Making the most of Stronghold Assault

Stronghold Assault is now official in 40k and serves as an update to the rulebook. It also brings D weapons officially to the general game but more about that later.

This small article does not focus as a review in general of the book or really how to defeat the fortificiations, but more on how to use them to our advantage.

Something first that is interesting is it states rubble and wreckage give you a 4+ and are specifically area terrain. Quoting the rulebook this means that going to ground in rubble and our wreckage now gives us a 2+.

Defence lines and Bastions have barely changed (other than the option for upgrades) so we will ignore them. You can now buy the Honoured Imperium for 40pts but adds no buff.

Wall of Martyrs isn't too special but I want to talk about the Imperial Bunker.



55 points gets you a decent LOS blocking, well, block that you can combine with already existing terrain on the board to give you something more, well, LOS blocking. I haven't seen one face to face but I would imagine you can hide two Venoms behind it quite nicely. It can also have quad guns etc.

There's a few other interesting things but I want to jump into what has REALLY piqued my interest.

Void Shield Generator. 50pts gives you something of unknown size and is an AV13, impassable, inaccessible building. What it gives you is a 12" bubble of void shields. If an enemy unit is outside this bubble and hits your unit then the shield takes it with AV12, any glance or pen nullifys the shield. At the end of your turn you get a shield back on a 5+ and can also buy additional shields for 25pts each. Did I mention this absorbs D weapons too? I really think this could work really well for us.

You can also add tanglewire, barricades and tank traps to it, with tank traps probably being the best being impassable to tanks.

There are now fortification networks which allow you to group lots of fortifications together. We can have up to three Void Shield Generators by pay for some Promethium Relay Pipes which buffs flamers.

Skyshield allows hovering flyers to start on it and the Fortress seems unchanged - I want to rush onto the McDaddies of 40k from Saturday onwards.

Macro-cannon Aquila Strongpoint. 535pts gets you an AV15 building but we want to talk about the Macro-cannon. 72" large blast D weapon will annihilate anything it touches. Maugan-Ra on the battlements?
Vortex Missile Aquila Strongpoint instead gives you Vortex missiles that have infinite range, D and the Vortex rule although can only fire one a turn. These are now official but can see many TO's banning them - however you will see these out and about and these will make our vehicles vanish and cut swathes in any Baron/Beasts combos as well as laugh at Seer Councils and Screamerstars.

I hope you get something from this article and gives you an edge on your opponents.

Sky Serpent wrote:

I hope you get something from this article and gives you an edge on your opponents.

The main thing I'm getting is that I don't want to play in normal games of 40k where D weapons are in use.

Yeah, most games will be in 'mop-up' phase by turn three....

The imperial bunker is only about 3" tall and doesn't outright hide venom that are behind them - presuming the venom is on it's skimmer base and not on the ground.

I am waiting semi-patiently for iBooks to allow me to download my copy of the epub. I'm very interested in the updated rules but more so about what it specifically says about if these rules override the BRB or if they are 100% optional. If they override, then I can only presume the same goes for Escalation - thus we could be seeing Super Heavies in 1850pt GTs.

Stronghold specifically says it updates the rulebook whereas Escalation deems Lords of War as optional as Allies are...

Unfortunately I think this is going to make it even harder for me to find a game under 2k. I wonder if point levels for matches are just going to increase overall. After all Aquilla Strongpoint is 500 points? And most super heavies are 600-800? So the new standard might be 2500-3000. Which is just god awful for us.

Expletive Deleted wrote:

Unfortunately I think this is going to make it even harder for me to find a game under 2k. I wonder if point levels for matches are just going to increase overall. After all Aquilla Strongpoint is 500 points? And most super heavies are 600-800? So the new standard might be 2500-3000. Which is just god awful for us.

I think that if there are any increases it'll take a while and may not change at all if you can still only take 1 fortification in your normal or tournament list. Overall, it really depends on if the cost of the fortifications can justify taking them. Right now, the only reason I know why people take the ADL is to get access to the Quad Gun. If that mentality remains, I don't see them taking others. Likewise, I can't recall the last time I saw a Bastion, Fortress, or Skyshield in a top table tournament list.

