Hi guys. So after trying out Slann in a 1500 point game I decided to make a fun list which is compatible with the tournament rules me and my bros are trying to prepare for. Important restrictions: 2.4k points, max 3 hero duplicates, max 3 core duplicates, max 2 special duplicates, no rare duplicates(except HE, they can take 2). Max. 5 dice on a single spellcast (including bonus dice from sac. dagger and focused rumination etc.). Lords ( 600) -Slann mage-priest, General, BSB, Focused rumination, Focus of mystery (Life), Forbidden rod, Ironcurse icon (390) -Saurus Oldblood, Fencer’s blades, Glittering scales, Dragonbane gem (210) Heroes (250) -Skink priest, dispel scroll (90) -Saurus Scar-Veteran, Cold one, Light armour, Burning blade of chotec, charmed shield, dawnstone (160) Core (854) -30 saurus warriors, full command (360) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -35 skinks, 3 kroxigor, musician, standard bearer (354) Special (614) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -20 Temple Guard, full command, Huanchi’s blessed totem (380) -3 Terradon riders (90) Rare (80) -Salamander hunting pack, extra snack (80) Total: 2398 This might be a bit unconventional (slann + OB) but I think I might wanna give it a shot. Here's some of my thoughts about the list. Temple guard block with Slann and Oldblood. The oldblood is mainly there to increase combat resolution, and protect the slann by accepting challenges. The oldblood has a 3+ armour save but is hard to hit in melee (WS 10 and -1 to be hit, meaning enemies will hit on 5+ or 6+), has toughness 5 (7 or 9 under the effect of flesh to stone), 3 wounds and is subject to the earthblood signature spell (5+ or 4+ regen ward save). If the oldblood has to fight in a challenge, it has the dragonbane gem in case it has to fight against a flaming weapon (which negates regeneration). Furthermore, if the Oldblood receives a wound it can be healed by the Slann’s passive every time a spell is cast. The Slann uses focused rumination and loremaster to maximize the potential of the lore of life. Furthermore, he is the BSB and carries the Forbidden rod to compensate for bad luck on winds of magic at critical times. The rod will inflict D3 wounds to the slann, but this can also be healed using the lore attribute. Cupped hands of the old ones is not a ''must have'' because of throne of vines. Furthermore, the slann carries the ironcurse icon to provide the unit with a 6+ ward save against war machines on turn 1. The temple guard block (including slann and oldblood) has one giant weakness: breath weapons and nasty spells such as pit of shades/purple sun of xereus/lore of fire spells. Flaming spells will negate the regeneration bonus. It is therefore critical to kill any war beast that thrives to flame the TG block. It is also important to get the temple guard locked in combat ASAP, to prevent direct damage and magical missiles from being launched at it. The temple guard banner is meant for this purpose. Furthermore, the priest carries a dispel scroll for nasty spells which cannot be prevented. I thought about taking the cube of darkness, but this will also remove throne of vines or shield of thorns if they are present. The Scar-veteran is equipped to be deadly against cavalry/monsters/war machines. The charmed shield will provide it with cannonball protection, dawnstone makes it awesome in melee and the burning blade will slice through warmachines and enemy monsters with regeneration. The rest of the list seems consistent with the temple guard block. The saurus warriors and Skrox unit are large enough to fight themselves, especially when buffed. Skink skirmishers may be used to screen the saurus/TG, transport the skink priest or shoot at enemies. Chameleon skinks and terradons are meant for taking out enemy war machines and being occupying enemy wizards/monsters. The salamander will march ahead of the saurus and go for some BBQ action. Any thoughts/comments/criticism is appreciated!
