Warlord-class Titan

The Warlord-class Titan is a large and powerful type of Battle Titan, armed with much more firepower than its counterpart, the smaller Reaver-class Titan. The Warlord appears to be the most common class of Battle Titan in use by the Titan Legions of the Imperium of Man, and many Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds field their own patterns of this class. Due to their immense size, Warlord Titans are not nearly as fast or agile as the Reaver-class Titans or the Warhound Scout Titans, but they more than make up for this failing with their sheer firepower and heavily armoured bulks.

History
A true leviathan of the battlefield, the Warlord-class Titan was the mainstay of the Legio Titanica during the Great Crusade era. There were a number of sub-patterns of the Warlord, such as the Lucius and Anvilus, but it was the Mars pattern that was considered the most ancient and superior, and of all of the Battle Titan types by far the most numerous and iconic. This is not without reason, for each Mars Warlord is a gargantuan killing machine, proof against the petty assaults of small arms and all but impervious even to the assault of most forms of attack aircraft and heavy weapon, save the most technologically potent or massive. Furthermore, the Warlord is a fully reliable and protected environment, and as able to fight upon an airless moon as a verdant plain so long as the geology under its feet will sustain it, and even this is assisted by gravitational and inertial techno-arcana, little understood outside the inner circles of the Titan Tech-Priests who sustain these god-engines. But it is the destructive power of the Warlord that is its avatar, for their firepower rivals smaller void warships in potency and a single Warlord, given time, is capable of systematically levelling a city or laying waste to an entire army. Such was their might that it was whispered by some that it was they, not the Legiones Astartes, that had truly won the Imperium's domain in the fires of battle.

Design
The Warlord Titan's colossal size, incalculable power and superior design make it both extremely difficult to harm from ground level, with its vital systems elevated far above the heads and hulls of those upon the battlefield below it, while its legs are plated with metres-thick armour to prevent it from being assailed by infantry or laid low by explosive charges.

The Warlord is much larger than the aging Reaver-class Titan, putting its height at around 22.5 metres (approximately just over 73 feet). The Warlord Titan is also able to withstand a great deal more damage than the Reaver. However, there is considerable conflict in the Imperial records concerning this matter. A Warlord Titan is approximately only 33 metres (100 feet) tall according to the scale diagram in the Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse rulebook. Other accounts have stated it to be as large as 200 metres (656 feet)! Depictions of the Warlord in Imperial artwork are even less consistent, sometimes showing it to be hundreds of metres tall.

Notable Variants

 * Mars-Alpha pattern Warlord Titan- The colossal Mars-Alpha pattern Warlord Titan is among the most ancient and feared of the Imperium's war machines. Forged on the Red Planet itself, it is worshipped and venerated as the Omnissiah's will incarnate, and each god-engine is encased in layered armour and powerful void shielding, and armed with weapons that are capable of reducing armies to ash. In addition to its Ardex-Defensor Mauler Bolt Cannon and Lascannon turrets, support weapons that would be considered main armaments on smaller war machines, the Warlord is commonly fitted with a pair of carapace-mounted triple-barrelled Laser Blasters and two Belicosa pattern Volcano Cannon.
 * Eclipse pattern Warlord Titan - Eclipse-class Titan is a lighter version of the more common Death Bringer-class variant. An Eclipse-variant Warlord Battle Titan is deployed if more staying power is needed than the usual Reaver-class Titan can provide, but a Death Bringer is not available or needed. An Eclipse Warlord is typically armed with Volcano Cannons, Gatling Blasters and Apocalypse Missile Launchers.
 * Death Bringer pattern Warlord Titan - The Death Bringer-class Titan is the most common Warlord Battle Titan configuration and are equipped with a variety of weapon that can be used for a multitude of battlefield roles.
 * Nightgaunt pattern Warlord Titan - The Nightgaunt-class Titan is a variant of the standard Warlord patterns, and is always equipped with one or two Titan close combat weapons or lighter, short-ranged firepower.
 * Nemesis pattern Warlord Titan - The Nemesis-class Titan is fielded when brute force is required. These god-engines excel in long-range firepower and siege warfare, but possess poor manouevrability. Usually forgoing close-ranged weaponry, Nemesis-class Titans will still field Titan close combat weapons to discourage deepstrike operations by enemy forces. Nemesis-class Titans are typically equipped with a mix of Quake Cannons, Volcano Cannons, Inferno Guns, Plasma Destructors and Apocalypse Missile Launchers.

