Hey gang... another new list for me. Thinking this is what I'm going to run this weekend at my LGS tournament.. feedback appreciated! 1 Slann Mage-Priest (Battle Standard Bearer) . . 1 Channeling Staff . . 1 Standard of Discipline . . 1 The Harmonic Convergence . . 1 The Becalming Cogitation . . 1 The Ruby Ring of Ruin . . 1 The Lore of Light 1 Skink Priest . . 1 Dispel Scroll . . 1 The Lore of Beasts 1 Saurus Scar-Veteran . . 1 Cold One . . 1 Dragonhelm . . 1 Dawnstone . . 1 The Other Trickster's Shard 25 Saurus Warriors, Spears, FC 25 Saurus Warriors, Spears, FC 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers 10 Skink Skirmishers 26 Temple Guard, FC . . 1 Jaguar Standard (Swiftstride) 1 Bastiladon . . 1 Solar Engine 1 Bastiladon, . . 1 Solar Engine 1 Ancient Stegadon
Go Saurus! Having had solo cowboy shot away on T1 a few months ago, where is the cowboy going? I guess you're going to buff the saurus / TG with the slann / priest and laser with the twin bastis? Personally I quite like it, but then I like Saurus Warriors, even though they're supposed to be uncimpetitive. Hope to see the batreps on your channel.
Seems a bit like polishing a turd to include so many bound spells to keep your Slann from miscasting, have you considered pulling him out of the unit? Using a Skirmisher unit for bunkering when cannons are present and floating him solo when not. Otherwise the ethereal upgrade is always available. Hurts the TG ofcourse so never going to be a win win situation.
To say it another way, you are wasting points. You have so many bound spells and casters that you will never have enough dice to power them all. If you want a bunch of bound spells, drop the Slann. If you want to use a Slann, drop the bound spells.
I would agree with DT's suggestion to drop the basillydons and use the slaan for casting. If the slaan is dropped, then another SV will be required as a BSB. Here are a couple other ideas: 1) replace basillydons with 6 x krox - 18 wounds & 18 x S7 + S5 stomp attacks without any buffs. These could cover one flank while steggie covers the other flank of the saurus/TG centre blocks for some serious hitting power to support any of the infantry units. 2) Razor standard vice jaguar for TG - razor is cheaper and the AP makes a big difference when dealing with high armour save models/units (i.e. 1+ cavalry or 1+ re-rollable characters). Swiftstride is of minimal benefit IMHO. If movement is a serious concern, then the cheaper +1 move banner would be a better choice. 3) Consider dropping the ruby ring to upgrade to a 2nd level caster. The extra spell and +1 to cast/dispel from beasts would be better than a d6 x S4 MM. Light already has a good default MM. Heavens is also a good option since the default is easy to cast with 2 dice and most people will let it go through while everyone will stop wyssans. The slaan could also take the ironcurse icon if the ring is dropped - best 5 point item ever!!
Whew, lots of commentary. The general consensus is that I'm taking bound to avoid miscasting. Not it at all. I'm taking all the magic missiles I can so that I can blast them on the way to me -- and then beat face in hand to hand when they get to me. That's why i chose Light, as it has the 2 magic missiles, and the buff spells. Theoretically, I could crank out 5 magic missiles a turn and then get Timewarp or Speed of Light or Pha's off. As far as dice goes, on an average phase, with 8 dice (7 being the average roll and 1 from 4 attempts at a channel), I should easily be able to 1 die each of the bounds and have 5 dice left over. My opponent should use 2 dice to stop each of them (to ensure they don't roll the 1 or 2 to dispel) which gives me a dominant magic phase nearly every turn. Don't own any Krox, sadly. Banner selection makes sense, although I figured at S5 it wasn't needed, but I can see the benefit. Thoughts?
3+ Bound spells are nice that way, I do use them a bit myself in certain circumstances. Allright so thinking about this, on average you should fail one of them pr turn and you opponent is invariably going to ignore the Ruby Ring. That means on average 2-4 dispel dice used against your 3 power dice, I think thats a fairly good trade for the dispelling player. Then you have the option to 1 dice Pha's 2 dice Speed of Light, 3 dice Timewarp/bubble Pha's or 4 dice bubble Speed of Light. Anytime you 3 dice you have a ~7% chance to miscast and a result of 7 or lower wil killl half of your TG, so if you 3 dice once every phase you are looking at a ~5% chance pr turn to kill your own TG, and thats not including all the times you use 2, 4 or more. I guess thats a somewhat acceptable risk, you do mitigate the chance of miscast quite a bit by bringing the bound spells. The question is how much are you benefitting from keeping the Slann inside the TG, and is it worth this risk. Saurus/TG are hard to break even without stubborn with the right magic support.
Well, the last tournament I went to at this LGS, 75% of the armies present had double cannon. So I imagine keeping him in there is a requirement -- but I should definitely stay open to the idea of pulling him out if that's not what I'm up again.