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How would two armies have huge ceramite and adamantium constructions 1000 feet away from each other? Most of the time the battles played out on the game board are smaller, rapid insertion forces anyway. Why would they have fortifications as they are represented in 6th Ed? Drop an aegis, fine, but anything greater and really only one side should be allowed to take them. It would be more like the attacker/defender mechanic in the 40K expansion that failed miserably.

Thoughts?

Well, say you have each taken a bastion. In this case, one side had both until the garrison of one was killed by spore mines, sniper fire, nurgle's rot, etc. Now each side has one.

Pay points to bring specific terrain. Those buildings could have been there the whole time so a fortress of redemption next to a chaos bastion isn't saying lets build some forts and play Hatfield and McCoy. They were just taken over by the strike forces in the currect skirmish.

Because they might not have been fighting the entire time.

The Iron Warriors are attacking a planet being defended by the Imperial Guard. The guard, since it's been there, already has fortifications set up. The Iron Warriors do not. But, being the seige experts they are, the Iron Warriors don't just storm the city as soon as they land. They make their presence known, harrass the defenders a bit, then retreat a safe distance and make a camp where they can hide out while they prepare for the massive seige, which will take a while. In that time, they'll make nice big Chaosy bastions while the guardsmen also try to buff their existing defenses,

Also, note that the aegis defense line and bastion aren't absolute, just the basic idea. Spess Mehreens and IG would use them, but why would the eldar? No, they probably have their own magic tower that they float into position before deploying or something, idk.

Those are good ways of looking at it.

You're saying that a game with inter-dimensional beings that sprang into existence from the gestalt of a race that was having huge orgies, that genetically altered, 10' tall humans in power armor ride motorcycles into combat, Space Marines ride giant wolves into battle, that tank commanders stand tall in the open cupola of tank turrets waving chain swords around, that the most effective weapon 40,000 years into the future of the universe is a .75 caliber, ballistic chemically propelled bullet, that... well, I could continue, but the point is, the game of 40K is full of absurdities and things that make no sense.

Fortifications make the game more interesting. Who cares if it makes any sense or not?

If I had a guess, I'd say someone in your play group has a Fortress of Redemption and uses it regularly. We had a guy like that in my play group as well. Read up on the rules, realize you can collapse/destroy whole sections of the fortress, and that it costs more than a Land Raider, without mobility.

 Tamwulf wrote:
You're saying that a game with inter-dimensional beings that sprang into existence from the gestalt of a race that was having huge orgies, that genetically altered, 10' tall humans in power armor ride motorcycles into combat, Space Marines ride giant wolves into battle, that tank commanders stand tall in the open cupola of tank turrets waving chain swords around, that the most effective weapon 40,000 years into the future of the universe is a .75 caliber, ballistic chemically propelled bullet, that... well, I could continue, but the point is, the game of 40K is full of absurdities and things that make no sense.

Fortifications make the game more interesting. Who cares if it makes any sense or not?

If I had a guess, I'd say someone in your play group has a Fortress of Redemption and uses it regularly. We had a guy like that in my play group as well. Read up on the rules, realize you can collapse/destroy whole sections of the fortress, and that it costs more than a Land Raider, without mobility.

I care if it makes sense because being able to engross myself in the story of the game is what makes it enjoyable for me, personally.

No one I play with has any fortresses as we, generally, loathe 6th Ed.

I always figured they were airdropped/teleported/came screaming out of the sky and spontaneously construct themselves like in the game Dawn of War.

 beigeknight wrote:
I always figured they were airdropped/teleported/came screaming out of the sky and spontaneously construct themselves like in the game Dawn of War.

^I like this idea. Maybe you should be able to Deep Strike some Fortifications if you pay more and can get a unit to it to finish assembly when it hits.

Its because the battlefield is not to scale.

I look at it as a varying scale.

Dudes shooting at each other from 12" away are somewhere between 100 and 500 yards away from each other. But guys within 6" of each other are within 50 feet.

Meanwhile a Railgun or Battlecannon taking a 72" shot is actually firing on a target that is several kilometers away.

So the fortifications are actually several kilometers apart.


The game is mearely an abstraction of a futuristic war, and yes fortifications are an important part of that.

Simply put, it sometimes makes sense, sometimes doesn't.

They were made to be sold so GW could make money.

I don't like them, so I don't use them. I'm happy in that this sentiment is shared with many of the players around my area. We might use them as random terrain in the middle of the board, but that's about it.

The bastions can, indeed, be deepstruck in.

I dont like them very much, but GW does what they need to do too sell minis. THis addition did not improve the game in any way but it does help GW make money which means they will be around to sell us more plastic soldiers in the future.

