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8th Ed. Bastiladon, solar engine vs. ark of sotek

Kroxy
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Kroxy

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I'm pretty new to warhammer, and i'm wondering what is better, the solar engine or the ark of sotek?

I just bought a bastiladon and can't for the life of me decide what i want/need in my army, so any help or opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated :3
 
Depends on what you will use it for. I will write u here a brief (or not so brief) balancing out of each.;)
Solar engine
- First: it is magical. U need to spend channeling dice to cast this spell, and as it needs a 3 or more, to play safe (ignoring dispelling) you would need to roll two dice (not very likely to get a double 1).That means that if you play it along many wizards it might loose effectivity as you will spend the power dice on spells, and therefore the bastiladon will just be a chunk of meat in the middle of the battlefield.
- The actual impacts. The number of impacts and strenght of the shot might vary depending on what you roll. I´d say the average you can get on dice rolls is usually 3s or 4s, so what you should expect is about 5 shots of strength 5. That is very effective on mostly high armored troops (Black Orks for example) or monstrous infantry (Ogres), and, of course, characters outside units.
- Side effects: +1 initiative on units within 6 inches of the bastiladon. That is always a plus. And also the -1 of BS and WS on impacted units from a roll of 6
The ark of sotek
- Jungle swarms. If your army includes any number of units of jungle swarms, this is such a HUGE plus. On a 4+ you get to add another base (That means on average one each two turns). This is 5 more wounds and 5 more attacks each two turns to the jungle swarm unit, enough to keep it alive for many turns and maybe for the whole battle.
- The ark is both for close combat and for distance. First: All enemy units within 1D6 (min average 3") receive 2D6 (average 6) impacts of strength 2. This is great for "filler troops" like skins. Infantry of small base. I find it extremely useful against blocks of zombies: kill about 10 (ark, bastiladon and riders) and unstable rule kills as many as points you have won the match by (if you charged and killed 10, and the zombies are 40 in 10 by 4 arrangement (and they don't usually inflict any wound) --> 11:3 --> you won by eight, so overall you killed 18) they flee, pursue, hopefully catch them and bye 40 zombies


So solar engine for "big" troops and characters, and ark for block units. That´s the whole of it. I have tried both and they work pretty well. So now you decide which one you want to build, depends on the armies you usually play against and your own playing style, I guess. But anyways, magnetizing them is definitely the best option.

Hope that helps
Jorgik
 
Well i have never played before, but i know i'm going to be against dwarfs and wood elves, so what's good against them? (depending on what they field ofc) otherwise i think i get the gist :)

Also, i want to magnetize my bastiladon, but what kind of magnets do i use? (Both size and strength)
 
I never played against any drawf player, and the only time I played against wood elves I lost soooo badly, so can´t recommend about any of them.
About the magnets, They are of a special metal, neodymium. It is a very bright silver and super strong as they have been specifically designed for this. If you live in the USA, the best choice in my opinion is this online website: http://www.rare-earth-magnets.com
Maybe they are available in hobby shops, but if I lived in the USA, I´d buy from these guys.
About the size, you choose. The bigger it is, the stronger, but also the harder to hide, so the best choice is to take the smallest that can hold the piece. You can search on youtube ralf137 and he explains it very well, alongside with examples of sizes and strength .
Hope that helps
 
Every bit helps ;)

I live in Denmark, but i can prob. eBay them, i guess :p
 
Wow, that might be a little over the budget, but i'll poke around a bit and see what i can find, but i don't know if i have a hobby shop around my area, i live in the outskirts of the ass end of the world :p
 
If we are only talking about 8th edition and not looking towards future possibilities like 9 th age etc..

8th ed. was for I think almost all lizardmen players: Solardon over serpentdon by a powerlevel of over 9000 ;)

edit: when you talk about match ups vs wood elves and dwarfs ( wich are both primarely good at ranged combat) the serpent won't do you any good especially vs wood elves, who don't have big blocks. A laserbeam at least might send a panic, the serpents won't do sh*t... just my opion ofcourse;..
 
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I agree with the above post about the solar engine, especially because wood elves tend to run a lot of avoidance and your snake basti probably won't be able to get close enough to do anything since he's a bit slow.;)
 
I first bought a basti with the intention of playing it as an ark (who doesn't want dinos on the back of a dino shooting snakes in a 360 degree arch?) but quickly realised it was useless without jungle swarms to buff to gain the full benefit. so most games i have had since i bought it i have used w/solar engine and it deffo makes my opponents think about were they place their troops during movement as no-one wants the concentrated heat of the sun murdering their multi wounded models from a distance before they can get to use them properly. Now that i have made a few jungle swarms and tehehuin I'm starting to think of army builds that can utilise a basti w/ark.

the bastiliadon is a wonderful model in both its versions and is extremely tanky and most people panic at the sight of big monsters and tend to throw a lot at them so take a few other big monsters as well to make them split targets and you'll do alright
 
pretty much, you need to build around the ark, while the solar engine fits in to most list easily.
 
In my opinion the Solardon is vastly superior to the ark. Jungle Swarms aren't that great, and the solar beam is a fantastic threat. The +1 Initiative also helps a bit against Purple Sun.

Jorgik said:
U need to spend channeling dice to cast this spell, and as it needs a 3 or more, to play safe (ignoring dispelling) you would need to roll two dice (not very likely to get a double 1).That means that if you play it along many wizards it might loose effectivity as you will spend the power dice on spells, and therefore the bastiladon will just be a chunk of meat in the middle of the battlefield.
Click to expand...

Another tactic is to leave a single power dice for last and attempt to cast the beam with it. You may very well sneak it past your opponent OR force them to save a couple of power dice and improve the odds of casting your other spells.
 
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