8th Ed. Slann vs. Oldblood

Hey guys!

So for 7th, Slann was the clear choice (in my opinion) for which general I brought to the table, but what to do in 8th?

Magic got better, Carnosaur got better, items became more expansive?

I understand that each has its own role to fill, just curious what you guys use them for really.

Such as an Oldblood with Blade of Realities, or a Slann with Bane Head (yes I know what you do with these, they were examples of specific roles).

I'm mostly interested in what you use against which armies! I have a pretty cool idea for a Shadow/Metal Slann for Dwarves, but what do you use against other armies?

I realize this is a pretty open topic, but hopefully it can get some discussion going and some cool builds/strategies for armies!

 

In 8th edition, the slann is generally the better choice of the two and I usually don't use an oldblood until I play higher pt value games(2500+). The slann is arguably the best caster in the game and in eighth edition casters are usually favored over combat characters. life, light, and shadow are the most common lores seen with the slann and they are all effective against other armies. I personally go between life and shadow as they have both been successful for me. Depending on the lore choice, the magic kit-out will be different ie cupped hands if not using life, banehead/feedback combo if you are using life (among other favored combos).
I shy away from using monsters in this edition because the majority of my gaming group play armies with cannons which tend to kill any stegadons or carnosaurs I bring to the table :/
Hope that helps a bit

 

It does!

I had not thought about Banehead/"feedback" combo for life, nor about avoiding cupped hands for life. Although admittedly I haven't read all the lores yet. Only been playing shadows!

I've heard of "slippery sam" for an oldblood build, and other combos to make him very difficult to hit.. but if he's on carnosaur the carnosaur can still die, and if he's in a unit that just protects him.

I suppose Slann is our game changer.

Well how about some specific builds/tactics for other armies?

Oldblood with Wizard Hat sounds up my alley.

Looking at maybe doing solo Shadow Slann with Divine Plaque and Fencers blades (+ethereal) for fighting dwarves. Classic life build for all-comers.. Maybe a metal Slann with Cupped hands for high armor magic opponents?

 

i guess the boring truth is that mentioned above. slann is king. a well kitted oldblood on carnosaur can tip a fight in your favour any day of the week, but a slann can tip the whole battle in your favour.

that being said, i know some good tounament players (for example Hinge, who you may see lurking about here some times) play without a slann and do well, but overall i believe that most players will do better with a slann.

an all skink magic phase is really REALLY puny compared to a slann with loremaster and extra power die, and since magic is so powerful atm, you are post likely gimping yourself if you skip out on the slann. i am not saying you cant (or even shouldnt) play without a slann, but i am saying it is easier to do well with a slann.

that being said, if you can afford it, an oldblood with 1+ rerollable save, 4+ ward and crown of command costs about 280 points and it can (especially if given the odd healing wound from a life slann) hold pretty much any unit in the game occupied for a whole battle, just like the infamous dark elf counterpart. the oldblood version even has 5 S7 attacks and can thus kill most monsters and seriously hurt most units in a few turns of combat. His only drawback is that he comes out of the lord allowence, and if you want an awesome slann, you will have troubble fitting both in 2500 points.

 

A nice analysis!

Thanks Lord Tsunami.

How about a breakdown of lores vs other armies?

Ie. Metal is usually good against WoC and Dwarves, Life as an all-comers, Light against.. Daemons? etc

My problem is I don't know many armies other than what's in my usual play group. Any tips or item combos would be really helpful

 

I run 3 stegs in my 2000 point list so generally run a life slann to heal them back up when they take the inevitable hit or two. Mine is maxed out for survival, ethereal, loremaster extra dice, becalming, 2+ against ranged, cube of darkness. I want him to live I say!

It has to be said I think becalming is the best slann ability. If I could only take one I think it would be this. It basically takes all the level 6 spells out of the game for an enemy.

 

That's a list/build I ran back in 7th! Admittedly it seems stronger now in 8th.

Stegs aren't the best against a lot of armies though (Warmachines), and I might prefer a different lore than life against said armies?

I also love your avatar! Same colour scheme and older krox models that I run!

