Titan Legions?

By lurkerabove, in Rogue Trader Rules Questions

Ok I have just read Titannicus and have found this about the Divisio Mandati of the Titan Legions.

Divisio Mandati

The Titan Orders of the Mandati are known as "Executive Orders". They travel in vast temple-spacecraft, responsible for bringing the Pax Imperia to independent human worlds. Each temple ship carries a small but potent number of the immense Emperor Titans, plus priests, regular troops, maintenance adepts and support personnel.

Each Emperor Titan is its own self-contained unit, carrying members of the Adeptus Arbites, the Inquisition and the Adeptus Terra. It is through this combination of persuasion and vast firepower that many worlds are brought into the fold of the Imperium.

The elite of the Mandati's orders are known as "Missionary Orders" - they travel beyond the known areas of space, often accompanying Rogue Trader missions.
Divisio Telepathica

As a highly specialized Divisio, the Telepathica is somewhat smaller than the Mandati and Militaris Divisios. The Telepathica is responsible for the dreaded Psi-Titans. Its orders are the Telepath Orders, each said to operate from a secret forge world near the heart of the Imperium.

So I have 2 questions , are there rules for carrting titan Legions on board a Rogue Traders ship and are there rules for the Divisio Mandati.

Thanks

There are no mention of Titians in any DH, or RT product. Most of the Titian are a little big to fit in most RT's ship. That said the smaller ones like warhounds could be fit in a main cargo hold.

Telling you, this is what the tabletop 40k is for...

NO, but don´t feel restricted, invent a titancrew focused campagne if you like it.

Mechwarrior Gothic. :-)

(Or Meckton Gothic)

(Or Cthulhutech Gothic)

In my group we have been plotting for weeks (game hasn't even started, by the way) to get hold of Titans for 'planetary pacification' purposes ;¬)

Gaidheal said:

In my group we have been plotting for weeks (game hasn't even started, by the way) to get hold of Titans for 'planetary pacification' purposes ;¬)

Write an adventure which starts when a private explorator team finds an ancient titan buried in earth on far away world and wants to sell the group the coordinates for it. I'm sure they'll take the bait and having them tackle with all the problems and ramifications of digging up, patching up and actually legally owning a titan could actually make a great scenario. And, once they have that titan they still need people to persuade its machine-spirit (which is almost a full scale AI) to work for them and then they need a trained and properly modfied titan-pilot to work for them... Great stuff coming ahead, I tell you.

*Sigh* Why does everyone always want to 'own' Titans, whole Space Marine Chapters (or atleast a companie), fly battleships and use atleast one squadron of baneblades as personal transport? My serious advise here would be to play Warhammer 40k, instead of Rogue Trader.

*note to myself: write GM&Player-guide about roleplaying and really huge things*

Because you're not a real Rogue Trader until you have the Inquisition after you out of pure fear and have laid waste to at least one entire planet, preferrably a small empire. :¬)

Nothing wrong with that, of course... well, I still wrote that guide, maybe it helps, maybe it'll blow up in my face. We'll see. gran_risa.gif

I fear it's the odd end of the "rule of cool"

big things are big cool!

the only advice here it's to try and leave the gargantua on the background, let your players control the biggas, but from a distance and through some NPCs, then turn the story away from simple military. no one would dare face someone backed by a titan (even the smallest of the warhounds..!).

it' big, it's cool, you control it, you'll never gonna use it.

at least that's how I see it...

Aye, they pretty much are the 'nuclear arsenal' of the 40K universe... the threat of using the one that you have pretty much guarantees that opponents find the will to reconsider their earlier position.

Gaidheal said:

Aye, they pretty much are the 'nuclear arsenal' of the 40K universe... the threat of using the one that you have pretty much guarantees that opponents find the will to reconsider their earlier position.

Unless, of course, you happen to possess a flight of Titan-hunting Tigershark Tau fighters; their rail guns are enough for even Titans to think about finding a "safer" battlefield, or withdraw from an operation (as in the Taros Campaign).

DW

Traveller61 said:

Gaidheal said:

Aye, they pretty much are the 'nuclear arsenal' of the 40K universe... the threat of using the one that you have pretty much guarantees that opponents find the will to reconsider their earlier position.

Unless, of course, you happen to possess a flight of Titan-hunting Tigershark Tau fighters; their rail guns are enough for even Titans to think about finding a "safer" battlefield, or withdraw from an operation (as in the Taros Campaign).

DW

Thing is, the titans that those prototype Tigershark variants drove off were Warhounds... which, by titan standards, is the equivalent of saying that your home security system can deter squirrels and small children. A scout titan like that is pretty much about as resilient as a squadron of tanks.

A Battle Titan is a different matter, in terms of mass, resilience, shielding and firepower.

And it's not like the Tau have a monopoly on anti-Titan weapons either...

Aye, Warhounds are small-fry, in Titan terms. I wouldn't say 'no' to one, though...

I would. Clumsy piles of metal...

Give me a Revenant any day... that's a proper Scout Titan.

Gaidheal said:

In my group we have been plotting for weeks (game hasn't even started, by the way) to get hold of Titans for 'planetary pacification' purposes ;¬)

Praise His NAME!

nadomir said:

*Sigh* Why does everyone always want to 'own' Titans, whole Space Marine Chapters (or atleast a companie), fly battleships and use atleast one squadron of baneblades as personal transport? My serious advise here would be to play Warhammer 40k, instead of Rogue Trader.

