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So, I'm bouncing back and forth on ideas for my next 40k army, and was debating on a bunker style IG army, all about picking a corner and holding it.

With that in mind, I was considering centering the army around a FoR, to give me something to bunker around, hide my artillery behind, and generally weather anything my opponent throws at me.

I'd still be a mostly horde-ish IG list, with lots of bodies to put in front of the fort in addition to the guys inside and behind it, but I was just wondering.

Just how good/bad is the fort? I've never seen anyone play with anything but a defensive line, so I don't know what it's like on the table. Easily destroyed? Hard to remove? More or a disadvantage than an advantage?

It is not-too-bad. I'll be taking one in my next tournament list, and i'm still getting all the rules to fit in my head.

Four separate AV 14 buildings, each with a battlement to shoot from, plus a long ranged indirect missile silo, a twin-linked Icarus with skyfire and Interceptor and optional H-bolters.

The walkway and Missile Silo buildings have fire points to shoot from. Some people like to argue that the other buildings do too, as it's not specifically labelled how many it has. I run mine that the only firepoints are the ones on the walkway building and the door on the missile bunker, but i've seen it claimed by some folk that every building has as many firepoints as they need for their unit to shoot out of

Its not easy to destroy, but not unkillable. Each building has to be killed seperately, and it takes a fair beating to totally wreck one. The building damage table is different from the vehicle one. If you face anyone with melta-love or Lances it won't last all that long, and any penetrating hit reduces the armour of the building.

The weapons are Emplaced, meaning that you use the LOS of the weapon, but the BS and special rules of the person inside the building shooting it, or you can leave it on Autofire if the building is occupied.

I'd suggest really reading up on the Buildings rules before fielding it. It tends to cause rules arguments. Not as bad as the Skyshield though.

Also, bear in mind that whenever the building takes a hit the folks inside do too. If the building takes major damage the occupants are basically fethed, especially if they are T3, low armour like eldar, DE or guard. Marines or worse yet Termies are far harder to shift.

Grenades lobbed into the fire points are also a squad-killer unless you are tough and have good armour (Marines etc).

All in all, i'd rate it as decent, worth the points, but nowhere near as obscene as some people would suggest.

Also, the model is slap-your-grandma expensive

So, something pretty solid to hide my artillery behind and bunker up my cheap but firepower heavy infantry in, gotcha.

Are the battlements wide enough to fit HWSs?

It looks more than tall enough to hide a couple vehicles behind, plus some infantry.

Rules interaction wise, how does leaving and entering the battlements/building work? Can I keep a couple squads in reserve behind the building so that if a squad gets messed up inside, I can have them leave then run another unit inside in the same movement phase, keeping my numbers up?

I remember the Lascannon can be shot by a model, but does the missle get shot by one as well? Am I going to want to run a model specifically to use it?

It's not small.

I run DE or Orks in mine (my main armies) and you can hide a venom or trukk completely behind the walls.

Not sure on HWS's as i don't play guard, but the walkway paths are wide enough for a 40 mm base at least.

The moving in/out around the buildings is a bit complex for my tired brain to summarise right now. It's all in the buldings section of the rulebook. Each building/battlement can only hold one unit per though, much like a vehicle.

The missile silo needs a model to shoot it unless you want it on auto (which still needs someone in the building). It has LOS only straight up though, so it'll be firing indirectly unless something is looming over the silo, like a trygon

I crotch-shot a Reaver Titan with one last game. Didn't hurt it any, but the crew were probably a bit surprised..

How precisely do you win games with the strategy of "picking a corner and holding it"?

It seems counterproductive for most of the multi-objective gametypes and not as good for the VP.

Bastion has a much similar purpose, costs less points, and costs less money. Depending on how Terrain setup is you can usually use Bastion + terrain to good effect.

Personally if I ever came to a table and found someone hiding in a corner with a FoR I'd just walk away.

I suggest you put Manticores behind it. Thats about as cheap and rapey as it gets. But of course, I wouldn't just walk away from that... no, that one deserves a right ass kickin

While this isn't tactics: good luck carrying it anywhere, and good luck getting a game or being able to bring it to a tournament. It's pretty much reserved for apocalypse only.

Definitely check with your local TO and FLGS. Some people ban them due to the size and hassle it creates.

