Titanomachina: Tethys

Once upon a time, like many a game adversary, Tethys was just Rhea but blue. She's an evolution of Rhea, and I like how the scales for Her extra armour parts both communicate Her pelagic origin, and gives Her a kind of prehistoric fishiness. Exactly how fishy depends on the paint scheme, but I made Her pink when Eos was planned for pink (Eos being the Titan of the Rosy Dawn) because my daughter wanted a pink one, and She became blue (and green) again when an artist I commissioned gave me a version of Her in that colour scheme. There's also how She turned out when I turned my paint brush on Her and reminded myself that I was not an enthusiastic painter. Which is somewhat odd because painting miniatures with a brush is wonderful if you can find the time to enjoy it. 

Tethys was named after the rival Queen of Heaven that Rhea and Her husband/brother overthrew, which is probably metaphorically significant in some fashion that isn't clear from the surviving fragments of literature. There seems to be some thematic overlaps, with the differences being that Rhea is the more bellicose of the two, and Tethys being the more nurturing. Of course, having purloined the names and identities I can do what I like with them, and in this case I think it's interesting to style Tethys as the Surging Tide. Which is to say that Tethys' more power-hungry configurations and systems (macro laser instead of a macro gun, claw instead of a hand, jump jets instead of thrusters) lend themselves to greater peaks and troughs in game-play, despite being perhaps more well-rounded than Rhea who maximizes the defensive systems and who can maintain a more constant rate of activity. Tethys is more dramatic. 

Notably Tethys' places an Initiate Crew up in Her vulnerable sensor tower, making Her more vulnerable to the front than one would expect for having the second most armour in the game. However, this serves as something of a lure, giving opponents a reason to engage Her from positions where She can most easily return fire. 

Tethys' primary configuration reflects Rhea's primary, carrying a laser, a gun, and a close combat weapon for grappling. However, instead of having a gun as Her main weapon, Tethys has the longer-ranged armour piercing macro laser. With more damage potential than the laser battery, and 3x the range of a laser blade, it firmly places this version of Tethys into the knock-out fighter category. Despite having a capacitor, this system mainly serves to keep Her moving and punching when She might otherwise run out of gas. It does not accelerate Her like the dual capacitors of Eos. Tethys' dual jump jets, however, form something of a secret weapon, enabling Her to not only move rapidly around the board, but to press for a double-jump should someone judge the claw to be more dangerous than the laser. 

Tethys' second configuration is perhaps more energy intensive, tracking the ranged sniper power of the macro laser for the high explosive shield and habitat clearing utility of a rocket pod. While it's not a great weapon, the rocket pod is relatively low powered and should work well with the plasma shotgun to make sure other Titans are exposed to the laser blade. 

Tethys' tertiary configuration gives up the jump jets for a second gun battery, a second sponson, and upgrades the plantigrade legs to digitigrade legs. This is something of a wash with energy trade offs, but the dual gun batteries, claw, and legs turns Tethys into something of a board control monster. 

Tethys' quaternary configuration doubles down on what makes Her secondary configuration nasty, making life oppressive to opponents at all ranges, and especially at short ranges. Tethys' answer to Rhea's quaternary configuration doesn't bother competing on board control, and instead focuses on doing damage in a way that makes Rhea's superior armour meaningless. 

Where Rhea's concerns are Her pre-eminence amongst the Titans, and inter-galactic trade, Tethys' concerns are more domestic. Her control of trans-oceanic shipping and trade with the Myrmidon Mega-Ants pale in comparison to Her need for violent and dramatic vengeance. 

Tethys plots to overthrow Rhea, suborn the Hecatoncheires battle stations, and to use the wealth of Gaia to return the Titans to galactic pre-eminence. Whether She can overcome Rhea, and the other Titans drawn to the jewel of Gaia by promises of wealth and entertainment, or whether Her own fury will be Her [further] downfall remains to be seen.

Titanomachina: Mirror-match Mayhem Encoded

Habitat Coordinates (xy - building randomizer colour)

• 13 - 3G 7P 8Y | 14 - 3G 4Y | 16 - 1Y 2P | 19 - 3G 7G 8G
• 22 - 3B 4G 7Y 8P | 28 - 3B 4Y 7Y 8B
• 31 - 3G 4B | 34 - 3B 4P 7Y 8B | 36 - 1P 2B 5B 6Y | 37 - 3G 4P 7P 8G
• 41 - 7B 8G | 43 - 3P 4G 7G 8Y | 47 - 1G 2P 5Y 6G | 49 - 5Y 6P
• 61 - 1Y 2P | 63 - 1B 2Y 5Y 6G | 67 - 3P 4Y 7G 8B | 69 - 3Y
• 73 - 3G 4Y 7P 8B | 74 - 1P 2B 5G 6P | 76 - 3Y 4G 7B 8P | 79 - 3G 7G 8Y
• 82 - 3B 4G 7Y 8P | 88 - 3B 4P 7Y 8G 
• 91 - 3Y 7G | 94 - 5Y 6P | 96 - 7G 8B | 97 - 3P 4 B  

Titan Deployment (Colour, Tile, Heading, Shield Configuration using Titan randomizer & Shield Tokens)

