Hey guys long time no chat. so i seem to run into a problem with my friends, they keep complaining that the Slann is OP and that they have nothing to stop it at all (and they mean at all). now my friends play the Brets, Dark elves, Orcs, deamons, Ogres, and and somtimes chaos (half of them have the army book for the read) So my question to you chaps is this: is the Slann broken to F@^# or is it them just complaining. Also i have had one of them refuse to play me when i fielded my slann. thats just not fun.
The Slann is powerful, no doubt of that. Easily among the best magic users in the game. But we do pay a lot of points to upgrade him, and an unlucky miscast can potentially kill him on turn 1 even with Throne and/or Cupped Hands. But he is not insanely overpowered and broken, we can still be beaten and there are ways to combat strong magic. Daemons, Chaos and maybe Dark Elves should be able to push you most, but the Bret player is in trouble, Orcs aren't much better, and I don't know how Ogres go with their new rules. True test is, are you winning easily all the time when you play a Slann? If so, try watering it down. Only take 1-2 of his abilities, and don't use Cupped Hands. See how it goes then. They should be able to deal with it, but if you just play friendlies its not fun winning easily every time so you might as well try to weaken him a bit.
Orcs can really struggle against strong magic. Especially since our magic defence got a bit of a hit with the new army book (0nly 8 mostly useless magic items). Have never faced lizardmen with my orcs yet, but the Slann sure looks like a pain. And a geared up slann with strong temple guard unit can be a great points denial (as long as you dont miscast too much). and any Dark Elf player complaining about something over powered should be slapped with the big rule book ps: man, i need coffee....it took my 3 tries to write the word our right.
To combat a slann with an O&G army, I would spam night goblin shaman (since they are cheap). Not that I know what I am talking about with them (I have a small army, but have not played them yet). As for the Bretts, I have a buddy who wins with his Brett army more than I do with my slann (or even a double slann). In my opinion, no one should complain about the slann. Sure, it is powerful. But it also cost 600 pts for that thing! I think your friends are whining for no reason. I mean, Dark Elves can throw any number of power dice at a spell, right? And they have high Initiative (they are elves)! Warriors of chaos are the some of the best combat troops in the game.....Daemons are immune to psychology and can do very nasty things with their demon princes and actually steal the spells the slann has access to. Yep, whining.
This is true, My 175pt Hydra wiped out a 340pt unit of white lions with a single breath attack. There was a spell I wanted so I threw 9 dice at it. Today, My BlackGuard took a combo charge from a unit of Phoenix Guard, and Dragon Princes. They killed 8 PG and 1 DP on first round, the PG broke from combat, and I killed the rest of the DP in the 2nd round of CC, he had 4 left, and i rolled 6 killing blows. I lost 1 Black Guard.
Sounds to me like your friends need to learn to play their armies better. Especially Daemons and Dark Elves they should be putting up a solid fight vs LM IMO refusing to play is just lame, your friend might as well be saying "If you play the little car I wont play Monopoly with you." it is childish. At my local they complained about LM being over powered but in the league not 1 LM player is in the play offs; so take that for what its worth. My Slaan gets his butt handed to him quite often (see my post about Empire player Purple Sunning Slann in turn 2 or post about my Slann miscasting and blowing up turn 1) so just having a Slann will not win the game, if that were the case LM would be kings of all the Major Tournaments and be considered a Tier 1 Army which they certainly are not.
Here's the problem with Slann, they are seemingly invincible, save for a smal thermal exaust port (Initiave 1).
I dont win every game with him, in fact my friend who plays the bretts is dead even with me when it comes to wins and losses against each other. the thing that works for him is that he takes down the rest of my army then focus's on my slann unit last. and my Dark elf friend i have yet to face but he seems to do the most bitching... Ironic. and yes i think its very childish of him to quit but to be fare i guess he was having a bad day and thats when he played Tomb Kings, he really didnt like the no march thing.
From what I can tell there are three things to try and bring the slann down. 1) Pit of shades. Devestating overall, but placed over the slann you don't really can do anything if it get cast. My mate plays darkelves and thus run lore of shadow with this wizard, but he never has the sence to place it out of range from my Becalming Cogination so it's never a big deal. But anyone with two braincells to rubb together would place it well and beyond 24" of the slann and bring it down. 2) Crush the templeguard. Gets more difficult depending if the slann is running life or not. Nonetheless, templeguards are good but they are not too much to brag about in close combat if they get to face a bunch of black orcs or chosen or something. And after them gone the slann will be eaten alive. 3) Pray for a miscst and hope that Cupped hand fails. Don't relay on this. So thats my opinion. Might be something I have missed.
