

Just a short while back there was a huge furor as Escalation was released, and I think rightfully so- if allowed in the game, Escalation does some absolutely ridiculous things and essentially cuts almost every army but a handful out of the running for being able to compete. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about; what I want to talk about today is the poor, unfortunate soul who was taken into that whole fiasco more or less by accident, a largely blameless victim in the whole affair.

Folks, I come to you in defense of Stronghold Assault because it’s actually a pretty fine book that doesn’t deserve the crap it’s been getting.



Now, that’s not to say it is without its problems and we’ll get to those in time, but unlike its cousin, Stronghold Assault is actually a fairly well-written and useful book that contains a lot of useful stuff to virtually any playgroup. Compare that with Escalation, which is basically a money-grab that cranks up the power level of the game even further and the difference couldn’t be more apparent, but to a lot of people’s minds they are essentially the same.

Stronghold assault is divided into three major sections, not counting the fluff pages. The first is a new set of rules for fortifications that can be broadly applied to the game, including new upgrades. The second is new datasheets for fortifications, including updated and corrected ones for the existing fortifications. The third is a set of three missions for players to try out, as with most of the books like this.

The Rules

This part right here is arguably the best section of the book, not because of any specific thing in it, but because of what it represents: it’s an example of GW recognizing a problem with the rules of the game and releasing something to fix them. Ladies and gentlemen, if that right there isn’t a small miracle, I don’t know what else to call it. The Stronghold Assault rules make for some very significant updates to the building rules, which are otherwise very awkward; for example, an exploding building is removed from the table and replaced with a crater, just as an exploding vehicle is (as opposed to being left in place as impassible terrain.) Similarly, a wrecked building becomes essentially a ruin, rather than an impassible section. The other results on the damage table have also been fixed to prevent some of the silliness like “lower” results actually being superior to “higher” results in most cases.

Above and beyond that, however, the book gives us a suite of new rules that apply to buildings and make their rules be a bit more sensible. Buildings that a player purchases in their army function mostly like other units (but don’t give up VP) and can be “claimed” by the enemy side, with claimed buildings being able to shoot and be shot at even if there aren’t any units inside. Jump Pack and Jet Pack infantry are also allowed to enter buildings, although Beasts still can’t for some reason. Most importantly of all, the rules for Battlements have been significantly cleaned up and clarified, resolving many of the weird issues that surrounded them. Last but not least, models are allowed to assault out of fortifications, giving them a lot more utility for armies other than static gunlines.

Taken as a whole, these changes are an absolute blessing- they remove a lot of the weird and counterintuitive exceptions, they bring the rules in line with the rest of the game, and they resolve several of the unclear issues with rules. Is this an amazing and impossible occurrence? Hardly, but given the way GW likes to do things, it is rather surprising. The fact that they have even taken this step, limited as it may be, is a good sign in and of itself, and I think that supporting them in it could only help the game.

The final part of this section introduces rules for a number of new building upgrades. Most of them are not game-changers; You can make your autofire BS3, you can add a Searchlight, you can have an emergency escape route, you can give the building one Void Shield, etc; the old gun emplacement/comms relay upgrades are here as well, as are a new set of obstacles like barricades and tank traps and such. Combined, these give you the ability to do some neat stuff with your buildings and customize them to your liking- of course, there are limits, as buildings of different sizes can only take a finite number of upgrades each, but these aren’t so bad they end up being crippling.

The Fortifications

This is where the meat of the book is- while the rules section enables everything in here, the real reason to be interested in the book is the plethora of new options for armies to include a fortification at varying costs. Now, some of them are obviously more useful than others, but credit should be given where credit is due for introducing datasheets here that aren’t simply worse versions of existing things.

Many of the datasheets are for Fortification Networks, essentially combinations of several fortifications into a single FoC choice. This is one of the two things that has raised a lot of ire for whatever reason, but the reality is that, much like when people screamed murder about the ability to take a Fortress of Redemption and hide behind it in early 6th, none of them are really that threatening. Yes, you can spend a crapload of points and bunker yourself up behind things, but you’re paying for that privilege and if the other guy starts with more objectives- or gets First Blood- you are in very real trouble. We’ll talk about the one or two problem children in a moment, but let’s go through things in a slightly organized fashion, since this nominally is also a review.

We start out with the BRB fortifications, all of which are mostly unchanged, although they benefit from the new options in the book. the Skyshield’s rules have been cleaned up slightly, although it is still very weird and probably will require TO rulings. The G.I. JOE PLAYSET gains a bit of unique stuff as well, and the Wall of Martyrs pieces all make appearances- the basic ones are pretty much just alt-costed versions of the BRB fortifications with some small tweaks and are thus pretty fine.

The “new” terrain kits that originally came with their own rules also get entries here, such as the Vengeance Batteries, Firestorm Redoubt, etc- all of these have updated options and improved rules (such as letting multiple models fire out of the gigantic window on the Firestorm) and generally are more worthwhile and more versatile than they were previously. While they may suffer a bit in raw useability compared to the ubiquitous Aegis Line, they are legitimate options for many armies and bring something unique to the table, which is always welcome.

