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Disregarding the standard internet advice to use an ADL instead, the Iron Warrior in me wants to deploy a heavy fortification.

Upon reviewing the rules, it seems that you'd need two squads to hold it, one inside and one on the roof (assuming you're using a quad gun or icarus). It makes the most sense that the squad on the roof has some sort of medium/long range weapon to help provide support support. The interior squad can either use their own weapons from the firepoint or fire off a few heavy bolter shots.

Oddly enough, I'm flirting with the idea of putting some bloodletters in the interior. They'd have some protection from incoming fire and be able to beat most squads who want to assault the bastion. BS5 heavy bolters is just the gravy.

 minigun762 wrote:
Disregarding the standard internet advice to use an ADL instead, the Iron Warrior in me wants to deploy a heavy fortification.

Upon reviewing the rules, it seems that you'd need two squads to hold it, one inside and one on the roof (assuming you're using a quad gun or icarus). It makes the most sense that the squad on the roof has some sort of medium/long range weapon to help provide support support. The interior squad can either use their own weapons from the firepoint or fire off a few heavy bolter shots.

Oddly enough, I'm flirting with the idea of putting some bloodletters in the interior. They'd have some protection from incoming fire and be able to beat most squads who want to assault the bastion. BS5 heavy bolters is just the gravy.

I'm very familiar with tactics used for Bastions. Generally speaking, the Bastion is optimal when occupied by units that are:

-Strong shooting threats that would typically attract fire
-With few (ideally 2-4) relevant weapons in a squad (so, not Lootaz)
-That would otherwise have to invest in extra squad members or other upgrades for protection

The best unit I've found to run inside Bastions has been the Broadside Battlesuit team. By running a Bastion, you get to skimp on Drones. The Bastion provides great Line of Sight and protects them from enemy shooting threats. Twin-linked AV14 railguns need to be taken seriously by practically every army! Other good units to put inside a Bastion include Tau Pathfinders, Vindicare Assassins, Dark Eldar Trueborn with lances, Inquisitorial Servitors with plasma cannons, Devastators/Havocs/Long Fangs of all types, etc.

As for units on the Bastion, typically I find that only 5 models or so should be up there (otherwise you're too densely packed). Whoever is up there will have a reliable 4+ cover from the battlements, so units with Stealth or Shrouding might be a good choice. My personal favorite is the Tau Command Suit-- he can jump up on the top in the movement phase, shoot both the Quad-gun and another weapon (with a hard-wired multi-tracker) and then use his assault phase move to jump off the back of the Bastion and hide from enemy fire! This combination has been useful to me in many contexts.

Retributors love bastions.

Heavy support squads work well in a bastion. You can set it up so you have 4 fire points on one side.
That's perfect for long fangs, etc...

For daemons? They really don't need a bastion.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Heavy support squads work well in a bastion. You can set it up so you have 4 fire points on one side.
That's perfect for long fangs, etc...

For daemons? They really don't need a bastion.

I've modeled mine with 4 fire points in the general same direction, but it generally isn't needed. In the rules for buildings 2 models can fire from a single firepoint.

I think Bastions might be hurt by the meta a little bit. Heldrake doesn't care about bastions. Neither does the increasingly popular heavy incinerator toting Dreadknight. Or the Burning Brand. In fact, that thing is a deathtrap. Deep-strike melta will kill everything in and on that thing.
If you're intent on running one, I would think that you would want it bubble wrapped. But when you're doing that, you're setting up around a non-movable position that isn't an objective (doesn't mean you can't put one back behind it). The concept of fortifications in general in 6th is tough to handle because nearly every game is objective based. Being immobile is a hinderance to taking those objectives and winning. KNowing that, you'd probably want to make sure its right near an objective, or directly between 2 of them or something like that.

 Goat wrote:

 labmouse42 wrote:
Heavy support squads work well in a bastion. You can set it up so you have 4 fire points on one side.
That's perfect for long fangs, etc...

For daemons? They really don't need a bastion.

I've modeled mine with 4 fire points in the general same direction, but it generally isn't needed. In the rules for buildings 2 models can fire from a single firepoint.

