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I just purchased the Big'ead Boss Bunker online today and I worry if it will get removed from the game in the next edition from Games Workshop. The thing is just too damn Orky and I love it, but I hope it will have a bit of a shelf life for me to get my money's worth. I know Fortifications are not all that too spectacular this edition, but come on this thing has eye beam canons.

They are defiantly are pivoting away from terrain this edition and will likely continue the trend in 11th.
I am not sure it will be removed in 11th but I would assume it's time is limited and will likely just be a terrain piece in the future so enjoy it while you can.

They basically already did for the Ork fortification for the Mekboy workshop, so I would highly suspect it to be gone by the time 11th ed rolls around with our codex, especially now that GW is much more comfortable legending out units.

Jaredthefox92 wrote:
I just purchased the Big'ead Boss Bunker online today and I worry if it will get removed from the game in the next edition from Games Workshop. The thing is just too damn Orky and I love it, but I hope it will have a bit of a shelf life for me to get my money's worth. I know Fortifications are not all that too spectacular this edition, but come on this thing has eye beam canons.

How do you define if you've gotten your $s worth out of it?

Regardless of wether or not it's included in the Codex come 11e, don't your tables always need terrain?

If it does lose rules support just craft it a wheeled/tracked chassis & use it as part of a battlewagon etc.
Or craft it a body, legs & arms and voila! A new Stompa is born!

If it gets Legends rules? Then keep using it in non-tourney games as GW intends.

Nothing is safe from edition churn and legends. Fortifications more then most. But 40k will always need terrain, so it can always have a use, even if it’s not with it’s old rules.

Eldar just had the webway gate go to legends, Not sure about other faction terrain recently.

Faction Terrain in 40k is in a tough spot, because you need to invest points in something that generally can't move, do actions, or claim objectives.

In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, it's free points-wise, so you have no reason NOT to take it - aside from spending money on it.

 BorderCountess wrote:
In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, it's free points-wise, so you have no reason NOT to take it - aside from spending money on it.

Seriously? I know this is drifting a bit OT, but I’ve only dabbled in Spearhead for AoS, but was thinking of working up to full armies. Thats another barrier to entry. Sure, you don’t need to buy the faction terrain and spell effects, but you can’t use them if you don’t, and they don’t cost point and are free abilities. No reason not to, except the cash needed to buy 2 more boxsets to be able to play your army fully.

Makes me just want to walk away from even trying.

even if the rules go away, it's still a flavourful piece of terrain to throw onto boards. something to break up all the L-shaped ruin walls

 Nevelon wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, it's free points-wise, so you have no reason NOT to take it - aside from spending money on it.

Seriously? I know this is drifting a bit OT, but I’ve only dabbled in Spearhead for AoS, but was thinking of working up to full armies. Thats another barrier to entry. Sure, you don’t need to buy the faction terrain and spell effects, but you can’t use them if you don’t, and they don’t cost point and are free abilities. No reason not to, except the cash needed to buy 2 more boxsets to be able to play your army fully.

Makes me just want to walk away from even trying.

Oh stop being melodramatic.
You can make perfectly functional AoS armies without ever touching faction terrain or any of the spells (faction or generic).

ccs wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, it's free points-wise, so you have no reason NOT to take it - aside from spending money on it.

Seriously? I know this is drifting a bit OT, but I’ve only dabbled in Spearhead for AoS, but was thinking of working up to full armies. Thats another barrier to entry. Sure, you don’t need to buy the faction terrain and spell effects, but you can’t use them if you don’t, and they don’t cost point and are free abilities. No reason not to, except the cash needed to buy 2 more boxsets to be able to play your army fully.

Makes me just want to walk away from even trying.

Oh stop being melodramatic.
You can make perfectly functional AoS armies without ever touching faction terrain or any of the spells (faction or generic).

