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So, having just won a Fortress of Redemption in a tourney (and assembled it in record time) I find myself with a couple of questions.

Most importantly, what is the cover save provided to models upon the battlements? I would assume 3. So why post this?

I assumed that all fortifications had a 3+ cover save, but got blindsided by THIS thread a few months ago. I'm not arguing that rules point, just trying to make sure that it works the way I think it does before I field the thing.

Secondly, when firing an emplaced weapon, you must be in base contact with it. Is the 'base' of the missile silo the pit in the top? The bunker itself? The top of the bunker?

When firing the emplaced weapons, according to the community consensus, you trace LOS from the firing model, not the gun. Does this mean you trace range from the firing model too? It would seem weird for the model to fire like a vehicle in regards to one rule, but like infantry for another. If so, that gives you a large degree of wiggle room when it comes to model placement and firing your bunker weapons on a Fortress of Redemption.

Speaking of emplaced weapons again, let's talk about the Fortress of Redemption's heavy bolters for a moment. The rules say they can be added to any section. Yet the walkway's walls are clearly not designed for them. If I altered the wall (without altering the dimensions) in order to accept the weapon, would that be cheating? The rules specify that 'any section' may have the heavy bolters added to them, so as long as I don't alter the building's profile for cover purposes, then it isn't modeling for advantage, is it?

While we're on the subject of those bolters, how do you fire them? They mount to the wall, so they don't have a base for you to be in base contact with. Can you just fire them if you're in contact with the wall next to them?

Finally, when it comes to fortifications, they're neutral, right? So how does this interact with blast weapons? If an enemy is right up against the Fortress, can I place a blast marker over him (even though the marker will be touching, and thus hitting, the building I purchased?) If no, why not? If so, can I still do it even if I have men inside the section I'm hitting? (They themselves aren't under the marker, after all.)

Just to head it off before it shows up, please do not respond if your only contribution is a complaint about how broken or terrible you think fortifications are. There's plenty of threads to discuss the pros and cons of fortifications/Fortresses of Redemption/6th edition rules/Games Workshop in general, so let's not discuss them here. I appreciate any help anyone can provide on these rules issues.

Wow, that's a lot of questions!

I think atleast some of it depends on if you count as controlling it or not. Like if you are occupying it, it should count as putting your blast marker over the occupant unit (or the vehicle they are embarked upon) but if you are not occupying it, you should be able to blast it fine.

The guns jammed into the fortress are controlled by the occupant unit, but if you control it you can have them auto fire at BS2.

The reason I haven't bought a Fortress is because of how poor the building rules are. I just cba having all of these discussions with my opponent.

Fortifications are terrain, not units. So they are not 'friendly' or 'enemy' at all. So they wouldn't come into consideration at all when placing Blast Markers.

Welcome to the wonderful rules of fortifications, which is so gray it might as well be black. Not kidding there, half the things you ask are not even addressed in the books, and even trying to put together arguments using rules as written leads only to headaches. Still, lets see what I can do before I end up curling in a corner, rocking myself while I sob uncontrollably.

Cover Save:
The battlement walls are described as just that, walls. This means the cover save is identical to the barricade and wall section of the basic rule book which can be found on page 104. While it would be understandable to make an argument over them being part of a fortification, so therefore a 3 which is documented in one chart easily over looked, this has been FAQ'ed which means they are clearly defined as walls. Seeing my copy and paste of FAQ's does not work, it is page 9 of the Basic Rule Book FAQ on the website, second question on the left hand side.

Missile System:
As for the missile system, it is not fired through base contact like many gun encampments. On page 96 of the basic rule book you will find some unique rules for fortifications. Within these rules it informs you how to fire weapons that are built into the structure themselves. These rules allow for units embarked inside of the fortress to fire weapons, though they are very badly written. It talks about drawing line of sight from the model itself, you know, the model that is embarked in the fortress and not technically on the table!

(Correction: It does state to use the line of sight from the weapon itself which isn't so bad, as long as you don't have a fortress with a weapon lacking line of sight anyway but then it would probably be your fault for having the gun inside of the walls. )

Bolter:
I, personally, have no problem with the way you are describing altering the design to fit the bolter on. Do note that this is a personal opinion related to them, and nothing based solid on rules. This is because there are no rules as written that state every model has to be constructed in the exact same way or limiting how you go about altering the design. As long as the modifications are not done in any such way to give you a clear advantage, I don't think anyone will have an issue with them. Simply run the building by tournament organizers first if you plan to use it in one of them. I recommend making it so you can remove the gun encampments, just in case they say no.

