Units
Oh how I wept for my precious Bastions on the day MkII was released. I was beside myself. I thought they had taken my new little tanks and had turned them into kittens. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Bastions have one of the most interesting, and frankly confusing, rules in the new MkII. Sanguine bond. I am half tempted to base these guys using Sanguine Base paint when they come in June. The coolest thing about the Bastions is you get to CHOOSE if Sanguine Bond is going to be in effect. Let me demonstrate the utility with an example…
{Khador player X strolls up with Drago, and lets loose with 30 points of damage with his first hit. Player Y…the Bastions controller has an option. He can (a) spread the damage through his entire faction and preserve all 5 Bastions to live another day OR (b) hit the single Bastion with 30 pts of damage splattering him all of Menoth’s creation and have four Bastions with full health. The controller has this option at all times. This give the Bastions really good survivability, and if used correctly, it can be VERY frustrating for your opponent.}
At first I had decided to not get the Bastions…because I didn’t understand the subtlety of this rule…now I can’t wait. Bastions…you are now my new second wave shocktroopers.
Knights Exemplar
They are pretty cheap and not near as tough as they used to be…however…there are ten of them now, and freaking 10 weapon masters hitting things with 4d6+11 is still amazing. They can ruin most harder targets day, but, they are going to drop like flys to most AOE template armies. I played them once, and are they worth 9 pts? I don’t know. They sure aren’t Zealots that’s for sure. Do they have a use? Oh yes…in Grand Exemplar Kreoss’ “Everybody auto hits and gets an extra attack” army…Weapon masters rule.
Holy Zealots and the Monolith Bearer
I think many of us in the Menoth community thought that our little buddies would get hit with the Nerf bomb pretty hard. I think we were pretty convinced that no matter what MkII brought to us, that it would mean either a VERY expensive unit attachment, or VERY weak Zealots. I am very happy that neither of these came to pass. What we got was a slightly toned down version of the most powerful 10 homicidal maniacs in the game. In my play testing these guys have been mainstays. I continue to bring 10 of them with the MB (the fifth Beatle of the IK). The fire bombs are down to POW 12, but thank Menoth the Priest can still chant for his +2 / +2 making them RAT 6. Put these guys around a heavy and they still have a darn good chance of inflicting big damage, and on a light they are in very good shape to kill (oops…box) it. These guys are awesome with the new MkII Covenant of Menoth. 10 guys who don’t mind dieing with auto fire is just wonderful.
Visgoth Rhovan and his Honor GuardOk…now these guys took it up the…rectory. I loved my three man answer to the Great Bears. I loved how they hit like a freight train and sat there with an armor 21 and gave you the finger. They made continuous effects go bye bye, and they make incorporeal things…corporeal.
Well crap. We had to have something go to hell on us. The Sunburst got too good. The Covenant was too amazing. The Cryx lost the necrovent…oh hell. Gdaybloke over at Lost Hemisphere started a campaign for a better Rhovan…and I hope it succeeds. In no way are these three as good as da Bears. They need something more, and I wouldn’t know how to tell you to play these guys in MkII…because frankly right now they are not worth the pewter they are made out of.
Deliverer Sunburst Crew
Good old Rule #1. For those of you who don’t know what Rule #1 is…from the movie Fight Club, Rule #1 of Fight Club was you never talked about Fight Club. Rule #1 of Warmachine is that you never talked about the Deliverer Sunburst Crew. They really sucked. RAT nothing. Slow as molasses in January in Minnesota, only remotely useful against medium base models and even then, if you did manage to hit, the damn AOE’s took a month of Sundays to resolve. Oh joy. Another unit as annoying to field as the Deliverers…without all the suspense of whether they would explode and kill themselves.
Gone is Rule #1. Range 16, POW 16, RAT 7 with a sighter still alive in base to base. RAT 7! HOLY CRAP!!! It still isn’t the Morter Crew for Khador…but damn it’s sweet. I will have two of these going next time I break out my MkII Menoth.
Exemplar Vengers
All the pretty horses! These guys were part and parcel of my ToM lists. Why wouldn’t they be…13″ blessed threat range? MAT 10 on the charge! P+S14 with 3d6. Get in melee and you still had a 3d6+11 weapon master going on. For me they complemented a fairly slow army with some much needed speed.
MkII reduced the wounds to 5 each. They are expensive. They are 11 pts for 5 of them. I don’t know if I will ever field 5 again. When you drop down to 3…they are still distilled awesome. I ran them in a list against eNemo and they did just what I hoped. They cleared out a flank and then set themselves up for a charge on the caster. They will find a place in many of my MkII lists. If you don’t own them, I would spring for the box set but probably skip the blisters.
So there you have it. I have covered the Jack, the Solos, and now the Units. All that’s left is the Warcasters. That’s next up on the Final Thoughts.
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