Titanomachina Tactics Part 2

Imagine if you will, that you had any Titan in any situation, how would you seize the initiative. Seizing the initiative is a simple action that requires more than just activating a sensor or extra armour system to scan, and this ascend your Titan's initiative marker in the stack. 

For one thing, doing it when no opponent is ahead of you moves your marker to the bottom of the stack. Furthermore, while being able to shoot before an opponent away or out of line of sight is great, shooting second can deter pursuit. In pursuing an opposing Titan you want to be able to react and follow them, rather than moving first and having them successfully retreat before you can attack. If you have more cards, then you can run them down with the initiative.

You can try to gain and increase card advantage by making efficient trades using capacitor and coolant systems, or successful attacks using plasma systems. Shocking an opponent into discarding cards unactivated while saving cards with a capacitor means a solid ratio of damage to cost. Coolant can be used to push this earlier in the game with a risk of gassing out in the late game. 

This is further complicated by a Titan's ability to soak attacks on shields, and to block with extra armour. Both systems are cheap, and ablate favorably for the defending Titan. Of course, cards used to block cannot be used to activate other systems, and the number or type of attacks may overwhelm an active defense and sap power for offense. 

No Titan does well under fire from two enemy Titans on one side, and rarely better coming under fire from both sides. But having the initiative can assist a Titan in removing themselves from between two mutually antagonistic opponents. It's worth rememberimg that a Titan that has been savaged by another Titan is a prime candidate for a knock-out.

A knock-out blow requires a target to stay available for about three turns, while the Titan activates crew and any sensors or sponson pr turret. Master crew and then a weapon can destroy multiple systems with a single attack, and removing armour removes a Titan's ability to defend itself as well as exposing 2 & 3 point systems. Lasers can bypass armour, but get easily absorbed by shields. A master operated laser battery can do serious harm to an undefended Titan, and a laser blade can deal game-changing damage with a quick early game stab.

Getting there is going to require chewing through shields and causing extra damage with high explosive, impact, and grapple attacks. 

So depending on whether you start with more or fewer habitats, and whether you have the initiative or not, is whether you walk, operate, attack or operate attack walk, or attack operate walk.