A friend of mine fields one with his SOB army. It's expensive, nasty, and tough, but not invincible. Many people don't know how to deal with them, as they are just used to seeing ADLs and quadguns as fortification picks. Most armies should have a way to deal with AV 14, and you rarely need to deal with all the building sections.

It does commit you to a static defense. Not only are you sinking a lot of points into the building itself, but generally at least 3 units to man it. So you have a lot less of an army to go out and seize objectives.

Its full of cheese, thats what it is. Well, not always, but i could be. I stole one from my oponent once with lilith and her wych pack. I looked at the unused fragstorm missile and smiled. Fired it at a huge bunch of termies and thanks to liliths rule that all her attacks ignore saves, wiped over half of them out. To be fair he was the local meta gamer, i wouldn't pull that on anyone else. I've also seen a vindicare allocate each and every wound done by a krakstorm missile onto the dark angles lion helm guy in a massive guard blob, after 15 or so saves he finally got instant killed, sry dude

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I've also seen a vindicare allocate each and every wound done by a krakstorm missile

Lol, that's pretty amusing. RAI? feth the (GW) Police!
It's just such an obnoxious model. So freaking huge.

Well if used correctly it can be nasty as hell, for 300 pts you get a large blast AP 2(?) weapon that can hit pretty much any where on a standard board.

+ you got a great anti air unit. Also it ends up working to the enamy's disadvantage if they try to block the LoS of the anti air.

By blocking it it would allow your krak storm to fire from cover.

You can also place the fort 3" from an objective, load a troop squad in there and on the last turn move them out and take an objective.

The down side again is the size of the thing and finding places that will let you use it, ia have not had any problems with places saying no you cant us it but i cant speak for every store.

I tried one out the other day on Vassal. If you have a unit with +1 to cover/stealth, 2+ battlements are crazy. They're great for heavy weapon teams/Devastators as well. They seem somewhat gimmicky though - if your opponent knows you're going to be rocking them, then you can expect to see more melta weapons ways to deal with it crop up.

I played against it once and only saw one played once, and I must say I pretty much ignored it the whole time and just spent my time taking the objective sitting on it. I was facing a chaos/guard army and he placed a deathstrike missile on one of the battlements with a camo cloak which made it a very tough target to pop with shooting. Not sure I that is something you plan on doing or not, but it worked for him. Overall I thought it was fun to play against, I didn't come across any problems or game breaking turn of events. Just assaulted it like any other bunkered down army.

i have used this a few times. and an opponent who knows what hes doing will focus fire on the parts of the fortress with the guns that worry him the most, usually the missile silo first followed by the lazcannon. all it takes is 1 or 2 good hits to knock the weapon off. a few things:

1. the rules state it has fire points AS PER THE MODEL - default, the only fire points are in the walkway. use some rhino windhield bits or something to model more on if you want. but default only the center walkway has fire points.

2. if you deploy a unit in said building, it can be shot. however if you do NOT deploy anything inside, then it will fire automated, (at the closest target) with BS 2. so maybe thats a way to prevent your guns being wrecked untill you clear up some anti tank fire coming your way.

3. the thing is huge. it literally can take up 80% of your deployment zone, and not leave much space afterwards for other things. it also means your opponent will have ZERO trouble driving up with some meltaguns. so be aware of transports.

4. if you do plan on manning the actual weapons, i suggest taking the 4 HB and mounting 2 each on each silo / bunker. since *most* of the results that destroy weapons choose a random one, you have a 2/3 chance to have a HB go away instead of the big gun you paid 300+ points to get.

5. be aware of assaults. units with hammers, chain fists, etc even melta bombs can be very very bad if they get close, so i suggest deploying some cover infront of your fort, and deploying bubble wrap or other defence units. the fortress is good... but you REALLY need a good amount of men and weapons on field to defend it - otherwise the other guy can just beat it into submission. also do EVERYTHING in your power to prevent him getting inside. that means place the 1 door in a spot thats hard for him to reach, protect it, and stop JI from getting close (as they can land on the battlements and gain acsess that way.

I've played twice against a guy who ran Space Wolves w/Tau or just Space Wolves, all bunkered up on top of the thing. Think lots of Missile Spam Long Fangs, plus Prescience for better Krakstorm deviations, plus broadsides on the very tip top to get LoS to everything. I think I got Emperor's Will both times against him, which very much favored him -- getting First Blood is easy with all that firepower, and putting his objective right at the bottom of his walls meant that I had to engage, instead of ignore. The Krakstorm's barrage + an additional Whirlwind also meant that he could still engage my cheap objective holders, so I couldn't just put, say, a three-man henchmen unit in a razorback on the objective.

