Guard towers - positioning them in scenerio

In steamroller, If you want to try guard towers, putting terrain like a wall or a hill near them that the opponent can shelter in is important.

I’ve been trying them out a bit more, and I still think they are very uninteractive which makes me sad, but I love some more 3d terrain

Also positioning them contesting multiple scenerio is a bit sad. Seems better if you don’t do that.

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I have bunkers but I’m waiting until they go into the app to start using them.

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Personally I think steamroller 2024 should include where to place them in the actual missions. Some missions can auto have them and some can maybe have them if to or players use them on some of the tables.

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Yes and no. I like the idea of them being in set places and perhaps part of the scenario, but dislike them becoming another mandatory piece for playing the game.

I think optional scenarios that use them would be nice.

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I personally think that if either a guard tower or a bunker are in a zone or within 4" of a flag that the unit currently occupying shouldn’t be able to either contest or control.

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Isn’t the whole point of a guard tower to guard things? :stuck_out_tongue: I get what you’re saying. I just couldn’t resist playing the “rules should reflect fluff” devil.

Maybe the interactive terrain could be optional on every new scenario, but if used, the position would be dictated by the scenario itself?

Well, with the new Out of Commission rule added to Buildings, this point is greatly reduced.

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I think the point of towers with them not contesting is even less interactive and strange.

I’ve only put mine in one game yet, but it was interactive.

We put it at the middle of the board.
The enemy got a good solo into it.
The next turn, I knocked it down, killing the solo and freeing a path through the middle of the board.

Every list should have a way to one round a hard target with that many boxes, or else it’ll have no response to a buffed|shielded heavies. The question is, is your opponent pressuring you so that you don’t have those tools spare to spend on the lesser threat that’s hiding in the tower? Or is the tower positioned such that you can’t get those tools to it?

Looking back on it, in my one experience, because the tower was central to the map, it was easy to get the tools to it. Maybe that’s a factor in what made it feel plenty interactive. I wonder if it would have felt less interactive if my opponent was applying more pressure. Most turns I would have had more important things to do with the hard hitting stuff in my army rather than kill one power solo and clear a lane.

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Alot of lists have buffs and debuffs that allow them to take out hard targets that just don’t work on buildings. For example Fiona the Black in Tallion Charter. You can build a fun and effective pair with Fiona and Shae, but if you play with guard tower, you have to take Bart really, because he has the tools to kill the things in the tower, but the other two casters really struggle.

There are other factions that have similar problems. Ravens of War army, really struggles to hurt the tower itself. Even with Kryssa - the PS of the models involved is quite low.

I’ve not gone though every army to work out whats good and not - but the existence of something that turns a cheap unit into a “rain of moderate death” that you quite often can’t do anything about, with a reasonable expenditure of resources.

Just isn’t fun.

I’ve played about 20 games with guard towers, and been at 3 events where they were extensively used. They haven’t been a positive experience for me.

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I’m envious that you live somewhere that you’ve played 20 games and 3 events since Guard Towers landed. I WISH the scene were that active where I am.

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But back to your main point: What do you think of the Guard Tower (or Bunker) as an answer to the First Player advantage?

That is: It’s long been a complaint in Warmachine (and other, similar games) that getting to go first is overpowered, and if you win that roll-off, you should ALWAYS choose to go first.

In Warmachine, your alternative is to choose your side of the board (and get a little more deployment space). If one side of the board is far stronger (because it has a guard tower | bunker) maybe now that’s enough of an advantage that picking table side is worth giving up the first move. So now the decision of go first OR choose table side is a more interesting choice.

Your thoughts?

The tower dominates the tables where it’s in a good place. So much that getting to the tower first is more important than getting to go first. Sometimes.

Also it’s key to deny your opponent putting something in the tower.

Nearly any 3man shooting unit is really silly in a tower. Even Warspears become good.

There are a bunch of strange small units or solos that have their durability issues sorted. Eryris. Black Frost Shard, and few other things.

The guard tower is much harder to destroy than a mk3 collosal. Making those little guys as durable as a mo3 collosal for the price of giving up going first?

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Is there something I’m missing? Towers have less boxes than colossals, and they’re not legal targets for armor buffs.

What’s making the tower tougher than a colossal?

I guess the noisiest members of the online community are now regretting their early, extremely vocal, insistence that Guard Towers absolutely cannot be charged, nuh uh, no way, doesn’t work. :stuck_out_tongue:

The feedback above makes it sound like Guard Towers are ubiquitous in events. But…they’re not? Or at least they shouldn’t be?

Like any other piece of terrain, the EO needs to ensure that terrain setups are balanced and sensible. Just like you would have eye-rolled and disagreed when your local MK II Blindwater player wanted to play on an all-swamp table, one piece of terrain should not be omnipresent. You wouldn’t expect to see burning earth or quicksand on every single table at an event; why should the Guard Tower or Bunker be any different?

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The are Arm24 vs shooting, and can’t be charged? My collosals didn’t often get more than +2 arm, making them arm21 at most. And they could certainly be charged. Which mean lots of different models could hurt them.

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I don’t know why you think extensively used guard towers means every table. At welsh for example for the first 5 rounds they was one on around half the tables. Much less common than forests.

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Now that models in buildings can’t contest, they are weaker so just play scenario

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And if pp is still concerned about the durability of buildings maybe they will come out with a new command card that cost 0 and gives a model an additional die against buildings in melee or boosted dice In melee. Let it be like sapper for defenses it’s the player is concerned about buildings but it certainly won’t see use every table and for every player. Call it wrecking ball lol

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