Titan (Warhammer 40,000)

A Titan is a general term used by the Imperium for all things that are ridiculously MASSIVE and carry HUGE FUCKING RAPE GUNS that can blow the fuck out off the opposing side. The bigger ones are somewhat humanoid.

Most races own a titan of some sort, except for the Tau because they're too busy fapping and watching anime to build one, though they use a somewhat large starship to supplement their needs. Each race's Titans reflect the design philosophy behind the rest of their armies. So Imperial Titans are halfway between Spartan minimalism and Gothic shit everywhere, Chaos Titans look like pure evil, Ork Titans are cobbled together out of odds and ends, Tyranid Titans are Mothra and Eldar Titans are gay.

Basically whoever has more Titans gets instant win.

None of the fluff writers seem to have a consistant idea of how big a Titan is (other than that it's big); Graham McNeil says an Imperator is 43 metres tall, Dan Abnett says an Imperator is over 140 metres tall, and the cover of the graphic novel Titan II: Vivaporius shows a smaller Warlord with access ladders on its guns suggesting each barrel is the size of a house, meaning the Titan itself would be over half a kilometre tall.

Imperial Titans

The Imperium has quite a variety of titans under the control of Adeptus Titanicus, each has a name and no two are the same.

They are quite often referred to as god-machines due to their ability to blow the fucking shit out of anything in their way. They are so fucking huge that infantry can't do anything to them with their tiny ass guns. These titans can unleash unlimited amounts of RAPE via their MASSIVE FUCKING GUNS that are mounted on their arms and sometimes on their shoulders. Well, actually there are guns fucking EVERYWHERE on a titan, so when you see one you are quite fucked. They also have void shields which makes them pretty much invulnerable to whatever shit you can throw at it.

Imperial Titans are old. As a rule. No exceptions. These things are so old that they make some Eldar Titans look young by comparison. That old. The main reason that these titans are so bloody ancient is that the Imperium often lacks the knowledge, skill, or resources to build them anywhere but Mars, Ryza, and apparently Lucius. The second reason they are so god-dang geriatric is when Titans get killed, they are usually so big they don't get killed dead. This means that the Mechanicus can haul the thing back to the Titan's home world and fix it up again.

Oh yeah, we forgot. Imperial Titans have home worlds that run the upkeep for a whole Legion of titans of various sizes and classes. A single titan can be deployed by itself, though small detachments of titans are more common, typically the whole legion will "walk" together to end a threat. Because, for the Imperium, if we need to send one titan, we might as well send thirty-plus titans just to be sure that that severe of a threat gets taken care of.

Warhound Scout Titan:

The smallest Titan class the Imperium has but it's still fucking massive. It looks like a dinosaur with no tail.

Where are your Dark Gods now?

It carries smaller weapons such as a massive megabolter which is like a minigun that fires off tank shells, or a Huge ass LAZAR that rips your tanks a new one like they were made of cardboard. Or maybe throw a really big flamethrower on it.

Reaver Battle Titan Bigger than the Warhound so therefore causes more RAPE, this titan can wield an absolutely HUGE powerfist for fucking Wraithlords, Defilers, etc. It can also carry a massive hellfire missile launcher for more rape or triple lehzar rape cannons and even a fucking Gatling Rape Blaster.

Warlord Battle Titan It's really REALLY fucking big, one of the more common huge fucking titans that carry all the weapons you can imagine from megabolters to huge lazer and devastator cannons that should've been mounted on some kind of fucking battleship. The Imperium seems to have almost as many of these as it has Reavers. Modified or custom built titans are known to exist such as the ANGRY MARINE TITAN with its HUGE chain fist, even moar massive Chain fist, oh and it launches Angry Marines and Land Raiders, fucking awesome rite?

Imperator Battle Titan HOLY SHIT IT WEARS CASTLES!!! Over 9000 times bigger and heavier than a Warlord Titan and too many massive fucking guns to count. It needs a whole ship to itself to get it around. Unfortunately the Imperium doesn't have a lot of 'em anymore since those chaos assholes stole the majority of 'em (they still suck though). They said that it's the largest thing to walk on land, because anything larger would produce its own gravity well. Oddly enough, it mounts a Ryza-pattern Plasma Anihilator, yet most of these things were supposedly made on Mars. Then again, they might predate differing planetary patterns of weapon.

Apocalypse Titan Not unheard of, according to Lexicanum.

Orky Titans

The Orks use titans called Gargants, made out of scrap metal, wood, stolen stuff, and SHEER ORKINESS. They are supposedly effigies of the ork gods, but sometimes they just want a bigger, killier thing than that other ork over there. Obvously, the Orks have no standard pattern of build, but Gargants are almost always humanoid, wield over-sized guns, have a huge close combat weapon, and are insanely hard to take down (even compared to the other races' Titans!). The bigger ones usually move on treads, the smaller ones usually waddle. Either way, these things are slow. But who cares, because they have enough guns to blast the enemy apart, and enough other Gargants to box them in as well! They have Power Fields, which are so finicky that they can't be repaired in battle, which sucks, but at least they have them.

Stompa: The smallest Gargant type. While Games Workshop would like you to think otherwise, the Stompa bigger than a Mega-Dred but smaller than the current model, which is a small Gargant (don't get all smart and technical, we know the irony there). They come in bunches, and have no shields whatsoever. Their main armament is usually a gattling gun or stolen tank cannon, and then a giant close combat weapon. They eat infantry, buildings, smaller Titans, and tanks for breakfast, but only in close combat.

