SOLOsHigh Paladin Vilmonster. I have to be honest. I don’t run Vilmon all that often anymore in MkI. It seems like his big deal, Impervious Wall, is beatable by almost anything. Got Aiyanna and Holt…Dead Paladin. Got Strangeways? Dead Paladin. Cryx? Dead Paladin. I play against lots of Cryx and he just walks up and dies before he pays for his points. The worst part is that I can count on one hand the number of times I have thrown a 5 or 6 on flying steel. It seems that I would, without question, thow a one on flying steel and then die horribly the next turn…without doing anything.
The Paladin of the Order of the Wall really suffered from a bad reputation. I never really understood why. They only cost 19 points and gave you weapon master, speed 6 and a really pretty good MAT. I rarely wiffed on charge. I always felt like against most targets they earned their points. The rules around Stone and Mortar were very constricting, but I was willing to let them die in the name of their points.
Paladins are now rock stars. Move 6 inches, and get 18 DEF and 20 ARM. Field Vilmon and you get Impervious Wall due to his elite cadre. Your choice of abilities was now in your own hands. You just have to think about who you are facing. Magic heavy army? Stone and Mortar. Melee or shooty? Impervious Wall. If you are fielding Vilmon, spend the 2 pts and give him a Paladin or two. The really are that awesome. In all the games I played, I don’t think I fielded an army without one. If you don’t own two by January, go buy them. Paint them. They deserve it.
The Flying Monk. I played only a limited number of games with the Flying Monk before MkII. I own two now. I realy think they excel as a pair. I like the rules changes on these guys. Frankly I did find the whole “How many guys am I in melee with” thing a bit on the overly confusing side. Thats all gone. I did like the reach with the punching gauntlets, but I suppose that doesn’t make that much sense. So far I have yet to have Shifting Sands stance actually work as I have been hit and killed every time, but I have done my share of killing too.
The Flying Monk took out a Stormsmith in my last Cynar game in order to open a charge lane for my cav. I didn’t have enough room to get a charge going so impact attacks were not an option. The Monk came, it saw, it opened the way. Two points well spent in an army with a distracting meta. People forget about these little guys and there wonderul MAT / weapon master selves.
I am sorry about what happened to my little auto include. He is no longer a warcaster attachment. His spell cheapening stuff is now a special action. This means you need to be super careful how you activate this unit. ALWAYS activate this guy BEFORE your caster. You will need him to make his movement, but stay within 5″ of his designated caster. If you blow it and end up outside the range…bam…he is useless.
He no longer benefits from camped focus for armor so he is pretty fragile now. He is also the only model that can heal a caster now that Doc got nerfed. On the upside…you can have two on the table at a time. One can be with your caster, and the other can hang out with slower multi-wound models like Bastions. Doc is a better choice for that duty now since he can’t heal casters any longer. I will stick with one as I rarely play two caster games and I own Doc.
Easily the most improved solo in the game. Gone are the crap-tastic passages you have to read. It can run. It takes 5 hits to kill…no matter what. Stick it near a unit within its big control range and BAM…they all start stuff on fire with direct hits. It is a great support solo at larger point games. I love pairing the Book with Zealots for 9 try per turn for starting fire.
The Book excels at blocking charge lanes. It is on a large base…and it is treated as a large base. Hell, in many ways it does a better job of protecting a caster than the Devout does. You can wreck a Devout in one hit (don’t believe me…have you met Drago?). You CAN’T wreck the book in less than 5 hits. It gives stuff behind it screening. It’s a great model and it was the first thing I bought after I saw the rules.
Doc makes me sad. I only bought him recently, and his ability to heal d6 is impressive. I bought him pretty much because I bought Harby. I still don’t have Harby put together, and Doc can no longer heal her…or any other caster for that matter. So…now what.
Meet Doc Killingsworth, the Bastions new Unit Attachment. Doc is going to sit behind their big, wide, medium base asses and heal them after attacks. See…I was playing Sanguine Bond incorrectly. The don’t HAVE to use the bond, they can choose to. So…what you do is you take the first six wounds and put it on one model and the spread the damage. Walk up with Doc, and heal the poor sap. If the Bastion takes massive damage…you let him die…and then use the ToM to resurrect him…and THEN have Doc heal him up from 1 wound. God bless the old dirty surgeon!
Oh snap…the cool only get cooler. Kill someone near by…yup…they still get mad and do their thing. They get disabled? Kill something within 9″? Yup…he still gets up and gets mad. Wait…what’s that symbol? Magic sword.
He he he.
Can you say designated Pistol Wraith killer? I no longer fear Pistol Wraiths. Ever. They can’t hope to avoid my SPD 6, MAT very large, two attack killing machine. Gosh I love that new style incorporeal rule.
So…that’s it. I really like my solos. They are almost all improved or have cool new ways to use them. I love MkII, and the solos are part of the reason.
Next post…the most important pieces in the game…Warcasters. How did they fair in MkII?
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