Fortifications, Skyshield Landing Pad

Hello,

I have been looking at the new rulebook for items to help the chaos daemons. I noticed on page 115 that for the cost of 5 plague bearers you can have a landing pad that will prevent scatter and does not cause dangerous terrain checks. Then if you are in control you can raise the sides and gain a decent cover save.

This will work no matter what, why you ask?

Because you can only reconfigure the pad if you are in base contact and if it is contested it does nothing. So even if you are going second you can DS onto it with your first wave with which ever model you choose to be in the front, back and to the sides and he cannot change it until thier next turn which if you are on it will not change so you can continue to plant daemons ontop of it turn after turn unless you are forced off, not likely being fearless.

For me I would plant this right in the middle of the board and bring fast movers to go from there. Just as expensive as 3 Icons and it is on the board turn one.

Not bad eh?

Sure infiltrators can grab it if you place it out there right away and change it however you just made him use his unit in a manner he did not plan and that is good. Besides what do you lose the icon, meh weve been using those for a while now.

Also note you can place it in thier deployment zone because it is placed after sides are chosen.

Also another side note, the save per the rulebook is a 4+ invulnerable save so FW can allow rerolls if you were to plant him right in the middle and everyone else around him.

It will make infiltrators required in order to stop this assault type

Another must for CD is skyfire in order to take out flyers. We need to buy aegis defensline with quad or lascannon or our own flyers. Forge world have 2 flyers for chaos, one fighter and one bomber. The bomber is way to expensive to look at even, Ģ100!, but the fighter is more reasonable at half price. The fighter comes with 10 armour around and dual twin-linked assaultcannon at just the points cost of Bluescribs, should be nice vs flyers and land based units!

Against fliers just use flying monstrous creatures. They can use the Vector Strike ability against them, causing D3+1 hits. Princes with S6 have decent odds of getting some glances or even a penetrating hit, thirsters with S8 will do even better.

Flying monsters are some of the very few good choices for daemons in 6ed anyway...

Oh and regarding the topic, more precisely the landing pad - if you put it too close to the enemy, and you don't have first turn, you'll have wasted your points. If you put it far out, you may as well not use it since you no longer need precise deep striking. Even if you don't, when you deploy it you'll signal your intentions loud and clear to the opponent.

What I think would be much better for daemons is a bastion with a comm station. Getting most of our army on the table on turn 2 should help, and having horrors shoot heavy bolters instead of warpfire ain't bad.

Flying MCs are very good choices for CD in 6th ed. MCs without might only hits on 5s and 6s and IMO they should focus on ground units rather then to chase after 1-3 fastmoving and elusive enemy flyers. Better to vector strike a ground unit and then next round glide in and BoC them an then assault the leftovers using smash or/and template placing to keep enough modells to fight on in their assaultfase.

CD need to use fortifications 1-2/ game as I see it. We need the skyfire they give and need them otherwise as well as lascannons/quadcannons arenīt that easy to come by for Daemons. A twin-linked lascannon at 85p (aegis) or 110p and 4 heavy bolter (bastion) or at 230p Krakmissiles and lascannon and at 40p more you get 4 heavy bolters (fortress). Those are real nice options in an armie that dontīt actually shoot much or well for that matter.

The skyshield platform is very nice as you place the fortifications after deployment and changing the platforms mode is made before first in movement only scouts/infiltrate units can change it into defence modeig they get first round. So a very good chance of getting controll of the landing platform even if its deployed in enemy deployment zone. In my games I rarly face infiltrate/scout units and if so they still have to get first round to change things around. A comms relay isnīt bad either, just think a Skyshield in enemy deployment and a comms realy close by manned Horrors and just about all your forces on the table round 2 will end most games by round 4! Love the idea of having an icon in the enemys lap round one!!

Actually you place fortifications after deciding deployment zones but before deploying any other terrain or armies, so it can't go in your opponents half of the table. You could always try to capture an enemy Skyshield platform if they have one though. Infiltrators capturing it is a bit of an issue, but those units tend to be quite small and not very tough usually, whilst the Skyshield model is very big. This means even with a unit of SM Scouts of whatever on top you should still be able to deep strike a Prince or unit of Horrors or Flamers onto it to contest it or clear off the enemy troops.

I remain a little unconvinced by the Skyshield though, as the 2 icons I'd normally buy for an average sized army would be cheaper and not tied to a very predictable location. Also, it just seems a bit unfluffy that Daemons can home in on a piece of unremarkable (to them) terrain. Oh, and the Ģ30 cost and transporting it to gaming clubs/tourneys is a bit of an issue to.

On the subject of flyers, the next Imperial Armour book updates all their current flyers to 6th ed and that includes turning the Blight Drone into a proper flyer I think. This would be a fairly decent anti-flyer option for us as it has a twin-linked autocannon as one of its weapons, whilst still able to use its mawcannon to hammer enemy ground troops.

Damn, didn't read the rules 100% I see, sry. Lucky I didn't press send on my order of a skyshield pad yesterday.
So that means the skyshield is more or less useless to CD unless we capture on from the enemy. Then a comm relay is a better choice even thou I still think we need skyfire options more. Let's hope blight drones will be flyers in imperial armours flyers ed. and that forgeworld will lower its prices some more.

What's the opinion on the fortress of redemption? Maned by 10 plaguemarines they should be real nice. Deploying an objective in there as well should be real nice.

You dont have to capture it it just says units DS on an unfurled platform dont scatter so if your opponent is folish enough to bring one against you DS on it if it is open.

Yes it is a poor choice now that I read "The Game Summary."

Now I am looking at a Bastion or an Aegis with a comms station and some Fallen IG Allies using the Cmd Sqd HQ with an Astropath.

Can you say +1 reserve rolls with rerolls to failed reserves. for about 250-300 points and you get an option to have a nice phat Guard Troop choice that shoots decently.

I was looking at this for my core 1k:

KoS, Musk
5 Plague Bearers
5 Nurglings
10 Daemonettes
DPoS, Flight, Hide, Mark, Pavane, Aura
DPoS, Flight, Hide, Mark, Pavane, Aura
Aegis Defense Line, Comms Relay

Blight Drones of Nurgle have been changed to Flyers also.

Blight Drones of Nurgle have been changed to Flyers also.

Thats super nice! Allready have 3 blight drones so thats good news indead!!

Astropath will not work because guard are not battle brothers and can't share special rules. Aegis is not a bad option , but we can't go to ground to take full advantage of it. I think if you are going to take terrain you probably want CSM allies.

Where does it say they cant use thier special rules, all i saw was that you cant join thier units cant benefit from thier psychic powers and cant go in thier vehicles.

GOOD NEWS!!!

Page 121 under deployment.

"Units can never deploy inside an enemy fortification, nor can they use pre-game abilities (like scout redeployment) to embark in enemy fortifications before the first turn begins. Once the game begins, units are free to move into or out of any fortification, friendly or enemy, following the normal rules.

Page 115 under special rules.

"At the beginning of the movement phase, before rolling for reserves, a model in base contact with a Skyshield Landing Pad can change its configuration from shielded to unfurled (or vice versa). If there are models from both sides in base contact with the landing pad, its configuration cannot be changed.

So you can still use this device, but to use it 100% you might still want some CSM infiltrators.

I would say if you have first turn deploy this in his deployment zone and DS away.

The enemy infiltrators do not have to embark on it, only be in base contact with it!

Roll on CSM Icons that are friendly for Daemons. We can have it furled for the 4+ Inv from the get go and the CSM Icon on it so no scatter, well maybe, no harm in wishing especially when you have one already