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So, Dakka, what do you think? What are viable Slann builds? What aren't?

If someone wants to play nice and not bring out the Cupped Hands, what other items would be beneficial?

Is a Slann basically 40pts more than listed, since BSB and Banner of Discipline are so amazing, or are there other ways?

Lores of Magic. Life seems like The One, most of the time, since all of its spells are useful (the two damaging spells that aren't Dwellers are...meh. But that's a better record than most Lores) and the Attribute is helpful. Light seems to have two or three great spells, a few okay ones, and a pretty poor Attribute. Shadow looks like the opposite of Life, with more (slightly or greatly) less useful spells and a basically worthless Attribute (and how does the Pendulum work when he's in a unit of Guard, anyway?).

Really, though, I'm here to talk about the DISCIPLINES OF THE ANCIENTS. Which ones should you take? Which ones should you always avoid? Here're my thoughts:

Focus of Mystery: 50pts for Loremaster. I don't think it's worth it, but some people claim it's a good choice for Life Slanns.

The Focused Rumination: this seems like the one and only Must Have.

Transcendant Healing: now worthless.

The Harrowing Scrutiny: basically worthless

Higher State of Consciousness: pretty good. Immune to non-dwarf artillery. Is it worth it to take this if he's going in a unit of Guard?

The Becalming Cogitation: recently decided this rocked pretty hard. Magic is mainly scary due to IF, which this has a great chance to nullify.

Unfathomable Presence: I'd love to take this and protect that huge point-sink called Temple Guard, but the bad magic doesn't even care, anyway.

Soul of Stone: really, I don't know. Unless you were determined to make your Cupped Hand the meanest one ever.

So...thoughts?

Wait wait wait... Dwellers is considered 'meh'?

Keep in mind that my perspective is mostly from across the table, but:

Focused Rumination: So good it borders on "punch in the face"-worthy.

Loremaster. I can see why other Lores might not get the best benefit from it, but for Life it's damn handy. Throne of Vines is basically useless on its own. Sure, you get the 2+ save against Miscasts, but other than that, you're almost giving up a slot if you take it. Consider a level 2 Life Mage. With Throne of Vines you basically have 1 other spell. A Level 4 essentially gets 3 other spells.


Higher State makes you Ethereal right?

At any point level of 1600+ i run:
Lords
Slann=380
Lore of Life
BSB+Standard of Discipline
The Focused Rumination
The Becalming Cogitation
Plaque of Tepok

Cheap but still relible, i find minislaan to be quite sufficient to match both my magical deffence and offence needs.
With guards he's quite survivable, and generating your spells can become a tactic of its own.

Against vampires, you're going to be in combat for awhile, because they keep coming back.
I'd go with a lore with hex and augment, so you can keep putting the heat on once in combat.
Or, go lore of death and try to snipe his characters.
Character sniping + purple sun is very good against undead.
If you get a decent purple sun off, the power dice it wracks up should refill your pool for a round of character pain.
-1 toughness makes those salamanders pretty good at dropping blocks too.


-Matt

The Minislann is similar to some of my ideas. Liking the build there.

@Steamdragon: yeah, that's Ethereal. And what I meant by "damaging spells" were the wood-one and the thorn one. Dwellers sort of sits apart from the rest.
I can see why Throne is not that useful without the others, but Throne boosts four of the other six spells. I suppose, in a worst-case scenario (for Throne of Vines), you could roll up Throne, Dwellers, Thorns, and one of the others...but I'd swap something for Earthblood, then, I guess.

@Matt: Would you suggest Death magic against other armies? Kind of looking for an all-comers sort of thing.

Slann actually work equally well without any real upgrades as they do fully kitted out. 275pts for a Mage that comes with 5 wounds, a 4+ ward and either Loremaster or free extra dice is already pretty nasty and an absolute bargain compared to what other armies pay to get that kind of combo.
If you keep them cheap then you can easily fit two Slann in to 2500pts (it works at 2400 as well its just a tight fit), which means you get an incredibly powerful and flexible magic phase. Alternatively a single Slann with all the toys is just as powerful (not as flexible as you only have 1 Lore), Loremaster (essential if you are taking Life), Rumination, Becalming, BSB and Cupped Hands in a decent sized block of TG is very solid.

Life and Light are probably the two most common lores for Slann because most people run their Slann with Temple Guard. With TG if you aren't using Life then you basically have to take Cupped Hands to prevent the unit blowing up when you miscast. However if you remove the TG then you can be much more flexible with your Lore Selection, Death and Shadow become much more attractive because you won't be repeatedly blowing up your own guys. Your survivability takes a bit of a hit, but for the cost of the TG you can usually get a unit of Saurus for replace the unit lost from the battleline and a unit of Skinks to hide the Slann in.

