Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: The Titan Deck

The action in Titanomachina is driven by the cards in the Titan decks. What those cards do is enable the Titan to move, attack, and defend itself. 

Card Backs

Generally these cards represent systems on the Titan, with the notable exception of the Personality card added to each deck. The backs of the cards represent the power available to the Titan. These systems can themselves be divided into types such as: 

1. Limbs [Walk, Attack; Block]
2. Weapons [Attack; Block]
3. Sensors [Scan; Detect]
4. Jump Jets [Jump]
5. Shields [Raise Shields]
6. Extra Armour [Block, Scan when damaged]
7. Turrets [Twist; Block]
8. Crew [Operate; Repair]
9. Capacitors [Full Power]

However, the game starts with each player drawing a card from the Personality deck, which is then added to their Titan decks according to the order of the Initiative scores on the cards. Players taking turns, starting with the highest initiative and working down to the lowest. 

To begin with, players take turns picking their Titans, noting the initiative score on their Initiative cards on a 6-sided die placed on or near their Titan Dashboard card. So noted, players put that Initiative card on the bottom of their Titan deck; each Initiative card can also be activated, and used to charge other activated cards.  

Since it's Tabletop Simulator, all the Titan options are out to start with, and extraneous ones can be deleted to make space on the table. 

Once players have their Titans, their shield tokens arranged, the board set up, and the Titans placed on the board, then they can start activating their systems. Play is divided into rounds, and at the beginning of the first round players draw 8 cards from their Titan deck to their hands. 

Cards are activated by placing them face-up on the table when it is the player's turn, and resolving the action the players chooses from the card. Each card has one or two actions (see in brackets above) it enables the Titan to do when activated, indicated by a labeled icon, below which the Effect of the action, a Charge cost (additional cards played face-down to activate the card played face-up) for activating with that particular action, and other information like other actions that can be combined (Limbs, Extra Armour), or range and traits in the case of attacks. Some actions lack a Charge cost, indicating that they can be activated merely by being played face-up. 

Once a round is over, when all the players pass instead of playing and activating cards, players get to organize all their played/discarded cards and place them on the bottom of their Titan deck. In Tabletop Simulator this is most easily done by collecting the played cards into a deck and right-clicking, selecting the Search function and using the pop-up of those cards in that mini-deck to put in the preferred order. 

Cycling through a Titan's deck is an important part of the game!

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Around, Over, and Through!

Position and orientation is very important in Titanomachina. Each Titan has a 3x3 system diagram on its Dashboard indicating its front, sides, and rear. Systems in each square (or 'stack') in this diagram have a default arc of 90º on the board relative to that stack, and each stack is a target for any enemy Titan within its 90º. Where Titans stand relative to each other is therefore of the utmost importance as it determines not only what a player can target on opposing Titans, but whether one can attack at all. 

As position and orientation are very important, moving around the board and changing that position and orientation is therefore likewise very important in Titanomachina. Titans have two types of system that can be activated to move, limbs and jump jets. 

Limbs enable a Titan to move into empty (or road-occupied) squares of the board, and to change its orientation. A Titan activating a limb system can move forwards, backwards, and diagonally (into any of the 8 empty squares around it) equally for each point of Effect [1]. Limbs are also the only system that allows Titans to change their orientation. Notably, Titans can turn a minimum of 45º for 1 point of Effect [2], and up to a maximum of 90º for that same cost [3].   

Titans can only walk diagonally between squares on the board when there is room to do so: buildings can block a Titan's passage. There are solutions to this problem. 

Should a player so choose (or perhaps cleverly plan ahead) their Titan can walk through buildings should they activate a limb and divide its Effect between attacking the building in its way and using the remaining Effect to enter the square. Attempting to do so may require softening up the building with a blast from a weapon, or attack from another limb. In the following case aiming at target #2 turns the Effect 1 from Tethys' Arm 2 into a point of damage to each of the buildings facing Her. 

Doing so exposes target #5 to Tethys, covering all four buildings in the square. Tethys activates an Initiate Crew to operate Her Leg 2 for Effect 3 (usually Effect 2, +1 for operate). That means that the Effect 2 of the attack with Tethys' leg affects all four buildings, two damage each, leaving Tethys a nice 'empty' square to enter using the limb's remaining point of Effect. 

Jump jets such as Plasma Jets and Thrusters enable Titans to jump over buildings and other Titans, at the cost of moving directly forward. 

Turret systems like Sponsons and the Turret can be activated prior to a jump, adding 90º per point of Effect to where the Titan can jump. The Titan will land facing in the same direction as they started, but being able to jump into its front 90º, 180º, or 360º arc rather than just directly forward can enable a Titan to change its orientation towards an attacker, as well as allowing weapons and limbs to find targets outside of their ordinary 90º arcs. Of course, activating a crew system, a turret, and then jump jets may slow the Titan down just as much as activating two limbs and a crew system so the advantage will be situational. 

 That's the game though, planning for contingencies and orchestrating situations in which your Titan optimizes the activation and effect of their systems in violent conflict!

Game Night: June 24th, 2021

Had a game vs a favourite enemy on June 24th, 2021 and realized a couple of things:

1. A quick-start set-up (Zoning Laws) could be achieved with the wonderful mixture of buildings and roads if some of those buildings start neutral, and then players just pick the amount allocated to their Titans by picking buildings and updating their tint. As an additional rule, no two buildings of the same colour in the same square...

2. The Rapacious personality's LOS and Arc needed to be explicitly connected to its Titan's sensor systems.

3. When chasing an enemy, don't suddenly get between them and the edge ("the ropes") of the board! After hunting my esteemed opponent through 3/4 of the board, and with him destroying all my yellow buildings in one quarter of the board, I almost cornered him, only to be pushed into an alley and almost a ring-out! The game ended 19-17 in his favour as all my momentum failed as I furiously blocked to avoid getting hurled out of the disputed territory!

Setting up, my esteemed opponent picked Pink Configuration 1, so I retorted with Yellow Configuration 3.

Starting the game I tried to open up a line of sight to Tethys, but she was well-concealed.

"Hah, gotcha!"

Realizing Her exposure, Tethys backs off.

One quick feathering of jump jets later and you're knicked!

A flurry of blows and point-blank fire is exchanged, and in the hurly-burly Tethys finds an avenue of escape.

Nonetheless, Rhea gives chase, but then makes the nigh-fatal mistake of putting Her back to the edge of the disputed area. 

Tethys turns and strikes, and the last few rounds see Tethys lose a leg, but rip off Rhea's Hand with Her Claw and destroy Rhea's right Shields generator. Tethys wins!

 

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: Marking up Damage

Damage is central to Titanomachina, as it is a brawl between giant robots and damage does several important things in the game. The first important thing that it does is help you win the game. When the game ends, the player that has earned the most victory points wins, and victory points are scored by either habitat buildings on the board, or by destroying systems on opposing Titans. In fact, if the player with the highest score is ahead by 10 victory points, scored purely on the basis of how much damage as the scores for habitat buildings are added after the game ends, then that is a game ending condition. The name of the game is causing damage to opposing Titans while avoiding it on your own. Damage is tracked on the Titan dashboards using the line tool, and shield tokens.  

Causing damage is relatively simple: Activate a system that has a range trait (numeral in a square box), select a target (building or Titan) within that range, the arc of the system, and with a clear line of sight. Apply the Effect of that system as points of damage to the target. Three points of damage and that target on a Titan is destroyed. Damage is cumulative, so if you keep activating a system and hitting that target, eventually it will be destroyed. 

There are some complications. Damage to the system being used to attack the target will reduce the Effect on the target. An Effect 2 system with 1 point of damage ('light damage') will be Effect 1 for the purpose of attacking until repaired. A Block action will swap the target with a system of the target Titan's choice, re-directing that damage to a different, and perhaps better defended, system. Shield tokens will reduce the damage done to the target as well, with each shield token absorbing 1 point of damage before it is discarded. A weapon would need 2, 3, and 4 points of Effect to go from the first image to the next three images of light (1), heavy (2), or destroyed (3) damage on the target system. If it was only Effect 1, the Titan would lose the shield token, but otherwise remain unharmed, as below. 

A system's Effect is not the ceiling of its damage potential though. Crew can operate a system, when they are activated immediately prior to that system's own activation. Then their Effect is added to the Effect of the attacking system. Crew can be activated in sequence, and two Initiate crew plus one Adherent crew and a Master crew means a total of +7 to the attacking Effect. Even a system that has two points of damage when operated by a Master crew (+3) can attack with Effect 1. Once a system is destroyed, the system below it in the box or 'stack' of the system diagram becomes available as a target, and excess damage will overflow onto it. 

Similarly weapon systems have traits that allow them to do extra damage in specific ways. A weapon system with the Shield Breaker trait will remove a number of shield tokens before they reduce the amount of damage it will do. A weapon system with the High Explosive trait will do 1 point of damage to one or two secondary targets adjacent to the original target, with secondary targets also affected by the Shield Breaker trait. A weapon system with the Armour Piercing trait will do 1 point of damage to the target system, and then its Effect to the system below that target on the Titan's system diagram. A weapon system with the Armour Piercing trait doing 1 point of damage, and with Shield Breaker (1), will therefore mark up damage as follows, from the first image: 

Notably though, players can stack more than one shield token on a target square/stack in their Titan's system diagram. There is a cost of doing so, taking a turn to activate a shield generator system such as Shields or Deflectors, but that is all part of the game!

Titans in Tabletop Simulator: Configuration 3

Part of the design of Titanomachina is for players to be able to customize their Titans, but due to my technical limitations I've only been able to upload Titan figures as single chunks, rather than as customizable figures. I also haven't been able to fancy them up with nice paint jobs, although the ability to tint them works for board gaming purposes. 

So instead I've been uploading preset configurations to try to show off how players could customize their figures if we ever got this into meatspace production. There have been three waves of configurations, each with their own customized figures, dashboards, and decks of cards. 

The third wave of configurations is a set of extreme builds, or at least as extreme as one can get with minor weapon-swaps and internal equipment changes. Not too extreme. Rhea, for example, has another Reaper configuration with regular Arms and Plantigrade Legs similar to Her depiction on the box-cover art I had commissioned and that I've used as cover art for the Tabletop Simulator version of Titanomachina. In that depiction She has a Macro Gun, Rocket Pod, and a Buzz Saw. Which would maximize Her High Explosive (HE) load, but reduce Her capacity to push other Titans around. And Eos, as we will see, has two Buzz Saws! So I gave Rhea the Hand again, to emphasize Her capacity as a wrestler.

Tethys is a boxer where Rhea is a wrestler, and so in the this Reaper configuration She brings the gun show and mounts twin Plasma Howitzers on Big Arms. Backed up by a Macro Laser on the sponson mount, Tethys is going to be best suited to a knock-out where Rhea is either looking to pin Her opponent(s) down for a time-out or to hurl them off the board for a ring-out. However, extreme strength in one area is going to reveal a weakness in another. Despite Her Big Arms Tethys is not going to do well at close quarters and will want to use Her legs to maintain a healthy 5-6 square distance. 

Eos is going to want to get close. They are equipped not only with two Buzz Saws, but two Mega Guns, giving Them a longest range of 3 squares. Fortunately this configuration is not only another four-armed Regent configuration, but trades in the Plantigrade Legs for Digitigrade Legs. All the better to run you down... Of course, that lack of both range and sponsons is going to be the inherent weakness of this configuration because even with six limbs Eos is going to have trouble with opponents that get behind Them. 

Styxx is going to want to get closer with this Raptor configuration, trading in the sponsons and short-ranged weaponry for Big Arms and Claws. Despite this apparently inflexibility, Styxx still has two capacitors and two jump jets, along with four powerful limbs, and will be fast enough to catch opponents. Styxx's weakness is going to be like Eos' except in greater amounts because Styxx has fewer limbs and more charge-thirsty limbs and weapons. Still, once Styxx gets Her claws in you victory is not far behind. 

