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Hi,

I'm working on a very large fortification for an apocalypse game that we'll be playing next weekend. I'm hoping to get some feedback on how much the fort should be worth.

If you're interested, here's a link to the WIP thread for the project.

I've got the new Apoc Book and IA Apoc book, and am using them as a starting point, so here's my initial guess - feedback is requested, especially is anything glaringly over or under costed.


From IA apoc, Imperial Fortress base rules:

- All sections are Large Buildings, AV 15, Massive Fortifications
- Void Shields - The fortess has a single void shield, AV12, that protects versus the first glancing/penetrating hit. It regens on a 5+ at the end of the imperial turn. CC attacks are not affected.
- Battlements provide 3+ cover
- Defend To The Last Man - Units occupying the fort get stubborn, unless they are already fearless.
- Munition Vaults and Medicae annex - All units on a battlement or embarked in a section get FNP(6+) and re-roll wound rolls of 1. *

* The medicae bonus will be lost if the medicae structure is destroyed by the opponent, or under opponent control. The Munition Vault bonus will similarly be lost if the ammo battery structure is taken or destroyed.

The base cost of sections, per the FW book, is 100 points per tower section, 80 per wall section, and 50 per gate. Mine is constructed slightly differently, so will need to be tweaked.

Weapon costs:
- Heavy bolters = 10 points (per Fortress of Redemption cost)
- Lascannon = 20 points
- Icarus Lascannon = 35 points (per Bastion/Aegis line cost)
- Quad autocannon = 50 points (per Bastion/Aegis line cost)
- Battlecannon = 50 points
- Hurricane Bolters (2) = 30 points (per upgrade cost for adding these to a stormraven either SM or GK codex)
- Flamestorm cannon = 15 points - discounted as immobile
- Heavy Flamer = 5 points - discounted as immobile


By section:

Main Gate:
- Very Large - Should be considered two tower sections, each with transport capacity of 30 models, and a gate/cannon section. 200 points
- Mounts an Aquilla Macro Cannon main gun (per Apoc datasheets) 500 points
- 4 Heavy Bolters - front mounted 40 points
- 1 Lascannon - front mounted 20 points
- 2 Hurricane Bolters - gate defense 30 points
- 2 Flamestorm Cannons - gate defense 30 points

- 820 points

Small Gates:
- Is a Tower section 100 points
- 2 Heavy bolters 20 points
- 1 lascannon 20 points
- 2 heavy flamers 10 points
- 2 Hurricane Bolters 30 points
- Quad Gun 50 points

- 230 points each
- *2 = 460 points

Towers
- Tower Section: 100 points
- 2 Heavy bolters: 20 points
- 1 battlecannon: 50 points

- 170 points each
- *4 = 680 points

- Icarus Tower
- Wall Section: 80 points
- Icarus Lascannon: 35 points
- 115 points

- Walls
- 80 per section

- 4 corners + 4 6" walls + 2 12" walls = 10 sections
- 800 points

- Other Structures:

- Comm center 35 points
- - Provides comm-relay bonus
- - AV 14 medium building

- Medicae building 0 points (bonus factored into wall cost)
- - AV 13 medium building
- - Generates 6+ FNP for all in fortress

- Ammo Battery 0 points (bonus factored into wall cost)
- - AV 13 medium building
- - Allows fortress inhabitants to re-roll wound rolls of 1.

- Garage 75 points
- - AV 13 Large building
- - Incorporates skyshield landing pad 75 points
- - Allows imperial reserves to arrive from garage door

- Barracks 0 points
- - AV 13 Large building
- - Allows imperial reserves to arrive from barracks doors


That brings the total cost of the fortress to:

820 + 460 + 680 + 115 + 800 + 35 + 75 = 2985

So, roughly 3000 points - does that sound reasonable?

3000 points buys 12 land raiders. Seems quite a lot for a building, even one of that size with that many guns.

