Thursday, 5 July 2012

Terrain is everything - Tyranid defence line

Firstly, apologies for the lack of 6th coverage. I've got a shedload on my plate at the moment and fitting in the blog when it can tick away happily without my intervention for a fortnight makes it bottom of the pile, that's not to say I don't love you all, I do, you're just high maintenance ;) The sad fact is though that by the time I get to address some of the more pertinent issues with 6th many of them will have been adressed or discussed by those bloggers and forumites worthier than I and I may have missed the boat. Still I'll struggle on.

Back to the post, you've all seen Fortifications are 'in' and everyone and his dog can make space for 50pts of Aegis Defence Line so they can bring their cover with them. GW's point of view is that now folk will be buying this set in bucketloads and not just for the quada guns to make Mortis dreadnoughts! My initial reaction for Tyranids was excitement because I'm not oging to buy the Aegis set because my nids obviously don't use Imperial Architecture and if you've seen the nid FAQ:
Q: Are Tyranid units inside buildings (ie the Bastion) subject to instinctive behaviour tests? Further, are they able to manual fire emplaced weapons? (p33)
A: No to both questions
But apparently the FAQ implies that only Imperial folk can use the weapons emplaced within - BOO! I was looking forward to using spare deathspitters and Tyrannofex weapons to represent the weapons attached within. But if the nids can't use them that sucks. My knee jerk reaction was eventually not 100% justified as the weapons can be auto fired, so a semi-sentient nid presence will still get 'quad' guns
Ultimately though  my hope was that the 'in game' purchasing of Aegis Defence Lines, Bastions and fortifications etc. would herald a new renaissance in folk creating their own xenos equivalents to get the benefits but by doing it old school hobby style on the cheap and with some exciting creativity. Obviously a Tyranid Bastion equivalent in my case might be a nice challenge.

Of course there are already 'alien' 3rd party equivalents out there, the most well known is Darkartstores First Contact Terrain. It's not necessarily the cheapest option but you do seem to get quite a lot for your buck - a 5" section for £4.50 seams equivalent to any sort of Forgeworld prices/purchases.

Alternatively there's Do It Yourself and you know that's what I'm all about, especially if it's cheap, cheap and doubly so if it looks cool. So forgive me if I just bow to someone who's already been there, done that and created the solution to our problem: Mr_Pink and his alien barricades

From this:

To this:

﻿And lets be honest we can all manage that I think! And whilst we're at it I may as well share some more of Mr_pink's awesome work:
That should be enough for now, but it's got me thinking about Bastion and Skyshield equivalents and it's only a little step further on to look at Tau, Eldar, Necron and the oh, so amusing Ork versions!


  1. Fantastic find here. I was just wondering what I'd do for Bug fortifications. Any insight on a suitable bunker idea?

  2. Nid player as well here. I've on a further read through I noticed we are only forbidden from manually firing Emplaced Weapons in buildings specifically.
    No such mention is made of Gun Emplacements (like the aegis defence lines quad gun) which have their own rules that are distinct the rules for Emplaced Weapons in the rulebook.

    So it looks like we can use Gun Emplacements like those that come with a defence line. Just not Weapon Emplacements such as the heavy bolters on a bastion. Its also worth noting that this distinction means Gun Emplacements don't Auto fire.

  3. Indeed Joel I believe you're correct. I read something along those lines on hyv3mynd's

    I actually spent a while yesterday reading and comparing the rules between the two fortifications and I think the distinction you raise between building weapons having autofire and an Aegis gun emplacement not clearly indicates they are different and therefore shooty by 'nids.

    It does raise the question why they bothered to deny access to building weapons but consistency and parity are not words I would use to describe GW rules so I shouldn't be too surprised.

    Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention.