Buildings & Fortifications

Buildings provide both protection and tactical advantages—often improving fields of fire and making troops much harder to kill.

Movement in Buildings

Models may enter a Building in their move phase by moving through an unlocked door, open doorway or window. Doorways offer no movement penalty but entering through a window counts as crossing a wall of equivalent height. If a Door is locked, it must be Destroyed before models can move through. No fixed number may use one opening; the models' own movement rates set the limit.

Once inside, models move at their normal rate only, and may not Run. A Charge may be declared only against an enemy model in sight when the turn begins. Climbing to an adjacent level by ramp, stairway, escalator or lift occupies the whole Movement Phase; where a ramp or stairway is long enough to hold models, they cross it under the normal movement rules instead.

Shooting From Buildings

Models inside a Building may shoot through windows, doors, firing-slits and any other opening. A model at an opening stands behind Hard Cover, and shots against it take the To Hit Modifier for it. The width of the opening decides how many models may fire through it.

A model at a window or door may Hide, exactly as one behind an obstacle does. While hidden it may not be seen or shot at.

Blast Markers in Buildings

Two rules govern grenades and Blast Weapons used inside a Building.

Scatter is rolled as normal, and the result is then checked against the firer's Line of Sight. A Blast Marker whose centre finishes out of sight is pulled straight back towards the firer until that centre comes into view. A missile cannot otherwise scatter through a solid wall into the room beyond. Shots and grenades sent into a Building from outside are treated the same way, and may therefore come back at the firer.

A blast in a space too small to hold the whole marker gains +1 Strength and a further -1 Save Modifier. In such a space Template Weapons and gas weapons add +1 to the D6 roll which decides whether partially covered models are hit. Models on the far side of a solid wall from the centre of the marker are untouched, unless a window or doorway carries the blast through to them.

Hand-to-Hand Combat Inside Buildings

Hand-to-Hand Combat indoors follows the usual rules. A charge is still declared, and its target must be in sight when the turn begins.

Models fighting their way in through a window or door count the -1 Weapon Skill modifier for attacking across an obstacle, in the first round only. Once inside, neither side counts it.

A squad broken inside a Building makes for the nearest exits, which may leave it split between several of them. The models regroup once they are outside.

Attacks on Buildings

A Building that can be seen by true Line of Sight can be fired on. Anything 4" square or larger is hit automatically; smaller structures are hit as ordinary targets. Buildings are given an Armour Value and as such use Armour Penetration rules when being attacked.

If a Building suffers a penetrating hit then consult below:

A very large Building may instead be divided into portions of roughly 4" to 8" square, each recording its own damage. A bunker with a main structure and two gun emplacements makes three such portions.

Weapons which use a blast marker do not affect other models when fired at a Building, and a Building is not damaged by one fired at the models inside or beside it. A building comes down only when it is attacked deliberately.

A model in contact with a Building may attack it in the Hand-to-Hand Combat phase, hitting automatically. Armour Penetration is rolled as against a vehicle, with the Bonus Penetration Dice for high Strength and a stationary target. A roll equalling or exceeding the Armour Value knocks a hole the width of the attacking model's base. An ordinary model gives up its shooting that turn; a dreadnought or robot does not.

Vehicles which strike a Building may breach it in the same way—see Buildings & Terrain.

Doors

Generally speaking, Doors can be opened and moved through without restriction. However, if a secure Building—such as a Fortification—is being defended by one side at the start of the game, the Doors are locked. The occupying side may access the building freely, but the opposing force must destroy a Door to gain entry.

A Door is hit automatically by shooting at a range of 6" or less, and may also be attacked in Hand-to-Hand Combat. Penetration is rolled as against a vehicle: a roll equalling or exceeding the Armour Value blows the Door off and leaves an opening the shape of it. A roll of double that value or more destroys the Door outright and takes part of the structure with it, so a roll is made on the Building Damage Chart as well.

A Fortification follows the rules below in addition to whichever Buildings rules apply.

