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I'm thinking of making up a Chaos Bastion as a centerpiece to my army.
I'd like it not to be a major disadvantage so I've come up with the following way to use it.

Put a squad of CSMs inside. They are now fearless and get an armor save against all building damage attacks. Dual plasma + manned heavy bolters give me my ranged firepower.

A squad of Plaguebearers man the quad gun on the roof.
A constant 2+ save keeps them safe and BS3 TL'd is pretty good.

I have a bastion and was wondering this too. I don't have chaos daemons models but I think another 5man squad of csm on the rooftop manning the gun wouldn't hurt. This would give me an edge against tau

 ashikenshin wrote:
I have a bastion and was wondering this too. I don't have chaos daemons models but I think another 5man squad of csm on the rooftop manning the gun wouldn't hurt. This would give me an edge against tau

For a 5 man squad, I'd consider a BM Noise Marine squad

 minigun762 wrote:

A constant 2+ save keeps them safe and BS3 TL'd is pretty good.

Unless the Plaguebearers grant it somehow, the LasCannon on a Bastion is not TL, you need to get a Fortress of Redemption to have a TL lascannon.

 Miri wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:

A constant 2+ save keeps them safe and BS3 TL'd is pretty good.

Unless the Plaguebearers grant it somehow, the LasCannon on a Bastion is not TL, you need to get a Fortress of Redemption to have a TL lascannon.

Sorry, I was thinking of a quad gun. I just forgot to type it out.

Yeah no point in getting the lc, 3plusplus did a rundown and the quad gun won every time.

Noise squad is something I always wanted to do, might do it in the near future.

 ashikenshin wrote:
Yeah no point in getting the lc, 3plusplus did a rundown and the quad gun won every time.

Except when you're trying to use it against an AV14 target.

- Lascannon Havoks inside, Autocannon havoks on the quad gun.

- Infiltrating plasma chosen w/ Huron inside, placed midfield, with Abaddon and Oblits up top. All your buddies come running to get that sweet preferred enemy bubble.

- nurgle soul grinder on the roof manning the quad, while 19 pink horrors and their herald leader shoot stupid amounts of shots out of a single firing point.

Lots of funny stuff to do with a bastion. Competetive? Probably not. Definitely fun though...

It's also a blast to model 'chaos-y'

just beware of helldrakes. If they shoot they're flamer at the bastion, and it cover at least one fire point, the models inside take D6 hits at the S and Ap of the attack, including special rules.

I ran a bastion at a tournament a month ago where I played Eldar corsairs, and I had a corsair squad on the roof as well as one inside. Each corsair squad had 2 missile launchers to make it a strong firebase. In all three games my opponents directed a ridiculous amount of firepower at it and the occupants, relative to the value of it and the troops inside. Never once did it get destroyed though it took significant damage in each game. In long table edge or diagonal deployment I used it as the anchor of my forces on one side. In short table edge deployment it was more cramped but provided a good place to hide vehicles behind for cover.

In one of those tourney games against chaos it survived a unit of nurgle bikers with melta and a unit of plague marines with melta, taking a few casualties but me managing to wipe those units before they could kill it. He chose poorly with his heldrake and twice aimed to fire into the windows for d6 hits for some reason when he could have cleared the battlement much more efficiently, and each time he did less than 3 wounds, so I was lucky there. Also in that game the quad gun did one hp to the drake, a few wounds on infantry, and killed a predator that gave me side armor against it.

In another game vs orks the opponent fired a ton of shots solely at the quad gun, trying to destroy it before his dakkajet came in, but I kept making cover saves, and the presence of the quad gun made him bring his dakka jet onto the table very conservatively. It failed to do any damage and got dropped by a nightwing next turns. The quad gun popped a battlewagon on side armor.

In a game vs grey knights the opponent deep struck the special character with the ghost-terminators or whatever behind it on the first turn, and I was able to wipe the unit on my first turn with my combined firepower, and then he was incredibly fixated on it the rest of the game while I took his forces apart and eventually tabled him. The quad gun killed two razorbacks that game.

Coyote81 wrote:
just beware of helldrakes. If they shoot they're flamer at the bastion, and it cover at least one fire point, the models inside take D6 hits at the S and Ap of the attack, including special rules.