B57E 12 21 32 41 51 61 71 81

P32S 12 21 32 41 51 61 71 81

Round 1

B - Pass

P - Plantigrade Leg 2 - Attack 31 - 4B Walk 33S

B - Deflectors 1 inactive

P - Pass

Round 2 

B - Deflectors 1 inactive

P - Shields 2 inactive

B - Capacitor 2 inactive

P - Sensor 3 inactive

B - Pass

P - Adherent 2 Operate

B - Deflectors 2 Raise Shields (rotate shield harmonics) 51 & 61 to 83

P - Pass

Round 3 

B - Sponson 1 Twist

P - Sensor 3 Detect Building 61 7P 8P 15P

B - Jump Jets 2 Jump to 34N

P - Capacitor - Full Power

B - Laser Blade Attack to P8 (Block to P2), -1 Shield Extra Armour 3 light damage Initiate Crew 2 heavy damage

P - Sponson 1 Twist

B - Capacitor 1 Full Power

P - Jump Jets 2 Jump to 66S

B - Capacitor 2 Full Power

P - Initiate Crew 1 Operate

B - Plantigrade Leg 1 Walk east 25S

P - Plantigrade Leg 1 Walk west 56N

B - Master Crew Operate

P - Pass

B - Pass

P - Arm 1 inactive

Round 4

B - Rocket Pod 1 Attack Building 61 7P 8P 15P and 2P via High Explosive

P - Master Crew 2 Operate

B - Adherent Crew 2 Operate

P - Gracious Repair Extra Armour 3 Initiate Crew 2 restored to no damage

B - Arm 1 inactive

P - Arm 1 Walk 55N

B - Plasma Shotgun 2 Attack to P3 Plasma Shotgun -3 shields 2 heavy damage

P - Plasma Shotgun 2 inactive

B - Pass

P - Rocket Pod 1 inactive

B - Arm 2 Attack 34 4P

P - Extra Armour 2 Scan (seize initiative)

P - Jump Jets 1 inactive

B - Plantigrade Leg 2 Walk 26SW

P - Pass

B - Extra Armour 3 inactive

Round 5

P - Rocket Pod 1 Attack 43 - 8B 3B & 34 - 4G via High Explosive 

B - Pass

P - Plantigrade Leg 2 Walk 56N Attack 67 - 8B

B - Jump Jets 1 inactive

P - Laser Blade 1 Attack 36 - 2B

B - Deflectors 1 inactive

P - Capacitor 1 Full Power

B - Capacitor inactive

P - Adherent Crew Operate

B - Arm 1 Attack 37 - 4P

P - Plantigrade Leg 1 Walk 35NE

B - Sponson inactive

P - Pass

B - Extra Armour 3 inactive

Round 6

P - Sponson 1 inactive

B - Laser Blade 1 inactive

P - Arm 2 Walk 24E

B - Pass

P -  Pass

B - Deflectors 2 inactive

Round 7

P - Sponson 1 Twist

B - Plasma Shotgun 2 Attack P3 (Block to P6), Extra Armour 41

P - Initiate Crew 2 Operate

B - Sponson Twist

P - Sensor 3 Detect Building 19 - 1P 2P

B - Plantigrade Leg 2 Walk 25 Attack P3 (Block to P4)

P - Arm 1 Walk to 15NE

B - Initiate Crew 3 Operate

P - Pass

B - Plantigrade Leg 1 Walk 25NE Attack P3 (Block to P2)

P - Jump Jets 2 Jump 18NE

B - Master Crew 1 Operate

P - Jump Jets 1 inactive

B - Extra Armour 3 inactive

B - Pass

Round 8 

P - Plantigrade Leg 1 Walk 27SE

B - Arm 2 Walk 26E Attack P6 (Extra Armour 4 destroyed) 27S

P - Jump Jets 1 Jump 57S

B - Extra Armour 3 Scan (seize initiative)

B - Initiate Crew 4 Operate

P - Pass

B - Arm 2 Walk 27S

P - Initiate Crew 1 inactive

B - Adherent Crew 2 Operate

B - Jump Jets 2 Jump 57S Attack P6 (Sponson 1 destroyed) P67S 3P 4Y 7G destroyed

B - Capacitor 2 Full Power

B - Laser Blade 1 Attack P6 (Capacitor light damage, Master Crew heavy damage)

B - Jump Jets 1 Jump 67S Attack P6 (Capacitor destroyed, Master Crew destroyed, Knock-Out)

Titanomachina: Mirror-match Mayhem

In this battle report I took Sagacious Eos vs Gracious Tethys, with the both of us choosing to arm our Titans with plasma shotguns, rocket pods, and laser blades. Of course, one significant difference was that Tethys had rear armour and two extra habitats while Eos packed another capacitor in Their frame. As my opponent would prophetically comment on the two habitat head-start: It's basically nothing. So when the game ended with a knock-out in round 8, seeing Eos crush in Tethys' sponson with a body-slam, damage Her capacitor and master crew with a swift stab from Their laser blade, and a final body-slam to destroy those systems, the final score was 21-19 for Eos. Had Eos executed in a different order, two body slams in a row, it would have been both a knock-out and a 19-18 victory for Eos. Notably there was a point in round 6 where Tethys might have blocked a kick to Her plasma shotgun with Her leg instead of Her prow, which would have seen Tethys suffer both a ring-out and a 19-18 victory.  

There are, perhaps, two reasons for this somewhat bizarre situation where Eos has ripped Tethys open, but barely squeaked out a win. The first is that Tethys did a reasonably good job of increasing that initial two-habitat lead. The second is that Tethys was overwhelmed by Eos' higher rate of activity, with round 8's evisceration happening because Tethys ran out of gas while Eos had loaded both capacitors with 50% more power available. There is a third reason, I think, in that Tethys played defensively, and Eos really shines in situations where opponents are not hitting Them back effectively. But Eos managed to control the initiative fairly effectively by also maintaining not only a card advantage, but also tempo. The specific armament of plasma shotgun and laser blade, in combination with dual jump jets and capacitors is a real killer because a jump jet or weapon can be activated, its power recovered with a capacitor, and then another one fired. It's not easy to run away from that.  