A Fortification is a prepared defensive structure—a bunker, tower, stronghold or wall section. Each has its own datafax giving its capacity, access, fire arcs, deployment and the Armour Value of every location, front and side/rear.

These rules govern the larger Fortifications. Trenches, razorwire, emplacements and concealed bunkers carry their own rules for access and damage on their own datafaxes, and are not covered here.

Access

Troops enter a Fortification only through the steel doors in its walls, and only where the model is physically small enough to pass. A dreadnought, Tyranid or Ogryn cannot enter unless the Fortification was purpose-built for it.

Take a model that enters off the table and place it on that Fortification's floor plan, one model to a square. Moving one square costs 1" of the model's Movement. Changing level means moving into a square beside a ladder, at the cost of the model's entire movement; it arrives beside the ladder on the new level, and may still fire or fight that turn.

Every level has a trapdoor and every Door a lock, so occupants may seal a Fortification against enemy models entering or changing level.

Firing Out

Each Vision Slit allows one model to fire from it, restricted to a 90° arc straight through it; where floor plans are in use it fires through the slit on the side of the square it occupies. Models on the roof shoot under the normal rules.

A Firing Port is a fixed sponson on a larger Fortification, taking two squares of the floor plan—one for the weapon, one for the gunner. Any model in the owning player's army may act as gunner, provided it stands on the gunner's square and has not moved that turn. A Firing Port fires within a 180° arc centred on itself. No more than one Vision Slit in three may be replaced with a Firing Port.

Support Weapons

The roof of a Fortification whose datafax allows it may carry a Support Weapon, counted as dismantled and reassembled there. Nothing moves it to the roof mid-battle, and one set up there stays for the duration. A Mole Mortar may not be set up on a roof. A Support Weapon may be set up inside a Fortification, but may not fire out of it.

Attacks on Fortifications

Models that shoot at a Fortification may either attack the models on its roof or the Fortification itself—models inside are beyond direct attack, no matter that they fired out the turn before. Models on the roof are attacked under the normal rules and receive the -2 hit modifier for being in Hard Cover.

A Fortification is a large stationary target. At Long Range it counts as a Large Target for +1 To Hit, and at Short Range it is hit automatically.

Roll for hit location and damage on the Fortification's datafax, as for a vehicle. Only a direct hit affects a Fortification. A weapon with a Blast Marker that strikes models on the roof, or that Scatters onto the Fortification or a nearby target, damages only the models on the roof; one that hits the Fortification directly damages a single location, chosen at random.

A Fortification may also be attacked in Hand-to-Hand Combat, exactly as a vehicle is.

Doors, Vision Slits & Firing Ports

A model within 6" of a Door with a clear Line of Sight to it may shoot the Door directly. The hit is automatic—roll neither to hit nor for location. A trapdoor may be attacked the same way by a model on the roof or in the same section; it has an Armour Value of 15 and uses the Door Damage table.

Once a Door is destroyed, later hits on that location pass through the doorway and strike a randomly chosen model inside.

A model inside 6" of a doorway or trapdoor that has been destroyed, or within 1" of a Vision Slit, may fire or lob a grenade through it at a model within, rolling to hit and to wound as usual.

Nothing may be fired or thrown through a Firing Port, which has no slit to shoot through. A Firing Port may still be hit by rolling for location, or attacked in Hand-to-Hand Combat.

Special Weapons

The weapons below reach the models inside a Fortification, or damage the structure in a way of their own. Where a datafax divides a larger structure into sections, each of them affects one section only.

A Harlequin's Kiss used within 1" of a Vision Slit may strike any model inside, resolved on the Vehicle Crew Penetration Chart.

A Hand Flamer, Flamer or Heavy Flamer hits a Vision Slit automatically and washes through it. Each model inside rolls a D6, and is caught on a 3 or more. Flamers take none of the bonuses a Blast Marker weapon has inside a Building.

