AbusePuppy

For getting onto the battlements when occupied? Not that I recall offhand, no.

That's a potential argument, but since it's legal for enemy models to land on the battlements of a building while you are occupying it, I was forced to assume that the 1" rule didn't apply. (Otherwise they would... hover just above the battlements somehow?)

I find that the best counter to fortifications, rather than blasting at them, is simply to assault them or hit them with template weapons. Grenades thrown in the windows and flamers will both do significant numbers of wounds to the models inside- especially if it's a nasty template like the Heldrake. Even the lowly frag grenade, when tossed by a unit of Tactical Marines or Guardsmen, is 10d6 automatic S3 hits.

1) Deployment: Got deploying the fortification figured out, but the wording about deploying on/in the battlements is very lacking. So, the SA book says to treat the battlements as an upper level of a ruin. Does this mean that units, like skimmers, are allowed onto the battlements? The ruin rules are fine with this, but the building rules are very lacking with regards to vehicles. 

Assuming there is sufficient space to land without resorting to balance shenanigans, yes. Same goes for jump/jetpack infantry, Flying Monstrous Creatures, etc.

 

2) Movement: Obviously, the fortification doesn't move, but there are some other, more shaky elements of the movement phase regarding buildings. So, does an occupied building count as an enemy model for the purpose of moving within 1" of it? As I read it, answer is no, though only implied.

 

If a model that cannot occupy the building is on the battlements (and not a skimmer/FMC/jump infantry/jet infantry), is only way to get off via using the impact tests for jumping/falling off the battlements? As I read it, yes, though again very vague. An example here would be a walker which started the game deployed onto the battlements or a model like Karamazov, which is specifically restricted on entering buildings. I'm pretty sure you could also disembark a unit via a flyer onto the battlements, just as you can deep strike onto them.

 

I remain unclear about how buildings interact with drop pods (and other DS transports), through present rules in the SA book seem to imply that you could land the pod directly onto a battlement and disembark from it, ample space provided, of course.

Occupied buildings do not qualify for the 1" rule, as best I can tell. You may pass as close to them as you wish.

This would be correct, if you can't move through the building itself you'll have to jump down.

Since the upper levels of a battlement count as a ruin, you could potentially land a Drop Pod (or other DSing unit) on top of them, on purpose or by accident. (This was actually true for the old building rules as well, at least for DSing units.)

 

3) Shooting at buildings. So, the one that has come up a few times is players claiming that buildings aren't vehicles and therefore rules that specifically apply to vehicles do not apply to buildings. I can't find any rules support to suggest this, but it does have rather huge impacts on the game. I do understand rules that specifically apply to the vehicle damage table not applying to the building damage table, as they are different tables.

 

I am curious, though remain unclear, about how rules interact with the rules that prevent shooting at unoccpied buildings. In example, if a unit is in front of a building and placement of the blast I am shooting them with will clip the unoccupied building, can I still fire? If I can fire, does the clip affect the building normally, or is it exempt because it's unoccupied?

The building rules themselves actually say "Buildings of all types use aspects of theTransport vehicle rules.The main difference between buildings and actual vehicles is that they can't move, and units from either side can go inside." This, along with GW's FAQs on the subject, strongly imply that buildings, except where otherwise noted, function like "neutral" transports.

As of Stronghold Assault, "neutral" buildings largely cease to exist, as if you purchase a building for your army it starts the game "claimed" for your side (and can thus be shot at and assaulted.) If you are actually using buildings-as-battlefield-terrain then there can be neutral buildings; they will be affected normally by shots that hit them incidentally (such as blasts and templates), but you cannot declare them as the target of an attack. Unlike friendly units, you are not prohibited from partially covering a neutral building with a blast/template weapon so long as you follow the other rules for the weapon's shooting.

 

4) Shooting with buildings. This one creates some interesting rules interactions. Like, in example, my aquilla strongpoint is being raided by CSM raptors. They jump up and clear out my garison on the battlements. I have a unit beneath them in the building. On my turn, I want to fire the main cannon at the raptors, can I? Even if using the D weapon for the smaller blase, a hit on the unit on the battlements means a hit on my own occupied building...Is the building considered mine for the purpose of shooting at the models above?