*note to myself: write GM&Player-guide about roleplaying and really huge things*

LOL cos' Like me you can do both...

AND DH/RT are so much cheaper!

and in DH/RT you can do so much cooller stuff than in Warhammer 40K.

Most titans are going to take up a significant part/most/all of your ship. You wouldn't be able to carry one without the special Adeptus Mechanicus transport vessels that are desigined to carry them.

Plus, what self-respecting Ad-Mech is gonna just sell you one of their titans? There are only a half dozen or so Titan battlegroups across the galaxy, you'd have to go to one of those to find them.

And if you found a titan buried or whatever and decided to keep it, 1) how would you get it to your ship, given the smallest ones are about 100-200m tall?; and 2) What would you do if you later ran into ANY Ad Mech people, given they'd want their Titan back?

MILLANDSON said:

Most titans are going to take up a significant part/most/all of your ship. You wouldn't be able to carry one without the special Adeptus Mechanicus transport vessels that are desigined to carry them.

Plus, what self-respecting Ad-Mech is gonna just sell you one of their titans? There are only a half dozen or so Titan battlegroups across the galaxy, you'd have to go to one of those to find them.

And if you found a titan buried or whatever and decided to keep it, 1) how would you get it to your ship, given the smallest ones are about 100-200m tall?; and 2) What would you do if you later ran into ANY Ad Mech people, given they'd want their Titan back?

Sorry but I think you are most certainly wrong and a little underestimating the size of the 100m, the most numerous titans are essentially the warhound titans (scout class essentially), they are represented by a roughly 10-13" high model -> now 1" roughly equates to 5-7ft or 1.5-2m in height. if we take the largest measurment for a Warhound titan as being maybe 1.5x the given scale then the approximate largest warhound would be no larger than 39m tall, now a reaver battle titan is about 16" tall and thus at the largest estimate of its true representative hieght is 48m tall. A Warlord Titan being again about 50% taller than that is going to be about 75-80m tall and if the emporer classes are between 50-100% taller again then the largest and rarest fo all titans is going to be max 115-180m tall.

NOW a rogue trader ship can be anywhere from 1-6km long if it is a warship(or originally a warship) and up to 16km long if it is a cargo holder. the ships can be up to 2km hiegh if I remember my scales correctly (escpecially the cargo ships and cruisers), even a Radier is likely to be 200-1000m high. This leaves plenty of room for Warhounds and Reavers, even allowing room for the Warlords on the smallest ships if proper modifications are made to the interior.

Damaged Titans are even easier to haul away as the legs and large more easily made components can be left behind or cut apart to allow for easier transport. The guns of the larger Titans Rival those of larger naval ships and thus can be a valuable addition to a ship.

Kas said:

MILLANDSON said:

The guns of the larger Titans Rival those of larger naval ships and thus can be a valuable addition to a ship.

Yes... But I wouldn't leave one on the outside of your ship in a firefight! gran_risa.gif

Giaus Novus Khan said:

Kas said:

MILLANDSON said:

The guns of the larger Titans Rival those of larger naval ships and thus can be a valuable addition to a ship.

Yes... But I wouldn't leave one on the outside of your ship in a firefight! gran_risa.gif

HUH?

The point I was getting at was that you would use it to shoot with...

Magnetic Booties for Titans in space combat... It sounds like a snake oil sales pitch to me! lol!

Giaus Novus Khan said:

Magnetic Booties for Titans in space combat... It sounds like a snake oil sales pitch to me! lol!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LOL

Not the titan on the outside, I'm talking about retrofitting the gun from a ruined titan to the outside of the Ship!

First things first sizes, while the different authors of the 40k novels and background change the size of titans like they do with ships here are the approximate average or the different classes:

Scout Class Titan

Warhound, Approx: 15m in height

Battle Class Titans

Reaver, Approx: 30m in height

Warlord, Approx: 45m in height

Emperor Class Titans

Imperator, Approx: 60m in height

Warmonger, Approx: 55m in height

Secondly while a titan may physically fit inside the cargo hold of a starship that does not mean they can just be trnsported that way, to move TItans from one place to another the Mechanicus used specialised cargo hauler ships that dwafs even imperial battleships. Titans requires manitenances and "Care" that few if any short of the Mechanicus of the Titan Ligios knows how to provide.

Thirdly about instaling Titan weapons on starships, while they are the most powerful weapons on any ground mounted vehicle they are practically nothing in void combat, they might have a damage around 1d5 with a range of less than 1 VU. Titans for instance are not capable of shoting things in orbit while the reverse is not true.

About the operating a Titan, it requires one of the extraordinarily rare and specialised people known as "Princeps" that the Mechanicus train to operate a Titan via an extremely advanced version of the MIU that allows his mind to merge with that of the Titan... no your Explorator can't "just" do that with a tech-use test.

Okay now that that is out of the way, as it is your game you can of course do what you feel like just to give a little peice of the picture why Titans aren't just used by Rogue Traders.

P.S. the Mechanicus wouln't let anyone burrow their Titans short of the Lord Admiral of a battle fleet and certainly not to Rogue Traders.