Started playing a new campaign with a new group of players who haven’t got much earlier contact with the 40k setting resulted in few fluff/crunch questions. As some of them are both imho interesting and beyond my forbidden lore (fluff) skill I’d like to get your opinion.

Group is bit paranoid about those evil buggers who always come back, just as in the 80’ and 90’ horror movies, so few questions is about ways of killing-killing stuff.

1. Can vortex/warp weapons permanently kill Necrons?

2. Do theosophamy powers just kill physical manifestation of deamons or banish them for 1001 years?

3. Does theosophamy have something more in common with powers wielded by Grey Knights than just deamon-killing?

(I haven’t played table top or read GK Codex so this was the hardest question, also it’s perceived potential of game breaking is quite high.)

4. Why titans are considered so combat effective?

(Admittedly, aside from morale-boost, I can’t come up with a single task that titan can achieve and a squadron of small craft can’t. Also looking at Starfurys stats from Battlefleet Koronus and Warhounds from Rites of Battle I’d put my bet on Starfury if they do one on one fight.)

That would be all I can remember from last session. Thanks in advance for all answers,

Why are you going to have Grey Knights in a Rogue Trader game, especially when you admit to so little experience with the system? Wouldn't it be prudent to first play a vanilla game and find out what Rogue Trader is before attempting to mix genres? I've played in multiple games without the need for Necrons, Grey Knights, and uber-powerful daemons.

Why are you going to have Grey Knights in a Rogue Trader game, especially when you admit to so little experience with the system? Wouldn't it be prudent to first play a vanilla game and find out what Rogue Trader is before attempting to mix genres? I've played in multiple games without the need for Necrons, Grey Knights, and uber-powerful daemons.

I have to agree with Errant. I am a first time RT DM as well and so far my players have encountered lowly scum hiveworlders to a ganger boss named One Eyed Willy. Its all about progression. The next people will be pirates to ork freebootas. Progression. I don't know much about Grey knights and Necrons but I do know they are very powerful and that you shouldn't use them right off the bat. Unless your players want high-level enemies and heavy combat then it would be ok.

1. There's a different between Warp and vortex weaponry - a warp weapon is technically anything fueled by fell warp energies and this can range from heretek weaponry of the dark mechanicus through to the melee weapons of daemons. Vortex weapons on the other hand create a rift in reality, a sort of black hole, that annihilates all matter it touches from existence as it sucks it out of reality (possibly into the warp itself or maybe elsewhere or even nowhere).

Now mechanically speaking Warp weapons ignore armour unless hexagrammatically warded, which Necrons aren't, so it would be as effective against them as anything else. Vortex weapons are few and far between in the rules but taking one example (wraithguard D-guns) should also work fine against Necrons.

2. Theosophamy is all about harming and banishing Daemons, as it is the counterpart to Daemonology which is about summoning and controlling them.

3. In that respect ALL psychic disciplines are alike, in that they channel warp energy because of the manifest will of the psyker. Grey Knights focus more on destroying daemons outright if possible, only banishing the truly powerful ones they can't kill. However there is a LOT of conflicting lore about Grey Knights and if you're thinking about using the rules from Dark Heresy for them i wouldn't...

4. Titans are the pinnacle of human engineering and wield weaponry that are normally found on small starships. Such weapons aren't easily portable on the battlefield without such a colossal frame to carry them and the most efficient means of controlling such a monstrosity is through the use of a Princeps - a specially trained pilot who uses a Mind Interface Unit to directly commune with the machine spirit of the titan and is supported by a specialist crew of tech priests and other analysts. Titans carry void shields that stop all lesser weaponry from harming them and can operate in the roughest of battlefield conditions and terrain.
Whilst a tank company could possiby lay down as much firepower overall, it would struggle to cross certain terrain types, are vulnerable to certain weapons and their firepower output diminishes as they take losses. A titan on the other hand generally operates at 100% firepower until destroyed, as the kinds of weapons that can penetrate their void shields will destroy them.

