Sturm, Drang and The Ark

I like Arkadius with Sturm & Drang as a pairing and have been using them for the last few months. Just started a thread about it in fact, so I can say that they make a pretty decent list pair from experience. I don't own and haven't ever used a meat thresher so I can't really say what works best with it but Polarity field and deceleration from Sturm are both excellent spells to support it, although I think all the farrow casters can do something useful for it.

Arkadius is an excellent armour cracker but can run into trouble against the serious heavy spam lists (I wouldn't like to face 10 marauders with him) and Sturm & Drang are very much best into hordes match ups, although I'm finding them not too bad into Cryx with a combined arms approach but I definitely need more practice there.

I'd love to say needs more solos,  it if you're going in theme there isn't much more you can add.  One big thing though is you need a battle boar. My suggestion is if you have Arkadius go beast heavy and whatnot, with this list you can drop one road hog and get a battle boar and another gun boar. That would shift you towards a nasty gun 
line that can deal with a lot of infantry and still be backed by a touch of can crack armor. The other plan would be from the first point to drop the second road hog for Rorsh and Brine since S&D can do a lot of fun good things with them and they dont necessarily need the biggest battlegroup, but that one is up to you

Looks like a decent starting point for sure. I'd want to see a battle boar in any S&D list simply because they lack any damage buffs themselves and I have found them struggle to crack armour sometimes. I'd be tempted to say drop the gun boar and Targ for a battle boar and Alten Ashley but there are a number of options you could explore to fit a battle boar in. Another thing you could change are the free models since Effarit scouts are available, their armour piercing shots are quite accurate and they are very mobile making them excellent support and harassment pieces. However the model is very hit or miss aesthetically.


Play a few games with it and see what works or doesn't and let us know how things went.

The Meat thresher is quite slow with only a mediocre melee threat and it's guns bring it into the usual charge threat of a great many enemies. Polarity field is a fantastic spell period, so it's good on the meat thresher by default but a couple of things do make it a better target for this spell than most alternatives. As a battle engine it can't be pushed, boasts high(ish) armour and a decent number of boxes (hopefully going up significantly after CID) so robbing opponents of the benefits from charging has a very significant impact on it's survivability. Without the boosted damage from charging most infantry can do little damage if any. It's also helps counter the meat thresher's mediocre threat range making it much more likely to get a charge off and do some damage before the opponent is able to walk a heavy in a scrap it. If they are forced to trample up to a meat thresher there is a decent chance of the battle engine surviving the 2-3 attacks that could be bought against it so long as the thresher is starting with full health.

Sturm & Drang also have a few other tricks that make them go well with the meat thresher. Deceleration gives it +2 ARM against ranged and magic so it'll shrug off most incoming fire unless it's boosted. Sturm's shield guard field marshal ability also helps on the way in as it can prevent the battle engine taking too much damage from enemy guns. Beasts are easier to heal after all.