Imperial Castellum Stronghold Unboxed

This is one of those pieces that I have long wanted to own ever since it came out: the Imperial Castellum Stronghold. Remarkably, it is also my first ever purchase in the Realms of Battle style of board pieces. This ultimately means that I may end up getting more at some point. But we will see how this one goes first.

My Horus Heresy Review of the Imperial Castellum Stronghold can be found here. Clearly there are many build options to think about if we are going to use it as part of a game. For my Alpha Legion - if indeed I use it for them - it will come as a surprise for many opponents who are just not ready to face either an Alpha Legion force holed up inside the Stronghold -- or a portion of it that are infiltrating way beyond its boarders. Who says that the Alpha Legion are no good at fortifying their positions. With tanks hunters special rule on the battlements, I think this idea has a lot of potential. 

Obviously, it can also be used as a scenery piece in its own right without needed to think of using it for any kind of force. In doing so, I think I would want to consider a special deployment zone arrangement so that the Castellum is situated in no man's land at the commencement of any game given how good it could be if all its rules are in play. Otherwise, it could just be used as pure "scenery" in the sense of blocking lines of sight and being able to be clambered all over.

The picture above shows the Imperial Castellum Stronghold straight out of the boxing. It comes in a very large box from Forge World that is very well packed and protected from minor dents whilst in transit. 

What surprised me a little was that the resin it was cast from is black. I think I was expecting some kind of grey colour to be perfectly honest. At first, I even worried that they had sold me some kind of second hand one that had already received an undercoat of black spray paint. But no. The resin on this piece really is black to begin with.

Being cast of this material, the details on the piece are really crisp in most places. Indeed, there are very few holes or mis-cast portions anywhere on the entire model. Cleaning up flash lines will take minimal work. That said, I think I will glue in to place some small stones and scatter material before I undercoat this board centre piece just to add to its ambience. More on this project at a later date. Its going to be a long-term project!

Horus Heresy Review: Aegis Defence Line

Background
Yes -- even in the Horus Heresy, you can find Aegis Defence Lines. They're basically barricades designed to give a bit of a cover save.

Strengths
Park your ranged tanks behind them. Place a full Lasrifle Section behind them (and preferably on top of an objective too). And then play along!

Weaknesses
If upgraded with a ranged weapon (Quad Gun, Icarus Lascannon), beware that it can be captured by enemies and used against you.

Builds
Most of the builds are already covered in the core rule book.

I'll simply state the following:

Ammunition Dump: use this for troops with BS=3 that are sitting behind it for the cover save - preferably Lasrifle Sections?

Comms Relay: this depends on the army build. If you have deep-strikers it could be a huge game winner.

Icarus Lascannon: great for shooting fliers out of the sky with a solid penetrating hit.

Quad Gun: lower strength than the Icarus, but twin linked and perfectly capable of literally glancing a flier out of the skies.

Horus Heresy Review: Imperial Castellum Stronghold

A dedicated fortification available to the legion armies. I feel this was mostly included to provide the Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors -- and in particular Kyr Vhalen -- a point to occupy and defend from a position of advantage. With this fortification and Vhalen, even the Alpha Legion are going to be doing some serious head-scratching about how to take the place.

The fortification itself is divided up in to an open deck area, one large AV14 bunker and three medium AV14 bunkers. Together, these provide 5 upgrade mounting points to arm with a variety of weapons or equipment like a comms relay.

To a large extent, it depends entirely on how one wises to play the game, and the game objectives as to how to utilise the Catellum. Will you be objective camping on a single objective within the Castellum and then just grabbing another one of two as you're able elsewhere? Or is it about a glorious last stand (kill points) mission or a re-enactment of the battle of Paramar from Extermination? Given the price tag attached, this fortification will probably form the core of any armies tactics - or at least it should. So plan accordingly and think about the mission parameters (if known in advance).

Here are two example builds.

Castellum with 2 Icarus Lascannons, 2 Whirlwind Launchers, 1 comms relay (435 points)
This is a bunker to provide extra firepower at long range where it is needed. Combine with an aggressive or deep striking forward force for maximum effect.

