Next weekend my friends and I will be having a mini tourny. 1500pts, no restriction other than no SC, so no tetto'eko. I'll be facing all kinds of armies, ranging from WOC, Skaven to Britonnia, WE and other. 300pts for a naked frog is a lot in such a small game. Here's the thing though the way I see it. At smaller games each unit becomes important. There will also be fewer big units. Big spells might not suddenly have the same scare factor, but how about a bunch of magic missiles? I'm thinking wandering deliberation. 3 magi missiles and one direct damage. For big skaven units I have added a couple of salamanders. A slann with WD and scroll can fit within the point limit, but is it overkill? I think not, but what's your stance on this?
I've done the same to great effect. I also took a Lv1 Heavens Skink Priest w/ Cloak of Feathers in my list to increase my Slann's threat range & survivability. I rarely lose my Priest, so I've been considering an upgrade to Lv2. Fly up to a monster, character, wizard, whatever, and remain out of sight -- Iceshard Blizzard for the -1 Ld, and then boom Spirit Leech. Most of my opponents let the Blizzard slide, but get nervous when I announce Spirit Leech. Typically forces them to use a dispel scroll and all it takes is 4 PD when done early in the phase, and 3 if done at the end (though the Leech may fail on one PD). Then you can even get more PD back! The Slann will get a lot of attention, too. Having that Priest around is handy for Shadow's attribute if you need to make a quick escape. I tend to run mine solo most of the time because it makes great bait, so this strategy worked well for me. It also worked well for forcing enemy units to flee in a direction of my choosing. Just my 2ยข. Good luck!
I got two games off against my WE friend. 1500pts of course. First game was with a Lore of Life w/ channel staff combo. Had 6 kroxies, a large skink unit w/ 2 kroxies and 2 salamanders. Just off the top of my head. Oh and 6 rippers in one unit. The idea was to keep the monsters alive with Life. The good thing: The extra dice really made me feel the slann was better than the WE lvl 4 mage. I always got the 1-2 extra dice so it was quite nice. The bad thing: I lost 4 kroxies in the first turn of the game due to moonstone + purple sun. After that it went downhill and my kroxies (being the heavy hitter in my army) was turned useless. So I lost first game, but it was my first game against the new woodies so that's fair. They have some new tricks one have to get used to. Next game I had a Wandering Deliberation Slann w/ scroll. No channel combo. This was my tourny army, including a large unit of skink cohort, 3 skink skirmishers, 2 scar vets, a unit of 7 COR and 2 salamanders. 1500pts doesn't allow for much. The good thing: I got off a lot of spells, even without the extra dice or book of ashur. I killed off his treeman due to all the magic missiles being flaming. Searing doom is a b1tch like that (AS3+, double wounds due to flaming). I Also got miasma off one time, rendering his moonstoning glade guard bunker useless (BS1 lol). Overall I enjoyed the various missiles combined with a shooting heavy army (skinks + salamanders). Especially against WEs this can be nasty. The bad thing: No extra dice, no book of ashur, no tetto'eko for that matter made me sort of.. Well I _did_ get my spells off, but at 355pts it's a lot to pay for that and the two last turns I rolled really low with the winds of magic. Super sucky. So I learned something important with those games. At 1500pts we're forced to do the one and not the other. At 2000pts+ we can have it all, no worries. For my next game I'll try the same list as I had with my last game, I'll just be trying out heaven with the channel combo. The reason is that I already have 2 salamanders for roasting big units and with heavens I have access to some proper hard hitting spells. Both Urannons and Chaing lightning hits at S6 and the comet can be good as messing with my opponents movement phase. Besides heavens can be alright with the lore attribute. I know I'll be facing a great eagle during the tourny, there's also a change of seeing peg knights and chimeras. Not sure what exactly Dark Elfs have that can fly. It's just a bonus alright, but anything extra is worth it. Now, if only I was allowed to take Tetto'Eko. **EDIT** I'll be trying out my heaven setup in a couple of days. That along with the tourny (3 games I think) will give me 6 games with 1500pts slann experience. Anyway besides that I've come to realize how annoying the new woodies are. I'd still much rather fight them than a flying WoC army, but at 1500pts it's hard to pick the fights. On the other hand my army is fairly shooty and if I can get off more dice and thus *hopefully* more spells I hope I can control the movement phase. Controlling the movement phase is _always_ important, but controlling it against the new woodies? That can very easily spell their doom.
Spirit leech is done on unmodified LD. Thus Iceshard doesn't drop their LD for this purpose. Important to note: unmodified LD is the highest LD in the unit, thus the enemy can't use their generals' IP if he isn't in the unit.