Let's talk about Bastiladon. It's our best dinosaur, and one of the best tank unit in all the game... and the version with Solar Engine, is better then the one with the Ark. But the ark is good, too... it delivers mortal wounds, after all, so... how can we exploit the Ark? Here's something worth a try (IMO) You obviously need a Slann, a Skink Priest / Starpriest, and also a ScarVet BSB. If the enemy's army is fielded with units sufficiently near to each other (they need synergies, right?), you summon a Bastiladon, with ark of Sotek. Tnx to the increased range and the arcane vassal, you will be able to pop your bastiladon in the middle of your targets... with the 8' bubble, probably you will mark a good number of units, so, when the combat phase will begin, suddenly your holy snakes will start chewing wounds to a good portion of your opponent's army (how do we call it? Bastilabomb?) If the Arcane Vassal is a Starseer, you could even use cosmic herald and curse of fate, to be sure that the damage dealt by the Ark, will be 10-12 mortal wounds, even without 6 targets. Obviously, your bastiladon (bastilabomb) will be buffed with Mystic Shield (and maybe a Celestial Rite, with a priest), to survive the retaliation and further damage the enemy. And if they don't attack the beast, you only have to run (the Tide of Snakes is not a shooting attack, but an automatic effect) and stay near the enemy units, and deliver random damage every turn... What do you think of it?
I think it's good, but I still think the Solar Engine is better. It has a better range, devastates daemons, crushes non-daemons, and with the Astriloth and the Thunderquake Starhost you can get rerolls to hit and wound with it, which can be horrifically powerful, making it just more reliable than the randomised targeting of the Ark.
But if your opponent is even remotely smart, they won't. They'll see the Ark and plan accordingly to minimise it.
But they won't see it, because you will summon it... and you will do it only if it's a worthy situation. Otherwise you'll summon something else. Against a dwarfs' cannons nest with engineer, you have many targets conveniently massed
Problem is that only works if you're going for a summoning army to get those delicious casting bonuses, otherwise the odds stand that you would fail the casting on the first try. And even if you do summon it, it has to be 9" away from the enemy and the Ark only has a range of 8" which renders it useless on the turn you summon it, giving the enemy plenty of time to adapt their strategy.
Ah yes. .. that's a problem. You don't have the surprise but it can limit the opponent 's movement (a sort of Casandora)
A Blot Toad would be a more effective area denial, it's more reliable, obvious, and easy to use. In addition, the Ark doesn't pose enough of a threat to really deny area. Plus the area denial only works so long as your opponent can see an approaching threat rather than an immediate one, like a target location for the Comet or the Blot Toad that will empower Rippers to hyper-lethal levels. A full-blown monster will just cause them to alter their strategy to either kill it or tarpit it, barely slowing them down and even letting them deal with it on their own terms.
But the toad is much slower and threaten a smaller area... sigh. I know you're right on the whole matter. It's only that we have a great monster with two options, and it's sad to use basically only one of them. Sotek is not pleased.
Both options seems great (bare in mind that I do not really play AOS) it just seems that the solar engine option is better in more scenarios. If your opponent has a lot of small units, I think the ark could be good, as you can only hit one at a time with the engine.
THAT SAID! Remember that this is Age of Sigmar. You are absolutely more than justified to say "well I'll pick this because it's cooler." Player choice like that is a big part of the game now ever since unit restrictions were lifted. So if you want an Ark, get a damn Ark and snake some people to death with it.
In all honesty, I ALWAYS use an Ark of Sotek instead a Solar Engine! Yeah, the Solar Engine is very powerful but HOW BORING!!! I mean, what is the point in having a marvelous scary dinosaur model if you don't use it to make him behave as a violent, unstoppable melee monster? It has to crush into enemy lines, stomping whoever stands in front of him and ignoring the opponent's attack with its thick armour while killing lots of enemies nearby... I wanna slam my Basti on the field turn 1, then make it run towards my enemy in a sort of kamikaze-way and have fun looking my opponent's troups trying to avoid it (cause of its incredible resistance) or being trapped in an infinite brawl while his formation falls into pieces! ... Oh, and this is exactly how I play it! And let's talk about the damages: okay the engine CAN do a maximum of 24 damages (36 VS Chaos Daemons), but how often you roll that high? I'm not so lucky with dice, and even with the help of a Starseer/Kroak for the rerolls I never did much with the solar beams. And remember you can shoot once per round, and take into account the 4+ To Hit, the 3+ To wound, the eventual enemy Save, etc... The Ark is 12 mortal wounds in a 8" range. Always. Period. Yes, you may say "Well, but if I'm near to just a couple of units I can do very few damages!" and you are right, BUT: - if you have 2 units in range, statistically you are still going to make 4 certain mortal wounds (2 x unit), which is not bad - if you have only 2 units in range, I don't think you are playing correctly your Basti. Also, I almost forgot it: the Tide of Snakes attacks every turn, so your Basti doesn't give a ---- for the turn Initiative: it is wrecking things anyway (it would deal 8 mortal wounds per round in the previous example, not counting melee attacks)! Spoiler: Final consideration Finally, I don't think summoning an Ark would be a good choice. As @Bainbow said, it would be useless for one entire turn. No, you want your BastilArk very visible and ready on turn 1 to catch the attention of your opponent, stopping the advance of the enemy, devasting his infantry units, and so on! P.S. Sorry for the wall of text. As usual.
Are you kidding? The Solar Engine if a FRICKIN' LASER BEAM! Combine it with the Slann's command ability which grants units fly but no movement speed increase and you have a gigantic, slow moving, levitating turtle with a laser cannon mounted on its back, disintegrating wave after wave of infantry like its a War of the Worlds flying saucer while slowly advancing across the battlefield skies while saying "NYORMF" because that's what I imagine a Bastiladon sounds like. If that's boring to you, then you have some weird priorities.
Well, indeed it activates the power "at the start of each combat phase", so it's good also during the enemy's turn, which is far from bad... Yeah, I'll certainly try it.
Being able to use a ranged attack during the combat phase like that is something I completely over looked. Makes the tide of snakes way more viable to me now, however, I'm thinking the crippling amount of damage that the solar beam does to one target makes the beam more reliable. I'd rather smash through one unit with the beam and watch the entire army crumble around it than to slowly whittle away the entire army. Surgical strikes vs Collateral
Yeah, I find it preferable to pick a target and wipe them off the face of the world rather than do small amounts of damage to everyone. Plus the better range on the Solar Engine means you can use it much faster, and mitigate the problem the Bastiladon has of being really slow.
And this is where the rules for AoS come into play.. What is your opponent playing? Lots of 1 wound infantry? Go Ark.. More high wound characters/monsters? Solar Engine. Adjusting to the situation at hand.
I'd contest that. Last time I went up against an army fielding a tonne of 1 wound infantry, my Engine was capable of wiping out entire units with a single shot each, it was devastating. The only problem with the Solar Engine is hitting and wounding, unlike the Ark which just randomly throws mortal wounds out. But by combining the Astriloth Bearer to get rerolls to hit, and making the bastiladon savage with The Creator's Will from the Thunderquake Starhost to get rerolls to wound (plus rerolls to saves which is good for the basi,) you just do absurd damage.