Who's got no use for fortifications?

[son_of_volmer]

What 40k races that have virtually no use for any kind of fortification?

[Caitsidhe]

What 40k races that have virtually no use for any kind of fortification?

None of them have much use for them in truth. The mechanics of Fortifications are so poorly designed that being in one tends to be more dangerous to a unit than not being in it. The modern META provides so much shooting which ignores cover that anything gained from the fortification is of dubious value. The rules on what happens to Fortifications when they are penetrated are actually so dangerous for those inside (combined with plentiful weaponry which can penetrate said buildings) that they literally better off not being inside at all. Let's not forget that you lose a great number of your own shooters if you are inside rather than on some balcony which only provides cover.

The Aegis, of course, is an exception in that it provide an INVUL save, but that is hardly thematic that the most secure, useful fortification isn't a fortress at all but a landing pad. Bad mechanics. There is no way to get around it. I once played against an IG player who bought the full spectrum of fortifications. His side of the table looked awesome, intimidating in fact. The battle that proceeded did not live up to expectations. In short, the IG had simply brought their own coffins, and conveniently filed into them for disposal. So let me say it again, none of the races have much use for those Fortifications.

[Charon]

Have to agree. With the exception of the aegis (mostly for the comm relay) and the landing pad (indestructible and provides a 4++) fortifications do not live up to the expectation.
Also their weapon loadout make them unfluffy for most races. Even if DE would capture such a fortification, I do not think they would use the primitive heavy bolter and lascannons... but hey... on the other hand... one of the most advanced species in 40k still has not figured out how to twin link weapons or how to shoot at flyers.

[Alaric]

Nids. Who needs walls!?!

[Morgrim]

Hey now, Dark Eldar find fortifications very useful!

They're solid line of site blocking objects to hide behind!

[dwez]

Nids. Who needs walls!?!

Hive Guard, or else they'd have nothing to guard!

[Ruadhan2300]

I've historically had very little trouble with fortifications, I use them whenever they're around.
Give me aegis lines and I'm happy, I'll fill bunkers with my more fragile shooting units (my 30k era Myrmidons for example)

Our local store rules that bunkers are designed to allow all inhabitants to fire out of the huge firing slots that cover the entire front side of the things.
typically treated as the firing slots being 5 models each where normally a firing port (we make a distinction between slot and port) only allows 2 models to fire at a time.

Destruction of buildings is relatively rare in our meta, most of us bring predominantly anti-infantry weapons and don't have the spare firepower to focus on a bunker or bastion when there's APCs and other armoured vehicles to shoot.
In the past six months I've lost all of two buildings to enemy fire.


For the different armies?
Guard obviously use them all.

Marines are all about their quick-deployment fortifications such as Forgeworld's Castellum Stronghold, Aegis lines are largely pointless for marines as their armour save is rarely bypassed and already better than the Aegis can give. Worth it depending on the opposition.
It doesn't make a lot of fluff sense to give marines fresh fortifications, better to use Dilapedated versions. and for an army focused on shock-and-awe tactics the marines really don't benefit from standing still and garrisoning buildings. Iron Warriors or Imperial Fists maybe, but the rest of them no.

Mechanicum are a high mobility force which doesn't do gunlines or bastions. not really their thing. but they definitely benefit from the big guns of artillery structures, not a lot of high strength weapons in the admech/skitarii lists.

Eldar/Dark Eldar - One could easily make a case for them having structures like landing pads, I don't see them as the bunkering type, they're too fragile as an army and rely far too much on their mobility
It doesn't make sense to have most structures for them. Though I'd approve of extensive aegis lines across the table to move from cover to cover.

Tau - Full panoply of defences make sense, keep it light for fluff reasons, they definitely have turrets (see the imperial-armour books) and aegis lines play nicely to their style as quick-setup fortifications to protect their gunlines. I've always made full use of aegis lines with my tau.
Bigger emplacements and bunkers don't fit because Tau really don't do long-term fixed defences. it's not their thing to hold ground, only to fight on it and move on.
Bunkers make sense (I picture something like a round-house with firing ports all around) and a bastion is just a bigger version of the same, maybe with command post functionality.