One guy I know put all 4 heavy bolters on one side. He also put all the fire points high on the model so they could not be hit by gernades from the ground level.
Legal but ... yea ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brymm wrote:
I think Bastions might be hurt by the meta a little bit. Heldrake doesn't care about bastions. Neither does the increasingly popular heavy incinerator toting Dreadknight. Or the Burning Brand. In fact, that thing is a deathtrap. Deep-strike melta will kill everything in and on that thing.

I've been seeing more deep strike melta lately and less PGs. Have you been seeing the same?

We have been playing quite a few games with some bastions, mostly a modified mission to mimic a Planet Strike game. I think there are some pros a cons to it.

Pro
-The quad/icarus hun tends to have good line of sight to most things on the board, except when they are very close to bastion.
-If you plan it right the heavy bolters on the bastion can help give you some added fire power.
-The bastion can block line of sight, so you may be able to hide barrage units behind it.
-Armour 14 and 4+ cover on the battlement does help.
-The unit inside are fearless.
-You can overwatch on a unit assaulting the bastion with a unit inside, just can't use the heavy bolters for that.

Con
-If a unit gets close to the bastion, the unit on top with any gun may not have line of sight.
-Units inside die very easy from damage to the bastion, flamers and grenades. The amount of hits can really add up.
-Because of the size of the battlement you cannot put a lot of models on it, which is okay because having lots of models on there means blast weapon do more damage. Having less though makes it so you might have to take a morale check and then jump off the battlement, most likely to you death.
-Barrage weapons that target the unit on top can be very devastating.

I like the bastions and am trying to come up with more ways to make them playable over the ADL. I still think the ADL is a bit better. I think the option to block line of sight with it might be one of the best reasons to take it, second would be added fire power from the heavy bolters.

I play Orks and Dark Angels. With my orks I usually put a grot unit on the top manning a quad gun and then depending on what mission we are playing I may put some boyz inside.

With my Dark Angels I have tried it with a dev squad on top with flakk missiles and a tac squad inside with a heavy bolter, it worked okay. I read somewhere that someone was going to try and put some IC inside with a PFG so that the units on top get 4++ and vehicles around it could also. Might be nice to hide some whirlwinds behind it.

 Brymm wrote:
I think Bastions might be hurt by the meta a little bit. Heldrake doesn't care about bastions. Neither does the increasingly popular heavy incinerator toting Dreadknight. Or the Burning Brand. In fact, that thing is a deathtrap. Deep-strike melta will kill everything in and on that thing.

I'm not sure if you're any safer with an ADL. At least with the bastion you aren't getting vector strikes on your head. Plus in a world of plasma and autocannons, having an AV14 base is safer than any cover save.

So first, the guys on top of that fortification have a 3+ cover save. Cover chart on page 18.

For those on top, I have tried out like minded units, so for chaos, using a quad gun up top, place your auto cannon havocs up there.

For eldar, rangers are great up there, stealth giving them a 2+ cover save.

Inside, I've been putting a squad of cultists, they become fearless, can step out to claim that objective you placed directly behind the bastion, and if they do take damage from shots at the bastion, it doesn't matter as much.

A friend of mine likes to use lascannon havocs in there since they really benefit from the inability to target them.

I'm not sure if torrent changes the way the templates effect the bastion, but normally you have to be in base to base contact to flame all those within. If that's still the case, that heldrake or dreadknight has to get all the way across the table and touch the building. Forces the flier into a bad next turn, or into hover mode. The dreadknight has to be spot on with his deep strike, or he has to slog towards it for a couple of turns.

Deep striking melta can ruin your day, but I feel like generally about 300 points of my army into a bastion and occupants is worth the distraction for that melta squad, and the amount of firepower that it will soak up from across the board.

I wouldn't suggest the bloodletters because unfortunately you can not assault from the bastion, so it takes a turn of standing there slack jawed while the enemy shoots and charges you.

 seapheonix wrote:
So first, the guys on top of that fortification have a 3+ cover save. Cover chart on page 18.

I thought it was FAQ'd to 4+.

 seapheonix wrote:
So first, the guys on top of that fortification have a 3+ cover save. Cover chart on page 18.

