I am getting more excited about illusion. 1- Mind razor. A decent magic missile. Good a targeting chaff, but if you can LD bomb something you can get more out of it. not sure how possible this is, but you aren't going into this discipline for this spell 2- Shimmering Dragon- I find the idea of making my Carnosaur or Stegadon flying hysterical and potentially amazing. Super awesome way to get onto flanks or rears. 3- Column of Crystal is a great vortex. Impassible and Blocks LoS. Only issue its its short range, but with arcance vassal or the fact the slann is rather mobile himself, this seems rather mitigated. 4- Confounding Convocation. Casting stupidity onto my opponents melee blocks? Yes please! Once again the issue is range, but as for column, we can mitigate that. 5- Spectral Doppleganger- This is the one you swap out for a lore of lustria spell. Absolutely worthless for a slann 6- Miasic Mirage- This. This right here. This is great. You know those enemy dragons everyone keeps being worried about. Well how about making them slower, unable to march and *drumroll* unable to charge. This right here is how you either get your oldblood in the best possible spot to kill a dragon OR how you manage to avoid engaging with the dragon all together. Basically taking them from being a terrifying whirlwind of destruction to a waddling nuisance with bad breath.
1 - a poor magic missile 2- hilarious, will be interesting to see if you can really pull it off 4- a 9inch range that can't be cast into combat? You'll never get it off 6- a 15 inch Spell that can't be cast into combat? You'll rarely get it off Don't forget that Hex is cast before the slanns movement. You are relying on their help to get your Hex's going
Yes, it is cast before. But I am hexing units that want to be rather aggressive. Especially a dragon. The intent is to hit units that are pressing on you. The thing about Miasmic is you just really need to get it off the first time. You should be able to manage that with managed positioning. If your opponent goes first, bottom on 1 you hit the dragon. If you go first, set it up to hit them top of 2. Just need them to not be in charge range their first turn, but they should be able to be within 15 of you or a vassal during your first turn after their first. But once you hit them once, you control that game of ranges and movement. Dragon is slower, can't march and can't charge- so it won't be in combat next turn if you don't want it to be. Vassals with the cloak of feathers and/or flying carpet really begin to unlock the potential of this lore IMO by extending your ranges greatly.
You still NEED to be within 12 for arcane vassal. And you will leave alone a sorcerer with toughness 2 with no armour ? Quite easy to kill him with bows if you dont have skinks near...
And you don't have multiple Skink units. None of this is in isolation. What is good and isn't good needs to always be considered in context of a whole list and play style. Lizard are not a long ranged army. Alot of units will be pressing forward. There will like be at least 4 infantry units for a lone sorcerer to park near (skinks x2, saurus, TG)
Yesterday I thought to a new tactic.... Slann with Wandering Deliberation and following spells: Demonology signature (bolt 18" 2d6 S4 -1 AP) Dark Magic signature - Doombolt (magical vortex 3" at 24" range S3 AP -2) High Magic signature - Drain Magic (+2 casting to casting value for enemy) Moonson Skink priest with arcane familiar and wind blast, plague rust or summoning elemental spirit (and 1 power stone) I haven't tested it yet but simply this tactic move some strong elementalism spells to the skink priest, of course it's going to be a bit harder to cast them but i hop that 1 power stone help when needed. Slann will have 2 long range missile (both good for long range but bad because they suffer magical resistance). Note that the bolt from demonology can be taken only with wandering deliberation. Slann may choose also to be placed a bit outside dispel range so high magic cant be dispelled in conjuration phase but enemy have to come within range to cast offensive spells. Note that both demonology and dark magic bolts have the longest range of all spells (except fireball 24" that gives no AP) and some other spells like Tzeentch's bolt (18") that we don't have access to. Demonology bolt is probably quite similar to Windblast, we get another bolt (a small area) that is quite effective against infantry, especially with toughness 3), we lose of course some good spells as plague of rust or summon elemental spirit but i hope that the skink priest can partially compensate in that. Thoughts?