Castellum with 2 Quad Guns, 2 Hyperios Missile Launchers, 1 Hyperios Command Platform, 1 comms relay, 1 hostile signal jammer (495 points)
A more defensive style of play here with the hostile signal jammer and automated dakka from the command platform. Not sure how the Alpha Legion will handle this against the Iron Warriors and Vhalen at the battle of Paramar, but through scouting and infiltration I'd imagine. 

Aegis Defence Line Camo

Its taken a while to paint these up, but here's the initial stages: a converted Aegis Defence Line painted with camp style.

I think these have been a good experiment. I use the word experiment deliberately - they were mostly painted by my daughter (who's not quite 5 yet). I'm totally thrilled with the outcome!

Imperial Guard Allies for Deepstrike Armies

Here's a concept that I've been thinking around over the past few weeks: an Imperial Guard Ally detachment for deepstriking armies.  

The idea is to use the Imperial Guard specifically as a way in which to augment a fully (or mostly) deepstriking armylist such as Death Wing, Daemons, and the like.  It revolves around manipulating the reserve roll: taking options like the astropath to improve early, rapid deployment.

Here's one option:

HQ: 

Company Command Squad, 1 Astropath, 1 Officer of the Fleet (110 points)

Troops:

1 Veteran Squad (70 points)

Fortifications:

Aegis Defence Line, 1 Communications Relay (70 points)

Total = 250 points.

Now, combine with your favourite (e.g.) daemons list and you have a 35 in 36 chance that all your units will be on the board on turn 2.  The Officer of the Fleet is there to oppose enemy deepstrikes so that your own army can take down the enemy piecemeal if they're employing a similar army.  Deploy somewhere out of sight (perhaps even add a Chimera) and behind the defence line to control communications array and keep them there until the start of turn 2.  Then redeploy and engage as required.

At 250 points, it might not be so worthwhile in a 1500 points total army, but at greater points, I think it would be invaluable.  

Rules Homebrew: Power Generator - a Fortification Upgrade

In the desperation of battle, canny commanders will rig up whatever they can find to the laser weaponry to produce a steady and unrelenting arc of fire.  Power generators come in all shapes and sizes, but the desired effect is the same: to enhance what is already present.

Cost:
One-tenth the points cost of the fortification it is installed within.

Effects:
A power generator causes all laser, plasma, melta, or other "energy" based weapons attached to a fortification to become twin-linked, representing an overload of power.

In addition, a single model in base contact with an appropriate type of weapon can "hook-up" that weapon to the power generator and gain the same effect.

The power generator is treated as an AV=10, open-topped immobile vehicle with 2 hull points.  If it explodes, double the explosion radius and inflict an automatic strength 10 hit on the fortification that it is contained within.

(Image: Quantum Gothic power generator).

Quad Gun Construction

The quad-gun is sold with the Aegis Defence Line and can be purchased in-game with many of the fortification options. Rules-wise, the gun feels highly appealing (but I'll post about that another day).  Today, I wanted to talk about the construction of the kit.

Much like the Icarus lascannon, the assembly is reasonably straight-forward with very few fiddly bits to contend with.

The base is exactly the same as the Icarus: a square arrangement (4 bits), and a cover with a hole in the top (much like a predator main weapon perhaps).  The gun consists of the circular base that swivels on the platform base, the "retort stand"(?!), 4 guns, and some optional extras.

When I was making this piece, I got a little confused with the gun orientation.  For some reason, I wanted the tracers (or are they simply support struts?) to be on the upper edge of the guns themselves.  As can be seen in the image, these are on the lower edge.  The clue in the construction is to look at the orientation of the skulls on the side of the weapon, just in front of the ammo barrels.  Speaking of the ammo barrels, I also couldn't decide whether they were more appealing if they were slightly offset to the top (as in the image, and as recommended), or offset to the bottom.  I guess a gravity assist makes sense, hence why they're offset to the top edge.

