Choosing Titan Weapons pt 7 - the GBL

The Gatling Blaster

First off on the Reaver Titan section of this series is the giant multi-barreled cannon that gets bigger with each titan size upgrade. The GBL is the upscale of the VMB, but far outstrips it in destructive power.

The GBL fires six 5" blasts, at Str8 AP3 and up to 72" away. It can Instant Death marines with no save, and chew through hordes through the sheer number of templates landing on them.

One important thing to note is that it is Heavy 6 - so the blasts can all potentially scatter far and wide from the target point, or all stack a ton of wounds on one unit. It is important to measure scatter accurately - I use a Litko Raised Template to mark the centre, and roll the scatter dice on the top of it so the arrow is as close to the aiming point as possible. Litko even conveniantly makes a 5" diameter version.


That said, what is the best thing to be aiming this gun at? Fighting smaller, elite armies such as Marines, Eldar and Tau it works best focussed on small bunches or defensive positions. Here you'll generally be hoping for low scatter as the enemy won't likely be close to each other or forced to bunch up due to numbers. Not much can really be done aside from hoping the Dice Gods favour you. Heavy targets like Crisis Suits, Wraithlords, Wraithguard and high toughness / save infantry (and characters) can be targeted to stack wounds on in the hope they fail their save.

The Str8 is high enough to warrant bombarding light vehicles such as Rhinos, Chimeras, Wave Serpents if there are no better targets.


Against horde and horde-ish armies (Orks, Guard) just pick a dense concentration of troops and blast away. If the unit sizes are large (30+ boyz mobz, 'gaunt swarms etc) a tight scatter can kill entire 'big mobz', while a wide pattern will likely hit something else and damage it severely. MCs and GCs can also be targetet, their size combined with the Titan's good BS means that an average scatter will still likely hit and the blast's Str is not halved as it would be against a vehicle.


The one downside is the relatively short range of 72" when compared to some of the other Reaver systems, but it's not a huge disadvantage really.


Overall the GBL is a good choice if you either have no idea what force(s) you will be facing (and are required to lock in armament beforehand) or against horde armies. If you know you'll be up against Marines or an Elite Mech type army, there are better choices.