Sacral Vault Battle Engine spoilers

Finally, something actually Gatorman related to write about...

From War Room Beta spoilers:

SPD: 4
MAT:0
RAT: 5
DEF: 9
ARM: 20
CMD: 10
20 health boxes / 9pts

Gunfighter, Eyeless Sight

Ranged Weapon: Spectral Fury
Range: 12, RoF 1, Pow 13
Magical Weapon
Rapid Fire [d3]
Deathly Dominion: Costs 1 soul for the Bone Shaker effect on each ranged attack.

Abilities:
Crypt of Souls: Gain 1 soul for each living model that is destroyed in its command area. If no souls are on it at the beginning of your Control Phase it gains d3 souls. Souls can be spent to boost attack and damage rolls.  (Supposedly 5 souls max)

Arcane Vortex: Spend a soul to negate a spell targeting the Vault or a model within 3'' of it.
 
Soul Sacrifice: Warlock can remove a soul to gain 1 fury point...[then the image cuts off].
 
Soulstorm: While this model has 1 or more soul tokens enemy models entering, or ending their activation within 2'' of the Vault take 1 damage.

Source

The Good

• It's a huge base with a good boostable gun
  Huge bases are not usually good without guns, for logistical reasons. Boostable guns are  very good, because they kill many things from far away. RNG 12 POW 13 is a pretty good weapon for sniping out things
• That boostable gun is magical and has Eyeless Sight
  This allows it to kill incorporeal models and shoot Menoth jacks. This is very nice. Blackbane's will still be a pain in the ass, but now you can just snipe-out Blackbane himself and then stand in front of the rest of them with Soul Storm and be a douche.
  AND IT ALLOWS YOU TO KILL TARTARUS AND GORMAN AND THE BLOOD HAG AND DENNY AT RANGE WITHOUT SACRIFICING YOUR WRASTLER OR SPENDING 3 FURY ON FLESH EATER ONLY TO FIND OUT THE HAG HAS STEALTH. FU CRYX DIAF Aaaaarghhhhhhhh...... *ahem*.
• Soulstorm
  This ability is AMAZING. Probably the best rule on this thing, besides Eyeless Sight. Especially on a huge base, that is a huge FU bubble to small based melee infantry (lol Cryx), and at ARM 20 it doesn't really care about small-based ranged infantry either. Especially since you can probably put it in a Swamp Pit (assuming amphibious) or Spiny Growth it or whatever.
• Always has some souls, and gains them within a large radius
  Very nice - PP seems to have realized that the Skorne BE is a total piece of crap mostly because it doesn't start with any tokens and will die by the time it gets any. The free d3 also helps slightly vs Cryx, which has less living models, and when you want to Zombify all the things for Maelok's feat.
• Gives fury to warlocks
  This is neat for the Maelok Posse spam list, since if for whatever reason one of your Snappers gets killed, you have a little backup plan. Or just in general, free fury when you need it can be better than cutting for a point (like when you are at one box of life left).
• Very large anti-magic bubble
  Again, the huge base is put to work with Arcane Vortex. The thing I like about this ability is that it is preventive as much as it is reactive - if your opponent knows you have it (and you should probably remind him at the right time), then it just messes with his plans.
• I can use my Soles tokens every game!

The Bad

• d3 shots at RAT 5
  RAT 5 isn't that big a deal since at RNG 12 and a desire to get souls, it will probably be quite far up and thus able to sacrifice its movement for the aiming bonus when it actually wants to shoot stuff. Plus it can boost.
  1d3 shots however is a bit of a dick punch and a little too random for my taste. d3+1 would have been quite a bit more reliable for a gun platform. Therefore, what this indicates to me is that the Sacral Vault's primary purpose is not really to be shooting stuff, but to be a huge Soul Storm / Arcane Vortex construct and pseudo-fury battery.
  The gun is to be thought of as a single shot you get to do for free every turn to snipe out an important thing or two, and a way to spend "uneeded souls" if you happen to get extra shots (via the Bone Shaker effect). Keep those souls for the Soul Storm, and situationally the Arcane Vortex, unless you are going all in sniping out that Gorman or Tartarus.
• Does nothing to help vs ARM for non-Rask casters, or buff beasts
  One can dream, right? Maybe we'll get a beast that can actually deal damage later on. Or the new caster can mix-up our list pairings a bit.
• Huge base, gets shot and killed.
  Oh wait, I forgot I play Gatormans, and don't usually get shot. Very nice. ARM 20 is also pretty sweet. Just don't let heavies get to it.

The Other Stuff

If these are correct, which seems likely barring the fine details, then it's a very nice but not fundamentally game changing piece for us Gatormans - just game changing at the non-Rask level. I like it a hell of a lot more than Shamblers anyway, with which it can combo pretty effectively (double dipping on souls/corpse tokens for every living model death).

It helps the Cryx matchup a lot in providing a large anti-magic bubble and a magical gun, as well as stealing their souls and screws over small-based infantry with Soul Storm. I think it'll do some really great things with Barnabas and pushes him up quite a bit as a Cryx matchup, even perhaps taking the place of one Posse unit. Plus, another boostable gun always helps in that old-school KD assassination.
I've always had a slight preference for Barnabas over Maelok as my second list (I like rough terrain creation and I hate getting shot) and this model would certainly push me further towards our patron future god in a two list format. Not to say that Maelok doesn't get a lot from it as well.



I think my Rask lists will remain mostly unchanged, since the tankier factions I bring Rask against (and Ret, because they just can't handle the Jewfish) won't care as much about the Soul Storm or the Arcane Vortex. Unless of course one brings a shooty Rask list with 2 Posse, 3 Spitters and a Sacral Vault. That might be pretty legit.


Summary - would likely buy this model when it comes out in 5 to 11 months. Would be mildly disappointed if the spoilers weren't legit.