How Would You Address the Issue of Slann Mage-Priests?

[pointyteeth]

I'd say leave them as is but make them have to deploy in the front rank like other characters. Makes them more vulnerable.

[Spiney Norman]

Don't slann have a discipline allowing them to reroll miscasts? Cut out the cupped hands and they're still a stupidly good deal. Cut out the cupped hands and the ability to add free power dice to each spell and they're still a good deal. If you're fixing that, there's other magic phase ruining arcane items that need to be dealt with too (puppet stands out to me).

They have a discipline that allows you to reroll the result on the miscast table, not the miscast itself, can you imagine near complete miss cast avoidance for 50pts, I don't think so.

Drop the cupped hands and the free discipline (or up the cost by 50pts) and Slann are fine, at the end of the day your still talking about 500pts for one with all the fancy toys, which is plenty enough. Part of the problem is the disciplines are not well balanced, some are near worthless while others are worth a lot more than 50pts.

There are far worse ways to abuse the magic phase that need sorting out before you take a swing at the slann, like the book of a hoeth and Teclis.

[BooTMGSG]

being able to protect against dimensional cascade is kinda the only reason I actually have the thing I'd be happier with its current incarnation if it didn't bounce to an enemy, but were cheaper.. miscastprotection is the only purpose it has for me, to prevent me from blowing up 160pts worth of templeguard on an innocent spell.

This is why the cup hand is needed, Temple guards are forced to join the slann, and thats a lot of points to be wiped out by a bad miscast. Without it I'm more than likely to ditch the temple guards and have the slann floating free.
If you were to get rid of the cup hand, your have to find a way round making temple guards such a risky points investment

[Spiney Norman]

This is why the cup hand is needed, Temple guards are forced to join the slann, and thats a lot of points to be wiped out by a bad miscast. Without it I'm more than likely to ditch the temple guards and have the slann floating free.
If you were to get rid of the cup hand, your have to find a way round making temple guards such a risky points investment

Tis called the lore of life...

Actually you could just reword the cupped hands so that it ignored the miscast on 2+ and didn't reflect on to an enemy wizard, it would still be worth it's points IMHO

[The bearded one]

Tis called the lore of life...

But should slann have to be restricted to 1 lore if they want to feasably use a unit of templeguard and not destroy it?
The effects of a miscast are significantly harsher for a slann's unit than for anyone else. The template miscast results and the one (#7?) where everyone in basecontact is hit, mean up to 12 templeguard , possibly a LOT more with the large template.

Actually you could just reword the cupped hands so that it ignored the miscast on 2+ and didn't reflect on to an enemy wizard, it would still be worth it's points IMHO

if it did this and were, say.. 10 points cheaper, I'd take that without a second thought over 45 with bouncing mechanic.

[theunwantedbeing]

Two ways to fix them.
1. Boost the base cost to fit what they are really worth, at the moment they're undercosted
2. Make them grant a heap of additional VP for the enemy if killed (say, 50+ pts)

Obviously cupped hands is a pain, but we may well see that item removed or tweaked in a new book as is the case for magical items now in newer books.
Similarly the steadfast nonsense you get is problematic, especially if they've been boosted to leadership 10 by that damnable common magical banner that GW decided was fine to abuse in an obviously unintended fashion, we won't see a solution to those things sadly so the only viable change would be to boost the points paid for the Slann and/or boost the points payout for actually killing him.

[tmarichards]

"Cupped Hands is needed".

This has to be the single most stupid post I have read in a long time. If you want to avoid a nasty miscast, most mages have to make do with an Earthing Rod- a Slann can Soul of Stone, for an unlimited number of these. Both avoiding a miscast and then bouncing it across to an enemy mage is having your cake and eating it, and is most certainly not necessary.

[Walgis]

you are matching unmacheble things. Yes in one army one thing is better in other other so if my army doesnt have cannons. others have handguns we have only blowpipes, even no bows of any kind. i wont even speak about our cav and special chars pricings compared to other books. How about stegadon price and new ogre monster, quite a diference.
For +ld banner: only fools take it for slann is like butter on butter. you should be glad that he takes it because coolbloodedLd9 and ld 10 is realy avery small percentage change in failing.
So wake up if you want every army to be the same go play chess. two armys are never comparable. all of them are to diferent.
Or make combat lord good for lizard meiby even carnosaur, then you wont see slans but you will whine about carnosaur. you will whine until you could win not even thinking.

Slann goes to second rank only in temple guard unit. and believe me thats not a good build its tragic. slann can be chalenged, temple guards lose ataks (im not even speaking about theyre price, lol). And baby when slann miscasts, boom goes the unit. But then you meh he has life lore. But then you whine about life lore, make up your mind. Play normal opponent wwho doesnt take vanila. and then think slann rolls for miskas and he goes to chaos rell without any saves. Will you then whine how its unfair for a master mage to dissapear like a Lvl1 empire baby mage? No you will be glad for unluck of your opponent. Haha he lost his 500+ mage in one dice roll, haha im such a good player. Then he counts on foot, any one killing blowing 5W model with one blow?

[Urgat]

You know, all players, with every army, have to put their wizards in a unit (if they want them to live more than one turn, that is), and boom it goes if the wizard miscasts, it's hardly specific to lizardmen.

[The bearded one]

Two ways to fix them.
1. Boost the base cost to fit what they are really worth, at the moment they're undercosted
2. Make them grant a heap of additional VP for the enemy if killed (say, 50+ pts)

Obviously cupped hands is a pain, but we may well see that item removed or tweaked in a new book as is the case for magical items now in newer books.
Similarly the steadfast nonsense you get is problematic, especially if they've been boosted to leadership 10 by that damnable common magical banner that GW decided was fine to abuse in an obviously unintended fashion, we won't see a solution to those things sadly so the only viable change would be to boost the points paid for the Slann and/or boost the points payout for actually killing him.