Gargant: Orky Titans right and propper. They are more in line with the "Stompa" rules GW and Imperial Armor put out. Lots of armor, lots of staying power, lots of guns. Usually has a better close combat statline than any other Titan counterpart, save the 'nids. Due to the lack of pattern, the weaponry varies roughly from stolen Earthshaker cannons to giant gattling guns, plus a gazillion other little guns so the Gargant can fire at everything at once. One configuration has so many guns on it that the entire crew cannot fire them at once. And the somehow generate Supa-rokkits out of thin air.

Other Gargant Variants: Not all Gargants are created equal:

Mekboy Gargant:

Big Meks who build their own Gargants, instead of being contracted by other Warbosses, tend to make better, flashier ones for themselves. They rig experimental weaponry and shielding to it's frame, and send it into battle wired up and filled to the brim with bits and gubins. These mount Power Fields, Lifta-droppa traktor beams (which throw tanks), Zzap gun technology (which is random but eats heavy infantry and light tanks), and all kinds of other crazy junk.

Goff Rokk-an-Rolla:

Somewhere along the line, the Goffs got the bright idea to Roada Rolla their enemies. This monster eats infantry and tanks, but can't kill other Titans very well. It cuts huge lines in the enemy, and takes no prisoners.

Goff Klawstompa:

A pure close combat Gargant, it has two giant claws, and can destroy other Titans in one round of close combat. But other Titans can hit this enemy crab's weak point for massive damage, as it has no ranged weaponry. Still, it is very survivable, and can't be stopped by anything once it hits enemy lines.

Great Gargant: The Great Gargant in Space Marine: Epic was what is today simply called a Gargant, and was armed with a mega-kannon, a super lifta-droppa and a ridiculous trouser cannon. The latter fired a giant iron ball which wrecked the hell out of anything short of another Titan and had rules allowing it to roll through multiple targets.

Mega Gargant: Here the line between giant robot and moving fortress blur. Where the Great Gargant is like a skyscraper, this thing actually is a fortress on treads. With a population in excess of a small city, these machines are always moved on huge treads which can literally crush Baneblades beneath them. Slab-sided and covered with gun nests and extra armor patches, this large block-like fortress is home to thousands upon thousands of grot riggers, running too and fro. Powered by salvaged space ship reactors or dangerous Ork-made reactors of questionable physical legality, the engine of destruction has more guns and bigger guns than any other race will mount on a thing of its size. And this is a small mountain. Bristling with turrets, artillery cannons, rocket bays, launch hangers for aerial craft, high-caliber gatling guns, flack turrets, lightning lasers, autocannons, and ONE GIANT MEGA-CANNON, each Mega Gargant is not just as tough as a block of titanium, it can evaporate you through sheer volume of shot. Also, it has the obligatory close combat weapon, which is sometihing easy to move around (like a hammer, axe, or buzzsaw) because it will be so large that the Gargant just may not be able to move it much.

Like the Imperator, the Mega Gargant originated in Titan Legions where it had the dubious honour of having the most complicated rules of any model in the game, requiring the player keep track of dozens of hit locations (which could each be destroyed or the subject of a fire that could spread), the Krew (and there were different types of Krew), the steam counters, the commander's shoutin' counters to actually make the Gargant do anything...And, after all that, one was destroyed in a battle report where a Space Marine side with only a basic Warlord Titan won by 105 VPs to 5. This appears to have been about the time White Dwarf decided to switch to narrative rather than blow-by-blow battle reports to make bullshitting the results easier.

Steam Gargant: Sometimes Feral Ork Pigdoks get particularly inspired, and lay about themselves with all the scrap they can find from their raids. They will rope up their whole tribe into building this ridiculously ramshackle machine. This thing couldn't stand if it weren't for Feral Ork psychosensitivity. The giant machine is always an effigy of Gork or Mork, and features a big close combat weapon (usually an oversized hammer, axe, spear, or mace), catapult and ballista emplacements, maybe a back-mounted trebuchet, rows of platforms for archers, all the trappings of a traditional siege tower, and a GIANT METAL BOILER protruding out of the back. The boiler is fueled by an endless supply of wood, coal, and anything else burnable that a horde of grots can steal off the battlefield. The machine is run by Spannas, random boyz conscripted to work the machine. May or may not feature a chained Weirdboy or two, who will fire off bolts of lightning from the head or heat the boiler with a stream of arcane energy.

---

Unfortunately fielding a titan in a tabletop game will cause lots of RAGE and presents itself as a huge fire-magnet so every fucking thing on the other side will try to shoot at it. Luckily its got shields so it can soak up a lot of damage. Should said titan 'get killed' it may take out the whole field if its a small one, and all those units around it, enhancing its awesomeness. Too bad that since you are forced to buy one from Forge World, eveyone who sees yo with on will call you a rich noob who buys his way to victory. AND, you have to play Apocalypse, which SUCKS. But who cares? YOU HAVE A GIANT RAPE MACHINE OF DEATH!!!!!

Gallery

• 

  Chaos is fucked.

• 

  In Soviet Russia, Titan remembers you!

• 

  In times like these, one does not need Dakka to radiate awesomeness.

• 

  Dakka still helps though...

• 

  SUCk IIIIIIIIT!

• 

  Jesus Christ.