Titanomachia: The Two Towering Battles

Two great Titans, pugnacious Eos and sagacious Styxx, face off across a contested city. Tonight my opponent and I had two games, one after the other, in part because the first game ended on Round 2 and why not while we're here and have scheduled time? The first game ended on a ring-out, something that I practically traipsed into, and the second on a time-out on round 9 after I thought I had it in the bag by the end of round 8. One lesson I brought into the second game from the first game was that I needed to keep Styxx in the middle nine tiles in order to avoid the risk of a ring-out, and to put Eos in Their back foot. There was a downside to doing this, particularly to a Titan as agile as Eos, and that was that detecting buildings on the edge of the board did not protect them from Eos flying in to knock them down. I think that was perhaps some minor miscalculation on my part, and perhaps some deft, clever play on the part of my opponet!

The Titans deploy, Styxx has the initiative and sets up in a nicely defensible position in case of an ambush, and so Eos decides to start in cover behind a block of buildings.

And by cover I think we mean 'opportunity' as Eos commences a fish-slapping dance of picking off lone green habitats, and Styxx detects a medium-sized building directly off Her right arm. 

Now the fight begins in earnest as Styxx flexes systems to provoke Eos into doing something rash, and moves up the road to detects a larger building in an empty lot. Deprived of Styxx as a target, but deploying Their plasma howitzer anyways, Eos destroys the building and fires jump jets, using Their sponson to leap in close to Styxx. Styxx is rather distracted by this, and having prepared to fire Her macro laser happily takes Eos' left leg off (She was aiming for Eos' back-left to destroy Their primary capacitor, light damage Their jump jets, and heavily damage their port deflector array, but Eos blocks with Their leg). Swinging around, Eos takes careful, master-operated aim with Their vulcan gun, and proceeds to hammer Styxx off the battlefield (inflicting heavy damage to Her claw). The +5VP for causing a ring-out more than makes up for the loss of a leg, and the game ends 23-21!

Once burned, twice bitten, or some sort of pithy saying because in the second game Styxx (again sagacious, as we re-drew personalities) deploys in the middle of the board, looking to avoid a ring-out and use it to minimize the need for movement. Eos deploys in cover, wary of Styxx's gun battery. 

A careful start to the game involves Styxx using an initiate crew member to operate Styxx's port sensor system and detect a medium green building, and Eos making to detect Styxx behind the cover of a medium building, but deciding against it. The message is clear "I can see you!"

Eos begins to dance again as Styxx calls for Her adherent crew to be ready, but Eos merely pops out of cover to quickly kick the green habitat top off of a building, and to use the change of momentum to move back into Their starting position. 

With adherent crew in both Titans called to purpose, the fight kicks off with Styxx detecting another green building, this time to starboard, prompting Eos to cut loose with Their vulcan gun to cull habitats, both green and pink, exposing Styxx to Eos' plasma howitzer. Styxx, however, detects that there is a habitat directly in front of Eos preventing that, but Eos vents Their fury on the medium building that Styxx had detected on round 1. Seeing the actinic discharge of Eos' primary weapon, Styxx bulls forward through the single yellow habitat directly in front of Her, and savagely kicks Eos, who takes the hit on Their frontal armour, suffering heavy damage and getting knocked left by the impact of the blow! Eos' buzz saw is pushed out of position, and Eos declines to activate it. 

Now Styxx withdraw back to the center of the battlefield, daring Eos to come get dead, using Her extra armour to scan the battlefield so She can react to Eos coming at Her. Eos takes the bait and walks around the building to outflank Styxx, who walks to meet Them. Now Eos drives an elbow into Styxx's front and follows up pugnacious as Styxx staggers back, but rather than attacking, Eos fires Their capacitor for the energy to detect a tall building far across the battlefield and behind Styxx! Wisdom prevails and Styxx takes back the initiative...

Styxx now faces the dilemma of turning around to destroy the new blue building that's been detected, and exposing Her relatively weak flanks to Eos at close quarters, or laying into Eos and seeking to smash Them into scrap. Perhaps it was a moment of weakness, but Styxx grabs Eos and wrenches Them sidesways through a building, bursting 40% of Eos' shields, and then following that up with a kick that Eos blocks with armour, shattering it, and a Her gun battery to batter Eos back through another building. Eos isn't done yet though, and walks back from the edge of the battlefield, facing Styxx head-on!

Styxx isn't done yet though, ordering Her adherent crew to man the main gun, and ducking to catch Eos' enthusiastically discharged plasma howitzer on Her turret; some light damage is a small price to pay with a robust turret system when the target is right there, and Styxx's macro laser vaporizes what's left of Eos' frontal armour, destroys Their vulcan gun, and scorches Their sensor! Eos isn't put off though, and has a plan for one of Their initiate crew...

Styxx is running low on gas, while Eos' power reserves climb. It's a tricky situation, and Eos makes things trickier by circling left around and smashing a green habitat with an errant elbow as They pass. Styxx calls on Her crew, know that if She can just knock out Eos, then the battle is won...

