8th Ed. Bastiladon?

[nblackburn15]

Hi all,

I just wanted to get an idea of everyone's experience with the bastiladon? Is it a must-have, nice-to-have-, situationally-nice-to-have, never-would-I-ever, etc..

I'm building my first 1000 points Lizardmen list and I can't decided between Bastiladon, Stegadon or Ripperdactyls. Of course with the stegadon being more expensive points-wise, I would loose a unit of skink skirmishers... don't know if I want to do that.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Sleboda]

Nice to have. At 1000 points I think he has a chance to really shine.

 

[cyberhawk94]

Better the lower points value. Hes really great until you start running a tricked-out Slann. Especially how I run mine (Loremaster High Magic) I need every die I can give him, and cant afford to even one dice the Engine. Before a Slann enters the picture though, that spell is brutal

 

[Lizards o Lustria]

In 1000 points, you need all the spare points you can get, so I would say bastiladon over steg. I also personally think that the best way to field it is with a solar engine.

I say nice to have.

 

[Shath]

I know that I am in the minority but after having tried both versions of the Bastilidon I am a big fan of the Ark. I find the 2D6 auto hits to be great even if it is only strength 2. I like others find that I do not have the dice to spare from my power pool no matter what lore I am running. It really tears apart most core and really you don't want the Bastilidon going into elite troops.

 

[Scalenex]

I believe the Solardon is conditionally useful.

I found the bound spell is useful when I'm not bringing a Slann or my Slann is lacking decent ranged damaging spells.

I say the bound spell is very useful if you are running with no Slann, Shadow Slann, Death Slann Beast Slann,

I would consider the bound spell somewhat useful if I was running with a Life Slann, a Metal Slann, a High Magic Slann
without Lore Mastery, Light Slann, or Heaven Slann

I would consider the bound spell redundant if I were using a Fire Slann, WD Slann or Slann with Focus of Mystery, more than one Engine of the Gods, or a two Slann list.

The Initiative boost depends on who you are fighting.

Fighting other Lizardmen? The passive boost is awesome because you are going to strike first in ANY mirror matchup.

Most Ogres, Greenskins, Dwarves, and undead have Initiative 2 so this lets your Saurus Warriors strike at the same time and your Temple Guard and Cold One Cavalry strike first.

Most humans (and a lot of other races) have Initiative 3 so this lets your Temple Guard and Cold One Cavalry.

Against Elves and most Chaos minions the Initiative buff won't matter much at all.

Skinks gain really from the passive buff since they outclass most foes in Initiative already and most of the foes with Initiative of 4 or 5 will butcher Skinks regardless if the Skinks go at the same time of them or not.

I haven't used the Arkadon much. From the two times I used them, found the bonus Swarms are nice but your Swarms lose a lot of utility if you keep them clustered near your Bastiladon the whole game. The S2 hits haven't been useful for me yet but I haven't tried them on low toughness foes yet. I think the key is to match up a Ark of Sotek against low toughness poorly armored targets like human or elf infantry or anyone that's been hexed with Shadow magic.

Regardless of what kind of Basiladon I use, I have decided not to let them get too far from either my army's strongest infantry block or my BSB. Bastiladons seem to die more from failing a leadership test and breaking then they die from being cut down.

 

[GCPD]

Against Elves and most Chaos minions the Initiative buff won't matter much at all.

Purple Sun protection Characters go from a 50% chance to 66%, Temple Guard from 33% to 50%, and Saurus up from 16% to 33%. That's pretty huge all round.

 

[cwalker]

Plus the Bastiladon is a cool model - don't discount that.

How do you all play the Tail attack from the Bastiladon? Does he get it vs enemies he is not fighting to the front? If you get a STR10 hit every turn I would say he is great at 1k - plow him in and just direct it at the enemy heroes.

 

[MHK Pathfinder]

Plus the Bastiladon is a cool model - don't discount that.

How do you all play the Tail attack from the Bastiladon? Does he get it vs enemies he is not fighting to the front? If you get a STR10 hit every turn I would say he is great at 1k - plow him in and just direct it at the enemy heroes.

Most interpretations are the model nominates one attack per round at S10. If that attack is in the model's rear arc, it gets a +1 to hit.

Unfortunately the model won't stand up to CC combat if you plow him in. The only reason he should be in CC is if he's flanking an enemy or you desperately need to stop a unit for a round or two. Don't count on him doing much in combat.

 

[Sleboda]

Plus the Bastiladon is a cool model - don't discount that.

How do you all play the Tail attack from the Bastiladon? Does he get it vs enemies he is not fighting to the front? If you get a STR10 hit every turn I would say he is great at 1k - plow him in and just direct it at the enemy heroes.

Hi Chris. Good to see you here (assuming that's you).

I only claim the S10 and +1 to hit vs rear opponents. It has plenty of room to be read two different ways, so I play it so that it's not to my advantage as the Lizardmen player. That said, I would not fuss if an opponent using it wanted to get 1 S10 all the time and +1 to hit in the rear.

 

[JuQ]

Bastiladons are also great to declare long distance charges (likely to fail) to force terror tests on the enemy. He will be able to use the bound spell after the failed charge, only losing 3 javelin attacks.

 

[cwalker]

Nice to be here Joe! Thanks for the link.

I'm saying that at 1k I would plow a Bastiladon in.

There shouldn't be too much to cause him problems at that point level if you're playing balanced lists.

A str 10 over 2 rounds of combat could ruin a hero level characters day pretty quick.

Sure, you have to be careful, going a white lion unit is suicide but putting him into an Empire unit to snipe out the BSB could be good.

 

[forlustria]

Think they misses the boat with the tail attack . It should be atleast d3 multi wounds if not d6