Eos deploys aggressively, confident that the initiative will give Them the first shot, while making a rear approach dangerous, and a frontal assault costly. Tethys deploys much more circumspectly than Her previous frontal assault on Eos. 

It's a slow start, with Eos concentrating on building power, while Tethys looks to stretch both Her legs and Her advantage in habitats. 

Tethys sees Eos' aggressive posture and gets Her adherent crew on deck so She's ready to respond when Eos comes knocking, while Eos brazenly reinforces Their left side shield coverage, just about announcing Their imminent attack vector. 

Eos fires up Their sponson to vector Their jump, and leaps in to stab Tethys with Their laser blade, and Tethys twists enough to take it in Her check rather than letting the blazing knot of light lame Her leg. Not interesting in taking another hit like that, with Her prow compromised and junior crew injured, Tethys makes Her own leap. With some distance achieved, the Titans square up just out of range for their respective plasma shotguns, and Tethys spots a pink building on Her left and driving up Her habitat lead.  

Eos isn't having it, and activated senior crew last round to guide the rockets They fire, and these rockets demolish not only the building, but the pink upper habitat of the building beside it in the fireball. Tethys' own master crew beseeches the gracious to preserve the life of Her injured junior crew and manages to not only get him back on his feet, but also seals up the gaping hole in Tethys' hull from Eos' laser blade. Then, perhaps emboldened, Tethys slides Herself into plasma shotgun range and catches a blast from Eos' plasma shotgun that disables Her own. She targets Eos with Her own rocket pod, but doesn't fire. Eos demolishes the pink upper habitat of the building beside Them, on general principle, perhaps confused by Tethys' display. But Tethys shifts Her massive weight almost imperceptibly and Eos realizes that Tethys now has the initiative and is angling for a body slam, and steps back behind the  buildings on Their left, realizing it will cost Them in habitats. 

Now Tethys storms forward, blasting blue habitats with Her rocket pods, stabbing them with Her laser blade, and kicking them down as She storms forward into contact with Eos, who remains mostly still and charging, sneaking in a desultory elbow in a pink habitat on Their left and blue habitats are reduced to rubble. 

Tethys has little interest in being stabbed again, and slides left up the street from Eos, turning to present Her damaged plasma shotgun as something of a lure. Eos is patient though, and has plans for Her mounting power levels and loading systems. 

Now Eos unloads, blasting Tethys in the hopes of disrupting Her ability to resist further stabbing, but She spots a pink building off in the corner of the battlefield. Having ducked the plasma shotgun blast, letting it burst shields and cook armour off Her back, Eos slides in with a snap kick to Tethys' plasma shotgun that Tethys catches with Her shin as She slides in between Eos and the edge of the battlefield. Eos is still angling for that expensive but damaged plasma shotgun, aiming a reverse kick catches Tethys on Her chin instead. It's tempting for Eos to keep going, but even a bare minimum knock-out at this point will see Tethys emerge victory from sheer number of pink habitats. 

Tethys uses the initiative to turn and jump for safety, but now Eos is running hot, and not only gives chase, but leaps over the same buildings to mash Tethys' own front through more buildings, discharging Their capacitors to activate first Their laser blade for a quick gouge, and then firing Their second jump jets for a body slam that caves in the weakened capacitor and crew compartment to destroy Tethys' capacitor,  kill Her master crew, and see a knock-out of sufficient violence to overcome Tethys' massive advantage in habitats, scoring 7 victory points in the round! 

Note, it looks like we forgot the damage that going face-first through those buildings would have done to Tethys. The loss of Her frontal armour or the plasma shotgun don't seem like it would have affected the outcome.

Titanomachina Habitat Cards

How to get a game out of a pack of Titanomachina cards, from a 55-card deck.

• 22x Titan system cards 
• 1x Titan Dashboard card
• 1x Titan Damage card
• 1x Titan Shield card
• 1x Personality card
• 1x Pass card
• 25x Habitat cards per Titan
• 1x Reference card 
• 1x Board location card
• 1x Round tracker card

One habitat card per Titan is used in the initiative stack. Habitat cards equal to the Titan's habitat number on their dashboard cards are shuffled together into a Habitat deck. The remainder are kept by the players for detection and scoring.

Titan in 51N (Tile 51 heading North) addresses a building target in 34, but first 43 gets populated to check LOS. Each player can draw up to four cards, in the order on the locator card. Players can pass. When both players pass, they check line of sight. If the acting player doesn't have line of sight, they can contact the thing that is blocking their line of sight. Passing leaves a position open.

Addressing can be Attack or Detect Titan/Habitat. Destroyed habitats go to the Titan's habitat reserve, to go back on the board when Detect Habitat is played. 

Without a board players can write down positions on a sheet of paper with at least 30 lines using the coordinates on the card. 36-B1G2B3Y4 would be a row of habitats diagonal across tile 36 with blue on the bottom and green and yellow on top. G7Y8 would be a pineapple.

So odds (1, 3, 5, 7) would be ground level and north-west, north-east, south-east, and south-west, and evens would be second level. Bigger numbers like 11 would be the third level of the north-east of that foundation tile.

The initiative stack is kept by the round tracker card, which has 1, 2, 3, 4 on one side, and 5, 6, 7, 8 on another. That card is rotated 90 degrees relative to the initiative stack. 

The upshot being that players can play Titanomachina without a board and miniatures. Whether they would want to is another question. However, this also means the game as a product can be reduced to a minimum viable product of two decks of 55 cards per player, plus shield tokens, box, rules booklet, and a dry-erase pen. It also expands seamlessly when the board, figurines, and habitat blocks are added.

Titanomachina: Omnipotence

It's dark and She is in a cave together with you. You see the marks on the wall, and how they tell a story with the flickering ight of the torches behind you. You see the shadow that you cast upon the wall of the cave, and that of the Titan standing behind you. It's a dream, but the Titan is there and you see where the shadow of Her finger points, marking a deeper shadow than Her penumbral digit. This is your task, your orders, your word of God. You are, after all, God's favourite person. It is time. It is time to leave the cave. It is time to embrace the bright new dawn of the Titan. 

Being a Titan crewmember is an ordination of sorts, and while some may resentfully serve, it's a pretty good gig on Gaia. The Titans are strong believers in efficiency, and while all that brain-power is spare, there's also a lot of labour value to be extracted. There's sourcing, manufacturing, assembling, freight, and so many other jobs that can be done by a monkey in a saucy hat as by a cognizant human. The 'cogs' chosen to serve the Titan are often chosen for their personalities as much as their actual ability. For many, the life of long periods of maintenance, followed by short bursts of frenetic violence, the life can be somewhat harrowing. Your actual risk of death goes down if you serve as a Titan crewmember in active combat, with shields, armour, and life support all strenuously between you and sudden violent death. 

The Titan, bless her heart, has proclaimed that She will defeat any Titan that threatens the survival of Gaia as a whole. No one doubts Her good intentions. From what, exactly, remains to be defined in any actionable way, except by responding to perceived threats from rival Titans. After Rhea's defeat of Tethys, Rhea made a deal with the Hecatoncheires orbital battle stations: So long as hostilities would only last for so long once the Titans had positively identified, the Hecatoncheires wouldn't annihilate Titan presences from orbit. So far she has battled the Titan Tethys, former Queen of Heaven, and now the Surging Tide, as well as the Titans Eos ("The Burning Dawn") and Styxx ("The Mouth of Victory"). Rarely defeated, and never deterred, Rhea has had Her crew compartments melted, vaporized, shredded, crushed, and flooded with depressurizing ichorplasm. Sometimes life-support simply fails and the fire gets you. 

Perhaps it is this generous attitude Rhea takes with the lives of Her cogs that can disgruntle crew. However the Titans themselves may enjoy a cool, refreshing dash of violence now and again, and who is to say that it isn't actually working out for them. The Titans share Gaia with the Myrmidon Mega-Ant, the post-human civilization and current indigenous occupants. The Myrmidon respond to any Titan stepping foot off a strictly designated battlefield with a belligerence that does their fore-sisters proud. In the meantime, Rhea would count this a positive, directing additional funding and resources to Gaia via Her powerful shipping concerns. Can a God create a cake so baked that She cannot have it, and eat it too? Rhea believes so, and thus it is ordained. 

Fight well, and you may survive to return to the cave, and to the marks on the wall under the fire-light and shadows, and see Her warning, pointing off into the darkest shadows of deep space. This is your task, your orders, your word of God. This is your call to action.   

Titanomachina: Rhea

The Titan Rhea holds a special place in my heart because She is a reaction to Games Workshop Titans. Fully upright, and featuring decent armour coverage with modular weapon pods. It also has influences from Greek (Corinthian helmet) and Roman armour (Lorica Segmentata), as well as proportions somewhat like the Vitruvien Man. 

She is named after Rhea, from the Titans that sided with the Olympians during the mythical Titanomachy. Interestingly, according to primary sources, Rhea and Chronos weren't the first Titan Queen and King of Heaven after the overthrow of Ouranus. They had won the throne via a wrestling match against Tethys and Phorcys, respectively. 

Rhea is heavily armoured and shielded, able to both tank hits and sacrifice protection to scan the situation and maintain the initiative.

Rhea's primary configuration has a macro gun for both longer range bombardment and close quarters combat. She has a laser battery on a sponson mount over Her left shoulder for defeating enemy armour, with a hand for grappling and defeating shields. A pair of thrusters helps to make up for Her leg of raw speed or power.

Rhea's secondary configuration swaps out Her primary weapons for a plasma howitzer on Her right arm, a vulcan cannon on the shoulder mount, and a buzz saw for a left hand.

Rhea's tertiary configuration swaps out the thrusters for a second sponson mount and a second laser battery to mesh with Her primary configuration weapons. 

Rhea's quaternary configuration doubles down on the guns, mounting paired macro guns and vulcan guns to dominate the battlefield. So far it seems that this configuration is undefeatable, able to flatten buildings, and to knock Titans out, or off the battlefield. In theory She is still vulnerable to lasers, to opponents who can exploit low angles, and no Titan does well coming under crossfire. 

This is just as well, because Rhea is the golden god-queen, the self-styled Queen of Heaven and foremost of the Titans of Gaia. Her corporation controls the flow of shipping, both on planet and off, and it was Rhea that ordained both that the Titans should return to Gaia, and that clearly they needed the opportunity to let off some steam.

By Rhea's wiles the great Hecatoncheires battle stations permit the Titans residence, and by Her might does She rule the Titans on Gaia. While Her ancient rival Tethys plots to overthrow Her, the Titans Styxx and Eos have returned to Gaia drawn by the promises of wealth and violence alike. 

