8th Ed. Slann - point sink or? Advice sought

[draccan]

Hi

New to Lizardmen but played WH since 2nd ed.
Just returned to the hobby after a hiatus.. and acquired a large partly painted army..

anywho.. looking at the Slann and tactics for 8th. I can't help seeing the Slann as a huge point sink. When I look at Lore of Life that is being hyped I think the spells doesn't look THAT great. Healing wounded units for example 1d3+1 - what good does that do? And it can be dispelled. Casting values for some spells is quite high so it is limited what you can do in one round.

If you take some temple guard the Slann becomes even more expensive and can even run away.
How do we stand against 2-5 warmachines? Just a couple of mortar shots with a hit and we are gone?

Generally whenever I compose a list I feel something is lacking and I feel Cold One Riders are too expensive and Saurus's not that much of a punch.

What is our protection plan for Slann? Does he move forward and engage? What units flank the temple guard? Screen?

The unit above them all that looks great to me is the Skrox. And maybe chameleons.

Looking forward to get some sage advice from experienced scaly generals!

D.

P.S. Any succes with no Slann armies? Carnosaurs?

 

[Wolf]

True, a TG unit with a Slann is a point sink, but you get one of the best anvils in the game. It's a part of your battle line that will stay where you put it until you decide to move it or the end of the game. If you do go with Lore of Life then definitely cast Throne of Vines first and start buffing you TG unit, there's no unit in the game that will roll over these guys once they have extra toughness and regen on them, be it +2T and a 5+regen or +4T and 4+regen, trust me these guys are mean. And that's just their defensive side. 16S5 attacks isn't something to sniff at.
As for war machines, take Terradons and Chameleons, or even normal skinks. War machines are vulnerable to poison now so just start flying those darts 4 Terradons even take care of 4 Dwarven crew in combat for only one wound in return (in one turn!!), I did the math some time ago ;-)

I play this list and have yet to be disappointed by it. One of my friends took it to a tournament and came second. So it sure has some potential

Wolf

 

[Haemoglobin]

I prefer the Slann because of the versatility. It can be used in a list as a purely offensive mage, a mage that focuses more on buffs than damage. Not to mention a lone slann is pretty hard to kill (especially with Lore of Life). Basically its +- 500 points for a tooled out slann, that just wont die. My slann has yet to die in any of the battles I have played. It can also be used to disrupt an enemy mage with the Becalming Cogitation, or the Feedback Scroll / Bane Head combo. Having a Slann with Lore of Life behind two solid blocks of 24 Sauruses is a force to be reckoned with. Buff one unit with the Flesh to Stone buff, and use the Regrowth spell to heal up the other. Your opponent will (depending on the number of dice he has) start to doubt what to dispel after seeing Regrowth and The Dwellers Below going off. So I usually have that throne spell up for most of the battle.

And as said before, if you put him in a TG unit you can buff them with a 4+ regen save which can be very; very useful ;D

The Carnosaur can be a hardhitting force, but its a bit situational. Having a cannon shoot the carnosaur to bits in turn one is very well possible and frustrating.

Hope this helps!

 

[xisor]

this might be a daft idea thats not allowed but im waiting for my rule book. can you keep a carnosaur within 3" of a unit and get a look out sir from shooting and warmachines?? just an idea i have

 

[Wolf]

Don't think so, you have to be the same unit type I think.

 

[xisor]

hmm something to look into i guess, wonder if you could maybe use a unit of 3 kroxigors to look out sir then, arent they classes as monsters now? forgive my hijacking of the thread i will start a new thread on this subject now, with regards to the original question i myself am exoerimenting with a list that has no slann and it certainly frees up a lot of points for my hordes of skinks.