A few other helpful combos which come to mind; Higher State + Dragonbane Gem/Plague of Protection means you can fly around behind the battleline and basically ignore anything trying to target you. In most cases it easier to just task 10 Skink Skirmishers to do this job though.
Feedback Scroll + Bane Head to instantly screw over an enemy mage (take with Becalming as well to force them to use plenty of dice and watch them fail to cast and still blow themselves up).

At 2400pts currently I'm running double Slann, one with Light (Rumination, Loremaster) and 1 with Shadow (Loremaster, General) combined with 5 Scar Vets and 5 smallish units of Saurus. Light keeps gunlines off me and then turns everything into WS10 I10 killing machines, Shadow gives me a way of dealing with uber blocks, (debuffs, Pit and Mind Razor on WS10 Saurus ftw) can throw Scar Vets all over the field to wreck havoc and can make full use of the Lore attribute with all the characters available. At 2500pts you give the General the BSB, for the moment its on one of the Scar Vets but I'm debating whether I even need it (Ld9 Cold Blooded is already pretty solid).

Powerguy wrote:Slann actually work equally well without any real upgrades as they do fully kitted out. 275pts for a Mage that comes with 5 wounds, a 4+ ward and either Loremaster or free extra dice is already pretty nasty and an absolute bargain compared to what other armies pay to get that kind of combo.

Pretty good quote and pretty true.

Warpsolution wrote:
@Steamdragon: yeah, that's Ethereal. And what I meant by "damaging spells" were the wood-one and the thorn one. Dwellers sort of sits apart from the rest.
I can see why Throne is not that useful without the others, but Throne it boosts four of the other six spells. I suppose, in a worst-case scenario (for Throne of Vines), you could roll up Throne, Dwellers, Thorns, and one of the others...but I'd swap something for Earthblood, then, I guess.

Ah. Skaven war machines ignore Ethereal as well, FYI. And yeah forgot about the other two spell

Powerguy wrote:Slann actually work equally well without any real upgrades as they do fully kitted out. 275pts for a Mage that comes with 5 wounds, a 4+ ward and either Loremaster or free extra dice is already pretty nasty and an absolute bargain compared to what other armies pay to get that kind of combo.

Yeah. Grey Seers weigh in at 240 to start, with 3 wounds, no save, no Lore Master/Extra Dice (but they do get D3 warp stone tokens!). Still... I <3 my ratters ;D

Oh, I'm well aware of how Warpstone works, good sir. I just never see much of it 'round here.

The Slann with little to no upgrades is probably what I'll go with, once I've gotten tired of all the cool toys.
Scroll + Head is pretty neat, though it seems like a more expensive Cupped Hands. At least it's new.

Powerguy, you claim that Loremaster with Life is essential. I think I can see why, but I'm still not sold. You're guaranteed at least two spells that benefit from Thrones, and I don't think that an extra 5+ save, +2 T, or 1d3+1 new guys are going to be bad bonuses on their own. Or is there something else I'm missing?

I think it'll probably go something like: BSB, Discipline, Tepok, Rumination, Becalming. Maybe add on Unfathomable and drop one Plaque for another if he's alone.

It'll probably be Life (just not sold on most of the Light spells, though those two are amazing). What would you guys think of just Shadow, though?

The point is that you need Loremaster with Life to ensure you get Throne, and if you are with Temple Guard you absolutely need it (unless you take Cupped Hands, but then you are back with an expensive Slann again). Other armies can get around this by taking a Lvl 2 with Life as well, but thats not an option for Lizards.
If you aren't with Temple Guard then there are probably better choices than Life in any case. Loremaster is an incredibly useful skill because it removes any element of chance and does so right back from the stage of list construction, which means you can definitively factor in what you need in the rest of the list to be competitive. With Light there is only 1 spell I basically don't use (Light of Battle), the rest are all very helpful and more importantly my list would be seriously on the back foot if I didn't have Pha's Protection and Speed of Light.

Imo the main role of a Slann is to buff the rest of the army or at least cover their main weaknesses in some way. The main ones being low I, low WS, low speed (so shooting can be a problem) and limited options for high strength attacks for dealing with monsters, heavy cav and Deathstars. Most armies are going to be based around Saurus, so either Life (to keep them around long enough to fight back) or Light (to minimise missile fire and make them go first when they hit combat) are the top choices. Shadow is a little bit different, its primarily a debuff lore which cripples your opponents important units, its great for dealing with Deathstars (M2 S2 T2 Chosen or Grave Guard aren't so scary lol). Only Mind Razor helps the Saurus out directly and although its incredibly brutal, it has a high casting value and only effects a single unit, so Shadow probably isn't the best choice if its going to be your only lore. The only other Lore I would consider is Metal, particularly in an army made up mainly of Skinks. Buff and debuff wise its on par with Shadow, but it has some much better direct damage options for dealing with units with good armour (which can be a problem for Saurus). Its particularly good with Skinks as you can cast Glittering Robe to significantly boost their survivability (but its wasted on Saurus).

