Step one, the size. This was the really tough part to get; again sizes were all over the board. Just to give you an idea of what I was running into, let me start off with some real over the top images.
First up, from Titan: God Machine - Warlord 1 If you look down between the feet there, I boxed them in to show a little easier, you'll see some human shapes standing there, very tiny little guys next to the titan.
Next we have this shot of a Warlord in dry dock, again quite the giant beast.
Same Warlord, this time in transit in a ships' hold, on the left there is a crewman staring in awe at the size of the titan.
Then there is yet more wank, a Warlord from EPIC: ARMAGEDDON, this is the current rulebook/fluff for EPIC scale, of which titans are a key part. Also as the rulebook is free to download, I ask all to give it a read through. Any way, from Part 3: War Engines, page 4 we have a great picture of a warlord titan.
I went ahead and pulled the image out for those who do not want to download the PDF. Given that it is on a publicly available document that is free, I do not thing GW's IP police will crack down on posting it here.
Here is the warlord in its glory: Warlord
The points I want to note are in red squares: Access Doors The lower door looks like an access door and a later to it. The upper part looks to be a service scaffold/catwalk.
Here is a close up of the lower door: Door
And the catwalk: Catwalk
As we can see, that's a pretty fucking huge machine.
Then we have a Reaver class titan, the little brother to the warlord, that's a giant among cities Giant Reaper Here we see the spires of cathedrals barely reaching the ankle of the titan.
But the problem I've run into is the counter images. To counter the super wank Reaver, we have aReaver supporting marines, nowhere near the size of the previous Reaver image.
Then from Titan: God Machine, we have tons of inconsistent images.
Check out the ever-growing foot and leg:
Warlord's lower leg and foot for reference
Foot close up, notice the size of the foot and leg next to a normal sized person.
Yet a few pages later, our foot has grown quite a bit, a "toe" is not about the same height as a man.
Then further in we get legs and feet that truly dwarf us, though not perfectly clear, those black smudges are people trying to climb up a titan's shin.
So this leaves me scratching my head, after all what the hell, can a titan grow and shrink as needed, or do we just have bad scaling by artist. Further digging find this info - 30 meter cockpit height plus a little over 100 feet total height, middle right hand paragraph about 1/2 way through.
So we're getting images and text not syncing up here. Expanding beyond Titan: God Machine, I went into Storm of Iron to find this info:
From page 101:
A warlord is able to walk through this gate without a problem, so this limits our height to less than 44mThe vast, southern gate of the citadel measured exactly forty-four meters high, thirty meters wide...
Page 104:
Looks like warhounds are pretty dinky compared to their big brothers. A reaver is a bought 80% the height of a warlord, this is by my guess...his warhound titan, the Defensor Fidei, sprinted ahead of the Legio's Battle Titan. Less then half the size of a Reaver titan, the warhound was an agile scout titan...
From page 299:
Shoulders roughly 30m height, pretty self-evident. Side note, Honsou is a captain in the Iron Warriors chaos marine legion. They have modified the Pater Mortis to be a walking siege tower.Honsou watched from the bastions mounted atop the shoulders of the Pater Mortis, nearly thirty meters above the ground
From page 307:
Confirmation that the Pater Mortis is a warlord class titan and that the shoulders of a warlord are roughly 30m in height.The warhound's victory was short-lived as the might of the Pater Mortis, its crashing footsteps collapsing buildings all around them, emerged from behind Honsou and fired its weapons. The scout titan vanished in a flurry of bright explosions, its few void shields and light armor no match for the power of the warlord titan.
Which do we believe you ask?? Well I know this sounds arbitrary, but I am going to lean towards Storm of Iron (SoI). SoI was written by Graham McNeil, an author that many 40K fans find to be pretty damn good and one of the better writers of 40K fiction. Why do you ask that, well let me explain. Dan Abnett, also a very fine author, might not be 100% credible. 2 things that I use to back that up:
1. Graham McNeil is a full time employee at Games Workshop, in fact he has been part of the inner games design team that have been developing Warhammer 40K for several years. He has helped in the writing of 3rd and 4th edition 40K, several codices, and other material. Basically he is in a position to be "in the know" on the feel and texture of 40k. From my under standing Dan Abnett is a hired writer and does not have the same close contact with the inner circle that McNeil does. So I'm given McNeil a little more claute here.
2. Abnett has admitted that he did not know a lot about 40k fluff when he started writing his various novels. That was directed in particular to his Gaunt's Ghosts series of books. I do not have a cite handy, so please do not take as gospel, but as a considering factor. But as a counter, to 2 posted images of a titan's size are from Titan: God Machine, a book written by Abnett, maybe he got caught up on the fluff?
With that info in hand, I started to check on other size info to see what would jib best, McNeil or Abnett.
