8th Ed. Slann with Crown. Worth it?

Just like the title reads. I like trying to keep my Slann mobile and dynamic and usually bring him in skink skirmishers rather than huffing a big block of temple guard and belly bumping wherever he can. Also keeps friendlies from rubbing elbows when the big guy decides to miscast and blow up everyone around him.

I've been toying with the idea of bringing a Slann with the Crown of Command to my next few games. My thought is to bunker him in skirmishing skinks with a champ and shuffle him up next to a block of saurus or some big monster to bait in a charge. Eventually I'm counting on him getting charged, throwing a challenge with the champ, and hoping to keep skink bodies between the enemy and the big toad for a round of combat or two. If he is *lucky* enough to get charged in the flank that even limits a single skink and the champion to base combat. Even if the slann gets into combat he's pretty resilient alone even without magic support so I'm hoping he can hold up long enough for a friendly block to sweep in and save the day. After that the slann can leave any remaining skirmishers and jump in the saurus for a budget block of temple guard.

This is probably a very situational gimmik and I see a lot of slann being sacrificed while they figure out how to make this work. Also seems like it could be interesting to use Life to regrow the champ and tarpit a nasty combat block for cheap. Has anyone here tried anything similar? Viable or is a slann with the crown just asking for it?

 

Cant help but to sit with a thought : "What you want to achieve is Vampire Counts turf, and they do it better."

You want the crown to be stubborn: VC are unbreakable, without any item use.
You want lore of life to play shinanigans with ress'ing a champ: VC does that with their signature spell.

AND! Even though their situation is VASTLY better for this strategy,
my personal experience is that its STILL hard to make work, and an ENORMOUS gamble

As the slann is your general per definition, and your only lvl 4 mage, and maybe your BSB,
I think its fair to say that your gamble is more than triple that.


No matter how stubborn your slann is, you DONT want him to see combat.
A smart opponent will find a way to maximize attacks on him, whatever you have Champ or not.

T4 4++ is NOT resilient enough for any unit worth baiting like this.

Sorry for the tone But say this loud to yourself: "My gameplan is to get my Slann charged"

In theory it is a nice idea though! and points for that!
Many players get blindspots when focusing on the Slann, and you CAN play that to your advantage.
The important part here though, is to do it without him getting charged

 

Phatmotha-phucka is correct. It is an awfully big gamble that will probably lose you far more games than it will win you.

But you can always give it a try in a couple of friendly games to see how it goes. If you do plan on your Slann facing combat, Fencers blades will help reduce the amount of hits scored on you.

 

20 saurus warrior + Crown of Command = 255 points
20 Templeguard = 280 points.

So its cheaper to build a huge stubborn block that way. All you lose its auto look out sir. The more you bring the cheapest it is.
Also they come from core atollment.

For skinks I wouldn't do that. Slann will always be at a flank so it can be easily engaged. And remember Slann is infantry he can die against killing blow with so much ease.

I will go further and write weird unit combinations mixing Slann & Oldblood/Scarvet.

X Saurus Warriors 5 wide w/ musician & Standard bearer, also champion (but can be killed)
2 Oldblood/Scarvet. <--- To ensure once your champion is death Slann won't go first rank
Slann.

Your Slann will be on second rank for a while, until your unit of saurus only have 1 left. (if your saurus characters still alive)
The saurus warrior's lack of punch is solved by S7 great weapon.


Kroxigor unit 2 wide w/ Champion
2 Cold one Oldblood/Scarvet <-- They both go at left of right of the unit
Slann w/ Skaven Pelt Banner. <--- "second rank" behind the cold ones.
* I don't know if its legal, but with 3 coldone you can run it

S7 Grind fest. Ok you move at 4". May be High Magic Loremaster is needed.
Cast Walk between Worlds, place in your opponent flank and trade it for life spell, Keep trading life & apotheosis and you will be healing your kroxigors & saurus characters.

 

I think Ethereal, Crown and Life could work as a strange tarpitting Slaan.