There are also a small bunch of optional extras to the piece, including lenses, a power pack (both attached here) and some mechanicus looking bits (which I chose not to glue on).  In total, my final quad gun has (I think) 17 bits.  Of them, 4 are small (fiddly!) half-barrels at the front of the gun.  I might replace (or extend) the front of the gun with some chaos vehicle sprue gargoyle heads.  But I'm not sure if I'm totally taken with that idea just yet.

Icarus Lascannon: Model Making and Statistical Evaluation

One of the nice features about the Bastion and Aegis Defence Line sets are that they come with a couple of "upgrades" in the box.  In the case of the Bastion, the Icarus Lascannon comes supplied. 

Making the Icarus was reasonably straight forward -- it is not the most complex (nor most fiddlesome) model to assemble (I think that award might go to the Shadowsword).  Some of the sprues do leave appreciable nubs on the main plastic once removed, so I found that some time invested in clean up work is essential to get the model looking good.  I think my only minor quibble is that the front end of the lascannon itself comes in two parts.  I'd prefer just one part please!  (equally, I am happy drilling my own barrel holes on miniatures; some other people may not be, so I can see how it is seen as an advantage).

Rules-wise, the Icarus lascannon is not too different to a regular lascannon except for being able to take on deep-striking and flying units nicely.  Assuming a typical (marine) BS of 4, the chances of scoring a penetrating hit on a flyer are then:

AV=10: 3+ to hit; penetrate on 2+ => 56% (with 33% chance of explosion if hit => 18.5% cumulative)

AV=11: 3+ to hit; penetrate on 3+ => 44% (with 33% chance of explosion if hit => 14.8% cumulative)

AV=12: 3+ to hit; penetrate on 4+ => 33% (with 33% chance of explosion if hit => 11.1% cumulative)

AV=13: 3+ to hit; penetrate on 5+ => 22% (with 33% chance of explosion if hit => 7.4% cumulative)

AV=14: 3+ to hit; penetrate on 6+ => 11% (with 33% chance of explosion if hit => 3.7% cumulative)

So, whilst appearing nice against low AV units, I probably wouldn't use it over the quad gun.  The gain is at the high AV end where the quad gun won't dent anything.  But then again, considering the low probabilities involved, why was I shooting at a land raider again?

Example of Chaos Aegis Defence Line

After a rummage around the bits box, I thought that I might opt for a simple conversion strategy for an Aegis defence line.  The line features simple additions (dozer blade; horus eye, a pair of chaos plate either side) for this one.  I might do something a little bit more Nurglesque for part of the line -- embed some heads and tentacles and generally deface and make the line more decrepit!

The image is just a mock up.  Nothing has been glued in place yet, so if anyone's got some ideas or think the looks needs something else to make it "pop", let me know!  Perhaps its just too Iron Warriors?  Or not?

Bits Box Raid for Chaotification

Is "Chaotification" a word? Probably not!

Does Chaos care?  Doubt it!

In order to deploy my earlier idea of how to use an Aegis defence line, I decided that the ordinary Imperial defence line just wouldn't be enough.  So, I decided to rummage through the old bits box to see what I could turn up to inspire me.  Below is an image of the assortment of items that I managed to find.  Most of them are from the chaos vehicle accessories sprue -- plenty of spare bits from that source as can be seen. 

Other bits are from more dubious sources, including but not limited to: chaos spawn (what could be more chaotic than random faces and arms growing out of a wall?), ancient warhammer shields, old beige plastic skeleton bits, bastion upgrades, bloodcrusher oddities, and some skulls here and there.  Now to have a cogitate about how to put them all together...



Fortifications: Thinking about Aegis Defence Lines

I've been giving some serious thought to whether I want to include any fortifications in to army lists.  For the price of a rhino with havoc launcher, I could get an Aegis Defence Line for my armies.  That seems reasonable -- but what are the advantages?  Beyond getting a 4+ save exactly where we want it during deployment, I noticed a unique bit of wording with the Aegis Defence Line in the 6th ed rule book:

"each section [...] must be placed in contact with at least one other section"

So, we could certainly create a big circular defence line to place an important long range shooting unit behind ... or perhaps two smaller circular / rectangular sections.  But since we get 8 sections, we could create four walls for our units to hide behind (see image).  Each section is adjacent to one other and therefore fulfils the rules requirements.  

