I'm awakening after hibernation, and I'm wanting to expand my army. The last time I was actively warhammering was a bit less than a year ago, and there were still many comments flying about regarding the then new-ish Bastiladons - should you just stick with Stegs? Is their armour save worth it considering their toughness, and/or relatively common 'ignores armour-saves' and Armour Piercing rules? Is the Solar Engine bound spell of any use? Coming back into it since, Bastils seem to be more common in army lists, why? And which has a better flavour: Chotec or Sotek?
Bastiladons and stegs have two different jobs. Bastilidons are armored defenders, while stegs are charging combat beasts. I find that you want to keep bastiladons back as defense. They have no flank, and can hold their own against most things for a turn or two. Stegs, on the other hand, want to find a juicy target and charge in (preferably in concert with something else for some additional combat res.) Between the two bastiladon types, most people take the laser beam over the ark. No one really brings swarms, so the ark does not really bring much to the party. Meanwhile, the laser beam can potentially wipe out a good chunk of a unit using a single power dice. Also, they are a cheap monster. Everyone loves cheap monsters.
I find the solardon to be a good choice when you don't have the slann with you. You can safely 6-dice the spell and half the time it'll be S5 or more. Getting the best roll (6) will result in 2D6 S6 hits with flaming and magical attacks. That's actually really good. It also buffs our initative by 1 which is somewhat useless. I mean it can be a decent safe from purple sun on our templeguards, but meh... The stats of the bastiladon makes sense all things considered. It's the single most heavily armoured of all our models so the description is fits the profile. Other models have to resolve to armour and being mounted. I'm saying this because at the release people complained how the description didn't match the profil. The Snakeadon is... uhm.. well it *can* be effective. In close combat you basically gain free extra hits albeit only at S2 or whatever. Even then it can result in a couple of extra wounds when up against T3 with light to heavy armour. THe thing is that considering how you cannot always be sure to be up against these models there'll be plenty of time where it's worthless. Comparably the solardon can basically always be useful due to both the buff and decent bound spell (I'm saying decent because there is afterall only 50% chance for it to be good). So it's definately NOT an auto-include option. If it would've at least been S5 I think it would've been a very good monster, but S4 is just so meh. We have plenty of way to generate that. It's also slow moving with M4. One good thing about the attacks is that it have 1 S10 attack, but considering how it's only WS3 there's a 50/50 chance of that not working out too well. I think the bastiladon in an odd way fits very well within the book. It's not overpowered. It's not bad. It's just decent. THe snake version could've been more viable and the buff .. erhh... something else..
I don't play that often, but the Basiladon is almost auto-include with the Solar Engine. I always cast ir first, so opponents don't like to use dispel dice on the first cast. Getting 2D6 hits is nice - last game my first cast was 9 hits at Str6, killed over a rank of High Elves. I always get my points back.
Bastiladons are a great support unit. I went to a small local tournament yesterday and took my solar engine bastiladon. Second game he flank charged a big Silver Helms character bus that my temple guard were locked in combat with. His strength ten attack took out a silver helm. In the end, the 3 combat res he added caused me to win by two. He failed on ld8 rerollable and I chased several hundred points off the table. Game three I charged my general into a unit of chaos warriors with the intent of challenging his characters and murdering them all one by one. Charged the bastiladon in to support. He's not a great combatant, but his few attacks combined with thunderstomp kept my general from losing to static combat res, and his T5, 2+ armor kept him from giving up any in return. And his bound spell is pretty great. Unless you're going double slann, or have some other crazy, power dice craving strategy, its definitely worth finding the 150 points for this guy.
I generally use an army with no Slann and 1 or 2 skink priests with Beasts for Wildform. Solar Engine fits great in the list as it gives me something to do with my power dice when my units aren't in combat.
You really can't go wrong for taking one. Still, it's crucial to remember that the Bastiladon fills a support role (despite the potency of the Solar Engine). For me, it's an auto-include.
If you're running a small army and don't have a Slann I think they're auto-include. I think they're very versatile (bound spell, infantry support and initiative boost) but are slow and don't bring the offensive qualities of a Stegadon. At 150pts I think they're reasonably priced.
Treat it as a support piece and you'll be fine. I think of it as most comparable to the wagons the Empire brings, passive bonuses and bound spells that you can use to augment your lines. Plus with good positioning they can clear chaff and get in on the corner of a combat to T stomp away. Don't throw more than 2 dice at the spell unless your wizards are unable to cast their spells or you really need flaming hits on something
While I agree it's *comparable* it's still quite inferior. +1 PD and +1 To Hit is very very very good. +1I is situational at best. Not that the bast isn't good.
Bastiladon is NICE when: - your opponent have a lot of troops with low STR and no armour piercing (zombies, elves, peasants, etc) - low point games, such as 1000, when it is better to not have a mage, but Bastilladon's bound spell can give an advantage - with Arc of Sotek and Tehenhauin as a poison bonus for Sauruses. Nice synergy imo. Bastiladon is BAD when: - your opponent have high STR unis with several attacks, especially if they are mounted and can't be stomped (Demigryphs, Chaos cav, and even Brettonian knights on charge) - far from your general - with LD6 he is too vulnerable for combat res
for 150 points..... yes, definitely! even with the Ark of Sotek they can make a big impact on the battlefield.
How is high strength a problem? You are using the bastiladon wrong if my reading comprehension isn't far off - It's a supporting unit, not a frontline unit. Place him right behind or next to a good block of saurus (maybe 2) and give it the solar beam. The beam works wonders against a lot of things, and flaming really makes a difference here. It's meant to soften up things with a few shots of its bound spell, and then grant a bit more initiative for your slow saurus', to help them catch up to the slightly faster foes (like undeads or dwarves) or to help against initiative based save-or-die spells. It's also good as a flank supporter, especially against stompable targets like standard infantry. If you charge ahead of your army with your bastiladon, you've done something wrong.
The best thing for +1 Initiative would be allowing TG or CoR to re-roll failed hits against I3 when already augmented with Birona's Timewarp from Lore of Light No need to cast Speed of Light
You just need to remember it! my first game against the empire had seen 2 combat turns with ASF on my TG unit (Which was over after those 2 turns, no less), not realizing I actually had the same initiative as them (Doh) and thus able to reroll. I won anyway, but it's a bit sad forgetting that I'm suddenly fast enough to get rerolls from ASF... I blame the elves for the mistake.
I stopped using all of my monsters when they were being cannoned off the table in turn 1 in nearly every game. Nearly every player at my store has at least 1 cannon and often 2. Can never get my drop rocks on them fast enough to stop the cannon death
Get more monsters. Built in redundancy and target saturation is key when using monsters. Monsters never seem to work if you don't want to commit. Field 2 bastiladons and 2 stegadons on top of MSUs like Terradons and Rippers, along with a carnosaur or two, and you are garantueed several monsters hitting the enemy front line. Most seem to make mistakes when given multiple options - My local group seems to overreact against bastiladons, giving them disproportionate amounts of attention, despite not being even remotely as dangerous as they think they are.
I feel your pain with your monsters being destroyed in turn 1, I face one Empire player way too often, he usually has 2 great cannons and an empire mini gun thing, 3 games he killed all my monsters in turn 1. So what did I do? get 2 Ancient Stegadons, 1 Stegadon, 1 Bastiladon 2 groups of rippers... So with enough monsters he has trouble picking the dangerous ones, charge everything forward into his lines, wait for my infantry and then things finally swing my way. Bastiladon is awesome on smaller games, but even larger ones, I like to use him to keep units with killing blow occupied, especially if they are only str 3 then flank them with whatever is available.