A Graviton Gun that hits ignores Armour Penetration altogether, and adds 1 to its roll on the damage chart for the location it struck.

Where any part of a Fortification falls under a Distort Cannon template, roll a D6: on a 4 or more the structure and every occupant are caught, and a single test settles them all.

Gas from a Choke, Hallucinogen, Scare or Toxin Grenade seeps in through the Vision Slit. Where the marker covers the front of the structure, each model inside rolls a D6, and on a 3 or more may be affected as the grenade's own entry describes.

A Photon Flash Flare outside the structure does nothing to those within. One that goes off inside catches every model there, adding 1 to the roll on the Flash Effect Chart.

A Vibrocannon damages a Fortification as it would a vehicle. The hit is automatic, the structure has an Armour Value of 22, and a penetration is resolved on the Structure Damage Chart with 3 added to the roll.

A Mole Mortar attacking a Fortification uses the chart below in place of its own accuracy chart.

^† The source bands these results 2-5 and 5-6, which overlap on a 5 and cannot be read as printed. The same chart printed for a trench, in the same article, gives the cave-in two faces and fills the gap with a fourth result, so the second band here reads 2-4.

Four structures follow the Fortifications rules and add something of their own. Smaller works—trenches, emplacements, concealed bunkers and razorwire—are covered under Field Defences instead.

Battle Towers

A battle tower is a bunker raised clear of the ground, floor and roof alike. The only way into it is through the door at its foot, up the stair and through the trapdoor above, and an assault must therefore destroy the door and then the trapdoor. Both follow the ordinary rules for a Door.

Its Vision Slits sit too high to reach from the ground. A model at the wall may neither lob a grenade through one nor charge a model firing from it, and the restriction runs both ways: a model within 2" of the tower wall cannot be shot at from a Vision Slit either. A battle tower may carry Firing Ports.

A battle tower may mount a turret, carrying any Support Weapon the army may take. The weapon follows its usual rules with a 360° fire arc, and falls with the tower when the tower is destroyed. No troops stand on the roof of a tower that carries one.

An Ork Traktor Kannon in a turret drags what it catches into the structure, which collides with it. Where its polarity reverses, the turret itself is torn off and dragged towards the target, and the weapon counts as destroyed.

An Imperial Guard force may buy a command relay in place of a turret, and only one structure in the force may carry one. A tower so equipped counts as a command section of Leadership 9. A command relay is hit and destroyed exactly as a turret is, and its cost sits with the army list.

Wall Sections

A wall section, or rampart, is a thin bunker meant to be joined end to end into a curtain wall, and joined to battle towers to close a fortress. It may not carry Firing Ports.

Each section has a door at either end, following the ordinary rules. It has no trapdoor, so its roof is reached only from an open-ended section or through a door in a battle tower or other structure.

Where two sections meet, their facing doors count as a single door rather than two. Destroying a rampart therefore opens both ends at once.

Strongholds

A stronghold is two battle bunkers and a battle tower built as one, and each part is destroyed separately and treated as a structure in its own right. Nothing else may be joined to a stronghold.

A stronghold is shot at under the ordinary rules, with one addition: a firer may aim high or low, declared before rolling for location. Aiming high adds 6 to the roll on the location chart, and aiming low rolls a D6 as usual.

Autofire weapons are built throughout a stronghold. They always count as being on Overwatch and fire only in the opposing player's turn, hitting on a D6 roll of 4 or more and doing damage as usual. Eldar structures mount Shuriken Catapults and every other kind mounts Boltguns.

The system tracks one target at a time, so at most five weapons bear on it, and their range is 12" whatever the weapon itself would reach. They fire at the closest target at the end of the opposing Movement Phase, or at a unit charging the stronghold; where more than one unit charges, the owning player chooses between them.

A stronghold's tower takes a turret as a battle tower does, and that turret may mount an anti-skimmer weapon instead. Anti-skimmer weapons count as being on Overwatch, fire only in the opposing player's turn, reach 24", and may fire at nothing but a Skimmer.