I might be a little melodramatic, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

With the way GW churns rules and editions, the question is “do I want to get on this rollercoaster (again)?” Sure, you can play without the extras, but that strikes me as handicapping yourself. So when looking at what the buy in cost for playing matched play games with a full army, they should be included. For what’s at best a tertiary army for me, the question is how much of my hobby budget I want to allocate to it.

From an outside perspective of someone getting into a game, being told that you don’t “need” the extras really feels like it should be taken with a dash of salt. Looking at the rules for those manifestations they seem pretty nice to me.

You can build a legal 40k army in 10th without taking all the upgrades on a squad. You can play the game, with a legal list. But you’d be crazy to leave the free power just sitting there. That’s how this looks to me.

You may be right. They might be completely superfluous. I don’t know enough of AoS to make that call. But for someone looking to get into a game? Feels like a barrier.

Yes, this sounds like very blatant P2W.

Cyel wrote:
Yes, this sounds like very blatant P2W.

the entire hobby is P2W. you have to pay for models in order to play

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Yes, this sounds like very blatant P2W.

the entire hobby is P2W. you have to pay for models in order to play

Yeah, but not everything is even remotely close to being equal. Remember a few years ago when damn near every Marine player (of all stripes) had three Contemptor Dreadnoughts?

 BorderCountess wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Yes, this sounds like very blatant P2W.

the entire hobby is P2W. you have to pay for models in order to play

Yeah, but not everything is even remotely close to being equal. Remember a few years ago when damn near every Marine player (of all stripes) had three Contemptor Dreadnoughts?

Sure, but points values at least pretend to be an attempt at the game not being P2W. In their absence it's just, as I called it, blatant. Not even pretending anymore.

ccs wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, it's free points-wise, so you have no reason NOT to take it - aside from spending money on it.

Seriously? I know this is drifting a bit OT, but I’ve only dabbled in Spearhead for AoS, but was thinking of working up to full armies. Thats another barrier to entry. Sure, you don’t need to buy the faction terrain and spell effects, but you can’t use them if you don’t, and they don’t cost point and are free abilities. No reason not to, except the cash needed to buy 2 more boxsets to be able to play your army fully.

Makes me just want to walk away from even trying.

Oh stop being melodramatic.
You can make perfectly functional AoS armies without ever touching faction terrain or any of the spells (faction or generic).

Oh come off your high horse, he's got a legitimate complaint. I feel the same way too; it does smack of "Pay to Win". Sure, you don't technically need to have your army's faction terrain or any endless spells, but you're leaving money on the table by not taking them. If you had any thoughts about playing competitively (which some people do), then you better be prepared to fork over the cash for the endless spells and faction terrain. It's not the same as just running a slightly off-meta list if you don't want to buy the currently OP units; these models are either have or have not, and there's no replacement for them.

Now, for the endless spells I'm planning to 3d print the models as the official models are kind of outrageous in price and not easily available (or at least they weren't last time I checked). And that's another problem with requiring ownership of specific models; players are at the mercy of stock levels, and scalpers exist to take advantage of that.

I'm going back to the "the entire game requires money to play".

If you want to play a 2K point battle you HAVE to buy models and within that there are certain things that you MUST purchase to have a legal functional army; some of which can vanish between editions

You have to have a leader and at least 3 battleline units. Even without touching the concept of meta-building or powerbuilding or such; you still have a minimum.


Faction Terrain and Endless Spells are simply more models that the army has. Heck Endless Spells are just more models; you can buy them to use with points/stats within the game and choose to use them or not; meanwhile faction terrain is a bit of a grey spot in that its free points wise, so there's no reason not to take it; but similarly there's no reason not to take a good many models that form a core of your army.


Sure its pay to win; but the whole game is built on that. If you pay nothing you can't even take part unless you can find someone to loan you an army.

It's still a far cry from say, MTG where many "win" cards are not even distributed in the same number as regular cards and where even the 2nd hand market can be very high for popular cards which are only popular because of the entire artificial supply chain that Wizards controls. But we tolerate it because its a card game and that's how they are.

