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Since GW seems to be doing dick all to give us the additional fortifications rules that it stated they would, I decided to write up a proposal to try to hash out balance for the various battlefield debris to give your games some spice beyond "oh its a ruin...a mysterious forest...mysterious objective...you mean another aegis with lascannon?"

Ammunition Dump: May be purchased at 35 pts per 40mm token representing the dump. You may have up to 2 such tokens per Fortification Slot. May be added to an aegis defense line for +35 pts. The Defense line may not purchase a Comm Relay or Gun Emplacement.

Fuel Reserve: May be purchased for 5 pts per barrel. May purchase up to 10 such barrels as a single fortification slot.

Imperial Statuary: May be purchased for 75 pts per statuary. You may purchase one statuary per fortification slot.

Shield Generators: May be purchased for 50 pts for two generators. May add an additional two generators for 25 pts per generator. You may purchase one set of generators per fortification slot.

Shrine to Chaos: May be purchased for 100 pts per Shrine. You may purchase one Shrine per fortification slot.

Tanglewire: May purchase a 6” length of tanglewire for 10 pts. You may purchase between 1-5 lengths of tanglewire as a single fortification slot.

Tank Traps: May purchase 6” length of tank traps for 15 pts. You may purchase between 1-3 lengths of tank traps as a single fortification slot.

Trench Lines: May purchase up to 6” length of trench line for 10 pts. You may purchase between 1-3 lengths of trench line per fortification slot. You may also add a single small bunker complex to the trench line for 30 pts.

Let me know what you think.

Ammo dumps, fuel reserves, shield generators, tanglewire, tank traps, and trench lines I can understand. They have a place being purchased by an army and drug into battle.

Shrines and the like I have always felt should be objectives, not purchased pieces.

Balancing these is going to prove tricky, because they are low point items. This means you have a lot less room to work with. Maybe combining a couple into one item will help with balance?

Rather than purchase these - how about make up a battlefield terrain table?

1 - Ammo/Fuel Dump - AV 10 Open Topped Cover 4+ If it suffers an Explode result, D6x2" explosion.
2. Bunkers (1-3) Each bunker can fit up to 5 men inside and 5 on top. 3 firepoints. AV14. Cover 3+ inside 4+ outside
3. Tank Traps (1-6) Dangerous terrain for vehicles.
4. Minefields (1-3) 12"x2" strips. Dangerous terrain for anything.
5. Trench systems (1-3 12"x2" strips) Cover 4+
6. Shield Generators (1-3) Provides 6" radius 5+ invulnerable.

Then add terrain like hills, bombed out forests, bombed out buildings... etc.

@ rabid: The reason that they are low point items is because they are costed as taking up your fortification slow. So you won't have an ADL, Landing platform, Bastion, or Fortress. Lumping several of them together doesn't make much sense. And using shrines or the like as objectives, when there are already so many restrictions on objectives? I don't agree on that point.

@ DAaddict: I am not sure I agree with you there. Considering that the terrain debris are already covered fairly in depth, making a random table doesn't give any benefit. That's why I proposed purchasing them as a fortification slot, because who would take any of them otherwise?

@ Qui-Gon Jinn: I like the idea a lot, purchasable buildings such as that shrine and purchasable 'terrain' would help expand upon everyone and their mother running the same damn defensive line.

As it stands, you are allowed one fortification slot... so unless you redefine that as purchasable options, and a set point limit, you are never going to chose these cheap fortifications over say an ADL with quad gun... Also I don't want to face an IG foot army with cheap fortifications totalling out to say a fortress of redemption. <shudder>

Fortifications are more important to IG or even Tau than say SM.
So how are you planning on balancing that? For instance how important is 4+ cover for a Space Marine as opposed to an Ork? To keep it balanced, you are almost going to need a cost per codex or fortifications are going to imbalance a game quickly.

Qui-Gon,

Making them terrain debris is going to be more for a friendly/themed game where the terrain is agreed upon by both players.

A few things though on it taking up a force org slot.
-Points are points, and they need to be balanced against everything else that costs points. Regardless of the slot it takes up, it has to be worth the number of points assigned to it. So be careful trying to justify the points cost solely on the slot it takes up, because that can make it imbalanced really fast without you realizing it. Not saying the slot doesn't matter (it's very important) but I'm saying that it has to be balanced with things outside of that as well.
-Combining things I feel would be even more important with it taking up the lone fortification slot. What if I want supplies for the whole army? Taking ammo and fuel together would be ideal, instead of having to choose between two similar types of supplies. The same goes for tank traps and razorwire.

The ideas for combinations I was thinking of:
-Supply Cache
---0-5 Fuel barrels, 0-5 Ammo dumps. Allow for a set number of rerolls if within 3". Provides cover.
-Tank Traps & Razorwire
---1-10 total 6" segments. Tank Traps are Impassable terrain to vehicles. Razorwire is dangerous terrain to infantry.

Those are the big two, but they allow for a lot more bang for your buck if taken in a single slot.

Playing guardsmen all I want are trenchlines and gun emplacements... give all my cheap troops 4+ invulnerable saves and cover saves for every artillery piece. LOL 9 griffon mortars anyone with 100+ infantry entrenched in front of it?

I'm pretty sure none of that was meant to be purchasable and instead should just be regular stuff that is thrown on the table.

For example, placing an ammo dump instead of a hill...