# Versus... Slaan



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Hi everybody

So we've all played lizardmen, and have all been spanked by magic from those fat toads who just sit there smirking as your army burns... so in this latest instance of the Versus... series we have the Slaan, the great magical toad of the Lizardmen army as suggested by blackspine.

So, floating abover a stubborn unit of nails temple guard or out on his own and immune to anything but magical based attacks these frogs can pump out a huge amount of magic, with a possible 7 free power dice a turn there might be as many as 19 power dice smashing through your 6 dispel dice defence (ignoring channelling), and to make matters worse their first miscast may well be dumped on the head of your most powerful mage.
Then it can get even worse with this thing being the army general and BSB all in one, meaning that any lizards close by are just never going to break (especially when you add in cold blooded)... SLaan really are the heart of a lizardman army.

How is it that everyone deals with the slaan, do you ignore it and just take the damage, do you pepper it with artillery/magic or just try to tie up its unit early while you move up your big guns... share your knowledge and tactics with our other members here on heresy.

... or if you are a lizardman player, what scares you, what have people done to shut down your Slaan..?


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## Farseer Darvaleth (Nov 15, 2009)

They're hardly overly-cheap, are they? And they can't cast magic in combat (unless they're truly disgusting, I haven't had the chance to get close to one yet) so my friend thought up an idea I've been toying with.

Sadly it's only really going to work for armies that can field huge numbers of very cheap infantry. It's also quite a cheap tactic, but certainly funny. For VC, though, it's known as the zombie conga-line.

Yes, a unit of maybe 40 zombies fielded one-rank wide, with that one zombie dead on the slann, or if he's hiding, in front of where he is (so he is giving supporting attacks and therefore in combat). Other armies should field more, as VC can use IoN (even though it is now severely weakened) to bring back more, but as I said, it is weakened.

Essentially a tarpit that you can't get full frontage against. By bogging up his big points-sink, you can be free to deal with the other monsters (with yet more conga-lines!) and such.

It's not perfect, but it's something. :laugh:

EDIT: It also becomes an utter nuisance for moving your army around, especially if their Slann is dead-centre.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

He's I1- attack that. Lore of death/shadow. Unfortunately, that means you have to get through the magic defenses he'll inevitably take. If the tourney allows power scrolls/you're not in a tourney, then use that, otherwise, just keep chucking dice at it. If you're not into magic, that means you've pretty much gotta kill the Temple Guard. I have only ever had my slann killed once- and that was after around two phases of the unit being multi assaulted by two units of Brettonian knights (and the good ones, mind you, not the basic ones) as well as a unit of their peasants with halberds.

And @ Farseer Darvaleth- Augments can be cast whilst in combat, and Slann are taken pretty much to buff the rest of the army


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I have radically different approaches to slaan depending on what army I'm playing.

With ogres I target him- my whole army manouvers to get into combat with the TG/Slaan and since Im M6 and pretty good in combat I can get there quickly and smack the TG around when I am there. Normally takes 2-3 combat phases to destroy them but when they're dead (and the Slaan is history) the rest of the army normally falls pretty easily. There has only been 1 game of ogres vs lizards where the slaan has survived (he was hiding with his unit behind 70-80 skinks... but that was back in 7th when charging mattered). Temple guard aren't as scary in combat as they used to be since they can no longer have a 2+ save, so if you hit them hard they'll drop pretty quick still.

With WE I just dont have the ability to smash the Slaans unit, and if they come with the full temple guard bodyguard then I just ignore it- it would take too much effort to kill. Then again WE have the wand of wych elm, allowing me to reroll all dispell attempts which really helps for magical defence.
If the lizards bring a solo slaan with the pseudo-ethereal power then I often find myself ignoring that too, but I will still fire off the occasional magic missile his way: since I normally take lore of beasts this means that the Slaan faces a higher level amber spear- S10 D6 wounds... not really worth concentrating on, but if there are no other good targets around for other spells its always worth a go.


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## Farseer Darvaleth (Nov 15, 2009)

There is something that can defeat the big unit of inevitable body guards and the Slann itself. It's a little combo I run with my VC.

It requires one Vampire with the Lore of Beasts (then whatever you want) and of course you'll have the spell which grants +3S and +3A to a friendly character. Step in a vampire lord with the sword of bloodshed, the crown of the damned, red fury, infinite hatred, and avatar of death. Normally nasty on his own, but coupled with the beasts magic buff(s) [plural included in case you wan to go really crazy].

Also get Vanhels Danse Macabre on him if possible, but against Lizardmen it makes no difference (high initiative removes need for ASF). You have 10 attacks, S8, WS7, I7, re-roll all misses every round of combat, AND any wounds you cause come back in the form of additional attacks to be made _immediately_. Should anything survive that destructive firestorm, you have a 4+ armour save and a 4+ ward save too, if at the cost of becoming _stupid_, but Ld10 is fine for that anyway.

It's a horrible combo, it turns a 20-man skeleton unit into a deathstar all of its own. When it's flanked by a 40-ghoul horde and a horrific 30-grave guard horde with flag of blood keep and banner of the barrows, coupled with helm of command from the beasts thrall, it's just....just.... insane! :yahoo:


Anyway, I went on a little rant there, but the lord combo is really what I wanted to demonstrate here.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

I haven't had many chances to play with my Lizzies yet, but generally, the only thing that can touch my Slann is anything tough enough to take out the Temple-Guard. Watch out for Flesh-to-Stone, or Dwellers on units that get too close.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Grave Guard or Blood Knights are likely the VC's best counters... 99% of the time I see the slaan taking lore of life for all the buffs it offers, and the easily spamable dwellers.
The GG & BK are both S4, so dwellers is less of a problem for them.
Support the unit with a fighty vamp lord who's toting the blood drinker on top of red fury + forbidden lore (fire) and you'll chop down his regenerating temple guards soon enough... (just be sure he doesn't get flesh to stone and/or throne of vines off!)

