Fortifications

I want to talk a bit about Fortifications, what they can do for us, issues with opponents and possible modelling opportunities.

First off, as you may already know, your army may include one Fortification, of which there are four different types with existing GW kits. Let's look at them.


Aegis Defence Lines. The cheapest Fortification, this allows you to form a line or embankment of cover from which your ground troops can make use of; your warriors will benefit from a 4+ cover save (or 2+ if going to ground). Generally speaking most DE players don't have units that sit back and shoot but by placing an objective in the confines, you have an amazing wall of defence.

A Comms relay is relatively cheap and allows you to reroll reserves rolls if you have an unengaged model next to it. Then we have two options for gun emplacements - the Icarus lascannon or the Quad-gun. Now, what these allow us to do is fire at enemy units as they come in from reserve and flyers using their full ballistic skill. It feels slightly dirty using mon-keigh tech but the Quad-gun has a great chance of shooting light flyers out of the sky and a good hit from the Icarus will slag a Stormraven.

Not a bad choice but a mobile army will now make use of the provided cover but the gun emplacements are useful, especially against enemy flyers.

Will we see these in the midst of the enemy? There are other choices (which we will get on to in a minute) that opponents may prefer but a Tau or Guard gunline will love these, dealing with these is second nature but the gun emplacements may prove tedious against our flyers.

From a modelling aspect I like the idea of using an existing kit but strewing dead Guard over the walls; splatters of blood and heads on spears will complete the look. I am toying with the idea of a Guardsman manning a Quad-Gun with a Haemonculus stood over him, controlling him with puppet strings.


Skyshield Landing Pad. Still rather cheap, the landing pad is quite a large Fortification and will gift cover saves to any Raiders and Venoms lurking behind it. It has two configurations - shielded and unfurled. Shielded gifts a 4+ invun versus enemy shooting, again this issue for this for us is we don't have many units that stand back and shoot and you can get better or alternative cover saves elsewhere. Unfurled allows deep striking units to arrive directly on top and jet, jump, jetbikes and skimmers don't have to take dangerous terrain tests for moving off it. This allows you to bring down Ravagers etc, knowing that they will be safe from mishap, multiple in fact, but then surely they would be better exploiting the flanks of your opponent. Hellions could come down on top, raise the shields and sit pretty but again you're wasting their offensive capabilities.

A poor choice in my view, it doesn't play to any our army's strengths and you can find plenty of free cover across the battlefield.

The iconic image is a landing pad with a Valkyrie on top, armies that like a solid, defensive base may like this but there are much better options for them I feel - please correct me if you feel otherwise.

The landing pad screams webway portal to me, how about a big gate that fits the dimensions of the GW model with the pad being a dimensional portal and the struts Commorrite architecture...


Imperial Bastion. Now we're getting somewhere. An AV 14 medium building that can hold 20 models and comes with four Heavy bolters. We're now hitting the 3+ cover save area and a fantastic defensive structure. You can tart the Bastion up with all of the options from the Aegis lines, making it a formidable proposition with plenty of fire. But why would the Dark Eldar use this? Your Kabalites are best bullying the enemy from the prow of a Raider or holding on to a screeching Venom. There may be some players that have sit back and shoot units but most won't.

Not a bad choice but I feel the Aegis fulfills a similar role and cheaper.

You will see Bastions, the enemy will love camping in the top of one or hiding a unit in it until Turn 5 looms before throwing them towards a nearby objective. There are many ways to deal with it, the best is probably to Lance it, especially if you can get a shot in turn one before your Flyers come in.

Modelling options may take you back towards what I said regarding the Aegis but how about a spire of Commorragh that has been teleported into the midst of battle, perhaps a tower from one of the city's great arenas has come to watch the bloodshed unfold? What about a Bastion made out of Guardsmen as some form of sick sarcasm?


Fortress of Redemption. Lolwut? Over 200 points brings in that big plastic building that Games Workshop try to sell to you every Christmas. This thing isn't just for Dark Angels, apparently Space Wolves and even Nids are quite happy to take one. This thing is huge and will entirely hide some vehicles for you and has some great weapons. You get a twin-linked Icarus lascannon and a missile silo which has a large blast frag round or for a slight premium, a large blast krak round; you can even garnish the thing with some Heavy bolters. I'm treading over old ground, sit back and shoot in a fortress? I won't explain that again, but you have a lot of buildings and weapons to play around in. What about a foot list packed with Lances that camps in there before 6 Razorwings arrive on turn two....

I think you won't see this in many games under 2000 points, however some armies may build to suit their play around this. The guns it offers are impressive and is THE best castle in any sense you can have. Lance it, all of it. Then laugh.

Castle Greyskull. Or what about a huge DE flyer that suits the dimensions, maybe a crash one. A crashed Corsair galleon. Or a Fortress of Redemption made out of Dark Angels.

Sky.

I've been trying to think of reasons why DE might be manning fortifications recently, looking for ideas as to what i could model for scenery. I've done a post about deployable scenery elsewhere but I did have a few ideas around bunkers and justification for us taking them. You could argue that the battle takes place just as your warriors have trashed a bastion etc, but I wasn't so keen on that as it seems to suggest that one of the lesser races has got the drop on us.

So I thought a bit more, read a bit of the codex again, and the historical bit has several examples of DE luring the lesser races into doing our dirty work for us. That to my mind smacked of taking a fortification and occupying it as bait to tempt our opponents into a trap. So, good excuse to take a fortification? I think so.

Why not make an Aegis Defense line out of Guardsmen? I can totally picture a line of corpses in various states of disassembly (missing heads, legs, etc) joined at the arms together with spikes or knives. Or spears simply shoved through them to make a defense line that's roughly the same size.

The issue is that fortifications don't fit the DE playstyle very well, or work to their strengths, since it promotes turtleing, and thats just something we arent good at...

If you're going to use fortifications, I would say use a hexrifle heavy coven list...

Placing a defence line near a backfield objective to duck some unit in later (since we can't hold objectives out of vehicles anymore) might be worthwhile, especially as you can get an anti-air gun with said defence line.

Nomic wrote:

especially as you can get an anti-air gun with said defence line.

and if you then let lelith main the AA gun, you have a pretty damn effective one ;-)

That's true! both lelith and vects BS will finally come in handy for something other than just racking up their point cost...

I will include a Defence Line in my bigger games. I use a 4 TB w/ 2 DL -squad quite often - my only unit that sits back

For my Dark Eldar Defence Line, I will use the Weapons-seat of an old Eldarvyper as Gun-Emplacement (Laserlance as that icarus Lasergun + 4 shuricannons as Quad-AA).

The Defence Line will be something like glossy black walls with some green or white marble-effect - like teleported from the Dark City. Complete with spiky bits, skulls and banners from the Venom/Raider-Sprues

I'll probably just use the Imperial defence line (too lazy to convert a force-field defenc eline or something) and just sya it was there at the start of the battle. I was thinking about making my own anti-air gun, tho. I was thinking about taking the Tomb Spyder model, leaving out the last body segment, replacing the head with a Talos one and replacing the barrels of the gun it comes with with some extra disintegrators I have laying around. Should look like some kind of hovering weapon platform. If I'd be a better converted, I could even try skulpting an unfortunate slave strapped inside the machnine, like the old Talos had.

fortifications realy dont seem to work with DE in my opinion but their are a few units i could consider with it. first off. the 4th option is just horriable far to expensive and takes far to much space for a traditional deploymeny zone. the obviouse benefits is alot of sitting back, a volley of long range guns(hexrifles and lances) accompaanyed by rapid firfes incase somthing get close. i think a bastion or ADL would do the same perpuse except it wont grant as much cover to the raider/venoms that sit behind breaking Line Of Site.

the landing pad i think will have use. a 4+ invlun is nothing to sneeze at when you have a a volume of rappid fires denying an objective. all in all each has its own use but the only untis that should use them are better off using their speed as designed(scourges/warriors). with exception of a few ( beast massters) if objectives are in running distance.

