8th Ed. Am I doing something wrong or is the Bastiladon a beast?

[Pinktaco]

So as some of you might've noticed I'm a complete noob. Just had my second game vs my friend (empire) and the Bastiladon have been a joy to use both time. Since both my friend and I are new there are times where we are somewhat uncertain of very specific rules that can be hard to look up. I also have a tendency to forget terror <.<

Anyway I've looked at the Bastiladon as a support unit and it is.. for the most part. It'll obviously be crushed when charged by anything remotely serious, but vs regular core units such as state troops (halbards/spears) it's eating through them no issue.

So my first time vs my friend I charged it against his halbard soldiers + warrior priest. Nothing else to help on either side. It ended up eating it's way through almost all of them without taking a single wound over several turns. I was rather surprised and didn't feel particularly lucky because we both had average rolls.

Today I had my second battle again my empire friend. The Bastiladon charged against his spear unit with level 4 mage in the 3th turn after having been lucky with 5 pistoliers and 5 regular knights (both of who I believe fled the field of battle after having lost combat and some unlucky rally tries).
It ended up killing the mage and had fun with his spearmen. No wound was given to the bastiladon.

So as I said - we're both noobs - and my friend could've been more lucky and placed his units better. Fair enough, but fact is that unless I'm doing something utterly wrong it can easily chew through troops like that. I realize they aren't good at all and that it might lose due to combat resolution, but as far as I'm concerned it has vastly outdone what I expected of it.

Last thing - last night I asked about the Ark of Sotek and people claimed it to be utter crap/useless, but it was agreed upon that it do in fact work while the Bastiladon is in combat (this is also specifically mentioned in the book). Overall I think the snakes killed roughly 8-10 out of 30 spearmen today. The first two times it didn't do much (a couple of kills if I'm not mistakening, however last time I got lucky and got off something like 9 S2 hits against the spearmen which resulted in quite a few death. I realize that against anything tougher it's rather useless, but in my world it's still pretty much free kill(s) whenever (IF!) it's succesful.




- Opinions?

 

[n810]

I think against average humans and posibly elves Baslidons would do prety good, but they get into problems against anything nastier, like wariors of chaos or ogres, ect...

 

[Pinktaco]

I agree, but if I'm not mistakening they are the exception rather than the rule, right? We'll them and maybe dwarfs too. Skavens, elfs, britonnia infantry, both undead factions Will struggle with regular core units. It's not unkillabe, but for the points I find it too awesome to not include. At least so far lol

 

[RipperDerek]

The Ark of Sotek does 2D6 S2 hits. That's 7 average hits. Against the weakest realistic opposing infantry (toughness 3/ 5+ armor save), it does 7*(2/6)*(4/6) = 1.5 wounds on the average per activation. Against infantry that's slightly tougher (4 toughness / 4+ armor save), it averages 0.5 wounds per activation. It is pretty terrible.

The Bastilladon is still pretty good for its point cost. It causes terror and gets thunderstomps, which means it's not bad against squishy infantry, particularly if it hits them in the flank.

 

[n810]

Yea the one thing I don't get is why are't its shooting attacks poisionus, since it is obviouse shooting poisionus snakes (jungle swarms).

 

[Pinktaco]

The Ark of Sotek does 2D6 S2 hits. That's 7 average hits. Against the weakest realistic opposing infantry (toughness 3/ 5+ armor save), it does 7*(2/6)*(4/6) = 1.5 wounds on the average per activation. Against infantry that's slightly tougher (4 toughness / 4+ armor save), it averages 0.5 wounds per activation. It is pretty terrible.

The Bastilladon is still pretty good for its point cost. It causes terror and gets thunderstomps, which means it's not bad against squishy infantry, particularly if it hits them in the flank.

I suppose that depends on how you define terrible. Some people don't find it attractive to use bound spells or you might not necessarily get it off. Obviously the Ark isn't good-good, but the way I see it it's still there to grant a few extra kills at the cost of nothing - you said it yourself, we don't bring it for the Ark.

Now, while I like theory-crafting because it's a good indicator that is also all it is. For instance, I believe I got 5 kills off on my last attempt with it. Sometimes you can be lucky, other times it'll do absolutely nothing. Against most it'll be useless I agree, but I find it to be an alright ability that doesn't eat into your PD pool.

Maybe it's just me though, but I was surprised that it got something like 8 kills today due to that.

 

[RipperDerek]

Math isn't theory crafting, its math. It always wins in the long run.

You will get lucky and roll more than the average number of wounds sometimes. You will also get unlucky and roll worse than that sometimes. On the average, the Ark of Sotek will probably be worse than the other options available to you. You can still pick it if you want, of course.