Of course if you dont like them dont play them. I dont

Honestly, I think the game is just out of scale. By the "they are too close" logic, why would Tau Railguns which have a estimated effective range of most likely a dozen kilometers at least, be this close to the enemy? I have read that Lasguns have an infinite range (although, at distance they become pretty much worthless but it's still a "shot" none the less). The distances are pretty variable, so we can't really say that anything is to scale here.

tl;dr: The fortifications may actually be kilometers apart not right next door. Although, depending on the armies fighting (since most fortifications are Imperial in nature without modification), it's possible that the unit that once held BOTH forts was killed (in the case of Xeno vs. Xeno or something) and these are the new contested owners or maybe the unit fighting lost one of the buildings and the other is still in their hands (in the case of Imperium vs. anyone else)

As silly as this sounds i always though of the FoR like a rapid deployed fire base kinda like the Fortress monasterys in dawn of war.

A thunder hawk come in and drops it off then it sort unfolds into the FoR

I have yet to play against any fortifications. Not even the Aegis.

i like to build my custom fortifications so that they're kind of like the MCVs from the Command and Conquer series. here's a pic if you're unfamiliar:


otherwise the unfluffyness makes me cry a little inside.

Drop pods.. Or Thunderhawks for the larger structures... Dawn of War covered this geez.


/end sarcasm

 washout77 wrote:
Maybe the unit fighting lost one of the buildings and the other is still in their hands (in the case of Imperium vs. anyone else)

This is pretty much how I view them. One army held both at one point and the points they pay represent possession of one of them while the points the enemy paid for theirs represents the troops they expended to infiltrate and take one.

The bastions are drop bastions as are the fortresses, if you can deliver a warlord titan to a battlefield then surely a bastion is no problem. The aegis are barricades so you move them forward before your last push as in trench warfare which would be a nightmare to represent properly. I always thought the idea of the 40k scenario was a small strike force/warband/raiding party type battle as opposed to all out war, which would be apocalypse where you can put your rail guns on the back line and be a lot further away.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 beigeknight wrote:
I always figured they were airdropped/teleported/came screaming out of the sky and spontaneously construct themselves like in the game Dawn of War.

^I like this idea. Maybe you should be able to Deep Strike some Fortifications if you pay more and can get a unit to it to finish assembly when it hits.

You don't have to pay more. They already deep strike in. They just don't scatter and automatically come in on Turn 0.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lots of reasons could be stated:

1. They were already there, the enemy just took one over and you start playing from that point forward.

2. Air lifted or dropped from a starship.

3. Psykers made them materialize from the immaterium. Who knows what all is floating out there.

4. An ork war tribe believed they would find one on the field...

5. Rolled in via fast moving transports. Where did those transports go you ask? Popped by enemy fire.

Corin wrote:
The bastions are drop bastions as are the fortresses, if you can deliver a warlord titan to a battlefield then surely a bastion is no problem. The aegis are barricades so you move them forward before your last push as in trench warfare which would be a nightmare to represent properly. I always thought the idea of the 40k scenario was a small strike force/warband/raiding party type battle as opposed to all out war, which would be apocalypse where you can put your rail guns on the back line and be a lot further away.

Uh, do you even know how much effort it takes to land a Titan? Only the Adeptus Mechanicus have the ships and the capabilities to deliver a Titan to a battlefield. I really can't seem to going around to different warzones employing the same technologies to drop a fortification for potentially guardsmen who might all just die and lose it the very next day.

Fluff-wise, the majority of static positions, especially the rockcrete and ceramite ones, are built AS fortifications - they're not rapid-deployment things. The Bastion and Fortress don't even look like they're drop-deployable, but I digress, at some points in time even the stretched sci-fi fluff becomes a little unbelievable when you look at the design of the structure. Now, the Skyshield on the other hand, I can easily see that being transported in pre-fab parts and put together out in the field. Aircraft are heavy, heavy, heavy, and if you're operating a forward air base, the last thing you want is your VTOLs sinking into the earth. A Skyshield would easily be a portable (relatively-speaking) landing pad for flyers.

Its in the 40k fluff. Both are drop landed not built or did you think the Dark Angels operated in a completely different manner to most Space Marine deployments, they don't have the time or numbers to build structures and they don't hang around for very long. As for the ships size and capacity for drop deployment I think you underestimate the size of the Imperium. My point about the Titan landers was their size, much much bigger than the bastions. How can they deploy their armour ie. Baneblades which are bigger and heavier. They don't make the majority of their buildings out of ceramite they use flak board, ceramite is rare which is why the Imperial Guard don't get it as armour. I'm not guessing these things it's all in the fiction and fluff if you read enough.

 Deuce11 wrote:
How would two armies have huge ceramite and adamantium constructions 1000 feet away from each other? Most of the time the battles played out on the game board are smaller, rapid insertion forces anyway. Why would they have fortifications as they are represented in 6th Ed? Drop an aegis, fine, but anything greater and really only one side should be allowed to take them. It would be more like the attacker/defender mechanic in the 40K expansion that failed miserably.