Plus ultimately giant mecha have always been cool and so the writers of 40k lore decided to include some in a non-anime style (read Tau battlesuits).

I think it was just a comparison to what Grey Knights do, not admitting that my favorite Chapter will be appearing; Grey Knights do often use psychic cheesery to get rid of Daemons, as it can be quicker than having to fight them. GK use Sanctic Powers in their codex, in addition to Pyro, Div, TK, and TP. Some don't get to pick, and so get just Sanctic. I would guess that Theosphamy is close to Sanctic practice, using the warp, and your purity and knowledge of daemons to send them screaming back, into the Empryean.

Starfuries eat it from simple AA guns; Titans require dedicated tank companies, or other Titans, to bring them low, and they have weapons that can flatten almost anything less than themselves, be it infantry (hahahahaha!!!), tank formations, or even fortifications. If you were doing a one-on-one, you might be able to argue that a Titan would have a hard time hitting a Starfury, or heaven help them a Starhawk Bomber, whose ordnance might actually scratch the paint, but I'd argue that the Titans are not typical war weapons; they are only trooped out when the AdMech deign to loan their "offensive" offensive power to the Imperial Guard, in the most critical of battles, so they WILL be supported by numerous infantry, vehicles, AA gun formations, etc, making a fighter run on one, even a small Warhound, a big risk. Its guns might be hard-pressed to ping the fighter, but it's got friends whose whole job description is just that.

All that said, as I babbled, the AdMech hordes their mecha, and they are rare, if terrifying sight, so you might very well find it more tactically feasible to use attack craft on ground targets, bombing buildings and Leman formations with Starhawks, or strafing infantry with Furies, since the deployment of Titans is a massive pain in the a...umm, undertaking, even after you finish sucking...up to, yeah, sucking up to the Ad mech for the loan of some. Even in a navy that seems to despise fighter craft, in favor of bigger ships, with more guns (which is funny when one reads some of the interesting cheese a RT can pull off with supercarriers), they are still considerably easier to acquire, and arrange for, than ANY Titans.

Errant Knight and The Survivor - I mostly agree with you. Have I stated I want to place GK, Titans and Necrons in first session/s of vanilla group or that is my first campaing? Those are questions from players for which I'd like to know other GMs opinion, to better describe 40k setting for them. Those questions are from smart people who do like to find loopholes and I do like to provide them with as much coherent setting I can.

Kasatka - thanks for your answers.

1. I was under impression that vortex weaponry don't create black holes but open short-living warp rifts. My opinion is based on description of vortex torpedoes ("tears open a rent in the very fabric of reality, consigning vast chunks of its target into the warp") and Jovian-pattern Nova Cannon ("the resultant rifts into the warp (...)"). From mechanical point of view I should rephrase my quastion: Do you thing Necrons can regenarate damage done by warp-base weaponry of adequate grade? (not asking about necron warrior regenerating after being hit by Nova Cannon).

2. Can you elaborate a bit more on this one? I don't want to be rude, but I haven't asked about deamonology. Maybe I'm not getting something.

Venkelos - you've got my rumbbling good:)

I know Titans are increadibly rare and powerful. Still Starhawk Bomber carry munitions which probably have range in 100 of kilometers (anti-ship missiles p. 140 of Battlefleet Koronus) and can damage/destroy starships - I don't think Titans are thougher than starships - also according to Wahounds rules in Rites of Battle their voidshields can be brought down by lascannons and such.

Titans are at least unique and also need proper delivery and maintaince. If you want to deploy them you probably have to have orbital control first, so then way not use lance strikes? Titans aren't made for precision attacks either.

Small craft is at worst extremaly rare-10, is faster, easier to maintain and isn't AdMechs religious fetish.

If we took theirs rules RAW I don't see a point in using titans and it's hard time for me to selling the idea of titans to players.