 

[Scalenex]

Yea the one thing I don't get is why are't its shooting attacks poisionus, since it is obviouse shooting poisionus snakes (jungle swarms).

They are poisonous, it just doesn't matter. If you don't have to roll to hit you can't roll a "6"

And to add to the technicalities, a Bastiladon is not a beast, it's a Monster

 

[n810]

Ahhhh... I missed that bit, you are basicly seeing how manty poision attacks you did. (roll for wounds)

 

[Rhodium]

So as some of you might've noticed I'm a complete noob. Just had my second game vs my friend (empire) and the Bastiladon...
- Opinions?

I think bastilidon are useful but by no means amazing.

I think your empire friend is just running a fluffy or sub optimal list...

What are the demigryphs or the 1+ AS knights doing? They would laugh off the str4 attacks and rip through the 2+ AS of the bastilidon.

Furthermore what was his cannons or stank shooting at? Unless you have stegadons he should be shooting them off the board. A movement 4 monster will take a while to get into combat

 

[Pinktaco]

Oh he was + none of ud are any good. The bastiladon was lucky wit. Its charge and ran through some pistoliers followed by a few regular knights and thus ended up close to the spearmen. But that time he had already tried to kill my steg with his cannon and killed off a cowboy with his stank due to horrible placement on my part. The inner circle knights where hoping to charge my saurus units and the gryphs apparently parked behind all of it to protect cannons or whatever.

I realize the bastiladon is no steg, but to the price I find it to be just fine. If it gets charged by something decent it'll cry and run to a corner, however it can do rather well againet S4 T3 units.. Depending on AS

 

[Spiney Norman]

So as some of you might've noticed I'm a complete noob. Just had my second game vs my friend (empire) and the Bastiladon have been a joy to use both time. Since both my friend and I are new there are times where we are somewhat uncertain of very specific rules that can be hard to look up. I also have a tendency to forget terror <.<

Anyway I've looked at the Bastiladon as a support unit and it is.. for the most part. It'll obviously be crushed when charged by anything remotely serious, but vs regular core units such as state troops (halbards/spears) it's eating through them no issue.

So my first time vs my friend I charged it against his halbard soldiers + warrior priest. Nothing else to help on either side. It ended up eating it's way through almost all of them without taking a single wound over several turns. I was rather surprised and didn't feel particularly lucky because we both had average rolls.

Today I had my second battle again my empire friend. The Bastiladon charged against his spear unit with level 4 mage in the 3th turn after having been lucky with 5 pistoliers and 5 regular knights (both of who I believe fled the field of battle after having lost combat and some unlucky rally tries).
It ended up killing the mage and had fun with his spearmen. No wound was given to the bastiladon.

So as I said - we're both noobs - and my friend could've been more lucky and placed his units better. Fair enough, but fact is that unless I'm doing something utterly wrong it can easily chew through troops like that. I realize they aren't good at all and that it might lose due to combat resolution, but as far as I'm concerned it has vastly outdone what I expected of it.
- Opinions?

Bastiladons are good for their points, but it sounds to me like your friend has been a little unlucky. With a halberd unit he needs rerollable 4+ to hit (WPs hatred), 5+ to wound and you have a 3+ save so on average you should take 1 wound per combat phase (assuming a 6 wide unit) before you even consider any prayers or the warrior priests attacks (esp if he has a great weapon). If the unit was a horde I wouldn't expect the basti to survive more than a couple of rounds.

On the other hand against a unit of empire Spearmen with a battle wizard the basti has a right to go to town and this is really just bad management on the part of your opponent as Empire has all the tools needed to counter the very best of our monsters, which the Bastiladon is not. As an Empire player myself I wouldn't really consider Spearmen as a viable unit in this edition, they can't really dish damage out and they can't take it either (a bit like skink cohorts without Kroxigor in our army list).

I'd be very nervous about charging my Bastiladon into anything unsupported just because he actually doesn't have many attacks, and even with thunderstomp its going to be very tough to win combat against any ranked up unit even if you do take no wounds in reply. Generally I send him in with my Saurus who provide volume of attacks and some rank/standard bonus for combat resolution.

 

[Pofadder]

I agree wholeheartedly that Afk of sotek is a bit meh. Bu the in the game I played it I got the additional use that it added 3 swarm bases during the course of the gamd to my swarm unit...

I do not think it will make it an auto-include, but it was nice having 5 swarms in the unit after starting with 2

 

[Pinktaco]

So as some of you might've noticed I'm a complete noob. Just had my second game vs my friend (empire) and the Bastiladon have been a joy to use both time. Since both my friend and I are new there are times where we are somewhat uncertain of very specific rules that can be hard to look up. I also have a tendency to forget terror <.<

Anyway I've looked at the Bastiladon as a support unit and it is.. for the most part. It'll obviously be crushed when charged by anything remotely serious, but vs regular core units such as state troops (halbards/spears) it's eating through them no issue.

