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Post by remigrudgebearer on May 1, 2020 3:39:20 GMT
Hello again!
Delving deeper back into 8th edition has led to a lot of rekindling of old army ideas. I love conversions and the older style of artifacts and combos leads to a lot of fun ones. One artifact that was once a REALLY bizarre army project was Fozzrik's Folding Fortress.
I have no if ANYONE has played with it at all, but it seems like an innocuous magic item...or the absolute weird bane you could imagine. The idea of the army would be to take the ridiculous Folding Fortress and get a free Watchtower-esque building. You can then stash a massive core block filled with a BUNCH of wizards and whatever characters and have the equivalent of a fancy artillery piece. (If the shooting limitation from buildings wasn't so bad, I'd consider a shooting unit, but alas...)
The point of this army was:
1. To convert a sweet and epic tower. It would be huge, but all in height. Very much an epic living tree or creepy mage tower is the idea. Cool conversion idea either way.
2. To not need to paint so many minis... The original notes says this, but I think I missed the point of only garrisoning by moving toward the building...so I'd have to deploy the huge block first... Am I wrong? I can't find the ability to just deploy RIGHT into a building, but maybe I am just missing it...
3. To then focus the actual models outside the building on cool, dynamic hammers that will run around and add more of a punch to the bundle of wizards.
I never decided on a faction to do this, but considered many. Wood Elves seem out as the shooting is limited, as are non-magic forces like Dwarves or Khorne.
The biggest issue I am coming against with this army idea (bar the awkward deploy and then shuffle in...) is...would this be boring to play against? Since I need 3 units for an army, SOMETHING would have to be outside the building, but the majority of my force COULD be in there and with the rules for assaulting the building (unbreakable, fighting with only 10 guys, etc.) I doubt a huge unit in there would ever be destroyed. So, would matches just be a grindfest ending in either a draw or my victory, depending on how well my Magic/hammers did?
Would love to hear your thoughts on all of this. Is it interesting? Would you want to play against it? Does it seem awful? Did I miss where you can garrison a unit during deployment?
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Post by dannytee on May 1, 2020 8:30:18 GMT
Many years ago an opponent of mine used the tower with a high elf army. He put archers in there along with some characters. I don’t remember the unit size in the tower, was standard’ish. Like maybe 30. He certainly had a fair number of units in addition to what was inside the tower, like +\- 5 other units. This type of set up was fine to play against.
Now if some one did say a 100 archer unit in the tower along with all the characters and then just one chaff unit outside to hit the three unit minimum (eagle or fast cav) that would be a pointless game/not fun for the opponent in my opinion. This would be an extreme points denial set up. As you say a huge unit like this with general LD and BSB isn’t going anywhere fast. And with only 10 enemies max coming at them the 100 guys aren’t all dying.
Maybe a cool house rule would be rules to destroy buildings with high strength attacks (like siege castle wall/tower rules) but then cut the cost of the magic item down, maybe half.
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Post by FvonSigmaringen on May 1, 2020 8:52:23 GMT
- As far as I am aware, the only possibility for deployment in a building is the Watchtower scenario, which does not help in this case. Perhaps there are units/items with a special rule that would allow it, but, currently, I cannot think of any. So, as you suspect, you cannot normally deploy the unit in the Fortress - it needs to move into base contact with the building during the Movement phase. Of course, you should be able to do this in turn 1. However, if your opponent goes first, he too might be able to garrison the Fortress, for instance by using Scouts or magic like Walk between Worlds. [Edit: Note, however, that units "cannot garrison a building in the same turn in which they have marched."]
- The unit in the building is always steadfast, NOT Unbreakable. With General and BSB in the building, it is unlikely to fail a Break test, but not impossible. In that case, you'll have to leave the building and flee. However, the victorious enemy unit will not be able to pursue, as it has to garrison the building. But I would have other units ready to charge you next turn. [Edit: As it happens, the enemy cannot pursue, but does not need to garrison the building. If it does not, it is moved directly backwards 1".]
- It is possible for the unit to be destroyed, or forced to leave the building by magic (Final Transmutation or Dwellers Below). Flaming Attacks would help enemy ranged attacks and in an assault.
- Some might see it as a challenge, but I suspect most will find it boring. Depending on the Victory Conditions of the scenario, it may even be counter-productive.
