Titanomachina: Beating the Champion

One of my goals for Titanomachina has been making it a robust competitive experience, one in which a player can surprise their opponent, or simply out-think them. I have a regular opponent/play-tester that is very good at the game and typically can beat me 2/3 games. When this player has control of Rhea, whichever configuration of Rhea, the odds are very good that they are going to win. On one hand this is the game working as designed, and on the other hand, I'm slightly concerned that Rhea unbalances the game by having five extra armour systems. The thing about extra armour is threehold. The first is that it can be used to block incoming attacking, redirecting them from their original targets to the extra armour system's stack, which is okay when a Titan has three extra systems and three weapons. Where a Titan has more armour systems that their opponent has weapons, and potentially attacks, they're going to be able to control where incoming damage is going. Second, where an opponent might elect to simply batter through these systems they only yield one victory point each when they are destroyed, making them disproportionately poor investments. Third, players can stack shield tokens on locations that have available extra armour cards, allowing them to soak incoming attacks that might otherwise go straight through their extra armour. Rhea has both shields systems and extra armour, for maximum defense.

Having five such systems, including two mounted on the front of the Titan, and then one on both sides and back, gives the Titan considerable resistance to damage. Of course there are options in place to enable other Titans to deal with that combination of armour and shields. High explosive weapons, shield breakers, armour piercing weapons, and even guns can be used to defeat this armour/shields combo that lets Rhea soak incoming firepower while handing it out. In fact, let us consider Rhea's quaternary configuration, in part because it is a deliberate attempt to try and min-max the Titanomachina system. 

Using high explosive weapons, particularly rocket pods, might encourage Rhea's players to cover Her arms (front-left and front-right stacks) and butt (back-left and back-right stacks). A rocket pod destroying 3-6 shield tokens a round could clear one side of Rhea supposing even shield coverage. A buzz saw could take out 4 shields without any crew assistance. Likewise a hand could take out 3, not including any extra from a collision due to its grapple trait. A laser blade could also take out 3, but ideally it's going to be going through shields and not just taking them out. A plasma shotgun taking out 4 shields, or even 7 when operated by a master crew (for 5 cards). A plasma howitzer will take out 3 shields, but at a higher cost than a rocket pod or macro gun. 

Weapons like the claw, gun battery, and vulcan gun probably aren't going to be tremendously effect because they're all moreso weapons of opportunity. The laser weapons, the macro laser, laser battery, and the laser blade are all going to struggle until those shields are gone, and then they're going to cut Rhea into bits. I think having four weapons, one of which is a laser, and the other three being the most efficient high explosive weapons might be something. 

In fact, what about a rocket pod, a buzz saw, a plasma shotgun, and a laser blade on Tethys? Her capacitor would enable a double shotgun/laser blading on five cards. Similarly Eos might do well with a plasma shotgun, a laser blade, and two rocket pods. In terms of having three weapons, I think that maybe Eos Primary could do well perhaps swapping out the plasma howitzer for a plasma shotgun. On the other hand, the plasma howitzer would come in handy once Rhea's shields are compromised, and there's always the good old master-crew operated howitzer shot. Actually, a buzz saw, laser battery, and plasma shotgun could be interesting...