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I want a fortification for my Dark Reapers to hide behind, though I can't decide between an Imperial Bastion and Aegis Defence line.

These are my considerations:

Imperial Bastion

Pro's
-Tough
-Excellent line of sought for the gunners
-great LOS blocker
-can fit a secondary squad

Con's
-Static
-More expensive


Aegis Defence Line

Pro's
- Can provide cover for alot of models
- Models can move along the Line
- Cheap

Con's-
- Protects less against assaults
- Can be flanked


I'm leaning towards running a Bastion over a ADL as my reapers are the only unit that will be shooting from it but I would like to hear if any of you guys have used it to succes before.

ADL is subject to ignore cover rules while the bastion is not.

Bastion is vulnerable to being flamed by the firing ports.

That being said, a great advantage of the Reapers is the Exarch with fast shot and night vision manning the lascannon.

If you do that with a bastion your Reapers have to be on top which is no different than being behind an ADL.

If you have another sure ways of dealing with flyers than the bastion is not bad.

Try both and play around with the idea a bit.

I eventually settled for the ADL but what works for some might not work for others. I encourage you to try both builds a couple of times and see for yourself.

go with a bastion, add a quad gun.

I can share my thoughts from playing against both the ADL and the Bastion, the ADL doesn't "scare" me when I see it on the battlefield. The ADL is just an obstacle that could make some troops a bit more survivable.

The Bastion on the other hand, it can affect my strategy and how I maneuver around the board, with the troops inside, the lascannon up top, and the heavy bolters on the sides really makes me stop for a second and figure out how to deal with it depending on my army list. If I have my Tau list with my Hammerhead, it's not really a big deal except that takes my tank away from shooting at other things. Luckily the last time I faced one I was able to destroy the Bastion by assaulting the building with Farsight and a Riptide and penetrating it.

My army consists of eldar wave serpents spam although I only field 3 with tau allies for riptide/commander awesomeness action. If people shoot my bastion then my vehicles are not so that's actually quite nice.

I like the ADL simply because the rules for the placement of the Bastion make it a tactical liability.

I like the ADL for Reapers. Reapers pay for the ability to move and shoot to full effect. The bastion negates this by essentially making them stationary. Careful deployment of the ADL lets you move around the battlefield (at least laterally) to reposition them to take advantage of their range or the terrain to negate cover while still keeping the exarch near the Icarus to intercept when needed.

Yah... my Multi-Melta Speeders and Attack Bikes lick their chops when they see some one holed up inside a Bastion! And trust me, the whole "collapsing building attacks and kills 90% of your super shooty squad you thought would last all game in that nifty fortress" can be pretty demoralizing! Except for the sight blocking and fire power of a Bastion you're generally better off hiding in Ruins... or ADL, imho?

Dagger wrote:
Yah... my Multi-Melta Speeders and Attack Bikes lick their chops when they see some one holed up inside a Bastion! And trust me, the whole "collapsing building attacks and kills 90% of your super shooty squad you thought would last all game in that nifty fortress" can be pretty demoralizing! Except for the sight blocking and fire power of a Bastion you're generally better off hiding in Ruins... or ADL, imho?

You make it sound like a Bastion is more of a liability to the occuptants than a safety net.

Just remember that bastion can get blown up by a lucky shot turn 1 with a lucky shot, but if guys are inside templates and grenades will clear them out easily. I just played a game yesterday using the bunker for the wall of martyrs and my friend a nids player, ran tyranofexs, they just walked up and templated the crap out of the fire points and in 1 turn basically killed off 20 guys with 3 templates. Then if the bastion dies the dudes ontop have to jump off, not to mention the cover save up top is the same as the cover a line would grant.

I would vote for the aegis line because if your using it for 1 squad of dudes then just circle them with the line.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not to mention if your playig wave serpent spam then most of your army is probably moving forward correct? If thats happening and some how an enemy unit go to your bastion to assault it then I would assume yyour forward elements are gone and something has gone terribly wrong lol.