Since you are occupying the building- and thus it is "claimed" for your side- you cannot legally place the blast so that it hits the building. (The Raptors being on the battlements is insufficient to break your claim on the building, as you are still occupying the building itself- if you didn't have the unit on the inside, the enemy would have claimed the building.)

Eldar and Dark Eldar in bed together. The universe has ended.

Everyone knows that siding with your brother, even your twisted, artificial half-brother or your prissy, holier-than-thou older brother is better than working with some filthy mon-keigh. You might hate your family, but the rest of the universe is worse.

Most all of Mr. Moretanks advice is very solid, but I will doubly reiterate the need for sleep and food. These things take a bigger toll than you realize when you miss them- if you're tired because you only slept three hours last night or frazzled because you haven't eaten anything but greasy burgers for two days, you are going to make mistakes that will cost you. Get six hours of sleep and two or three solid meals every day. Bring something simple for breakfast- oatmeal, cereal, fruit, whatever so you don't wreck your first match every morning. Nothing will make you feel stupider than losing a match you should've won because your brain skipped a beat.

Most people are fine with taking multiple artefacts/relics/etc. They're expensive enough that you're paying for it anyways.

I would only take the FSR if I really wanted to pump my AA potential- take the Magos Machine Spirit upgrade and then add in a Quad Gun sitting on its own and you have a ton of guns to shoot at airplanes for codices that don't otherwise get access to that sort of thing. You pay through the nose for it, but you are at least getting good guns. Worthwhile overall? Probably not, but the option at least exists.

I don't think the Fortress of Redemption really compares, since you're putting "four" BS3 TLLascannons up against one BS3/4 TLLas- and the Fortress doesn't have the option of adding the extra Quad Gun. G.I. JOE PLAYSET is great for building a firebase around, due to the large number of bunkers to protect units in/behind, but an anti-air star it is not.

I am very curious about results with an army that employed a double FOC and double aquillas, as coping with 2 D weapon units (or three with a LoW) would be difficult to cope with, even if the rest of the force is weak and lacking in numbers.

If you're in a tournament that allows Str D weapons, the Aquillas are actually one of your weakest choices because ANY hit from an enemy Str D weapon will ruin it and it's a very large target. And that's not to even mention the ease of hitting it with Drop melta, or flaming out the guys manning the weaponry, etc.

As a general rule, it is fine to go up a base size, but not down. If you wanna make your regular HQ look all scenic and stuff, stick him on a big base.

 

"If a Mawloc Deep Strikes onto a point occupied by other models, do not roll on the Mishap table."

The interaction is very weird, but this line basically shuts down Warp Quake so long as the Mawloc lands on top of something it can hit- if not, the line doesn't apply and the Mawloc will Mishap like anything else.

Miasma Cannon on a Trygon Prime is getting WAY too expensive for my tastes. It'll pop up and do some damage, sure, but you're adding a pretty large fraction of the base cost of a regular Trygon at that point.

All of that is assuming that there IS a large multilevel ruin to hide all that stuff on, which won't always be the case. Mawlocs are actually quite good at breaking up clusters of units, although their inability to control their scatter can be a problem.

And, yes, PEN can make them stubborn too, but, again, with Deathleaper, his leadership should be less, so even if they are stubborn, it might only be Ld8.  Better than a kick in the head.  

Again, Deathleaper's ability (and the -1 from the formation) are both penalties to Leadership, which Stubborn will ignore. It's really not that hard.

No, it just requires surviving to the Nids first turn.  If you place your broodlord in the "open" to die to tau shooting on their first turn, you deserve it.

Even in cover, Tau will pulverize your T4/5+ unit pretty badly without really even trying. Heck, a unit of Kroot could probably do enough damage if they get into doubletap range.