I flipped through the good old ADEPTUS TITANICUS (AT) rulebook - EPIC 1st Ed, on page 5 it says that battle titans, which the warlord is the most common, stand between 40 and 80 feet tall or 12 to 24m
On page 19 of AT:
It felt good to stalk sixty feet tall between the towering buildings of Morian. Text to the right
So as a cross check in the Index Astarus article for 3/4 Ed 40K, it states that a Land Raider is 34 feet long. Taking a scan of the Land Raider from the latest Space Marine codex: Land Raider I'm getting a length of 290 pixels, divided by 34 to get ~8.5 pixels per foot. Looking at the marine next to the Raider, I'm getting a height of 62 pixels, divided by 8.5 for a height of 7.2 feet. 7.2 feet is in the ballpark for the average marine's height. In the back of THE GOTHIC AND THE ELDRIDGE, there is a to scale marine drawing that I recall as being ~7.5 feet in height. Looks like are guy here is pretty close.
Ok, going to the olden days, we have a near perfect shot of an old school Warlord. Next to the warlord we have a handy marine for scaling. Now looking at the marine, he is in a slightly hunched stance, not the same near upright of the marine next to the raider. So getting his height is going to be a bit trickier. However, he is wearing an older style of backpack and his right hand vent is sticking up pretty good. Going on the assumption that it is pretty close to where his head would be if he were more upright, I measured from there. In this case I'm getting a height of 42 pixels. Going off the same rough 7.2 foot height for a marine, in this pic I'm getting ~5.78 pixels per foot. Measuring up the Warlord, from the very top of the carapace to the bottom of the feet, I'm getting a height of 451 pixels or ~78 feet. This falls in line with my measurements from the Warlord model that matches this make/style.
To counter check, I measured from the Warlord's "eyes", where the Princeps would be sitting. Height from the ground came is at 376 pixels, or ~65 feet. This again falls in line with the short story from AT where the Princeps mentions stalking the city from a height of 60 feet.
Bonus goodie, titan image rescanned in color
So just for shits and giggles, I did a measurement on one of my 3rd/4th Ed warlord titan - WARLORD
I'm getting a shoulder height of approx 6cm, the titan is slightly hunched at the knees, but that can match the descriptions from the fluff, the titans there are in action and not in parade formation. So, anyway, if the shoulders are roughly 30m high, I'm getter 1cm=5m on this figure. For the hell of it I checked the back, where a crew access hatch is located, HATCH Looks like the hatch is about 4mm height, or just under 2.5m, looks like a good size to allow a normal man in, could even allow for a tech priest with back mounted servo arms in. Again for S&Gs I measured a 1st Ed plastic warlord - Old Warlord The middle of the head is approx 4cm from the ground, using the same 1cm=5m, we gat a height of 20m, or roughly 60 feet, matched the warlord from the AT bit.
From EPIC 40000 (3r Ed EPIC), page 105 of The Battles Book:
Starboard weapons battery - in 3rd Ed EPIC a warlord could have 2 carapace mounted weapon batteries plus a weapon system in each arm. I am going to assume that the battery in the story is the gatling blaster on the right arm. From the old days, the arm weapon's crew actually sat in the shoulder socket area. If this hold true here, then the 100 feet distance is pretty close to the 30m line from STORM OF IRON.Over the roar of machinery and explosions, the comm-link crackled with a flurry of orders.
"Target quadrant down-load, commence firing sequence in 15 seconds. Fifty rounds, disper minus. Acknowledge."
Massid struck the acknowledge rune and turned on the internal speakers
"Commence firing on my mark, 50 rounds, disper minus, target grid..." he checked the display, "...Alpha-five-alpha."
Looking out through the view port, Massid saw the landscape slowly panning in front of him. The shattered buildings swung past, lit by a thousand fires. The target slowly scrolled into sight: a huge cathedral whose massive steeples climbed several hundred feet into the dark sky.
The gun crew scurried to and fro, and the whirring drone of massive servos vibrated the hull as the multi-barreled cannon tilted downwards, bringing the cathedral in view of the moderati. The loaders slammed shells into the auto-loader mechanism. Behind them the tech priest swung his incense burner as he chanted the Litany of Accuracy over the targeting scanners. The gun room filled with a red glow as the emergency lights cam one, dimming the bastion so that explosions from outside the sent blazes of white and yellow light through the visions slits.
With a shudder the turret stopped moving and rocked gently for a moment. The moderati, each of them plugged into his weapon console and interfacing with their guns' control systems, stared at the action runes. It seemed as if an eternity passed, the roar of the battle raging outside subdued by the thick armored walls. Then a klaxon sounded. Lines of runes lit every console. The moderati opened fire, sending a torrent of shells impacting against the temple with a blossoming explosion. The loaders sprinted back and forth, shunting immense shells into the auto-loader, ejecting spent cases into the darkness of the recycling pit.
