Bastian

Race: Human
Class: Supporter
Survivability: Low
Damage Output: Low
Threat Range: High(ish)

Profile: Bastian has human stats (MOV 4, AGI 4) and a rather paltry MEL 5. He does 1|2|4 damage which is very low especially combined with his low MEL. He has 14 boxes which is on the low side of average. His Soul Harvest is 5 making him a decent back up soulgazer and his melee range of 3" is quite strong.

What does he do?: Despite having that very uninspiring profile Bastian has some amazing abilities that make him one of the strongest supporters in the game. His bread and butter ability is Heroic Ballad - models within 4" of him gain +1 attack dice on their melee attacks. He can generally double that to +2 dice by engaging the model with his 3" reach. Though Bastians attacks do not do a lot of damage you do often end up attacking with him in order to move models around as part of his set up for the melee models you will be bringing with him. He can also use Plane Walker to be extremely mobile around the map to ensure his Heroic Ballad can be effective in multiple battles. 

Next in order of importance is Prayer of Health. He heals a d6+3 and the ability is incredibly useful. Even if you can't save a model you can force your opponent to allocate often 2-3 more attacks to kill it. It combines nicely with his Calming Waters ability which allows you to remove conditions from a model. In Judgement there is real danger in activating front line models (particularly aggressors) early in the round - if your opponent can knock the model down then you can't stand the model up or move it away until the start of the next round. Calming Waters is one of the few abilities that mitigates that. With Bastian you can send in an aggressor early - let your opponent charge with Marcus or Thrommel or Thorgar then heal the model and stand it up.

Enhance Magic and Time Bender are also great abilities - Enhance Magic is a great way to get extra dice from the Vorpal Blade or turn the Blood Sucker into a Leech (4) item. It also works on the defensive items allowing you to turn the Boots of Agility or the Glyph of Warding up to 11. Time Bender is incredibly strong especially now that conditions like fire and knockdown are removed. If you get Bastian to level 3 (something that is often quite difficult) then you should be using the ability as much as possible.

The best way in general to use Bastian is to try and keep him behind your front line and hopefully near a defender or two, benefit from Heroic Ballad and activate him after your opponent goes in on a hero to heal the model. He is very easy to kill and will often need the defenders abilities to keep him alive. His Prayer of Health is also usually much more valuable on defenders. Note that if you want Bastian to soulgaze you will want to activate him first, he can still do this and provide his aura and be somewhat effective but he loses a lot - you'll need to evaluate how important his ability to heal and remove conditions will be later in the turn. Bastian is a good model to send in to rough up a nearby monster on turn 1 - his 3" melee means you can keep him far enough away to prevent counter attacks while still giving the ganging up bonus, he will give the model you send in to finish the monster +2 dice and you don't need his abilities on turn one most of the time.

Fate Appetite: Med. You will often want to cast Prayer of Health and you can cast it on any model on the table as long as you have 3 actions using Plane Walker.

Level Appetite: Low. Enhance Magic is a good ability and Time Bender is amazing but it can be a struggle getting him to level 3 and most other models in your warband will get more out of an early level than Bastian.

Magic Items: Bastian does not want an offensive item but the defensive ones are quite useful, The Boots of Agility (Med) and the Glyph of Warding (Med) are both strong with him especially as he can use Enhance Magic on himself.

Combinations: Take Bastian with melee models, they are all good with him. Some in particular like him: Rakkir/Brok/Zhonja - really need the extra dice for Crits or 2S+damage abilities, Skoll - with his low MEL Skoll really wants the extra dice to rack up the damage with Dual Wield.

Ban Targets: Allandir can cause a lot of problems both with his ability to put damage on Bastian who is quite squishy and with Twin Shot and Explosive Shot penalising you from putting models near Bastian (which is where you want your melee models). As he is a bit squishy and his positioning is important Styx can also be an issue. Bastians ban targets are low priority - you generally want to look at who will cause problems for the rest of your warband.

Judy's Judgement: