Hey there. First time post, long time Lizardmen Fan, but for all purposes Warhammer newbie, and Bum Artist.... Anyways. I was wondering what all of your opinions on creating a powerful Slann Character. I have always loved Slann, so i've been flipping through the rulebook. I do miss the old rules Five Generations of Slann System. However the Disciplines of the Ancients do seem like they add a good deal of new power to them. A lot of the Disciplines seem like they give great defense and flexibility. I'm also interested in what Lore is best to use for offensive ability. Also if anyone has some suggestions for good items to boost his destructive powers would be appreciated. Also I was wondering if Slann can still be the Standard Bearer? I didn't see it in the the new Lizardmen book, not sure if that changed as well from my older book. Oh well that is it. Any input would be interesting. Thanks.
yes hi can be a bsb i use 2-3 diciplines. its one with +1 dice for casting, knows all spells, reroll miscast. and i give him bsb with war banner, and 3-4 power stones. usualy take lore of fire and with help of power stones he can cast all destructive spells of fire, thats realy realy good
The +1 dice per spell discipline should always be your first choice, it is far too good to ever pass up. After that I tend to take the know all spells discipline (to make sure I get the spell/s I want) and the enemy wizard discards 6's discipline (for shutting down the enemy's magic phase). As far as magic items go, I take cupped hands (you will be throwing around a lot of dice and you WILL see miscasts! Better to hand off/ignore the first one imo), a dispell scroll, and bane head. I do make him the BSB but I don't take a magic banner on him-- he hides in my temple guard bunker and their standard bearer takes the banner if I choose to give the unit one. I prefer the lore of metal, great mix of damage and support spells.
against most armies i find the current magic lores not that useful in terms of destructive power. ok, spirit of the forge can be devestating given the right target, and the comet is still pretty nasty against massed light units, but anyways, i tend to favour the more supporting lores. things like lore of life to heal that stegadon back to full wounds, or cripple a threatining shooting unit. or lore of beasts to get a sneaky supporting charge in, or better yet, stopping a nasty monster crashing in to you! still, for pure offense, the already mentioned fire and metal are probably your best bets. death can be ok against low toughness/high save opponents. again, as mentioned, he can be the BSB (though he cannot be an 'ordinary' standard), and is usually a good choice for a magical banner as he's quite hard to get to, either through use of defensive disciplines/magic items, or the nice block of temple guard
Wow guys. Thanks for all the useful information. =P It's already helping. If anyone else has any other ideas I would love to hear them. Perhaps what Units go best with Slann?
Do you mean what units go in the rest of the army or do you mean the unit that a slann goes in? Slann goes in: Temple Gaurd
Well I was thinking about what having other units in your army in general would help. I was thinking having a Skink Priest with the Cloak that gives flying would be neat. So the Slann can cast through him. Not sure how practical it would be though.
Actually the priest with a cloak of feathers is really practical. But you can only cast magic missiles through him. But the cloak is also nice because it keeps the priest out of danger for the most part. Also since Lore of Heavens only needs LOS and range is irrelevant the cloak lets you stay well out of range of most units and still cast spells. I typically run a priest with the cloak and Diadem of power to get extra dispel dice.
To expand upon this, the reason for Slann in TG is that the Slann gets large target line of sight, allowing him to hit units that are trying to hide behind screening troops. Also the Temple Guard become stubborn and immune to psych with the Slann in them, making them nearly unbreakable (especially if the Slann is the BSB).
not sure how other play him but i go for both focuses and lore of shadows + bane head course this will all change tmorrow with 8 edition coming ut bout 10 oclock
The discipline of extra power dice for casting looks like tis going to be extremely powerful in 8th edition.
With the new unique items rule you wont be able to max out on multiple power stones unless specifically stated. Cupped hands and Rumination will be the standard combo I expect.
I agree Eagleblaze, On rumination, I actually think it got a big boost in the new ed. I think people are getting a bit too obsessed with the damage of the new miscast table. Sure rumination prevents IF, and therefore miscasts, but if the caster fails to reach the target casting cost of the spell they're trying to cast, they can't cast for the rest of that magic phase. I think fewer armies are going to go caster-heavy, so they'll most likely be depending on 1 or 2 casters, and you can effectively shut the whole phase down if you can neuter one of them.
Do you mean Becalming Cogitation? Elect one enemy wizard within 24" and they must discard all 6's rolled when rolling to cast? If so then I do think you make a sound point that I have been missing when considering its viability in 8th.
D'OH! yup, rumination =/= cogitation. It's funny, because I really didn't think about cogitation's usefulness until I read your post. For whatever reason, my brain thought it was rumination+cogitation. Cupped hands is still really awesome as well, obviously. It's nice to have both defense against miscast and additional griefing of enemy casters But anyway, I think Becalming Cogitation will be quite the gem of a discipline, and will end several enemy magic phases prematurely.
You raise a very good point about making them fail to cast, and ending the phase. Especially against people who are spamming two-dice spells, like VC. They just have to roll one six and then a 1 or 2 and they get phase over. Sadly double 6 won't explode the vamp, but will make them auto-fail.
It will also serve as a handy defence against those "Hey I'll just give this Lvl 1 the ability to fly, get in close then throw everything at him hoping for 6's and a large template explosion!"