Had my first game with the new rules on Sunday. Thought I'd share my experiences. Firstly, here's my 3k list. I decided to go with big blocks of Saurus - (Steadfast and Cold blooded = win) The List Slann with Cupped hands, All Spells, Extra Casting Dice, BSB with Re-roll to hit banner and lore of Shadow Old Blood on foot with Great weapon, and magic heavy armour (4+ Ward Save) EoTG Mounted ScarVet with burning blade 30 Saurus Warriors with HW+ Shield 30 Saurus Warriors with Spears 10 Skink Skirmishers 4 Kroxigor 20 Temple Guard 2 Salamanders My opponent was using an Archaon-lead WoC army. Forests The Skinks deployed in a forest, which rolled up as a fungal forest. All units suffer from stupidity. They spent a few turns in there, being away from the general's Inspiring Presence Steadfast I like Steadfast. A lot. The first close combat to happen was between Archaon with his retinue of 10 Chaos knights of Tzeentch with Lances and my 30 Sarus warriors with Spears and my Old-Blood on foot. The Chaos unit was hexed with -1 toughness by the time it hit in close combat. Thanks to Steadfast, my 400 points of saurus warriors held up the 1300pt Chaos unit for 4 rounds of close combat (2 complete turns). My Old-Blood took 2 wounds off of Archaon before falling. Horde My Temple Guard unit was charged by a horde of Great Weapon wielding Chaos warriros (4x10). Old habits die hard; Note to Self Great Weapons now ALways Strike Last. Because of forgetting this my Temple Guard were massacred. Reduced to 3 models in 1 round of combat (even with -1 strength Hex on the Chaos Warriors). By the time we realised the mistake it was too late and we played on. Hover The result of the above left my Slann in a precarious position, 1 move away from being charged by Archaon and his 4 remaining knights. I was debating charging them to at least remove the lance strength bonus, then remembered that Slanns now have the Hover rule. All the special rules for flyers, but cannot march. This means you can give the nasty knights the run around. I hovered over their heads to saftey, and then got a lucky result on Pit of shades, and Archaon finally fell. Solo Slann's are pretty handy with a 10" flying move. Stomp Attacks The EoTG is still useful in 8th Edition. A few good roles for the stomp attacks saw the flank of the Chaos Warrior horde taking 12 casualties over 3 rounds. EoTG I was a little worried about Stegadons in 8th Ed. But I wasn't dissapointed. It's still all about being in the right place tho. Turn 5 saw the EoTG move ito a great position to detonate it's magic bomb taking out a Chaos Sorcer, 4 Hounds and 1 Knight. It's impact hits the same turn taking out the BSB. Monstrous Infantry I didn't have much luck with my Krox unit, loosing them very early on to a unit of Marauder Hosemen. The low I was a bit of a hinderence here, with them taking 7 wounds before they could attack back. The remaining Krox's were cut down as they fled. I've not given up on them tho, I'll try again next time. Salamanders The game didn't provide much of an opportunity to see the Slamander shine. 1 died to magic before it could fire, the other had 2 misfires in a row and ate his handlers and was rpetty much out of it from thre on. These guys potentially are even better now, I just had an unlucky few rolls. Magic Wow. The new spells are great. Love the hexes. My opponent really felt not haing a lvl4 mage and was totally outclassed in the magic phase. Slanns are really good. With the shared pool, +4 to cast/dispel, the extra dice per cast and the new lores I won't be taking a list without a Slann again. Was a good game. A few mistakes (like loosing 20 TG - D'oh!). But overall I really like the new rules. There's so much more death in the game now with the combat changes.
Good post. A note on Salamanders. I played 3 games, 2 lizardmen and one ogre kingdoms (1000pt) over the weekend. My ogres lost (due to a scenario-general and standard bearer died=Loss). Lizardmen did not fare well either. Both games were on the same scenario as the Ogre game. Easily, the my MVP for both the Lizardmen battles was the Salamander! In the first battle, the Sallies roasted more models than any other unit that I fielded. The second battle, the Sallies destroyed almost half of a goblin army. Had the battle continued one more turn, I would have been able to try and roast a Hydra. Had a lot of fun!
Unfortunately the Slann does not have a Hover rule. That was a rumor in response to the Slann losing Large Target in the TG. The FAQ came out at a Hover rule was not added, instead it is just assumed the Slann is floating above the TG, and like in 7th he cannot float up when running solo.
Ah, you're right. Thanks for that. Rumour forums are great and all, but if you read them too much you forget what you read in a rumour and what you read in the FAQ.