That is a fair point. On the other hand, AV15 walls are a lot more survivable than a land raider (you need to pen a building to do anything, you can't kill them with enough glances, which means only S10 or D weapons can even have a chance of hurting them). And we don't have a lot of D weapons in our group.

@Redbeard. I would think about changing the walls/towers from buildings to Immobile vehicles with Structure points.

The reason being the Destroyer "D" weapon damage charts on page 72 of the Apocalypse book.

We have had some sad faces when massive fortifications were deployed and then systematically destroyed almost effortlessly by Destroyer weapons.

Just as a question - how does that help?

If the issue is that the big wall is too easily destroyed, how does making it more susceptible to other attacks fix that?

Also, it should be noted that we don't expect more than 1, maybe 2 at most, D weapons to be fielded against the fort. As such, making easier for S9/10 (and even S8, if AV 14 with structure points) to harm it seems like a losing proposition for the fort. Sure, the big wall might not drop to that one D gun, but massed lascannons will drop far more than one section/turn.

If it had structure points, it could potentially survive a D weapon hit. While as a building it will be detonated on the roll of a 2+.

If you do not have a lot of D weapons flying around out there then I wouldn't worry about it.

We had several Aquila Strong points fielded in our last Apoc game and some feelings were hurt when they were all picked up and replaced with rubble after the various D weapons shot.

The problem is that D-weapons with blast radius can pull down 2 sections of a wall with impunity with the way the rules set. Perhaps coming up with your own set of rules simply on how D-weapons interact with the wall would be a good way to do it.

We thought of doing something like 'Hardened Fortifications' with applicable fluff text. Rules being that D-weapons only counted as two hits with STR 10 AP 1 weapons upon the structure. That way is still CAN make that section go away, but it isn't the sure thing that D-weapons are.

On the other hand, if none of the wall sections go away, it's going to be a very long and one-sided game, and with S10 weapons needing to roll a '6' just to have a chance at the destruction table, that's no sure thing.

We're doing the apoc game more as a 'big game' and less as a 'play with big toys' game. Most of the players will be bringing about 3k of models, and no one is fielding a titan or gargantuan creature (that I know of). There's going to be one Tigershark A-X-10 with heavy railguns, and possibly a necron pylon, and once those are dead, the only hope to take out any section of wall will be a '6', maybe from a railgun, maybe from a smash attack (assuming the MCs get close enough to make those attacks)

I guess my biggest concern is that the fortress will be an insurmountable obstacle, not that it will be easily bypassed.

3000pts can buy you alot of Battlewagons with Deffrolla's and KFF Meks to provide cover. I like those odds!

TBH, I haven't played any APOC games, but points wise it sounds alot, but is WORTH the points. How many players are on either side?

Making them 'massive fortifications' is going to make it so anything but D-STR weapons will have a very hard time bringing them down without volume of fire. Unfortunate side-effect of the new Fortifications.

There will be 5 or 6 attackers against 4 or 5 defenders. Each player will have approximately 3000 points to use, which will still see about a 15k/side game.

I'd say make them AV14 so that it's not just D weapons that can damage them, you want the people inside dying too.

Maybe put a shield generator on the battlements like the skyshield (4++ vs shooting). That could be quite cinematic and fun so the guys can actually die without the whole building having to be levelled..

D weapons just cause all sorts of trouble in general. Making the wall only armor 14 well also adding some rule that makes D weapons only good for 2 S10 ap 1 hits might work. Maybe give each wall section a void shield or even some form of super save against D weapons. If there will likely be no D weapons especially none without blasts just play it as a normal armor 14 wall.

It would make more sense to me that the munitions dump grants re-rolls to hit of a 1 then to wound. I'm sure there is some precedent somewhere, but the place escapes me.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
It would make more sense to me that the munitions dump grants re-rolls to hit of a 1 then to wound. I'm sure there is some precedent somewhere, but the place escapes me.

The ammo dump from main rule book lets you reroll ones to hit.

I just copied what the IA book said for their fortress.