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Since it looks like Bastions are going to be getting harder to kill thanks to their new Solo I was wondering what abilities are out there that negate their Sanguine Bond Ability. Thanks.

Just hit them. They're not amazing as Menite infantry goes, heck they're not even great as heavy infantry goes. Nothing really negates sanguine bond, since it doesn't involve healing or other mechanics models can interact with. Unless they come up with an effect that's like consume for medium bases, you won't outright negate it. The best way to address it is just to deal more than 8 damage in a single hit, making wound-splitting inefficient. However even that is thinking about it too hard. They're SPD 4 with ARM 16 any decent volley of POW 14s, or even just single shoot boost able will do it. Possibly just charge them from outside their stumpy range. I mean they're cute little dudes but outside of Vindictus they're either slow or squishy or both, other casters can at best fix 1 of their problems.

I mean we're talking about a unit that really probably is only graded at about a C+, on a good day. Even if the Senny buffs them it's probably still not going to change the fact that fundamentally they're mostly good at being able to ignore things like covering fire templates but not much else.

There isn't a way to get around Sanguine Bond, that I know of, besides do a a fair amount of damage with each attack. You don't want to cause 12+ damage in a single attack because if you do that they will likely just let that bastion die and prevent excess damage from being caused.

Of course we arn't exactly sure what the various abilities will actually be aside from that its a Jack Marshal.



Possible things bastions gain(pick any 2)

1) Defensive Line. This will push the Bastions to Arm18. 20 with Defenders Ward. This puts them in Heavy Warjack armor territory, and you should basically treat them as heavy warjacks for all counters. So high pow attacks.

2) Marshalled Jack shares Sanguine Bond. This will give the Bastions an extra 24 to 64 damage boxes depending on how many Jacks are being marshalled. If combined with defensive line you will probably be better off tossing some chaff into the Bastions to slow them down as much as possible because you will not be killing them before they reach you.

3) Flank[friendly faction warjack] This will improve the Bastions damage output consideribly. They would roll 5 dice for damage on the charge. They could easily one round any colossal. It wouldn't have much effect against most infantry, so counter this by jamming them.

4) Backswing. Doubling their melee attacks makes them effective against infantry now so jamming isn't as much of an option.

Has it actually been 100% confirmed they give Sang Bond to a unit/ Jack mixed ?

Thought that was all speculation.

Its all speculation of course. It is one of the more likely possibilities, quite a fluffy one too.

I guess im confused why we have a speculation thread in rules forum is why i wondered.

because we have some educated guesses as to what he does and can discuss the implications of each possibility and how to deal with it.

Given the wording I'd speculate something like this


+1 SPD, +1 MAT, +1 CMD
'Jack Marshal
Iron Sentinel
Tough
Elite Cadre[Medium Based Exemplar]: Tough
Leadership[Bastions]: Iron Sentinel

That would be interesting, hadn't considered them gaining iron sentinel.

They won't get iron sentinel. Quite simply they could be DEF 15/ARM20 with def ward, DEF16 with the Piper of Ord supporting them. Those kinds of stats just aren't given out these days. At most, I could see a +2 arm buff OR (not and) tough. We'll see soon enough anyway.

 Maddermax wrote:
They won't get iron sentinel. Quite simply they could be DEF 15/ARM20 with def ward, DEF16 with the Piper of Ord supporting them. Those kinds of stats just aren't given out these days. At most, I could see a +2 arm buff OR (not and) tough. We'll see soon enough anyway.

Apparently you don't play Skorne.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Maddermax wrote:
They won't get iron sentinel. Quite simply they could be DEF 15/ARM20 with def ward, DEF16 with the Piper of Ord supporting them. Those kinds of stats just aren't given out these days. At most, I could see a +2 arm buff OR (not and) tough. We'll see soon enough anyway.

Apparently you don't play Skorne.

''

Yeah seriously Cetrati are what 14/22 with just DW & Shield wall. Throw in a Krea aura and they're 16/24 against ranged attacks? This on potenial full advances that are as long, or longer than a bastion charge. Sure the unit is 3 more points, but that's the minimum of what the bastion Senny will cost 4 is more likely (regardless of it does anything really good or not). And skrone don't even have Layered defense as part of the core faction idenity.

Trollkin Champs can easily be 15/20 or higher.

What do Cetrati & Champs have in common? Their respective factions actually like them, but they're far from auto-includes.

Paying 13pts for a potential 16/20 when that includes 2 Solos that don't share in all the defensive buffs and to unit needs the brick up around a friendly 'Jack hardly blows the above two options out of the water.

This is more of a tactical thread. Moved.

There is one amazing way to deal with Sanguine Bond, actually. Thresher attacks are a nightmare for Bastions, as all of the damage is assigned in one huge chunk (Thresher being a simultaneous attack) which means that if you deal 10 - 12 damage to 3 Bastions each they need to find a way to divide up 30+ damage. Anything that deals large amounts of damage to several models at once greatly reduces the effectiveness of Sanguine Bond.

Just make sure you have eEyriss along to shoot Defenders Ward off of them.

Same way everyone did before.

Mass dmg in 1 turn. Dedicate to kill them.

Who can Thresher and do 10-13 damage to an ARM16 model (assuming defenders ward got knocked off). Yuri the Axe, Bane Lord Tartarus, and other solos with a P+S 13 or so weaponmaster thresher attack on the charge maybe, but they are limited to maybe 1 per army, and some have none (like Cygnar).

I don't think that is an effective way to deal with them, sorry.

Thing is.. bastions arent considered as a top choice for what they are now..


Hit them with high pows.. almost any weaponmaster unit works.

4d6 on charge is average of 14 dmg.
Pow 10 weapon master is 24 dmg...
Bastions are arm 18 with ward... so thats 6 dmg a swing...

So really anything that hits hard in bulk will do it easy

 motyak wrote:
Who can Thresher and do 10-13 damage to an ARM16 model (assuming defenders ward got knocked off). Yuri the Axe, Bane Lord Tartarus, and other solos with a P+S 13 or so weaponmaster thresher attack on the charge maybe, but they are limited to maybe 1 per army, and some have none (like Cygnar).

I don't think that is an effective way to deal with them, sorry.

Or any Colossal works pretty well to cleave them for that much. Not always *easy* to pull it off, but it doesn't reduce the fact that dealing damage to several models at once greatly increases your odds of killing several Bastions in one hit.

The real goal is to try and kill them outright, rather than encouraging your opponent to leave it so each one only has a couple wounds left, meaning that it feels like a huge over commitment of resources when they'll just let a Bastion die from the strong hit.

Send in a 'jack.

Probably don't need to boost at DEF 11.

Weapons tend to roll dmg at dice or higher.

Another solution is to run in something with reach to engage as many as you can. Bastions are slow and don't like to take
freestrikes. It will feel like over commitment on their part to take the time to chop up a steelhead or something.

Yeah, Harrowers and Manglers love bastions (both have Reach and Thresher). Shame there's nothing that specifically negates their 'transfer that is not a transfer' ability.

Also, sometimes a bastion player will just let them die to trigger enemy kill effects.