Slann Lore and Kit Tactica

[ewar]

So I know I am playing averages and they cannot always be relied on but it seems to me on a average 7 phase with rumination it quite possible to cast Timewarp, SoL and Pha's plus have 3 dice left over to cast Iceshard Blizzard from a lvl one priest (Im guessing no one likes these). In Malorians big block case this seems way more awesome than 2+ toughness. It leaves u gaining 3 PD from rumination and leaves your "friend" scratching his head as to what to dispel. Seems to leave your opponent in the game rather than just saying IRF that goes through and still leaves you at the same spot with a painfully tough unit.

With Dwellers (*Sigh*) life is most likely a little stronger especially against a horde type army but without that it seems buffs wise it seems light on average is just as good and with some luck is actually better. But this is all theory in my head playing my first game with lizards on monday.

Have fun with the Internet rage ,

GreenMoon

You're analysis is pretty much correct - but there is no 'best' lore, it will all depend on what you take in your list.

The most important thing is to have a strong strategy for the magic phase - for example with light a sensible opponent will scroll/throw everything at SoL, as without that Timewarp and Pha's are just ok and not game winning.

Same for Life, a sensible opponent will dispel F2S, but instead of having Timewarp you have Dwellers, so it's whatever you prefer really. Just try out both and see what suits your playstyle.

[Wbarobinson]

Just played 2 games against ogres with lore of life, despite my fears. Game one, turn one, advanced 8 inches, irrestibled dwellers on his death star. 3 dead ogres, dead genereal, dead bsb, forfeits on turn when I back up instead of charge.
Second game, I win the deployment phase, as he deploys evenly accross the battlefield and my skirmisher, stegadon, salamander, salamander delay so that I place 1800 points in the corner. Turn 5 I charge with stegadon to delay the horde, get t8 on him. His turn 2 units of mournfangs hit my temple guard, kill more than half, steadfast. , I take serious casualties, but on my turn, flank charge the horde with my horde of saurus, earthblood, Regrowth, and throne of vine go off giving stegadon 3 wounds back. Win the mournfang and deathstar combat seeing as i have regen and 5 models back. Two massacre wins using life completely differently. The kit I brought was cupped hands, becalming, rumination and mystery. I am never changing that kit or lore again in a competitive environment. It is simply too powerful against what I thought would be an impossible matchup (80 str 5-6 attacks vs. t4 asv 4+).

[tmarichards]

Well that first game was a fluke so you can't really read much into it- multiple Ogre characters dying to Dwellers is incredibly lucky for you.

In the second game, you have to wonder why your Steg was still alive- did it get lucky against the cannonballs, or did he have a shocking list that couldn't deal with it (which sounds kind of possible)?

All in all, congrats on the 2 wins but 2 games is simply not enough for you to definitively decide what the best lore and kit load-out is for a Slaan, there are players with several hundred games under their built who are still trying out new builds so don't make the mistake that a lot of new players make which is that just because something works well in a couple of games against a small group of opponents it's the best option, at this stage you're simply not in a position to make that sort of call with any real authority. By all means try your current set-up for another 30 games, but then make sure you try something else for 30 games so that you can see how different set-ups work without getting blinkered into one choice.

[ewar]

Well that first game was a fluke so you can't really read much into it- multiple Ogre characters dying to Dwellers is incredibly lucky for you.

In the second game, you have to wonder why your Steg was still alive- did it get lucky against the cannonballs, or did he have a shocking list that couldn't deal with it (which sounds kind of possible)?

All in all, congrats on the 2 wins but 2 games is simply not enough for you to definitively decide what the best lore and kit load-out is for a Slaan, there are players with several hundred games under their built who are still trying out new builds so don't make the mistake that a lot of new players make which is that just because something works well in a couple of games against a small group of opponents it's the best option, at this stage you're simply not in a position to make that sort of call with any real authority. By all means try your current set-up for another 30 games, but then make sure you try something else for 30 games so that you can see how different set-ups work without getting blinkered into one choice.

