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Wait, am I getting this right.

So Defense Lines are crippled because instead of giving you an amazing cover save, they get promoted to a Line of Sight blocking piece by your opponent. So you have an even better defensive position than before.

But oh wait, I forgot you didn't buy the defense line for the defense. You did it for the weapon emplacement. And instead of constructing it like it is in the rulebook, you made it a single line.
This results in the possibility of having a large piece of terrain being put in front of it. So you come to the forum complaining and calling everyone who would do that a bad sport, while the simplest solution would be to change the way you place the defense line. By making it in the shape of an upside down U and placing the gun where the opening is you can prevent terrain ever becoming an issue.

But you're right, it's better to blame the other player, because you payed 50 points for that gun (which CRIPPLES AV10-11 Flyers, yeah I said it ...).

No amount of terrain placement can take away the benefit of a Fortification truly. Okay, if blocked they may be downgraded to good instead of incredible.

DutchSage wrote:
So you have an even better defensive position than before.

No, it's a much worse defensive position for most units. Now instead of a 4+ cover save that I can shoot from I have a LOS blocker that is only useful for hiding a cheap scoring unit behind. And of course in the 1/3 of the missions that don't allow me to place an objective behind the LOS blocker my ADL is completely worthless unless I'm playing IG with barrage weapons.

By making it in the shape of an upside down U and placing the gun where the opening is you can prevent terrain ever becoming an issue.

How does changing the shape of the ADL prevent me from putting it in an upside down bucket? In fact this makes it even easier for me, since I can use a smaller bucket to cover your smaller ADL formation.

(which CRIPPLES AV10-11 Flyers, yeah I said it ...)

Err, lol? You do realize you can easily kill the gun before the flyers arrive, jink to avoid hits, and bring multiple flyers so that even if one gets shot down the others will get through, right?

No amount of terrain placement can take away the benefit of a Fortification truly.

Your entire fortification is in lethal terrain. Good luck getting any benefit from it.

DutchSage wrote:
Wait, am I getting this right.

So Defense Lines are crippled because instead of giving you an amazing cover save, they get promoted to a Line of Sight blocking piece by your opponent. So you have an even better defensive position than before.

But oh wait, I forgot you didn't buy the defense line for the defense. You did it for the weapon emplacement. And instead of constructing it like it is in the rulebook, you made it a single line.
This results in the possibility of having a large piece of terrain being put in front of it. So you come to the forum complaining and calling everyone who would do that a bad sport, while the simplest solution would be to change the way you place the defense line. By making it in the shape of an upside down U and placing the gun where the opening is you can prevent terrain ever becoming an issue.

But you're right, it's better to blame the other player, because you payed 50 points for that gun (which CRIPPLES AV10-11 Flyers, yeah I said it ...).

No amount of terrain placement can take away the benefit of a Fortification truly. Okay, if blocked they may be downgraded to good instead of incredible.

Actually, I played it in more of an 0 shape, like in the book... and then the terrain was dropped in front of that, which made it even easier to block off. And, yes, I spent points on it so I could get (by spending more points) the gun. Though i don't think any of the stormravens the people I play against break out are AV 11...

But sure, I'm blaming the other player. Silly me for being annoyed for trying to use free terrain to cancel part of my point-selected force organization. I guess I'll just go build some terrain that's obviously hostile to use instead. Because that sounds like the way the game is intended to be played- through terrain escalation rather than armed forces.

Oh silent,

Don't forget the fire rate of these long-range anti-tank weapons. Cause it would be really possible to defend an objective from a ten man 'scoring' unit by picking them off one at a time with the massive lasguns intending to used against, I don't know, tanks. It isn't like the game is automatically over by turn seven or something, ensuring you will never be able to kill enough to actually defend the objective from being captured. Also, who has ever heard of someone using the first few turns to do anything other then rushing blindly into the most defended objective on the other side of the board....

/Sarcasm

JinxDragon wrote:
Cause it would be really possible to defend an objective from a ten man 'scoring' unit by picking them off one at a time with the massive lasguns intending to used against, I don't know, tanks.

Does the unit holding the fortification not have guns...?

