8th Ed. slann or oldblood

[parrot]

Hi
I´m bulilding my army and I can´t decide who is better. Is a slann better or the oldblood on a carnosaur for the hitting power. I will play mostly against dark elves.
Thanks for the answers

 

[Questioner]

I have used both, and they both rock. I would use both: you can keep changing between games, making your opponents guess.

Of course, in larger point games both would be awesome.

 

[Shaslain]

Well, I personally do not like to use a slann for many reasons, but that's just me. For an unbiased opinion I will give you this:

Slann are primarily used to give a HUGE magic boost to your entire army, they can play multiple roles, since they can be both BSB and General, but can cost a lot of points as well. They can absolutely dominate any magic phase depending on the upgrades they have, and against DE they can help stop some of those small pesky little spells they do to bait you. Another cost to factor in is the Temple Guard unit you should bunker him in. DE aare fast enough to get something to a lone slann to kill him, so a TG unit would be a good addition. Most people normally would not take TG without a slann so you are adding even more points to your slann choice in that respect. But good thing is, it will take ALOT to kill off that unit.

Oldbloods in my opinion are not really worth taking without a carnosaur, so already they cost 355 points which is expensive. After upgrades you are looking at something in the 400+ points range. The slann is expensive too, but slann can deal with multiple units and OB cannot. The best an OB can do is beat up on one unit (hopefully not a tarpit) for a turn or 2 and move to the next one. The good part about the OB is that you have a strong General that can take on almost any adversary, and he is an absolute beast in combat. It would be wise to have a couple of skink priests around or engine of the gods to help with magic boosts.

I personally use a OB in my larger point lists (2500+) and just hero choices for anything under. However, the most common response you will get is to use a slann.

 

[parrot]

I think I will go with the oldblood and a skink priest or two.

 

[Anasth]

At 2400 points I usually run a slann with this build:
General, Lore - Fire
4 disciples
consiousness
cotigation
presence
stone

BSB,
Standard of discipline
Items:
cupped hands of the old ones
crown of command
dragonbane gem

I don't use any TG. I have a 38 FC block of saurus supported with a scar vet and I stick the slann in if I want for some reason (e.g. pit of shades) to get a look out sir or in case my enemy has several units with magical attacks. Otherwise i run him solo and even get him to melee with mundane attack units and chop them down using cascading fire cloack while casting fireball using the engine priet's LoS. So far it works fine but it is a really defensive choice. If you wanna go offensive i'd definately go for OB on a carno or even a cold one.

To be honest I am concerned about LM low initiative so I get into combat only if needed really and that's why I chose Slann.

 

[Xlcontiqu]

I run a cheap Slann, Lore of Light, immune to mundane attacks (Higher State of Conciousness I believe), and BSB, so way cheaper that a normal Slann. This gives me a lot of room for my troops and means I don't lose a lot of points if he dies. He is usually quite survivable, even though I don't run TG. Check my battle reports if you want to see him in action.

 

[BEEGfrog]

OB on carnosaur looks good but dies young.

If I take an OB to rampage around on his own it will generally be on a cold one rather than a carnie. AS 1+ with just LA or dragonhelm, can join units and you can afford 2 fully tooled up OBs at 2200, slightly less tooled up or on foot at 2k.

I find it even more amusing if I make scar vets in big units of saurus be my general and BSB so I can risk my rampaging OBs without worry.

To win battles the points denial ability and magic power ability of the slann works far more often than the flash and crash of the carnie.

 

[CarpetRacer]

I agree with BEEG; while I love carnosaurs, they tend to die fast. I rather dislike that they can't join units; I think the book even makes a point that they don't count as large targets. Sweet model though.

Lately I've been running an OB rather than a Slann; my dice luck is terribad. Managed to have a Slann cook himself off magic phase turn 1 against Brets. Kinda stopped using him after that.

 

[Questioner]

I have only used and Oldblood on Carnosaur once, but then I usually use VC.

He mashed his way through several units, killing a Chaos Lord... and several other things. He survived, and so did his mount.

They are good if your opponent is not prepared for one.

 

[n810]

Yea it's probaly a good idea to use an old blood list once and a while to keep your regular oponents guessing.

 

[BEEGfrog]

A dual old blood list is even more surprising if they are expecting a slann!

 

[parrot]

I think I will go with the oldblood on a cold one. And one more question. Is a cold one good enough or is a horned one better and worth the points?

 

[BEEGfrog]

The horned one is weird, looked at purely as a mount, it is a good mount for an old blood until you realise it uses up magic item slots.

The horned one only costs 5 points more than a cold one for an old blood, moves an inch further, doesn't suffer stupidity and has +1 initiative, but uses up over a third of your magic allowance. The main reason for taking an old blood over a scar vet is the extra magic allowance and with a horned one you still have 15 more points than a scar vet's total allowance, but most people think it isn't worth the loss of the magic item allowance.

 

[walrusstooth]

I have been trying to stray away from an Slann for the past three games, but every time I taker the old blood he fails. He cant dish out enough hurt each turn to be worth his points

 

[parrot]

My regular opponat ussualy has 3 monsters so I have an oldblood on a cold one with the blade of reality. It works pretty well since all he does is kill monsters . I don´t use him for anything else.

 

[Carlos]

If your going to take the OB on a Carny just make sure you have some type of magic def.

The thing with the Slann is that their versatile and can fill dif roles, and do several thing depending on the lore they have and how their kit out