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Skimming the codex, I saw the Sacristan Forgeshrine, it gives a lot of benefits to a unit that uses it in battle, and for 80 points you get a non-mobile repair/reload/refuel platform. If you stick a tech-priest or techmarine on it, you don't have to randomize the repair, its just a straight 3HP, and the refueling allows a vehicle to move 6" more on their next movement. Both nice, but what I really want to get into is if the 80 points for the Sacristan Forgeshrine is worth having the ability to remove the random amount of shots for weapons of a Knight. This, in my mind, makes the Castellan WAY more useful than the Valiant in most cases, given that he has the ability to camp on the Sacristan Forgeshrine. On setup you can put the Castellan right next to the SF, it can fire all 6 shots of its Volcano Lance without a roll, it just fires 6 shots, making the Volcano Cannon a guaranteed amount of shots and making it way more reliable than, say, the Harpoon, which only gets one shot and only gets rerolls on vehicles and monsters, but has way more strength, removes all armor save, and does a flat 10 damage and D3 mortal wounds.

The caveat to this is that it cannot affect any heirloom weapons, so if you upgrade the Castellan's plasma weapon, then it can only get its random shots, and also makes is useless with the Valiant. The Crusader also gets a great benefit from the SF, but I feel like in choosing the big Knights, that having a SF makes the Castellan far more useful than the Valiant, but I also feel like it makes that Castellan and the SF itself a huge target.

You forgot the minor downside

It's a pile of horse gak that I wouldn't use if it was for free. It's one redeeming feature is that I think it looks quite nice as a terrain piece.

Yep, you forgot about standing there wasting a turn of shooting before you can use it.

MarkM wrote:
You forgot the minor downside

It's a pile of horse gak that I wouldn't use if it was for free. It's one redeeming feature is that I think it looks quite nice as a terrain piece.

I mean do you have a reasoning behind that, or just saying it because its a terrain piece? I mean the ability to repair a knight for D3, which knights are pretty hard pressed to heal any wounds whatsoever, replace shieldbreaker missiles if you happen to use them often, give an additional 6" movement, and give a non-heirloom weapon their full amount of shots every turn they choose to. It is stupidly cheap for even 2 of those abilities, and the ability to not have to randomize your more powerful cannons seems like a no-brainer, but apparently not for some.

CelticKodiak wrote:

MarkM wrote:
You forgot the minor downside

It's a pile of horse gak that I wouldn't use if it was for free. It's one redeeming feature is that I think it looks quite nice as a terrain piece.

I mean do you have a reasoning behind that, or just saying it because its a terrain piece? I mean the ability to repair a knight for D3, which knights are pretty hard pressed to heal any wounds whatsoever, replace shieldbreaker missiles if you happen to use them often, give an additional 6" movement, and give a non-heirloom weapon their full amount of shots every turn they choose to. It is stupidly cheap for even 2 of those abilities, and the ability to not have to randomize your more powerful cannons seems like a no-brainer, but apparently not for some.

You need to go re-read its dataslate.

It costs you a full turn of shooting from your knight and you have to move into docking range to get 1 of those benifits and it's cost 80 and a detachment for that.

Paying points for something to give back 1-3 wounds for noy shooting a 400point model for a turn is terrible.
Play mechanicus and they have a startegum that does basically the same thing without costing you a turn of shooting.

Simply put though if its the turd that makes the rest of the codex good I can live with that.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Yep, you forgot about standing there wasting a turn of shooting before you can use it.

I can definitely see it being a wasted turn, at least you have a reasoning behind what you are saying, if you decide to keep an Armiger Helverin next to it, every other turn has a guaranteed 6 shots, plus whatever you roll for the second gun. I definitely see how a lost turn of shooting would make it a hard pass to a lot of people, but I can also see its benefit in niche uses.

CelticKodiak wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Yep, you forgot about standing there wasting a turn of shooting before you can use it.

I can definitely see it being a wasted turn, at least you have a reasoning behind what you are saying, if you decide to keep an Armiger Helverin next to it, every other turn has a guaranteed 6 shots, plus whatever you roll for the second gun. I definitely see how a lost turn of shooting would make it a hard pass to a lot of people, but I can also see its benefit in niche uses.

Think about that for a minute though.

If you've got a D6 weapon then you'll average 3.5 per turn. Using the forge means zero shots per turn and then 6 shots for an average of 3 (assuming that you aren't degraded or killed during the turn of standing there).
If you've got a 2D3 weapon then you'll average 4 per turn. Again, using the forge means 0+6 = 3 per turn.

If you got that ability on all weapons it would still be worse than just shooting.


The only use here is where you really, really want to kill something in T2 (the forge doesn't increase your killing power compared to shooting twice but it does increase reliability a little bit) and you have a way of keeping the knight alive until your T2. If you go second you're almost certainly not going to do this because you have to weather two turns of shooting. TBH, you could use the points to get more CP for rerolls and that would be a better boost.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

CelticKodiak wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Yep, you forgot about standing there wasting a turn of shooting before you can use it.

