You probably missed. Anything with a $7,229 price tag can frag a Class 10 VHF if you lob it at the right speed- since Nomads have no shields, if you get a solid hit, it should die. A good rule of thumb is to allow yourself one shot per target- beyond that point, you will more than likely lose money coming out of the battle (especially against Nomads, who only rarely drop anything at all).
Engine kill is definitely your friend fighting Nomads. Ever since I started flying low-class LFs (a good while ago), one of the tricks I've used is to flip engine kill on and just leave it that way for the whole fight. It helps to have a really good thruster, since that becomes your only propulsion. That way, you can easily maintain a 200m/s speed for the whole fight, which makes it much harder for the enemy to hit you (just remember to change your vector as often as possible, and never make any head-on passes). It also makes retreat easy- never fly forward when running away,
always fly backward. Flying forward, the Nomads will use their own thrusters, but a bug in FL causes enemies to not pursue you while flying in reverse.
I would also suggest that the Titan is not the best ship to use against the Nomads- differences in armor don't do a whole lot for you fighting them, while maneuverability is critical. If one Nomad in a group of four scores a hit, chances are you're also taking hits from all his buddies, and even the beefy Titan can't survive more than a few seconds against that. IMHO, the ideal Nomad-hunting ship is a HF- because you just don't need as much firepower to kill a Nomad, and that edge in agility can make all the difference in the world.
Or you could be crazy like me, buy yourself a Patriot when you have several million credits to spare, stock up on Ripper mines, and plaster the whole battle area with glowing balls of death. It's a rush, to be sure, but you'll never make a positive profit that way.