My friend often runs a high elf army with teclis, and i am very nervous about him taking the lore of shadow and unleashing pit of shades on my unit of temple guard and a slann in turn 1, but as teclis has this crazy magic thing where all doubles (but double 1) are irresistible. Is there anything i can do?
keep your slann out of teclis' line of sight would be best i think and send something fast to kill teclis take his focus away from the slann and onto something else
becalming cogitation would help a little... remember you have look out sir, so the slann isnt likely to go. though the poor temple guard will get rather minced. probably the best bet is to try and kill teclis, even if you throw the stegadon/terradon/cavalry/whatever away, its probably worth it. other than that, no, there's not much you can do. i've been on the recieving end of this spell, so yeah... it's pretty painful.
Knee jerk I thought there was no way you get a look out sir roll here, but the rule book says you most definitely do. Irresistible pit of shades is pretty much the Lizardmens worst nightmare.
Also, remember that the template gets placed exactly in the middle of the unit. If you do this, your slann will be a partial, as will the 8 temple guard that surround it. If you fail your partial on the slann, you get the look out sir which basically amounts to "nothing to worry about" Of the 8 partial temple guard that are hit, you will only lose 3 on average. Its basically no worse than a 2d6 strength 4 magic missile, so don't get all worked up over it!
Teclis has a whopping toughness of 2, definitely offence is the best defence in this case. Stegadon? Cavalry? Why waste your time when a Jag saurus will do it, or even a unit of terradons most likely. He is a massive amount of points, so protecting your Slann is only really one benefit. You get a load of victory points and begin to dominate the magic phase. Actually maybe destroying his unit and making him flee is the better thing to do. Do you know what protection your opponent takes for Teclis?
Yeah, Teclis is T2 with no armor or ward saves listed that I can see and only 3 wounds. If you can free up the points for something fun to try once... take Oxyotl as one of your heroes. Even if you don't roll a 5 or 6, you'll still have a good chance to wound on the multi shot. Two rounds and you'll have him dead if you can stay outta LOS of whatever unit he's in. And if he's not protected in a unit for some reason, just fly a terradon unit over him and squash him with some rocks
Would it be worth it to sweep his dispell dice away by casting some spells and then use the blood statuette of spite to knock off some wounds?
Blood statuette is actually pretty darn good. But any HE player that has no protection unit for Teclis; should be banned from gaming alltogether Phoenix Guard are darn tough to kill, let alone to let them flee! A BSB+Battle banner+warbanner+3ranks of PG+banner+kills...oh wait, don't forget the 4 up ward save... I'd also try and assasinate him. Blood statuette and Skrox would be my first choices. Yes the skinks will die; but it's the Kroxigor that will actually do the damage. Terradons, Salamanders, JSOD and skinks are good choices too. And yes I did say skinks here! JSOD is probably less effective because he'll get challenged away. SCOR+Stegadon are, ofcourse, strong. But I'm guessing your opponent will never let these units get even close to Teclis. But if they do; go for it! Screen units! Magic phase is before the shooting phase, so his RBT's cannot his your skink screen. Screen teclis! Move your screen up to block all view from Teclis' unit. Just make sure you're out of charge range...If he moves up; you can try and go for broke and charge! Assasinate him (as above) Avoid him (out of range, and destroy the rest of the army; yes easier said than done...I am aware of that ) Use your own skink priest and challenge him into combat, a true wizards battle! I'd surely use the last tactic... The Hunted