Not content to rely on a knock-out, and perhaps painfully aware that it would be a pyrrhic victory at best due to the numbers of blue and green habitats accounted for on the battlefield, Styxx detects a tall green building well away from Eos' present position, and then moves to bully Eos off the battlefield with kicks, elbows and a burst from Her gun battery. Forced up against the ropes Eos detects Their own blue building, for a perfect 24 blue habitats, and then leap-frogs over Styxx to deny Her the satisfaction of a ring-out! Suddenly, the score is tied and Eos is behind Her!

Styxx is out of gas and out of luck as She attempts to run interference, but cannot prevent Eos' flying elbow to the great green building that She had detected! She is left in the center of the board, safe, but impotent to catch Eos and prevent the great building's collapse. With that collapse, so does Styxx's hopes for a knock-out, and the final score is 24-19

It's interesting in that while the first game's loss was clearly a result of me letting Styxx run out of gas in a bad position, the second game is more difficult to assess. Often in Titanomachina we can fairly easily point to the first decision where things started to go wrong, or even where an opponent did something dastardly clever, but in this case I think it was a number of tiny, unforced errors that eventually let Eos' player pull victory from the jaws of Styxx. 

Specifically, I think spending two cards to first discard the initiative and then to regain it was not a great idea; reacting when you're on the defensive is good, but I wasn't on the defensive, merely withdrawn. More importantly, Eos has two capacitors and almost an excess of power to charge systems, while Styxx tends to run a deficit. Doing that allowed Eos to push their card advantage, leading Them to out-maneuvering Styxx at critical points (preventing ring-outs and/or a knock-out).

I suspect that the two attempts at ring-outs were also doomed to failure, and that I should have used Styxx's impacts on Eos to slew them around and to cede the +5VPs for the ring-out to board control that would have protected my buildings, and given me more tools and opportunities to pick off blue habitats (or hence not needed to hold off on the knock-out).  

Mind you, Styxx's strength is Her sensors, having three of them to Eos' one, and so where I should have ended the game with a perfect 24 habitats, my opponent was able to flip the script and tank the damage to Eos in order to win on habitats. It's not enough to play a perfect game, but you also have to be able to out-play your opponent, and my opponent is a wily Titan-master!

This is, I think, one of the strengths of Titanomachina as a game, in that for all its pretense at deterministic rules the game is something of a ouija board wherein two or more plans mesh toward to create a kind of unpredictable chaos that can surprise and upset even the best laid plans of Titan and cogs, and keep players wanting to walk the face of Gaia again!

Titanomachina August 2025 Update

It's something of an August update. I've only made one major change, and it's the body slam combo converts collisions to attacks with impact.

I've made a ton of cosmetic changes, and did some editing for clarity. Previously I had been trying to explain each rule in eight or so words, like I was making a card game out of the rule book. 

July 2025 Titanomachina rule book

There's certainly room for improvement, but game wise I think I'm running out of things to change. Probably a good thing, and I think it's time to declare the change moratorium I like to put in place prior to Hal-con each year.

I should be working on a print-and-play that I can distribute at Hal-con. 

Titanomachina Report and Analysis

The deployment is Styxx configuration 5, nee configuration 2, two plasma shotguns and a macro gun, two big arms, two digitigrade legs, a thruster, a turret, a capacitor, two deflectors, three sensors, three extra armour, and a standard crew. This Styxx starts with 17 habitats on the board.

Arranged against this is Rhea configuration 3, two laser batteries, a macro gun, and a hand, two arms, two plantigrade legs, two sponsors, two shields, one sensor, five extra armour, and a standard crew as well. This Rhea starts with 22 habitats on the board. 

Styxx is Rapacious, Rhea is Gracious. Styxx therefore has the initiative. 

Rhea telegraphs either a heavy punch or a tall building, and Styxx steps into cover, knowing that this will waste Rhea's heavy punch, or exhaust Rhea's lone sensor for three more rounds. Activating Her own master crew, Styxx detects a tall, four-habitat somewhere that is risky for Rhea to shoot, nearly the opposite arc from Rhea's macro gun. However, instead Rhea makes a play for position, using the master crew to operate Rhea's legs, swinging around behind Her own cover and ready to come out swinging.

Styxx brandishes Her turret, and Rhea, taking a moment to scan the battle-field takes notice and the initiative!

Rhea operates an arm with an Initiate crew member, using it to swing forward in front of a block of buildings, and out in front of Styxx. Fortune favours the one with armour! Styxx has Her own Initiate crew blast Rhea with the macro gun. Thanks to Rhea's preparation, blocking the shot with Her armoured right side and intercepting the shot with a shield from Her left back, the shot only wings Her, hammering the presented right side, and bursting shields, but only doing light damage to Rhea's armour. Rhea has even used the impact of the attack to slew starboard and lay Her own macro gun for a reply. This macro gun is operated by an Adherent crew and does far more than light damage to the right side of Styxx, destroying all of it's armour, bursting shields, and knocking Styxx askew. Styxx turns this into a right arm-driven power slide to the left, determined to bring Rhea into range of Her plasma shotguns. Rhea activated Her sensor and notes that the line of sight is blocked by a hitherto undetected yellow habitat.