So my first time vs my friend I charged it against his halbard soldiers + warrior priest. Nothing else to help on either side. It ended up eating it's way through almost all of them without taking a single wound over several turns. I was rather surprised and didn't feel particularly lucky because we both had average rolls.

Today I had my second battle again my empire friend. The Bastiladon charged against his spear unit with level 4 mage in the 3th turn after having been lucky with 5 pistoliers and 5 regular knights (both of who I believe fled the field of battle after having lost combat and some unlucky rally tries).
It ended up killing the mage and had fun with his spearmen. No wound was given to the bastiladon.

So as I said - we're both noobs - and my friend could've been more lucky and placed his units better. Fair enough, but fact is that unless I'm doing something utterly wrong it can easily chew through troops like that. I realize they aren't good at all and that it might lose due to combat resolution, but as far as I'm concerned it has vastly outdone what I expected of it.
- Opinions?

Bastiladons are good for their points, but it sounds to me like your friend has been a little unlucky. With a halberd unit he needs rerollable 4+ to hit (WPs hatred), 5+ to wound and you have a 3+ save so on average you should take 1 wound per combat phase (assuming a 6 wide unit) before you even consider any prayers or the warrior priests attacks (esp if he has a great weapon). If the unit was a horde I wouldn't expect the basti to survive more than a couple of rounds.

On the other hand against a unit of empire Spearmen with a battle wizard the basti has a right to go to town and this is really just bad management on the part of your opponent as Empire has all the tools needed to counter the very best of our monsters, which the Bastiladon is not. As an Empire player myself I wouldn't really consider Spearmen as a viable unit in this edition, they can't really dish damage out and they can't take it either (a bit like skink cohorts without Kroxigor in our army list).

I'd be very nervous about charging my Bastiladon into anything unsupported just because he actually doesn't have many attacks, and even with thunderstomp its going to be very tough to win combat against any ranked up unit even if you do take no wounds in reply. Generally I send him in with my Saurus who provide volume of attacks and some rank/standard bonus for combat resolution.

How is the WP's hatred ability exactly? Because otherwise we're talking about the first round of combat where they have a reroll.

Anyway what I didn't realize until I read through some of the rules in the army book today is that; if you have a character in a unit he will aways be in combat since he'll move through the other units. The first time I used my bastiladon it should've been fightning against his WP as well, which is something I did not consider back then.

It makes quite a difference because I'm not currenly too scared by regular halbards, however, as you said so yourself - WPs with a great weapon will hurt it.

 

[Spiney Norman]

How is the WP's hatred ability exactly? Because otherwise we're talking about the first round of combat where they have a reroll.

Anyway what I didn't realize until I read through some of the rules in the army book today is that; if you have a character in a unit he will aways be in combat since he'll move through the other units. The first time I used my bastiladon it should've been fightning against his WP as well, which is something I did not consider back then.

It makes quite a difference because I'm not currenly too scared by regular halbards, however, as you said so yourself - WPs with a great weapon will hurt it.

That is a correct understanding of hatred, but the problem is this, supposing you don't take any wounds to the Halberdiers, you still have to kill 5 of them to win combat (3 ranks, standard), 6 if they charged as well, and even if you somehow do pull that off on your 3 attacks, hitting on 4s plus D6 thunderstomp they're going to be steadfast on the WP's Ld of 8.

 

[Pinktaco]

Tbh it's never my intention for it to be alone it have just happened twice now and it exceeded my expectations both times. Usually I try and get my saurus in as well. If it's within the slann leadership bubble it should,however, be able to dance around for a couple of rounds until support comes. The best thing about the bast is that it is relatively cheap and if you have high magic slann you can potentially heal a few wounds.

 

[Smexygor]

Side charge with bast and threaten charge with Saurus block. If he reforms, nail him with a block. If not, attacks from the side won't likely hurt bast.

 

[Spiney Norman]

Side charge with bast and threaten charge with Saurus block. If he reforms, nail him with a block. If not, attacks from the side won't likely hurt bast.

I would suggest that basing your strategy on being able to flank with.a M4 monster is a little optimistic, most players in my world aren't that bad at the game. Unfortunately for the Basti everything except dwarfs usually gets the jump on him , its unusual that would ever get to charge with him, let alone be presented with a flank.

 

[Hinge]

I think you were fortunate against the Halberds as they will take down the Bastiladon more often then not. If not by killing it, then by breaking it eventually.

 

[Smexygor]

I did it with walk between worlds when my stegs were busy.