As for firing them, good bloody question. I guess you could argue that someone inside the building is firing them, as per the page I quoted earlier, but it really doesn't seem the most narrative. They are on top of the building where you would expect them to be manned by people on the walls. If you where to further alter the design, removing a small section of the wall to let your men stand in contact behind them, I don't see that being as much of an issue either. Again that is personal opinion and not something based on written rules even though it is done to make it easier to comply with those rules.

However, from a Rules as Written perspective you can either evoke page 96 to fire them from inside the building or... well, enjoy them as a decoration as base contact is needed as per gun emplacement rules by non-embarked models.

Neutral Fortifications:
The neutral nature of a building obviously prevents you from attacking them outright but what happens if a template falls over them is a good debate in and of itself. The problem stems from the fact the rules only address how buildings react if there is models inside of them. After all, buildings are just terrain in the end, and rules do not exist for what happens if your blast template ends up over the top of trees, waters or indeed buildings. To complicate matters further they do not have hull points to lose and instead work out glancing and penetrating damage against the units inside. If there is no units inside, there is no way for them to completely resolve the damage against them by what little rules we do have.

Personally, again this is a very gray area thanks to the rules being near non-existent, I think it is perfectly find to have the blast template cause damage to the building on a penetrating hit.

JinxDragon wrote:
The battlement walls are described as just that, walls. This means the cover save is identical to the barricade and wall section of the basic rule book which can be found on page 104. While it would be understandable to make an argument over them being part of a fortification, so therefore a 3 which is documented in one chart easily over looked, this has been FAQ'ed which means they are clearly defined as walls. Seeing my copy and paste of FAQ's does not work, it is page 9 of the Basic Rule Book FAQ on the website, second question on the left hand side.

Thanks for pointing out the FAQ. I guess that's pretty clear.

So...what the f-ck did they intend to be providing a 3+ cover save in the cover save chart when they mention Purpose Built Fortifications? If the things I purchase from the section of the book titled Fortifications doesn't qualify, then what the hell DOES?!

I appreciate your answers, though. Food for thought.

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, since I agree that the rules are terribad, but you seem to be saying you can't destroy a fortification by shooting at it. you clearly can. It has an armour Value that goes down each time you pen it, and a nice table for shooting at it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

JinxDragon wrote:
The battlement walls are described as just that, walls. This means the cover save is identical to the barricade and wall section of the basic rule book which can be found on page 104. While it would be understandable to make an argument over them being part of a fortification, so therefore a 3 which is documented in one chart easily over looked, this has been FAQ'ed which means they are clearly defined as walls. Seeing my copy and paste of FAQ's does not work, it is page 9 of the Basic Rule Book FAQ on the website, second question on the left hand side.

Thanks for pointing out the FAQ. I guess that's pretty clear.

So...what the f-ck did they intend to be providing a 3+ cover save in the cover save chart when they mention Purpose Built Fortifications? If the things I purchase from the section of the book titled Fortifications doesn't qualify, then what the hell DOES?!

I appreciate your answers, though. Food for thought.

Well, a tank 25% obscured by a bastion would get a 3+. I'm not at all sure about the top of the bastion, but I think that's a 4+?. It's a mess!

Honestly, I didn't even know about the 3+ cover save from fortifications until it was pointed out to me. There is no mention of it at all in the main body of the rules talking about fortifications, nor about buildings or anything in the terrain section where cover is described in depth. It is only found in one small chart, designed to be an example of what different cover saves are, right at the start of the book.

 Purifier wrote:
I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, since I agree that the rules are terribad, but you seem to be saying you can't destroy a fortification by shooting at it. you clearly can. It has an armour Value that goes down each time you pen it, and a nice table for shooting at it.

Was this part addressed to me or Jinx? I wasn't confused about that part at all. (I know they have AV, which goes down when you pen it, sometimes. There are also restrictions about when you can or cannot shoot at a building. The grey area comes in when it comes to blast templates hitting but not targeting a building.)

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, since I agree that the rules are terribad, but you seem to be saying you can't destroy a fortification by shooting at it. you clearly can. It has an armour Value that goes down each time you pen it, and a nice table for shooting at it.