I can definitely see it being a wasted turn, at least you have a reasoning behind what you are saying, if you decide to keep an Armiger Helverin next to it, every other turn has a guaranteed 6 shots, plus whatever you roll for the second gun. I definitely see how a lost turn of shooting would make it a hard pass to a lot of people, but I can also see its benefit in niche uses.

Think about that for a minute though.

If you've got a D6 weapon then you'll average 3.5 per turn. Using the forge means zero shots per turn and then 6 shots for an average of 3 (assuming that you aren't degraded or killed during the turn of standing there).
If you've got a 2D3 weapon then you'll average 4 per turn. Again, using the forge means 0+6 = 3 per turn.

If you got that ability on all weapons it would still be worse than just shooting.


The only use here is where you really, really want to kill something in T2 (the forge doesn't increase your killing power compared to shooting twice but it does increase reliability a little bit) and you have a way of keeping the knight alive until your T2. If you go second you're almost certainly not going to do this because you have to weather two turns of shooting. TBH, you could use the points to get more CP for rerolls and that would be a better boost.

I feel like every turn a Knight isn't shooting/charging/meleeing it is a huge waste. I can't even think of a situation it would be worth doing, even if you had the opponent on the ropes and your just sending a different knight a turn to go back and repair, it would still be better just go keep laying into them.

 Vash108 wrote:

I feel like every turn a Knight isn't shooting/charging/meleeing it is a huge waste. I can't even think of a situation it would be worth doing, even if you had the opponent on the ropes and your just sending a different knight a turn to go back and repair, it would still be better just go keep laying into them.

To put a bit more science behind that - shooting a D6 gun twice will give you a better result than skipping a turn to use the forge 58% of the time, an equal result 14% of the time and a worse result only 28% of the time.

So your big gun actually shoots better without the forge most of the time (it's only worse 1/4 of the time) and that's without considering CP rerolls.

Add in that you're giving up on shooting the rest of the guns for a turn and a turn of melee and it just doesn't add up.

Yeah the only benefit you can actually get from it is 4W repair. Literally every other benefit is negated by just doing the thing both turns.

Refuel: you would have made it further with normal movement for both turns on any Knight, and still gotten to shoot.

Rearm: d6 averages 3.5 shots(as Scott says), 2d3 averages 4, 2d6 averages 7, 3d6 averages 9.5. Double those and you get more shots from the 1 gun you can maximize and you can fire all your other guns for both turns.

Repair: the only thing it does well; better if you take RAW over RAI. A Techpriest on it turns the d3 into 3 if the Techpriest hasn't used master of machines yet this turn. Both repairs can happen at the same timing so sequencing rules apply. Repair with forgeshrine and then with Techpriest for 4 lost wounds.

Also I need to double check the FAQs and CA; from just base codex rules no Techpriest can repair a questor imperialus.

Make the forge free, change the rule to get the benefit every turn and you could maybe use it in a narrative game where the knights are being pursued back to their FOB. (enemy on one short end, forge on the other short end, knights in the middle, some of the knights are already degraded)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

Repair: the only thing it does well;

Is there a circumstance where the damage you could have done to the enemy is worth giving up for 4 wounds?

Lets say it's T2 and you're already degraded. Is getting back to your good profile for a turn (before you get degraded again) worth giving up a turn of shooting and melee? (assuming that you don't just get killed during that turn of standing around)

Incredibly situational.

Does well =/= worth the points/worth the sacrifice.

The only time I would use the forgeshrine is in a 3 detachment 2000+ game where I have 3+ knights along with Guard or admech support. Techpriest and a troops unit go on the shrine ASAP, whichever knight has been most degraded would go to the shrine in turn 3 or so(most likely going to be the crusader which makes the repairs sacrifice hurt that much more) or a 2 detachment 1850 game(where I cannot fit a support unit with my 3 knights and 2 Armigers).

80 points for a single-turn d3 repair makes som sense, 2 engineseers are either 90 or 84 points(depending on support source) and can only heal the kight 1W/turn. 125/122 points for a single 4W repair is far better value.

If you're keen on repairing a gun-line Knight, an AdMech Patrol Detachment with a Tech-Priest Enginseer and a min unit of Skitarii Rangers, no gear, is 82 points.

Tech-Priest can repair one HP per turn on a Knight (only Questor Mechanicus, admittedly). Rangers sit on some objective.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
If you're keen on repairing a gun-line Knight, an AdMech Patrol Detachment with a Tech-Priest Enginseer and a min unit of Skitarii Rangers, no gear, is 82 points.

Tech-Priest can repair one HP per turn on a Knight (only Questor Mechanicus, admittedly). Rangers sit on some objective.

Two enginseers and three squads of skitarii gives you a nice dose of CP, a small screen and two repairs.

1 repair/ turn on any single knight.

But at least you can repair 2 different knights each turn(and they can still function)

Well, another benefit is that its a piece of actual cover for Knights that you can place at a strategic location?