A turret may mount twin-linked heavy bolters; two hunter-killer missiles, which are Imperium only and carry no maximum range at all; twin-linked shuriken cannons or a scatter laser, both Eldar only; or four linked kustom kombi weapons, Orks only. Kustom kombi weapons are each resolved separately, and the 24" limit still applies. What each costs sits with the army list.

Interior doors join the sections of a stronghold. They follow the ordinary rules at an Armour Value of 15, save that a 6 on the Door Damage Chart counts as a 5, so destroying an interior door never damages the structure.

A stronghold may carry a teleport jammer at 50 points, which denies the opposing player both teleporting troops and warp weapons. A unit teleporting inside, or a Vortex Grenade or Distort Cannon striking the structure, is scattered: roll the Scatter Dice and 2D6, and a hit resolves as normal while an arrow throws the unit or the blast 2D6" the way it points.

Wraith Towers

A wraith tower is an Eldar portal to the webway and a source of psychic power. One may be taken by an Eldar player, or set on the table in any game an Eldar force joins, and never more than one. It is bought from the fortification allowance.

A Warlock, Farseer or Shadowseer within 6" of the tower may draw one extra Warp Card. No more than one extra card is drawn in any Psychic Phase, and it goes to the seer of the highest Mastery Level.

A power cast at the tower, or at any Eldar model within 6" of it, is nullified on a D6 roll of 4 or more. An enemy Psyker within 12" that uses a psychic ability or wargear is dragged 2D6" towards the tower, and one that reaches it is drawn through the portal, killed and removed.

Nothing that works through the earth or through matter touches a wraith tower: a Mole Mortar, a Graviton Gun and a Vibrocannon all have no effect. Otherwise it is shot at as any structure is, and read against its own datafax.

A field defence is dug or strung rather than built—a trench, an emplacement, a concealed bunker or a run of razorwire. Each has its own datafax giving its capacity, access, fire arcs, deployment, points and the Armour Value it stands at, and its own damage chart to be read when that armour is beaten. The rules below are common to all four.

Trenches

A trench may be dug to any shape, and joined to others where its ends are left open. A Mole Mortar may be placed in one, and so may a walker or a dreadnought—though neither can leave a trench whose sides stand higher than the model's knee.

Models move along a trench as they would over open ground. Leaving one counts as crossing an Obstacle and costs half the model's Movement; entering costs nothing, so long as there is room to place the model. Crossing a trench likewise counts as moving over an obstacle, and a vehicle treats it as one.

A model charging troops in a trench enters it where there is room, and attacks from the edge where there is not. Attacking from the edge carries the bonus for higher ground. A follow-up move may carry the attacker in.

Models in a trench fire from it under the normal rules, and are fired at under them, with the -2 modifier for Hard Cover.

A Blast Marker is placed as usual. Where its centre hole falls inside the trench, the shot resolves at 1 higher Strength for the enclosed space. Where the centre falls outside but models in the trench lie under the marker, the blast passes over them: each such model rolls a D6, taking a hit on a 4 or more and ducking below the blast untouched on a 1, 2 or 3. A trench is no protection at all against gas.

A trench itself can be attacked only by a Mole Mortar, a Vibrocannon and the Barrage Strategy Card. A Vibrocannon hits automatically and is worked out as it would be against a vehicle, adding 3 to the roll on the trench's own damage chart where it penetrates; the Barrage card penetrates the same armour and rolls on that chart without the modifier. A Mole Mortar uses the chart below in place of its own accuracy chart.

Emplacements

An emplacement is a rampart of earth running up to a wall, with a raised platform behind it, and sections may be joined end to end where their ends are left open.

Models move along an emplacement freely, and enter or leave it at the rear at no cost. Leaving towards the front means crossing the wall, which is an Obstacle costing half the model's Movement, and then the bank, which is difficult ground crossed at half rate.

A charging model therefore reaches the platform only from the foot of the emplacement—a model with a 4" move spends the first half of its charge on the bank and the second crossing the wall. It need not cross at all, but a defender behind the wall then counts it as a defended obstacle. The same costs bind a model using the 4" move of a jump pack to engage. One that leaps the wall to attack from the rear still faces troops standing above it on the platform, and a vehicle treats the whole work as an obstacle.

Models on an emplacement fire under the normal rules and are fired at with the -2 modifier for Hard Cover. A Blast Marker whose centre hole falls behind the wall bursts inside and is resolved as usual; one whose centre falls on or before the wall passes overhead, so every model under the marker rolls a D6, taking a hit on a 4 or more and ducking untouched on a 1, 2 or 3. Gas is unaffected by any of this.

A player attacking the emplacement itself must say so before rolling to hit; a stray blast never harms it. It is a large stationary target, so a shot at Long Range takes +1 To Hit and one at Short Range hits automatically. A shot that penetrates is read on the emplacement's own damage chart.

Concealed Bunkers

A concealed bunker is a small camouflaged dugout. Enough of them must be bought to house a whole squad, and they are not placed on the table at all: a marker goes down instead when field defences deploy, standing for the ground they occupy, and no one marker stands for more than three bunkers. Until they are found the opposing player may do nothing against them.

An enemy unit, character or vehicle that comes within 12" of the marker with Line of Sight to it may test to find them, rolling equal to or under its Initiative on a D6, where a 6 always fails. A unit that Ran that turn adds 1 to the roll and so fails automatically on a 5 or 6, and a squad may test on its leader's Initiative. Occupants that shoot give themselves away without a test.

Once found, place one bunker on the marker and the rest within 4" of it. The troops that found them may fire at them, and the rest of that army may bring weapons with a Blast Marker to bear.

No model may enter a concealed bunker—only those placed in it at the start of the game are ever inside. The occupants may leave in their own Movement Phase at half their Movement, priming a demolition charge that destroys the bunker as they go, and may do nothing else that turn.

Models inside are beyond direct attack, whether or not they fired the turn before, and a shot at the bunker itself takes -1 To Hit. Roll for location and damage as for a vehicle. A weapon with a Blast Marker harms the bunker only on a direct hit, and then damages a single location; one that Scatters onto it does nothing. A bunker may be attacked in Hand-to-Hand Combat as a vehicle is, and a model within 1" of the front may fire or lob a grenade through the Vision Slit at a model inside.

The weapons under Special Weapons reach a bunker's occupants exactly as they reach those of a Fortification, read against the bunker's own armour and its own damage chart.

Razorwire

Razorwire is coiled and torqued so that anything disturbing it lashes back. It counts as Very Difficult Terrain and is crossed at quarter rate. No model may Run through it, and one that runs into it halts at once and moves no further that turn. A vehicle treats it as an Obstacle.

A model whose base lies wholly or partly in razorwire at the end of any Movement Phase takes an automatic Strength 4 hit at -1. It must then roll equal to or under its Initiative on a D6 or be caught in the wire, where a 6 always fails; a model wholly within the wire adds 1 and so fails automatically on a 5 or 6. A caught model does nothing until the end of its next Movement Phase, when it tests again. Models in razorwire may not shoot.

A vehicle crossing razorwire rolls a D6, adding 2 for a ram bar or a bulldozer blade: on a 6 it has torn the wire up, and the razorwire's own damage chart is rolled for.

Only a weapon with a Blast Marker can destroy razorwire. Wire filling the centre hole of the marker is hit automatically, and wire under the marker but not in the hole is hit on a D6 roll of 4 or more. A shot that penetrates is read on that same chart, and models under the marker take the blast as usual.

Where a shot penetrates the armour of a location on a Fortification, consult the table for that location below. These tables are common to every Fortification; only the location itself and its Armour Value are read from the Fortification's own datafax.

Vision Slit

A hit on a Vision Slit passes through it and strikes one randomly determined model inside the Fortification, resolved under the normal rules.