This looks a bit more like a Light list to me, with Life you don't need to run such big units imo, as you can make them harder to kill and bring them back when they die. Personally I would shrink the saurus unit to 20 or 25, reduce the skrox unit and throw in a lot more skink skirmishers/chaff. Against this army its evident where your points are and as such the TG unit (nearly 1k points) will be bombarded whilst feeding your saurus and skrox chaff. Skinks really are the best unit we have (imo) they are amazing chaff, can redirect, and cause wounds if left unchecked. 2 units is not enough. This is of course totally my opinion and you can do what you like. I run a very similar list but using lore of light. I have run the same list with life and for me it did not work that well. As you have said the good purple sun or pit of shades could potentially end everything for you (but the same could be the same for any bunkered TG unit). Thats my 2 peenies worth anyhows
I think you are definitely right about the skinks. How about this? Lords ( 600) -Slann mage-priest, General, BSB, Focused rumination, Focus of mystery (Life), Forbidden rod, Ironcurse icon (390) -Saurus Oldblood, Fencer’s blades, Glittering scales, Dragonbane gem (210) Heroes (250) -Skink priest, dispel scroll (90) -Saurus Scar-Veteran, Cold one, Light armour, Burning blade of chotec, charmed shield, dawnstone (160) Core (853) -24 saurus warriors, full command (294) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -34 skinks, 3 kroxigor, musician, standard bearer (349) Special (614) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -20 Temple Guard, full command, Huanchi’s blessed totem (380) -3 Terradon riders (90) Rare (80) -Salamander hunting pack, extra snack (80) Total: 2402 Also, I would love to try lore of Light. However, it means I have to take Cupped hands and I won't be able to sustain my old blood (Light slann cannot heal him nor give him 5/4+ regen save). This means that the entire setup is flawed with Light. I know that a Slann + Old Blood combo isn't the most straightforward thing to do, but I think that lore of Light will only make it worse since it decreases the survivability of the OB. I could also swap out the OB for an extra scar-vet and switch to Light. I tried 2x scar-vet cowboys on 1500 points and it worked. In this list I could also try to fit in a CoC unit (good synergy with timewarp I guess? never tried) to also give the scar-vets a LoS on turn one. However I'm just a bit afraid of enemy characters that will try to kill the slann. You are definitely right about the fact that 2 units of skink skirmishers is not enough, I tried 3x 10 at 1500 points and I loved it.
So I decided to make a Light light as well for testing, removing the Old blood and investing more into the Slann. Then I tried to fill my point-gap and ended up on way too much points. In the end, I increased the TG unit, removed salamander and gave the priest a stegadon ride. I also made sure to include enough skinks this time. Lords (465) -Slann mage-priest, General, BSB, The Focused Rumination, Focus of mystery (Light), The Becalming Cogitation, Cupped hands of the old ones, Standard of discipline, Ironcurse icon (465) Heroes (590) -Skink priest, level 2 wizard, Engine of the gods, Cube of darkness (430) -Saurus Scar-Veteran, Cold one, Light armour, Burning blade of chotec, charmed shield, dawnstone (160) Core (615) -29 saurus warriors, full command (349) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skinks, musician (56) Special (730) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -26 Temple Guard, full command, Razor standard (496) -3 Terradon riders (90) Total: 2400 My biggest concerns: -Does this list fit with Light? I've never played with it. -Should I give the Ironcurse Icon to the slann or to the priest? I could also give the priest a dispel scroll and the dawnstone, but that would cap my scar-vet on 160 points without a dawnstone to take. (I really like burning blade, ench. shield, dawnstone combo for rambo scar-vet) -I could also screw the EoTG, take ancient steg, and give the slann Unfathomable Presence? Or should I take Unfathomable presence instead of becalming cogitation in any case? -Is the TG unit too big? I heard some ppl say that 20 is enough for Life, but Light might need some more. I also gave them the Razor standard because I don't have kroxigor in this list and I want my TG to do some nasty damage. What do you guys think? Is this better than the Life setup?
Thats pretty much my list for light Personally I wouldn't bother upgrading the Skink priest to level 2 (the EOTG does that anyways) and you will want the Slann doing most of the casting. I would drop the "remove 6's" discipline too. Personally I find the slann is pretty good at dispellig and you have a dispell scroll anyways. Also double 6's can wipe his caster out which is always quite nice IMO. Personally I don't bother with Ironcure on my Slann. But its up to you. I would drop the terradons for another salamander too, they are worth their weight in gold!! Standard of discipline is optional, LD9 as standard and cold blooded means you should'nt fail much. Dawnstone is situational imo, great against someone like vampires, but it does only work 50% of the time (which can change a game) or it can be a very expensive dispell scroll, personally I run the scroll. Again all of this is my opinion so feel free to rubbish anything I say. My ultimate strategy for Lore of Life is ensure you get speed of light on anything in combat (prefferably all of it with bubble version), throw out a few chaff spells to use up dispell dice, Bironas and the direct damage spells are good for this, so is ice shard blizzard on the skink priest. Once you outnumber his dice (should be easy with +1 dice) get speed of light onto stuff. WS10 and I10 is amazing for lizardmen, especially TG, they can dish out some serious pain when hitting on 3's wounding on 3's with like 20+ attacks. Its great offensively and defensively, they will be hitting you on 5's even 6's if you get ice shard blizzard on them. You will nearly always win combat with this setup, throw the scar vet into the flank for a few more kills and hey presto the have snakes eyes for leadership test. Scar vet then runs them down!! Wiped out unit. That is of course all in the perfect world.
