8th Ed. Bastiladon, possibly my favourite unit ever.

Ummmm...

The two examples you just gave would only allow the basti to use its tail attack to the rear...

In the lizardmen book the phrases makes it appear likely the intention is for the basti to have the tail attack... only it gets +1 to hit if its target is in the rear.

Also while I don't really see T6 and 2+ armour as "rock hard"

If so... then give an oldblood the steg helm and go to town... I mean damn... with wyssans he is T7... or flesh to stone T10.... that is hard.

Actually he would also likely have 1+ armour and you could give him a ward...

 

Ok, so spend those lord points... while you could otherwise be sitting on bastilidon and lvl 1 skink priest points. They cost less, are more versatile and are located in less important army book sections. The bastilidon with wyssans is very hard to crack for any core units (barring Ironguts and WoC).

Tell your friends, "I replaced a solardon and a lvl beasts priest with an old blood with steg helm". Brag about it. People will call you a genius.

 

To put this in perspective. Using one dice each you get both solardons firing just under 50% of the time,

For the cost of 2 power dice, And most people will throw 2 dice casting a magic missile anyway, here, you have a decent chance of getting 2 magic missiles, with the added upside of being quite hard to dispel. If you dispell on one die, you have a 33% of failing, which isn't great odds, now, two dice, are almost guaranteed to dispell, but means they are two DD down,

Either way, you get something, either you get an awsome magic missile for one PD, or your opponent has to seriously consider using two dice to dispell it,

 

Unless you're a high elf with the book of Hoeth most wizards will be reluctant to try and dispel a spell on 1D6 because 33% of the time they will auto-fail the dispel (by rolling a natural 1-2) and will therefore be unable to use their levels to dispel any more spells for the rest of the phase.

 

There are a few scenarios:

You roll 1-2: fail
You roll 3-4: opponent can 1-dice with a secondary caster or let it through
You roll 5-6: opponent can 2-dice, risk a 1-dice or let it through

Now, assuming you have a Slann waiting to cast the really dangerous spells, I don't think that's half bad. I think much of the time the Slann will be too dangerous and your opponent will just let the Bastiladon shoot his laser, but there are plenty of good targets for it out there if you get the 4+.

As stated, it should really only go into combat alongside a unit to reduce attacks against it and get some reliable wounds and CR from that, and hope Thunderstomp can tip the scales.

T5 2+ is pretty solid against most non-machine shooting and magic missiles. Cannons will kill it, but cannons kill everything and if they are shooting at the Bastiladon they are not shooting at my more expensive Stegadon.

 

I'm leaning toward Slaan with lore of death; yeah, that's right, just rolling for spells old school.
Along with that the flying priest for extra range and line of sight.
Along with that, Ill Tempered Dinosaurs with Laser Beams on their heads.

I'll use death magic through the skink to generate some additional power dice, and then feed those back into the lasers.
With the boost to channel, and the channel staff, and being the BSB, the slaan comes in at 385 (with banner of discipline). He's quite a bit cheaper than other slaan builds, and I think still quite effective.

The +1 to init makes me feel better about purple sun too.

-Matt

 

Hey guys, first time poster.

Have been trawling these forums for the last few weeks watching Lizardmen rumours etc

Looking over this post I almost agree with the OP. However I would only ever run 1 [Unless the +I was stacking!!]
The bound spell is a nice little addition, 1 power dice and you have a 33% chance to fail casting. Not a half bad gamble. Now your opponent WILL dispel this if he rolls over 2, chances are he will be using his level 2 to attempt dispel. Its a dispel dice for a power dice and odds are you have more of the latter than he does of the former.

I for one will be taking one of these bad boys, while T5 W5 isn't game breaking its still tough. IF your playing it right it should be there to support a unit in combat with the aura and a few extra attacks. Lets face it, your opponent would rather throw attacks against a 4+ T4 saurus than against a T5 2+AS beastie.
So played correctly this model, while not game breaking, could make your temple guard more formidable and yes it will help against those purple sun/pit of shades toting idiots!

I play ogres as a main army and let me tell you, if my Thundertusk had a similar aura I would play it, even at 100pts extra without a bound spell!

The +1I gives you added protection against certain spells, your temple guard are now standard I3 without relying on the casting of a spell! To me that is worth the 150pts alone, the bound spell is just the cherry on the cake.

While I don't agree with taking two of these [Unless you are talking 3000pts+] I will definitely include one any time I run a Slann + TG unit.

Chris

 

The tail attack can be used whenever, it only recieves a +1 to hit if its in the rear. I am basing this off of the fact that it says to nominate one attack each combat phase to be S10.

 

I don't particulary like the Bastiladon, but I don't hate it either. It's a buff wagon with tricks. And also, it's not a wagon.

The aspect I like a lot about it, is the fact that it is an excellent solo-slann protector. Aside from the buffs, solar beam, snake-spawning etc etc..(which has already been adressed).

