After a long time we can finally field Lord Kroak. if i compare him to a normal slan, i think he performs better. Yes Kroak cost 60 points more, but he has a lot of benefits for just 60 points. hey can generate more cps for us, he has a 4+ info save and a lot more dmg potential. for me he will get tested in a lot of games
Big Kroak is an absolute monster. Frankly, I would take him just for hoarding Command Points and dropping comets. His survivability and Celestial Deliverance are just the icing on an already delicious cake. I think what really blew my mind was when I charged him into a mob of Grots and he killed droves of them with just under 20 attacks because of his weird melee profile. Besides Salamanders, he's the best value you will get out of any unit in the new book.
Kroak is the first thing in all my lists, I don't see any reason to take a normal slann anymore. Just the amount of damage he can put out per turn is unmatched on our army. I had him deal 40 MW in 2 turns on the weekend and that's with me forgetting I can channel through skink wizards.
I think the only time I will ever take a Slann over Lord Kroak is when I run DT and want to give my Slann the Ancient Knowledge Command Trait. Even then, I think it is worth taking both a Slann and Kroak.
Agreed. They are all still good. But, now Kroak edges out the Slaan ect. Rippers and Terradons did the same thing. Almost like GW wants to sell more models.
i love the new Terradons more then Rippers. On the other hand they got cheap, why not use them as objektiv grappler
I agree with taking both. I dont like taking Kroak unless I am building around him. I understand he is better than the slann in every way but I feel like with a solo Kroak you really aren't using him to his maximum potential and that bugs me. So with my Kroak lists I am always taking a buff slann with him. I make the Slann my general and give him the Might Trait(If i am not taking DT, Ancient Knowledge if I am) and then I give him the Celestial Equilibrium spell. Celestial Equilibrium is the breakout spell in the new book for me. It does so much to guarantee our spells go off and has been a big buff for everyone in my games. Then I use the Buff Slann to get off Celestial Equilibrium and then cast Balewind on Kroak. With the Sage's staff, Celestial Equilibrium, Astrolith Bearer, and Kroak's own Master's of Order rule, he is +4 to cast on all of his Celestial Deliverance at 16 in range. Unfortunately you cant teleport him up the board and back again, but you can still use arcane vassal and send it through a skink wizard to up the range to 28 inches away. So far I have played 3 games With this setup, and Kroak has only failed a couple Celestial Deliverances and gotten off many buffed comet's calls for d6 units.
Pretty much YES. to cite myself: If you are not playing at low level points, there’s little reason to take a basic Slann instead of Kroak
On the contrary, if you take Kroak with Slann, you want Slann to be useful outside of Celestial Equilibrium. Kroak is pretty self-sustaining. Yes, he is better with astrolith and balewind, but 4+ fnp, +1 cast/deny and innate 3-dice Foresight are worth 60 points. He is a beast, if you build around them, but still good on his own.
I love him. But part of me thinks he may have been undercosted. He's basically an auto updrage if your taking a Slann. Personally, I'd still take him if he was 60 more points, putting him 120 above a normal Slann. He still has so much utility that trading another 10 Skinks for him is fine. Once I get games in, I'm planning on him, and two Slann attendants as a core for a weird army.
Always include Astrolith and Balewind point cost, if you ever want to use him to his full potential. I feel, that slann can lose like 20-30 pts instead.
I suppose that's fair. Speaking of the Slann cost. Trog needs to be 200 or lower if the Slann can get cheaper. Engine too also feels a bit expensive for the platform.
Yeah, that can be useful I have been playing with 3 skink wizards, being able to cast from them has let me ignore the 10" range pretty much lol
Balewind is so great on him tbh. You can do cheeky things like putting the Balewind 1" in front of Kroak, suddenly he got like 10" extra reach instead of the original 6" since the point of measurement is now much further ahead. With trait + artefact you could maybe argue that the Slann becomes just as good as Kroak, just in a different way - Even with a lot of +casting, some of the buffs dont affect dispelling/unbinding and you can risk rolling poorly on a really important cast/unbind. The issue is that you basically "waste" a trait and an artefact slot to make a Slann comparable. In Coalesced armies you wont make the Slann your general tbh, so might as well take Kroak. In Starborne you are probably better off making a Skink Priest the general for the Master of Star Rituals since it is basically a free extra CP per round. You are probably gonna go with both a Slann and Kroak though.
IMO outside Starborne, Balewind is no more that attractive, as you don't have access to LoSaT and so the model standing on it becomes a sitting duck. Which would be good into a Realmshaper engine, but without a FAQ for the terrain, it is not granted that you will be able to garrison it