Tyranids - They could use some specific types of their own, but bio-turrets fit in fine, I'm going to have a go making some at some point soon.
The Aegis could be accounted for with all sorts of explanations, I like the idea of massive plates of chitin emerging from the ground with minor biomorphs growing out of it to account for ammo dumps and a synapse relay nodule for the Comm array. stuff like that.
A Bastion is a large stationary critter with a few minor weapons of its own and a heavy chitinous exoskeleton with room for gaunts and such to crawl around inside.
I love the idea of making a Aquila Strongpoint for tyranids based on those massive plasma bugs from Starship troopers. the ones that shoot down starships.
That and some major earthworks for a nesting point and related bio-fortifications around that and you'd have a pretty good analogue to the aquila strongpoint.

Orks are totally equipped to have all the same fortifications as the imperium, just scrap-plate them up and replace the guns with something more orky.
Chaos are the same.
Daemons...well, Walls of skulls or bones..or something more gigeresque.

I don't imagine Necrons have much in the way of bunkers. but they definitely (in fluff) have access to emplaced turrets. the Annihilation barge is explicitly described as the dismounted interior sentry-turrets of a tomb being remounted on hover-sleds.
At GW:HQ there's a fantastic display of a necron pyramid, some exterior turrets are literally the annihilation barge guns on turret-blocks
That and Forgeworld's various Pylon type weapons. the larger one fits roughly the role of the quad-lascannons on the Firestorm Redoubt. with the scale of firepower of the aquila strongpoint.
the smaller pylons fill a role similar to the vengeance batteries.
Fitting up a Tomb Access point structure as a "Bastion" with some gauss turrets to represent the heavy-bolters would fit in quite well. Just regard the interior as being linked by portal to some extremity of the main tomb.
Aegis lines are just sections of walls and so on that have been put in place. nothing special there.



Actually, after all this contemplation...I really want to make some tyranid and necron scenery!

[son_of_volmer]

I hadn't considered Morgrim's point about assault oriented/fast armies using fortification for cover.

[Ruadhan2300]

Actually, on reflection, the topic was "why" not "how"

So following on...
It all depends on how you deploy terrain.
The reflex is to assume that static terrain means static tactics, but if you've got areas of aegis-lines in your half of the table you can advance most of the way up the board in full safety and cover saves. yes you need the 2D6 movement to get around, but that's worth an extra turn of movement for your army getting that much closer to the enemy intact.
Major quantities of nids for example swarming up the board would benefit enormously from area-terrain and cover. it'd synergise perfectly with the venomthropes and toxicrene spewing out totally-not-smokegrenades-honest gas to provide improved cover saves in the open.

I think this would apply to any of the traditionally non-cover based armies like eldar/dark-eldar. Orks and so on.
Actual fortifications like bunkers and bastions might see less use in some armies, but the aegis line is applicable to everyone with no exceptions I can think of.

I find Bastions are good if you don't need a lot of models able to shoot, it makes a useful place to keep lots of infantry until they're needed nearby, without exposing them to plinking fire.
Not exactly useful all the time, very very situational. but it's funny to watch people forget the gigantic horde of genestealers you hid inside the bastion...they spent the past two turns not shooting anything or drawing attention until the victims show up...
Ambush tactics :P
Bunkers are good for packing high shot-per-model units such as salvo weapons and similar. I use them as heavy fire-points to deny swathes of the battlefield to my opponent. this is applicable for a lot of armies.

I don't normally use the giant fortifications. they take too much work to play around, though they have some advantages if they have lots of doors at different locations in the building...say for example the aquila. you can move a unit from one side of your table-edge to another in just a turn or so since there's no travel-time throughout the building ( I guess they have travelators inside!) Bit of an abuse, personally I'd divide the building into 10" sections and consider it to be multiple linked buildings rather than one enormous one. that way they can move from one building to another in the same way moving from one floor of a building to another takes a turn.

[son_of_volmer]

Taking an Escape Hatch on a fortification can act like a Drop Pod for armies that don't have drop pods.