So If I understand you correctly: -Remove lv 2 from the priest -Keep the cube / take a scroll? -I won't need Becalming Cogitation. I am doubtfull on this. I will be testing this against chaos (lv 4 demon prince) or DE (lv 4 sorc.). They will both probably go for either lore of death or shadows. Meaning pit of shades / purple sun are my biggest concerns. Luckily, lore of light is strong against these spells. However, I don't like the sound of an irresistible force against me that much ( I think the miscast table is WAY too forgiving). I believe I need somekind of protection for my TG unit (the unit is almost 1k points)--> I was thinking about unfathomable presence or becalming cogitation + maybe Ironcurse icon. However, as soon as the priest activates the EoTG the ironcurse won't matter anymore. Maybe I should take something else, like Bane head? (might be really good against demon prince if you cast shem's burning gaze or banishment) -Standard of disciple is optional, I know that ld 9 to 10 isn't that much of a difference. But what other banner would you recommend? Huanchi's blessed totem maybe? I think Huanchi + razor might be impressive but also pricy -I took terradons to back up my chamo's on taking out war machines. I could also see the use of a salamander. But will 2x chamo's be enough to take down their war machines? Lore of light combined with iceshard blizzard does give me some protection even if I cannot take out the war machines.... Oh well, I'm babbling a lot. I'll run some adjustments, can you let me know what you think about it?
Yeah, remove level 2 from priest. I personally would only use the scroll. Warbanner is ok on TG (best way to kill a unit imo is route it and charge it down with mounted scar vet or COC). Light is amazing against purple sun but if he IF's there is not much you can do apart from 5+ wardsave from EOTG. Take Ironcurse if you have 5 spare points. Bane head is great but bear in mind it can only be used against characters, most of the time they will hide chars behind units as they know bane head can be horrible. If they do this its useless. 12 x Chamos should be able to take down most warmachines or atleast keep them tied up for while. Again this is only my opinion but I have had a fair few battles now with Light and it synergises so well with LM. You can make a unit of TG a total death star unit that can easily win a game. My advice, try the latest list, tinker and enjoy. You will learn to love light, there is also a great spell that make the unit its cast on automatically pass any leadership test. Its great for tying up nasty units with 10 skinks (as long as they don't all die in 1 round of combat). Good luck and may the dice be with you!
Ok so I tweaked it around a bit. Note: First tryout will be a match against WoC. Lords (485) -Slann mage-priest, General, BSB, The Focused Rumination, Focus of mystery (Light), Unfathomable presence OR Becalming Cogitation , Cupped hands of the old ones, Huanchi’s blessed totem, Bane head (485) Heroes (555) -Skink priest, Engine of the gods, Dispel scroll, Opal amulet (395) -Saurus Scar-Veteran, Cold one, Light armour, Burning blade of chotec, charmed shield, dawnstone (160) Core (637) -31 saurus warriors, full command (371) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skink skirmishers (70) -10 skinks, musician (56) Special (640) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -6 Chameleon skinks (72) -26 Temple Guard, full command, Razor standard (496) Rare (80) -Salamander hunting pack, additional handler (80) 2397 I swapped cube for dispel scroll, removed lv 2 wizard and added opal amulet for a bit more survival on the priest. The rambo scar-vet is unchanged. I'm still not sure about the slann's 3rd disciple, maybe I will try out the becalming cogitation as I will already have a 5+ wardsave from the EoTG. I decided to try out bane-head since ironcurse is also a bit over the top with EoTG (I think he will try to blow up my EoTG anyway..not the TG). He will probably use a demon prince of nurgle (lv4). So bane head might make him think twice about flying next to the slann? I used the remaining points to fill up the saurus block a bit. I'm really excited about trying lore of light!
drop 1 saurus warrior and turn the 4th skink unit into skirmishers. WOC are a tough match up but Lore of light is great against them imo. I usually play WOC (friend down the road has them). Good luck! P.s. If you do decide on 1 more discipline choose discard 6's, your slann should never get into combat so don't worry too much about him + LOS should keep you alive.
Thanks for all the great feedback dude! I would like to take a 4th unit of skink skirmisher, but that would be against the tournament rules (max. 3 duplicates of core) that I am trying to stick to. The same rule prevents me from running double salamander (max. 1 rare duplicate) We will probably play the game within a week. I will let you know how things went!
Ok the game will be wednesday!! I have just one last question before the game: do you have any tips on deployment? So far I've only played a couple of games, biggest at 1500. I'm a bit unsure how to deploy this army and I don't wanna get massacre'd