Note that the Warhound is the smallest type of Titan - a Scout-Titan (whoever came up with that name had a sense of humor I'd say) The bigger classes field more weapons and have better reactors and shields. I further assume Titans are - theoretically - far more independent, with more operational time and, assuming a pattern using only energy-based weaponry (Turbolaser Destructor comes to mind) would only need to return to base for refueling.

Oh, and they can operate in certain Hive Cities. I think I remember a story about Armageddon, where they used artillery - within a factory hall. Because the Imperium of Man is like that.

Edit: Fail, didn't realized the Vehicle-Rule Spacecraft also allowed for in-atmosphere flight. First part (now deleted) was written under the assumption of Starhawks and ships with only the Spacecraft-Trait not being able to enter the atmosphere of a planet.

The reason why I was surprised that Interceptors don't suffer an acquisition penalty is that they are extremely useful, but disregarded by most of the Imperium because they are hard to make and difficult to upkeep, and seen to be a fairly large burden. From reading fluff books about Titans, they're armed with a crazy huge amount of weaponry, as well as sophisticated auto-targeters presumably for shooting down enemy aircraft, or giant volcano cannons for when they can't be bothered to aim. There's also no indication that I've found that a plasma torpedo would work in the atmosphere correctly, since it's meant to be deployed in the void of space where there's significantly less atmosphere as a potential complication.

Vortex torpedoes do work the way you'd say, so presumably if a Necron was sucked into one they'd be destroyed. However there's no real set rule as to how their phase out rule works. The previous editions of Necrons were immortal, unkillable flesh-harvesting monsters whereas newer Necrons has more interesting personalities and battle tactics, but seem slightly less unkillable as a result.

A lot of your questions to my knowledge don't have firm answers because they're not the kindo f thing the Imperium would know about, and that's our primary source of knowledge. What happens when we banish a Daemon? We seem to kill them and their bodies and essences are destroyed, and then they show up out of some bloody warp rift later fresh and ready to ruin our day again. The Grey Knights and Astropaths are both in a sense Psykers trained by the Emperor, so it makes sense that there would be some overlap between their powers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they work in exactly the same way.

Errant Knight and The Survivor - I mostly agree with you. Have I stated I want to place GK, Titans and Necrons in first session/s of vanilla group or that is my first campaing? Those are questions from players for which I'd like to know other GMs opinion, to better describe 40k setting for them. Those questions are from smart people who do like to find loopholes and I do like to provide them with as much coherent setting I can.

Kasatka - thanks for your answers.

1. I was under impression that vortex weaponry don't create black holes but open short-living warp rifts. My opinion is based on description of vortex torpedoes ("tears open a rent in the very fabric of reality, consigning vast chunks of its target into the warp") and Jovian-pattern Nova Cannon ("the resultant rifts into the warp (...)"). From mechanical point of view I should rephrase my quastion: Do you thing Necrons can regenarate damage done by warp-base weaponry of adequate grade? (not asking about necron warrior regenerating after being hit by Nova Cannon).

2. Can you elaborate a bit more on this one? I don't want to be rude, but I haven't asked about deamonology. Maybe I'm not getting something.

Venkelos - you've got my rumbbling good:)

I know Titans are increadibly rare and powerful. Still Starhawk Bomber carry munitions which probably have range in 100 of kilometers (anti-ship missiles p. 140 of Battlefleet Koronus) and can damage/destroy starships - I don't think Titans are thougher than starships - also according to Wahounds rules in Rites of Battle their voidshields can be brought down by lascannons and such.

Titans are at least unique and also need proper delivery and maintaince. If you want to deploy them you probably have to have orbital control first, so then way not use lance strikes? Titans aren't made for precision attacks either.

Small craft is at worst extremaly rare-10, is faster, easier to maintain and isn't AdMechs religious fetish.

If we took theirs rules RAW I don't see a point in using titans and it's hard time for me to selling the idea of titans to players.

