I am very interested in seeing wether slanns can use the magic carpet. IMO they shouldnt be able to simply because it goes against the entire idea of a slann. That he would hover his palanquin (dont know the spelling on that word) above a magical carpet that flies faster than himor leave the palanquin behind to use the carpet that (which ought to result in some sort of loss of his shield of the old ones) just feels wrong. For the same reasons I wasnt surprised when they decided that we cant use transformation of Kadon. It simply isnt the slann way.
Fluff wise the carpet could just be an upgraded palanquin. Transformation was denied due to the fact that you could have an ethereal dragon with a 4+ ward save-- magic items don't work but abilities still do.
They never said why they FAQ'd the slaan to not be able to cast transformation. They don't use the FAQs as a means to comp over powered things. They either change the wording of actual rules to fit in with how they want them to be (recent dragon armour change), or they answer questions on subjects where people are having trouble understanding intention. They don't don't go around effectively banning overpowered combos with FAQ answers. If they thought an ethereal slaan with a ward was too powerful, they would have errata'd or amended the relevant section to stop it. They wouldn't put it into the question section. Besides. Vampire counts have 2 pages of vampiric powers that are legal to use with transformation. Like, ethereal, scouting, and the dreaded red fury + infinite hatred 4d6 attack mountain chimera. You can dispel a transformed ethereal slaan after one round of doing damage, and then probably win with static res. But if a vampire gets one round with a red fury, infinite hatred mountain chimera, it's gonna hurt a lot more. Then you dispel it, and you still have an ethereal character capable of generating his own combat res.
Lets face it. Everytime I play my lizardmen people are always looking for a reason to debuff our beloved slann. I understand that alot of people are scared of him and his mojo, but to keep excluding him from general rules like transformation is just ludicris. Its ok for the vampires to be mega nasty or beastmen to be sure brutal but if a lizardmen brings the slann he is just cheesy. I for one am getting tired of the rule changes for our lizardmen.
I understand people's disagreement with the Transformation of Kadon ruling. Though, I think it is somewhat over exaggerated. I mean how many of you would take Life over Beasts anyways? Just my two cents.
I for one would much rather take life and light before beasts. It just limits our abilities, and in my humble opinion I believe that we are supose to be the most magically gifted race. Why on earth would you put limits on our spells. Really come on!!!! It is bad enough we don't get our own cool lore.
Seriously guys. Is there realy a person out there with the slightest interest of lore on the lizardmen who find it all that strange that a slann can not throw away his intelect and become a murderous beast. That the lesser races find it interesting to tempt with the possibility of turning themselves into monsters is not a reason that a slann (the primary servants of the old ones and on top of that a character who is too lazy to fight (as I understand it its the skink on the palanquin who does the fighting)) would ever use a spell like that. Wether it was simply to nerf the slann (which I doubt) or because it just felt right, I for one am glad that a slann would not sink to the level of mindless beasts.
Or it couly be to avoid endless debate as to weather or not the monster slann could leave his temple guards .
Or where the monster would be placed in the unit after the transformation. On top of that would the TG still be stubborn if they are protecting a dragon:S.