I've been interested in using a tar pit slann. The standard one has Crown of Command, the Higher State discipline, and is a BSB with the Standard of Discipline. This is kinda risky depending on what army your facing, but it does have it's strengths as well. This is just a skeleton list: (if this is already well known, then never mind ) Slann (Life) Focused Rumination, Focus of Mystery BSB, Standard of Discipline 16x Temple Guard Muscian, Standard, Gleaming Pendant (maybe) They would be deployed 2 wide to minimize attacks against them. Thanks to stubborn, LD10, BSB, cold blooded, and the Gleaming Pendant they (hopefully) wont break. The slann can cast Throne of Vines and then Regrowth each turn to bring the TG back. One of the problems with this is that the unit has a huge flank. This also seems also seems like it could be considered a cheesy tactic.. Any thoughts?
You shouldn't need the gleaming pendant. The slann with the standard of discipline will have a leadership 10 re-rollable stubborn (due to the temple guard). It is very unlikley that the roll will fail the first time. If it does, then the re-roll should save you. I do not know the actual odds, but I think you would be alright without the Pendant. The TG unit itself is not cheesy. It does what it was designed to do....protect the slann. The only reason to take TG in any game is to protect the slann.
The problem with going two wide is not that the flank is huge, its that the Slann is exposed at the flank. Anyone charging in can attack him directly, and there are plenty of small fast hunters that could go to town on him directly. You will also find it difficult to deploy if you have a standard 12" deployment zone, not enough room on the board.
You will want a minimum of 4 wide. I would run more than 16 TG because if you get hit on multiple fronts, you are going to want extra bodies to soak up wounds until you can regrowth them. I would field closer to a 6x4 or something like that to give me the best protection.
it is fairly standard to have a slann in a unit of 20 TG. that unit (when buffed with the slanns magic) is pretty much a death star, though it is smaller than most conventional death stars. your setup is pretty much identical, but with only 16 TG. you save ~65 points there, and in return you give up pretty much all offensive capability. It is a very VERY expensive tarpit, and i cant really see how you would get the investment back. usually the point of a tarpit would be to use a cheaper unit to bog down a more expensive one, so that the rest of your army is bigger than the rest of his, allowing you to kill that and win that way. In this case, your unit will basically only be cheaper than a regular death star, and i am not sure that 16 TG can survive against one of those for all that long. You could use the slann to buff them with toughness and regeneration and they will hold against anything, but if you do that, you might as well pay the extra 65 points and get the "usual" unit and actually kill your enemy rather than just keeping him busy. i cant really see where this setup has an edge. when i say the title of the subject i thought you were gonna talk about a solo slann with etheral and stubborn. that can work as a tarpit because it is fairly cheap (around 350 points). the reason i dont do this is because i would want a "real" slann as well, and in 2400 pts (our standard army size) i cant fit both.
Thanks for all the feedback! I'm glad I asked before trying it out. @ Lord Tsunami: That's a very good explanation of that tar pit strategy. I feel like I understand it much better now. It's funny you brought it up the ethereal stubborn slann since I use it in my LM army. Slann (Shadow) Higher State, Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, Becalming Cogitation BSB, Standard of Discipline, Crown of Command, Cupped Hands, Obsidian Trinket Skink Chief Cloak of Feathers The skink flies ahead and has the slann switch spots with him. The skink can fly a head, have the slann switch spots. Then the slann uses shadow steed to fly right in front of an enemy unit. He can charge them next turn if they don't charge him. The skink can also be used to switch places with the slann if he gets in trouble. If the have an enemy character with a magic weapon I switch to this: Scar Vet Hornet Sword, Potion of Speed, Enchanted Shield, LA It's all theoryhammer at this point. Any comments?