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To preface: I'm a Space Wolf player, who almost invariably takes 12 Long Fangs and a bunch of psychic support. I've made a habit of buying them an Aegis Line with an Icarus Lascannon, but I'm wondering if it might be smart to buy them a Skyshield Landing Pad instead.
Pros of this plan: The Skyshield offers 3+ Cover over 4+, gives better Line of Sight, a 4+ invuln, mitigates the danger of being assaulted slightly (By increasing Assault range), and it 10-25 points cheaper than the Aegis.
Cons: The Aegis is a great deal more flexible, making deployment a lot easier. It's also got Anti Air, something that Space Wolves are lacking horribly (I usually patch this with SM allies, but the Icarus or Quad-Gun helps), and covers more ground.

If you can cover your AA else where with either allies or forgeworld units then I would highly recommend the skyshield. It helps against ignore cover and barrage, it gives better LoS due to the elevation, and you can use it to protect from LoS and barrage by deploying under it.

Personally its has pain in the ass rules that at least with my group cant settle on so other then that its pretty great.

A second id think would be the Wall of maryters bunker as it can let i think 8 total people fire, + take quad or icarus. + add more barricades and obstacles.

I love mine! 45 Lootas in 3 Battlewgons. Plenty of anti-air there.

 Desubot wrote:
Personally its has pain in the ass rules that at least with my group cant settle on so other then that its pretty great.

A second id think would be the Wall of maryters bunker as it can let i think 8 total people fire, + take quad or icarus. + add more barricades and obstacles.

The problem with that is, it's easy to dodge LOS from at least some of the fire points, and only 2 people firing out per fire point means that Long Fangs (with 5 Heavy Weapons) will consistently be not firing with at least one model. It's also not difficult to destroy, if my opponent has extra Anti-Tank (Which he will, I rarely bring many tanks,) the guys inside get shafted.

4 S7 shots or 1 S9 shot isn't a lot of AA anyways. I really don't care about losing it. I never have a way to get a lot of AA anyways.

The bunkers fire points allows 4 per fire point IIRC and has 2 fire points. The whole unit can fire AND if i also recall correctly again, they allow you to fire the emplacement from inside so you can also fire the quad.icarus. Il double check once i get access to my book (at home).

Edit: Actually

"Wide Fire Points: Up to four occupying models can fire out of each of this building’s fire points."

Its modeled with 2 fire points.

Further you can get 2 upgrades for it being a medium building. so you could take a void shield generator and a ammo store for reroll 1s.

Then to add to that you can also take a quad gun as an addition emplacement on the top of the building. so you can fire it from inside as well.

+ up to 6 obstacles which arnt that important.

But the obvious drawback being that it is a av14 immobile building so drop pods wll hurt it (but hopefully you can bubble wrap it)

I believe that since the Skyshield isn't a ruin, if charging models can't fit onto the platform, they can assault you. Though I don't remember how that debate ended.

 Desubot wrote:
Personally its has pain in the ass rules that at least with my group cant settle on so other then that its pretty great.

A second id think would be the Wall of maryters bunker as it can let i think 8 total people fire, + take quad or icarus. + add more barricades and obstacles.

 Nilok wrote:
I believe that since the Skyshield isn't a ruin, if charging models can't fit onto the platform, they can assault you. Though I don't remember how that debate ended.

Sigh, this is why you don't get a sky shield. The rules headaches are just not worth the trouble, unless you have a very agreeable gaming group.

I bought and built my Skyshield. It did a LOT less for me than I envisioned.

A very stagnant force could make good use of it. Relentless firing units can too. But even positioned all the way forward, I founc it was a lot less useful than I had hoped, and I was/am using a fairly heavy duty does of Deep Strikers and jump troops so it would have seemed to be the perfect thing for that army. All it did was buy the unit on it a round as the enemy wouldn't fire on what was on it but what was on it were assault troops. Lol. So in the end, it just makes a lot of sense for mobile heavy hitting shooters to use it but not so much other things.

