Aradus Soldier

The horrific, insect-like aradus are among the most terrifying of the skorne’s warbeasts. Protected by a thick layer of chitin, aradus soldiers lash out in battle with hooked claws to drag enemies toward their vicious mandibles. The soldier grows strong from its feast, wounds closing with each mouthful.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Advance Deployment
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Carapace
• Template:Steady
• Template:Sturdy
• Template:Snacking

Weapons

Mandibles
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		1				7				18
Barbed Claw (x2)
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		2				4				15
Template:Chain Weapon Template:Pull

Animus

{{Category: Template:Swarm }}[[Category: Template:Swarm ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Disciples of Agony
• Template:Masters of War
• Template:The Exalted
• Template:Winds of Death

Thoughts on the Aradus Soldier

Aradus Soldier in a nutshell

The Aradus Soldier is a heavy melee warbeast that's almost the total package. Almost immune to incoming fire, it often reaches the target, has a long melee reach for an adequate threat range, hits hard and bites extremely hard (even for a heavy). Lastly it can remove enemies from play - and has the reach to snack on infantry. It also no-sells a lot of control effects thanks to Pathfinder, Steady, and Sturdy - but its painfully slow.

Combos & Synergies

Other than the ubiquitous Paingiver Beast Handlers the synergies for the Soldier come from two basic factors; it's painfully slow and that its attacks are harder than the Bronzeback Titan. (Oh, and it buffs the Scarab Pack). Generally it's a good all-round hard hitting beast with only a few specific synergies.

• Titan Gladiator or Terrorizer - Rush is an excellent threat range extender
• Morghoul1 and Xerxis2 both buff the speed of the Aradii to acceptable levels. Xerxis1 can also do this but to a weaker degree.
• Archdomina Makeda makes the Soldier into a Shield Guard. She also has some ways of speeding the Soldier up.
• Lord Tyrant Zaadesh gives it counter-charge, speeding it up. And the counter-charge and reach combination is always a good thing.
  • If you position right, the counter-charge + Pull can prevent the charging model from swinging on it's original target, wasting the charge attack

Drawbacks & Downsides

• It's painfully slow. Rush is mandatory with him, and you often want another source of acceleration.
• Quite often, cheaper warbeasts like the Rhinodon will kill an heavy just as dead as an Aradus Soldier. Be wary of overkill.
• It can't drag huge based models, meaning that for practical purposes all gargantuans and colossals out-threat it.

Tricks & Tips

• Advance Deployement mean he threat farther than almost all heavies on turn 1, and farther than a lot of them on turn 2. It's a good way to mitigate the drawback of being player two against some lists
• It's very resistant to ranged attacks, so makes for great cover
• Know what models can't be pulled. It can be the difference between a dead heavy, and one with a few dings.
• You can snack even if at full health. This can mess with things like High Reclaimer's feat or Grymkin corpse collection.
• The 2" claw ignore shields, which mean they suddenly hit almost as hard or harder than the bite. Notable against shielded models that cannot be pushed, like the Dawnguard Trident or Man-o-War Shocktroopers
• it moves just as fast on a failed charge as it does running, move a beast handler behind it turn 1 and save on some fury.

Other

Trivia

Released in Hordes: Exigence (2014)