Teclis at least matched if not beat this during the Storm of Chaos. He simply waved his hands and the entire daemonic legion including Bel'Akor prince of daemons just vanished from existance. And I think it is a little unfair saying he is only good because of items, it really depends on what GW (ie. the author) does with the rules. In 6th ed HEs had honours and several of them boosted magic, this made them appear better natural spellcasters in the same way as the Slann's disciplines. Now they are gone into arcane items, so HE mages look like normal mages with a better selection of trinkets to play with. Despite that though, no elf is a match for a giant magical toad! That the Slann do basically nothing else except magic and can sit for thousands of years in a meditative state contemplating magic kinda puts them a rung above the rest. Interesting battle report, and Teclis pulling an IF Pit of Shades was going to be about the only way to win, especially if you took the MR3. Pretty lucky to pass that initiative test when the spell did work!
Kind of funny, I'm having exactly the same argument with my friend, who also play HE. At least now I can direct him to a place where he can see the result Congratulations about winning!