Rhea moves right, matching Styxx and working to maintain that 4 tile sweet spot where Styxx's plasma shotguns are ineffective, and Rhea's laser batteries can carve Her up. Styxx is still moving through, moving left faster than Rhea can track with Her left-shoulder laser battery, which perforated a green habitat instead. Spotting another green habitat, Styxx is ready when Rhea changed tack and closes sensor-to-macro gun with Styxx; Styxx has Her Adherent crew take careful aim before Rhea blocks the stream of giga-voltage plasma with Her left side, reducing Her shields to 40%, and taking heavy damage to Her armour. The shock to Rhea's own power system sees Her hull crawl with snakes of lightning. Styxx now engages Her right leg, swinging around behind Rhea and outflanking Her!

Suddenly going into reverse as Rhea tenses with Her Master crew at the controls, Styxx backs up between two blocks and dares Rhea to kick Her. Rhea obliges, stepping up to deliver a hard crack to Styxx's left shin, hoping to avoid another plasma shotgun blast. Instead, Styxx fires Her thrusters, leaping over a building to relative safety as Rhea's Initiate crew take over.

Now Styxx is in trouble. She's not out of danger yet. She's up against the edge of the board and low on power, deflectors and armour down to 50%. As Rhea reaches out to seize Styxx, She slips under the yellow Titan's reach, working to distance Herself from being unceremoniously ejected from the battlefield. However, it was a feint, as Rhea's Adherent crew operated Rhea's right-should laser battery, its dual-beams carving Styxx's left leg clean off, for a technical knock-out!

Styxx is defeated 27-23, in the sixth-round. I haven't used Rhea configuration 3 in a long while and while I've been thinking about the potential of those dual laser batteries, it's interesting to experience the down-sides. Rhea is heavily armoured, maybe even excessively so, and perhaps that is actually an advantage, but the arms and plantigrade legs mean Rhea is either hitting hard, or moving fast, or detecting tall buildings. Styxx can combine moving and hitting more effectively, and detect multiple small buildings. Detecting large buildings is a trap, because they can usually be seen from far away, are efficiently leveled, and require a Master crew to spot the vast and obvious building. Operated by initiate crew, sensors can detect two-habitat buildings that can block line of site to Styxx. Likewise they can be used to detect enemy Titans behind known cover. 

Which isn't to say Styxx is easy to use, but that this configuration 5 looks it needs to play for time, and attack an opponent's city rather than their Titan directly. Shooting an opposing Titan in the face with a plasma shotgun is not a trap though, despite the temptation of it. Shooting anyone with such a weapon is a sound tactic, but it needs senior crew. Already a highly powerful weapon, it's also efficient at causing damage for its charge cost. Having a pair should be treated more like having one with a 180 arc. 

I think it's an interesting idea to maybe use Styxx's crew members on Styxx's capacitor. Two plasma shotguns, a Master crew, and a capacitor recovering all five charge cards to press a card advantage. My point is, I think I need to run Styxx the next time I play...

Titanomachina: Plasma Drivers

 I was reminded that I had commissioned art that hadn't been used yet in Titanomachina. Originally, the notion was that the weapon was supposed to be a short-ranged hybrid of armour piercing and high explosive traits, but I think it can be repurposed as something more like a hybrid between a plasma shotgun and a jump jet. The difference between a plasma weapon and a jump jet using plasma for thrust is basically matter of containment and cavitation. 

In this case the downwards-facing arrow icon is the Recoil trait, pushing a Titan activating the system with each attack as if it were itself struck by an Impact weapon. At full attacks it can push itself back three tiles. Crew operating the weapon won't increase this, but the damage from collisions could be catastrophic, with destroyed systems being allocated to the opponent with the lowest current score. 

The weapon also features a staggering cost of three cards to charge it, which is both only one card more than the cost of activating plasma weapons and jump jets, and another system that won't be activated for another four rounds. 

I think the first Titan to be armed with this weapon should be Eurybia, although perhaps naturally enough it it may be  something for Eos and their dual capacitors.

Titanomachina: Room for Improvement

One might think that Titanomachina has been honed to a fine edge, and while that may be the case, there is definitely some room for improvement. 

There might be an issue with allowing players to avoid activating systems, particularly given how having more cards in one's hand is a distinct advantage. I'm not entirely convinced this is an issue, but I must admit that it can be irksome to know that you can reveal your entire hand to an opponent and have nothing to defend with if they're willing to play enough unactivated systems. Of course, one can work to maintain card parity with one's opponents, or simply to make them regret not activating systems. 

A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to gradually increase the cards in your hand, bluff the other players to get them to waste cards, or simply knock the cards out of them with shock weaponry. 