I'm still waiting for iTunes to allow me to download my copy of the book but I have a feeling that the meta won't turn Fortification heavy for a bit. Once we have more armies with more established anti-air, then we might see more fortifications but in general, I don't know if people will see that they are worth the points.

AV15 fortification seems to ask a lot of Lance fire.

500 points wasted on first turn is ok for me.

Quote :

The main thing I'm getting is that I don't want to play in normal games of 40k where D weapons are in use.

D-weapon bypass invul, right?

Azdrubael wrote:

AV15 fortification seems to ask a lot of Lance fire.

500 points wasted on first turn is ok for me.

Quote :

The main thing I'm getting is that I don't want to play in normal games of 40k where D weapons are in use.

D-weapon bypass invul, right?

Everything grazed by a D-weapon dies horribly on a 2+ without anything you can roll about it.

Mandor wrote:

Azdrubael wrote:

AV15 fortification seems to ask a lot of Lance fire.

500 points wasted on first turn is ok for me.

Quote :

The main thing I'm getting is that I don't want to play in normal games of 40k where D weapons are in use.

D-weapon bypass invul, right?

Everything grazed by a D-weapon dies horribly on a 2+ without anything you can roll about it.

That is, if you do not have packed your void shield generator ;-)

I find the void shield generator a nice addition to an advancing Dark Eldar army. Think of it as a barrier of a big webway portal. I guess one of the old raiders turned facing upwards, could be modeld nicly to look like a generator array....

Do any of the D weapons use the ridiculously large Apocalypse blast marker/flamer template?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Do any of the D weapons use the ridiculously large Apocalypse blast marker/flamer template?

Nop. Usually the Large Blast one. Necrons seam to use the hellstrom template but Eldar and Dark Eldar have the best one with 4 Large Blast/turn.

Well, that's something at least. I've read a lot of debate on the internet over the last few days on this topic but nothing Ive seen yet has made me change my opinion that D-weapons have no place in normal games of 40K.

I see pictures of giant two handed templates in both books, and some of the profiles have apocalyptic blast and such.

I'm actually looking at the vengeance weapon batteries though. For 75 points you get an AV14 building, with automated turret, and can equip it with a 96" S9 AP2 Twin-Linked, Skyfire, Heavy 2 gun. Looks like it may be the best option for flyers without taking allies. Throw a troop unit into it and an objective nearby, and it looks rather stupid. And you can buy two.

It's cheaper, sturdier, has longer range, and is more killy than a ravager, and can hit flyers at full ballistic skill. Plus you can still take three ravagers.

Not sure how fluffy it is, of course, but believe it or not it would fit the fluff for my army. With some converting of course.

I'm going to be using a Void Shield Generator with one extra shield tonight, I'll let you all know how it goes. No idea what to use to proxy it though, medium building with battlements, hmmm.

Been thinking a lot about a maxed Void Shield Relay, for 340pts you get a set of pipes which are just a tax but then three generators with three shields each - your enemy has got to take 9 AV12 HPs away before getting to your vehicles, and the generators can regenerate their shields too. Not something I'll be looking at at 1500 but maybe at 1850.

I think the Maxed Void shield set-up is of way more benefit to Assault based DE armies for the simple fact that you might also be facing an army protected by 9 void shields (and not many DE builds can reliably deal with that). I'm currently thinking of how to fit them into my all foot assault list at 1850. If you've got first turn you can move up to the edge of the shields and pretty safely chill for a turn and be in great position for turn 2 carnage. I'm also curious how Grav and blasts work against them. Grav clearly has no effect on buildings, and it doesn't cause glances or pens, so I'd assume as long as one shield is up grav does nothing. What I'm wondering with blasts is how the number of hits is calculated, for example: say a riptide fires a pie plate at one of your shielded units and would hit 5 models, does it cause 5 hits on the void shield or just one?

