Ranking the Titans
You can find information for the Titans in the Master Spreadsheet, and the rest of the Rankings series can be found here.
The Titan keyword is rather fascinating, as they are the only sea creatures that can carry crew normally. At the bottom of this post I’ve also included the Pirate Code entry for the keyword, to hopefully clear up any potential issues.
Titan
A ship with this keyword printed on its deckplate is a sea creature.
A titan’s movement may be measured from any part of its body. When given a move action a titan may
change its facing during the first movement segment (like a normal ship), but it cannot change its facing during any additional segments regardless of the directions it moves. A titan may move across islands (except enemy home islands) and is docked if it ends its move on an island. A titan may shoot and be shot at while on an island (the island does not block lines of fire to and from the titan).
A titan can be assigned crew.
A titan may be given explore actions to load cargo like a normal ship.
A titan may tow other ships, it may ram (the rammed ship becomes pinned instead of the titan) and it may board like a normal ship.
As usual: If you see a ship you like, feel free to click the affiliate link to see if it’s available on eBay. Some of the pictures are linked to battle reports if you want to see what happened in the action shots.
There are only 3 Titans, so this is a pretty quick list. They’re all quite different from one another, in terms of point costs, speeds, and abilities, so that makes this even easier. However, still a bit subjective and possibly dependent on the build total. I’m not giving Brachyura any bonuses for its weird clone-like super rare barbie glamor glitter sparkly edition. LOL.
1. Raninoidea
Once again the Pirates get the best version of something that probably should have benefited a non-major faction more than them. Raninoidea (almost as awkward to type as it is to “pronounce”) has the best base move, cargo, AND ability of any of the Titans. This makes it somewhat clearly the best giant crab. This purple beast is one of the best examples in Pirates CSG of the “hit hard before they crush you” type of tactic. It’s likely to cause a ton of damage and possibly some chaos before being killed in short order. With S+L speed, 3 cargo spaces open for Pirate crew, and a wicked offensive ability, this thing screams to be optimized with a nasty crew setup. That said, just plopping a captain on can be effective too, since investing even more than the base 21 points into it can be a money pit (due to it being likely to be sunk quickly).
2. Brachyura
The Cursed got a pretty good crab too, albeit not as fast or powerful as the Pirate one. Brachyura is pretty clearly the middle of the road option, with solid speed, good claws, and a nice defensive ability to let it stay in the fight a tiny bit longer. The best Cursed named crew are generally better off on their best ships, but even just a simple captain+helmsman setup on this titan can make it worth using.
A simple house rule you could use for the SR version is to give it the Captain keyword; this makes the crab more on the level of Raninoidea without making it OP.
Yes I build my crabs wrong, I like it better that way.
3. El Toro
The Spanish crab is the cheapest version, coming in at a pretty affordable 15 points. You can see why though, with the slowest speed and worst ability of the trio. It’s perhaps a bit uninspiring overall, but the Spanish do have enough crew to make it pretty dangerous. If you felt like going really wild with it, you could have SS Master Bianco on another ship to get an extra cargo space via Cargo Master, then load up Luis Zuan (MI; Captain+World Hater), Nemesio Diaz (Canceller), and perhaps a firepot specialist or musketeer. That said, a crew setup like that is still better off on a ship that can repair and be salvaged after dereliction. I’d likely go with just captain and helmsman, but at least there are options. One option I wouldn’t recommend is the link – El Pescador is a sea monster L booster (If a sea monster begins its move within L of this ship, it gets +L to its base move.), but that doesn’t apply to the monster he’s on, and Titans aren’t even sea monsters, they’re sea creatures! Though I suppose he could work on El Toro if you’re combining them with a multi-faction sea monster squadron.
A crowning moment for a sea creature!
From The Pirate Code:
-Titans cannot submerge.
-The phrase “can’t change it’s facing during the move” means that the titan cannot change its facing (heading)
between movement segments, regardless of the direction it moves. However, it may change facing at the beginning
of a move action, using the first movement segment. Effectively, the titan determines its facing and moves forward
for the first segment, and then it scuttles (strafes) sideways, forward, or backward for any remaining segments.
-The Titan keyword overrides the general sea creature rules:
–A titan may ram, board, pin, and tow other ships, including flotillas.
–If it wins a boarding action and has sufficient cargo space, it may steal a treasure.
–It may be given an explore action if it is docked at an island.
-If the Titan keyword is cancelled:
–The titan follows all of the standard rules for sea creatures.
–It cannot be rammed, pinned, or boarded, nor can it ram, pin, board, tow, be assigned crew, or be given
repair or explore actions.
–It cannot be assigned crew, and any crew that were already aboard are removed from the game.
–If it was sitting on an island it becomes “stuck” in place and cannot move until it regains use of the
keyword. Standard line of fire rules still apply, so it will be unable to shoot or be shot at except where parts
of it extend outside of the island.
How did I do? Any disagreements with the Titan rankings? Comment below your favorite Titan!