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Post by Horace on May 1, 2020 9:52:10 GMT
I guess it depends how your gaming group play and how competitive you are with each other. It does not encourage the most fun game in the world, I get to play so few games I would probably not be thrilled at the prospect of such a game
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Post by sedge on May 1, 2020 12:20:53 GMT
I don't think it'd be fun to play against unless 1) your opponent agreed to it beforehand, and 2) tailored their list towards it. It would be a very boring game with little manoeuvring, and for any unprepared opponent it could be a futile game with no realistic chance of victory. You'd be better off trying it as a narrative scenario with some house rules to make it more interesting.
Also, if I knew this was coming I'd just rock up with Woodies fielding a 100-strong unit of Glade Guard, Banner of Eternal Flame, and Trueflight Arrows. No penalties to their To Hit rolls, re-rolling failed wounds (Flaming Attacks vs models garrisoned in a building), and armour piercing. It would be a massacre.
There are also some spells that would make things nasty for a garrissoned deathstar.
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Post by midnightfox0083 on May 1, 2020 14:21:15 GMT
- The unit in the building is always steadfast, NOT Unbreakable. With General and BSB in the building, it is unlikely to fail a Break test, but not impossible. In that case, you'll have to leave the building and flee. However, the victorious enemy unit will not be able to pursue, as it has to garrison the building. But I would have other units ready to charge you next turn.
Move and position your fast units behind the tower such that if the unit flees it can't land anywhere and just escort them off the board for victory.
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Post by 1plussave on May 1, 2020 14:43:03 GMT
- As far as I am aware, the only possibility for deployment in a building is the Watchtower scenario, which does not help in this case. Perhaps there are units/items with a special rule that would allow it, but, currently, I cannot think of any. So, as you suspect, you cannot normally deploy the unit in the Fortress - it needs to move into base contact with the building during the Movement phase. Of course, you should be able to do this in turn 1. However, if your opponent goes first, he too might be able to garrison the Fortress, for instance by using Scouts or magic like Walk between Worlds. Am I misremembering or are there not rules for deploying war machines in towers, written as if derived from the rules for regular units deploying in towers? Or is it an oversight that only war machines can start the game in a building?
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Post by FvonSigmaringen on May 1, 2020 15:46:32 GMT
War machines are indeed an exception to the rule, since they are "permitted to deploy in a building or terrain" (BRB p. 109). I was talking about units remigrudgebearer has in mind.
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Post by FvonSigmaringen on May 1, 2020 15:59:27 GMT
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Post by vulcan on May 2, 2020 1:45:08 GMT
Yeah, if you went all-out complete cheddar with it, it wouldn't be fun at all to play against. Probably not all that fun to play with either, it would be horribly boring.
Now once I did go mild cheddar with it with Skaven, putting 15 jezzails and a grey seer in one. It worked out pretty well that one time, but I did get VERY lucky gunning down a chaos sorcerer on disc on turn 2 (statistically, that shouldn't have done more than put one wound on at best). It's the kind of thing I'd use once in a while just for fun, but not as a regular part of my strategy.
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Post by FvonSigmaringen on May 2, 2020 16:43:04 GMT
On a side note: I never understood why damage inflicted by Miscasts in a building follow the rules for templates (hitting D6 models). If anything, the damage in such a confined space should be greater, not less. But, ultimately, fluff has no bearing on the rules...
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Post by FvonSigmaringen on May 2, 2020 21:15:01 GMT
On another side note: as pointed out above, war machines can be deployed in a building, but it is not such a good place to be, if the enemy has template weapons. For instance, enemy stone throwers and other cannon will then cause D6 hits (with MW) rather than just one.
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Post by remigrudgebearer on May 3, 2020 8:01:16 GMT
So, yeah, about what I expected, thanks everyone for the response.
The idea is, in the end, a fluffy hobbying project/potential unique army. But going all in produces problems for games. The project likely won't be done, or at the very least not to the all-in idea that I had first thought.
I do want to point out something I had failed to mention: Narrative. I do love narrative. IMO it is the best way to play. So the idea of making the tower destructible, making an entire new scenario for it, etc, I think could be cool. First and foremost, though, is the chance that 8th just won't get much play so no need to mess with what few games I might get in with weird scenarios and an entire hobby project. May still build a cool Wizard tower as I do love Wizards...
Again, thank you all for the responses.
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Post by vulcan on May 4, 2020 23:23:32 GMT
The best solution to FFF is to limit the number of models allowed inside. 15-20 is enough to be useful without becoming a bunker to hide a deathstar in for further shennannigans.
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Post by DiscoQing on May 5, 2020 9:52:59 GMT
So I can't put 100 archers in it, with bsb-botwd, alarielle, a fighty lord, hero with magic bow and scroll caddy?
I quit this game!
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