It's not a great benefit - paying for it basically comes down to 'I'm paying for a detachment and 80 points for this deployable piece of cover that occasionally has other benefits'. I can only see it being useful in very large games where you are taking a bunch of other terrain fortifications as well.

So in the end, everyone agrees on the forge would be significantly better, if not possibly overpowered? if it did not deny the knight shooting?

I just want to get some conversation going around this piece of fortification and its use now vs. making it usable because it isn't good enough.

It may also be consider for use if it could do all 3 things in the same turn and wasn't limited to 1 knight per turn. So you could have multiple knights all sitting turn 1 and then on turn 2 move +6" and get maximum shots. It's not an optimal thing but if you have 1st turn it may be worthwhile.

 RuneGrey wrote:
Well, another benefit is that its a piece of actual cover for Knights that you can place at a strategic location?

It doesn't even give a knight cover.
There's a potential mod. If it at least protected the knight that's in there repairing maybe you'd use it?

It does have 1 more situational use: the Rite of Repairing is the only healing a Questor Imperialis knight can get.

Even then it is only the d3 or 3 with a Techpriest; the Techpriest cannot add the 1 healing from himself.

I expect that there will be some errata to Techpriests allowing them to heal imperialis aligned knights; and the Forge to disallow the tech from repairing as well. But we will have to wait and see.

As far as the knight getting killed after he heals: what is the rest of your army doing to allow that to happen?

Lets be honest here: if you got to shoot with the shooting bonus every turn, the thing would be broken. You'd be almost doubling the damage output, prevent bad rolls, and get a free missile. That's simply not worth less than a quarter of any individual knight.

Yeah but to a lot of people if it isn't busted, its not worth taking.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
It does have 1 more situational use: the Rite of Repairing is the only healing a Questor Imperialis knight can get.

Even then it is only the d3 or 3 with a Techpriest; the Techpriest cannot add the 1 healing from himself.

I expect that there will be some errata to Techpriests allowing them to heal imperialis aligned knights; and the Forge to disallow the tech from repairing as well. But we will have to wait and see.

As far as the knight getting killed after he heals: what is the rest of your army doing to allow that to happen?

losing because you didn't shoot with 400-600 points of firepower.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

auticus wrote:
Yeah but to a lot of people if it isn't busted, its not worth taking.

It's not that it isn't busted. It's that it actually offers no real benifit - the thing could be free and I would never use it.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Lets be honest here: if you got to shoot with the shooting bonus every turn, the thing would be broken. You'd be almost doubling the damage output, prevent bad rolls, and get a free missile. That's simply not worth less than a quarter of any individual knight.

Sure, that would not work either. But now it is useless. I can't come up with an easy fix, the rules of this thing would need to be completely rewritten.

If you start the game standing on it - You should get the benefits in your first turn. Then it would be worth it.

Wow. Between not being able to shoot and the CP issue with Armigers the codex seems like it has some dumb stuff we need Erratad. Not being able to shoot with a 400 point model for those very miniscule effects is super ridiculous.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Wow. Between not being able to shoot and the CP issue with Armigers the codex seems like it has some dumb stuff we need Erratad. Not being able to shoot with a 400 point model for those very miniscule effects is super ridiculous.

Yeah I didn't have high hopes for this fortification but I did for armigers and they totally discourage you from using them in this codex. An army like IK can not afford to take filler units that don't provide command points.

 Xenomancers wrote:

auticus wrote:
Yeah but to a lot of people if it isn't busted, its not worth taking.

It's not that it isn't busted. It's that it actually offers no real benifit - the thing could be free and I would never use it.

Yep, two of its three functions are actually worse than not using it.

You guys are forgetting that a 47 pt techpriest can heal up to 4 wounds on his own. An admech techpriest with the autodecaneos of Arkhan land and the strategem heals 4 wounds in a single turn (1 base +1 for Arkhan land, then double that as you repair second time with strat)

Which means there's pretty much no point to the repair bay. It's best use is ironically cover, if it was on a base it could actually give cover to knights if you placed it backward which would be huge. You could just turtle a knight behind it, meaning you'd basically be paying 80pts for a +2 armor save. However cover doesn't work that way and it doesn't come on a base so as it sits the terrain piece is useless for nowm

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
You guys are forgetting that a 47 pt techpriest can heal up to 4 wounds on his own. An admech techpriest with the autodecaneos of Arkhan land and the strategem heals 4 wounds in a single turn (1 base +1 for Arkhan land, then double that as you repair second time with strat)

Which means there's pretty much no point to the repair bay. It's best use is ironically cover, if it was on a base it could actually give cover to knights if you placed it backward which would be huge. You could just turtle a knight behind it, meaning you'd basically be paying 80pts for a +2 armor save. However cover doesn't work that way and it doesn't come on a base so as it sits the terrain piece is useless for nowm

Which he cannot do at all for a questor imperialis.

Also that same Techpriest can now net 7 repaired wounds with the forgeshrine. So that might make it worthwhile.