 

[Bibamus]

i think they need to be the same unit type as the character. oldblood+carn is monster, krox is monstrous infantry. you can't really give a "Lo,S!" roll to a character riding a monster, be it carnosaur, stegadon, dragon, etc.


regarding the slann. its quite the best mage in the game barring special characters. focused rumination is allmost overpowered especially wih the random power dice rule in 8th where a bad roll still allows us to cast a few spells and lore of life is rather cheap with spells going no higher than 12 ( i think) barring dwellers. that means 1 power dice + 1 rumination dice + slann = 11 statistically. you can cast allmost any spell on 1 power dice if you really want to.

loremaster is also great and not a lot of armies have it, wich is quite surprising since i expected HE and DE to have it at least on lords, if not on all heroes givin their fluff.

becalming cogitation can take that nasty lvl 4 wizard out of the game even if that mage is another slann. since if you fail a casting roll you don't use that wizard anymore that phase discarding 6's is invaluable, not having to worry about IF and possibly negating the threat of the whole mage. the most powerfull spells in this edition (starting with the curse of the horned rat, but also most of the 6'th spells in the BRB) have quite a high casting value and are rather devastating. some people are capable of bringing a few lvl 1 or lvl 2 mages just to get those spells and then throw all dice at them to kill a lot of stuff with IF and as long as the mage is outside of a unit the dangers of the miscast really dissapear with a cheap mage. a slann can guarantee that doesn't happen and he has to roll X dices to meet the casting value while avoiding rolling 6's. th great thing about it is that you don't have to nominate a wizard, so if its a low level wizard with not-that-dangerous spells you can allow him to cast them and just dispell hem untill he gets a miscast and kills some oh his own.

i'm not gonna go on about the other disciplines since they became weaker in 8th, but the slann can also survive a batle being outside of a unit (ethereal, 2+ Ward agaisnt missiles and MR 3) or he can just bog down a big unit with ethreal, helm of stuborness, BSB and standard of discipline, making him rather unkillable against monst units in the game and stubborn on Ld 10 with reroll gives him a 0.03 chance of failing it.

as a last point: its the only army where teh general can be a BSB and still get a magic banner + items. while this speaks the your argument on the expensiveness of the slann, we are actually the only ones, and by we i mean a slann, that can increase the Ld of their general

 

[Wolf]

i'm not gonna go on about the other disciplines since they became weaker in 8th, but the slann can also survive a batle being outside of a unit (ethereal, 2+ Ward agaisnt missiles and MR 3) or he can just bog down a big unit with ethreal, helm of stuborness, BSB and standard of discipline, making him rather unkillable against monst units in the game and stubborn on Ld 10 with reroll gives him a 0.03 chance of failing it.

You only need MR(2) on the Slann, no need to spend the extra 20pts

 

[draccan]

So reading this thread it seems people have a positive experience with the Slann.

Does that mean the damage / defensive output of the spells he puts on the table pr. turn makes the point cost a good deal?

How do you play with him? Center unit flanked by other good units? Does he charge forward and engage with his templeguard or hold back to fire missiles?
Do you actively screen him?

 

[Wolf]

If your looking for a Slann to make up his points by killing hordes of the enemy you'll probably be disappointed. Especially if you take Lore of Life, unless you manage to get a Dwellers through on the unit with his L4 in and he fails the test. He makes up for his expensiveness by augmenting our solid combat units into unmoveable blocks. Seeing how hard you can make your TG and Saurus blocks I definitely go forward and get stuck into combat, it's where your TG excel!!
Even though TG won't be going anywhere, it still isn't advisable to let someone charge them in the flank or rear. Avoiding that falls comes down to eliminating your opponents support units and generally keeping them away from your flank zones.

 

[Bibamus]

i'm not gonna go on about the other disciplines since they became weaker in 8th, but the slann can also survive a batle being outside of a unit (ethereal, 2+ Ward agaisnt missiles and MR 3) or he can just bog down a big unit with ethreal, helm of stuborness, BSB and standard of discipline, making him rather unkillable against monst units in the game and stubborn on Ld 10 with reroll gives him a 0.03 chance of failing it.

You only need MR(2) on the Slann, no need to spend the extra 20pts

yeah, ture, my mistake. was thinking about MR, didn't stop for a sec to think about the best item/discipline to give him