The 'Folding Tower' magic item...

Fellow Tyrants!

Following on the heels of all the other posts/ threads I've started recently on unusual, weird and wonderful aspects of Ogre lists, I remembered an item in the BRB that I have never seen used, but which I feel could have some very interesting applications: Fozzrik's Folding Fortress.

I haven't even heard anyone mention it on this forum before, but as I have a penchant for throwing my opponents off, and get a kick out of perplexing WAAC/ cookie-cutter players, I wanted to see if I could strike up a discussion on this, most variable of magic items.

I understand that it depends on the model you have to hand, but I think that the Folding Fortress could be the keystone which makes unusual Ogre lists possible.

After talking about using lots of Gnoblars in another recent thread, I got a little too excited at the prospect of bunkering a unit of 50 of them in a building- a building which I could place where I want, and dictate the shape of (within limitations).

Imagine the horror, as you lay down an Ogre gun-line, supported by Heavens casters, then drop a five story high fortress, 6" wide, and 4" - 6" deep, right on your flank; making sure to angle it at about 45 degrees, you want to leave some space on either side of it, so that your opponent wants to try and move round it the long way, or faces a bottleneck if they don't.

A unit of 50+ Gnoblars in this building would be an unholy terror! That's 100 Sharp Stuff shots per turn on enemies trying to move around them, and 100 Sharp Stuff shots being used to stand and shoot! Being in a building means that after a turn of combat they count as being unengaged- so you get charged, Stand and shoot 100 times, hold due to being Steadfast and within BSB range, then get to shoot next turn, then get to stand and shoot again...

Take the Trapper upgrade for extra hilarity shenanigans of course

And if the thought of Gnoblars in a building doesn't interest you, then it seems as though the usual Ogre tactic (3 characters in a unit to absorb damage) would become even more useful when you put them in a unit of Leadbelchers, and the unit of Leadbelchers in a Fortress. The fact you can disengage enemies at the end of every round means you can always lay into them with the Leadbelcher cannons. Better yet- if you have a Firebelly in the Fort you can use the Breath Weapon for maximum impact the turn after you've been charged, then cast Fireball, then shoot then enemy with your Leadbelchers!

I realise you'll need a tower of sufficient height to pull this off, but I can actually see an incredible use for this item; anchoring a flank, or dropping it in the centre and pulling a refused flank manouevre will give your opponent fits

Does anyone have any experience of using a Folding Fortress in games? Does anyone else see the value in a strategy like this, or am I just being a bit mad?

Hopefully we'll get some interesting discussion going on (what I can only assume) is an underused, but potentially very powerful, item.

First time poster, long time lurker. Hello all!

I have had some experience with ogres in buildings (leadbelchers especially) and have had some success and some truly horrifying moments.

Gnoblars in buildings are hilarious, because they are a damn nuisance, but the enemy doesn't want to waste precious time going after them. I'm all for this.

Leadbelchers (or ogres in general) in a building is terrific also: you get great cover from return fire and have a commanding field of fire over the board.... That is until a cannonball hits your building. When that happens your ogre unit automatically takes d6 wounds with multiple wounds (d6)... The gnoblar horde won't care, but when half your leadbelchers or your caster get squished under falling masonry, you will seriously regret their placement there.

With cannons it is the worst, but any multi wound template does this when it hits a building, I tend to keep my guts out of buildings if the enemy army has anything like that on the field.

Not much to contribute on the technical uses of this item, but I am reasonably sure that the item doesn't come up that often because it is banned from most competitive play

On a personal note, it is an item that I have always wanted to give a go, but never had a model to represent it. Same goes for the Arabyan Carpet item. Both seem like fun, but not sure on their practical uses

JJ

I really love the idea of Fozzrik's, it's truely bizarre and insane; but it does make sense that not many people would use it, because it means that you HAVE to have a terrain piece that is a decent size to make use of it, and therefore the risk that, as soon as people see a tower-shaped piece of terrain on the side of the table, they'll start planning on countering it.
Now here's where my mildly evil genius comes into play.
Dice rolling Tower.
Everyone's seen them, they know what they are, they know that sometimes players use them. Who would suspect that this innocent Dice rolling Tower is, in actual fact, designed by Fozzrik himself? There are plenty of designs around, and there's nothing stopping you from designing your own to fit your Ogre's theme.
Throw a spanner in the works when you throw a die into your tower.

If only it didn't get deployed before the first unit does....

First time poster, long time lurker. Hello all!

Welcome to the Stronghold, Tyrant NickH

Leadbelchers (or ogres in general) in a building is terrific also: you get great cover from return fire and have a commanding field of fire over the board.... That is until a cannonball hits your building. When that happens your ogre unit automatically takes d6 wounds with multiple wounds (d6)... The gnoblar horde won't care, but when half your leadbelchers or your caster get squished under falling masonry, you will seriously regret their placement there.

With cannons it is the worst, but any multi wound template does this when it hits a building, I tend to keep my guts out of buildings if the enemy army has anything like that on the field.