I don't normally agree too much with Tom, but this is sound advice. Try a buch of different things and see what works for you, the LM list can be competitive with a whole range of different builds, so no need to pigeon hole yourself.

[Malorian]

It is simply too powerful against what I thought would be an impossible matchup (80 str 5-6 attacks vs. t4 asv 4+).

This is exactly why Life is so powerful.

Armies that depend on their elite high strength/attack units will have the rug pulled out from under them when all of a sudden they are wounding on 6s.

Something you didn't mention that you might want to try is running a temple guard horde. (So one horde of saurus and one horde of temple guard.) They have better WS, better str, and then the regen spell is a lot more worth while.

I would also look into dropping the steg for an oldblood. Both synergize with Life healing but the oldblood can't be sniped by a cannon.

[Wbarobinson]

Of course this was not my first game against Ogres. I have played them many times using Light and Shadow as well.
Of course Dwellers killing 2 characters on turn one is a fluke, but understand that I can cast dwellers 3 times before the enemy reaches me. 1 time will be irresistible on average, the other will be scrolled and the other will likely go through 7 dice vs. 5-6. With 3 characters getting hit twice by dwellers... even if they are St 4, St 4 and St 5, there is a 33%, 33% and 17% chance of killing each. 56%, 56% and 31% chance of killing those characters, while remove 33% of the ogres in the unit twice, so 8 ogres? Means that even if I accidentally win 1 out of 6 games on turn one, and one out of 4 games by turn three, or set myself up for better than draw scenario on turn 3, I am not going to choose another lore.
While my opponent did not field Ironblasters, he is very competitive and deployed a very efficient army that had just placed him second in a local 18 person tournament.
Previously I hoped for draws using shadow against him, often getting myself massacred unless terrain offered some turtling possibilities. Now I can hope for more.

[warplock]

Life's too good, it will become boring fast. Mark my words! Or, just read them, that works too.

[SouthlandLizardman]

Life is really nice when you take a Carnosaur and/or a few Stegadons and sallies, because ot keeps them around much longer and then they can earn their points and more.

[MOMUS]

An idea i have been toying with is to run a light slann in a skink skirmish 'bunker' behind your mainline. Using light you can still affect your main units with its bubble spell ability and the magic missiles can be fired 'through' a frontline priest. You are still free to dish out the Ld and BSB re-roll to your saurus.
Slann have great resistance to miscasts, a healing potion makes them even better (as alot of comp takes away cupped hands), lore master ability is good but you can have five spells with the plaque of tepok (at a fraction of the cost), soul of stone is really good and again increases your miscast immunity. I would then say it was a toss up between +1PD or becalming to keep him cheap(ish) or take both (+1PD is usually comped though reducing its effectiveness).

[vcassano]

Is a healing potion really necessary? Generally they either get destroyed by miscast or they are destroyed by something where a healing potion is of no use. It may come in handy occasionally if you have a few wounds plinked off you, but it seems like a waste of points to me.

[MOMUS]

Well it lets me have more miscasts and not die.

Its misleading to say they generally get destroyed by a miscast. The most likely result on the table is S10 hit on those touching (not an issue in the skirmishers), the next most likely results are small blast S10 hit and S6 hit on all wizards. So at most losing one wound from the slann, meaning i can suffer this result at least 4 times.
Getting destroyed by a cascade is very unlikely with soul of stone.

[vcassano]

Well that is true. What I meant more was that the most likely thing to kill your Slann is the dimensional cascade, a spell that causes a characteristic test and getting into a bad combat. In those situations a healing potion will be ineffectual. Random wounds as a result of miscasts do and will happen, but with five wounds I think that you can weather that. Also, with a 4+ ward save you should only suffer a wound from 50% of the miscasts that end up doing damage; thus it is unlikely that you will die from accumulated miscast wounds unless you put yourself into too risky a position. Therefore, I say that a healing potion is wasteful.

It isn't useless, don't get me wrong, but for the points there are far more integral items that I would consider taking.

