Of course, a Deathwatch team is no match for a Titan 'on the battlefield'. And yet, narratively, there's every reason a killteam should be able to sabotage such a thing. Even non-Deathwatch teams of Astartes are noted as being designated to such assignments (Grey Knights in "Dark Adeptus", Salamander operations along the rivers during the Third War for Armageddon, directly dispatched against Roks, Gargants and such).

But the question then remains: how would you breakdown such an assignment, in which cases should a team be thoroughly up excrement creek and when should the kill team be having the upper hand?

I've read enough of the novels and have a sufficient imagination to see alot of the room for nuance involved ("Titanicus" and "Mechanicum" illustrate such possibilities nicely), but I'm a thoroughly inexperienced GM when it comes to framing such threats as missions/objectives/trials for my players.

At the moment I'm working on a xenos titan for my own semi-supplement (a Rogue Trader oriented vehicle 'The Machination', a Demiurg titan, essentially), and I've got a good idea from Epic: Armageddon and Battlefleet Gothic to figure out its essential power level (mega, I'd say!). But looking at how to implement it as a *foe* for players, or as a tool for the players, is something I'm quite struggling with.

Does anyone have any idea how they'd go about involving such threats/targets in a game?

Xisor said:

As a mission, rather than a single mechanical construct.

When dealing with a half-dozen characters rather than whole armies, you can afford to do things in a little more detail. While the vehicle rules could hypothetically cover a Titan, the fight would get pretty boring if it was just a slugfest, so the titan would instead be divided into a collection of distinct objectives and targets, each of which has to be overcome, disabled or destroyed to contribute to the overall defeat of the Titan (which, depending on the size of the Titan, may well involve boarding it and setting charges around its reactor).

A Titan bigger than a warhound (and maybe a warhound too) is big enough to undertake a mission inside the Titan. There are a lot of delicate parts inside a Titan: actuators, the MIU, the reactor, targeting systems, navigation, communication, etc. Any or all of those could be targets for a kill-team, not to mention the servitors and tech-priests inside who certainly don't want you blowing up their sacred machinery.

My suggestion is if you're gonna use a Titan, go big: Warlord class or bigger. That way your kill-team has room to move around, and you can always raise the stakes by having the mission take place while the Titan is actually in battle (putting the kill-team under fire from their allies trying to bring down the Titan from without). That'll get some hearts racing!

Gaunt and ghosts take out a chaos titan in one of the Gaunt novels (can't remember which one, it may be the third or so), by boarding it and assassinating the driver. May provide you with some ideas for how to play it.

Well, a few sessions ago, my players sneaked into an Ork Town at night, well camouflaged and careful. They made their way into an almost finished Ork gargant and put charges to its boiler/reactor. Perfect opportunity to combine stealthy sneaking, silent killing, cleaning up after themselves and getting away clean before the thing went boom!

If you want your players to after a moving Titan, give them a good opportunity to get aboard first. A suitable canyon to jump on top, a speedy and nimble vehicle to get on it's back or even a leg. this can be almost full and dynamic gaming session by itself. They shoudl be suffuiciently clever to avoit or disable any alarms or guards/camera's/servitors/grotz. perhaps some tunnel fighting with defenders and automated defenses. A 'boss' fight with whomever is in charge of the reactor, or with the elite bodyguard guarding the bridge/cockpit. Goo opportunities all around.

The big problem is if its void shields are active. It may vary in the fiction, but as I recall infantry can't pass through an active void shield, and it's unlikely a kill-team can carry portable firepower capable of punching even a small hole in a Titan's shields. Maybe if they're given some special purpose widget by the Mechanicus that allows them to do so (strictly on loan, and they'd better bring in back in one piece).

Direach said:

Void Shields can be overcome by relatively slow-moving or stationary objects; torpedoes, bombers and assault boats can pass through a starship's void shields without impediment (in Epic, Void Shields don't protect against close combat attacks - the attackers can get past the shields before they attack). I've seen an example in an old Warhammer Monthly story of a squadron of Ravenwing bikers passing through a Gargant's power fields by simply staying still while it walked towards them, after losing one of their number trying to race through the field.

Ahh... I just read a short story in "Legends of the Space Marines" in which a city assault was stymied by the city defenders' active void shields. Maybe static void shields can be cranked up enough to keep out troops, but mobile void shields (like on a Titan) can't? I recall in the game that Titans ignored each other's shields in close combat (or that the void shields merged into a bigger shield, that may be ancient fluff), I thought maybe that had changed.

Might I suggest drawing inspiration from the video game Shadow of the Colossus:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13xbhz2il5M

Get the players to figure out a way to board the Titan (since anti-boarding measures and the movement of the machine will make it tricky), then have a diagram showing their route up the titan to its weak spots. Have the map marked with jumps of varying difficulties and maybe use some kind of grip mechanic as they try to hang on while the engine strides across the landscape and tries to shake them off.

See also the walking sequence from Ants for the feel of being on the outside of a giant walking god-machine:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGvc-JMfdc4

the Black Library novel Soul Hunter has a segment wherein a Night Lords squad takes down a Titan.

the way the battle was described, Xisor's assessment on taking down the Titan and dividing it up into objectives to complete makes sense.

sounds a fun idea and one i'll use for my group when more experienced. Battletech had anti mech infantry trained to climb the outside and attack joins and vital vents so for a smaller titan it could be this appraoch , hanging onto a walking fighting titan even with mag boots could be fun and risky

While the obvious task would be to board an active Titan in order to disable it, how about an indirect approach?

A Titan under construction/ undergoing repairs must be sabotaged. While outright destruction is preferable the risks are too high. The Imperial High Command will settle for winning time. Some ways to achieve this:

- Destroy the munitorum providing ammunition to its weapons

- Kill the technicians doing the maintenance.

- Assassinate the crew ( Some of them are on leave ).

- Sabotage the workshops.

- Mine the valley the Titan must pass through.

Direach said:

I haven't read that particular story, but it was my understanding that infantry being able to pass under Void Shields was one of the main rationales behind the TT game- why else would you use infantry for 90% of the fighting, if you can just blast enemies from orbit?

In Blood Quest (a great graphic novel for Space Marine fans) they took out a chaos titan with just 6 marines. However it was a grand chaos free for all.

Titans much like tanks really stuggle with infantry at very close range, more so in the titans case. A titan wouldnt be able to target the squard individually in a battlefield, its main concern is mass blocks of infantary or tanks which is will strafe with fire and other titans and siege works. The tech guard that usually back titans up on the battlefield are there to make sure that any infantry that gets too close doesnt start climbing the legs and placing Krak/Metla Grenade on the joint.

So to answer the question, yes a kill team can knock out a titan, destroying it would be beyond them but they can make sure it cant fight until it gets repaired.

Some of the very big titans used to carry troops onboard for the very reason warships do, to keep the riff-raff out of the cogs and gubbins. So, getting onboard is about a 1/4 of the problem, getting lost, having an limb torn off by whirling machinery in close confines is a distinct possibility and then there's the crew that really dont want you there being the rest of the objective.

This came up several times in the ramp-up to the release of Dark Heresy (before we knew what would be included).

We pretty much came to the conclusion that titans are not really a suitable adversary, but they make a great setting.

By that I mean that you really can't fight one on the battlefield - Gatling Blasters tend to trump rock, paper, and scissors!

However, they make fantastic settings and missions - as all the stories referenced above clearly indicate.

It's also worth noting that even small Titans are defended by banks of anti-personnel batteries, flechette launchers, and other weapons to make life hard for local infantry. They may not be able to deploy their main armament effectively against tiny adversaries, but they can do a lot of harm to infantry that strays too close.