Now we come to the last of the section, where the problem children live. There are two unique entries in the book for entirely-new fortifications that do not have models at the time of publishing, the Promethium Relay Pipes and Void Shield Generator. The Pipes act essentially like a piece of generic cover that sometimes explodes when you pass cover saves and lets you turn your static Flamers into Torrent weapons- very amusing, but hardly game-breaking. The Generator projects a 12″ bubble Void Shield (AV12 armor, essentially) that can be copied up to three times and protects all units inside its radius. Neither of these is particularly threatening on its own.

The potential issue- and I will stress that this one is a potential issue, as I haven’t really gotten to explore just how good or bad it might be- is that there is a fortification network that lets you purchase up to three Void Shield Generators at once, potentially layering nine AV12 shields on top of more or less your whole army. This allows you to give otherwise-fragile units a pretty insane amount of protection for a reasonable price and since the Shields have the possibility to re-activate every turn after being dropped, it’s definitely something that needs to be watched carefully. However, it is the lesser of the two evils in the book, and we’ll get to why in a second here.

The final entry in the book is the Aquilla Strongpoint, which has two variations (Macro-Cannon and Vortex Missile.) Both of them have Strength D weapons emplaced and are AV15 buildings. Now, due to the FAQ, these buildings are not even close to being the game-breakers that many people think they are- as per the FAQ, you can shoot at Emplaced Weapons seperately from the building, treating them like you would a Gun Emplacement. If your army can’t kill a T7/W2/3+ model in one turn, then… well, yeah, you deserve to lose. That weird little insight aside, the Aquilla is a pretty stupid inclusion to the game and sits more or less in the same category as other superheavies- it simply doesn’t belong. Had the Aquilla not been included, I think Stronghold Assault never would have gotten the bad rep that it does now, but since that can’t really be undone, all I can really say is that it is a simple matter to bad Strength D weapons from your game and leave the rest of things untouched.

All in all, the fortification datasheets are pretty well-done and don’t have a lot of problems. I think they add some interesting stuff to the game and enable some very unique armies as well as giving more options for folks to shut down flyers, which is always appreciated.

The Missions

There’s not a ton to say here, since most people aren’t going to use these even if they make use of the other parts of the book. (For those “but it’s official!” protesters, I will point out that most tournaments use their own missions and that the Stronghold Assault ones, as with most Altar of War stuff, use their own Force Organization Chart and rules and thus don’t mesh well with the rest of the game.)

Bunker Assault is basically just Dawn of War/Purge the Alien with buildings counting as KP, with the addition of a beacon that can call down Basilisk shots that is worth an extra 3VP for shutting down.

Breakthrough is Hammer & Anvil/Crusade, but the defender starts with all the objectives. It’s a neat example of asymmetric goals, however, since the attacker wins by holding objectives and the defender wins by scoring KP.

Last Stand is probably the worst of the three missions; it’s essentially Purge the Alien, but the defender starts in a boxed-in area and most of their army is off the table (and arriving more slowly than normal from reserves.) It’s pretty punishing to the defender and not all that well-balanced at all.

The Overall View

So, why bother with Stronghold Assault? Is it really worth the dollars? Well, perhaps not to everyone, but for those looking to add some neat fortifications to their army it offers a lot of cool ways to do so. Moreover, as I said before, it does a good job of cleaning up the building rules and thus could easily be taken as a worthwhile investment for any playgroup just so that they have the improved rules on hand and available to everyone. I don’t buy into the belief that it’s broken the way that Escalation is- Stronghold Assault is, by and large, a well-written books with only a few small issues hiding inside. Time will tell if the Void Relay Network or Aquilla are game-changers, but I think that everything else in the book is entirely useable and fair.

If you’re a fan of big terrain pieces, I would definitely recommend Stronghold Assault to you, and if you’re someone who avoided the book because of its cousin, I would likewise recommend that you at least peruse the book with an open mind. SA doesn’t really deserve the poor reputation it’s had so far and I think its inclusion into general allowance would be beneficial- or at least neutral- to the game.

Addendum: On Projected Void Shields

The Void Shield Generator introduces a new mechanic to the game and one that can be a little tricky to resolve, but the rules for it are actually laid out in a fairly strict, if not clear, fashion. Weapons will cause hits on models beneath a Void Shield just like they otherwise would, but while the Shield is active, these hits will be resolved against AV12 rather than the usual manner. This means, for example, if a Leman Russ catches four models beneath a Shield with its Battle Cannon, you will resolve four hits on the Shield, one at a time, until it collapses, then resolve any further hits against the unit as you normally would. Since the hits are striking the Void Shield and not the unit, you also cannot take saves (cover or invulnerable) against hits on it, as the Void Shield does not have any model to be obscured (remember, the Shield is different from the Generator that is producing it) and has no model on the table to benefit from other wargear or powers.

While these interpretations might fly somewhat in the face of the fluff behind the device- in particular the part about blasts resolving multiple hits- I feel it keeps the rules for dealing with them clean and easy as well as maintaining game balance; I don’t think it would be fair to allow the Shield to bypass the normal manner of resolving hits with blast weapons and the ability to buy such protection for large swathes of your army is strong enough already.