Grimbardun Fighter - a deadly neutral tank!

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Hello guys, this is my entry to the "Splinterlands Social Media Challenge!". If you want to participate and read more about the challenge, click here.

The Rebellion edition came recently, there came a lot of new summoners and monsters. There are some meta-changing abilities and gameplay changes too which made it more interesting and challenging at the same time. One of the keys to success in this game is to know all of your units and how they can be best used in the battle. And here is me trying to educate myself and others with these posts about one of the new units that came out during this sale. In this post, we will talk about an impressive melee attacker who is a powerful tank and is a neutral unit, the Grimbardun Fighter.

Let's start by looking at its stats in detail.

Grimbardun Fighter

CARD
RARITY	Common
ELEMENT	Neutral
LEVEL	3
MANA COST	9 POINTS
ABILITIES/BUFFS	Shield, Corrosive Ward

GrimBardun Fighter is a common neutral unit that came out during the recent Rebellion sale. It is a high mana cost unit costing a whooping 9 mana to use but it comes with some nice stats. It deals significant melee attack damage and comes with armour of its own. Its 'shield' ability makes it a good tank, especially against melee and ranged attackers. The high attacking strength along with 'shield' and 'corrosive ward' ability at only level 3 makes it a very useful attacker.

I will show you how I utilised it in one of my battles.

My Lineup

This is my lineup for the battle

Position	Summoner/Monsters
Summoner	Tarsa
Position 1	Grimbardun Fighter
Position 2	Uraeus
Position 3	Xenith Monk
Position 4	Gobalano Soldier
Position 5	Exploding Rats
Position 6	Radiated Scorcher

It was a 28-mana cap battle and only had the "Melee Mayhem" ruleset so all the melee attackers can attack from any position during this battle. It won't affect the placement of my GrimBardun fighter in this particular battle but this is a good ruleset where this monster can excel easily.

All the elements were active during this battle. I went with Tarsa as I wanted to increase my melee attack damage by 1.

Grimbardun Fighter was my tank for this battle as it comes with the 'Shield' ability that reduces the attack damage received from melee and ranged attackers by 1 and I was expecting my opponent to use a lot of melee attackers. That was the main reason to put it in the first position. But its attacking strength is impressive on its own, dealing 3 melee attack damage on its own.

The next in my lineup was Uraeus which dealt 2 melee attack damage on its own. It comes with a 'sneak' ability which targets the enemy back line and more often than not, there are units with low health placed at the end, especially in lower leagues. It just costs 3 mana which is super useful in an under 30 mana cap battle.

Xenith Monk was placed in the third position. It cost 4 mana and dealt just 1 melee attack damage but I used it in my lineup because of its relatively good health and its 'heal' ability which allows it to survive for much longer and heals it after each round. I could use it in this position just because it was the 'Melee Mayhem' ruleset.

Gobalano Soldier was the next unit in my lineup. It just costs 3 mana and comes with two interesting abilities: 'sneak' and 'ambush'. The Ambush ability allows it to attack even before the battle begins. The only disadvantage is its relatively lower health.

Another low-health monster in my lineup was Exploding Rats, which I don't usually use in my battles. But this time I wanted to add in some extra attacking strength so I used this. Costing 4 mana it deals 2 melee attack damage of its own. Its best thing is the 'blast' ability that can change the fate of the game if it stays alive for some rounds.

Last but not least was Radiated Scorcher which is just a one-mana costing unit capable of doing 1 melee attack damage on its own. I didn't expect much from this one. But all these units would get an extra melee attack point and that is a lot of attacking strength overall.

Now that my lineup was set, it was time for battle.

I will share my battle here, which I have uploaded to YouTube.