So I have been playing around with my new book and reading a lot of army lists here and thought of something a little different. In a 2400pt Army list, run 3 Bastiladons with the Ark of Sotek and 3 units of 4 Jungle Swarms. In a 6 Turn game without losing a Bastiladon you could hope to raise 9 more Jungle Swarms which is a nice extra 315 points I was wondering what people thought of this plan?
While raising more swarms is nice, it is not going to win any games. An opponent may very well let the basilidons and swarms propagate while laying waste to the rest of the army. The general intent of swarms is to boost other units by giving them poison but swarms are so fragile (T2 and unstable) that they are unlikely to survive very long in combat. The other side of the coin is what could one do with the roughly 600 points that fielding 3 x basi's and swarms would cost: 1) 2 units of 6 krox each or one of 12 krox - faster movement, 36 x S7 attacks + stomps, predatory fighter. Definitely a much better offensive punch and much tougher in combat. 2) 2 blocks of ~ 25 saurus with FC 3) unit of a dozen CoC with a couple scar vets 4) etc. Personally, I think there are more effective options for points in the lizzie army. One would be far better off spending the points up front on a couple swarms if that is what is desired (i.e. field units of 3 bases) rather than dropping 450 points trying to get "free" swarms during the game.
The points costing of the Sotec Arc and Jungle Swarms is one of those things about the book that simply doesn't make sense. For the cost of 3 Bastiladons with the chance of raising on average 9 more swarms a game, you could just get... 12 actual Swarms.
The Ark of Sotek's secondary job is to create Swarms. It's primary job is to a soft block of Core. The high toughness and low armor save means they will be hard pressed to score many wounds and the S2 hits will take their toll. The problem is that some armies do not have soft Core (or they block your Bastiladons from getting to them) and that Bastiladons have low leadership and no Stubborn so they can break from bloodless combats if the enemy has enough ranks. Just like larger Swarm units, an Arkadon practically requires a nearby Saurus block to help them out.