Exemplar Bastions

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Exemplar Bastions Protectorate Unit

These exemplars learn to fight within the impossibly heavy bastion armor. The bond each Exemplar Bastion shares with his brothers in arms grants him their strength even as injuries wear them down. Their enduring resilience causes enemies of Menoth to despair as the bastions take up their glaives, their eyes lit with inner flame, and march forward imperturbable. This box contains all the models necessary to field a unit of Exemplar Bastions. A player may include two units of Exemplar Bastions for each warcaster in his Protectorate of Menoth army.

Basic Info

Exemplar Bastions
Missing Info
	COST {{{cacost}}} UNIT SIZE {{{casize}}} FA {{{cafa}}} Warcaster 0 BASE Medium SPD 4 STR 7 MAT 7 RAT N/A M.A. N/A DEF 11 ARM 16 CMD 8 ESSENCE {{{essence}}} FOCUS N/A FURY N/A THRS N/A HP 5 F. Field N/A WJP {{{wjp}}} WBP {{{wbp}}} IHP {{{ihp}}} FA 2 UNIT SIZE 3 or 5 COST 8 or 14 2.8 pts each N/A N/A Warcaster 1 COST N/A N/A Understanding the Statblock

Abilities

• Sanguine Bond - When this model would suffer damage from an enemy attack while in formation, you can choose one or more models in its unit to suffer any amount of that damage instead, divided as you choose. If you do, this model does not suffer that damage. A model cannot suffer more damage as a result of Sanguine Bond than it has unmarked damage boxes.".
• Set Defense - A model in this model's front arc suffers -2 on charge, slam power attack, and impact attack rolls against this model.
• Defensive Strike - Once per turn, when an enemy advances into and ends its movement in this model's melee range, this model can immediately make one basic melee attack against it.

Weapons

• Consecrated Halberd - 2" reach, P+S 13 melee weapon.
  • Weapon Master
  • Damage Type: Magical
  • Blessed

Theme Forces

• Protectorate
  • Exemplar Interdiction. They gain Aegis in this theme.

• Other Factions
  • Infernal players can use them in the Hearts of Darkness theme, but only if Feora is leading the army.
  • Mercenary players can use them in the Llaelese Resistance theme. They become Llaelese and gain Pathfinder in this theme.

Recent Changes

2021.10 Mega Update

• Points drop to 8/14 (from 9/15)

Thoughts on Exemplar Bastions

Exemplar Bastions in a nutshell

Exemplar Bastions are relatively tough infantry who hit hard thanks to being weapon masters, and can spread the damage around between the unit so none of them dies.

Without Vengeance they are not as fast as their cousins the Cinerators and they lack any form of protection from guns, so they work better as a clean up crew who can hold points vs melee based opponents.

Combos & Synergies

    Protectorate    

• They have a specific support solo, the Exemplar Bastion Seneschal, who makes them regenerate health and grants them extra manoeuvrability.
• Thyra1 plus Severius0 can make them MAT 8 POW 16 weapon masters, which would make your opponent reconsider charging their heavy into a full unit, making it suffer three, four, possibly five 3d6 POW 16 damage rolls, thanks to defensive strike, before it could even make its own charging attack. Theoretically one shotting a Feral Warpwolf or any lights during your opponent's turn. Furthermore, due to Occultation from Thyra1, Stealth would help with the delivery of the Bastions.
• Along with High Exemplar Gravus, they have a threat range of 11" with a very high damage output on a charge. Adding Thyra1's feat, they have a threat range of 13".
• Durant2 - Inviable Resolve and Hand of The Creator both help keep the bastions alive.

    Llaelese Resistance    

• Ashlynn1 - Quicken, Gallows and her feat patches up both their lacklustre speed and defense.
• Ashlynn2 - True Path for speed, Blood Liberty for Unyielding and Tough.
• Crosse2 - Dauntless Resolve for +3 ARM and Tough, Ghostly to get around terrain.
• Morrowan Archons provide Blinding Radiance in that theme, increasing their DEF in melee.
• Thamarite Archons provide a cloudwall, increasing their DEF against shooting.
• Gibbs - This is one of those units he will be able to properly Hot Meal at all, as with Sanguine Bond they can spread damage around and survive charges. He also gives them Repo 3" and Feign Death.
• Ragman - A much needed damage fix.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• They are slow. And easy to shoot up.
• A charging POW 12 does more than enough damage to wipe a Bastion out - at that point you're taking extra damage to keep the Bastion alive. However, Defensive Strike helps them prevent that, but this won't help that much against a single-wound unit of 10.
• Armour cracking in general obliterates them.
• Before the Exemplar CID, they used to fall short to the Exemplar Cinerators. But now, they are a rather offensive unit with high damage potential, opposed to their rather defensive counterpart.

Tricks & Tips

• If you're getting shot before an enemy charges you, use Sanguine Bond to kill the Bastions within charge range, which will leave the enemy with no charge target.
• If you're getting beat up by an enemy unit in melee, use Sanguine Bond to kill the Bastions next to the enemies who have not yet made an attack, which will leave them with no attack target.

