Hey there, I suppose introductions are in order. I go by Titan, and I'm pretty new to Fantasy Battle. I have played 40k and Bloodbowl - which I also had a Lizard team, but I haven't played anything in a while. I started up fantasy just recently, and I picked up some Lizards, loving the models and the strengths of the army. One area I really like is their adeptness at magic. However I'm unsure how to maximize my effectiveness. I tried searching and I see a few posts with people posting army lists and short forms for what items and what not they chose on their slann. I'm planning on running a Slann with Temple Guards - already have the guards. Planning on also picking up at least 1 Ancient Stegadon. My real question, is what are some effective builds for a Slann priest? I'm going to see a lot of action against a Tomb King army, a very large one. Now we'll probably play about 1500 to 2000 points - to start at least. He has pretty much every model for the Tomb Kings, about 5000 points available. So if it's helpful assume he can field pretty much anything. lol... Any help or advice would be appreciated Thanks! Titan
Well the best upgrade, and the one you will see most often is the one that lets him roll an extra dice for ever spell attempted.
I guess what my biggest question is, is what Focus (I know that's not the right word... It starts with a D and he can choose one for free) should he take, how many are common to take.. And which spells are most common.. I do see a lot of people taking the extra Power Dice.. Which is definitely something I would do!
the only mandatory discipline for the slann is the focus of rumination that adds 1 free power dice to every spell. that one should allways be present whatever your slann is equipped with and whatever his role is (unless he is there purely for magic defence) focus of mystery: all spells in the lore is very nice sinec every lore will have now and again some useless spells and you might roll them wich reduces teh effectivness of the slann (rain lord in lore of life would be an exampe against TK) becalming cogitation: nice against vampires and other magic heavy armies but compeltely useless against TK since they don't use power dice higher sate of conciousness: very good for a lone slann since only magic attacks can hurt him regeneration: same as above, if not surrounded by lizards he needs to stay alive from the odd charge/shooting/spell terror: useless in your case and in most cases since there are more usefull things. it might be worth mentioning since it makes the TG unit immune to fear so they don't autobreak if they lose combat to outnumbering fear causing enemies but... meh magic resist 3: situational, i'll probably never use it as long as i don't face magic heavy armies (11+ PD) soul of stone: not really usefull, some like it, i will never use it. if the slann miscasts he should have the cupped hands anyway. other than that a reroll might be worse than the original roll barring the result 2 (nothing is worse than that) i think thats all there is to disciplines, as for items there are a few usefull ones: cupped hands of the old ones: avoids a miscast result and transfers it to the enemy on a roll fo 2+. you could kill his hierophant if you deliberately cast with 5-6 dices to get a misscast and then get a 1-1 result or something similar, teh best part about this item is that you declare using it after rolling on the table, so a roll of 7 for example does not need to be transfered bane head: usefull for character sniping with lore of metal. not so usefull against TK, but i guess you can snipe his prince/king with it, casuing 4 wounds every time, enough to kill him isntanly divine plaque of the old ones (i think its called): 2+ ward save vs shooting is again good for a lone slann tough he might not need it if he is ethereal. plaque of tepok: this item replaces the focus of mystery. with it the slann has 5/6 spells for less points, but if you take this you can't take the cupped hands there are other items a slann can take, and i'm sure people on this forum will mention some of them. the best way to create "the perfect slann" is playtesting however. you might find some items better than others, same goes for disciplines. THE POWER IS YOURS! P.S.: he can also be the BSB, i suggest making him one unless you want one somehwere else in teh army. i don't think he needs any banner since the only usefull banner for TG's is probably the warbanner and they can get that themselves.
Your talking about disciplines. The two most common ones are The Focused Rumination, which gives you a free power dice to every spell casting attempt, and Focus of Mystery, which makes the slann know an entire lore as opposed to rolling for the standard four spells. Most people give the slann two or three disciplines, the two I mentioned and pretty much one of choice of you take three. If you are going to be in a magic heavy environment then the third discipline is usually the Becalming Cogitation, which makes enemy casters discard any power dice that rolls a six when they cast (within 24" of the slann). A lot of people (the vast majority it seems) make their slann the BSB (battle Standard Bearer) as well. Essentially just read over what Bibamus wrote. He beat me to it.
That was amazing. Is there rep? Cuz that was worth it. I'll spend some time with my lizard book tonight when I get home and design something. Rumination looks epic. If the TK's don't use power dice to cast, what are they using? I know he plans on using a lot of magic and archers. He has repeatedly.. ad nauseum told me about how he can field like 50 archers (might be a sliiiiight exageration) lol.
I generally tool my Slann up with the following Disciplines: Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination, The Becalming Cogitation. As for Magic Items I like to give them: Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, Divine Plaque of Protetcion and then if needed a Dispel Scroll. If I make him my BSB I like the Sun Standard of Chotec, but really, nearly all of the Magic Banners we have are good. This way you are looking at a Slann with a 2+ Ward Save versus ranged attacks, ranged attacks made on his unit suffer a -1 or -2, he knows all spells in one lore, free power die on every spell cast, one enemy wizard discards all sixes rolled on spell casts, and on a 2+ I can give one miscast to an enemy wizard. Slap that toad in the middle of 20 Temple Guard with Full Command and you are ready to rock! Add Chakax and you have a potent deathstar. Ah, I see Bibamus beat me to it! Oh well, I do disagree with him about banners. Making the unit cause fear is nice protection, making enemy wizards take stupidity tests is fun and useful, and the extra d6" movement on a charge or pursuit can be a nice surprise for your opponent as well. So they may not be great, but I think they are all good at times and useful in certain situations.
They roll a certain number of dice (1-3 depending on who they are) which are not "power dice" to determine the power level of their spells.
they cast their spells as bound spells. basically all their spells are like our rod of storms, charm of the jaguar warrior or blood statuete of spite. but unlike our items wich have a static value theirs is random. a tomb king/price has power lvl D6 (1-6), liche priests have power lvl 2D6 (2-12) and high liche priests have power lvl 3D6 (3-18). after he throws his dice the dispell works as normal, but he can never miscast and he can never get iresistable force. and fielding 50 archers.... yeah, its possible. they cost 1 point more than our skink skirmishers, but they aren't that great, they allways hit on 5+ (BS2 and army special rule says you can't modifiy this) and are S3, wounding our saurus on 5+ and skinks on 3+. is not that bad for us, but he can make them shoot a gain via magic, basically, if played right, all his archer units will shoot twice per turn. in the case of 50 archers thats 100 shots, 33 hits and then either 22 wounds on skinks or 11 on saurus (if my math is right). skinks will die and saurus save half of those. STATISTICALLY. i'vee seen TK miss all their shots sevral urns in a row or kill 15 saurus with 20 archers. basically, don't even think about the sun standard of chotek or cast rain lord from teh lore of life
Gotcha... what was that last part though.. about dealing with the Heirophant/Lich/King/Prince? I hear the best way of dealing with TK is to cut off the head then his army crumbles on it's own which means he's fighting me and time. So is there something Slann can do to drop him quick?
I imagine that TK would not like their general Bane Headed by out Slann whos hiting them with various types of fireballs.... Edit: Oops make that Hydrophant then... Ps. maybe this would be a good use for out SC Chamelion...?
their general is worthless, except the 100 pts and Ld spreading, the hierophant is what keeps his army alive and he can't be sniped (well he can but he has no armor so you wound on 6's). the ebst way to kill him is probably passing a 1-1 result with the cupped hands, but that requires some luck and its not really reliable. probably best is to charge him with teradons. he has T3 and no save and you can fit 2 terries in BtB usually. alltough when i did this i mamanged to deal 0 wounds and got 1 in return... awkard. if he is in a unit (archers probably, rarely grave guard) you want to kill him before their static/return attacks make you flee. also a skink chief with some for of magic weapon can down him if he gets in BtB with it (terradon is best) but be carefull not to be challenged. thats not so bad actually, if you manage to win the 1st round of combat (or get a draw if he has no musician) then in the 2nd he won't be able to challenge you again
You could give the slann the Bane Head, which doubles all unsaved wounds on a specific character nominated at the begining of the game (I would chose the Hierophant as, I think, if he is killed then the crumbling happens). You could also take a lore that does flaming attacks, ie Lore of Fire, or Lore of Metal. The flammable rule that is almost army wide with the tomb kings makes every unsaved wound double. combine this with the Bane Head and you only need to do a single wound on the nominated character to kill any character in the TK army. *edit* Lich priests are not flammable so you can't on hit KO a High lich Priest. *edit #2* once again Bibamus beat me to it.
I like using fire to snipe TK. But wait, you say, surely it has no snipe spell? Wall of fire hits every model in the front row of units, including characters and is very good against a heirophant. That and bane head are gold, plus fire is a good lore against TK anyway with mass S4 dmg. Bane head is a no-brainer, one of the best items for a slann and so very cheap. If you have TG don't make him ethereal or have regen. Cupped hands is worth it if your slann is in a TG unit, not worth it if he is running solo IMO. I think that Bibamus forgot the armour saves of saurus and it is worth noting that having an engine will drop those loses by a statistical third due to a 5+ ward save within 12". A scar veteran with the charm of the jaguar warrior, light armour, shield and a great weapon is superb for flying in and popping chariots with S7. If in TG I would run a slann like: Slann, BSB Mystery, Rumination Bane head, cupped hands, DS (and possibly Warbanner) 16 TG along with that should be more than enough
Except in the TK turn when he inevitably casts the incantation of summoning, unit champions are ressurected first so you will be stuck in the challenge again... And with their static combat res you will probably still lose to the unit anyway. I think the normal terradons that can't be challenged are a safer bet. Wow that is a hell of an exageration. In fact, the only flammable things in the TK army are Kings and Princes. This means a flammable general, but as mentioned the heirophant is the real key. Do not discount the leadership boost from the general when crumbling starts though; all of a sudden having Ld 9 instead of 3 for skeleton units means a LOT less crumbling. In fact, I had one game against DE where a stupid mistake on my part so my heirophant killed on turn 2, when I almost conceeded and started the game again. My opponent convinced me to continue and a pulled off a draw, almost a narrow victory, despite my entire army crumbling the whole game.
the summoning incantantion can be dispelled. and that means 1 less urgency to worry about, not to mention not another smiting when it really matters i still stay by my terradons/skink flyer/jag flyer method of killing, and then blast the price/king with lore of metal (they usually have good saves, specially if they are in a chariot). all that being said. i wouldn't base my tactics on killing the hierophant. having 1-2 units doing that is fine, the whole plan being doing that is wrong. if the heriphant has flying he will probably evade all your attempts to charge him and you will be chasing him while he destryos your army. TK can be beaten with their hierophant intact
If your TK buddy is running a High Priest he will probably have flying and a 4+ ward. (ward much less likely with a regular priest) Even still an aggressive Bane-Headed-Death Slann with Steal Soul can put some hurt on him. As well as the rest of the army with death's good damage spells.
Steal Soul has 12" range, no smart Tomb King player will place his Hierophant within 12" of your slann when you already declared that he is the target of Banehead. A lot of people play a flying hierophan (tho a flying king seems to be growing in popularity), or at least have him on a steed, so he won't be close to you slann. Banehead + Wall of Fire is a more likley way to kill him with if you have TGs (you see like a large targets means he can't hide so he needs to into a bunker, jam WoF in his face and see him light up!). The other spells from lore of death is pretty avarage aswell against TK. While a TG army can suffer more from certain miscast (2 & 3)and are more dependant on the slann I usually go for the Cupped hands if I know im gonna chuck a lot of dice every magic phase. If I play with Rumination I usually go for cupped hands as I will most likley cast with either a 2-3-4 combo or a 3-5 combo, both cases means fairly high chance of miscasting (3%+7%+13% or 7%+20%), while a non-rumination Slann usually goes 2-4 or 3-3 (3%+13% or 7%+7%) which means you go from 23-27% to 13-14% thus not requiring the Cupped hands as much.
Have no idea on how to play TK, only played against them once, and beat them badly because my skaven gutter/night runner team took out the Hierophant in turn two. But anyway, recently I've played with a bigger Lizard army, and therefore took two Slanns. I'm not a fan of expensive slanns, and to me these are cheap and still very effective! Here is my build: Slann, BSB, The Focused Rumination, Dispel Scroll, Plaque of Tepok, Totem of Prophecy Slann, The Focused Rumination, Focus of Mystery, Cube of Darkness, 2 Dispel Scrolls This gave me plenty of offensive magic, while Cube just gets better and better the bigger the game! Also being immune to fear against undead and still having 3 Scrolls is pretty good IMO. They might not be "designed" to kill a Hieorphant, but I didn't play against TK. You could just switch a scroll for banehead anyway. They both just go into a 16 TG unit, having two stubborn blocks, AS 2+ i CC, one causing fear, ad in an Eotg and you're golden! Btw, you mentioned in the first post that your friend had enough TK to play 5k games, so just wanted to inspire you! Good luck!
When a Slann joins a unit of TG then the unit becomes Immune to Psychology, so there is absolutely no need to give one of the Slann the Totem of Prophecy as you won't be auto-breaking and neither will your enemy. This means that you don't need to put the Engine in the TG either, which in itself is a bad idea imo as your greatly reducing his manoeuvrability.