I was VERY disappointed in it honetly. It looks F'ing awesome on the table though.

The FAQ states "ignore the references to the fire points and and access points' meaning that for all intents and purposes it is no different than an aegis that gives an invuln. I like it, and if you have lots of barrage units on top it gets even better since LOS isnt much of an issue with them. I am also not seeing how there are rules problems with it. you can jump up the side just like any building if you wanted to get off or on. Ive encountered SW players using the skyshield and ive seen it used to great effect (i also have a burning hatred for long fangs) since it becomes even more impossible to kill them without throwing men at them in melee, where they get shot to pieces.

I dont see an FAQ for stronghold assault which is the current rules for it.

The rules arguments come from things like can you go under it, does the side pillars give a 3+ or a 4+, the top is considered open ground but people came the 3+ fortification cover save when the leafs are up stuff like that.

 Desubot wrote:
I dont see an FAQ for stronghold assault which is the current rules for it.

The rules arguments come from things like can you go under it, does the side pillars give a 3+ or a 4+, the top is considered open ground but people came the 3+ fortification cover save when the leafs are up stuff like that.

The FAQ for the skyshield is in the Main Rulebook FAQ, and its been there for almost a year at this point. I do not have stronghold assault so i do not know if it makes references to firing points (and if it did its prob a lazy cut and paste job)

It's a fortification, so it gives 3+ cover as long as you've got a save from it. It also has a special rule, giving a 4+ invuln as long as the shields are up.

Its a terrain type "Unusual" not terrain type fortification.
the top is open ground while to get up and down is difficult. that's it.

otherwise all fortifications would be a 3+ (which i mean i wouldn't mind a 3+ cover behind ADL)

@General: its not a direct copy pasta surprisingly ,

 Desubot wrote:
Its a terrain type "Unusual" not terrain type fortification.
the top is open ground while to get up and down is difficult. that's it.

otherwise all fortifications would be a 3+ (which i mean i wouldn't mind a 3+ cover behind ADL)

@General: its not a direct copy pasta surprisingly ,

They even removed "enemy" so the invuln is for all shooting attacks now. I find it funny it will save you from your own blasts scattering onto the unit that fired it

There's a current poll in YMDC and you'll see that people think the cover saves could be anything from none, to 3+.

I'm with desubot here, it's not a fortification, bastions aren't either, you'd think they'd get a 3+ cover for the battlements. but the FAQ said 4+, and the ADL is 4+, and the skyshield wall looks just like those 2 walls. 4+ cover will probably win the poll and it's how it's played in the tournies in my neck of the woods.

I ask new opponents what they think it should be, and if they start at 5, I'll counter with 3, so we can agree at 4

The main faq isn't hard to understand. Tanks getting up on it while technically possible with more than 6"moves, is a little silly and the main faq should at some point address it. But as is, I find its rules entirely clear enough to play it. I just don't think it was valuable for my type of army.

 Jancoran wrote:
The main faq isn't hard to understand. Tanks getting up on it while technically possible with more than 6"moves, is a little silly and the main faq should at some point address it. But as is, I find its rules entirely clear enough to play it. I just don't think it was valuable for my type of army.

I think the vehicles getting up there is by design.

It's the solution to the Kobayashi Maru of skyshield questions. Oh no the skyshield is so full of models I can't get my models up there into b2b, so I can't assault them. what do I do?

Solution, drive your tank up there, and park it on his troops

As you can't maintain coherence from top to bottom, if some models in a unit have to move, yet other models in the unit don't get permission to move, you squish the models under the tank. Creating room to assault next turn.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:


It's the solution to the Kobayashi Maru of skyshield questions. Oh no the skyshield is so full of models I can't get my models up there into b2b, so I can't assault them. what do I do?