While I would usually take this space to compare the rates of damage that each Titan can do, each of these configurations is designed to take advantage of more than the usual weapon:system:time ratios. Rhea, for example, combining HE and Hard Rounds in Her weapons array is going to wear down opponents, controlling the flow of the battle. Tethys is going to use the Shock trait of Her main guns to pin down an opponent at range where She can land a knock-out blow with Her Master Crew and Plasma Cell. Eos and Styxx are both going to be hunter-killers, looking to close and sustain an attack. 

But here's some summary of the alpha-strike damage available to each: 

Rhea - Weapons only 9, with limbs 15, with capacitor 18
Tethys - Weapons only 9, with limbs 17, with capacitor 20
Eos - Weapons only 12, with limbs 20
Styxx - Weapons only 6, with limbs, 16, with capacitors 22

Note: I accidentally deleted the first draft of this post. My apologies! 

Titans in Tabletop Simulator: Configuration 2

Part of the design of Titanomachina is for players to be able to customize their Titans, but due to my technical limitations I've only been able to upload Titan figures as single chunks, rather than as customizable figures. I also haven't been able to fancy them up with nice paint jobs, although the ability to tint them works for board gaming purposes. 

So instead I've been uploading preset configurations to try to show off how players could customize their figures if we ever got this into meatspace production. There have been three waves of configurations, each with their own customized figures, dashboards, and decks of cards. 

The second wave of configurations gives Rhea and Tethys their own Reaper configurations, paring down their armaments to be essentially the same, but also changing up thinks like their legs. In this wave Rhea gets the Digitigrade Legs and Tethys gets the Plantigrade Legs. Rhea also gets a pair of Big Arms, mirroring Styxx's Reaper configuration somewhat. Notably if you put all the Reaper configurations together, you'll see that combined they have one of each type of weapon. 

Sculptor Jason Miller's work on Eos' Regent configuration is something I also love, trading in Rhea & Tethys' sponsons for an extra pair of arms. Similarly to how Rhea & Tethys' Reaper configurations maintain their Regent configurations' mix of weapons, Eos' Regent configuration takes the Reaper and doubles up on one of the weapons. In this case, Eos is hauling two Plasma Howitzers to back up Their Mega Gun and Buzz Saw. 

The second configuration of Styxx is the Raptor configuration, going in the opposite direction from Eos' Regent configuration, and reducing the number of limbs and weapons to maximize Sponsons, Capacitors, and Jump Jets. With only two weapons, players are going to want to use Styxx's hyper-mobility in this configuration to ambush, hunt, and otherwise avoid a stand-up fight with the other Titans. 

Notably the Reaper configurations lack the raw damage of the Regent configurations due to the capacitor systems like the Plasma Capacitor and the Plasma Cell requiring more charge than your average weapon short of charge-hogs like Claws and Macro Lasers. Tethys toting two such weapons suggests She wouldn't suffer a reduction in damage, meaning 7 damage for all weapons, 10 with the capacitor activated, and 16 for a close-range hammering. Rhea's powerful arms and legs mean that the 7 damage done by Her weapons, up to 10 using the Plasma Capacitor on the Macro Gun, tops out at 20. Like Styxx' Reaper configuration, it is going to take 13 other cards to charge this assault. 

Eos has perhaps the nastiest alpha-strike, clocking in at 12 damage, pushing that up to 20 once all the punches and kicks are counted. The extra arms are more likely to be getting Eos into position though, and the weapons alone will require 8 other cards to charge them for activation. 

Styxx is the tricky one here, with a deceptively weak 6 points of damage for some poor target two squares away, supposing the Mega Gun's Shield Breaker has an effect. The capacitors though can double this to 12, at the cost of only 7 other cards. With the shortest-ranged weapons array, the Raptor Styxx is going to need to activate a Sponson and either a leg or a jump jet to get into position for that apha-strike combo to work, and activating those legs to push that damage output up to 18 is going to slow it down. This mobility might encourage opponents to spread out their shields in the hope of avoiding any expected outflanking maneuvers.