Titanomachina: A Veritable Chess Match

My opponent remarked that it would be cool to have names for opening moves in Titanomachina, like they do in Chess, and I agree. Usually I think of them in representative terms, like 'ambush' when Titans set up directly next to each other, and 'challenge' when they are set up facing each other down a road-way. But I think it would be something to start naming various manoeuvres and strategies. 

Which is a deft segue into the following Titanomachina battle report that saw something of a reversal from a previous one that saw me operating a gracious Titan against a rapacious Titan. In this battle I took rapacious Eos in Their tertiary configuration with dual plasma howitzers, vulcan gun, and buzz saw  against my opponent's gracious Tethys quaternary configuration with dual rocket pods and matching laser blades. Rather than a running battle, chasing each other around the board, or a steely-sensor'd staring match punctuated by a quick series of precise, shattering blows, this was a straight-up brawl initiated by Tethys when She was set up facing Eos directly behind a row of buildings. 

I had set up Eos to cover both ends of the street with plasma howitzers, but was prepared to swing them both around far enough to fire directly forward where their 180° sponson-enhanced arcs overlapped. The ensuing game proved, somewhat, that agility only really makes up for thick armour and heavy shields when there's space to use it. I realize now that I had boxed Eos in, and didn't place Them well to pivot away from blasting Tethys from a safe distance away from those laser blades. The game ended with a 26-25 Victory Point score in a time-out favouring Tethys, and almost a draw until I recalled that Eos' back-right arm had been too heavily damaged to knock a pink habitat.

What happened?

Eos deploys expecting an ambush, and Tethys obliges...

Tethys flutters Her cyclopean sensor pod as though aiming at Eos through the intervening buildings, but re-routes power as Eos' sponson system spools up. A quick scan assess the situation just as Eos' titanic foot crashes though one of the buildings, and reveals the glowing mouths of Their howitzers. The first one discharges, connecting the two Titans with an arcing stream of plasma! Tethys blocks the stream with a laser blade, and deflects it across Her the armoured faring of Her rocket pod. It's too little, too late as Tethys fires a spread of rockets into Eos, bursting shields and exposing Eos' core. Eos pauses as Their capacitor fires, shunting ichorplasma to Their other plasma howitzer while Tethys seizes the initiative. Eos then discharges Their other plasma howitzer into Tethys' other shoulder, looking to disarm Their opponent. Having seized the initiative though, Tethys' sends Her junior crew scrambling to stations!

Now Tethys stabs Eos, angling for a decapitation, but Eos twists and the searing blade of photons gouges through shields hastily sent to intercept the blow, through armour and length-wise down the barrel of Eos' right howitzer. Forced on Their back foot, Eos braces against the buildings behind Them, and blocks Tethys' colossal follow-up stomp with Their prow, crashing Them back through the buildings behind Them! Eos' front armour is shattered, and Their rear arms are broken! Perhaps importantly though, Their front arms and armaments are unharmed and ready to return the favour...

Tethys swings right around the remaining yellow & pink building, stepping out of the arc of Eos' vulcan gun, but Eos lurches forward to drive a heavy punch into Tethys' face, Tethys ducks absorbing the punch on Her back shields and armour, but catches Eos' buzz saw to the face as She straightens up. 

Now Tethys' crew assembles to operate Her arm as Eos turns to bring Their vulcan gun to bear on Tethys. They wrench Tethys up into a flying elbow drop onto the broken remains of Eos' rear left arm, tearing it off and crushing the deflector array below it in Eos' hip assembly. This wrenches Eos around left, enabling Them to discharge a stream of bullets from Their vulcan gun into Tethys' face, merely splintering armour as She whips shields up off Her leg to intercept. In the distance Eos' roving eye greedily spots an unaccounted blue habitat atop a building..

Tethys' situational awareness is second to none here, and She immediately back-pedals away from the glowing maw of Eos' re-charged and fully operational left plasma howitzer. Eos' right plasma howitzer isn't fully operational, but it manages to spit out enough plasma that Tethys is forced to block with Her shielded left leg, leaving Her right shoulder open to a solid kick that smashes the remains of the rocket pod off!

Tethys arrests the momentum by having Her junior crew swing out Her arm and catch a blue building to step out of the arc of Eos' left plasma howitzer and Eos turns and steps back in case Tethys is thinking of inserting another laser blade into Their hull, but Tethys' position at the very edge of the battlefield ferments a notion in Eos' many heads as They fall behind on buildings and body parts...

Eos charges in with a savage punch, wrenching Her around and exposing Her savaged back armour. Tethys is not inactive though, and has Her crew aim a knock-out kick to Eos' right leg, and only the hasty intervention of Eos' vulcan gun sees the fight continue despite Their dismemberment. Eos' return back-hand hammers Tethys back but Tethys takes the hit on Her opposite leg to slash Eos with Her laser blade as Eos discharges Their plasma howitzer. The exchange leaves Eos with a damaged buzz saw and another broken arm, while Tethys' rocket pod explodes!

It's nowhere near enough though, and Eos staggers away, hoping that They can equalize the score on buildings. Tethys isn't done with them yet though...

As Tethys lines up a final stab, Eos spots a tall blue building in the west and staggered south-west waving the stump of Their back-right arm as though They could knock down one more pink habitat. Tethys is left with victory, although perhaps not the gory knock-out Her crew was hoping to achieve.

