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In light of VC and Demons, do Lizardmen armies need a Slaan to be competitive in a tournament given the last two monstrosities that were released?

I happened to come into a rather large LM army that I'm now assembling and can build just about anything, but was wondering if it was worth it to try and take these guys to a tournament if I'm going to need to run a 2nd Gen Slaan to hope to stand up against VC (and DoC to a lesser extent).

Well, the 2nd Gen Slaan won't contribute much to the magic defense.
He is an offensive power house though. With the Plaques of Domination and of Tepok, he has 6 spells and 5 power dice. Add a Skink Priest to feed him 2 power dice a turn and he has 9 to use a turn, allowing him to cast 4 spells on 1 die and 2 on 2 dice. Each one, would receive a free power die to roll. This smashes people's magic defense.
But you do better taking a scroll caddy and a bunch of killy saurus heroes with the spawning of Tepok and possibly a unit of saurus warriors with it as well for defense.

I typically run 6-7 DD with no casters in my Lizard army.

Not that I'm very good at Fantasy yet. I will say that the Drain magic will shut down a Vamp army nicely IF you remember to use it. (I forgot I had it until the last turn of the game...blah).

When I roll with my toadie, I like to throw Drain Magic out first with 2 dice +1 free to draw dispel dice and dispel scrolls for the benefit of the rest of my magic phase.
As far as magic defense goes, at 2000 pts I take a scroll caddy, a Scar-Vet with Charm of the Jaguar, Blessed Spawnings of Sotek and Tepok and a Great Weapon and an Oldblood on a Cold One with Sacred Spawnings of Sotek, Tepok and Itzl. I also include a unit of Cold Ones with Huanchi's Blessed Totem, a Skink Chief with Cloak of Feathers and a unit of Terradons.
That gives my army an extreme amount of killing power and mobility to help eliminate mages and warmachines early as well as offering enough magic defense to weather the storm until the second turn when I have 1/2 of my units charging

The oldblood/ scarvet combos is great.

HEs struggle even against a 4th gen slaan at up to 2250.

Vampires- well veryone struggles against a half way decent player with a halfway decent build.

Tepok vs VCs is a must.

Agreed, I take the sacred spawning of tepok in almost every opportunity.

A 4th Gen Slaan supported by a skink priest and two scar veterans is VERY strong against either VC or DC.

Old Blood + 2 Sac Veterans + Priest caddy also does the job.

fazz wrote:A 4th Gen Slaan supported by a skink priest and two scar veterans is VERY strong against either VC or DC.

Wow, and I was worried when I put my list together I had too many points in characters, lol!

honestly i don't see the slaan as a must. to me the must is large blocks of saurus. they can hold against most any charge when in units of 24 (ranked 6 by 4) and on the charge put out an ungodly number of attacks especially when given a mark like sotek. yes tepok is nice to bring but to me the lizardmen are less about shutting down the enemy magic or having heavy magic but about being able to hold against enemy spells until they can have things like terradons and skinks/sallies/steggies take out enemy wizards. also since their spells rarely need LOS the skink priests can stay out of harms way while the saurus blocks and kroxies go to town on the enemy.

yes the VC may dominate the magic phase for some time but hit vital things like necromancers and carts and that magic starts to slowly dwindle. also bringing diadem of power helps since the skinks don't really need all their power die every turn against such magic heavy foes.

I've been giving a lot of thought to my anti-magic setups with Lizardmen, and I've come to the following two setups:

If I can only run one Skink Priest:

Cube of Darkness, Mark of the Old Ones

If I can run two Skink Priests I add one with just 2x Dispel Scrolls.

Granted I see the appeal of using the Diadem to take a near-worthless power dice from the skink priest and turn it into a useful Dispel Dice, but at 35 points for that, it's just not worth it IMO over either 2x Scrolls and/or the Cube.

Personally, I haven't gotten to test it yet, but I think the Cube will be clutch against VC opponents, and with Mark of the Old Ones on the Skink Priest the chance of shutting down one magic phase per game is at 75%

correct me of i'm wrong, but in 7th ed skink priests cannot "feed" power dice to the slann. those dice belong to the skink priest and cannot be used by any one else.

Arion wrote:correct me of i'm wrong, but in 7th ed skink priests cannot "feed" power dice to the slann. those dice belong to the skink priest and cannot be used by any one else.

Not in the way they could in 6th Ed, no.

You sort of can if you "waste" a skink priest on taking the Diadem of Power, so his natural Power Dice can be stored and used in the pool for the next magic phase.

A Slaan is also a huge liability on the field. He cannot fight worth anything and is VP on a stick. I much prefer use of spawnings and scrolls and use your superior combat and shooting (sallies FTW!) to wreck the undead. Daemons are a bit trickier as they show a bit more variety and can build speedy CC armies, but then it is very build dependent.