If there was a WWP type fortification with all the really spiky bits and smooth curves for a Dark Eldar army, I'd probably be one of the first in line to buy it. Unfortunately, I have to agree that nothing screams "this holds enough benefits for hedonistic space pirates to budget points for compared to something in the codex".

Why not get an Eldar-Like Aegis Defence Line for your Farseer and his Pathfinder-Friends? So no skulls and spikes but white marble and soulstones - and as being a part of the Allies, it will fit in the fluff

Depending on on the ammount of points we are running and and type of army I shall play, i see fortifications to have the following pros:

-Get urself one or two of them to block LOS or restrict movement on a the board against a mech army.
-Delicious 4+ cover for foot DE
-skyfire rules or to add some form of AI,AT that I feel that I am lacking in my list.

As it comes to converting... Thats a biggie, Its going to be interesting how I will be able to fit this in fluff wise and to convert one.

The Skyshield Landing Pad is an obvious choice for bringing in deep striking skimmers, and is a great modeling opportunity as well. I expect more than a few DE players will make a large Webway portal model that counts as a Skyshield. There are lots of different way one could model the close/open modes.

I think i could use the aegis with a warrior squad with 2 lances. The aegis defence line can't be destroyed while the other building can. It is cheap and the quad is sexy against flyers.

Btw i already own a Fortress of Redemption... even if i can't think on how to use it effectively with the DE.

You could say the the Fortress of Redemption is just a hard light hologram created by a small device. It makes Imperial patrols less suspicious and is deployed by scout reconaisance DEldar before the main raid appears. That could explain its presence.

I wasn't thinking about the model, conversion is fairly easy... just put blood everywhere, some skulls and some DE flags... the fortress is now a spoil of war.

But in relation of the DE playstyle the fortress is a big "?" to me. Aegis on the other hand...

Oh yes, I see. I misenterperated it.
I don't really know how it could be used effectively, other than just using it for cover. You could use it to house some Trueborn with Dark Lances and Blasters, but theat's all I can really think of.

I have been thinking about the Skyshield Landing Pad, and I think this thing could be quite a good choice for DE. With the sides up it gives a 4+ cover save to all units on the pad. That means it includes all our skimmers!

So, I can put this in my deployment zone and put a few venoms on it that get a 4+ cover save giving me a serious firebase. Plus I can stick an objective in the middle of it and have a 5 man warrior squad sit in the middle of the pad from where they will be very difficult for the enemy to see and shoot. And it is big enough to give cove to any skimmers I deploy behind it.

With a bit of luck the first turn will be night fight and my skimmers now have a 2+ save. Not a bad way to get some first turn survivability for 75pts.

I thought it was a 4+ invul save, and can units shoot out of it when the flaps are up?

Just checked my book and you are correct, it is invun, so no benefit from night fight, but still not too shabby. I am pretty sure you can shoot out when in sheilded mode because it says fire ports are as per the model.

steev wrote:

Just checked my book and you are correct, it is invun, so no benefit from night fight, but still not too shabby. I am pretty sure you can shoot out when in sheilded mode because it says fire ports are as per the model.

Yeah, the model's walls have firing slits in them.

I had good success with 3 trueborn, 2 dark lances and the 3rd manning the quad-gun on a defence line. I'd use these guys to sit in cover and blast away anyway, and now the 3rd guy has something to do.

I got a skyshield a couple of weeks ago, it's HUGE. Might want to check the objective rules though, p121 states no objective can be placed in, or on, impassable terrain, buildings or fortifications. V useful to fix the location of deep strikers though.

A random question, not sure if it belongs here:
So the battlements on a bastion grant a 3+ cover save? I'm liking the idea of having either a warrior squad or a ranger squad on top, as well as Lanceborn inside firing out of the slits.