Interesting players indeed. I apologize as I was uncertain by the earlier phrasing but I understand now. You have quite the capable players if they can get ahold of some Titans or the attention of the grey knights. I envy you.

It might be worth noting that a regular Void Bombers work on starships by passing through the ships void shield and being able to aim specifically at small weak points on the ship. (Windows, segment junctions, etc.) The rarer Torpedo Bombers have large missile that also pass through the void shield before homing in on similar points. This doesn't work against titans who's void shields are much tighter to it, and calibrated to stop relatively slow moving missiles.

Titans, in general, are intended to spearhead mass battle formations. They move at the head of armored or infantry columns hundreds or thousands strong to form a devastating point. In essence, they are to tanks what tanks are to infantry. That being said, they are known to be vulnerable to fast-moving aircraft with dedicated anti-titan weapons. That's the very reason why the 3 titans committed to the Taros campaign were pulled as soon as Tau demonstrated a coordinated heavy missile barrage (to remove the void shields) followed by an aircraft with a really big railgun.

That being said, Titans are 90% Rule of Cool, 10% cost effective.

Whether or not rules limit attack craft from operating in the atmosphere and aeronautica from operating in the void, i would think its pretty clear that they are intended to be limited and not interchangable. Otherwise there's no point having any aeronautica as there rules are inferior

Kasatka - thanks for your answers.

1. I was under impression that vortex weaponry don't create black holes but open short-living warp rifts. My opinion is based on description of vortex torpedoes ("tears open a rent in the very fabric of reality, consigning vast chunks of its target into the warp") and Jovian-pattern Nova Cannon ("the resultant rifts into the warp (...)"). From mechanical point of view I should rephrase my quastion: Do you thing Necrons can regenarate damage done by warp-base weaponry of adequate grade? (not asking about necron warrior regenerating after being hit by Nova Cannon).

2. Can you elaborate a bit more on this one? I don't want to be rude, but I haven't asked about deamonology. Maybe I'm not getting something.

1. Well bear in mind that most vortex weapons the imperium uses are ancient devices and at the time they were made the warp wasn't something the imperium knew about (or if it did it didnt openly acknowledge) so a lot of the descriptions are vague, but you can fill in the blanks whenever it references rifts in space etc to be warp rifts.

2. I don't have hard and fast rules for Theosophamy and Daemonlogy in front of me, but fluff wise they are counterpart/complementary psychic disciplines. Both involve interactions with Daemons but while Theosophamy is more about warding against, harming and banishing them, Daemonology more often than not ends up being used to summon, bind and control them. At least that's what most of the villains in 40k fiction do.

Whether or not rules limit attack craft from operating in the atmosphere and aeronautica from operating in the void, i would think its pretty clear that they are intended to be limited and not interchangable. Otherwise there's no point having any aeronautica as there rules are inferior

Attack craft are capable of atmospheric operation. But they are less flexible in atmosphere than an aeronautica wing.

Aeronautica have negligible void capability, if any. At most, they have sufficient to enter atmosphere from a (very) low orbit planned to insert them.

A wing of aeronautica is much larger and more versatile in-atmosphere than a wing of attack craft. A single aeronautica wing includes squadrons of aerial superiority fighters, interceptors, bombers, ground attack/close air support craft, and transports (ie, valkyries). That's all in 1 point of launch bay strength.

An attack craft wing is a couple dozen craft at most, and they're all the same type of craft. To accomplish the same missions that an aeronatica wing could in atmosphere, you'd need at least one fighter wing, one bomber wing, one assault boat wing, and possibly a support wing - that's 3-4 points of launch bay strength, and you're still less flexible and have fewer craft to work with.

If you're fighting in space, you want attack craft without question. If you're planning on fighting a ground war, you want at least one wing of aeronautica, and quite possibly more.

