8th Ed. is Toughness devalued?

I don't think people argue that the slann isn't worth the points in a LM-army, I think they argue he's quite expensive compared to other lvl 4 casters in other armybooks. And that he's not casting more spells to compensate for the premium pricetag.

I would happily pay 200 pts naked, and have the BSB cost 50 instead of 25 pts, have the 4++ as a discipline, the extra wounds another discipline and so on. I don't think I even would pay extra for the wounds, and be happy with just 3 wounds.

Or, if we had another lvl 4 choice, kind of like VC has. Sometimes people would field a slann, sometimes a "generic" lvl4.

 

This is my primary issue.

I don't always want a premium frog. I do want a good caster, but unlike almost all other factions, we go from paying 65 points for a level 1 wizard, to 100 for a level 2... and then 300 points for a level 4.

We seriously need some sort of middleground between those two. Especally since our priest doesn't even have access to our faction specific lore.

Or, to be quite honest, having High Lore accessible to our priests would be fine with me as well. It annoys me quite a bit that only the Slann can offer it, while simultanouosly being the only caster that have access to more than 2 lores.

 

I dont High Magic would benefit nearly as much on a skink.
I hardly find I worth it without loremaster.

Highs power comes from versatility, and our attribute dont make sense with only 2 or 3 spells to cast (fluffwise it only make sense to the slann anyway.)
All of a sudden you would see skink priest spam who all went for spirit leech.

Anyway, ive been wondering.
Remember that the use of our attribute is actually a way into all lores, and is BRB dependable.
What if the selection of spells got more reliable?

I have a feeling that 9th changes how you generate spells, and it could also change the definition of "succesfully cast".
(Maybe channeling will also play a new role)
If you could more reliably sort through your spells, I think the Slann will be what we wish him to.

Also : one might notice that a lot of our new stuff is also BRB dependable:
Boundspells
Poison attacks
Terror
Scaly skin.

If these things get more powerful with a new edition, so do we.

 

Skink Priests. With Spirit Leech. Really? Like, REALLY? Ld6 would almost never do anything worthwhile, and since it is unmodified (ie: no help from inspiring presence), you'd be doing nothing to any character worth throwing spirit leech on.

On the last part, I really hope they revert scaly skin to be unmodified beyond 6+.

EDIT: Lorewise, didn't the Slanns teach the elves how to use High Magic? If so, what would prevent them from teaching the same to their own priests?

One would think they'd prioritize their own people above that of elves.

 

....wauw...yeah okay...those where one of the times where you just speak without using any part of the brain.
...total mindfart.

Well, I dont think High Magic is about knowing, but about being able to.

What lores one can take is not about what one know, but what winds of magic you are physically and mentaly able to tap into. Thats my impression at least.

 

Can't find anything about Slanns teaching the elves about it, unfortunately. I was just pretty sure the elves were taught how to use it by the Slann. Could be they had an inherent affinity for High Magic, but you'd think that a Skink Priest, being from a spawning of Lizardmen, would be somewhat similar to their Slann masters. why give them magic, but not the signature magic of the Lizardmen?

I guess I just find the prospect of having a couple of Skink Priests with Hand of Glory or Walk between Worlds very appealing.

Hell, even disregarding the lore attribute, I find most of the High Magic disciplines really appealing, but one of the local players is a dwarf, so... yeah. Only Apo seems a bit weak, but even that can be pretty potent if used on important characters in combat. And at 5+ casting value, on a priest level 2, 1 dice is more than enough. I remember spamming this on a Old Blood until the enemy was out of dd, before throwing a chain lightning at him, hitting 6 unit blocks for a total of 17 wounds, including 3 grave guards and some of his cavalry.

He was afraid to dispel the low casting value spells for the rest of the game because of it, and he always bring dispel scrolls now.

 

Im pretty sure its still canonized that Slann taught magic to the High Elves (secondborn of the old ones).
So you are right about that.
Skinks are bred for different purposes, I actually think that skink wizards are a result of the chaos winds like other races rather than the old ones. Slann is the magic breed, why would the old ones make anything under their level for the same purpose?

 

Because the old ones foresaw low point games?

-Matt

 

Yeah, just don't go there. If we start asking why the Old Ones did this or that then we'll start running into problems like, why did they genetically engineer warriors that aren't that skilled or can't comprehend anything more sophisticated than a sharp stick, and that's just not a road that we want to go down.

 

So all this talk about the Slann...


I just learned that Morathi is 375 points of 4++ MR(2) killing blow, stat debuffing, 1+1d3 casting dark magic. Thanks Matt Ward!

That's just trolling us - she will have a hard time against artillery, but she is ridiculously undercosted.

Sorry, had to rant...

 

She rolls on both Shadow and Dark...

If an edition update fixes ridden monsters vs cannons she will be broken.

 

I'm not a professional player or anything, and this might be a ridiculous thing to say, but what if saurus all around were t5 s5? Same weapon armaments for temple guard, COR, and scar vets and oldbloods, but that was the only change. Would that make saurus more attractive and balanced? Maybe balanced isn't the right word...

 

Well, that's what you get if you buff them with Wildform. And balanced isn't the right word... They would be absolutely brutal with T and S 5. All S3-4 attacks is virtually useless against them.

You would definetively see more saurus and less skinks, that's for sure!

 

It wouldn't be OP, but it certainly wouldn't be balanced unless it was 15+ points. Then consider the implications: s6 temple guard would need to go up to nearly 20 points, and s6/t6 scar vets and Oldbloods would be considerably overpowered at any points level shy of 200.

Further stat inflation is not the way to solve stat inflation. Lizardmen just need buff wagons that actually buff to make saurus worthwhile.