[MOMUS]

It isn't useless, don't get me wrong, but for the points there are far more integral items that I would consider taking.

Maybe a bit too much insurance... 10 more points than a dispel scroll?! I didnt remember that
I probably would just try and squeeze and extra 15pts and get another discipline, i do like to push my slann. They are like a magic battery.

Heres the list anyway, in the end i opted for +1PD rather than soul of stone not sure whether its worth it (comped to using it only twice per magic phase): http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...ardmen-2400pts

[The bearded one]

I tried lore of light this week a couple of times. I originally used lore of fire around the store as I liked using it, but I needed a more serious lore for a tournament. I tried shadow first, wasn't really particularly useful against my high or dark elf opponents. Other players swear by life but it just seems overly boring to me to use. Cast throne, cast F2S, cast dwellers/regrowth, end. And the real crux is F2S and ToV, which sensible opponents will dispel.

I tried out light after reading the first 2 pages of this thread, and I think it's a great lore, quite versatile, spells useful on their own and they combine nicely with iceshard blizzard. With a poor winds of magic of 4 dice I can easily cast pha's, speed of light and birona's. With 5 dice I can bubble pha' ands too! What I think I love about light is that it combats the basic weakness my saurus and templeguard have: poor I and WS. The spells work very well together too. Speed of light + pha's OR iceshard (or both! In either case it is so handy to have a backup spell in case the other is dispelled) means any enemy with WS5 to 10 will hit on 5's. WS4 or below on 6's. If you cast all 3 any opponent hits on 6's. Pha's protection is also good protection against warmachines and is even easy to cast on it's bubble. version. 12+ I can cast with 2 dice with a rumination slann (so.. 3 dice really)

Furthermore Birona's timewarp lets my templeguard horde move forward fast to beat stuff up. Along with huanchi's banner I can charge an enemy on the other side of the table in the second turn.

And then there's 2 damage spells too with neat sideeffects. Burning gaze can even be upped to strength 6 if I ever were to need it. An extra D6 hits against daemons and undead is a great bonus, as you're likely to encounter daemons on a tournament and VC are quite popular as well (there's like 4 players here starting/playing VC).

[Grey Mage]

You're wrong I'm afraid. Light is by far the more competitive choice as it fixes the only weaknesses of the Lizards book- namely, bad WS, bad I and no access to re-rolls.

Life is fine if you don't want to think of a more tactical gameplan than pushing huge blocks at your opponent and trying to snipe characters with Dwellers and buff up the toughness, but Light gives a more tactical and more flexible game that is simply better overall.

Funnily enough, this is why pretty much every high level Lizards list has a Light Slann (the lore on the rapidly appearing second frog is less concrete), because it is the best choice for Lizards.

Its funny, a year ago I was laughed at for wanting to take light, and now come back to find its all the rage.

[The bearded one]

Its funny, a year ago I was laughed at for wanting to take light, and now come back to find its all the rage.

After reading this thread I started taking light but for the moment everybody's still saying "nooo, take life! Life! life!" Life has fun shenanigans, but it's frankly a bit boring, while light indeed fixes saurusian weaknesses.

[Malorian]

A boring playstyle has no bearing on what's tactically superior.

[The bearded one]

Tactical superiority is just that fun added bonus


Life certainly works very defensively. Boost up your major combat blocks, maybe throw some dwellers at the enemy to get them to come to you, and then ride out the enemy attacks before striking back. With light I can take the fight to the enemy and exploit the many attacks at good strength the saurus have. Birona in turn 1 move/charge with movement 8 in turn 2.

[Eladimir]

Read most of the thread just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

If the Slann is in temple guard I almost always run Life, its great and its safe.
If the Slann is solo then its a wide choice of Death, Light or Shadow.

Haven't played a 2 slann in a tourney yet but I think that would be excellent if you keep the slanns dirt cheap.

[vcassano]

Well you'd pretty much have to keep them cheap . Nasty, nasty army