For 130pts, the Broodlord setup is just too fragile. I'd rather be shooting Barbed Stranglers/Stranglethorn Cannons if I want to pin things.

And, again, to remind folks: an Ethereal can call Stubborn and make functionally the whole army Ld10 and ignoring modifiers. If a Venomthrope can cover the Tyranid army, you have to concede an Ethereal hitting the Tau one with twice the aura size.

 

Ok, let's talk SMS in the context of the list I wrote.  

 

What has SMS?  Mostly it is riptides, skyrays, and devilfish. 

Broadsides. Broadsides are kinda important.

And it's not just SMS; it's SMS and Serpent Shields and Ion Accelerators and Thunderfire Cannons and all those other, similar weapons that will vaporize your Venomthropes in a single volley.

Don't get me wrong, the Venomthrope is in no way a bad unit, but expecting it to live past the start of the enemy's shooting phase against a good firepower army is just silly. Sticking it in a building can help- although it's by no means guaranteed and there are ways to take advantage of that (like flamer templates), but on foot you will be hard-pressed to place it in a location that allows you to benefit significant portions of your army and also stay alive against the enemy's guns.

What is the schedule for the two days looking like, incidentally? Corvallis to Seattle is a bit of a trip, so it'd be good to know what time we need to be there.

Yeah, best case scenario is that a riptide is in range of a Ld9 Ethereal and then is -2 from The Horror. If I can leverage a lictor into 12" range he's at a Ld6 check.  If ethereal isn't there or is down to Ld8, and the Riptide is in range of a lictor, it is now taking The Horror at Ld5.  

Keep in mind that if you're doing this, the Ethereal is probably gonna call for Stubborn for the whole army, so it's actually just gonna be an unmodified check anyways.

I don't think that the list is gimmicky...

Focusing heavily on a single strategy like that is almost the definition of gimmicky- that isn't to say it's bad, but it definitely is leaning on a single trick. If you come up against Orks, or Daemons, or bikes, or anyone else immune to Pinning/Leadership, you're gonna be struggling.

I also think people aren't factoring in that his sabres now just cause instant death.  There is no roll anymore.  If he gets a wound through, unless they are EW, that thing is dead.  

His Sabres always caused Instant Death all the time, you're thinking of Boneswords. The difference is that before they also forced people to reroll successful invulns, and now they don't.

A Skyslasher is a Gargoyle that is more expensive, comes with more disadvantages, and has fewer abilities.

Yeah, Taak is a good thinker, but his writing is rather rambling and he tends to take very particular rules interpretations and run with them. Wish he woulda put it up for review by one of the other authors so we could've caught that stuff.

Part of the problem is that he takes the statement that IB doesn't apply on the Turn that a Unit arrives from Reserves, and then decides that this must be because of timing reasons, rather than realizing that it's simply because the Rule says it doesn't regardless of what order things are resolved in.

It does still matter, though- if you bring a Synapse Creature in from reserve before seeing what needs to roll for IB, it could make a very big difference.

No, his reasoning is not sound. That rule clearly states when synapse has to be checked. It then lists units that are exempt. He's taking that and trying to adjust the timing. That isn't sound at all.

 

When does it occur: At the start of the turn

Who does it affect:  any that are outside of synapse range unless...coming in from reserve.

 

You can't take that "coming in from reserve" and decide that it now changes the timing of synapse check.

"The start of the turn" is the same thing as "the start of the movement phase." There is no part of the turn that is before the movement phase. As per the BRB and the FAQ, you absolutely are allowed (on your turn) to pick what order things occur in- in fact, if you want, you can change it from turn to turn. That is explicitly and intentionally how the game works.

Since arriving from reserves and testing Synapse both happen at the same time (start of the turn- along with casting Blessings/Maledictions and several other things) the active player gets to choose what order they occur in. That's straight out of the BRB.

Taak makes a number of other rules mistakes through the article, but that much at least is accurate.

Yeah, it says you can do it in Apocalypse; Escalation is not Apocalypse.