The other thing that jumped out at me was that you can assault out of fortifications and also the escape hatch upgrade (Although you clearly can't combine the two rules). Aside from beast packs I've been playing around with a 9 Grot Urien/Spiritseer unit. I've been taking a bastion to hide them in first turn (so they don't get pounded before Shrouding is up), and adding an escape hatch for 25points is pretty ridiculous. Basically a free 12 inches on their first move, if an enemy tries to block the hatch just disembark normally and charge them. (I suspect other slow CC deathstars will pick up this tactic as well, TH/SS termies/etc.). A less agressive use for it would be to keep our flimsy troops safe later in the game for objective grabbing, deploy bastion 6" from one objective and 18" from another (with the escape hatch placed within 6" of the second objective). Just watch out for template weapons cause they'll roast any of our troops that're inside. Also you can tack on a single void shield to any building too.

And while it's not too useful for us, it's worth noting that Jump and Jet infantry can now embark buildings. I expect to see tons of Broadsides/Centurions with attached Tau Buff Commander hiding in Bastions in the near future so warm up those Void shields haha.

I have a question in to the GW team concerning the Promethium Pipes to confirm if they do or do not apply to Liquifier guns and other weapons that use the Flamer template.

Torrenting Talos would be NASTY!

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

And while it's not too useful for us, it's worth noting that Jump and Jet infantry can now embark buildings.  I expect to see tons of Broadsides/Centurions with attached Tau Buff Commander hiding in Bastions in the near future so warm up those Void shields haha.

This one stood out to me and my Orks actually. Imperial Bunker allows for 20 models to be embarked inside and has 2 fire points that can each have 4 guys fire out of it. In addition to being able to include an Ammo Store upgrade and an Icarus Lascannon emplaced on top of it, I can have a very mean shelter for my Ork Lootas that only costs me 105pts.


The assaulting out of fortifications was something else that i saw and can can yield some interesting results but would be situational I feel. The Escape Hatch though could allow you some extra movement in the movement phase though. Deploy the fortification at the edge of your deployment zone so that you can deploy into it. Put the escape hatch 12" ahead of it and use it on your first turn to speed your troops up 18" (12" for the hatch and another 6" for the disembarking move). Maybe situational but is something else to consider - I could see a Necron player using such with Wraiths in order to move forward that much quicker. For us, could make for an interesting trap using blaster born or something along those lines.

Balisong wrote:

I have a question in to the GW team concerning the Promethium Pipes to confirm if they do or do not apply to Liquifier guns and other weapons that use the Flamer template.

Torrenting Talos would be NASTY!

I'll be curious of the result on this. My interpretation is that they are not since those aren't flamer weapons...just template weapons. That said though, it would be nice to have it clarified.

Unholyllama wrote:

Balisong wrote:

I have a question in to the GW team concerning the Promethium Pipes to confirm if they do or do not apply to Liquifier guns and other weapons that use the Flamer template.

Torrenting Talos would be NASTY!

I'll be curious of the result on this.  My interpretation is that they are not since those aren't flamer weapons...just template weapons.  That said though, it would be nice to have it clarified.

Yeah I don't think it'll work with Liquifiers unfortunately. Your Orks' burnas on the other hand.... (adding in a mega-armor mek/warboss for SnP if needed, but obviously not if they might get charged)

The initial post talked about hiding a Venom behind an Imperial Bunker.  I'll try and get that image tomorrow when I got to my local store which has one i can borrow.  Until there I decided to snap a picture of one of my venom behind one of my Vengeance Weapon Batteries.




Straight Behind:


90º Turn on the Venom:

Dude you gravity is pulling to the right

Vasara wrote:

Dude you gravity is pulling to the right

Indeed. I update the images and rotate them and everything looks good but i upload them and the gravity on the interwebs forces me to play on the walls.

I'll have to try tgat escape hatc idea... I don't think my local meta is aware of this funcation. Does the hatch need to be placed in your deployment zone?

Nope, anywhere within 12" of the building, and it isn't placed until a unit occupies the building. I've been playing around with the idea of using the imperial bunker as an AV14 tunnel for my Grots. Place it sideways in no mans land far enough forward so my grots can just barely embark T1, then drop the escape hatch another 12" forward. You can either exit through the normal door on the other side (towards the enemy since the bunker has access points on opposite sides) or use the escape hatch to get 12"+6" move+D6" run closer.