At the other end of the rule book:

The shin-kicking optional rule is an optional rule and it would be better to build in a special rule to the general rules about selecting targets within arcs, since requiring players to pay one cog to turn a Titan 45 degrees in order to enable a kick is counter-intuitive to many players, and explaining you can only kick an opposing Titan in the legs makes one wonder how to welcome an opponent to Sparta. 

I think allowing leg systems, mounted to the leg stack, to count as mounted to the corresponding arm stack for the purpose of attack arcs might be a way to simplify this. They will attack like arms. Plus it opens up cross-body kicks, while requiring sponsors or turrets for back-kicks.

Mind you, the nice part about shin-kicking is, of course, being able to kick your opponent in their own legs. 

Reacting to Collisions

Oh, and being able to react to collisions as if they were attacks also simplifies a special rule in the main case. Players should indeed be able to mount a defense of the flying body slam, flying elbow, and flying knee. We know what happens when the moving Titan can't force the other Titan back due to buildings in the way, and if that lands a Titan on a building.

Grappling

It works, but what if the direction isn't just 90 degrees left or right? You kind of need to catch someone napping to push them through a building, and the positioning is pretty transparent. Occasionally the deployment of a sponson may take someone from surprise, but that's again focusing on something that can be prevented with a single cog of walking. Probably good to team claws up with another weapon or sensor to be used in case of a retreating target.

But think about the things that could be done if you could pull a Titan into the hexes left or right, not just front left and front rite? Or, alternative, introduce a new weapon system that can pull Titans towards each other. I've certainly had ideas for weapons that push the attackers around (the kzinti weapon). That last one though, I think I may have a model for that. 

Titanomachina: Eos vs Tethys

Rapacious Tethys has gone to investigate the a new development in the southern hemisphere of Gaia, one where Her remote sensors suggest the conurbations of other Titans are infringing on Her territory, but She finds gracious Eos there waiting for Her, ready to claim it for Themselves. Tethys has chosen Her tertiary configuration of digitigrade legs, capacitor, dual sponsons, dual gun batteries, macro laser and claw. Eos is in Their secondary configuration of macro gun, laser battery, and hand. 

Tethys has the initiative, but Eos isn't planning on letting Tethys exploit it and goes for the ambush. 

Realising that Eos means business, Tethys slides into cover. It turns out Eos was detecting a vast tower of blue habitats!

Now the chase begins in earnest, with Eos attempting to line up a volley of laser fire, and slicing down buildings rather than Tethys. 

Now it's time for Tethys to attempt to ambush the ambusher, but Eos swings around left instead of right, lining up a shot with Their macro gun!

Seeing how Tethys is tensing for a crew-operated explosion of action, Eos turns to present Their heaviest shields to Tethys, but open seeing the subtle body-language of multiple crew members, jumps to relative safety at the edge of the board. Tethys pursues!

Now Eos steps back and left coming alongside Tethys to deliver some punishment, but that's Tethys' plan as well and when the attack turns out to be a feint, pushes Eos back up against the edge of the battlefield with a punishing fusillade of gunfire!

Eos can't risk a ring out, and comes about to return fire, first a burst of macro gun fire to break shields and armour, and then another salvo of laser beams focused on Tethys' leg in the hopes of slicing it off. Tethys is prepared, intercepting some beams with shields previously focused on Her rear and blocking others with shields over Her own macro laser, and She seizes the initiative!

The Titans pause to let the dust settle a bit, charging themselves for the final push before the ceasefire order comes down from the orbiting Hecatoncheires.

Now Eos makes a push, coming in swinging, with a hard right elbow hammer hammering Tethys back through the yellow and green habitats behind Her, and following up with jump jets to smash Their macro gun through Tethys' starboard gun battery. Tethys is not idle though, and cognisant of the strategic position hammers down the first tall blue building while detecting a pink building nearby. Eos tries to grapple Tethys, but only succeed in pulling Her around to face Them!

Now Tethys goes after Eos' other tall building, and while Eos detects a third such tower amidst the billowing clouds of ash and pulverised concrete, the second is sent crashing down with a tectonic crash! Eos sees an opening, however, and makes one last ditch attempt to push Tethys off of the battlefield before the hammer comes down, and it fails at the last. While Eos batters Her, Tethys detects more pink habitats far across the flattened rubble of the battlefield, and carries the day! 

The final score is 22-20, for Tethys! Tethys' detected 22 pink habitats to Eos' 18, and suffered only the loss of a gun battery (2VP). Glory to Tethys and Her crew!