This tactic works okay (good in missions where you can force the enemy to come to you), until you face anything that can close in quickly on an entrenched target and use cover-ignoring weapons to destroy all the clumped up dudes camping on it. Now I wonder... this seems familiar, but I can't place which model can do these things, and which everyone is taking two or three of...

The critical strategic pitfall that the Fortress of Redemption gives to those who use it, is a voluntary loss of initiative. Not the 'going first' initiative, but the initiative of getting things done on the board. You've telegraphed your camping strategy to your opponent, unless you bring enough mobile troops to give field presence, and with the expense of the FoR, it's tough.

tl;dr the FoR can be used to good effect, but it's got some tactical shortcomings (heldrake) and strategic shortcomings (loss of board presence).

The FoR is really awesome with an Eldar Reaper exarch with fast shot. Suddenly your 1 shot weapon is 2 shots. 2 shot krak storm is pretty good, 2 shot icarus is a death kneel for an oncoming flyer.

The end bunkers not having access points makes them impossible to kill the people inside with grenades. they suddenly become a bit safer but you loose the firepower inside.

Dark Angels can also give the whole building a 4++ if you stick a PFG libby into the cross walk.

IG artillery lists also sync well with it. A few manticores and basilisks can cover the entire board and you can bring board presence with vendetta-vets without any real sacrifice.

Flamers/hellturkey are somewhat problematic against the center annex with the firing points but the two end bunkers have no firing points so the template weapon cannot hurt the squad inside.

The real concern is logistical. Is there any logistics genius that can figure out how to transport this thing reasonably? I like the model and the rules are nice but like has been mentioned before it is huge, so big that you will be challenged transporting it and setting it up is the entire reason fortifications are set up before terrain.

Both the FoR and skyshield are unfair IMO. The FoR can be used to camp on 2 objectives pretty much without reproach, while the landing pad.... the landing pad. I played an apoc game where A guy had 2/3 of his IG army camping up there, 4+ cover saves abound. Ah well, they are banned in most tourneys and many players outright refuse to play against them.

I wouldn't refuse to play a Fortress of Redemption since your opponent is basically committing a huge chunk of their list to remaining stationary, but they're just very impractical to play with. Now the Skyshield on the other hand... that thing's just incredibly dirty.

The sky shield is great when you are IG, to play against. Why yes I did bring 2 manticores...You bunched up all of your stuff on top of that sky shield, why yes I brought S10 large blasts that are now assured hits. It is also super fun if you get the first turn to deep strike your own stuff onto the skyshield.

The FoR is just a logistic nightmare not even remotely a game breaking unit. I would rather my opponent brought a FoR than 2 hellturkeys or 2 vendettas.

Actually both of those models are banned because of how hard they are to incorporate into tournaments rather than brokeness. The skyshield is a nightmare to play with if anything moves under it.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Both the FoR and skyshield are unfair IMO. The FoR can be used to camp on 2 objectives pretty much without reproach, while the landing pad.... the landing pad. I played an apoc game where A guy had 2/3 of his IG army camping up there, 4+ cover saves abound. Ah well, they are banned in most tourneys and many players outright refuse to play against them.

Not really.

You can't put an objective inside a FOR and you can't claim one from inside either. You could put one behind it, but Deepstrike, Outflank etc get around that.

Also remember that every glancing or pen hit that the fortress takes also causes a hit on those inside. Stuffing it full of terminators would be a bit dirty, but regular T 3, Ap 5 guys will get killed off pretty quick. Pen hits can do far more in the way of hits to those inside. The thing is more like a deathtrap than a bunker if the enemy brought heavy weapons.

Flamers and grenades through the firepoints will also leave the unit inside FUBAR. T-hammer termies pounding on the walls likewise.

Like anything else in the game, it can be dealt with, and with the right tools it's more of a liability than a help.


The Pad is only an issue if the player is being a jerk. I've played with and against it, with a ruling here or there to make the thing work, and it's fine. It's the gaps in the rules and the folk that like skirting them that are the issue.

There are far dirtier things than either in the game