Is there even a rules discussion here anymore? Perhaps another forum would be better for this discussion?

 insaniak wrote:

clively wrote:
I have yet to play a game where we follow the "normal" rules of placing fortifications before terrain; no one I've run into likes it.

Mainly because the whole concept of picking sides before terrain is placed is pointless. Let's see, do I want this side of the completely blank table or that side...

You pick sides before terrain because your fortification has to go in your half of the board. Which you couldn't do if you didn't know which half of the board was yours until after placing terrain...

I think you misunderstood. To illustrate, the rules define the order as:

1. Pick mission
2. Pick deployment
3. Roll to see who picks the Table half
4. Place fortifications.
5. Place Terrain
6. Place objectives
7. .....

As is, Step 3 is completely irrelevant. There is zero point in rolling to pick the table half as there is literally zero difference between each half at this point. The rules may as well have said all Imperial armies get the side closest to the bathroom and it would have been equally pointless. The fix to this is easy: Either place terrain before doing anything else or do so immediately after selecting deployment but before selecting table half. Then that roll makes sense; otherwise you might as well skip it.

Yes, I got your point the first time. You still need to choose your table half before you can place your fortification in your table half.

The fact that it makes no difference which half you choose doesn't change that.

The situation wasn't involving units inside the structure, it was sarcasm to point out how useless the main gun would be in such a situation. The crippling of that gun's arc of fire is the main point I have against the 'terrain blocking.' Sure the line of sight blocking for a unit inside is frustrating, but that unit still has the ability to disembark and move around on it's own so it is only an inconvenience to said unit. It is far less of a problem for embarked units, so not really something I am addressing.

Hence, I didn't care about the unit inside but lets give it serious thought.

Fire points on these structures are often one a side, but sometimes two or three. This means between two and six models could be able to fire instead of the full squad. With the standard probability of wounding, the chance to wipe out the whole attacking squad still is not guaranteed when you add in the squad element. More so when you consider that the 'attacking' side is going to delay charging the objective till the last few turns, in order to increase their chance of holding it at the end of the game. This could ensure you have only one or two turn to wipe out the whole unit, which is possible but far from guaranteed.

If I was the defending side I would disembark them in order to fire all weapons and increase the probability of killing the attacking unit. It would also open the option to assault instead, denying the objective outright. This renders the fortification into nothing more then a metal box to hide in till time came to jump out and say surprise. If I was the defending player, I would use a building to get the same result and use the 100-250 points to invest in something with more usability then 'sit there and hope they come close.' It could easily equal the price of a tank, one that would be able to do everything the fortress can do but has the added ability of being able to move around line of sight blocking terrain. Far better investment for points, in my opinion.

If I was the offensive player I wouldn't even bother with an objective that I'm likely not going to be able to score, making it so the unit inside doesn't get a chance to even come into play. Instead I would focus on the other objective points which are in less defended positions, or likely already in my control. The only time I would eye such an objective is if I really needed the victory point, and by the time it comes apparent it is likely too late for me to even think about taking on the fortress and overcoming the slim chance that I won't be denied the objective anyway.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Agreed Rig,

We are no longer discussing the rules but if fortifications are a valuable tactic or not. This is always going to be personal opinion, which differs from person to person and doesn't need anything more then 'I feel it is this way' to support it. I am going to step back myself from this thread as all that can been said has been said, and my inclusion is just fanning the flames of a pointless argument that has nothing to do with the rules behind it.

The rule based questions where answered long ago....

JinxDragon wrote:
The situation wasn't involving units inside the structure, it was sarcasm to point out how useless the main gun would be in such a situation.

Well, yes, the fortification's gun is useless if there is no unit inside...

More so when you consider that the 'attacking' side is going to delay charging the objective till the last few turns, in order to increase their chance of holding it at the end of the game.

Less of an issue if you are using Mysterious Objectives, since it's often rather advantageous to hold objectives earlier.

This renders the fortification into nothing more then a metal box to hide in till time came to jump out and say surprise.

OK. So, again, fortifications aren't really worth their points.

That's not your opponent's fault.