 Overread wrote:
I'm going back to the "the entire game requires money to play".

I think my comparison between the two games works better if explained via chess:

Using Forge World models was like playing chess, except one player paid a few bucks to give their knights the ability to move twice in a row when activated.

Faction terrain and endless spells are like playing chess, and then paying a few bucks to get a third rook and a third bishop - and not every color has the ability to do that.

Similar, sure. But there's clearly a significant difference between the two. One case is just getting better pieces, and the other is just getting more.

I have the big 'ead boss bunka since it was released and I used its rules once so far. And yet, It has been part of my board dozens of times.

If you have any use for terrain pieces whatsoever, buy it. It's a great model.

Except it doesn't really work like that because EVERY model you put on the table you had to pay for to put on the table. You also had to pay for the terrain, the board and probably (unless its at home or a GW store) a membership fee to play the game/be part of the club.

So it's really not the same comparison.

You can argue that they are "free in the rules and thus its P2W if you don't pay" but I see that as a false flag because even if you have to pay points to put a model on the table - you've still got to buy that model to put it on the table to play with.

And some of those models you pay points for will be better per-point than others. Either generally all out better or in specific situations.

The entire game isn't "pay to win" its even more fundamental - its "Pay to Play".



Pay 2 Win would be more similar to paying real money and getting to roll more attack dice.
No model to build and paint or put on the table just a straight up "pay GW £30 and you get a licence to roll extra attack dice"

*side eyes Sacristan Forgeshrine*

 Lord Damocles wrote:
*side eyes Sacristan Forgeshrine*

Did you ever use one in game to make your Knight unable to do anything for that turn?

Or did you just use it as a piece of blocking terrain during setup?

I own two of these, because they are cool terrain. Never used the rules though. Same with the GSC mining drill, real pity they removed it. Very thematic piece of terrain.

My question is when did it show up? They Squatted the pre-existing Fortifications - the Imperial Bunker, the DA Fortress, Aegis line etc then came out with new stuff like the Hammerfall Bunker. So if this was the new run I'd expect it to survive. Of course that doesn't matter much because Fortifications are generally pretty bad because of Placement rules and declining statlines as near as I can see,

The Hammerfall Bunker would have been amazing if you could Deep Strike it.

I would've bought them, but placing it in your deployment zone never made any sense to me.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Hammerfall Bunker would have been amazing if you could Deep Strike it.

I would've bought them, but placing it in your deployment zone never made any sense to me.

If you could place it front and center it was... almost okay... since it could shoot at everything it could see. Then they took that ability away and made it useless.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Hammerfall Bunker would have been amazing if you could Deep Strike it.

I would've bought them, but placing it in your deployment zone never made any sense to me.

If you could place it front and center it was... almost okay... since it could shoot at everything it could see. Then they took that ability away and made it useless.

There was also the problem of being able to place it all because of the amount and location of pre-placed terrain in tournaments. If I remember right they did the math at one tournament and you could only place the bunker at all on 4 out of 6 maps - meaning 2 out of 6 it auto died.

Breton wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
The Hammerfall Bunker would have been amazing if you could Deep Strike it.

I would've bought them, but placing it in your deployment zone never made any sense to me.

If you could place it front and center it was... almost okay... since it could shoot at everything it could see. Then they took that ability away and made it useless.

There was also the problem of being able to place it all because of the amount and location of pre-placed terrain in tournaments. If I remember right they did the math at one tournament and you could only place the bunker at all on 4 out of 6 maps - meaning 2 out of 6 it auto died.

The Ossiarch Nexus is bonkers huge and one of those terrain items that the player really wants in the middle; but where its just so big its mostly going to get stuck on a corner. Looks cool but you can't place it down on an already populated map.

Honestly I always hold up things like the Skaven Gnawholes for getting faction terrain about right - small enough to fit in anywhere and diverse enough that it actually does something in game that feels thematic and impactful.