I like running my Slann solo, it has a certain appeal to it. But it also means the big frog needs protection. But
we didn't really have the 'right' unit to do so. Anything that manages to get behind my lines and charge the Slann is a big threat. The units themselves aren't thát good most of the time (great eagles, pegasus knights, fast cav, scouts or skirmishers...). They are surely annoying and will hold up my Slann, but are unlikely to kill it.
Still, I don't want my Slann to be held up. And I tried all sorts of units to protect him.

Skinks are way too fragile.
Skrox are good, but then the unit only babysits the Slann and doesn't do anything else.
SCOR are too expensive, as is a Stegadon.
Salamanders are too far up ahead.
Terradons...are ok-ish. But they lack staying power.
Scar-vet, too expensive, likely to be up ahead.

The Bastilodon keeps up with the Slann, buffs your units and shoots laser beams. So it actually does something usefull, and if the time comes that my Slann is in danger: he can turn around and protect his flank. The slann can keep on casting, and doesn't have to worry. The Bastilodon is big enough that the enemy can't really kill nor break it (it's always near the Slann).
So the units I described above will have a very hard time beating/killing the 'Don. And if they manage to do it; it is likely too late for them to go after the Slann as well.


I'm not quite sure if I'm going to use the Bastilodon. But this is one aspect I like a lot. Usually, I manage to keep my Slann safe (enough).

The Hunted

 

You know what's funny, the +1I boost extends to the skinks riding on top of your stegs and Bastiladons, which means they only fail initiative tests on a 6. I'm glad the skinks on the backs of these things are providing some benefit... for those keeping score at home, ancient stegs used to die to pit/purple sun on a 2+, now they survive on anything but a 6!

I like these little guys for their points, and I see a multitude of uses for the magic missile they have. I'd be happy to throw 2 dice at the bound spell on these, because then it will almost definitely go off and the opponent will almost definitely need to throw 2 dice to stop it. 2 dice on a magic flaming missile that I don't need to risk on my Slann is just great by me. Having two of them allows me to chuck a leftover die at the end of a phase at the thing. The +1 init buff is as good as having our troops upgraded, since it is always turned on. The str10 tail attack is not bad either, it should help the TG/saurus grind out more heavily armored things.

 

I'm planning on using one in my next game (doubles battle, two teams that I know of will be Orcs and goblins and High elves).

Not sure who I am going to be doubled with, but in the magic phase I can see it causing a huge problem, it means he will have to sacrifice at least one power dice per phase (and I plan on taking 2 level 2 skink priests).

Plus the Initiative buff is always useful on skinks and rippers.

 

So, maybe it is just me, but has anyone thought about running two or three Bastiladons with Solar Engines in an army without a Slann? Doing this would allow one to use all of their dice for the beams, and since IF can happen, I would think they would be going off quite a bit. Also, since IF does not destroy the Solar Engine, you can just keep using them.

I am currently planning a list that uses two of these guys with only a Skink Priest to run anti-magic duty. This means that with an average WoM roll, I will have 4 dice to pump through one and 3 through another. Sure, my opponent gets his chance to dispel, and given my usual opponents he will have a level 4, he is likely going to dispel one a turn, but he will miss from time to time, plus IF has to be factored in.

I guess it just seems to me that everyone is going on about there use in the wrong way. This is a unit that you run in lists without a strong magic phase so that you can pump all of your power dice through the Solar Engine. Any thoughts?

 

I gave it a try with a single level 2 skink priest. I was throwing 2 dice at each one, and got off at least 1 per turn. My opponent was so (rightfully) worried about wildform that he was choosing to let the missile go. The bound spells starting racking up a lot of kills, and he was lamenting over what to dispel.
I'm now seriously thinking of a slaan free list, with ~2 priests and 2 Bastiladons.

-Matt

 

I agree. I think I'm going to try that out too.

I still think that wild form is the more dangerous spell so you should be able to sneak through a few Beams.

 

I tried rolling with a Monster Mash against Demons this afternoon.

Carno/Old Blood
Tetto
Laserdon
Laserdon
Ancient
Ancient
Ripper
Ripper


The Ancients killed off the Spellcaster turn one. :0)
It will be interesting to see how I fair against a more magic heavy opponent.

Basic idea is Tetto is a threat for Comet, so let the lasers through.

With the d3 Vanguard some of the monsters will be in the opponents face pretty quickly. At the very least, I had fun playing the list!

 

Good synergy...What are the 2 ancients running - EOTG or blowpipes?

 

Just rocking the blowpipes!

I am tweaking my list a little bit. I had 2x24 Saurus for core. I think I am going to 1 x 30 and getting some skinks for redirecting. I'll post a list later and let everyone know how it does.

 

I hadn't thought of swapping a pair or a trio out for a slan, they could work, especially if you took tekkoeko and a level 2 beast. I like it.

 

Yes. I'm thinking of running 2 along with a Steg EoG and a Skink level 2 with Beasts.

 

In this case what would you take as your general?