The Battle Sanctum - One or Both

[Montford]

I have used the Battle Sanctum twice and I am liking it. I park an Exorcist inside it, it gets cover and I get a Miracle die every turn.

 

But what to do with the statue.

 

I have just been leaving the statue at home purely to simplify using the Battle Sanctum. The assembly instructions and the imagery on the GW site clearly show the statue as a piece separate from the building, but the rules say 'the battle sanctum is a single model'. 

 

I could bring the statue and deploy it when I set up the building piece just to have another bit of terrain. I personally have not considered the statue to grant the gaining of a Miracle Die: for example there is no direction in the rules for the Battle Sanctum which compel a player to place them next to each other, so presumably they could be placed as far apart as possible and, presumably, both would grant the gaining of a miracle die if you had an appropriate Unit within six inches. I am not going to play it like that unless we get an explicit ruling from the folks at GW saying that is legit. 

 

If I do use the statue I think I would place it close to the Sanctum (say within 6 inches) as terrain only and not have it extend the 'aura' of the building. 

 

So how do you, my fellow Battle Sisters players, use this two part model and its rules?

[Eddie Orlock]

Once upon a time I played a game against a marine biker company. In this game my army had an ageis defense line. Now, at that time the set up rules for the line were a bit vague, mostly stipulating that each piece had to be placed in contact with another piece. So, I abused this to stack the long pieces atop the short pieces to create little platforms, thus insulating key parts of my forces from close assault.

 

Now, everyone in the shop, myself included, acknowledged that this was incredibly gamey, but strictly complied with the text. In later months I saw this concept roll through the community right up until GW functionally banned it with errata.

 

GW actually has a long history of banning gamey fortification practices with errata. So, even if it is allowed by the rules you shouldn't abuse it because it's very likely not what's intended.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I'd say that if you want to have the statue not on top, it's only supposed to be "inside" as a kind of massive altar, etc. It doesn't seem to be intended that it be split up, as it were.

[Dread]

Read the description on the sanctum on GW's site. It states you get 12" of building height and 8" statue that can be added to build to 20" height. In my eyes the statue is just decoration and the statement in the description seems to solidify that, imho.

 

As for the rules, I was one of those that had the rules for the aegis used against me to a point I refused to play if they were put on the table.

 

Right now with the way things work, if we put a conga line of sanctum across the board, even tho legal and points costs allow, it would seem like a form of cheating.

 

If you just want to set the statue up as regular terrain, because of the cool paint job you're gonna do on it, that would be a cool add for pic opportunity and bragging rights.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Dread

[Montford]

Read the description on the sanctum on GW's site. It states you get 12" of building height and 8" statue that can be added to build to 20" height. In my eyes the statue is just decoration and the statement in the description seems to solidify that, imho.

 

As for the rules, I was one of those that had the rules for the aegis used against me to a point I refused to play if they were put on the table.

 

Right now with the way things work, if we put a conga line of sanctum across the board, even tho legal and points costs allow, it would seem like a form of cheating.

 

If you just want to set the statue up as regular terrain, because of the cool paint job you're gonna do on it, that would be a cool add for pic opportunity and bragging rights.

 

Cool, then the way I have been doing it (just using the building and leaving the statue off the table) looks like its just fine.

[ValourousHeart]

Not to take this off topic but just expand it little.

 

My Battle Sanctum just arrived in the mail today... I also have all the terrain from that original Kill Team box and the walls and platforms from that recent Necromunda big box.

 

And I had planned to use all of that or most of it to to build an intact Battle Sanctum.

 

My question is how far can I go before people say "Nope, that's not a Battle Sanctum"?

[Lord_Caerolion]

Maybe have the whole thing count as one ruin, but only so long as you're within 6" of the statue do you get the benefits of Blessings of the Saint, and Consecrated Ground.

[Dread]

That's a hard call. Think about how much room is on a 6'x4' table. The size before adding any to it is already big. If you made it 12"x24" it would be close to a small cathedral scale wise but on the table would suck up a lot of real-estate so be careful of that. I have one of the Gothic sets from another company and when I assembled it and set it on a table to look at, I realized it was just to big. I'm setting them up in smaller sections with high walls to not be called a cheater but ultimately it's your call. I would love to see a full sanctum build myself. Let us know what you do, with pics too please.

[Eddie Orlock]

My question is how far can I go before people say "Nope, that's not a Battle Sanctum"?

As much as this feels like a lazy answer: Depends on your playgroup.

 

It's like asking how far you can modify a rhino and still have it count as a rhino.

 

I would probably look at the envelope that would yield from following the printed instructions and stay close to that. Swap out parts rather than just adding them. It's also a question of perceived motivation and if people think you're doing this to gain an unfair advantage or because your thought the alteration made it much cooler. So, if it's fully painted and modeled when first seen I would anticipate a more favourable reaction and more slack.

[Montford]

I did do a little modification to my Sanctum, namely adding a little more flooring to the middle floor to easily permit a full squad of 10 models to be positioned there.