Adeptus Titanicus – Campaign Compendium

After the latest addition to the game, including Gravation Beamer weaponry for various titan classes, a "new" book is up for pre-order - the Adeptus Titanicus Campaign Compendium.

A quick heads up. This is a book review. We don't do meta-discussion on Chaosbunker. We will cover what is covered in the campaign supplement and what is not. Games Workshop offers this proper 224-page hardcover for 50 EURs with the following description.

The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for Humanity is in ruins and His armies are locked in a brutal civil war. The greatest of these bitter combatants are the towering god-engines of the Adeptus Titanicus. Take control of these awe-inspiring war machines in Adeptus Titanicus – the tabletop game of devastating combat set during the Horus Heresy.

Adeptus Titanicus: Campaign Compendium gathers together all the game’s narrative expansions in one place, all formatted for easy reference during your games of Adeptus Titanicus. Stride forth with earth-quaking rules, scenarios, and more, collated from the Titandeath, Doom of Molech, Shadow and Iron, The Defence of Ryza, and Crucible of Retribution supplements.

Inside this 224-page tome, you will find:

- Infamous Conflicts: Explore some of the Horus Heresy’s greatest battles and follow the destruction unleashed by the Titan Legions at Beta-Garmon, Ryza, Molech, and the Realm of Ultramar.

- Narrative Missions: 27 narrative missions allowing you to reenact the major battles of the conflict, from the betrayal of Legio Praesagius at Ithraca to the subjugation of Urdesh and the extermination of Legio Damicium.

- Knight Households: Expansive rules for commanding Knight Households and fielding entire armies of Knights in games of Adeptus Titanicus, including options to march beneath the resplendent heraldic banners of the Household. Rules are also included to allow players to field a Household drawn from six of the loyal Knight Households of Molech.

- Titanic Campaigns: Rules for playing Adeptus Titanicus campaigns, where players battle for a world or an entire sub-sector as their Princeps gain new skills and reap the rewards of conquest.

- Hostile Battlefields: Rules for playing games set on the myriad battlefields of the wider galaxy, from the flaming sands of Drooth II and burning cities of Molech to worlds ravaged by the corrupting effects of the Warp.

- Crusade Titan Legions: Rules for creating your own Titan Legions, allowing you to bring your own Legio to life with custom Traits, Stratagems and Wargear.

This book is required if you plan to use the Knights Stratagem Cards or Defence of Ryza Stratagem Cards, which are sold separately. A copy of the Adeptus Titanicus Rulebook is required to use the contents of this book.

And that's the reason, why I put "new" in quotation marks. It is a compendium and as Games Workshop clear sums up, gathers the playable content from the five campaign books in a single book. As of today - with the exception of Titandeath, four of the five campaign supplements are still on stock.

The Campaign compendium covers the 5 Titanic campaigns (I added links to the Lexicanum articles, so you get a brief overview on the conflicts and see from which supplement the content is taken from):

• Iron Crusade (Shadow & Iron Supplement)
• The Battle of Molech (Doom of Molech Supplement)
• The Cataclysm of Iron (Crucible of Retribution Supplement)
• The Battle for Ryza (Defence of Ryza Supplement)
• The War for Beta-Garmon (Titan Death Supplement)

The 27 narrative missions are the detailed scenarios from those five campaigns, can be played individually or can be played in order. Or arranged in a way, that they suit your own needs. In addition, you will find the Echoes of Glory from the Crucible of Retribution supplement, which gives you tables for scenario generation, with specific rules on how matches on Death Worlds, Forge Worlds and Hive Worlds play out. On top of that, you can add hostile battlefields to the different worlds, these are taken from the Doom of Molech supplement.

This comes in combination with the rule frame work of Adeptus Titanicus campaigns, combined content from the supplements of Shadow & Iron as well as Titandeath.

If you weren't content with the opportunities that either the Traitor or Loyalist Legios offer you, you always have the option to create your own Titan Legion, like a Crusade Legion and these are not just the rules from the Defence of Ryza supplement, but include the rules from the White Dwarf issue as well. With the major and minor traits, own stratagems and wargear, you have quite the framework for your own ideas, whether these are to support the Emperor or Warmaster.

And if you want to go for masses or something less tall than a titan, you find the elaborate rules for Knight Households in this campaign supplement as well, as they combine the available rules from the Doom of Molech and Defence of Ryza in one place.

That's a lot of content - but the books were about 100 pages each, so what's not included in this 224-page hardcover?

Mostly the artwork is missing. The campaign supplement still has a proper layout, just in a more compact way. And the content that was combined from the campaigns supplement and already can be found in the Legio books is not included this book. This means all of the maniples introduced with the campaign supplements are found in both the Traitor and Loyalist Legio book, but not in campaign compendium. Same goes for the rules of the Psi-Titans from Shadow & Iron that are now covered in the Loyalist Legio book, the rules for corrupted titans came directly with the Traitor book.

Conclusion
As some players were a bit underwhelmed, that the campaign supplement did not include new content, the question came up - Who is the target audience for this book? A lot of people. For example, me. I collected the miniatures but didn't went all in on the campaign supplements - so far, I only owned Defence of Ryza. And after the Battle for Uulda I bought the Legio books for Loyalists and Traitors and was thinking, if I should buy the campaign supplements as well. Yet, each of them is 31,50 EUR and a whole set (if you can get your hands on Titandeath) would be 150 EURs, so this campaign compendium is the cheaper option. Not only this, but as you "only" need to buy the legio book and the compendium as rule addition to the core rulebook, you have access to all that for less than 100 EURs.

And for gamers the far more relevant aspect - you have to carry less. This is something, that caused in older Warhammer editions "problems" as you had your 288-page rulebook, your 80-page codex book, chapter approved 1-3 and a few White Dwarf issues with you, to really have access to all the information you might need during your match. Necromunda went a bit overboard on here. But for me with Adeptus Titanicus it is a very useful addition so that I only have to bring the rulebook, the legio book for my titan legion and the campaign compendium and I'm good to go. Yes, technically, there is the matched play guide, but that is a small book and only relevant for those set up games. And as a bit of a Adeptus Titanicus unique option, you get all the supplement as ePub files, including this new campaign book, so you can use your tablet to carry even less and have them OCR / full text search compatible.

Is it worth it? Yes. Is it still worth it, if I already own some of the campaign supplements? From a commercial point of view, unless you're just missing one book, it is cheaper to get just that book for your collection. But if either the aspect of having all the rules in a single book or you have 3 or less of the campaign supplements, the campaign compendium is a reasonable addition to your wargaming library.

What about new content? From my understanding the errata were worked into this publication and with the Horus Heresy continuing, I assume that we will see further content for small scale conflict in the next months, obviously giving you opportunities to field your titans on the tabletop.

Warhammer 40.000 and Adeptus Titanicus are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.