In terms of learning from my mistakes, I think primarily it was not setting up where I could take the best advantage of Eos' forward armament and all Their arms to clear pink buildings. Tethys' player did a great job of starting with a building advantage and then cramming laser blades in Eos' face to distract me from that deficit. While I took Eos Tertiary with the objective of oppressing my opponent with plasma howitzers, I think that would have worked better had I used the crew to aim them rather than relying on snap-shots, as I don't think I was able to really exploit the shock effect as well as I could have to push a card advantage. 

There was some discussion about vulcan guns, particularly the use on round 4 as a single big shot rather than several smaller ones, and I think I have changed my mind, in that the single shot did not really work to inflict damage, while several smaller shots would have cleared the shield coverage that kept Tethys in the game. My opponent did a really good job of using the shield systems to maximize Tethys' initial shield coverage rather than wasting time and power restoring it, which struck me as clever. I think that's potentially how I lost the card advantage, because my opponent was able to distribute damage more evenly and that's pretty clinch where the Titan is also gracious. In a game where 1 can be a big number, and stand between scoring 3 and 0 points, I think it made a big difference. Multiple shots might have overwhelmed that strategy, clearing those rocket pods faster, and getting more 3 cog shots against Tethys' surface rather than Her shields. 

All that said, after the game my opponent noted that in round 5 that Tethys had turned further left than She should have, moving Eos out of the arc of Her laser blade, and preventing an early knock-out. But importantly that did not happen, and while part of the design is to enable players to identify and analyze mistakes in play with an eye to improving as players, another part is to allow players to make mistakes (and to allow other players to capitalize on them). A perfect game is possible, but I like to think it remains an open question what that would look like.

Certainly the game was an interesting switch-up from the more careful, more studied games of late, and as a designer its nice to see how pitching into an immediate exchange of blows right away is a legitimate strategy! As a nod to Chess, perhaps this should be called the "Hammer's Gambit."

Titanomachina: Be Cool Eurybia, Be Cool

As mentioned elsewhere, I've been thinking of changing the Super-cooling action of the Coolant system to allow players to take face-up cards back to their hands. So far it's working pretty well. Here gracious Styxx fought rapacious Eurybia to a 27-26 victory, eking it out due to what was probably the one time I remembered that I could bottle someone with Styxx's claw. 

If you're not aware, the Claw has the Grapple trait, meaning that when you attack someone with it, aiming at the outer-targets will drag the target Titan stack toward the attacker, and aiming at the middle will enable the Titan to forcibly move the target Titan into an adjacent square, usually in order to force a collision. I realized that (a) turning Eurybia's Laser Blade and Claw towards Styxx wasn't healthy for Styxx, and that (b) a yellow habitat existed within range of both the Claw and the target, enabling Styxx to not only destroy that habitat and lower Eurybia's habitat score by 1 point, but convert the Grapple temporarily into an Impact, turning Eurybia away. The upshot was not only doing damage to both Eurybia and Her habitats, but also mitigating Her position. Early in the game Eurybia advanced to Styxx rapidly because She was armed with a Vulcan Gun, Laser Blade, and Claw, weapons with ranges of 3, 2, and 1 respectively. Pulling Eurybia into position on all three was also a bad idea. So a spot of luck for Styxx then.  

An interesting comment was made about the Emergency Venting reaction in comparison with the Block reaction: "This one [Emergency Venting] will inconvenience someone, while this one [Block] will save your life." Which is interesting because my opponent cleverly used a Coolant system to get a leg cooled down and re-loaded into his hand, and then kicked off Styxx's damaged Gun Battery before the game ended on a time-out. That +2VP addition saw Eurybia's score almost close the gap before the game ended. I'm okay with Emergency Venting being a weaker option compared to Block, so long as the math works for Super-Cooling. 

I do need to order some new prints of Eurybia, not only the capture the configurations that I've devised with additional legs, but also to clarify what direction Eurybia is facing in, as the pose seen in these pictures is cool, but doesn't really have all three weapons pointing in a clear and unified direction. Likewise, I should order the latest version of the board so that I don't need to lay out these prototype tiles on top of one of the original prototype boarded, to make set-up faster and easier. But that's just stuff to make things easier to set up and prettier to photograph rather than to change game-play.

Something I do want to do to change game-play somewhat is to update how the Sensor systems Detect Titan, which is to say that one cog should let a Titan 'see' (or ignore line-of-sight interruption) through a single building. This would do two things, the first to make line-of-sight a bit more granular, with seeing through more buildings commensurate with the skill of the crew member operating the system system, and in doing so enable the second which is the introduction of systems that can reduce this line-of-sight bonus for some Titan cloaking and stealth. 

 

Titanomachina: Making Coolant Cooler via Test Match

As recent blog posts make suggest, I've been worried the Coolant system has been insufficiently cool. When adding to Titanomachina my instinct has been to introduce elements somewhat conservatively with the notion that it is better to make something better than to pare it back when it turns out to be over-powered. Needless to say that was not a problem with the Coolant system as the ability to deactivate systems had some weird knock-on effects in terms of card-play. Super-cooling a system to play it next turn screwed with tempo, essentially stealing a normally cooled system from its loading back to hand three rounds after it was played. It was a disappointing system for what I had imagined.

Instead, we tried playing Eurybia Quaternary vs Styxx Tertiary because both of them mount Coolant systems and Styxx mounted a Capacitor for comparative purposes. In this case we played it that Coolant systems just return a card to the players hand for every cog available when activated. This reflected the Capacitor system in that it returns cards to player's hands, except that Capacitors only returned cards that had been played face-down to activate other systems at a 2:1 ratio. This results in a savings in system charge, at the cost of time spent on the action. Coolant systems would return face-up at a 1:2 ratio, paying a steeper opportunity cost, but also a savings in system charge. What that means is that Eurybia with two Coolant systems was not giving up card advantage easily, keeping pace with Styxx and eventually grinding a win. 

