8th Ed. is Toughness devalued?

Magic is the most random phase of the game. To justify investing a ton of points in magic, you need it to be reliable. Otherwise you were better off buying an advantage in a different phase of the game.

Lizards have one of the best magic defenses (two scrolls, becalming, channel slann). They have a mediocre offense (+1 PD occasionally from disciplines).

Many armies have the ability to draw raw power to make up for poor winds. Both undead armies can do it, as can dark elves and beastman.

Because I posted it earlier, lets look at that vampire lord in vacuum. The expected power dice is 10.2 and 70% of the time you have at least 7 dice. What can I do with 10 dice? Death choir (needs 6), invocation (2). Anything beyond that is gravy.

I played that list against my dark elf friend. The plural of anecdote isn't data, but he said that my ethereal spam caster VLord was far more threatening than any thing my lizards did. (Swedish agrees, it comps a 1).

 

And yet a slann and tetto was present in the adepticon list posted earlier and 2 of the 3 lizardmen lists that showed up In the top 10 at SCGT.

These are some of the best players in the world playing equally skilled opponents using hard armies built to win. And they are doing well at the two largest tournaments in the world. Extremely well.

Why do you think that is?

 

Because its slann + tetto?

TBH I never see special characters so I always blot them out of my mind. I don't think they are that common and telling lizard players to "use lizard Teclis" means the army itself has serious problems.

If you want, I can compare Slann +Tetto to Black Art Periapt VLord + Heinrich Kemmler

 

Is that a common build in tournaments? Is it cost effective?

My point is you said to justify spending that many points in magic it needs to be reliable.


Those are three examples of high level players determining that it's somehow still the "best" use of a lizardmen points.

They are then using that unreliable magic heavy list and doing very very well with them

Where does that data fit into the "slann isn't worth it/don't spend too many points on magic" mantra?

I'm not trying to be argumentative it just seems that the actual results differ wildly from the attitude being expressed here.

It seems as if the actual tournament tested results are showing us that yes you should invest in magic as a lizardmen player and no there aren't better more competitive options.

You kinda avoided the question :/

My point has always been that slann are a great jack of all trades mage but the lizardmen magic phase really shines with a slann and tetto. I seem to have gotten a lot of flack for those statements, yet not one person has shown or expressed to me why the data seems to support my statement over the "don't invest in magic" attitude that is so prevalent on this board.

 

I'm of the opinion that a book that requires a special character to be successful at a high level is the very definition of a broken army book (in a bad way). I don't deny your tournament results. They just speak to how poor the lizardman book is to the average player who wants to build "his own" army and not yet another Draigowing that won't survive the next edition.

 

A lot of the problems I run into with my Slann are bad rolling and bad luck.

I played a 3 game tournament where I fell down a hole game 1, turn 1 on a 2-dice throw-away spell. Game 2, I became a level 0 caster by turn 2, and game 3 I never rolled enough winds of magic to overcome my opponents dispel rolls.

I try to use our High Magic lore attribute to trade for useful spells, but since I get shutdown so hard in the magic phase (not enough Winds to force spells through, miscast and then forgetting spells, just plain failing to cast), I don't often successfully cast a spell until turn 3 or 4, and by then it's usually too late. I would get much more utility out of the High Elf (or Wood Elf) lore attribute on High Magic. Our attribute looks good on paper, but in practice it's hard (for me) to execute on.

Like I said though, I've been rolling abnormally poorly for my last 7 or so games. Entire games where I don't get more than 5 winds in a turn and when I do get "average" winds, it's with rolls like 6+1 or 5+2.

I know the dice will get hot again, but it sucks to put 600+ points into magic only to have a quarter of my army do "not much" because of 6 poor dice rolls (and having to compete with a dispel scroll when I finally get a decent winds roll).

The same thing can happen with a combat oriented army failing charges, but charges fail a lot less often than bad winds are rolled.

It's much less painful to have a streak of bad magic phases if you only have 200ish points invested in it.

I would much prefer a "more reliable" Slann than a "flexible" Slann. There are plenty of armies that are "better at getting spells cast" than the Lizardmen which is why I think it is hard to say the Lizardmen have the best mage.

That being said, the Giants have more Super Bowl wins in the last 10 years than the Colts, but Peyton is clearly a better QB than Eli. The Lizardmen could have the "best mage" but still be worse at magic than other armies.


* EDIT: I just remembered, I got out magiced by a Khorne Demons army that didn't even bring a mage... but he summoned 2 units of Pink Horrors and my Tetto became a level 0 in turn 2...

 

One of those 3 lists only had Tetto and no Slann.

Tetto lets you reroll 1's when you cast spells. That ability makes casting spells more reliable. And Tetto comes with Loremaster of a pretty good lore. And he has a ward save. And he's almost half the cost of a naked Slann.

He also makes the Slann better at casting spells, but then you have a 300+ Slann-tax just to get a non-heavens lore and +4 to cast/dispel.

You can accomplish quite a bit with just Tetto and one or two Skink Priests.

If the Lizardmen have the best mage in Warhammer it's Tetto, not the Slann.

