Adeptus Titanicus The Horus Heresy Preview - Warlord Titan and Rules Set

Ever wanted to take the gigantic moving weapons platforms, known as Titans from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K setting to war? Available for pre-order today for release next week (Saturday, August 18th) is Games Workshop's new boxed game Adeptus Titanicus - The Horus Heresy. Adeptus Titanicus has been around before and in a Designer's Note inside the rulebook it states that "this is a brand new game system rather than a polished re-release of existing rules, but it stands on the shoulders of giants." In this article we're going to look at the boxed rules set, the new Warlord Titan released for this release and the other products coming out alongside them. Adeptus Titanicus is set in the Horus Heresy era of Warhammer 40K's setting, around the great betrayal of the traitor legions against the Emperor and the galactic war that ravaged the known galaxy.

The scale of Adeptus Titanicus is smaller than Warhammer 40K. A Warlord Titan in 40K is around 22 inches tall and the Warlord Titan in this is around 5 inches. The Warlord Titan in this Adeptus Titanicus set is a beautiful miniature and was a very rewarding experience constructing.

[gallery size="large" ids="247462,247463,247449"]

The Warlord Titan is extremely easy to construct, but it is better to paint certain parts before joining all the components together as the miniature is extremely detailed. We have fully constructed ours unpainted to show it in full.

[gallery columns="4" size="large" ids="247445,247446,247447,247448"]

The sprues included in the Warlord Titan give you two choices of head, as well as three choices for the central shoulder armor, either Imperial, Traitor, or Blank for your own design. We opted for Imperial and you can see the other options below.

There is a full boxed game available for Adeptus Titanicus, which includes two forces of miniatures and the rules, as well as the Rules Set box that we are previewing here.  The Rules set contains everything you need to play Adeptus Titanicus, except the Titan miniatures. This is especially useful for those that may already have Titan miniatures from an older boxed game, or don't want the miniatures in the full boxed set and instead want to build their own Battlegroup.

The Adeptus Titanicus Rules Set includes (which can all be seen below in our full contents images):

• Full rulebook
• Quick reference cards
• 6 different types of dice
• Range ruler and weapon templates
• Command terminals for the Titans
• Weapon, mission and stratagem cards
• A battlefield assets and counter and arc template sprue

The rulebook for Adeptus Titanicus is an incredibly well-presented piece of work. The interior artwork is sharp, and it feels like a publication that has had a lot of time spent on it. The watermark images are fantastic, and the presentation, diagrams, and examples throughout are extremely well done. On presentation alone, this is how we would like to see all premium product rulebooks.

[gallery columns="2" size="large" ids="247452,247453"]

We will cover the rules in full detail in a future article, once we've had time to pit our mighty titans against a few more generals, but some standout rules and features in this edition for us are:

• Titan management via the command terminals
• Return of the blast markers for template weapons with the scatter dice
• Firestorm weapons and the template – The first unit hit by the template suffers a majority of the hits, and any subsequent units only suffer one hit
• The arc templates for movement and weapon facing – Titans are devastating weapons of destruction but slow to position. The arc templates capture this and really emphasize the theme as players try to bring their weapons on target
• The weapons really capture the feel of the setting, and although there are limitations on Battlegroup selection in terms of the Titans available (Warlord, Reaver, Warhound), the real challenge comes from weapon synergies in the battlegroup

As mentioned before, alongside the release of the Rules Set and Warlord Titan previewed above will be other Titans as well as a full boxed game, The Grand Master edition. It contains all the rules and templates, alongside two Titan Battlegroups.

[gallery columns="2" size="large" ids="247458,247460"]

More Adeptus Titanicus content will follow as we build up our own Battlegroups and take them to war, so stay tuned to TechRaptor.

This copy of Adeptus Titanicus and the Warlord Titan were provided by Warhammer Community.

What do you think of the Titan miniatures for Adeptus Titanicus? Have you played any previous version of Adeptus Titanicus? If you pick up any Titans, what colour scheme will you go for? How should we paint our Titans? Let us know in the comments below?