No they don't. First rulebook FAQ that came out changed battlements to be 4+ cover.

FAQ wrote:Q.What is the armour value of battlements? (p95)
A: Battlements have no armour value as they are not a building. They serve to protect any models on the roof of the building in the same way as barricades and walls (see page 104), offering a 4+ cover save.

 seapheonix wrote:
I'm not sure if torrent changes the way the templates effect the bastion, but normally you have to be in base to base contact to flame all those within.

Torrent allows you to place the template starting point within 12" of the firing model/weapon, as page 43 says. So no reason to get close. Also, Bastion is about 5" per side and template is 8" long, I don't think that being at base contact with bastion would be required even for normal flamer.

Dark angels build I used with it a few times.

HQ
Librarian PFG prescience
Command squad banner of devastation apothecary
All in a crusader

Troops
3 x 10 tac 1 PC in each
3 x TLLC razorbacks

Fast attack
4 x typhon or 2 typhon and 2 shrouds

Heavy
2 x dev 4 ML flakk

Bastion w Icarus LC
Bastion w Icarus at front edge of deployment zone.
2 x 5 man devs w ML in it
Crusader pulls up at parks in front of it turn 1
Bastion n 3 tacs all in range of banner and PFG

Speeders n razors reach out and touch long range threats.

Gives a 24 inch kill zone set 8 to 12 inches off your board edge 132 bolter shots, 8 mL w flak option, 4 HB and with the ability to reach pretty much anywhere on the board w 1 str 9 ap 2, 3 tl str 9 ap 2 TL and missiles from the speeders. The PFG in the crusader can cover 90 percent of the army and prescience for a bonus.

Luide wrote:

 seapheonix wrote:
So first, the guys on top of that fortification have a 3+ cover save. Cover chart on page 18.

No they don't. First rulebook FAQ that came out changed battlements to be 4+ cover.

FAQ wrote:Q.What is the armour value of battlements? (p95)
A: Battlements have no armour value as they are not a building. They serve to protect any models on the roof of the building in the same way as barricades and walls (see page 104), offering a 4+ cover save.

 seapheonix wrote:
I'm not sure if torrent changes the way the templates effect the bastion, but normally you have to be in base to base contact to flame all those within.

Torrent allows you to place the template starting point within 12" of the firing model/weapon, as page 43 says. So no reason to get close. Also, Bastion is about 5" per side and template is 8" long, I don't think that being at base contact with bastion would be required even for normal flamer.

!
DOH

Well, there I am, standing corrected. Learn a new rule every day. Makes me wonder if GW didn't intend that the bastion as a fortification be a 3+, what does count as a fortification and grant a 3+?

As to templates, I must be remembering a 5th edition rule or something, since it says if any part of the template covers any fire points, it does d6 hits to those inside.

I would still say the bastion can be better, especially if you have some 20 cultists inside. d6 hits is a probably a lot less then if you had them out in an adl.

No chance you have proof that says the bloodletters can charge out of the bastion and assault someone is there? I would love it if they would change that rule.

Luide wrote:

 seapheonix wrote:
I'm not sure if torrent changes the way the templates effect the bastion, but normally you have to be in base to base contact to flame all those within.

Torrent allows you to place the template starting point within 12" of the firing model/weapon, as page 43 says. So no reason to get close. Also, Bastion is about 5" per side and template is 8" long, I don't think that being at base contact with bastion would be required even for normal flamer.

D6 hits isn't going to make that much of a difference. Heck, the unit would take more hits out in the open.

As for someone earlier saying Daemons don't benefit from a Bastion, I plan on putting a Horror squad in mine. Since only one is technically shooting I only need one opening for the Horror and one for the Herald.

My mention about 'letters being inside was more a function of their BS5 than anything else.

Two dual plasma squad of csms, one inside and one on top seem more reasonable. Plenty of extra guys to fire the heavy bolters and AA gun.

How about Rangers on top and Reapers inside...?

What about Telion and scouts with camo cloaks. Telion mans Icarus while squad gets 2+ cover and good LOS