The thundering cannonade shook the walls, making the crewman grateful for the sound mufflers stopping their eardrums from bursting. For almost a minute shell after shell pounded into the gloom shrouded temple, setting it ablaze like the rest of the city. With 50 rounds fired, the flurry of activity finished. The crew for the warlord titan's starboard heavy battery returned to their routine of maintenance. The comm-net crackled again and priceps Hekate's voice channeled through the open line.
"Attention all crews, the rebels are pulling back, we will hold while the Guard pursues. Concastieo Dues Irea."
Outside, a hundred feet below, in the cold smoke filled night, the Imperial Guardsmen could just hear a distant cheering over the wailing wind and the crackle of a thousand fires.
So with all that said and done, I'm going with Warlord Titans are in the ~30 meter height bracket, and I am going to trust written heights more then I do images.
SENSOR INFO
Ok, first off, looks like when out in the open with nothing blocking or jamming, a titan has a pretty good view of the world, 30 kilometers all around actually. Not too shabby really. Though that is on a clear day in open plains. When cities and jamming come into play, things get a little different.
While walking in a recent nuke crater a warlord fails to detect a fellow warlord until is it within 300 meters. The nuke has gone off a few hours earlier and the setting is in the ruble of the city that was nukes. Looks like the radiation and rubble combine to partly blind the titan. Also from the earlier picture, blindsided, we see that a titan was able to cling to a building, and in the urban cover, was able to launch a surprise attack on an enemy titan.
Further, hunting an enemy titan, the enemy titan is running silent and had to be found using passive sensors that picked up the hum of its reactor, range was 75 meters. Looks like the enemy titan was obscured by buildings that contained manufacturing equipment and it was running quite. No details on what was in those buildings, but it there might have been enough EM to block some of the active sensors. Plus we have a different case where an enemy titan came out of nowhere, range 610 meters, but to be honest we can be a touch skeptical of this one. The enemy titan was a decoy, and was not giving off an energy signature and the tactical officer was a novice, he might have missed an earlier warning.
And while I do not have to source handy at the moment, back in 1st ed EPIC there is a story of a warlord trying to make it to friendly lines. To help avoid detection the pilot had powered down his void shields and was weaving through the streets of a city.
So as for sensors, in my opinion, titan do have great ranges of detection, but they need either active, noisy signals to lock onto easily. Other wise they can do more intensive passive sweeps, but at close range. And failing all else they fall back on the good old mark 1 human eyeball.
FIREPOWER/ARMOR
Tough one here, not much out there on the lines of weapon X punched through Y amount of armor at range Z. As such, this is more speculative then hard line.
First up I going to look at the defense laser/volcano cannon. This is basically the big ass laser cannon-o-doom in titan land. As described here, the VC is a large laser cannon that fires a massive blast that can rip up most targets. Going back to the old fluff, the defense laser was used to shoot at ships in low orbit. Most titans have the complex targeting gear stripped off of their systems, but the firepower is still there. As for how much power that comes out to, to be honest I do not know, I leave that to other with more knowledge in the field then I.
From that same pic we get that the gatling blaster fire 150mm shells, which, while helpful, does not give us much. No muzzle velocity, range, etc. But from the short story form 3rd Ed epic, It looks like it can pump out 50 shots in just under a minute.
As for total destructive power, again nothing to truly quantify, but a warlord was able to destroy a chaos warlord titan in 4.5 seconds after target acquisition.
From what I am seeing though, the firepower effects of titans are not in the megaton or even kiloton range. From here we see a titan being shot in the shoulder, the buildings and infantry in the area are not being thrown about by secondary shock waves or blasts. Plus from here, we have a warhound, that in its death throws, is firing off into a mixed infantry/armored column, again no secondary shock waves tossing men or tanks around. And going back to the blindsided image, we have civilian running in terror, while titan weapons explode in the background.
Also it looks like that even when a titan's reactor goes critical and detonates, that is not in the kiloton range. The warhound from above is suffering from a reactor explosion, as is this warlord Again the vehicles and troops are not being effected by blast effects, though it does looks like the guardsman is about to shit his pants.
So from the looks of it, titans, while throwing around massive firepower, are not kicking in the kiloton range.
As for armor, several times titans are stated to be protected by meters of admantium. Unfortunalty I have no idea what the physical properties of admantium are, other then touch and used to make armor, ramming prows and bulkheads of starships, walls/bulkheads in hive cities, and other projects where material more durable then steel are needed. As such I’m going to put titans in a bracket of being better protected then tanks, but still vulnerable to weapons that do not break the kiloton barrier.
MISC STUFF
Looks like titan are vulnerable to massive EM attacks. From nuke after effect we find that it looks like the EMP blast blew out the electrical systems on a warlord. But take that with a healthy does of salt, the blast was in fact the after effect of daemons being summoned, but given that the crews had little trouble accepting that a nuke’s EMP would do this to a titan, we can speculate that a true nuke would have the same effect.
Ok that's my ramblings, tear into it.
The rest are from rule books
-- Asuka