Titanomachina: Styxx Senary Configuration

Styxx's senary configuration is due to be deployed on Tabletop Simulator via the Steam Workshop. I'm warming up to it. I'm starting to think this is a well-balanced Titan, or at least it seems like it isn't hampered by too many high-powered weapons, or thrusters. They can consistently attack with either arms or weapons for the same cost, with a turret concentrating two or more attacks in the same round. Four cards for all four limbs can be two sensors and two deflector arrays. The thrusters and the third sensors support full operation by crew. The plasma howitzer would do best supported by the capacitor and two extra armour systems recovered from the capacitor. That leaves the vulcan gun, the buzz saw, the turret, a third extra armour system, and the Titan's force of personality. The turret is a given. This configuration can fire all of its weapons, attack with all of its limbs, fully operated by crew, with an activated turret, for a total between 23 and 28 points of damage, not assuming impact from limbs, which could conceivably get up to 38, assuming sufficient two and three habitat tall buildings (100m-150m tall buildings). 

That's in comparison to Rhea quaternary configuration with 21 to 29 points of damage, with limbs limited to bringing it up to 35 provided sufficient buildings to bust someone through. Rhea holds a massive edge in protection though, with a full five extra armour systems available to Styxx's two under maximum output conditions. Interestingly that can go up to three. The plasma howitzer helps reduce that, forcing a discard for shock. Styxx can also voluntarily slow down, as not using both arms means the limbs can still put out 8 damage, and not using any means still on par with Rhea's total cogs of 6 for all four limbs. Without the arms then deflectors or sensors can activate, protecting the Titan or detecting Titan targets. Maybe even thrusters. Sensors can also be used to scan, to capture the initiative, and control the fight. 

The question becomes then, can you maintain this pace when pressed for angles, ranges, and choice of targets? What if you need a third extra armour to soak three points of damage getting through your shields from crew-operated macro guns? What about recovering from impacts and grapples so that you can maintain those arcs and ranges, which trades off against distance and damage? Or hope that the turret will make up for it.

 

Titanomachina: Eurybia

 

The Primary and Secondary Configurations, tentative, for Eurybia would be: sensor (1), arms (2), plantigrade legs (2), shield generators (2), sponson (1), extra armour (5), crew (4), and coolant (2). That's thirteen systems requiring no extra charge, twelve if you consider Detect mandatory. If it is, then it's five systems requiring +1 charge (one card played face-down), and two requiring +2 charge. So without activating shields or weapons Eurybia may do 12 + 5 to move 4-6 times, activate sponson or sensor more than once every four rounds. But what do you give up to get that? Giving up two cards (one coolant, one face-down to +1 charge coolant), probably extra armour or shields, to de-activate one (or more with crew) activated system. Using initiate crew you could de-activate two systems already activated. Including the crew... Of course that is the same as not using an initiate crew, and different than not including the crew. Activating two limbs could be a good use of an initiate crew, a coolant system, and the power to extra armour 4 & 5, or even a shield generator. 

Which brings me to weapons. A rocket pod so Eurybia doesn't have to chase, and a vulcan gun, laser blade combo. The vulcan is defensive, but reactivated and operated by another crew member it could win a game. The laser blade is because it combines well with a rocket pod. Which all sounds pretty incredible right? It's like having two extra copies of weapons except you're firing two rocket pods at the cost of six cards, the rocket pods themselves, the charge for them, super-cooling to deactivate for a second activation next round, and the charge for that. Two separate rocket systems would do that with four cards. To activate all weapons the primary configuration will require seven, eight to ten if you want crew in on it. That leaves 12 cards for manuever and defense. 

More importantly not only do the coolant systems make the primary configuration less predictable and more agile, it can also be pushed to make the Titan faster and hit harder. 

The secondary configuration ups the ante to make the range shorter and the threat bigger. Using coolant on the claw and getting in multiple grapples into buildings, or simply into arc of the laser blade, may make up for an inability to multi-task offense and defense. She still has the best armour and shields in the game, and can leverage that hardiness to absorb damage as well as prevent it. 

It's worth considering that using the coolant system will leave Eurybia dead in the water, spending at least one other card, leaving itself in place to be shot and two cards short on defensive options. It's not gaining anything until the next round, so using it might signal that a player can do nothing else.

Either way, it'll be interesting to get these two out on the board to see what happens. 

Titanomachina: The Gripping Hand

I saw a picture of a Jenner from BattleTech where someone gave it hands and tried it on Styxx tertiary for a laugh. And you know what, I want to see what it can do? I have a theory that it may get shot up chasing an opponent, but may be able to control the initiative and cover using Her sensors. I think you would want to have lower initiative until you can attack with hands and then with legs. 

Hands, Digitigrade Legs, Thrusters, Deflectors, and Sensor-detection all require a charge of one other card. So that is 20, with senior Crew taking another 4 for 24. That leaves -2 other cards for junior Crew, Turrets, Extra Armour, Coolant, and Capacitor. 

Round 1

A hand, a leg, the master crew, coolant, armour, a sensor, a deflector, and a capacitor 

Round 2

Thrusters, turret, armour, sensor, initiate crew

Round 3

A hand, a leg, the adherent crew, armour, deflector

Round 4

Thrusters, turret, initiate crew, sensor, Personality

Because it occurred to me that you could use the coolant system on the master crew to double their bonus, admitted to two different systems, but for an additional cost of four cards, the master crew and the coolant systems and their respective. Where you only have two weapons, you need this bonus as much as possible. You will also need those legs more than twice a round. 