However, that's an awful lot of points to spend on a wizard you intend on getting charged...

 

My experience with the Ethereal diciplin is that it makes the Slann MORE vulnerable.

 

All that is great feedback. Haven't played VC yet so the fact that they can pull off something similar for a heck of a lot cheaper than us puts that trick in a different light.

Actually tried this in a game this morning and the Slann took a beating for it. He survived, but miscast immediately after. Yall are spot on. Between the threat of miscast and enemy mage hunters he is just to vulnerable to use as bait unless it's for a reallllly good reason. After trying him the ONLY thing I can see bringing a crown for is so you don't auto die if you break as a bsb in a skink unit... A lot of ifs though.

Kind of a shame that while we pay extra for the ward, wounds, and a decent T we should be able to use that to some advantage over other races. Totally get it, but still a shame.

 

We can.
Knowing that you can take a whole lot of more wounds than a regular wizard opens a lot of opportunities:

- Miscast are not AS bad for our Frog (....the TG is another matter..) as if he loses a couple of wounds, its not the end of everything.
- In a spirit-leech standoff our frog has the upper hand in most cases.
- Snipers have a harder time.
- We can use forbidden rod without worrying about instant death.
- Lesser chance of dying straight out from multi-wounds

theres probably way more, but thats just on the top of my head..

 

I hate the ethereal discipline. It was good in our previous army book, but unstable is just too much of a risk. Plus it's very expensive.

 

I completely agree, he's tougher than your average mage by a long shot. It's really nice to know that he can take a cannonball to the face, fail the ward, and still sits with a reasonable chance to walk it off.

I look at it this way. We pay about 1/3 more for a vanilla lvl 4 caster than most armies. For this we get 3 more wounds, a "free" 4++, arcane vassel, and the privilege of paying more so that he can become a bigger bully than most mages in the game. I say most because there are some pretty mean mage builds that can compete with us for far cheaper (looking at you WE with your +6 to cast!). You have a very resilient character like you say, but we take and shelter it in TG where most things couldn't touch it if they wanted to. If a enemy is mean enough to chew through all your TG then the slann doesn't stand much of a chance even with his resilience. If he isn't outright killed, he'll break and auto die if he's the BSB. That's the issue I've been trying to get creative with by using the Crown and playing to his natural durability that we already pay for.

I'd also argue that miscasts are not much worst for us than most mages. Finding yourself in the warp is equally bad, as is crippling your mage lvl. Most of the other options are a single wound which most lord level characters can shrug off with 3 woulds and not really care. Ours is just slightly less painful overall. Vassel is fantastic, but is it worth the extra 100 points or so? For the record, I'd say this alone may justify the point hike.

Don't get me wrong, a tooled slann can be a mean mean thing and I love using him. I guess I'm realizing that I just haven't been making use of his protection because the "standard" lizard play keeps him safe from harm and doesn't use it. I also struggle with fielding a 700+ point unit of Slann and TG. Feels more like having all your eggs in one basket. Also the hit to your wallet for enough TG is ridiculous ($120 US for 30 tiny plastic figures? Really GW!?!?) but that's another issue entirely.

After trying this out I'm conceding that this little gimmick just isn't viable in 8th as we know it.

 

I think I kind of drove this OT the last couple posts . I was just looking more for ideas and input on trying to use our toad as an effective tarpit without the baggage of the TG unit. Just something new and different.

 

If you want a stubborn block of saurus there is always Gor ROK.

 

If you want a stubborn unit, nothing beats a fully kitted out Oldblood cowboy with the crown of command. You can run him by himself and he'll hold up or kill just about anything in the game.

 

"Just about anything" is more "Just about" than "anything"
But I agree, he can really do his worth many times over.

 

A tooled up Oldblood will stand up to most things in the game, with a few exceptions of course.

 

Anything with multiwounds, and I hesitate!

 

That's why you never leave your temple without the mighty Piranha Blade! AP & multiple wounds (D3) will make your Scar-Veteran or Oldblood just as scary as any Stegadon and is terrific in challenges against any army.