7th Ed. Help Design the Ultimate Slann

[Gor-rok]

It's a big month for Warhammer at my game store; not only is there an unusual tournament at the end of the month, but our Mighty Empires campaign is starting. It has an interesting twist to it- Lists will be flexible and get progressively larger starting at 2000 points, but a lord level character is required and his items and abilities will be fixed for the entire duration (It can't be a special named character either). The lord will gain experience and new items as time goes on.

The participating armies are:

Orc & Goblin
Vampire
Daemon
Warrior of Chaos
Dwarf
Skaven
Tomb King
Lizardman (me!)

My first opponent will be Daemons.I'm definitely leaning toward a Slann at this point, set up like so as a base:

Cupped Hands, Bane Head, Battle Standard
Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination

I could take one or two more disciplines or just call it good. Based on the armies I'll be facing, do you think Becalming Cogitation is worth it? It won't do anything to dwarves or tomb kings, but it can be a life saver with the others. Higher State of Consciousness might be good against the dwarves' cannons, or if I run him solo. Soul of Stone might be an alternative to Cupped Hands as well.

I'd sure love to hear everyone's thoughts; thanks in advance!

 

[Flint13]

For me, and this is just how I run a slaan, but I would drop focus of mystery. I've never thought it was worth one of the discipline slots b/c a slaan is already a fouth level caster. You're going to be getting 2/3s of the spells on the list anyway and even with focused rumination, you aren't going to be able to cast more than 3 or maybe 4 of those spells anyway. While its nice to know all 6 for flexibility, i'd rather have him be immune to anything but magic, get an extra power dice and have magic resistance 3. then the only thing that can touch him is magic weapons, and if you have even a few temple guard, even this doesn't happen. but yes, id take higher state of conciousness if you're running him solo, or unfathomable presence if you're sticking him in with temple guard, then focused rumination either way. Once again, thats just my opinion, but it seems to work for me pretty well.

 

[Kurlin]

For me, and this is just how I run a slaan, but I would drop focus of mystery. I've never thought it was worth one of the discipline slots b/c a slaan is already a fouth level caster. You're going to be getting 2/3s of the spells on the list anyway and even with focused rumination, you aren't going to be able to cast more than 3 or maybe 4 of those spells anyway. While its nice to know all 6 for flexibility, i'd rather have him be immune to anything but magic, get an extra power dice and have magic resistance 3. then the only thing that can touch him is magic weapons, and if you have even a few temple guard, even this doesn't happen. but yes, id take higher state of conciousness if you're running him solo, or unfathomable presence if you're sticking him in with temple guard, then focused rumination either way. Once again, thats just my opinion, but it seems to work for me pretty well.

Focus of Mystery is not about having the flexibility of knowing 6 different spells. It is about guaranteeing that you have the spell that you want. With each lore the Slanns effectiveness could be severely hampered by not getting certain spells. And leaving it up to your dice rolls is not the best move if your strategy hinges on the Slann.

 

[Gor-rok]

While it does seem like a waste to spend 50 points to know just two more spells, I think I may have to do it to avoid the 1/3 chance of not getting a super spell like Spirit of the Forge or Unseen Lurker. Plaque of Tepoc might be an option, but it rules out taking Cupped Hands; it's something to think on.

 

[Flint13]

Like i said, thats just how i use the slann. I normally take lore of fire b/c i tend to use him as a little firebase, whilttling things down with fireballl/blast/wall until i finally get hit in combat, at which point, the temple guard have no problem violencing whatever weakened unit actually gets there.

As for the cupped hands, I always thought of it as a novelty really. I know its usefull to ignore your first miscast (most of the time!), but is it really worth the points just to see something hilarious/lethal happen to an enemy caster? I'm not a huge fan of the cupped hands, but then again, i've never transfered a demonic implosion to some poor enemy caster either.

I'd opt for the plaque of tepok and soul of stone. It comes out near the same points, and with soul of stone, you get to use it as many times as you want. i like it so my slann doesn't shut down the magic phase accidentally. heck, i'll deal with a wound as long as i get to sling a few more spells around.

 

[Gor-rok]

It's a good point there, as most of the miscast results aren't worth trying to pass off to an enemy wizard (2, 3-4, and maybe 10-11). I'd rather lose temple guard than the entire rest of the magic phase, so maybe Soul of Stone is the way to go.

 

[Kurlin]

It's a good point there, as most of the miscast results aren't worth trying to pass off to an enemy wizard (2, 3-4, and maybe 10-11). I'd rather lose temple guard than the entire rest of the magic phase, so maybe Soul of Stone is the way to go.

Well the benefit comes from being able to choose to use cupped hands after the result is rolled (either before or after, both are stated in lizardmen FAQ). And when you re-roll with Soul of Stone you are not guaranteed to get a better roll, it could be worse or the same. And you are stuck with that re roll. With Cupped Hands you are guaranteed not to take the effects of the miscast. And odds say that you really shouldn't miscast more than once a game or so anyway.

