So I was wondering if anyone who wasn't me had considered modding Only War so that players, rather than a tank crew, were the cockpit crew (and Tech-Priest) of a Titan? I've been trying to bash together some house rules and will be happy to share if there's interest, but I was wondering if any other players or GMs had considered this.

I've recently started GMing a small group (2-3) for an Armoured Regiment game. I'm planning on sending them up against Super-Heavies on occassion and eventually giving them the keys to a Baneblade once their Logistics has risen enough, so I certainly see the concept as workable, especially if a few more enemy Super Heavies can be created. Besides which, RT started us off at that sort of level anyway, so this could be a sort of land based, militant version.

I'd suggest using BC-style Horde rules for infantry, so companies of enemies can be a threat to the Titan without insta-gibbing any PC who has to step out for some repairs/scouting.

I don't know if hordes of infantry, of any sort, have ever been presented as threats to a Titan. I don't think they mechanically can be (using the Titan stats from Deathwatch), unless we are talking "hords of men with lascannons" or "a Magnitude 100 Horde of Bloodthirsters."

In the original Epic game a squad of Space Marines had a chance of causing hits to a Titan - climbing up legs and planting Meltabombs.

Scout Sergeant Talion does this in 'Eye of Vengence'. Obviously a normal human will have very little chance in pulling off such shunts. However, theoretically, if they got under the void shield somehow and used grapnels and Meltabombs… A lascutter might be able to cut through into the interior…

However, this is really Deathwatch style stuff (RT at a push) not OW.

about Role Play or idea, i suggest to read titanicus from dan abnett, good sources for what is titan war, interaction with infantry and vehicule and others titan

kumachan said:

Yeah, Titanicus was a huge inspiration for my thinking, as was the old Titan comic also written by Dan Abnett- much pulpier and more along the lines of the old British war comics.

As far as Hordes being threats to a Titan goes, I believe there's one part in Titan where a Warlord gets it's lower limbs snarled up with the bodies of the Tyranid creatures it's been striding through, which leaves it sluggish and unprepared to deal with an incoming Bio-Titan. There's another sequence where a boarding party does clamber up a Titan's legs to try and get inside to wreak havoc, and are repelled by the crew- but that's the kind of thing where the PCs would have to fight independently of their machine.

Rules-wise I was going to treat Titans as a vehicle using the same rules as, say, a Leman Russ, but with different armour and damage tracks for head, body, legs etc, but I didn't know that there are actual rules for Titans in Deathwatch- which book are those in?

Rules for the warhound class titan are in Rites of Battle. I don't think anything larger than that has been printed, though I have been out of the loop for a while.

YoritomoKatsage said:

Correct.

Also any larger classes of titan simply won't ever get published as they are beyond the scope of player characters combatting it - it would have to be dealt with narratively.

Well, of course anybody can do as they please.

But in my world Titans do not care about Infantry for a reason. Infantry can do jack about them! (except for maybe the way smaller SCOUT Titans as e.g. Warhounds)

Titans are a thing for SpaceMarines entirely. And even those should not get near them if they are not especially prepared for them, either with a lot of Meltabombs or, as I would recommend, Thunderhammers.

At least Thunderhammers are the only real threat for a Titan in the Tabletop 40k. And there just because they cause the Crew to be stunned because of the massive impacts on the machine so it is rendered immobile for some time and thus vulnerable.

Apart from that: there are so little Titans left in the universe that the characters would have to be top of the line to even be allowed near one of these ancient relics.

Not even warmasters may order one of these monsters into the battlefield just like that, even given the opportunity to have one at hand.