Fighter//Incarnate Soulmelds selection

[tyriuth]

I'm working on a character for one of my Saturday night players. He doesn't have much experience playing and so I've been keeping it simple (I hit it with my axe style fighters and monks who can hit people hard), this time we're playing a high powered gestalt game and I thought it would be a good idea to step up the complexity a little. I'm a little unfamiliar with Magic of Incarnum and would like a bit of help selecting the two soulmelds for a first level character.

So my two questions are:

What are good soulmelds for a mainline fighter/tank, and
What are the best weapon-like or armour-like soulmelds?

As a side note; the other players in the party are as follows:

Duskblade//Wizard (Typical Gish)
Fighter//Wizard (Going Arcane Archer)
Psionic Rogue//Ardent
To be confirmed

[Coidzor]

Thunderstep boots are good. +xd4 damage per attack on a charge.

I can't recall if you can get Urskan greaves as well.

Lucky Dice(Luck Dice?) can be pretty nifty as well.

The AC/Attack bolstering soulmelds that melee Incarnates rely upon are going to help, of course. Indeed, just checking out what soulmelds a melee incarnate will use in (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217064-Soulmeld-List-by-Class-and-Slot)the (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=580.0)relevant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215723-Incarnum-and-YOU-a-reference-guide)handbooks (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=576.0)would be a place to start.

Edit: Astral Vambraces (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a) are always nice, mostly for the list of special abilities from astral constructs. Also, Necrocarnum Zombies are *fun,* and make for good flankers, though that's less fighty.

Incarnates' soulmeld access is affected by their alignment though. IIRC, Evil and Law Incarnates are better in melee, Chaos lends itself to ranged, and Good is more defensive.

[tyriuth]

Thunderstep boots are good. +xd4 damage per attack on a charge.

I can't recall if you can get Urskan greaves as well.

Lucky Dice(Luck Dice?) can be pretty nifty as well.

The AC/Attack bolstering soulmelds that melee Incarnates rely upon are going to help, of course. Indeed, just checking out what soulmelds a melee incarnate will use in (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?217064-Soulmeld-List-by-Class-and-Slot)the (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=580.0)relevant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?215723-Incarnum-and-YOU-a-reference-guide)handbooks (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=576.0)would be a place to start.

Edit: Astral Vambraces (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a) are always nice, mostly for the list of special abilities from astral constructs. Also, Necrocarnum Zombies are *fun,* and make for good flankers, though that's less fighty.

Incarnates' soulmeld access is affected by their alignment though. IIRC, Evil and Law Incarnates are better in melee, Chaos lends itself to ranged, and Good is more defensive.

Thank you; these links will come in handy.