Perhaps interestingly there was no particular point at which I thought to myself (well, that's a mistake I should learn from), and Styxx maintained the initiative throughout the fight, which was probably pretty good. I think I may have under-utilized the Rapacious personality given how I lost significantly on habitats, but I think I came pretty close to a knock-out of Eurybia at times. Eurybia definitely benefitted from the Pugnacious personality, using that to avoid a one-two punch from Styxx's weapons. 

From a design perspective, I think I might try it again against a Titan without coolant systems to see what advantage it confers, but for Styxx I just about shut down the Coolant system, Thrusters, and Deflectors to hound Eurybia around the board, and then use the Coolant system to keep the plasma shotgun in play in the late game. It's a handy trick rather than a work-horse system, it seems. 

Please note it seems I forgot to get a screen-shot of round 4, which unfortunately breaks the spiral into the middle of the board that seems to have resulted from game play. 

Round 4 is missing. Oops.

Titanomachina: Coolant Systems (The Super-Cooling Action)

Something I have noticed is that the Coolant system's numbers are kind of funky, leading to it feeling wrong somehow. I've encountered this sort of thing before and it's why I consider development to be so important, because I think I got the Capacitor system's Full Power action right. 

Currently the Super-Cooling action enables a Titan to de-activate a system card for each cog it has available after crew is added and damage subtracted. This costs one other card to charge it to activation. This allows a Titan bring a card it activated back to its hand at the end of the round, available to play again next round. 

Now, a quirk of Titanomachina is that some systems have a direct effect on the score, such as weapons and limbs doing damage, or sensors detecting buildings. Other systems have an indirect effect, such as blocking an attack, moving the Titan, raising shields to absorb damage, and blocking to de-optimise attacks. These indirect systems need to be well above the curve in their effects to justify players activating them instead of using them to power weapons, limbs, and sensors. The capacitor system accomplishes this by reducing the cost of one system by one card. Crew accomplish this by increasing cogs or decreasing damage, with the master crew giving three cogs for two cards, above the curve. 

So what? Well, paying two cards, including the Coolant system itself, to deactivate one system is giving up two cards to give up another two cards. It's certainly not forcing your opponent to spend an extra charge card like the Emergency Venting does to Range 1 attacks, which works pretty nicely. There's really no motivation not to classify these as defensive systems like shields or armour, than support systems like crew or capacitors. Or at least in terms of giving players another live option in their hand. 

I need to either increase the cogs of the Coolant system, decrease its charge cost, or change the way the Super-Cooling action works from doubling a system's availability over two rounds for the cost of two other cards face-down to something else. Something, of course, compatible with the other support systems. Something that allows the card to cost one cog for two cards. 

What if the player just drew the card back to hand like the capacitor system does? I think that might justify the usurious cost. There's a marginal gain by which you can play the recovered card to block or simply leave in-active. It acts something like a swap then, putting the card back in hand as a preferred choice. 

That's compared with, say, making it a charge 0 system, increasing its cogs to 2, or both. I think immediately returning a card to hand rather than merely deactivating it jives with the established capacitor mechanic, and in a similar way because now the system can be used to charge other systems, as well as be activated (or simply played unactivated), for a tempo bonus.  

Titan Hanger Update: Efficiency Be Damn'd

 

I've added several figurines, three yellow, four green, three blue, and three pink to the Titan Hanger DLC for Tabletop Simulator (TTS). I haven't added their dashboards yet, but in some cases they are just like existing configurations of Titans with just a weapon swap, so I'm not panicking. It's playable, but obviously I need to put up their own dashboards and decks for players that just want to swap out easily. 

Some are not so easily playable. In the case of the configuration of Styxx that leaves off its turret-mounted weapon system and mounts two claws, I think that just swapping in a capacitor should make this configuration perhaps barely playable. I am uncertain quite how this would play out, and I think the best way would be to start in the middle, even in a three or four player game. This means the other players either need to set up in the middle as well, within range of the claws, or away in the danger zone in the outer three squares of the board. Sounds pretty good eh?

Well, there is a configuration of Rhea with two gun batteries and two hands, but also with big arms and digitigrade legs. Literally has more armour, more weapons, and only missing the jump from the thrusters. There is a configuration of Styxx with two turrets, two hands, coolant and capacitor systems, two thrusters, two legs, three extra armour, three sensors, four crew, and two deflectors. Maybe a pair of arms would off-set the higher rate of action.

There is also the two pink configurations, one with all lasers and one with all plasma. I'm actually pretty curious to see how those would fair against Rhea Quaternary with Her guns. I've tried with the all-plasma configuration, and while I lost in that particular encounter, I feel like a path to victory exists there. But lasers right? 

Would that even be fun? 

Give up shields to fire both laser batteries, and the capacitor to fire both macro lasers in conjunction with the fore and aft extra armour. That leaves arms, sponsons for powering digitigrade legs, sensors using junior crew, leaving leg armour to do the majority of defensive work blocking incoming fire. That leaves two senior crew, one junior crew, and the personality. That's for senior crew bonuses. First on the laser batteries, then on the macro lasers once shields are shredded.

Three cog 2 armour piercing shots and one cog 1 armour piercing shot is a knock-out on an unshielded Titan. That's ignoring any work the arms and legs can do. It's also going to need to coordinate those with the sensor for a very deliberate and expensive rounds (arm or sponson, sensor, senior crew, laser battery for 7 cards), probably alternating with a leg activation. 

Titanomachina: Eos vs Eurybia

Last week I played a game of Titanomachina that convinced me that I needed to separate out the extra content from the Tabletop Simulator DLC. So I put the extra Titans, usually arranged in a corner, into their own DLC, and likewise removed the Formicide infantry expansion to its own DLC. At some point soonish I'll make them both public-ish. Why haven't I done so sooner? The hand of moldy old Babylonian Nergal.

All that aside, what happened? Well, I was crewing Eos Senary against Eurybia Primary and it seemed like I was winning, despite being behind on buildings, and prepared to do a ring-out/knock-out combo when the connection crapped out and could not be restored. Eos was gracious, and it turns out that the Senary Configuration is brutal with those dual capacitors behind it. Which is funny, in a sense because Eurybia Primary gives up the plasma shotgun for a vulcan gun, and my opponent noted that he should have used the coolant systems to maximize the crew operation so it should have been Eurybia bulling Eos around the board.

The fact that the habitats are 25mm cubes in their meat-space prototype should alert players to the fact that Titanomachina is a game of inches. I set up Eos in a dead-zone off Eurybia's starboard prow for an aggressive start, utilizing Eos' gracious personality against Eurybia's sagacious personality. I wouldn't have the initiative, but it made my opponent decide whether they were going to turn and fight, or attempt to lead me on a chase. But first, junior crew got into position...

A chase it was, but despite equivalent foot-speeds, Eos' jump jets gave Them a distinct advantage to close, and being in the reaction position let me push Eos in. It's worth noting that half the game here was not merely the promise of damage, but also the promise of card-advantage. Remember, I had a plasma shotgun, and even if it didn't do interesting damage, it was still going to shock Eurybia and force a discard. What I gave up could be equalized.

Then it starts, sponsons activate and it's go-time, I swing Eos around the corner of a row of buildings and as my opponent hammers some blue habitats into mulch I get a flight of rockets into Eurybia, destroying Her back armour and shields as She ducks. While it doesn't compare to the habitats Eos has lost, it cracks open Eurybia's defenses in a satisfying way. The rocket pod is, after all, the least of Eos' weapons.

Now because Eurybia is retreating along the edge of the board, I'm able to step backwards and re-address, and slightly against my better judgment (and making sure I have an avenue of retreat in case I need to fire Eos' jump jets) try for taking the initiative so my opponent can't dodge. Since that takes Eos through a yellow habitat all the better. That doesn't really work, but the intent is also to try and get my opponent spending precious power on an initiative Eurybia may not need either. Then a friendly blast of plasma to help equalize that card advantage.

Now it's Eurybia's turn to strike back, reversing course and rampaging back down that winding avenue and Eos fires those jets to make sure Eurybia's laser blade isn't buried in Their back. They brake on a yellow habitat, and a capacitor fires to keep them in the fight as Eurybia vents coolant to signal She's not slowing down.

Eos now takes something of a breath as junior crew scramble to stations inside Them, and swings back around to stalk after Eurybia. Eurybia hasn't stopped moving and presses the lead on surviving habitats detected on the board. It's a strong defensive move because if Eurybia is knocked out, my opponent may still win from an insurmountable lead; the damage to Eos' population may be too much. The upshot is that Eos has to be very careful to avoid triggering a knock-out before the damage done to Eurybia outweighs the damage to Eos' habitats. So a careful application of rockets should offset Eurybia's attempt to recover shields over Her remaining armour.

Eos has a good firing firing solution, blasting away with the plasma shotgun, looking to spread the damage and clear Eurybia's shields before executing the knock-out with enough damage to offset Eurybia's 5 VP lead. Her systems are locked and loaded, and even junior crew can make a laser blade really hurt. Yet Eurybia is building up to something, something that might see Her scrap enough shields and armour off of Eos to stay in the game, but She's backed into a corner. However, the game ends on a time-out, as something about the DLC (possibly all the stuff that makes loading it kind of slow) times out the connection. The decision of the Hecatoncheires orbital installations cannot be questioned...

Could I have won? I think so. Would I have won? In the past week I've been pretty confident that I could have forced a knock-out/ring-out with the cards I had in hand and the cards I recall from rounds 4 and 5. Keeping track of games by taking screenshots at each round really helps, since it acts like something of a study aid. 

There is also, to a degree, an opponent style, plus the commitment to a direction. Eurybia lacks jump jets for speed and using a coolant system to super-cool a limb gives you a walk for the same cost, with some trickier timing. 

Timing is everything. The game is set up so that your ability to react to your opponent offsets their ability to react to you. Generally speaking it is perhaps an open question as to whether having the initiative is always good. I think I was doing very well despite being behind in the habitats. After all, a knock-out/ring-out. My opponent pointed out the only system I could score with the laser blade would be the arm mounting the vulcan gun, which is a fair point, with other systems triggering a knock-out loss for me. If my opponent did nothing else to Eos in the meantime, despite the master operating initiate crew, it would be a tie then. 

Yes, my hope is pinned on the Eos Senary Configuration's smooth capacitor action to just hammer Eurybia. I don't think I played a deflector system in the entire game. I think I recall having card advantage at that point, 

Which leads me to a second point as Nergal's hand lifts from my chest, that now I'm torn between taking Eos in my next game or taking Eurybia's Tertiary Configuration, with a gun battery, laser battery, and hand. Which is funny because the first and third choice would be Eos Primary and Eos Tertiary.