Gargoyles are really good because they are fast and can force a TON of Blind checks onto the enemy, letting subsequent assaulters hit the enemy on 3s. They don't solve the issues with scoring, though, and compete with the FMCs for space.

 

Tyranid Prime:  165

  Norn Crown

This is what pisses me off. For the same price, I can get a Chaos Lord on a Juggernaut with a Daemon Weapon a 4++ save.That guy is putting out ~10 S6 AP2 attacks on the charge. The Tyranid Prime doesn't even have AP5.

Friggin' Tyranid Prime.

They have Move Through Cover, but unlike in 5th Edition, there's no actual rules for determining how a model with a 12" movement is affected by Difficult Terrain. (It's not hard to use the old "3d6, take the highest and double it" method from 5E, but that's not official and some people argue that they simply aren't slowed by terrain at all.)

The "using abilities out of fire points" question has not been addressed by GW. It has existed since the very beginning of 6E.

And just to confirm: will the Forge World Lords of War be allowed? I'm assuming so, since you're allowing both FW units and LoW, but you hadn't specifically answered that question.

It's not hard to reason out, even for a direct-fire weapon- the fuses on the shell might be timed for safety reasons, or the gun might have a minimum elevation, or the properties of the weapon could be such that the shell simply can't detonate any earlier than that.

Glad to see the responses here; it looks like we Corvallians may be bringing up a crew to visit again.

As to the void shields, I appreciate you bringing it up. First for a question not asked. 

Size of the void shield generator: Since there is no official model for them, I would like people to target the size of the lower level of the bastion. First floor section. For those with non-imperial armies, if you want to create a nice centerpiece model out of a void shield generator, simply stick to the same basic area of table occupied, and it will be accepted.

If you hadn't seen, a short time back one of the GW guys had made a posting about the general size of the Void Shield Generator, saying that it should be roughly the same size as the Vengeance Weapon Batteries, which feels about right to me. Not to infringe upon your decision as the one organizing things, but a Bastion is a rather large piece of terrain.

 

Invul saves and cover saves for the shield: Once again, you cannot give a building cover or an invulnerable save, therefore no cover for what is already a protective shell.

I will point out that, with respect to buildings, this is not actually correct- buildings can have saves in the same way any other model can, although their larger size obvious makes gaining a cover save somewhat difficult. Of course, most special rules granting cover won't apply to a building, as they only work on units from their own codex, but some powers and wargear (Forewarning, Power Field Generator) can do so.

Are forgeworld lords of war not in the escalation book allowed: Units in the updated imperial armor 2013, or escalation will be allowed. You must provide your opponent with a copy of those rules and any weapon rules before hand.

This includes Lords of War choices in the .pdf on the Forge World website as well, I assume, provided they are accompanied by the appropriate rules?

Edit: A couple of other questions. How does difficult terrain affect superheavy walkers and garganuan creatures, if at all? Also, can abilities that require LOS but are not shooting attacks (such as Coteaz's "I've Been Expecting You" or Anrakyr's "Mind in the Machine") be used from inside a transport vehicle, presuming it has fire points?

Internet codices,

formations,

What, exactly, is meant by these two? I'm presuming you don't just mean "any codex written by someone on the internet," since that means everyone has ten million T10 W10 2++ rerollable models with Turbo-Lasers on them. Formations, to my knowledge, only exist in Apocalypse- are you referring to stuff like the Tau Support Cadre and the like?

I would argue against the decision to blanket-allow everything, but obviously this is something you've given thought to already, so I doubt I'll shift your mind. I suppose we'll get to see just what the game looks like with all this stuff included.

Edit: it would be a good idea to issue some rulings with regards to Void Shields, since they are a bit confusing. Namely:

-With Projected Void Shields, if you place a blast so that it hits five models inside the Shield, does that cause five hits on the Shield or one?

-Can you take cover or invulnerable saves for a Void Shield? Does it matter whether these saves come from terrain, wargear, abilities or psychic powers?

-Does Tank Hunter function against a non-vehicle unit benefiting from a Projected Void Shield?