 

Again, you're kind of ignoring my question :/ whether or not the lizardmen "require" tetto to be effective is an entirely different issue. And this isn't even necessarily true.

Let's put it this way. You have 600ish points to spend on magic. That gets the lizardmen tetto and a reasonably powerful slann, let's say on death.

What does that get the VC? Are those points more effective in all aspects of the magic phase? Does the innate ward and wounds on a slann and tetto help mitigate the potentially lower chance they have to generate power dice? Is that the most effective way to spend those 600 points in a VC army?

Because it certainly seems to be the case for lizardmen.

 

I think that's in large part due to how under costed tetto is. He certainly isn't the most powerful mage in the sense we've been referring to.

Him being under costed plays a very large part in the lizardmen having one of if not the best magic phase in the game.

Which has always been my point. I agreed that the slann is probably a top 5 mage, and due to my personal preference is the "best" due to his flexibility. I don't think any one in that top 5 is undeniably the best mage because it's something that's Impossible to quantify.

However I've always maintained that the lizardmen have one of the best overall magic phases. Between casting and dispelling, wizard protection, and flexibility, overall IMO they have the best phase in warhammer.

Do I think that's unarguable? Of course not. But I think it's more then a little unfair to point out super specific examples that you will never see and say "see see! He's not THE best! He can't generate dice like x y or z!"

 

Honestly I just think a lot of it has to do with skinks still just being better and death sniping being very popular in the current meta.

It's a choice of saurus or skinks and skinks, for a while now, have just been better.

I think a very small nerf to skinks and a small to moderate buff to saurus would completely flip the scales. I think a moderate buff to saurus would mean you at least see them sometimes.

I think not having loremaster of life or light also hurt the viability of saurus quite a bit.

 

Death Magic doesn't have buffs . If you're looking at competative lists that run a Slann, then you're looking at Death Magic.

Again, in competitive lists, you won't see a Carnosaur. Too juicy for cannons, shooting, and magic missiles.


I don't think you see warriors because they need to be buffed, but you're going to get much more bang for your buck if you spend your limited magic dice doing things other than buffing Saurus.

 

The guy who wants this back on topic.

Saurus benefit the most from four spells.

Miasma, Iceshard, Wyssans, and Speed of Light.

We can get two, with multiple copies, on skinks. Three L2s with sorcery, dispel, cube is 390. Two without sorcery is 255.

If all you want are those buffs and hexed, throw wyssans 3 times and it will get through.

 

Templeguards are still very much usable. Raf had them in his SCGT army and he places 3rd.

He used life I believe.

 

I haven't found that to be particularly easy. Maybe it's my bad play or really bad luck with dice, but it can take me a while before I successfully cast a spell and am able to swap for something. (and usually by the time I am able to get Spirit Leech, the things with leechable spirits are locked in combat...)

I think the two lists that bought a Slann bunkered him in Temple Guard. Temple Guard are waaaay better than regular Saurus with +1 WS and S, especially with a Slann because of Stubborn (but really, stubborn is only useful if you're not winning combats ... and stubborn is often useful to my Temple Guard...)

 

Yes. and yes to the last part too.

Death is so good because it gets you points safely. What costs the most points? Characters. Being able to pew pew from the back, especially on a slann that can cast safely through his skink priests is protecting your points and directly putting theirs at risk.

The slann also has a 4 up ward on top of any magic resist (if you give it to him) and tons of wounds to protect himself from enemy snipes.

The issue at hand isn't that buffing saurus is terrible, or that using your slann to do so is ridiculously stupid, its just not the best, the most optimal.

When it comes to tournament lists generally the podium players attempt to field whats most optimal. Theres only every going to be oneish "best" option. ATM that option is death slann with skinks.

 

And I think that's too bad. It would be fun if it was equally valid to choose saurus as core. But that the top LM players choose slann doesn't really tell us that he's one of the top mages in warhammer, only that he is competitive in our book... Most other armies also bring a lvl 4 caster to the table when playing competitively.


I used to run 2 large blocks of saurus and 2 units of skinks and 2 units of skirmishers, with a loremaster Light +1PD/spell. The low casting cost, and having 3 spells that would actually make the saurus perform worked pretty well. Either WS and I 10, -1 to hit or +1A and always strike first all worked very well.

Without loremaster, and without the extra PD it's more likely then not that you either:
A: Don't get the spells you want. or
B: Not enough PD to actually cast them.

 

Very true, those are two separate points i think. The fact that he is seen in the "top" lists only speaks against this idea that investing a lot of points into magic is a bad idea. A lot of the criticism aimed at the slann in this thread is that he's "not worth the points investment" and i was merely using those lists as an example of the fact that apparently he IS worth the points investment, at least within the lizardmen book.

I agree with you on the loremaster of light thing. Loremaster of light/life made combat blocks workable. Now theres simply too much of a risk that you don't get all the crucial spells you need. You can run a level 4 death and not worry too much about missing out on that crucial spell.

Life and light were both lores where there were several crucial spells, and having that loremaster made sure you always had everything you needed.