Armament
The Warlord-class Titan has four Battle Titan weaponry hardpoints on its shoulders and arms, allowing for a greater variety of weapon configurations. While Scout Titan weapon batteries can be mounted, Warlords usually mount Battle Titan weaponry. There is even a specialist class of Imperial combat walker based on the Warlord design, the rare Psi-Titans, where psychic weaponry is substituted for conventional Titan weapons for use against daemonic entities. The most common Mars Pattern Warlord mounts two Turbo-Laser Destructors on its carapace, with a Volcano Cannon and Gatling Blaster on the arms. A special variant of the Mars Pattern Warlord Titan carries a close-combat Powerfist and Gatling Blaster on its arms, plus Vortex Missile and Rocket Launchers on the carapace.

Arm-Mounted Primary Weapons
A Warlord-class Titan can carry two of the following on its arm hardpoints:
 * Two Arm-Mounted Belicosa Pattern Volcano Cannon
 * Two Ardex-Defensor Mauler Bolt Cannon Turrets
 * Two Rear-Mounted Ardex Defensor Twin-Linkied Lascannon Turrets

Optional Arm-Mounted Weapons
One or both of the arm-mounted Belicosa pattern volcano cannon may be exchanged for one of the following weapons:
 * Sunfury Plasma Annihilator
 * '''Mori Quake Cannon
 * Saturnyne Lascutter
 * Arioch Titan Power Claw
 * Macro-Gatling Blaster

Carapace-Mounted Secondary Weapons
A Warlord-class Titan can carry two of the following on its carapace shoulder hardpoints:
 * Two Carapace-Mounted Apocalypse Missile Launchers
 * Two Double-Barrelled Turbo-Laser Destructors
 * Two Titan Plasma Blastguns
 * Two Reaver Laser Blasters
 * Two Reaver Melta Cannons
 * Two Reaver Gatling Blasters
 * Two Vortex Missile Banks
 * Two Incinerator Missile Banks

Operation
Most Imperial records indicate that a Warlord Battle Titan possesses a crew of one Princeps commanding the Titan and four Moderati controlling its weapon systems, with two Tech-priests aboard to provide basic technical support and maintenance in combat. However, Dan Abnett's Titanicus differs on this configuration, stating that a Warlord crew consists of the commanding Princeps, a Moderati who is second in command, a Sensori, tasked with monitoring and using the engine's sensors, and a Steersman, who actually moves the massive Titan.

Deployment
Warlord-class Battle Titans are normally deployed into combat alone, as they are rare and extremely powerful. On certain occasions when Imperial forces face a threat of extraordinary magnitude, Warlord Titans may be deployed in a Battle Group containing three of these mighty war engines. Warlord-class Titans can also be organised into mixed Battle Groups with Reaver-class Battle Titans, in which their Titan Legion deploys three of each class of Battle Titan for a total of six war machines in the group. These Battle Groups can be armed and used as the group's commanding Princeps sees fit, but they work together to complete a common objective. In general, the Princeps of the most powerful or oldest Titan in a group is the commander of the Battle Group.

Chaos Warlord Battle Titan
Amongst the Forces of Chaos, Warlord-class Chaos Titans are ancient and irreplaceable relics left over from the days of the Horus Heresy. They are the remnants of those Traitor Titan Legions who sided with the Renegade Warmaster Horus during those dark times and whose blasphemous names still echo with dread thousands of Terran years later. The majority of these monstrous war engines have seen millennia of service with Chaotic forces and have long since become utterly corrupted by the touch of the Ruinous Powers and the Warp. To differentiate these corrupted Warlords from their Imperial counterparts, the Imperium has designated these war machines with different class names that have been happily adopted by these Titans' Renegade crews. The Chaos Warlord-class Titan has four different variants depending on which God of Chaos the Titan is aligned with. Even though there are different versions of the Chaos-altered Warlord-class Titan, the most commonly seen variant operating with the Forces of Chaos is the Banelord Titan.
 * The Banelord-class Titan is dedicated to the Chaos God Khorne and has been modified with a long tail that ends in a large cannon of various types, while another such cannon protrudes from the Titan's daemonic mouth. The Banelord also has access to three special weapons: a Havoc Missile Rack, a Hellstrike Cannon and a Doomfist. This is the most common Chaos Warlord Titan.
 * The Plaguelord-class Titan is dedicated to the Chaos God Nurgle.
 * The Painlord-class Titan is dedicated to the Chaos God Slaanesh.
 * The Warplord-class Titan is dedicated to the Chaos God Tzeentch.

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