Turrets not only let a Titan open up a weapon to 270 degrees, but jumping 180 degrees up to three tiles can be both a good defensive or offensive move. You need to close to act directly against the enemy Titans, and you likewise need to dodge out of the way if an opponent is so unkind as to try and hit you back. If you go for a neutral start and try to build cards to start attacking on round 3, you can mix jump and attacking with hands rather than walking and attacking and attacking with hands. Because, ideally, you use the hands to defensively grapple the opposing Titan, and blow out their shields with their massive shield breaker bonus. Once down to 40% or so, there will be big enough gaps in coverage to do some armour shattering kicks. With around four activations to attack with the legs that'll net you four extra armour cards at best. That is if each kick gets three damage past shields. It might be something to operate the hands instead, opening up the legs to keep the Titan pointed in the right direction. Probably depends on the situation at hand...

Oh, and yes, I also updated the Styxx tertiary and quaternary dashboard cards on TableTopSimulator to swap the position of Deflectors and Thrusters in the back-left and back-right stacks of the Titan, with the notion being that Deflectors are supposed to ablate damage and being fewer HR points than Thrusters should be at the top of the stack. 

Titanomachina: Myrmidon Mega-Ants Part 5

Updates and changes to the info used in Part 4.

Ant Decks are composed of unit cards, platoon cards, and support cards. The unit cards apply to all units of that type, so a Tactical Ants card enables any one unit of Tactical ants to perform an action or two. Platoon cards enable multiple units of the indicated type to share the card’s actions and cogs. Support cards enable a unit with the model pictured on the card to perform actions.

Ant units have unlimited stacking but occupy target locations on tiles like buildings. Ants cannot stack with enemy units, or share buildings with enemy units. Each ant unit can take one point of damage before it is removed from the board.

Actions include:

• Attack – The unit of ants chooses a range and rolls 1D6 per cog. The target must be in range, line of sight, and arc (arc is 360º). Each dice result that rolls over the range does a point of damage. Ants in buildings gain line of sight from that building. Ants in a building are destroyed if that building is destroyed. However, they won’t be destroyed until the entire building is destroyed, not just individual habitats. Each point of damage removes one unit of ants from the target stack.
• Walk – The unit of ants moves a tile per cog. Ants can move into buildings, An additional Walk icon allows the unit to move one more tile in addition to any cogs.
• Reinforcement – One unit of destroyed Tactical, Assault, or Support ants may be placed on a road tile on the edge of the board. The Gracious personality is a reinforcement for ants.
• Detect Titan – All ant swarm units have line of sight to a detected Titan until the end of the round, or the location of a stack of ants – moving ants away from this location on a tile will disrupt automatic line of sight to that stack, but not to anything in that location until the end of the round.
• Detect Habitat – Place a habitat within line of sight of the unit.
• Scan – Increase the swarm’s initiative.
• Operate – Increase the cogs of the next action to be declared.

Reactions Include:

• Fall Back – enables a unit of ants to move one tile directly away (‘directly’ by overkill rules). This may take them out of range (attack fails), or into a different range band.
• Block – enables a stack of ants to switch the attack to a different target on the same tile.
• Covering Fire – enables a unit of ants to shoot back at an attacker with 1D6 at Range 4 simultaneously with the attacker.
• Take Cover – enables a stack of ants to ignore one point of damage that turn.

End-Game/Victory Conditions

• Knock-Out: All Command Ant units are destroyed.
• Ring-Out – All Tactical, Assault, or Support Ant units are destroyed at end of round.
• Time-Out – the usual 9 or 18 rounds.

Units

• Command Ants (Walk, Attack, Scan, Cogs: 2, Range 1, Range 3)
• Tactical Ants (Walk, Attack, Cogs: 2, Range 2, Range 4)
• Assault Ants (Walk, Walk, Attack, Cogs: 2, Range 1, Range 2)
• Support Ants (Walk, Attack, Attack, Cogs: 2, Range 3, Range 4, Range 5)

Platoons

• Onslaught – Up to three units of Tactical ants can each walk or attack at range 3.
• Charge – Up to three Assault ants can each walk or attack at range 2.
• Firestorm – Up to three Command, Tactical, and Support ants can each attack at range 4.
• Redeploy – Up to four units of any ant unit type can walk with a movement bonus.

Support

• Command – Add two cogs to one unit during the next action played.
• Spotting – Add a building to the board or gain line of sight to a Titan or ant target location.
• Reinforcements – Up to three locations on road tiles around the edge of the board may have x cogs-worth of ant casualties redeployed onto the board.

Titanomachina: Myrmidon Mega-Ants Part 4

Since the multi-Titan rules are working out pretty well, I'm back to working on the infantry expansion, the Myrmidon Mega-Ants. 