 

[Flint13]

I dunno, it is nice to be able to completely ignore a miscast, i'll give you, but with the huge number of dice a slann tends to sling around, do the odds really work out to only one miscast a game? (I'm actually curious, I havn't done the math). A slann with 4 spells and focused rumination can turn those 6 dice he has access to into 10, and math says that bare minimum, 2 of those are more than likely coming up ones, whether or not they are ones on the same roll is more math than i'd like to do at 7 in the morning. Over six turns, that 60 dice, assuming nothing else untoward happens to your frogmage, so thats 10 ones there... i'm certainly not saying you're wrong, just trying to puzzle this out.

 

[Kurlin]

I dunno, it is nice to be able to completely ignore a miscast, i'll give you, but with the huge number of dice a slann tends to sling around, do the odds really work out to only one miscast a game? (I'm actually curious, I havn't done the math). A slann with 4 spells and focused rumination can turn those 6 dice he has access to into 10, and math says that bare minimum, 2 of those are more than likely coming up ones, whether or not they are ones on the same roll is more math than i'd like to do at 7 in the morning. Over six turns, that 60 dice, assuming nothing else untoward happens to your frogmage, so thats 10 ones there... i'm certainly not saying you're wrong, just trying to puzzle this out.

Your looking at the math wrong, you need to look at it for every spell cast instead of overall. If you rolled 60 dice at one time you could look at it that way, but with statistics each dice is an individual event where each roll is unaffected by each previous roll. So say you use 2 dice per spell. You have a 1/6 chance to get a one per dice, but a 1/36 chance of them both getting a 1. Granted your odds for a miscast will increase the more dice you add. So say you roll 3 dice there are 216 possible results, but also 16 possibilities of a miscast with double 1s, so you have a 1/13.5(216 divided by 16) chance of miscasting.

2 dice = 1/36 chance
3 dice = 1/13.5 chance

So it all comes down to how many dice you roll per spell. But if you roll only 2 dice per spell, and 6 spells per turn, then yes it comes out to 1 miscast per game on average.

Edit: Whoops changed 16.5 to 13.5 cause I misread my writing

And also with cupped hands you are missing the very nice fact that you want a bad miscast roll to blast an opponents mage with

 

[Mordechai]

Slann
Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, soul stone
+ Banner, bane Head, power stone

Play with LORE OF LIGHT

2 Engine of the GODS (mages at 1st leve, each carries 1 dispell scrol)

16 Temple Guards, only w/ banner, with slann

The rest of the army feel free...

Cheers,
Marcos

 

[Kurlin]

Slann
Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, soul stone
+ Banner, bane Head, power stone

Play with LORE OF LIGHT

2 Engine of the GODS (mages at 1st leve, each carries 1 dispell scrol)

16 Temple Guards, only w/ banner, with slann

The rest of the army feel free...

Cheers,
Marcos

IF you go with EOTG, imo you should have the priests at lvl 2 so they bump to lvl 3 for PD and DD.

 

[Gor-rok]

Play with LORE OF LIGHT

Lore of Light... "sigh". My favorite lore next to Shadows, and I never get to use it for fear that a Daemon player will bring that *%&#! infernal 50 point banner that makes lore of light miscast on double 1s, 2s, and 3s (as well as making all spells in a particular lore +2 to cast). In league play though, unlike our tournaments, we are able to pick a new lore for each battle, so Light may yet give me some service.

The other thing I'm wondering is if I should take something like Higher State of Consciousness in case I want to run the Slann solo in a few games; I think it's a waste if I keep him with the guard, but they tie up a ton of points and hinder his mobility.

The first game is tomorrow morning, so I've got to get something set by then.

 

[Gor-rok]

Ok, here's the Slann I used in today's game versus Daemons (he went in a 20 strong Temple Guard block):

Cupped Hands -this paid off dividends
Battle Standard
Bane Head -and this made the Cupped Hands pay off it's dividends
Focused Rumination- best overall discipline, IMHO
Focus of Mystery
Becalming Cogitation- forgetting to use this one round cost me the game

I'll post a battle report later; overall I'm very happy with this setup.

 

[lupercal]

I just read this post and was thinking that if you get items from the campaign I would run your slann pretty bare and put the points into other areas.

 

[Gor-rok]

Yeah, if I had it over again I might hold back a little. He does get experience for performing certain actions though, so the more enemy heroes he defeats and the more Irresistible Force casts he has the better. The Skaven Grey Seer has leveled up twice now and is becoming unstoppable with his powerful bell.

I've been using my battle points to buy up land, but that has cost me in terms of army size. If I do get some gold I'm going to give the Slann a fourth ability eventually, but I can't decide what to go with. I'd like the option to run him solo, and higher state of consciousness might be my best shot there.