8th Ed. Stegadon and Engines of the gods opinion ?

[Typhus Herald]

Basically wondering if anyone has an opinion of the Stegadon with Engine of the gods and a Skink Priest my army is mostly melee based where my lord is a saurus oldblood on carnasaur but I wanna ad some magic in and was wondering why not combine my steggy with a priest whats yours guys opnion ?

 

[Gor-rok]

If you're not running a Slann, the Engine starts to look a lot more practical. A level 2 skink with Engine and the Plaque of Tepok is for all intents and purposes a level 3 wizard. That, combined with the cool effects of the Engine itself, can make for an impressive magic phase.

And let's not forget the ancient stegadon. It can be fantastic combat unit on it's own when used correctly- basically you've traded the giant blowpipes for the Engine effects.

It's not without its drawbacks. The setup above costs more than a BSB Slann with three disciplines- purely on magical terms the Slann wins hands down. You also don't have anything close to the protection of a Slann; even without temple guard, the Slann can have a 2+ ward against a cannonball (or ignore it completely), a cannonball which stands a very good chance of killing your skink priest -and possibly mount- outright.

Pros:
Strongest magic we can get without a Slann
Burning Alignment kills multiple small units and lone characters well
Bubble wardsave can be your your best friend against long range shooting
Stegadon charge! Burning Alignment followed by Impact hits have slain many a greater daemon for me

Cons:
Hugely expensive!
Instant war machine & shooting magnet
No choice of magic lore
Skink Priest is vulnerable in combat- especially to challenges

Basically, if all you want is stronger magic for your Carnosaur army, you might be better off with just a couple skink priests on foot, with a few helpful items. Double casting the Heavens signature spell is a combat winner for sure if you can pull it off.

If, however, you want a stegadon that also does strong magic support, and have the points to do it, the Engine may be the way to go. You're going to have to alter your play style to support it, but it can be devastating when used right.

 

[rammramm]

I think Gor-Rok pretty much said it all, but would like to chip in on the regular skink priests behalf. Even though they are only lvl 1 or 2 and even though they only know lore of heaven, three of these guys can be realy good. The reason behind this is that you have a 50-50 chance of adding dice to power and dispel pool with channel, and you dont have to worry about loosing concentation. You dont have to take an extra dice for every spell just to be sure since if one priest loses concentration you move on to the next one.

 

[HoverBoy]

That and the -1 to hit and -1LD effects of the signature spell can rack up fast and hard.

 

[Iggy Koopa]

So if you cast those spells the effects stack?

Iggy

 

[Gor-rok]

So if you cast those spells the effects stack?

Yep. Since you can only have one caster in your army that knows a given spell (other than the signature), this only really applies to allied armies, signature spells, and Ogre gut magic, but it's perfectly legal.

Some Beastmen players are making devious use of this by taking a bunch of level 1 shadow casters gathered around a Herdstone and spamming the signature miasma spell at anything and everything. If all goes well (for them), moving around the board is going to be a nightmare for you- not to mention fighting or shooting.

 

[Iggy Koopa]

Gor-rok,

Yea, I ran into that the other day. Played a 3k point game and he had 7 characters, of which 5 were Level 1 casters... herded right around a stone... it was pretty whack to play against.

Iggy

 

[Typhus Herald]

What is this stacking signature spell your refering of ?

 

[Gor-rok]

What is this stacking signature spell your refering of ?

In the case of the Beastmen players, it's Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma- the signature hex spell from Lore of Shadows. Since Skink Priests only know Lore of Heavens, they can do it with Iceshard Blizzard. It also works with Wyssan's Wildform from Lore of Beasts; I think the Beastmen can have that one as well.

All three are in the main rulebook. Since they are the signature spells for those lores, any magician that uses that lore can have the spell. Thus, if you have five level 1 casters that all use Shadows, all of them can swap whatever spell they roll for the signature one, and all of them can cast it on the same target, with cumulative effects.

 

[HoverBoy]

I've seen a Woc list that had a lvl4 Death and a lvl 2 heavens, he used blizzard and doom and darknes to get enemy units on -4LD, it was nasty.