Other things that easily kill a Slann: Purple Sun Dwellers Below Brass Orb (skaven) Hell Heart (Ogres) Infernal Gates (Demons) Hellcannon (Deamons) Autiliary with Magical shots (dwarves, skaven)
Your dark elf friend needs to learn to play. Every time I've played dark elves they've massacred me (it's not been pretty). If I ever see another dark elf player I might cry...
DE make me cringe. Ring of Hotek means you get a LOT of miscasts if he gets in range, cupped hands can only save you once. + dispel scroll or dice to stop you from using the "ignore miscasts on 2+' spell Hydras teeth can pick out characters Feedback scroll, dispel scroll, casting with as many dice as they want, more dice than you can shake a stick at w/ the sacrificial dagger. Not to mention one of the most under-priced monsters in the game, some of the best shooting and mobility. oh and the entire army has hatred, one of the most overpowered abilities in the game /endrant
Is dark elves really that much of a problem? Jeez, I massacre him every time we play, I always knew he wasent an optimal player but if it's true what you say then it's just ridiculously bad gaming from his end...
It just seems that the dark elves are one of those armies made to kill most armies without issue. They're masters of all phases of the game from movement to shooting to magic to combat to monsters. The only thing they really don't have is strength (except in the hydra), but the shear number of attacks makes up for that, especially when there's a cauldron in play to buff that.
Meh, fuck 'em. I picked Lizardmen as I'm sure many have because I wanted a very magic heavy army. Lizardmen are supposed to have the best magic users, it's in the lore. So why the shit are people complaining that we have the best magic users when we're supposed to have the best magic users?! Pff, I don't care if other aspects of our army get nerfed, but what's the point playing Lizardmen if everyone else has equally good mages?! And I don't ****ing swear too much! I can ****ing swear as much as I ****ing want!
I think the original question is why do people hate playing against the slann, and if you take the lore of life, the reason is that it its boring in my opinion. Enemies facing a lore of life slann face an opponent who slowly advances his temple guard and saurus blocks, maybe a steg or two, makes them all unkillable, heals them as he goes, and keeps grinding forward. Its that same feeling of helplessness you got from vampire counts in 7th ed, that no matter what you do, its pointless. Yes, it can be beaten, I have beaten a slann army with a carn army, but its that mentality that makes people dislike them so much, at least in my opinion.
The life slann army isn't all that bad to beat. It is definitely a change in tactics and thinking. If you're not going to wipe a unit off the board so he can't bring it back at all in one round, don't focus on a single unit. He can only bring 1 unit back to life a turn since he can't cast the resurrection spell multiple times. So take 5 off one unit, 5 off another unit, 5 off another unit. He can heal 5, not 15 (or whatever the cap is). That way, when the 3 blocks of 10 get to the other side (instead 3 blocks of 20) you're already winning in static combat res and can hurt him in CC before he strikes back with his abysmal initiative. Though that DOES require a fairly shooty army, it's worked for me in the past with both my empire, high elves and skaven. I imagine dwarves and dark elves could do the same thing.
Scatter dice, miscasts, Becalming Cogitation denying IF casts, not being in range for several turns, 'Speed of Light' making it only work on 6's for the 'dodge' test...lot of things can go wrong with that one. At least with 'Purple Sun', you can IF it out of 'Becalming' range, and its RIP. And even then, if you don't IF (which usually involves burning a lot of power dice anyway), it can be dispelled. It's a good power (I use Shadow myself), but Slann have some of the best magical defenses in the game, and they can buff their bunker to be awesome. Assuming you can get to the TG bunker at all, when the Slann is unmaking reality around you with his insane magic ability. Even if you do avoid the nukes and hexes and make it into combat, he can always just buff them to be faster, make them hit at S8, or regenerate them back to life (depending on Lore selection). I'd honestly try and flank charge TG first, to deny ranks and shift attention, then try for a one-two knockout with that Deathstar or elite assault unit you were sending in. I'd also try and snipe out the Slann first with Death magic or something similiar, because while he lives, he can cast (even whilst the bunker is dying in close-combat). Hellheart is pretty annoying, as it burns out 'Cupped Hands' early. There are other magical gear I'm pretty sure that can cause Miscasts or snipe Wizards. Depends on the army. Yeah pretty spot on. People forget that its not like Vampire Counts, he gets one rez cast every turn, and it's probably going into his bunker. He also needs 'Throne' for the other abilities to get better, so if you dispel that, he's much easier to deal with. VC can still be pretty insane, they're just less power-dice spammy than before.