cool, and having consistent access to that without having to hope your opponent takes two sets of Legio rules for some reason would be really nice.
When using Knight Banners in close support such as in a Dominus or Janissary maniple, a Princeps Seniores with the Peerless Commander trait makes Knights within 6” of them automatically pass command checks to test for Shaken or recovering from Shaken results.
Legio Oberon Princeps can use their Unwavering trait to automatically pass a failed command check. This would be cool, except the same supplement includes Iron Resolve, which allows any Loyalist Titan to automatically pass a failed command check in the Strategy phase, not just your Princeps. This provides the same effect for 1SP, which is exactly what you’d get by taking Tactical Genius except that this trait won’t even work on the Titans that are most likely to fail. The only thing you give up by taking Iron Resolve is the ability to use this in other phases, which probably isn’t worthwhile.
Maniple Choice
Legio Oberon’s abilities work well with a wide variety of maniples and respective playstyles, although there are a few interactions that make some more interesting to us. One thing to keep in mind here is that the more Titans in your list that want to be doing the same thing on any given turn, the more you get out of Efficient Planners and Decisive Action. This means that maniples like the Extergimus, Corsair, Ferrox, or Myrmidon, whose Titans generally all have the same game plan, can make excellent use of these abilities.
The Fortis maniple is an obvious choice to make excellent use of the Armoured Phalanx trait- it combines nicely with the heavy armour on Warlords as well as with the maniple’s ability to share void shields and sometimes negate structure modifiers. You’d be hard pressed to find a more durable battlepile in the game.
The Regia also benefits from bunching up, and with Efficient Planners helping pass orders on your Warhounds, you can bring the likelihood of failure to an absolute minimum – the Warlords can already pass orders to each other thanks to the Royal Court trait.
Some of the maniples that include Knights, such as the newly announced Ignis maniple or the venerable Dominus or Janissary maniples, could make use of a Peerless Commander to help keep them moving up the field without having to worry as much about attrition.
With all that in mind, this week we’ve made a solid 1750 point battlegroup which takes advantage of the unique rules Legio Oberon offers.
Legio Oberon Battlegroup – 1500 pts
Perpetua Maniple – 1745 pts
Warlord Titan – 540 pts
- Princeps Seniores – Tactical Genius
- Apocalypse Missile Launchers
- Belicosa Volcano Cannon
- Macro Gatling Blaster
- Upgrades: Tracking Gyroscopes, Hunter Shells
Reaver Titan – 295 pts
- Vulcan Megabolter
- Chainfist
- Gatling Blaster
Reaver Titan – 300 pts
- Apocalypse Missile Launcher
- Gatling Blaster
- Laser Blaster
Reaver Titan – 300 pts
- Apocalypse Missile Launcher
- Gatling Blaster
- Volcano Cannon
Reaver Titan – 310 pts
- Vulcan Megabolter
- Gatling Blaster
- Melta Cannon
Filled to the brim with Reavers and a Warlord to do some heavier lifting, this list is a serious threat at 1750 points games. One of the biggest strengths of the Reaver is the flexibility of roles that it can fill. The Perpetua adds some extra survivability to your engines as well, making this a great all-rounder list by allowing Emergency Repair orders to be issued at an unmodifiable 2+ and if your Titan hasn’t moved adding +1 to the number of dice it will roll in the damage control phase as well. The Warlord is able to sit back a little or push forwards thanks to its loadout as well, the apocalypse launchers are nice and cheap but still great at stripping shields. With the multiple barrage weapons in this list it will be worth looking at taking the Forward Observers stratagem for easier hits on targets that some of the titans can’t see.
Oberon’s Armoured Phalanx trait will complement the Reavers that fill similar battlefield roles and fight in close proximity – in particular the two melee Reavers and the one equipped with the Melta Cannon can advance up the field together while leveraging that added durability to move through incoming fire.
Efficient Planners has a fair bit of potential to trigger multiple times too between the different roles they’ll be playing when you’re not issuing Emergency Repair. That said, thanks to Tactical Genius, you’ve got an extra stratagem point available which could be used on Iron Resolve to guarantee you’ll get and order when you need it.
Speaking of stratagems, we would strongly consider taking an Concealment Barrage to allow the melee Reavers to close and Iron Resolve to seal the deal. It would be rude not to take Strategiser, but merely the threat of having this available might well make your opponent a little gun-shy, so consider prioritising other stratagems if the scenario calls for it.
Playing against Oberon
Due to their flexibility, most of what you’ll need to consider will be dependent on the scenario and the battlegroups involved – however, there are a few key things to consider. Just even the threat of Strategiser means that you can’t count on 1-2SP stratagems such as Warp Displacement to be the ace up your sleeve. If it looks like the battlegroup will be stacking up due to the number of Warhounds or something like a Fortis/Regia maniple – take Quake Shells to knock them around, which could bait out Strategiser for something else a bit more juicy later on.
Vox Blackout and other effects that shut down orders are especially useful against Oberon’s incredibly reliable command checks. However, you can also mitigate the usefulness of these abilities by manoeuvring to make them less effective – closing in on long range Titans and keeping your distance from short-ranged ones will make it harder for them to issue the same order to multiple Titans in a phase without severe opportunity cost. Finally, try to stay focused on destroying one or two Titans rather than spreading out your firepower – if they get into a good position, they can use Efficient Planners to repeatedly issue Emergency Repair orders to all of their Titans fairly reliably, making it that much harder to put them down.
We Love It When A Plan Comes Together
Legio Oberon provides a flexible set of options that you can run in almost any maniple, though you’ll want to be laser focused on your chosen strategy since you’ll get the most use out of their abilities if you’re issuing the same orders to multiple Titans. However, your plans that lean on orders will be that much more consistent, and just the threat of Strategiser will have a huge impact on how the game plays.