Was this part addressed to me or Jinx? I wasn't confused about that part at all. (I know they have AV, which goes down when you pen it, sometimes. There are also restrictions about when you can or cannot shoot at a building. The grey area comes in when it comes to blast templates hitting but not targeting a building.)

Jinx. I didn't nderstand his last statement (or I'm reading it wrong?) that fortifications couldn't be shot at.

I am in the middle of making a devil advocate post to explain in depth. The short answer for the time being is found on page 93, the section outlining attacking buildings. It simply out right denies you the ability to shoot at a building unless it is occupied. The issue is a little more complicated then that, but it will give you a heads up over where the problem lies....

The fact the only rules we have address occupied buildings.

 Jimsolo wrote:

When firing the emplaced weapons, according to the community consensus, you trace LOS from the firing model, not the gun. Does this mean you trace range from the firing model too? It would seem weird for the model to fire like a vehicle in regards to one rule, but like infantry for another. If so, that gives you a large degree of wiggle room when it comes to model placement and firing your bunker weapons on a Fortress of Redemption.

This confuses me, Emplaced Weapons rules say you fire using the Models BS and the Weapons LOS... is the embedded thread just how people play it?

[Edit] Got it, Emplaced Weapons from the Weapon, Gun Emplacements from the firing model

The issue is that buildings are terrain and you need special rules when it comes to interacting with terrain. Now buildings do have a long list of rules, even one granting you permission to shoot at the section which has people inside, but in any situation not directly addressed by a rule you have to treat it as if it is just every day non-intractable terrain. An additional problem is that these rules then go on to address damaging the building in the context of it having people inside it. This means we do not have rules directly addressing what happens if an unoccupied building is 'accidentally' damaged while a unit outside of it has been targeted.

This leads to interesting questions over if it is even possible to damage a building if no one is inside of it.

The first concern is related to how blast templates, and all templates, calculate their number of hits. In order to figure out the number of hits against a unit you need to see where the blast scatters and then count the number of models under the blast. Given that the fortress is a piece of terrain, and not a model, it would generate a number of hits against it as 0 by these rules for calculating hits. This is all because the definition of what a model is requires a unit type, which doesn't include the option for a unit type: terrain or address the fact no terrain has been given a unit type.

Page 93's Attacking building section does grants you permission to treat the building as a vehicle, which is a model for all rule purposes, but still has that annoying word: Occupied.

The second concern stems from how damage works against buildings. The bold sections on page 93 inform us of how to resolve damage against the building itself. As the building does not have hull points of it's own, we are given an alternative way to allot the damage which is caused. The problem with this is it is, once more, talking about occupied buildings with no alternative method to resolve damage if the building is not occupied. For this reason it can be argued that the building being occupied is a limitation that first must be filled before the rest of the damage rules can be applied to said building.

This is based on the argument that a rule should not be applied if it can not be followed to completion, which is sensible as many rules have limitations designed to prevent you from applying them. If we had permission to simply 'half apply' a rule that would grant us the ability to ignore limitations we do not meet in any rule, picking and choosing which half we decide we want to follow. We simply can not over look half of the rule simply because it does not seem to fit the situation in question, and if a rule can not be applied to competition then you do not have permission to evoke it.

Personally, I do disagree with what I wrote above: If the blast template scatters onto a building, any building, then you should consider it as a hit as if the building was a model. Then you should roll on the penetration chart to see if you even cause damage to the building. The section about resolving damage against the embarked unit inside should be ignored, because it clearly does not apply to the situation, while the damage from a penetrating hit can easily be applied.

Also, would it be cheating to model extra firing slits on, say, bunker annexes so that troops inside could fire too?
The BRB says "firing points as per model" after all...

I like Yakface's signature points quite a bit and number one happens to addresses that very question. In order not to simply start copying their stuff without permission, I suggest you go look around for something they have posted. Being one of the moderators in charge of this part of the forums, you shouldn't find it all that difficult to locate something they have posted.

 Ratliker wrote:
Also, would it be cheating to model extra firing slits on, say, bunker annexes so that troops inside could fire too?
The BRB says "firing points as per model" after all...

Yeah, that's giving you a clear advantage that the model does not possess, and you are not given explicit permission for in the BRB, so it is modeling for advantage. Unfortunately. I wish it could be otherwise.