You generally gain 200VPs extra from killing him. Actually, killing a Slann and his guard is quite a chore, but it often means winning the game as he combines the roles of general, BSB and lvl4 in one.

You know, all players, with every army, have to put their wizards in a unit (if they want them to live more than one turn, that is), and boom it goes if the wizard miscasts, it's hardly specific to lizardmen.

The wizards of other armies are not in contact with 12 models costing 16points, in the middle of which they must deploy.

[yarrickson]

I think that being worth the best part of ,700 victory points, being unable to turn into a mountain chimera, being initiative 1 (unless you lore of light) and having to be the magical engine room of the entire army (which lets face it, would suffer terribly without magical aid) as well as denying you the choice of an oldblood /except in bigger games) all contribute to balancing out the slanns more outre abilities.

[theunwantedbeing]

You generally gain 200VPs extra from killing him. Actually, killing a Slann and his guard is quite a chore, but it often means winning the game as he combines the roles of general, BSB and lvl4 in one.

Then he'll need a points increase if it doesn't matter how many VP he nets when he dies.

[tmarichards]

Your logic is deeply flawed.

You're overlooking the fact that you can get a Slann who works better than any other Lord level caster in the game for less than 300pts, so you can get 2 of them in a 2400pt game.

Not being able to cast Transformation of Kadon is relevant how, exactly?

He's initiative 2, not 1, but even if he was I1 it would be irrelevant- because he is infantry you can get a Look Out, Sir! against Purple Sun/Pit/Cracks Call from any one of a number of units in the book, and they don't exactly rely on their combat stats to keep them alive.

[Urgat]

The wizards of other armies are not in contact with 12 models costing 16points, in the middle of which they must deploy.

Sure there's no rule that says our wizards must, but unless you want them dead with, say, your cannons that must not scatter (), yes, they have to. As for the rest... well that's how it is. If you don't want your slann in there, don't take temple guards, simple as. There's no rule that forces you to take them either, afaik?
Anyway, imho, the whole concept is flawed, I hope they completely change it in the next book. The slaan is pretty much the win/lose trigger of any game involving them, it's quite dull after a while.

[yarrickson]

As already stated earlier, there are worse abusers of magic elsewhere in the game, Teclis, Fateweaver, book of hoeth mage lord, bray shaman conclave etc etc. I genuinely think that the slann are appropriately costed at the moment.

Yes cupped hands is amusingly broken at the moment, but so are any number of magic items in the older books. I can only imagine it disappearing when the lizardmen also get pared down to ten or so magic items.

Personally I'm a Mazdamundi fan, and take him in every game large enough, and he avoids most of what people seem to consider is wrong with Slann. He still cant cast transformation of Kadon though. Which is relevant only because its a bloody cool spell. :-P

[The bearded one]

Sure there's no rule that says our wizards must, but unless you want them dead with, say, your cannons that must not scatter (), yes, they have to. As for the rest... well that's how it is. If you don't want your slann in there, don't take temple guards, simple as. There's no rule that forces you to take them either, afaik?

This wasn't about not deploying inside a unit. Inside a unit slann cause more damage on a miscast than a regular wizard in a unit. A regular wizard can (and must) go in the front rank of a unit if he deploys in it, and will touch 5 models at max. Slann must be deployed behind the first rank, and because of their 50x50mm base, they touch significantly more models, costing more than almost any infantry in the game, barring chosen and tooled chaos warriors.

It would be silly to be completely barred from taking templeguard, which are really my only worthwhile combat troops (my saurus underperform constantly), if you want to have a slann in your army at all, which you probably want as the next highest wizard is a lvl2 skink priest, and slann are the only characters with a ld higher than 8.

Anyway, imho, the whole concept is flawed, I hope they completely change it in the next book. The slaan is pretty much the win/lose trigger of any game involving them, it's quite dull after a while.

it is the nature of things with an expensive character. Slann are the only models in the army that are good at magic and have good leadership, and saurus characters are lacklustre as leaders.

[N810]

I will gladly trade my cupped hands for your book of hoeth or greedy fist any day.

[BooTMGSG]

Yes but most player can choose where to put their mage and can place them in archer units that are. 1 expendable, and two not your elite fighting unit.
It wouldn't be so bad if temple guards were cheaper, but more defensive, (provided we had a more killy unit), but we are forced to put our eggs into one basket, if we want temple guards and a lvl 4 caster.
Trust me, I don't particular care about the miscast rebound. I do care about my central unit imploding.
Ultimately I don't think the slaan needs much of a nerf, more that they need more options than the Life Bunker. If we get that then all would benfit, lizzardmen, and those fed up facing the lifebunker

[tmarichards]

Slann have a multitude of different options, of which the Temple Guard Life bunker is one of the weakest... they're not exactly strapped for choices.

If you're worried about him exploding, bunker him in skirmishing Skinks with Soul of Stone. When you put Light magic into the equation, Saurus and SKrox are far better than Temple Guard so you're not missing him out on anything. To be honest, Slann don't even miscast that often, as they rarely use more than 3-4 dice to cast anything (assuming the player has a gameplan beyond 6 dicing Dwellers every turn...) so it's really not an issue.

[TheDungen]

Slann are way op they shoukd be in the first rank and then they're to powerful so lets remove their ability to cast spells and give them armour and weapons. i mean whith a statline ike that they wer eobviosly meant to fight. Oh and while you're at it they should be cheap and you shoudl be able to field many of them. =P