Solution, drive your tank up there, and park it on his troops

As you can't maintain coherence from top to bottom, if some models in a unit have to move, yet other models in the unit don't get permission to move, you squish the models under the tank. Creating room to assault next turn.

you move the models under it the minimum distance to get out from under the tank, if that's off the skypad its not a problem.

ive always liked the idea of 35 MoT cultists sat on one with a 3++ vs shooting. Guarunteed scorage for late game.

wtnind wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:


It's the solution to the Kobayashi Maru of skyshield questions. Oh no the skyshield is so full of models I can't get my models up there into b2b, so I can't assault them. what do I do?

Solution, drive your tank up there, and park it on his troops

As you can't maintain coherence from top to bottom, if some models in a unit have to move, yet other models in the unit don't get permission to move, you squish the models under the tank. Creating room to assault next turn.

you move the models under it the minimum distance to get out from under the tank, if that's off the skypad its not a problem.

ive always liked the idea of 35 MoT cultists sat on one with a 3++ vs shooting. Guarunteed scorage for late game.

Except his point is that you can't maintain coherency between the models on top of the skyshield and those on the bottom, thus killing the models who would be forced to move to the bottom.

PanzerLeader wrote:

Except his point is that you can't maintain coherency between the models on top of the skyshield and those on the bottom, thus killing the models who would be forced to move to the bottom.

I thought vertical coherency was done from the tops of models to the bottom of the next one and could be 3" (as per the section on multi level ruins)

 Desubot wrote:
The bunkers fire points allows 4 per fire point IIRC and has 2 fire points. The whole unit can fire AND if i also recall correctly again, they allow you to fire the emplacement from inside so you can also fire the quad.icarus. Il double check once i get access to my book (at home).

Edit: Actually

"Wide Fire Points: Up to four occupying models can fire out of each of this building’s fire points."

Its modeled with 2 fire points.

Further you can get 2 upgrades for it being a medium building. so you could take a void shield generator and a ammo store for reroll 1s.

Then to add to that you can also take a quad gun as an addition emplacement on the top of the building. so you can fire it from inside as well.

+ up to 6 obstacles which arnt that important.

But the obvious drawback being that it is a av14 immobile building so drop pods wll hurt it (but hopefully you can bubble wrap it)

Plus there is the bunkerpult. The escape hatch sling shots units out of it.

wtnind wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

Except his point is that you can't maintain coherency between the models on top of the skyshield and those on the bottom, thus killing the models who would be forced to move to the bottom.

I thought vertical coherency was done from the tops of models to the bottom of the next one and could be 3" (as per the section on multi level ruins)

For ruins specificially, its a 6" spread measured from "any part of the body of a model on a lower level" to the "base of a model that is higher up." Its page 592 of 869 in the e-book.

Since the Skyshield is not a ruin, you would measure 2" from top of model to bottom of base to check coherency. I haven't measured it out but I'm guessing it'd be close. It also wouldn't really matter if those models died or not since just tank shocking up there achieves the effect you need of forcing an opening for you to exploit on the subsequent turn.

PanzerLeader wrote:

wtnind wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:

Except his point is that you can't maintain coherency between the models on top of the skyshield and those on the bottom, thus killing the models who would be forced to move to the bottom.

I thought vertical coherency was done from the tops of models to the bottom of the next one and could be 3" (as per the section on multi level ruins)

For ruins specificially, its a 6" spread measured from "any part of the body of a model on a lower level" to the "base of a model that is higher up." Its page 592 of 869 in the e-book.

Since the Skyshield is not a ruin, you would measure 2" from top of model to bottom of base to check coherency. I haven't measured it out but I'm guessing it'd be close. It also wouldn't really matter if those models died or not since just tank shocking up there achieves the effect you need of forcing an opening for you to exploit on the subsequent turn.

Regular space marines and ork boys are not tall enough, to measure from the top. But that is irrelevant. As the skyshield is not a ruin, you are still measuring B2B (pg4) and the height of the skyshield is a tad over 3"

The skyshiled is exactly 3.5" tall. So a one inch model would not be in coherency. has to be at least 1.5 inch tall models. So some can do it and some can't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The skyshiled is exactly 3.5" tall. So a one inch model would not be in coherency. has to be at least 1.5 inch tall models. So some can do it and some can't.