I don't consider Death as a good option (certainly not if you are single Slann/Lore and asking for trouble if you are with TG) as its almost entirely damage based and does nothing to help your army. Probably viable if you are taking two Slann though, so you can use Purple Sun to get more dice for the other lore. Heavens and Fire are pretty meh and while Beasts is pretty good (particularly if you go Scar Vet heavy) not being able to use the most powerful spell means its not really worth it.

Do you know the odds of not getting throne when you're running a tepok build are. Let me tell ya it's quite a feat, with you get to pick a spell if it's repeated and all.

The odds of not getting Throne of Vines on a Slann Mage-Priest with Plague of Tepok are 1 in 7776 times. If Throne of Vines was the only important spell, I'd take that risk to save 35 points. However, you basically always want Flesh to Stone, Throne of Vines, Regrowth and The Dwellers Below. That means that anytime you roll both a 1 and a 4 among your 5 spell dice (which is pretty often), you won't have all the important spells. Therefore, Focus of Mystery is a very useful ability on a Lore of Life Slann Mage-Priest.

Actually its every time you roll a 1 and a 4 that aren't duplicated when you're screwed.

The life spells in order of importance (IMO):
1. Throne of vines: Good bonuses and with no cupped hands minislaan's only miscast guard.
2. Flesh to stone: Really, really, REALLY nice buff.
3. Regrowth: In your face undead, muhahaha.
4. Earth blood: All hail the ultimate bunker.
5. Dwellers below: Uberspell is uber, move one spot higher if facing horde armies.
6. Shield of thorns: nice but can live without.
7. Awakening of the wood: The low casting value matches its effectivness. Also the spell's name makes highschoolers LOL.

Seeing as it's nearly impossible for me to not have choices 1-3 i'm more than happy to risk on which my last two spells are.
But this whole argument is sorta pointless since playstiles differ from player to player, i'm just not to keen to spend about 500 pts. on someone who can only be usefull in one phase.

@Hoverboy

If you don't consider The Dwellers Below to be a must have spell, than indeed it is fine to take Plague of Tepok instead of Focus of Mystery. However, most people do consider it to be a must have spell, in addition to the 3 spells you pointed out to be must haves as well (Throne of Vines, Flesh to Stone, Regrowth). Therefore, if you want all 4 of these spells, you cannot roll a 1 and a 4. It doesn't matter if you have duplicates or not, as you can never get 2, 3, 5 and 6 if you have a 1 and a 4.

Dwellers is great no doubdt but with sallamanders LM already have good horde control.

Horde control nothing! Character sniper!

...um. Okay. I suppose you could call a gout of searing flame that envelops a character's unit an "attempted assassination".

As for which Lore and whether to master it or not...I'm still not sold. Focus of Mystery is effectively 50pts.

Do you really manage to cast Regrowth and Flesh to Stone and Dwellers after you've cast Throne?
I understand the versatility offered, but I'm just not sure its really worth the extra effort.

Flesh to Stone will cut the loses down by about a third. Earthblood will cut loses by half, assuming no flaming attacks. I think they're pretty even, and while both would be cool, I'd be okay without one.

Dwellers is great, but the main reason I'd use it is to force the S3 lvl4 wizard to test or die, rather than thin down a unit of 50 poor fighters that my Saurus shouldn't have too many problems with.

I guess you could make the argument that Dwellers is the only way to ensure you finish off a unit and get the victory points, but then I'd think you were underestimating Saurus. Other people have tougher stuff, true. But I think that the Slann can do more to protect these guys than most armies can boast.

Oh, and I still don't think that Thrones is a must-have, since I don't see any reason to be pitching huge handfuls of dice at his spells. Any one of them probably won't carry the day, like some lists can do. It seems to be about getting two or more of them each phase.

...so I guess, with the odds of getting what I want being so high, I'll be content to "gamble" and field 3 more Saurus than the next guy. And I might try out Shadow (because a ghost-Shadow Slann sounds like a cool modeling opportunity).

He emant dwellers as a sniper, since it allows no look out sir.

And doesn't care about wounds! 1 failed save and *pop*, gone.


I freaking hate Life Slaan Wizards.

Look on the bright side your seer on bell gets to use the mount's S for the test.

My BSB doesn't :(

And the MR2 from the Bell is meaningless. :(

streamdragon wrote:And doesn't care about wounds! 1 failed save and *pop*, gone.


I freaking hate Life Slaan Wizards.

Power Scroll and cast 13th spell on his unit first?

And hope for max casualties and a timely charge by some Rat Ogres or an A-bomb? I'm not seeing the Curse as a way to nuke characters, seeing as it only kills around 15 guys.

But that is about all Skaven have got against that sort of thing.

My first tournament in 8th involved a first-turn irresistible Dwellers on my general's unit. 30 rats died, but my Seer and my Priest made it out safe.
Then the A-bomb hit home and punched the wizard to death.