I have been running this list for almost a year, and it has been very successful for tournament play. Lords: 622/625 Slann BSB w/ Becalming, Rumination, Plaque of Tepoc, Standard of Discipline I have tried shadow, light, fire, and life with this list and all of them have worked fairly well (light and life being the best). I am probably going to try death next. With limited die for each spell cast, I can usually avoid miscasting, or at least have only a minimal effect from it. Saurus Oldblood: Armor of Destiny, Dawnstone, Venom and GW This single character has won me games many times by taking on units of Knights, killing stanks, and dealing with high toughness targets that my skinks couldn't deal with. He more than makes up for the loss of loremaster and cupped hands on the Slann. Heroes: 90/625 Skink priest with Scroll or Diadem (I have been running the diadem more recently and personally like it much better since rumination on the Slann allows me to power any necessary spells through with some to spare) Core: 752/625+ 50 saurus w/ full cmd 3x10 rank and file skinks no cmd Special: 736/1250 36 TG w/ full cmd, Champ w/Iron curse Icon 2x5 chameleon skinks Rare: 300/625 2x2 salamanders I often run the 2 large units, or at least 1 of them 5 wide to minimize the attacks from units with hatred in the first round, or to be steadfast in the first round with the Saurus. The most recent variation of this list I had to drop 1 salamander from each unit due to comp, so I added 2 units of Skirmish Skinks. I might keep this set up for the extra drops and chaff. The 2 large units tend to intimidate people, so they will often try to avoid them with some or most of their units rather than hitting one of them with everything.
Dang, those are some big combat blocks. I'd be afraid. I don't think this list would work too well with Death. Purple sun might ruin your day. How wide do you run the saurus? Do you run the OB by himself or in one of the units?
Agreed on death not being great for the list; maybe I'm just not used to it, but the range is too short for using it with large combat blocks. For the Saurus, I usually start it 5 wide if the army I am against has a lot of first round bonuses so that I can minimize the damage in said first round, then expand out to maximize my own damage in subsequent rounds, or if I am against an army that has a lot of weak units that run deep to hold the army up, I will run it 5 wide so that I can break the units quickly. If the army is something like Warriors, where I have more ranks regardless of how I run the unit, and that doesn't have hatred, I will usually go horde to maximize the damage that I can do in combat. I usually put the old blood in with the saurus, but on occasion it is beneficial to run it out on it's own. The one major problem with running the OB by itself is that they can break it off static res and run it down if I whiff in a round of combat.