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Doing some research for my Imperial Fists army and realized I had no clue about how damage is done to buildings themselves.

On some quick research in the rulebook, it sounds like shooting the building itself to clear it out from a distance with a Devastator squad should actually work pretty well with the Imperial Fists' new chapter tactics.

Has anyone had success using this tactic in the past? I think it'd be amazing to have a whole unit of the enemy think they're safe only to have the whole building get rocked around them.

-RD

Well Stronghold assault hashed it out a little.
Basically buildings have to be claimed to be able to shoot it.
Things you purchase start as claimed.
when you enter an unoccupied building it becomes claimed.
You normally cant shoot at an unoccupied and unclaimed building and such.

But basically unless you are dedicated anti tank its really hard to break them regularly. its much easier to flame through and take it for your self.

 Desubot wrote:
Well Stronghold assault hashed it out a little.
Basically buildings have to be claimed to be able to shoot it.
Things you purchase start as claimed.
when you enter an unoccupied building it becomes claimed.
You normally cant shoot at an unoccupied and unclaimed building and such.

But basically unless you are dedicated anti tank its really hard to break them regularly. its much easier to flame through and take it for your self.

That's all very true....however, I think you're missing the point of my prior message....nobody would attack an unoccupied building. That'd be silly.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: your opponent is camping. Hard. Won't leave a collection of small, one story rockcrete buildings (believe me, this is actually important). Is content to ping shots from the windows and laugh at you while taking full advantage of their cover save.

Using the new Imperial Fists chapter tactics, you decide to light up the building(s) with a lascannon shot. The shot hits. This leaves you with a 3 to glance, 4 to pen against the building (rockcrete buildings = armor 12). If you roll a 3, your glancing hit results in one unit inside the building receiving a wound with the Ignores Cover special rule. Any roll higher than that gets that wound in addition to a roll on the building damage table.

Now this is where things get interesting. As a high AP weapon, you get +1 to the building damage table. Not bad, huh? It gets better. With Siege Masters, you get to add another +1 to the result.

What this ends up meaning is this: "Breach" and "Tremor" are completely off the table. Won't happen. Can't. The lowest combined damage result you can get is 3.

As such, here are the possible results:

Roll one - Partial collapse - occupying unit suffers D6 Strength 6 hits with the Ignores Cover special rule.
Roll two - Structural collapse - occupying unit suffers 2D6 strength 6 hits with the ignores cover rule and one randomly determined weapon (if any) is destroyed.
Roll three - Catastrophic breach - building loses D3 armor permanently. Would be great with follow-up shots. Also, a weapon is lost.
Roll four - Total collapse - same unit damage as Structural Collapse, but all units have to do an emergency disembark from the unit. If they can't, they are gone. All weapons gone. Building is impassable terrain.
Roll five or six - Detonation - unit suffers 4D6 strength 6 hits - same emergency disembark as in Total Collapse - all weapons destroyed - all nearby units within D6 inches of the building take a strength 4 hit.

Now imagine you're not just shooting the building once. Nope. You're shooting with multiple lascannons.

......and now I have drool running down my chin. Sounds amazing.

Thoughts?
-RD

nobody would attack an unoccupied building. That'd be silly.

As Denial its perfectly sound. If you know an enemy unit that's out of Los is going to embark in a bastion next turn why can't you blow the bastion up to deny them that safety?

Yes, blowing up buildings is pretty amazing. I played a tau player who had a fortress of redemption and I was able to get a Detonation result on the balcony with a lascannon shot. Always smart to blow up the building they are in I think.

Also if your targeting a building, they may be less likely to use one on another turn if your tactic proves effective.

Your denying them the use of a tactical strong point by showing you can just cripple there defense with your firepower/specilsed forces.

 Roger Dorn wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Well Stronghold assault hashed it out a little.
Basically buildings have to be claimed to be able to shoot it.
Things you purchase start as claimed.
when you enter an unoccupied building it becomes claimed.
You normally cant shoot at an unoccupied and unclaimed building and such.

But basically unless you are dedicated anti tank its really hard to break them regularly. its much easier to flame through and take it for your self.

That's all very true....however, I think you're missing the point of my prior message....nobody would attack an unoccupied building. That'd be silly.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario: your opponent is camping. Hard. Won't leave a collection of small, one story rockcrete buildings (believe me, this is actually important). Is content to ping shots from the windows and laugh at you while taking full advantage of their cover save.

Using the new Imperial Fists chapter tactics, you decide to light up the building(s) with a lascannon shot. The shot hits. This leaves you with a 3 to glance, 4 to pen against the building (rockcrete buildings = armor 12). If you roll a 3, your glancing hit results in one unit inside the building receiving a wound with the Ignores Cover special rule. Any roll higher than that gets that wound in addition to a roll on the building damage table.

Now this is where things get interesting. As a high AP weapon, you get +1 to the building damage table. Not bad, huh? It gets better. With Siege Masters, you get to add another +1 to the result.

What this ends up meaning is this: "Breach" and "Tremor" are completely off the table. Won't happen. Can't. The lowest combined damage result you can get is 3.

As such, here are the possible results:

Roll one - Partial collapse - occupying unit suffers D6 Strength 6 hits with the Ignores Cover special rule.
Roll two - Structural collapse - occupying unit suffers 2D6 strength 6 hits with the ignores cover rule and one randomly determined weapon (if any) is destroyed.
Roll three - Catastrophic breach - building loses D3 armor permanently. Would be great with follow-up shots. Also, a weapon is lost.
Roll four - Total collapse - same unit damage as Structural Collapse, but all units have to do an emergency disembark from the unit. If they can't, they are gone. All weapons gone. Building is impassable terrain.
Roll five or six - Detonation - unit suffers 4D6 strength 6 hits - same emergency disembark as in Total Collapse - all weapons destroyed - all nearby units within D6 inches of the building take a strength 4 hit.

Now imagine you're not just shooting the building once. Nope. You're shooting with multiple lascannons.

......and now I have drool running down my chin. Sounds amazing.

Thoughts?
-RD

Sounds possible. And awesome. Demolition is fun ^^

Are you sure you are not confusing buildings and ruins? You dont get a cover save when youre inside of a building.

DOOMONYOU wrote:

nobody would attack an unoccupied building. That'd be silly.

As Denial its perfectly sound. If you know an enemy unit that's out of Los is going to embark in a bastion next turn why can't you blow the bastion up to deny them that safety?

Echoing this, denial is a valid strategy and in most cases it's probably better to destroy the building before they huddle into it to keep them a softer target. What's actually silly is seeing the building with the enemy at the door and going "WAIT WE CAN'T BLOW THAT UP, THEY'RE LOOKING FOR THEIR KEYS!".

Even the fact you have said ability might act as a partial denial.

Mayu force them to rely less opm cover from ruins

Shooting buildings is the way to go. It is fairly easy to destroy delapadated (forgive my spelling) which is the classification of most buildings that are not purchased as part of a army.

 Roger Dorn wrote:

Thoughts?
-RD

Well i was assuming you where talking about most purchased "buildings" as those would be fortifications and mostly av 14 which las cannons would need to get very lucky to deal with. But with las cannon imp devs it could be done.
Against regular "Buildings" that are not fortifications, yes shooting them is much better if you have the means

Those situations done come up that often for me though as my local usually limit it down to ruins.