Which is really stupid, because if you load your models inside an exposed open topped transport (DE Venom, Ork truck) they're completely invulnerable from everything in the game until that transport goes away...not to mention bits of rubble falling from the ceiling is somehow more damaging than the vehicle you've been riding at 30+ miles an hour exploding into a fireball under you.

40k has been trolling me hard with the building rules lately.

Coyote81 wrote:
just beware of helldrakes. If they shoot they're flamer at the bastion, and it cover at least one fire point, the models inside take D6 hits at the S and Ap of the attack, including special rules.

D6 will likely be less hits than if they were deployed behind an ADL.
Plus no vector strikes.

 minigun762 wrote:

Coyote81 wrote:
just beware of helldrakes. If they shoot they're flamer at the bastion, and it cover at least one fire point, the models inside take D6 hits at the S and Ap of the attack, including special rules.

D6 will likely be less hits than if they were deployed behind an ADL.
Plus no vector strikes.

If it's shooting at a unit on top, it effectively get free hits on the unit inside as long as it covers a firepoint in the process. A bunched up unit on top plus D6 free hits inside, something to be careful of for sure.

I'd put in allied Bloodletters to man the QuadGun or Icarus Lascannon on top with BS 5.

Inside can be allied Horrors to pump out 2 or more D6 S5 Shots from just one Firepoint. Or Noise Marines with Blastmasters.

This is slightly off topic, but I am glad to see folks playing with fortifications other than the ADL to see how they might work...

I admit, the notion (fluff) of the ADL being quick and easy to set up for forces on the move (if imperial/imperial-ish (i.e. chaos/renegades)) seems to feel a bit more natural with those kinds of fortifications than some of the others, if the thinking behind your force is fast-moving...

That said, I've seen a lot of lists with ADL, but almost nothing with the Bastion -- for 25 points you get (up to) 4 Heavy bolters, plus the quad cannon? That seems like a bargain to me (even though you can probably only get 2 HBs at a time aimed at the same enemy).

Havocks inside the bastion is also fun.

Incidentially, each fire point lets 2 models shoot out so you can have 6 effective heavy weapons firing from the inside of the bastion with 3 firing points side.

I've always thought the Bastion is a better choice than the ADL for small elite armies.

Two guys can shoot out per window. You can put two windows on the one side facing the enemy so 4 guys can shoot out the windows in one direction. This screams 5-man havoc squad. All 4 heavy weapons can shoot out the two windows and the 5th guys shoots the heavy bolter.

On top I always envisioned a squad of 3 Obliterators and an evil Techmarine. The evil techie can man the gun because he is BS 5.

However there is some merit in having the forces around the Bastion cheap so the resources your opponent dedicates to destroying it, and the occupant, does not equate to an equal sized reward.

One of the things I like about the Bastion is its ability to block LOS. In this way you can hide 1-2 vehicles behind it if you do not get first turn and still turn the corner guns blazing. A pair of shooty chaos Helbrutes could take advantage of that or even a DP who fear str 10 long range guns before it can take to the air.

I thought that a template couldn't hit both the top and inside.

I play Daemons, and I use the bastion mostly as a way to hide my Grimiore Herald. He's a bit too easy to kill behind an ADL.

I also use it as a line of sight blocking terrain to hide my FMCs behind if I can't go first.

 minigun762 wrote:
I thought that a template couldn't hit both the top and inside.

It is not a ruin, so it hits whatever is under the template.

 sudojoe wrote:
Incidentially, each fire point lets 2 models shoot out so you can have 6 effective heavy weapons firing from the inside of the bastion with 3 firing points side.

The issue here is you can only fire at one target...so you can only get 2 models firing, 4 if they're on the line between the arcs of the firing points...6 in there very rare instance that someone is in a crescent moon formation around your bastion.

 ductvader wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:
Incidentially, each fire point lets 2 models shoot out so you can have 6 effective heavy weapons firing from the inside of the bastion with 3 firing points side.

The issue here is you can only fire at one target...so you can only get 2 models firing, 4 if they're on the line between the arcs of the firing points...6 in there very rare instance that someone is in a crescent moon formation around your bastion.

Well there are 2 fire points and a heavy bolter per side, so that's 5 weapons firing. If you've angled your bastion so that you can draw LOS from two sides (which is likely) you'll be putting out a fair amount of firepower.