M2E+Shastar+Vidiya+Guard


 * Shastar Vidiya Guard, Arcanist Enforcer**

=__Overview__= The Shastar Vidiya Guard are masters of an ancient Indian martial art that was banned in the mid-19th century. Hard-hitting and melee focused, these enforcers bring some strong melee presence to the Arcanists. toc

=__Mobility__= While the Shastar Vidiya Guard don't have any movement tricks to help themselves, their only (0) **Follow My Path** helps move other models around. It's a short push, but ideal to pull other friendly models out of or into melee.

=__Offense__= The Shastar Vidiya Guard shine when on the attack. Their **Ten-Fist-Long Sword** has a decent reach and a solid Ml 6, with triggers on all four suits. All four triggers are good, so while there will be times you'll want a particular trigger it's not a necessity to consider. The damage track is rather wide, but between the **Focus** condition from **Know The Weapon** and the **Wild Boar Style** trigger, you should have a good chance of getting to a straight flip to be able to cheat in a severe card.

They have a short ranged attack, **Chakram**. While it's not as hard-hitting as their **Ten-Fist-Long Sword**, it never hurts to have another option, and it has a built-in mask trigger allowing you to take the attack again against a different target within 2".

To further boost their offensive power, their ability **Know The Weapon** lets them discard a card to gain **Focus** +1 at the start of their activation. This is perfect to let them hit their high severe damage.

=__Resilience__= The Shastar Vidiya Guard are fairly resilient with Df 6 and **Hard To Kill**, but their real defense is killing the opposition before they can hit back with their strong attacks. A dead model can't attack back, after all!

Their **Know The Warrior** ability also helps them defensively by card-cycling somewhat, allowing you to draw a card after cheating a Df duel once per turn. It doesn't have to be against an enemy model either, so if you really want to cycle some cards you can just have The Captain **Airburst** them and cheat in a low card, for example.

=__Upgrades__= Imbued Energies is always a good choice, and the Shastar Vidiya Guard are no exception. Since they'll be in the thick of the fighting, Killswitch could be a good choice too.

Well Rehearsed is another good upgrade - very affordable at only 1ss, and helps to increase their mobility by giving them an out of activation push. It also makes them the Guard even harder to kill, as he can discard the upgrade to save himself from death. Who knows - perhaps the Shastar Vidiya Guard perform their martial art on the stage of the Star Theater when they're not on the battlefield :)

=__Tactics and Tips__= The Shastar Vidiya Guard hit hard in melee, so the sooner you can get them there the better. They can take on most models thanks to their varied triggers - hordes of small creatures such as Bayou Gremlins are best dealt with by the **Bird Style** trigger, while models who rely on **Incorproeal** or **Armor** can find themselves taking some serious damage if you can hit severe damage and their **Bull Style** trigger.

Their (0) **Follow My Path** action gives another model a little extra mobility. Since they're both M&SU and Academic, they can find a place in many Arcanist crews - being Academic lets them use (0) **The Path To Salvation** via Sandeep's **Beacon**, for example, giving them a greater threat range.

While they've got a decent Wk and Cg, the Shastar Vidiya Guard don't have any movement tricks to help themselves, and so benefit from being paired with other models who can move either them or their targets around - such as The Captain or Performers.

=__Playing Against Shastar Vidiya Guard__= At 8ss each, the Shastar Vidiya Guard are not to be underestimated. They're much better in melee than they are at range, so if possible try to stop them engaging your models. Alternatively, try to engage them with models with either **Hard To Wound** or **Impossible To Wound**, as the difference between their weak and severe damage is quite a lot.

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