Dont think this has its own thread yet. So I calc'd out a pretty optimal slann and caddy build and that comes in at 540 pts with very little room to trim down. For you people running slannless list, have they been working and what are you bringing for magic instead? I'd imagine Lvl 2 Heaven (scroll) Lvl 2 Beast (cube) Would work pretty well and thats 260 points. buying you an extra kitted out ancient steg and change. Thoughts?
I have not for various reason played without a Slann, the guy with the most success In our area have been playing a Coldone "Deathstar" with two lvl 2 beast and just thrown maximum Dice on Savage beasts. It´s obviously worked for him so...
For a slannless list I would field one or two Blastiladons and one lvl 2 beast skink with a dispell scroll.
Pretty much what I've been taking, except I've been sinking the spare points into a carnosaur rather than another ancient steg. I'm not really sure about the balance of magic lores yet, I've had some good results with Wyssans, but IMHO double beasts isn't really an option because it can potentially leave you very few early-game spells. Double heavens is very good against shooting heavy opponents and generally has greater utility than beasts.
Tetto + a pair of Bastiladons. Or, 2 level 2's of beast magic. Or 2 level 1's with cube/dispel scroll. Or 1 level 1 with scroll. What you take as magic isn't as critical as the rest of the heroes and lords. Outside of getting hit by purple sun, I haven't really run into an opponents magic phase that's earning it's points back. Yeah, magic phases can be impressive; but when you have an opponent dropping ~400 to 600 points on wizard, gear and bunkers, it's not a good return on the points. -Matt
as I see it the main reason to bring magic this edition is for magic defense. Wizards are mostly there to cancel each-other out: if you don't bring one, your opponent who "surely has one" will walk all over you in the magic phase since you will only have natural defense (unless you're 2feet tall and has a beard.....must be the beard). Very few players truly RELY on their magic, as it is a gamble from the moment you roll for spells to the moment you 450 pts slann dives into the warp while giving you the finger turn one on a 3-dice throw. The only thing reliable is that you need that +4 to keep that "oops! looks like I won the game" spell from happening. The main reason I dont go slannless is because it hurts my defenses.
On Magic: In our area, what we are seeing is certain armies still rely heavily on magic. Bretts (which seem to do well and are still popular) use life and try to boost T with flesh to stone and will, when outmatched try to get the knockout dwellers spell off, VC armies go death or spam invocation, TK goes light magic heavy, Dark Elves used to and still seek to throw mindrazor on a witch elf horde, nurgle WoC daemon princes throw purple sun at low I armies, high elves now use high magic spells to boost the ward save in a white lion horde, and skaven have a few really potent spells (dreaded 13th and plague plus wither is not fun). Also, we occasionally see some kind of coven of light set up (empire). So, you really need good magic defense to stop most of the spells against some armies (hgih elves particularrly) or at least anticipate stopping the big spells unless they IF (risking blowing up their mage). Purple sun iand pit of shades are such bad spells for LM armies, you have to be able to stop them, and we are seeing daemons armies with GUO's with death and WoC armies with Nurgle wizards and Daemon Princes with death lores too often for a LM army to risk not having stronger magic defenses. Two skink priests, one iwth the cube and the other with a scroll, is probably enough to force opponents to throw more dice at the spells they want to go off and risk the miscast (which often either end the magic phase or take magic levels off the mage). If you scroll or cube one big spell, you usually will have the dice advantage the rest of the magic phase unless they have a way of generating more dice (death lore). The ability of skink priests with beasts to give options to the army is huge and you don't mind if they occasionally miscast and are lost given their costs. +1T and +1S is such a huge boost to this army (making skinks a lot more killy and harder to kill and making T5 saurus, Krox and TG much hard to wound and able to cut through tough and high armour save armies). Obivously, Tetto is the best special character and the ability to re-roll 1's when casting really improves the odds on spells. However, many places still limit or ban special characters. Bunker him in a skink cohort unit and you can afford it if he happens to miscast and blow up. A lvl 2 skink pirest with Beasts and a cube or scroll with Tetto is plently of magic offense and enough defense and works quite well with a number of army builds (especially with the extra vanguard moves allowing you to outdeploy your opponent and get into combat quicker to reduce the risk of losses to shooting and magic). On the rest of the army: Giving up the Slann frees the army up for an optimal oldblood general and either a scar vet BSB as an optimal build or a cheap skink priest BSB hidden away. I have seen builds with a "skinny" slann and an optimatl oldblood prove to be very resilient, where the slann blows up in turn 1 and the army still wins with the oldblood being able to kill stuff with high armour saves and high T and survive. to the end. A cold one unit as a command unit is a n interesting option to provide a look out sir for the command models and the cold one mount boosts the armour saves on the characters (allowing more magic points spent on other stuff and allowing for a great weapon option) and allow cowboys to deal with stank tanks and other tough stuff you have to fight and reduces the vulnerability to stomp fo the characters except for the cost of the unit and vulnerability to heavy shooting with RBTs niow back in high elf and dark elf armies. An oldblood on a cold one or scar vet on a cold one with a great weapon and a re-rollable armour save is one of the few models that can really threaten the now common WoC daemon prince or tzeentch lord on disc (if you have OTS). To deal with a DP in combat, you probably need some augments (Pann's pelt, savage beasts on a character or characters) and beasts also gives you amber spear (no armour save) and curse of anrahear to threaten high AS (empire and brett knights, warriors of chaos units and models) and high T models, including a daemon prince. I still think TG are optimal to run (with standard of discipline on the unit for the benefit of the oldblood general) but a build focused on monsters (stegs), Krox and skink units with a command unit of COR is an interesting build that I think deserves a lot of testing and will probably get favorable reviews in tournament ans casual play as an interesting army to play against. For a lot of reasons, people like combat focused armies and don't mind magic that is focused on augments and hexes. Sallies and Razors alwo provide effective hitting power with sallies still being good antihorde and counter to chaff and light units with their hitting punch. Everything in the army is M6 or better and can march. Use need to use multiple smaller skink cohort units in this army (with or without a Krox) (in range of general preferrably or with a Krox for LD and strength boost) as chaff, to screen units, and redirection units to control the flow of movement and use their poison shooting to deal with stuff with high T but poor armour saves. I really think skink cohorts are one of the most under-rated and effective screening and charff units in the game for the points cost given their poison shooting. Sometimes, sacrifcing a skink cohort unit out front by taking a charge (at an angle) to set up a countercharge by a TG, saurus, Krox or steg unit is a really good strategy and the skink cohort soemtimes gets away fleeing and often kills its points worth before dying with poison shooting and combat. The quick to fire boost of javelins is such that it also makes sense now to equip skink skirmishers with javelins. A unit of skink skirmishers with blowpipes loses poison shooting if they double shoot and move at long range, so you might as well use javelins where quick to fire means you can stand and shoot always at anything charging your front and you don't suffer the movement penalty when shooting. There are a lot of models that fear poison shooting: war machines, terrorgheits, [While the risk of miscast is always there, it is manageable and that is one of the reasons I prefer to and advocate using soul of stone and either no other disciplines or choosing between becalming (becalming is nice for the re-roll to dispell to avoid a loss of concentration or improve the odds of stopping the big spell) or wandering deliberations for the relatively low cost and flexiible signature spells in the common lores. If you throw only 2 or 3 dice at spells and have a a back up lvl 2 skink priest, you should be okay. With the lower cost of TG and TG being more effective in combat with PF, a large TG unit with a Slann to make the unit stubborn seems optimal.]