Ant Decks are composed of unit cards and support cards. The unit cards apply to all units of that type, so a Tactical Ants card enables a unit of Tactical ants to perform an action. Support cards enable a unit with the model represented on the card to perform actions. Ant units have unlimited stacking but occupy tiles like buildings.

Support Cards

·       Scout is an option for Tactical, Support, and Assault Ants.

·       Reinforcements is an option for Tactical, Assault,

·       Command is an option for Heavy Ants

Actions Include

Attack – The unit of ants chooses a range and rolls 1D6 per cog. The target must be in range, line of sight, and arc (arc is 360^o). Each dice result that rolls over the range does a point of damage.

Move – The unit of ants moves a tile per cog. Ants can move into buildings, gaining the line of sight of that building, and being destroyed if that building is destroyed. However, they won’t be destroyed until the entire building is destroyed, not just individual habitats.

Reinforcement – One unit of destroyed Tactical, Assault, or Support ants may be placed on a road tile on the edge of the board.

Detect Titan – All ant swarm units have line of sight to the detected Titan until the end of the round.

Detect Habitat – Place a habitat within line of sight of the unit.

Scan – Increase the swarm’s initiative.

Operate – Increase the cogs of the next action to be declared.

Reactions Include:

Block – enables a unit of ants to switch the attack to a different target on the same tile.

Fall Back – enables a unit of ants to move one tile directly away (‘directly’ by overkill rules)

End-Game/Victory Conditions

·       Knock-Out: All Heavy Ant units are destroyed.

·       Ring-Out – All Tactical, Assault, or Support Ant units are destroyed at end of round.

·       Time-Out – the usual 9 or 18 rounds. 

Right now, as the default, it'll be four squads each of Assault ants, Tactical ants, Support ants, and Heavy ants. In addition to this the swarm will have two each of  the reinforcements card, the scout card, and the command card. These latter cards can be played if the player still has a unit with that model on the board. Reinforcements enable players to re-deploy destroyed units to the table. The scout thing is basically a sensor for the swarm, enabling it to detect the enemy. Finally there's the command card for both enhancing other actions with operation actions, seize the initiative, and sacrificing some units in favour of others with the block reaction.

The notion, of course, is that there is a trade-off between the amount of ants you can have on the board at any given time vs their capabilities. But that is why we do development and play-testing, to see how this makes us feel...

Titanomachina: Multi-Titan Mayhem 2

 Digging into developing a multi-Titan game and I think I've managed to hit on a game mode that enables players to play Titanomachina with multiple Titans per side. 

Each player has two or more Titans where each Titan gets five cards from their Titan deck laid out on the table. Players take turns in initative order activating systems by rotating them 180 degrees (and flipping over any cards necessary to charge a system for activation). Players cannot activate a Titan again until all over Titans under their care control have activated a system (or can't activate a system). 

At the end of a round, when no more activations are possible, players can reset or replace the cards in their Titan's rows. 

Titans are reduced to single targets with a single stack of shield tokens. For every three points of damage they accumulate, the attacker can select a card from the targets row and claim it to score the system. 

Reactions are slightly changed. Reactions rotate a card like it was activated. Blocks turn Impact and Grapple effects into 45 degree turns, and offers that system up for destruction instead of the target.  Intercepts reduce the amount of incoming damage by 1 point. Emergency Power allows a player to play a reaction using a card that was rotated or flipped. Emergency Venting increases the cost of activating a system to attack within range 1. 

Armour Piercing enables the attacking Titan to claim two destroyed systems instead of 1. High Explosive adds damage to a system's cogs. Impact and Grapple always pushes (or pulls) a Titan, only doing one point of damage for collisions. Shock makes a player flip over one of their Titan's unactivated cards. 

Titanomachina: Coolant Systems (Part 2)

I'm introducing coolant systems to the game as a method of recovering cards that have been activated, something very much like the original concept of the capacitor, and now something like its mirror as the capacitor enables players to recover cards they've used to charge other systems, and this card speeds an activated system back into the players hand without spending time cooling down in the player's Titan deck (placing activated and charging cards at the bottom of the Titan deck at the end of the round is, after all, the cool down). 

However, it will initially be handled differently than I had originally stated on this blog, and may yet be slightly different once I update the rule book (and the tech manual and the reference cards, etc). 

The 'super-cooling' action will enable a player to de-activate that many cogs of activated systems, allowing those systems to be drawn back to the player's hand at the end of the round with the other un-activated systems. 

The 'explosive venting' reaction will enable a player whose Titan is being attacked at range 1 to increase the charge of the attacking system by 1 card, forcing its de-activation if the attacking player cannot (or won't) pay the additional charge cost of the system. If the system is deactivated then the attacking player can recover the charge cost of the system to their hand, and the system at the end of the round.  

 

Titanomachina: Reconfiguring Styxx

I've decided to revisit Styxx's configurations and systems because Styxx's tertiary and quaternary configurations under-perform in a way that leaves them feeling less mobile and agile than a Titan with three weapons, four limbs, and two jump jets.  In part it's because the number of Walk actions defines agility despite equivalent speed. Once per round is often ideal, rather than once every two, with multiple walks in a single round being a strategic choice left up to the player's estimation. 

