AoS Is a slann necessary?

I've not played a big amount of games of AoS2 yet, but those that I have generally seen my army smashed. This is mainly due to me needing to learn more and alter my list a lot.

But one thing that became apparent is that I'm not sure if the slann is worth it. It generally summoned around it's own points value in models per game, but didn't cast anything else, so didn't contribute anything offensive.

Seraphon get 1 teleport even without a slann so the biggest loss from not having a one, that I can see, is the board wide dispel. That is definitely a big plus.

So the question is what does the slann provide that an additional 260 points of units cannot?

I am talking about 2k games, at 1k I can see how powerful summoning can be

 

Thanks for the replies.

In general I can see the useful of the slann, it has many synergies, and does little bits here and there that boost the army.

My thoughts are present are that if you are going for a summoning army, then you need to go big or go home. Slann, astrolith, balewind, cogs, EoTG x2, star priest x2. That gives you the reliability to flood the board straight away and for the rest the game. That's up to 19 summoning points a turn, so 30 skinks or 10 and some rippers, that's very nice.

If you don't want to go down the summoning route then I think this is where the slann may be not as great as the points it takes up.

It's 40 skinks on the board turn 1, or 30 and a priest/star priest.

From the games I've played so far it's about movement above all else, get onto objectives, screen objectives. Having the slann helps with this but I'm wondering if it's good enough, or if quick cheap skinks and/or priests seem more realiable nimble throughout the game.

I'm looking at all the battalions, thunderquake and shadowstrike seem good, but the rest seem to have too much of a tax of poor/bad units. After using saurus and saurus knights a decent amount already, they are just poor. Not resilient enough and not damaging enough. Skinks are almost just as likely to survive most things, but are cheaper, quicker and have shooting attacks.

Anyway I definitely need more games, and I've got at least 3 of 4 lists (with and without slann) that I want to try.

 

I'll provide the short answer now that my comrades have provided the long one:

Oh yes

 

Whilst the full summoning army is certainly one playstyle choice, I'd argue that it isn't required to make use of summoning. Any summoning tends to be helpful, even if it's chaff, because it's stuff that can claim objectives, shore up flanks, or at the very least give the enemy something else to worry about.

Speaking for myself, my group always plays with the Realm rules, so I always have an extra 7 spells to play around with on my Slann. In a game I played recently we rolled up Aqshy at random so I had access to Inferno blades. 40 Saurus Warriors in a Fangs of Sotek force that do 2 dmg on ALL their melee attacks (and at full strength they have 4 each) is devastating. Sure a Starpriest could potentially do it too but you then miss out on Starlight, which is an extremely good spell. Despite slinging spells all game I had enough summoning points saved up to summon 18 Saurus Warriors on Turn 4, which moved in front of a key objective and ultimately won me the game. So the summoning support the Slann provided could certainly function alongside a standard strategy that wasn't focused around summoning.

 

I think GW really wants you to always be playing in a realm for normal games. The basic realm rules are in the core book and then the spells and artefacts in Malign Sorcery. In GTs it seems like they always use realms too. As long as you're using realms it really boosts the slaan back up to being a strong caster and not just a summoning machine.

 

If you're going to play with realm spells you should probably decide on which before making the list. The variance in how usefull the spells will be to help you or to block you is rather tremendous. And playing with that unknown factor can nearly completly break or make a strategy… I'm kind of surprised GW didn't add in a sentence or two explaining that.

Plus, it makes for nice thematic tournaments. Play the entire tournament in the realm of fire. Or play the first few rounds in the realm of shadow and the last half in the realm of light so your army has to be ready to deal with both. It would probably add a lot to the game.


As for is a slann mandatory: in larger games the anwser is simple. Yes. Summoning gives you tremendous power in terms of versatility, zone control & mobility. Plus even if you don't focus on the summoning, the slann is a powerfull enough spellcaster in its own right, especially with realm spells, that he'l Always have something usefull to do. In smaller games you can more easily get away with not needing him.

 

Where would you say the threshold is for mandatory/optional inclusion of a Slann in a list?

 

ahahahahahahah @Just A Skink

So to answer seriously : Well I thought of this as well to be honest, and you could do without a Slann in some lists strength wise BUT .. the 3 global dispells are just too huge to be skipped. Nevermind the summoning. These 3 dispells have a huge impact in game. You don't really realise until you play a game without them !

 

yeah, 1k and below skipping out on the slann works. Though given that our summoning doesn't scale in the slightest it's technicly just as good at 1k as it is at 2.5k. It's just that the initial investment will require more so you'l have relativly speaking less forces on the board initially which might make you suspectable to alpha strikes and such.

 

yeah, it's mostly a matter of can your summons arrive early enough to actually matter in a 1000 point game. You won't have as much to protect your slann so alpha strikes will be easier to pull off. And you won't have as much to claim objectives, so an opponent might get an early lead. It''l depend a lot on the objective you're playing and the opponent you're facing. Whereas in a 1500+ game you'l have enough stuff on the board to start with to be sure your summons will arrive before the match has been decided.

 

The first question we need to look at is whether your local scene and local tournaments use the Real Rules and specifically the realm spells.

This does seem to vary a lot by region; here in the UK most tournaments do. I was looking through possible tournaments over the next few months and it was only really the very casual ones that were not going to use the realm rules at all.

If you use the realm rules then the whole proposition for the Slann changes because you have access to the realm spells. The Slann is a fantastic wizard with great rules and terrible spells, literally junk class spells when you consider how expensive it is and powerful it should be. The realm spells fix that problem and suddenly the Slann becomes a magical powerhouse able to really swing games. This does not mean you should never be summoning because a well placed unit out of nowhere can quite often be more impactful than the spells it replaces but it means that the Slann can really contribute to the early game if you need it to. You have combos that other armies will struggle to counter - e.g. a Slann using Arcane Vassal can drop spells on super-duper-Death-wizards from outside their unbind range which will be a real shock to many death players.

Without the realm rules the Slann is much more of a one-trick pony and I remain to be convinced that it is a good enough trick. Sometimes summoning will make a huge difference to the game but if your opponent brings an army that can smash you off the table by turn 3 you are not going to be summoning much no matter how many Balewind Vortexes and Chronomantic Cogs you have up your sleeve. All they have to do is close down the space and suddenly you have no room in which to land summoned units and it's game over for summoning, plenty of competitive armies are designed to move fast and close down the space in exactly this way.

Without the realm rules the Slann is IMO merely pretty good. With the realm rules it is more or less an auto-pick for its enormous flexibility and the fact that you will often dominate the magic game by having one.

 

That is indeed one of the biggest issues with summoning, the arbitrary range limitations. I would've loved if they at least Always let you summon stuff in a (small) bubble around the summoner regardless of enemies nearby. It feels kinda gamey and stupid that a summoner can be locked down simply by having enemies in his vague proximity.