Hey all, I haven't noticed a thread for this since the new rulebook has come out, just wondering what peoples thoughts were on what lores to take for your Slann? As I believe the old "take all the number 1 magic missiles" is no longer valid, not that I was a huge fan of it to begin with... Let the creative debate commence!
Metal is pretty situational, against heavy cavalry or dwarves, even empire, sure it's good. The problem is many of the spells can be completely worthless, even the one that destroys magic items can be useless. However, nothing changes a game like getting 11 wounds on a spirit of the forge against chaos knights. Beasts is a lore that I think is kinda funny, it makes stegadons and saurus cavalry terrifying with the last spell, and it's on the cheap side. Even a cracked up skink chief can whoop face with bears anger, and usually there is SOMETHING to make cower, or take a stand, but it's pews are not particularly great. Heavens isn't that bad a lore, all things considered. It's hard to cast, but a slann should be throwing tons of dice anyway. This is a great lore to know all 6 spells of, since they are evenly split between offense and defense, (luckamancy anyway) you can just change the roles to conserve dice. The infinite range of the pews is nice also, and let's you be a jerk with the slann placement. I like fire, nearly every spell in the lore is good for something, especially if the something you want involves str 4 flaming hits. Elves of every type need to be given a huge dose of this. Trolls, Treemen, Mummies, Lord Kroak, That one dark elf character with the mask of sea gold, you never know when fire solves your problems extra well, but it should be noted that the conflagration has infinite range, and arguably no targeting restrictions. Unfortunately, it has 2 RIP spells, so don't wall anyone if toad is gonna whoop out his lightsaber (though fire toad can actually win quite a few duels). Light, I personally don't like this lore for a toad, mostly because that hammer fist spell is TOTAL CRAP, and it's healing spell is only occasionally useful. The 6th level spell is similar to the burning alignment, but more and less armor ignoring, and the first level spell is pure gold against it's respective str 6 targets. Death, I've had good luck with this against the French, ignoring a 2+ armor save is quite helpful on it's ultimate, it has a lot of pews, and masters people with bad armor. Shadow. I have no Idea what's up with this spell list, but I generally don't take it. It's final spell is completely cheap and can win the odd game by sinking a vampire count on a 6, though it's primary use seems to involve killing other toads Dwarves are a fair choice also. Shadow can make people go places and it has a really questionable area spell with crown of taidron, which in my opinion is TERRIBLE for a slann. Life..... Unless your Slann is modeled with a fairy gown and a tall princess hat then leave this to the fair maidens of the French armies. It's almost always crappy and I hate it, there are few things I can say about this lore that aren't bad, but here's a few of them, which are as painful for me to type as a 40 foot line of shipping chain would be to pass through my bowels. The 1st spell is helpful for making people go nowhere, and is effective even against aquatic models, for some reason. The rain lord makes empire sad, if for some reason you feel that making half a cannon's shots useless. Wind wall is by far the best spell if your army is composed of lines of knights, and your enemy has guns. This whole lore seems to be based around making gun lines shut up and sit down, and it deserves some respect. If your Bretonians.
I think it depends a lot on what is in your list... I really like death and fire for the killyness, and metal is definitely very useful. Also light has some fantastic variety, it can blast undead and daemons or anything else, or help your army, and healing stegadons is great. Personally, I find myself leaning toward beast though. It has several really cool spells that will suit me, boosting a steg into combat, channeling the spear through the flank of heavy cavalry, sheer offensive spells, rallying fleeing troops... It looks all round useful.
The Death spell that gives a unit -3 Ld check works awesome with the salamander's breath attack that causes a panic check. 2nd round fleeing black ork general's unit running away and then off the board is great fun!
