# Tips to beating slann



## Shadowz-Demon (Jun 5, 2012)

I've had multiple fantasy games recently against a lizardmen player who always brings a slann with various upgrades and a giant unit of 30 or so temple guard making him an absolute monster to take down. The main problems I've been facing have been firstly the ability (I forget the wording off the top of my head) that gives him a free power die every time he attempts to cast this drains my dispel pool in almost no time at all and means he can get any spell he wants of easily. Another problem is that the slann is a lore master which is horribly especially with the lore of life, this generally means that the giant unit of temple guard are toughness 8 (with flesh to stone and throne of veins) and/or with regen 4+ (with earth blood), meaning that almost nothing I throw at it in close combat will bring them down. The unit is also pretty much in breakable in combat with LD 9 from the slann and the cold blooded rule joined with stubborn means that the only way to stop this unit is to just slowly wear it down in combat which is no easy task considering the before mentioned flesh to stone and earth blood.

Just wandering if anyone else has ran into these problems and if/how they dealt with them, I managed to beat the army once with a heavy magical dark elves list, shadow blade getting a lucky killing blow on the slann after hiding in the temple guard unit and getting the purple sun off a few times which worked wonders. The armies I will generally be playing will be skaven, dark elves or orcs+goblins. Thanks for any replies.


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## DivineEdge (May 31, 2012)

For dark elves, mindrazoring black guard or witch elves (preferably guard) will mow some TG over. 

Are you using Pit of Shades/Purple Sun? With items like the sacrificial dagger, you should be able to get it off no problem. That will take huge chunks out of his unit. If he takes light to somewhat avoid this dilemna (and to be honest, I think light is the best thing a slann can take) then combat will be easier. 

OnG will have problems. But if he is casting throne of vines, lifeblood and flesh to stone every turn not much will get off - and you can still dispel on or two of his casts. 

As for the skaven, magic and shooting the unit away. Warp lighting cannons, dreaded 13th, horned rat, plague, etc.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

Slann are quite rather hard opponents. However they are by no means impossible.

When dispelling any enemy spells it helps to have a plan to know which spells you must stop at all costs and which ones you will let go. Don't forget though that even though the Slann is a loremaster he can only cast 4 spells a turn as per his wizard level.

If the Slann you are facing uses Life then I suggest that you heavily in every phase throw all your dispel dice/scroll at Throne of Vines. Throne of Vines is the key to the rest of his unit's toughness. Without it then those TG will only be T6, have regen 5+ etc. Not to mention that the Slann is then just as likely to miscast as any other wizard. Not much consolation I know but when surviving any magic phase involving a Slann is about damage limitation.

As a Skaven player a lot of Skaven players will tell you an easy (if rather unreliable) way of getting rid of a Slann is to take a Warlock Engineer with just the Brass Orb. The Orb gives the Slann an option of take an initiative test or die. It works better if you can skitterleap the Warlock over since this spell is liekly to be overlooked by the Lizardman player. 

If you have to engage the unit in combat then at least play like a Skaven player. Namely but never offering a fair fight and stacking the odds in your favour. Firstly if the Lizardman player has sunk a lot of points in TG bunker unit +Slann then this will make up the bulk of his army. Therefore focus on killing the rest of the army off whilst the Slann's unit can be held off by Skavenslaves until you are ready to face them on your terms. For dealing with said uber unit Plagueclaws are great killing TG since they will wound on 6's, even after the T boost. The lack of the armour save hurts since at best they will get a 5+ regen save (If you are saavy enough combine with the spell Skorch so that said unit is affected by flaming attacks and therefore get no save at all!). Follow up by attacking from EVERY side if possible but failing that a large unit of Stormvermin with the flaming standard will be able to slowly wade through the Temple Guard unit.

As an interesting aside if the Slann is ever unlucky enough to fail the LD 9 re-rollable cold blooded test then he dies instantly! Admittidly the chances of this are small but its always useful to know. Especially when combined with LD lowering items or abilities.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Its one of the hardest units in the game and can be a massive challenge to kill. Normally, when I'm facing them I won't try and kill them: I'll throw chaff in front of the temple guard and then try to kill everything else in the army, if I get the chance I might try a combo flank-flank or flank-rear charge to lock myself into its flank and try to batter my way through to the slaan (they can't reform and if you kill enough you force the slaan into base contact with a unit at the side/rear).
Lizardmen players are often tempted not to charge chaff units to get a dwellers off on an important unit... but that very rarely kills you, while it means you don't need to replace the chaff unit.


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## Shadowz-Demon (Jun 5, 2012)

Generally I take a big unit of 30-40 warriors with supreme sorceress with sacrificial dagger to get strong magic, I tried using lots of ranged units with skaven and I've never really tried using lore of shadow and shades. Thanks for the help


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## Shadowz-Demon (Jun 5, 2012)

I believe stubborn makes it so the enemy unit always take a ld check on it's unmodified ld so the unit is very unlikely to fail his ld check. Thanks for the reply


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## Shadowz-Demon (Jun 5, 2012)

Yeah it seems like having a big multi charge on the unit would be very useful. Thanks for the reply


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah, but be careful not to charge in the front: going into the flanks/rear mean you're not going to be hit by that many attacks.... but sending in an additional unit in the front (especially if its squishy) often does nothing more then allow the opposition to hit at full power and crank up the combat res in their favour.

Worst I saw was when 2 units of skaven went into the flanks of a chaos warrior block and would have trounced them with SCR except they sent canrats in the front... one or 2 extra dead warriors, but no additional ranksor banner and the return attacks took down about 6-7 rats and meant the warriors won instead...


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