I'd go with at least one wing of aeronautica and one of support if I was building a multi-role carrier for a Rogue Trader Dynasty. An Imperial Navy carrier usually won't carry aeronautica unless it's being dispatched in support of planetary operations.

Thanks for your answers guys!

Darkforce – I’m aware of Warhounds being the smallest, yet still they seem a bit vulnerable (at this level of combat). You’ve got a good point about their independence, but if we zoom out a bit we can see massive infrastructure standing behind every Titan: dedicated craft, spare parts and probably 64 sacred shrines to its every major part. I get that one also needs those things for attack craft, but “dedicated” is the key word here. Every voidship got some small craft carring capability, to carry and maintain Titans one needs specializated voidship.

Erathia – neither I nor my players have read any book about Titans.

Staying with the Warhound as an example (do we have rules for larger ones somewhere?) and confronting it with a squadron of Fury interceptors we can guess that Warhound would shot down like 4 of Furies (with plasma blastgun being s/2/-; volcano gun would be better at this job if it have better range) and in the return would be grinded down by their lascannons. I know this kind of speculations is quite vague - we can increase number of shoted down Furies, we can assume that out poor Warhound shot down a whole squadron – it’s still a fair price for destroying “Ommissiah given form” (or its Chaos counterpart).

I’ve got into hobby at the times of Oldcrons and their mechanics when they seem to always got some ace up their sleeve, yet warp was a big no-no to them. Now they travel by the webway and iirc want their souls back. It’s a bit confusing.

Yeah, those questions seem to be from beyond any written fluff. I want to know other GMs interpretations gut-feelings about those things.

The Survivor – yep, there’re clever little bastards. They would die slowly for their curiosity - there's nothing to be envy about .

Quicksilver – Rites of Battle showed that those void shields can be brought down by standard, carried by a person (or sometimes by two persons) weapons.

Your idea of the Tank for tanks is visualy cool and I'd use it in future:). You’re also 100% right about rule of cool. What annoys me about Titans is that in 40k almost everything is done with rule of cool in mind and still works – everything except Titans.

Kasatka – 1. Warp rifts would be my choice as I think that even “modern” Imperium can recognize a warp rift when it sees it.

2. Ok, but I can’t see any connection between deamonology and my question.

To rephrase it: do you think that Theosophany can banish a daemon for long-long period of time - like 1000 years (iirc there was some piece of fluff that say daemons get banished for 1001 years).

To sum up about Titans, I guess I’ve to forget some Rites of Battle rules and give Titans voidshields which can be brought down only by super heavies and other Titans. Luckily I don’t think my group would encounter Warhounds any time soon .

I'm torn on the depiction of Warhounds in Rites of Battle, because I feel like they are substantially weaker than I would expect and do have this weakness to flyers, but on the other hand they are the smallest and weakest of the Titans (no other rules have been published), and they generally wouldn't be deployed alone for basically this reason.

Hopefully the larger Titans would be much more impressive by this, but you're right, a quick run of the numbers means a squadron of 20 Fury Interceptors brings down a Warhound Titan in two rounds, which is more than a little sad.

It's worth remembering that a Fury Interceptor is the size of a 747, but bulkier, armored, and lined with lascannons. So imagine the battlefield being strafed by a flight of 20 jumbo-jets each firing 8+ tank busting laser cannons at several different targets every few seconds, then all attacking a walker whose height is less than 1/5th of each flyer's length.

Keep in mind that nearly every down-side you've listed to the Titan is applicable to a Leman Russ as well. Back in the early fifties a number of military tacticians felt that with the increasing development of missile and dive-bomber technologies both the Army's Tank and the Navy Destroyer/Cruiser would become tactically irrelevant within the next few years. They argued that future wars would simply be airpower, with a few infantry to search cities. Clearly that hasn't happened. Titans are simply the next evolution of armored support vehicle advancement, and should be considered in a combined-arms situation rather than a solo-operations mode, despite what some Precepts may think.