I normally run my Slann in the middle of my line in a nice TG bunker unit, and have found the lore of light more effective than when I've tried it in other armies as the Slann is in the dead center of the melee where he can really go "Nuka-Toad" with cleansing Flare and get hits on 3 - 4 units minimum. All form the comfort of the 2nd rank! I also find one of the constantly underated spells in the list is Dazzling Brightness. Saurus hitting on 3's and being hit on 5's? Yes please! try getting the saurus unit with Portent of Far from a handy skink Priest and get those 1's re rolling and watch them mince elite infantry and even Heavy Cav, just through weight of wounding hits! Not as hard as you'd think to get set up either with the opponent worrying over Cleansing Flare...
Versus msot armies I just use light or death. Versus high armoured armies it is metal. I never take Fire: Too expensive. Life... Maybe vs woodelves but still... no real good uses. Heavens.. I got priests for that. Beasts... maybe.. But I don't see much use in it other then Beast cowering a dragon... Shadow... Not one of my favourites...
As pointed out early, Spirit of the Forge really can turn the tide if you're faceing WoC. And that is the main reason why I usually go for this lore since my maine opponent usually is WoC. I would say Life is the least usefull lore for my kind of style right now, but I would like to try beast again some time. Long time sice.. And shadow with its high movement spells in addition to the Pit is also really nice, espessialy if you chooses some kind of thunder lizzard army (All Fast Forward). If you don't whant to think to much tacktical around your spells, then fire is quite nice. It isn't the most effective in my experience, but it never fares bad either... Finaly Light vs deamons is just so cool! pumping tons of S6, this lore is your choise vs undead as well IMO
Lore of Life isn't really that bad with certain types of armies. If you have 3 or more stegadons or other multi-wound models, then life is quite nice. Lower the casting values of life spells by 1 with an EotG, then your slann (with maybe plaque of tepok and focused rumination) has 5 spells to choose from with the highest casting value 7+ and the lowest 3+. You get to roll all these spells every turn: - Mistress of the Marsh: nice when someone is perhaps trying to outmanouvre your templeguard unit + slann. - Master of Wood: pretty much keeps those damn skirmishers away from the woods. Only bad thing is that the target must be visible to the caster. - Gift of Life: fully heals a cannon-surviving stegadon or carnosaur. The range 12'' isn't that bad, it's quite easy to move the slann closer when needed. My favourite when playing a steggiehorde. Nothing annoys the enemy more than a stegadon which heals over and over again. - The howler wind: nice vs dwarfs and other shooty-shooty armies, makes bows, crossbows and handguns useless. - The Rain lord: very useful against the empire and dwarfs, but can also make low BS warmachines like goblin spear chukkas useless. - Master of Stone: Enemy warmachines and mages or missile-troops who have settled ontop of a hill suffer D6 S6 hits every single turn from the first till the last. It aint the best lore, but has its uses, mostly because all the spells are so damn cheap.
I agree Life is far from useless. In fact given the number of roles it performs I actually think it's one of the most useful.
Life is kinda useless to me. Metal has anti warmachine spells and can take out the heavily armoured troops of dwarves and Empire. The part about healing multiwound stegs isn't really that good. Any smart general would use his dispell dice on it or if he has to a dispell scroll and in the next fase he saves his dispell dice to stop that one spell.. So steggie will die anyway.
That's a pretty big assumption. He might be more concerned about stopping the howler wind or the mistress of the marsh
I guess it's threatening, spell threat is important to lure out dice. I retract my statement about life sucking.
Life is one of my favorites. A slann with the extra die per spell could attempt and possibly cast every spell in the lore.
haha, my thoughts exactly. Run a slann with a carnosaur on one side and a steg with EoTG on the other, and you'll plow through the middle of most any army between master of the wood, master of stone, and gift of life. There will almost always be an unit within 12" of either a hill or woods, and gift of life alternating between the carno and steggy, and your good to go.
It sounds like he is talking about flanking his Slann with the Carnasuar and an EotG. Not having a Slann ride one.
Carnosaur + Slann, pity you need a 3k point army to achieve this.. unless i'm missing something? Idea is cool