Perhaps amusingly, what the tertiary and quaternary configurations give up for a third weapon is not additional speed and agility. 

The coolant system would enable the Titan to draw an activated system immediately back to their hand rather than waiting for it to cycle through the Titan deck. This can give it the Titan a third limb or weapon activation as the timing allows. It also gives it another defensive option, to make up for all the block reactions it would lose with the third weapon and two arms. 

This does require ripping out one of the capacitors, but where their optimal use requires the Titan to be using two-charge systems. That's only really the weapon systems, in the tertiary configuration, and the macro laser in the quaternary. 

This isn't the whole solution though, as it occurred to me that the turret is one of the reasons the primary and secondary configurations are so effective. Being able to jump sideways seems like an equalizer, especially where weapons also get 270 degrees of fire. 

Titanomachina: Going Hunting

  

In the quest for balance, so players can feel like there isn't only one way to play Titanomachina, there is a gold standard for power and that is Rhea's quaternary configuration. That's the one with two macro guns and two vulcan guns, and has five extra armour systems and a sensor system to maintain a favourable initiative. The best defence in the game along with an array of charge-efficient systems, makes this Titan a brutal opponent, particularly when piloted by my favourite opponent. 

I'm trying to figure out a material response to this monster, mainly so I don't have to rejig the game to balance it out, but I'm currently thinking about Eos and Styxx. Eos has a pair of capacitors in primary and secondary configurations. Styxx has three sensors as well as a capacitor, taking only a single thruster instead of Eos' dual jump jets, and mounts stronge but charge-thirsty limbs. I want to take Styxx's primary weapon configuration (plasma shotgun, rocket pod, laser blade) and stick it on Eos' primary chassis.

1. Sponson 1, Jump Jets 1, Capacitor 1, Plasma Shotgun 2, Deflectors 1, Initiate Crew 3, Deflectors 2, Extra Armour 1 (5 actions, 5 damage, shock)
2. Jump Jets 2, Capacitor 2, Laser Blade 1, Initiate Crew 4, Extra Armour 2 (3 actions, 4 damage)
3. Master Crew 1, Rocket Pod 2, Arm 1, Leg 1, Extra Armour 3 (3 actions, 6 damage)
4. Adherent Crew 2, Arm 2, Leg 2, Sensor 3, Personality (4 actions)

The strategy isn't just using high explosive and shield breaker to clear Rhea's shields, shock to interfere with tempo, and armour piercing to pick off valuable systems. This could be done, perhaps even more effectively, by Styxx's primary configuration. 

1. Sensor 3, Master Crew 2, Rocket Pod 2, Deflectors 1, Initiate Crew 2, Deflectors 2, Extra Armour 1, Arm 2 (4 actions, 6 damage)
2. Turret, Capacitor 1, Plasma Shotgun 2, Sensor 2, Leg 1 (4 actions, 3 damage, shock)
3. Adherent Crew 1, Arm 1, Sensor 1, Extra Armour 3, Laser Blade 1 (2 actions, 5 damage)
4. Initiate Crew 1, Leg 2, Extra Armour 2, Thrusters 1, Personality (3 actions)

Rhea Configuration 4, for comparative purposes:

1. Sponson 1, Macro Gun 1, Extra Armour 1, Vulcan Gun 1, Leg 1, Master Crew 1, Shields 1, Adherent Crew 2 (4 actions, remainder 1, 8 damage)
2. Sponson 2, Macro Gun 2, Extra Armour 2, Vulcan Gun 2, Leg 2, (3-4 actions, 7 damage)
3. Shields 2, Initiate Crew 3, Initiate Crew 4, Extra Armour 3, Arm 1 (2-3 actions)
4. Extra Armour 4, Extra Armour 5, Arm 2, Sensor 3, Personality (3 actions)

The question, I suppose, is how will this mix with the personalities? And maintaining an advantageous position in the initiative order, as well as low-angles to Rhea (and not letting Her slip behind me this time!). 

Titanomachina: Escape From Gaia ready for Play-testing

I saw this mechanic in a wonderful game about modern art ("Art Society"):

Initiative goes to the player that plays the highest card, with ties going to the previous card value, and any further tie going to the ship with the most fuel. 

Ships are dice, used to track fuel.

Players move their ships in initiative order.

• Up an orbit costs 2 fuel
• Moving along the same orbit costs 1
• Moving down an orbit earns 2
• Moving into space with a planet earns 1
• Moving into a space occupied by another player costs 1.

There's all sorts of other bells and whistles I could put in there, like giving cards special rules or whatnot, but right now seven poker cards (1-6 and a joker) should do it.

Players win by moving up, out of the solar system. Players can't have less than 0 fuel, and start with 4 points of fuel. Planets are spaced out so that players can't immediately bootstrap themselves out of the solar system.