Added a poll so people can vote.

If I were to use the Bastion I forsee people not really caring for it to be honest.

I have a pie plate dropping Night Spinner, a ignore cover and twin-linked Riptide plus three Wave serpernt that people have to deal with. I hope to create target saturation so people have to choose.

Since the Bastion is quite important for my army as it provides excellent cover and protection for my 6 Reapers and has an Icarus Lascannon with two shots on it, it might even be worthwhile to buy a void shield. Paying 25 points to protect roughly 350 points plus a 110 point building seems like a good deal to me.

the problem with the ADL is that once the enemy gets close it provides them cover just as easily. Or if you are just even a bit from the wall it's going to start giving them cover as well.

The bastion, on the other hand, gives you LOS blocking as well as LOS gaining, the same level of AA which is much harder for your opponent to capture (remember they just need to be in BtB as well to be able to use the gun for themselves), and pretty effectivly protects the guys in side. The only downside is that it's targetable and can be taken out.

For me I far far far prefer the bastion, every time I see an ADL i just think of it as free cover to move up next too.

I'm waiting for someone to realize how hilarious it is when you throw a grenade into a bastion... Has anyone even seen the rulings for that?... It's disgusting LOL

With the Stronghold Assault rules, a Bastion can be worth it purely because you can take a Void Shield on it that is an extra AV12 layer of protection for it and everything near it, which also partially neuters attempts to alpha strike it.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
With the Stronghold Assault rules, a Bastion can be worth it purely because you can take a Void Shield on it that is an extra AV12 layer of protection for it and everything near it, which also partially neuters attempts to alpha strike it.

That was also my point exactly, it upgrade is not real expensive and it really improves your survivability.

 Barnie25 wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
With the Stronghold Assault rules, a Bastion can be worth it purely because you can take a Void Shield on it that is an extra AV12 layer of protection for it and everything near it, which also partially neuters attempts to alpha strike it.

That was also my point exactly, it upgrade is not real expensive and it really improves your survivability.

But you are also forfeiting the premium ability of the Reapers to move and shoot. If you put them in a static bastion, I can use terrain to outmaneuver them and avoid them. If you keep them mobile and behind cover, you can use your ability to move and shoot to really capitalize on them. I don't know why people are concerned about your ADL giving the enemy cover or the gun being captured. In the context we are talking about, your ADL is going to be pretty far back (normally inside your deployment zone to protect the Reapers and at least 24 inches from an enemy unit). They have to be right next to it to gain cover from it and anything that is fast enough to get over the table in one-two turns is probably a major target for your army anyway. I don't remember ever capturing a well deployed gun until it was too late in the game to matter one way or another.

PanzerLeader wrote:

 Barnie25 wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
With the Stronghold Assault rules, a Bastion can be worth it purely because you can take a Void Shield on it that is an extra AV12 layer of protection for it and everything near it, which also partially neuters attempts to alpha strike it.

That was also my point exactly, it upgrade is not real expensive and it really improves your survivability.

But you are also forfeiting the premium ability of the Reapers to move and shoot. If you put them in a static bastion, I can use terrain to outmaneuver them and avoid them. If you keep them mobile and behind cover, you can use your ability to move and shoot to really capitalize on them. I don't know why people are concerned about your ADL giving the enemy cover or the gun being captured. In the context we are talking about, your ADL is going to be pretty far back (normally inside your deployment zone to protect the Reapers and at least 24 inches from an enemy unit). They have to be right next to it to gain cover from it and anything that is fast enough to get over the table in one-two turns is probably a major target for your army anyway. I don't remember ever capturing a well deployed gun until it was too late in the game to matter one way or another.

Dark Reapers in a Bastion don't need to move to get LOS or a better firing position as the height already means that is rarely necessary on the average board. Even if you have other reasons for needing mobility desperately, you can always just pay the points for an escape hatch or buy a 10 point barricade or two straight outside the Bastion door.

