And if you're smart, you'd have your Slann within 24" of their main caster, so all you have to deal with i the baby casters (unless they have 2 Lv 4/3s....) which can be swatted aside by your +4 to dispell. Though, yeah, a baby caster can IF a spell, but it probably wont be as useful as if the Lv4 did.
Saurus hordes... er.... no way. I know they aren't exactly fast cavalry but they become too static in horder formation and get stuck, and a 400+ point unit is not good. Skaven and Goblins are cheap so the horde idea suits them better. For Saurus, don't go higher than a 6 by 4 unit with spears, as 31 attacks at str 4 is pretty good, and the unit can move around a bit more. Opponent needs to kill off 7 saurus to reduce that.
Actually, in theory, if you place them right, they would be magic. As Coatl said, they wouldn't give off any points, but they'd sure as hell make them back. Skaven are actually horribly suited for horde formation, unless it's slaves, otherwise it's marginally important troops dying in droves, as opposed to 2 pt wonders. And Cloanrats dying in droves is bad. They're meant to hold stuff in place while something else hits in the flank, horde is bad, it means you need to spend more time moving around that obese wod of Skaven, and it means less ranks. Gobbos.... Well, I unno never played them, probably never will.
The most important thing to remember about horde formation is this... the ONLY benefit is one extra rank of SUPPORTING attacks. An extra single attack at strength 4 nowhere near compensates for the disadvantages of being in horde formation. If saurus could take great weapons maybe you would want a horde, but still their 25mm base size is a problem with the sheer real estate it takes up. Saurus are a tough anvil unit, the strength 4 attacks are a nice bonus. Typically you want them deep and not wide. Should you find yourself facing off against a unit you want to chop up rather than break in combat, you may want to "go wide" to maximize attacks, but this will probably mean going from 5 wide to 6 or 7. Nothing in our army lends itself well to horde formation, since we have a very light infantry paired with the fairly heavy saurus. Horde works well on middle range, high strength infantry on 20mm bases. Dwarf warriors with great weapons is an example of a good candidate for horde.
Is that true? The unit gains stubborn? If you put a Scar Vet with frenzy pendant the unit he joins does not gain frenzy, so why would this? Just asking because if it is true then that is awesome!
Page 76, main rule book. If a character is stubborn, any unit he joins is stubborn as long as he remains with them. Pretty nifty!
It's in the rulebook that any character with the stubborn rule will give that rule to any unit they are in. Hence why High Elf players dump Korhil into Phoenix Guard all the time rather than with his own White Lions. And as to the debate of if horde saurus are worth it, I would say normally no. Though I have done it to great success, it requires a slightly different play style and makes terrain and positioning far more important. Against dwarves, empire, chaos warrs I think it is a bad move. But, give them frenzy banner and spears and you are looking at 4 deep attacks with potential for 30+ in the front row alone. It works best against other horde-centric armies as the width is not as much a factor, 10 Gobbos/Skaven are 200 wide and 10 saurus 250, so you would get all of your attacks in, all while hiding that skink bsb to the far side. They coming at your flank? Combat reform that little dude to the other side. Both flanks? You should be protected by something on one of them (TG, Skrox, Steg, a juniper tree...I dunno, plan ahead).
This is the single, BEST comment in this whole thread. It sums it up well, imo. If your GG tends to use a lot of terrain, then no, almost defintley do not horde Saurus. If your GG tends not to use that much, or less central terrain, it may be worth a try. For instance, my GG typically puts terrain out of the center (we like killing each other that much) so a Saurus horde is semi-viable.