Other

Trivia

Released in Warmachine: Legends (2008)

Rules Clarifications

Rules Clarification : Weapon Master - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification:  : Magical Damage      (Edit) (Click Expand to read)

* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling) All spells have "Damage Type: Magical" (refer errata). This is inherited by "immediate" secondary damage (such as Eruption of Spines). (Infernal Ruling) and might be inherited by "lingering" secondary damage (see below). If a spell leaves a template in play that does damage to models that walk around in it, then: if it is not described as a hazard it will do magical damage to models that walk around in it. (Example: Razor Wall) if it is a hazard then it will not do magical damage to models that walk around in it. Instead, it does whatever damage type is specified by the spell description. (Example: Breath of Corruption). (Infernal Ruling) If a weapon/spell includes Magic Damage and another kind of elemental damage it will still damage Incorporeal models. Incorporeal models are not affected by the rule "if an attack does multiple types of damage and a model is immune to at least one it is immune to the entire attack." The phrase "immune to non-magical damage" should be interpreted as "immune to damage that doesn't include Damage Type: Magical" (not interpreted as "has immunity to Corrosion and Electricity and Cold and etc.")

Rules Clarification : Blessed and/or Creator's Wrath     (Edit) Blessed ignores spell buffs even if they're not directly on the target. (For example, Haley3's Temporal Distortion spell is cast on Haley and gives a DEF buff to everyone within 5". Blessed ignores it on everyone, not just on Haley.) (Locked thread) You only ignore the DEF/ARM buff if the spell directly adds to the stat (for example Arcane Shield gives +3 ARM). Whereas a spell which grants an ability, and the ability gives a DEF/ARM buff, would not be ignored by Blessed (for example Cloak of Ash gives a model concealment, and concealment gives +2 DEF). (Infernal Ruling) If a spell buffs DEF/ARM and [something else] then you ignore the buff but not the [something else]. (For example, the spell Death Ward grants +2 ARM and the defender chooses which column suffers damage. You would ignore the ARM bonus, but the defender still picks the column.) This ability only ignores buffs from spells, not buffs from feats (such as Stryker1's Invincibility +5 ARM) or abilities (such as Protective Aura's +2 ARM).

Rules Clarification:  : Sanguine Bond and/or Bond of Brotherhood     (Edit) (Click Expand to read)

Bond of Brotherhood triggers when a model is damaged, whereas Sanguine Bond triggers when a model would be damaged. Who counts as damaged (Brotherhood) The original target always counts as having being damaged by an enemy attack, even if you transfer all thr damage to another model. (It's a bit like a warlock transfer in that respect.) As a result, the enemy can still trigger stuff like Drag regardless of how much damage is transferred. (Infernal Ruling) The model you transfer damage to counts as having being damaged by the ability, not the enemy attack. Who counts as damaged (Sanguine) With this ability you can do pretty much whatever you like: You can transfer some of the damage away, if you want to count as being damaged by an enemy for the purposes of stuff like collecting souls. You can transfer all of the damage away, which will mean the original target doesn't count as having being damaged by an enemy at all and this will stop them using Drag etc. You can even have the original target "transfer to itself" which will also stop Drag etc. (Locked thread) The model you transfer damage to counts as having being damaged by the ability, not the enemy attack. Both abilities The original target needs to be in formation to use the ability, but the model you transfer damage to doesn't need to be in formation. (Infernal Ruling) If you add an attachment (such as the Trollkin Sorcerer), then that attachment can receive damage from Sanguine Bond, because it is another model in the unit. But the attachment can't give out damage via Sanguine Bond because it doesn't have the rule itself. Vs simultaneous attacks that hits multiple models in the unit, they can transfer to each other regardless of who was/wasn't damaged. But you can't "double dip" on assigning the transferred damage. Roll all damage for all models, note it down for each model, but don't mark it. Call this "Raw damage". Choose which models you'll trigger Sanguine Bond on, and who you will assign the damage to. If you assign damage to a model, the "raw damage" plus the "assigned damage" cannot exceed its remaining hitpoints. Mark damage on the card. Example: Model [A] has two unmarked boxes, models [B] & [C] are undamaged. Then [B] & [C] are caught in a spray that does exactly 5 damage each. What you can do: Assign 1 damage from [B] to [A], and one from [C] to [A]. Then mark damage. [A] dies and the other two live with 1hp each. What you can't do: Assign 2 from [B] to [A], then assign another 2 from [C] to [A]. Then mark damage. Then claim Sanguine Bond "overkilled" model [A]. That would be "double dipping" the damage. (Infernal Ruling for the above)

Rules Clarification : Set Defense - None yet. (Edit)

Rules Clarification : Defensive Strike      (Edit) If an enemy doesn't stop in your melee range, but continue all the way through it and out the other side, you won't get to make a Defensive Strike. You will get to make a free strike as per normal, though.