Thoughts?

Many planets have previously made use of defensive lines. A defensive line is not a single wall or barricade, but often a fortified area of land several kilometers deep, consisting of networks of trenches, underground bunkers, forts, gun emplacements, barricades, razor-wire, mine fields, etc etc. These are often left over for hundreds or thousands of years from previous sieges and battles.

If both players are fighting with fortifications within spitting distance of each other, chances are both forces are within a previously heavily fortified area. And both forces have decided to take advantage of these pre-existing fortifications. It's not such a big deal, to be honest. If you keep that in mind, it even makes sense to have buildings and forests blocking line of sight and built right up to the fortifications themselves. After all, if the bunkers and defense lines have been there for six hundred years, the city or forest likely sprung up afterwards.

 beigeknight wrote:
I always figured they were airdropped/teleported/came screaming out of the sky and spontaneously construct themselves like in the game Dawn of War.

This is how I plan to justify my use of an ADL (once I get enough money to buy one).

Thats how I explain my fluffy aegis defence line, scout walks up to where I want it pops down the suit case, then the defence line pops up, sorted!

Corin wrote:Its in the 40k fluff. Both are drop landed not built or did you think the Dark Angels operated in a completely different manner to most Space Marine deployments, they don't have the time or numbers to build structures and they don't hang around for very long. As for the ships size and capacity for drop deployment I think you underestimate the size of the Imperium. My point about the Titan landers was their size, much much bigger than the bastions. How can they deploy their armour ie. Baneblades which are bigger and heavier. They don't make the majority of their buildings out of ceramite they use flak board, ceramite is rare which is why the Imperial Guard don't get it as armour. I'm not guessing these things it's all in the fiction and fluff if you read enough.

Please source to me your fluff quotes.

Also, the part about the Dark Angels is that they first used it during the Great Crusade - we all know how much better tech was during the Great Crusade. Under pg. 116 of the BRB, Imperial Bastion: "Built to withstand..." this implies that Bastions are built, versus dropped. Titans outscale superheavy tanks by a significant amount as well - they are a poor point of comparison.

Baneblades and such can be deployed using troop landers with relative ease, although superheavy companies still require assistance of the Adeptus Mechanicus to deploy due to the significant logistical strain (and value) of the superheavies. And you're wrong - rockrete and ferrocrete are the Imperium's most common building materials. Ceramite is not unknown either. Have you ever seen flakboard in real life? It's so rickety and provides basically no protection what so ever - 5.56mm rounds, the "standard" NATO assault rifle round, is able to go through layers of flakboard. Flakboard's sole purpose is to deflect fragmentation and ricochets, as well as to buttress existing fortifications.

I'm not saying that the Imperium CANNOT deploy a Bastion or Fortress of Redemption through drop, I just don't think that the Adeptus Mechanicus would go through all that effort for the Imperial Guard. Dropping a tank is a lot different from dropping a building, and dropping a Titan is a whole different affair than dropping a building. Anyways, that's part of the reason why Enginseers accompany IG battalions - part of their role is to advise and assist in the battlefield construction of fortifications.

I'd personally just go with this:

Kaldor wrote:

 Deuce11 wrote:
How would two armies have huge ceramite and adamantium constructions 1000 feet away from each other? Most of the time the battles played out on the game board are smaller, rapid insertion forces anyway. Why would they have fortifications as they are represented in 6th Ed? Drop an aegis, fine, but anything greater and really only one side should be allowed to take them. It would be more like the attacker/defender mechanic in the 40K expansion that failed miserably.

Thoughts?

Many planets have previously made use of defensive lines. A defensive line is not a single wall or barricade, but often a fortified area of land several kilometers deep, consisting of networks of trenches, underground bunkers, forts, gun emplacements, barricades, razor-wire, mine fields, etc etc. These are often left over for hundreds or thousands of years from previous sieges and battles.

If both players are fighting with fortifications within spitting distance of each other, chances are both forces are within a previously heavily fortified area. And both forces have decided to take advantage of these pre-existing fortifications. It's not such a big deal, to be honest. If you keep that in mind, it even makes sense to have buildings and forests blocking line of sight and built right up to the fortifications themselves. After all, if the bunkers and defense lines have been there for six hundred years, the city or forest likely sprung up afterwards.

WHen the plastic bastion kit was released, they stated they could be deepstruck in. There is even imagery of such.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
WHen the plastic bastion kit was released, they stated they could be deepstruck in. There is even imagery of such.

Linkie?

Well, it was released for Planetstrike and one of the Strategems you could get was a Drop Bastion. Which is exactly what it sounds like.

You got to deep strike a new bastion somewhere.