8th Ed. The Temple of Chotec

[Lizardmatt]

Sometimes, being sleep deprived and loaded up on coffee makes me come up with odd ideas.

I dub this one, the temple of Chotec.

Slaan, Unfathomable Presence, Transcendent Healing, Higher State of Consciousness, Folding Fortress.
Lore of Fire.
Yeah, that's an ethereal slaan, with MR D3 and he heals lost wounds.
And yes, you stick him in the building.
Immune to non-magical attacks, and opponents do not get combat res for ranks, standard or charging.
Being in a building, he gain stubborn, and -2 to be shot.

He's got decent range on his spells, and most are direct damage or magic missiles, letting you cast through skinks for even more range.

He's expensive; but it's more of a VP denial wizard lord than anything else. Might play better with other lores, but I've always had a warm spot for chotec.

-Matt

 

[n810]

It's so crazy, it just might work....

 

[Ondjage]

Cool idea, you can make an appropriate looking temple and bring to your battles.

Arent the folding fodling fortress often forbidden in tournaments though?

 

[Lizardmatt]

Cool idea, you can make an appropriate looking temple and bring to your battles.

Arent the folding fodling fortress often forbidden in tournaments though?

I see it limited more often than restricted. People are worried about the 15 story folding fortress with 75 crossbowmen and the coven of light inside it.

People generally aren't worried about a single model in a building.
Now they should be.

-Matt

 

[olderplayer]

Interesting idea but kind of hit or miss. With ethereal units out there, there are a lot of armies with magical attacks or way of getting magical attacks in the game.

There is a reason the new army book put unstable on the Slann along with immunity to non-magical attacks. Being unstable is kind of a problem. I looked but could not see whether unstable units are also unbreakable. A unit charging a building gets 10 infantry or equivalents to attack. If a character with a magic weapon or a unit with magical attacks (Daemons or say a unit with enchanted blades on something else similar) charged the building, then the character or unit will likely do enough to the Slann to win combat by two or more and cause additional wounds through instability. If the Slann fails 3 ward saves and causes no wounds in return, then it dies. Consider the buidling being charged by a unit of three or more beasts of nurgle (13.5 average attacks at S4 with poison) or a unit of fleshhounds (20 attakcks at S5 on when charging and S4 otherwise). WS2 means getting hit on 3's and T4 means getting wounded on 4's or 3's. An unstable model loses a wound with no save of any kind for each point by which the combat is lost. It doesn't matter if the model is unstable, in fact, technically unstable models are unbreakable in combat.

The discipline to recover wounds is iffy at best. At the end of each friendly magic phase you roll a die for each wound sufferied and only recover a wound on a roll of a 6. Even if the Slann had suffered 3 wounds, it would recover on average only 1 on half of the time. You will likely only get one friendly magic phase between two rounds of enemy charges and have a good chance of suffering two wounds in the process each time.

Also, if a purple sun or pit of shades hits the buliding then the Slann dies with no saves 4/6's f the time. Another thing to consider is that some war machines have magical attacks such as runed war machines and warpstone weapons. You have a 50% ward save to a warp lightning cannnon wound and will suffer D6 wounds if failed.

 

[Lizardmatt]

Interesting idea but kind of hit or miss. With ethereal units out there, there are a lot of armies with magical attacks or way of getting magical attacks in the game.

There is a reason the new army book put unstable on the Slann along with immunity to non-magical attacks. Being unstable is kind of a problem. A unit charging a building gets 10 infantry or equivalent to attack. If a character with a magic weapon or a unit with magical attacks (Daemons or say with enchanted blades on something else similar) charged the building, then the character will likely do enough to the Slann to win combat and cause additional wounds through instability. Consider the buidling being charged by a unit of three or more beast of nurgle or a unit of fleshhounds. An unstable model loses a wound with no save of any kind for each point by which the combat is lost. It doesn't matter if the model is unstable, in fact, technically unstable models are unbreakable in combat. The discipline to recpover wounds is iffy at best. At the end of each friendly magic phase you roll a die for each wound sufferied and only recover a wound on a roll of a 6. You will likely only get one friendly magic phase between two rounds of enemy charges and have a good chance of suffering two wounds in the process.

Also, if a purplse sun or pit of shades hits the buliding then the Slann dies with no saves 4/6's f the time.

1) If you don't kill the slaan in one round, all he has to do is leave the building, putting the impassable line of sight blocking building between him and the offending unit.
2) Purple Sun and Pit of Shades both allow a look out, being templates. Put a unit of 10 skinks near the building, and you seriously drop the pit/purple issue.
3) Ethereals aren't a serious threat. Big ethereal units are only doing ~1 wound, and they'd have to weather the direct damage of the slaan on the way in. Ethereal characters are worse off; fewer attacks with the slaan having a good shot at hurting them.
4) Charging infantry fight with 10 models. But only 2 army books have infantry with magical attacks. Wood Elves, and Daemons. I'd be happy to face either. All the rest of those infantry are wiffing, unable to wound an ethereal creature. Against daemons, I'd be deploying behind the building anyway; I don't want to take D6 S10 magic flaming hits from each cannon. Against wood elves, I'd more a block of infantry to block the building.

It's not foolproof, but the list of hard counters is really, really short. They also aren't typically a sudden surprise. You know what spells your opponent has, you know daemons and dwarves have magical cannons.

-Matt

 

[olderplayer]

1. Point one is partially valid and interesting but potentially more dangerous because then combat resolution comes into play and I can now more easily charge or shoot the Slann with anything having magical attacks or having significant static CR and blow up the Slann. Remember the TG are your elite infantry and cost less now, so you lose stubborn and IPT on that unit and are playing

2. Valid, but a 4+ look out sir is not the same.

3 and 4 You missed the point. The threat is from armies tooled up to deal with ethereals because of the existence of such models in the top VC armies which are common enough to require anticipating them. The biggest threat is a unit with a tooled up fighting character or a fighting character with magical attacks. All armies have that option. The Daemon prince or lord of Tzeentch with magical attacks is common in the Warriors of Chaos builds and that is becoming the most popular army in many metagames. Daemon Princes have magical attacks.