BTW, in a Bastion, the emplaced weapon is fired from inside.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

 Barnie25 wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
With the Stronghold Assault rules, a Bastion can be worth it purely because you can take a Void Shield on it that is an extra AV12 layer of protection for it and everything near it, which also partially neuters attempts to alpha strike it.

That was also my point exactly, it upgrade is not real expensive and it really improves your survivability.

But you are also forfeiting the premium ability of the Reapers to move and shoot. If you put them in a static bastion, I can use terrain to outmaneuver them and avoid them. If you keep them mobile and behind cover, you can use your ability to move and shoot to really capitalize on them. I don't know why people are concerned about your ADL giving the enemy cover or the gun being captured. In the context we are talking about, your ADL is going to be pretty far back (normally inside your deployment zone to protect the Reapers and at least 24 inches from an enemy unit). They have to be right next to it to gain cover from it and anything that is fast enough to get over the table in one-two turns is probably a major target for your army anyway. I don't remember ever capturing a well deployed gun until it was too late in the game to matter one way or another.

Dark Reapers in a Bastion don't need to move to get LOS or a better firing position as the height already means that is rarely necessary on the average board. Even if you have other reasons for needing mobility desperately, you can always just pay the points for an escape hatch or buy a 10 point barricade or two straight outside the Bastion door.

I've found this to be the opposite case. I can very easily deny Reapers LOS to critical targets when I know they'll be camped in a bastion. It also makes it alot easier to slide behind terrain to negate the use of their targeters. YMMV.

 Centurian99 wrote:
BTW, in a Bastion, the emplaced weapon is fired from inside.

I think you are confusing an emplaced weapon and a gun emplacement.

 spycer wrote:

 Centurian99 wrote:
BTW, in a Bastion, the emplaced weapon is fired from inside.

I think you are confusing an emplaced weapon and a gun emplacement.

Stronghold assault makes the battlement weapon emplaced instead of an emplacement.

Also, with SA, you can buy 0-6 6" barricades for 10 points each with your bastion so you can have both a bastion and an aegis.

I see. Does that not require that you are playing in a game that allows SA, since it's an expansion rather than core rules?

 spycer wrote:
I see. Does that not require that you are playing in a game that allows SA, since it's an expansion rather than core rules?

I think you'll find that SA will find its way into core rules/normal games since most of the rules updates in it are pretty common sense and make forts work better. I imagine 'SHA without Macro Cannons/Vortex' will be a pretty popular option.

SA and Escalation are expansions, much the same as Planetstrike. You cannot use them at all unless you agree with your opponent, or the event specifically allows them.

This means I cannot make a Firestorm attack before turn 1 on a non-Planetstrike game, I cannot take Void Shields on a Bastion unless playing in a SA game. There really is no room for any argument on that point.

 spycer wrote:
There really is no room for any argument on that point.

Take it to one of the MANY threads on the subject.

 Farseer Faenyin wrote:
I like the ADL simply because the rules for the placement of the Bastion make it a tactical liability.

this, I like the bastion, and I've seen some epic conversions of it too that are just aweosme and played with and against it but its a bit frustrating when you set it up somewhere and your opponent sets the terrain to block most good shots

We don't usually set the table up piece by piece but just make a nice looking table regardless of what the other person brings. This is usually done by the player to arrive first. It's a douche move to drop a big piece of terrain in front of my Bastion / ADL just for the sake of it. I won't see that happening at my FLGS.

 Barnie25 wrote:
We don't usually set the table up piece by piece but just make a nice looking table regardless of what the other person brings. This is usually done by the player to arrive first. It's a douche move to drop a big piece of terrain in front of my Bastion / ADL just for the sake of it. I won't see that happening at my FLGS.

When I was playing in Italy we always did that and I liked it better, pretty much set everything even or intentionally sparse vs urban so it wasnt setting it out. Much more fun now here they roll a d3 for every 2x2 section of the table and people take turns placing terrain down since in brb it says forts come before terrain, I prefer the first way 1000 fold