 

Fire: Salamanders, also it's a terrible lore on a Lord mage
Beasts: We are slow because we already have above average stats, nope
Metal: Good, but not as good as other Lores
Light: Solves our low Initiative and Weapon Skill problem, and is AOE, gun magic is flexible, Pha's Protection stacked with EOTG shield gives us a fighting chance against warmachine and shooty armies, 'Net' can pin a Deathstar in place if used correctly
Life: Boring, works but if 'Throne' isn't up the only spell you care about is 'Dwellers'
Heavens: Nope, Skinks are already forced to take this, some gun magic and hexes but nothing amazing
Shadow: Best IMO, every spell is useful, 'Pit' is one of the three best nukes in the game
Death: No buffs, one AOE hex, sniper spells, and the ultimate nuke of Fantasy. Kills stuff, doesn't help your army

So, your choices boil down to Light, Life, Shadow and Death.
Light is for a second Slann to hang back as BSB+General and support your battleline with AOE. If you're fighting Elves or other high Initiative opponents, this lore can turn things around for you so much.
Life is your boring all-comers, if 'Throne' is up you're going to be in cruise control, 'Dwellers' kills most units overwhelmingly. Good for attritional battles.
Shadow is much more tactical, and you're more likely to use up every power dice getting almost all the spells off. 'Pit' doesn't engender the groans of 'Dwellers' or 'Purple Sun', and Mindrazor is hands down the best combat buff in the game. If your opponent has same Initiative or only slightly higher, you'll be fine with just Shadow
Death is for crazy people who run solo Ethereal Slann and bomb enemy battelines to death with him (literally, 'Purple Sun' on seven dice and power scroll). If you're fighting Daemons, you probably have no other choice but to run him (and you can drop Ethereal, as they'll blow you up the next turn with magical missiles anyway), as 'Purple Sun' is the only thing that can even things up to a draw or win.

Nope. Power scroll still lets them get off a nuke reliably. And they can always hide out of range of your Slann and cast onto closer things. Becalming is very situational, and its a debuff to the enemy, it doesn't directly help your army in any way.
Loremaster and Rumination are the two best. If I had to pick, Rumination wins, as you can take Plaque on a second Slann to save points for the BSB upgrade, and thus still have 5 spells with +1dice each time. Rumination lets you ignore bad Winds of Magic rolls entirely, as you can cast four spells on four dice potentially (when you factor in the Level 4 of the Slann).

 

Thanks dog on a todd, red lizards are the future.

I still think I personally like becalming the best. I have lost countless games in 8th with my empire and orcs when one spell has killed off about 3 units, plague cough purple sun cough cough. As such having a way to neutralise this is a must for me. power scrolls are not as bad thanks to the faq, yeah the costing is half, but they still throw away 6s which means it can't be irresistible so you can dispell it, or better yet scroll/cube it.

This is just a personal thing I am carrying at the moment and I am sure I will drop it soon, maybe ha ha.

 

Actually, a lot of your lore choice will depend on how you build your army and what you go up against most often.

Avoid Heavens, it's a weak lore and our Skink Priests are already stuck with it.

Fire really doesn't do much for us. It would be great on a lvl 2 backup caster, but we don't have that option.

Beasts would require a very specific type of army build (tons of Skink Chiefs or Scar Vets to AOE buff). Otherwise, there are much better choices.

Metal is very situational. If you are building an all-comers list don't bother with it-- there are quite a few armies that it works poorly against and even the buffs don't really help us out that much. If you know you will be facing Dwarfs, WoC, or Brets, and your gaming group is ok with list tailoring, it could be useful.

Death would be ok on a second Slann (Personally I wouldn't take one until 3k points). It's got some excellent character sniping spells, Doom and Darkness is great for getting units to run, and Soulblight is a decent debuff. Purple Sun is high risk, high reward-- at least against armies with I 3 or less. The Lore attribute can be very handy.

Shadow is pretty good. It's got some amazing debuffs (to help bring down more elite armies to our level), Pit and Mindrazor can be game winners... but the lore requires you to have consistently good winds of magic rolls to get the most out of it.