Why is this any good?  Well, the number of times I feel I've deployed on boards without sufficient cover saves in my deployment zone is large.  With this strategy, I can have 4 "buildings" with a 4+ cover save (i.e. the same as ruins!) that I can shoot behind of in safety and go to ground on an objective behind all game long (i.e. 2+ cover save).  The only negative is that I don't get the elevation that I would ordinarily get with multi-level ruins.  This may or may not be an issue depending on the rest of the scenery across the board.  I'm thinking that purchasing an aegis defence line in an army list could well be worth-while.

The other thing I've been thinking tactically about is also illustrated in the image: two sections with one in front of the other.  Here's the thought: have a tarpit unit behind the first wall to engage and charging units (presumably because they're on top of an objective?) and have an all-round unit behind the second (i.e. one that does both shooting and melee).  Any charging opponent will get shot at (maybe twice if they get out of a tarpit), risk a counter assault, and potentially have to assault the second unit next turn.  Well ... it'd have to be set up in a "funnel" manner, but the idea is entertaining.  Aerial strikes and outflanking units clearly nullify this idea pretty quickly, but against a ground assault, it'd work very well. 

Tactica: Castling (and Epidemius)

With the addition of allies and the ability to purchase a fortification, certain tactical options now present themselves that weren't always available in 5th edition.  

For example, if you have an important unit in the game that you need to keep alive, "Castling" is now a viable option.  There are a number of units such as these: Eldar Farseer with runes of warding for psychic defence, and Epidemius for a buff to all Nurgle units.  These guys don't really want to see the front line of combat if they can help it -- particularly if they're simply an allies choice in a force composed of other primary elements who ARE there to get to the front lines.  

So, here's the idea.  As well as your valuable allies that provide you with nifty bonuses, you're going to need somewhere for them to skulk away and hide in.  What better than a bastion?  With AV=14 at a third of the cost of a land raider, why not?  The bastion will take a bit of pounding to get at, and it is probably not going to be target number one on your enemies' hit lists.  Or at least, that's the theory.

Let's have a look at Epidemius.  To Castle Epidemius is relatively simple. Because he is going to be deep-striking through daemonic assault on to the battlefield, all that we need to do is have an icon inside the bastion at set-up.  When Epidemius arrives (hopefully on turn 1!), he will deep-strike without scatter to the ground level of the bastion, and within 2 inches of the front door (for the rules for embarkation to work).  In the movement phase, disembark the marines (or whoever it was with the icon), or perhaps move them up to the battlements section, and then in the shooting phase, run Epidemius in to the building.  Castling move complete!  

You now have Epidemius and chums safely tucked away and are ready to take on the rest of the battlefield!

Fortifications in Army Lists

All of us have probably been thinking about how to interpret the new rules consistently, and we've also been tinkering with how to generate meta-breaking army lists to smash all comers with the new allies system in place and some psychic hijinks.  But one thing that I don't think I've been thinking about much until recently is the new option to add some fortifications to army lists.

On the surface, adding in a cheap fortification seems like a reasonable idea to me.  Hide a good shooty squad of marines behind it and blast away all game long (or as long as you can).  But what to invest in?  I think the Fortress of Redemption is a little beyond a regular game for most people ... but it could prove to be rather effective.  I'm giving some more realistic thought to both the Imperial Bastion and the Aegis Defence Line though.  Both being under 100 points means that we can get a good strong wall to protect a valued shooting squad.  The bastion in particular is appealing due to the height gain it can provide for troops stationed inside.

Add in the extra heavy bolters and potentially a few add-ons, and the bastion is looking like it'll be making some regular appearances on the battlefield from now on.  

That said, I am a little concerned that the rules in the 6th edition book don't specify the dimensions that the bastion can have.  Sure - there's a picture of a regular bastion (like my one that I've pictured along with this post), but I can imagine that folks might be taking converted beasties on to the battle field for advantage!  

Well, I better get my bastion painted up soon.  I'm thinking something in dark blue, not a completely chaotic bastion ... but rather one that has been recently abandoned and perhaps daubed with graffiti.