True, this is a major danger for Ogre units, and why I would probably be looking at using Gnoblars in FFF (I'll be abbreviating Fozzrik's Folding Fortress from now on to avoid repetitive strain injury ). Saying that, I like the range options you get from adding a unit of Leadbelchers and having FFF in a central position- if you use Gnobs in it, then you have to plan to use it more on a flank and use it as an anchor and an artificial bottleneck.

I think that ultimately we have so many things for cannons to aim at that if they're shooting cannons at out building, our Ironblasters will be free to return fire- something that not many people will be willing to risk allowing.

Not much to contribute on the technical uses of this item, but I am reasonably sure that the item doesn't come up that often because it is banned from most competitive play

I'm pretty sure that's exactly it; I have to admit that I don't play in a comped environment, so I have no idea how badly it will be handicapped. I suppose it is something that could easily be abused though, so perhaps its not surprising.

I really love the idea of Fozzrik's, it's truely bizarre and insane; but it does make sense that not many people would use it, because it means that you HAVE to have a terrain piece that is a decent size to make use of it

It helps that I've just gotten the bug for building terrain, due to restarting my Mordheim obssession. Building whole buildings is also actually easier than building ruined ones

as soon as people see a tower-shaped piece of terrain on the side of the table, they'll start planning on countering it.

That's the beauty of using it on a flank with Gnoblars; it forces your opponent to deploy into a bottleneck - because 9 times out of 10 they'll have more models than you will anyway - and still get close enough to be shot at by the garrison, or risk moving round it and get pelted for much longer. Even worse still is charging the garrison and having them locked in combat for turns, until you can counter charge with other units or keep up fire on the attackers with the garrison and friends.

I don't really see how they can plan around it, or plan to counter it as such, because merely by its presence you can change the way your opponent deploys/ think/ expects things from you.

I may be wrong, but don'y you only get 5 models per story able to shoot? So for the full Gnoblar barrage you'd need a 10-story tower. At which point any opponent would be justified in calling you a cheesy git and bludeoning you with your own terrain.

Hmmm, I don't have my BRB with me at the moment; I remember it's 10 models per side when assaulting against buildings in close combat and had assumed it was the same for shooting.

If that's the case, and you can only shoot 5 models per floor, how does it work with rounding up and down? As Monstrous Infantry count as 3 models each

There's not any caveat attached to the building rules about monstrous infantry counting as more models when shooting, so technically five leadbelchers per floor can fire.  This does feel a little bit dirty at first, but that feeling soon goes away when they hit the building with a cannon, or send in frenzied Chaos halberd warriors with the flaming banner.

But you can only have 3 Monstrous Infantry in the tower, per floor, right? So you wouldn't be able to shoot that many Belchers after all

I'm actually very disappointed that you can't shoot with ten infantry (read: Gnoblar) models per floor though; that basically negates the entire reason you'd want to take the tower

You could have a unit of fifty bulls or whatever in the tower, as there's no limit to the number of models (monstrous or otherwise) that can garrison.  The ten model limit applies to who can fight during an assault, and in that situation MI counts as three models.

The five models per floor applies only to how many models can fire their shooting weapons, and in that case there's no special caveat making one MI counting as three.

Be VERY careful though about one thing in particular - War Machines.

I need to double check the exact wording, but I think it's something like D6 models get hit when a War Machine fires at it - and if that war machine is rocking the Multiple Wounds rule it'll shred through those Ogres pretty hard, since there's no requirement to pass through each Ogre individually or hit only the one under the hole.

This came up at a 'Ard Boyz tournament a few years ago.  A lizardman player brought a unit of cameleon skinks, I think a single base of jungle swarms, a pair of Slanns, and then 1700+ points worth of skinks with blowpipes IN A SINGLE UNIT.  Oh, and a folding fortress build out of popsicle sticks about 20 stories tall.

Remember, units in a building are stubborn, and you get to choose who is on the "fighting floor."  So, assuming you made it past the magic-bombing Slanns, and past the 100ish stand-and-shoot poison shots, you then got to kill 10 skinks who would then pass their rerolling leadership 10 test.  You would then be pushed back, and shot with more magic and another 100+ poison shots.  Rinse, lather, repeat.

He won every round in the tournament (remember, 'Ard Boyz used to just be beat-your-face-in competitions)except the his one game against a Skaven player.  Crack's Call with irresistable force, a massive round of laughter and jeering from surrounding tables, and he was left with a Slann and about 30 skinks cowering in the wreckage  (remember, the unit has to fit in the former building space.  Anyone extra dies.   ).

And this is why the Folding Fortress is almost universally banned from tournaments 

Yeah, there were a couple Teclis abusers who stuffed that and the old Word Dragon banner into a tower with a billion Sea Guard and two eagles on the table at the Throne of Skulls final in Vegas, as well.  This is one of those items that could be cool, but no one ever takes it without the clear intention of abusing the hell out of it.

It's really annoying - if they had the item stipulate that it must be roughly equivalent to the tower terrain piece it'd be fine. I'm sure I've seen a similar exploit done with the Beastman Herdstone too...