Life is a great lore in general for us. It gets around our weaknesses by making us harder to kill, and since we have a ton of multi-wound unit options (Stegs, Sallies, Krox, Terries, characters) the lore attribute is really handy. To get the most out of it you really want your Slann in a block of TG-- both for the regen spell and for regrowing. Getting Throne of Vines up is vital, both for boosting the other spells and for miscast protection. Flesh to Stone usually means the unit it targets is getting wounded on 6's. Dwellers is nasty, but can be really hard to get off. Life is a very defensive lore, and perfect for playing points denial.

Now we get to my favorite, Light. This lore has everything we need to turn our already good combat units into blenders. Two solid and cheap to cast magic missiles for picking off annoying skirmishers (and the lore attribute makes TK, VC, and Daemons cry), you can even use the boosted version of Shem's followed by Banishment to really put a hurting on Hydra's, Hellpits, and other regenning nasties. Light of Battle is great for rallying units that are fleeing under 25% or for making sure your units stick around. Net can shut down a unit, but really shines when you toss it on a wizard-- they have to pass a Str test every time they want to cast a spell. Speed of Light + Pha's can both be cast in their boosted version fairly cheap, and together that means all your units in a 12 inch bubble are hitting on 3's and being hit back on 5's or 6's. For added carnage, toss a timewarp in. Light also helps us against our biggest worry-- spells that target I, like Pit and Purple Sun.

For Disciplines in a TG block:
Rumination
Mystery
Becalming

Outside a TG block:
Rumination
Higher State
Mystery
Becalming

If you take a lore other than Life, you should also take Cupped Hands.

 

Some excellent posts coming in! Thanks a lot vapor and Taipan, really helpful!

I have a question about the Throne of Vines: Where do you place it in your spell rotation/what do you do period to help get this spell off? Its definitely something one would ideally always like to have up. So how do you try and accomplish this?

It seems like I was already roughly doing the right thing in my theorizing, but you guys mentioned a lot of things I hadn't even thought of!

Thanks so much!

 

It's often a matter of what else you're planning on casting in the turn and how big your power dice pool is. I usually put it out first, since it boosts the other spells in the lore, but I also tried to toss an extra die or two at it (three or four total dice if I could spare it) to make it harder to dispel--and if you get two sixes you can use it's ability to ignore that miscast.

 

I on the other hand try to throw as few dice as I can at it usually, 1 from the pool and one from rumination. You already have the dice advantage you lose 1 from the pool and possibly cause them to throw 3maybe even 4 to stop it. Makes the rest of the magic phase that much easier, alternatively if they don't stop it you have a thrown which is awesome.

Again though I think this comes down to play style. The only reason I am using light at the moment is for the lore attribute which keeps my stegs topped up on wounds so I am looking to cast as many little spells as I need to heal all my stuff up, if your looking to make a death star TG unit with life I think the boost from throne is more important.

 

Some good tips!

I'll probably try and throw as few dice at it as possible if I have a big pool (and targets!), otherwise lots of dice to try and get it up.

Been a big help!

Thanks everyone

 

Let me just slip in to cheer for the oldblood for a second

YAY OLDBLOOD!!

K, thanks...


But seriously, I don't play into what the best is for the army. I try to stick with what I imagine my army to be (it is a 'Fantasy' game in the end ) and I always just see saurus ripping throats out... Sooooo... The Oldblood be muh BOY!!

But that goes for everything, even if you run a Slann. I could never run a shadow or death slann because that's just not me Just my two cents...

 

Wouldn't Slann study Shadow and Death lores (if for no other reason) than for the knowledge of them? Contemplating their spells and their effects? The winds of magic?

Just my thinking. I also really like shadow though.. Its partly what you enjoy playing combined with what is fantastical/fluffy

EDIT]] Shadow affording flying Slann and teleportation is just the coolest imo
Reminds me of those hoverpack slann conversions posted in the painting and conversion section a while ago

 

I'm sure it makes sense if you spin it someway, but what I'm saying is that I PERSONALLY don't enjoy doing things like that In WOW I always played alliance and could never do DK, Rogue, or Warlock, for example I'm just an 'Always Aim for the Light' kinda guy when it comes to RPG's and stuff