A real nasty blood knight unit would involve the BSB w/strigos banner (hatred) + hellfire banner (magical flaming attacks to the unit). Then you could even use the beast lore for the extra wildform buff to the unit for S8/T5 on the charge!

Cheers!


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

My issue with a lot of the solutions being posted in this thread is that they all work fine in a vacuum- chucking 3-4 strong/large units at the slann will work of course. but that assumes you can get those units there without those 2-3 units of saurus forming a wall getting in your way

my tactics for fielding a slann are very simple- ignore the Temple Guard, they are poor elite soldiers, and throw the slann in a unit of skinks behind the main line. Combine with etheral for warmachine protection and LoS from the skinks vs. magic templates/magic warmachines and he is a tough nut to crack. how do you deal with that?

as a Lizzie player i fear only 3 things- Dwellers (easily dispelled when i can discard all the 6's you roll to cast spells- no IF for you-hoo!) nasty choppy flying characters that can dodge my saurus wall and hit me with a magic weapon, and multiple magic cannons- its still a 1 in 6 chance that can really hurt my slann


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## Farseer Darvaleth (Nov 15, 2009)

But what if your main line is broken, and the victorious unit (no doubt including some kind of character) overruns through? Granted, if he's behind tough units its unlikely, but warhammer is a mad and wonderful game. What if they roll Purple Sun right down your army? :laugh:

Otherwise flying magical things will annoy you, but that's it I guess. Oh, a quick question: for the transformation of kadon spell, did they ever Errata it so the model loses all its special rules and gains the special rules of the creature?

Otherwise you can have HE ASF dragons, or VC Ethereal Dragons (dear god) or dragons with red fury...


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Farseer Darvaleth said:


> But what if your main line is broken, and the victorious unit (no doubt including some kind of character) overruns through? Granted, if he's behind tough units its unlikely, but warhammer is a mad and wonderful game. What if they roll Purple Sun right down your army? :laugh:
> 
> Otherwise flying magical things will annoy you, but that's it I guess. Oh, a quick question: for the transformation of kadon spell, did they ever Errata it so the model loses all its special rules and gains the special rules of the creature?
> 
> Otherwise you can have HE ASF dragons, or VC Ethereal Dragons (dear god) or dragons with red fury...


If you have broken through my saurus units i have bigger issues than losing my slann

and good luck getting your purple sun off when i take all those 6's you roll on your max 6 dice (likely 1 or 2) and discard them, and then dispel scroll that bitch/dispel it 

Transformation loses all special rules of the model AFAIK, havent read the FAQ in a while but pretty sure they changed that. No Etheral Frog-dragons for the lizardmen


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

WHFB Rulebook FAQ said:


> Q: If a model is transformed, for example by the Transformation
> of Kadon or Sivejir’s Hex Scroll, do their special rules stop working
> along with their magic items and equipment?(Reference)
> A: No


There you go. As long as it's an ability and not equipment you're good to go.


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

sir_m1ke said:


> Combine with etheral for warmachine protection
> 
> multiple magic cannons- its still a 1 in 6 chance that can really hurt my slann


I love shooting Slann with my magic cannon, 5pt rune to make it flammable and magic attacks, one or two missed "lookout sir" rolls and eat cannonball to the face you camping frog.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll (Jun 9, 2008)

Aramoro said:


> There you go. As long as it's an ability and not equipment you're good to go.


But a Slann can't transform, unless they updated the Lizard FAQ.


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## Gulstaf (Aug 15, 2008)

I myself play a skaven army and although i've never played against a lizardmen army I have a few tactics i'd likely employ. I like to play my army magic heavy from time to time and am of the opinion that magic must defeat magic in some cases. 

To accomplish this I would most likely kit out a Grey Seer with a Warp energy condenser or a tricksters shard, and a brass orb (based on Slann priests low initiative). I probably wouldn't give him any protection items as I would expect him to die. I would select all the grey seer's spells from ruin hoping for a cracks call (once again because of low initiative), and swapping out another spell for skitterleap. Come my magic phase with a bit of luck I'd skitterleap near enough to the Slann to be within range of the Brass orb, try to pop a cracks call if I had it, and give my opponent the evil eye as he rolls. If this failed i'd have a few warlock engineers kicking around with annoying items like dispel scrolls, scrolls of leeching and feedback scrolls to make his spellcasting miserable.

and if thats not a viable option, then I'd probbly just sink a bunch of points into WLC(s). although my aim with them is rubbish.

and that ladies and gentlemen is my skaven's response to a slann mage priest. However a large portion of it can be employed by any army with wizards.

p.s. please note that most of my tactic involves no small amount of luck, but that is something you need to play a fun skaven army (or warhammer in general)


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

Wolf_Lord_Skoll said:


> But a Slann can't transform, unless they updated the Lizard FAQ.


Thats the one, knew there was some sort of stipulation about the Slann



Gulstaf said:


> To accomplish this I would most likely kit out a Grey Seer with a Warp energy condenser or a tricksters shard, and a brass orb (based on Slann priests low initiative). I probably wouldn't give him any protection items as I would expect him to die. I would select all the grey seer's spells from ruin hoping for a cracks call (once again because of low initiative), and swapping out another spell for skitterleap. Come my magic phase with a bit of luck I'd skitterleap near enough to the Slann to be within range of the Brass orb, try to pop a cracks call if I had it, and give my opponent the evil eye as he rolls. If this failed i'd have a few warlock engineers kicking around with annoying items like dispel scrolls, scrolls of leeching and feedback scrolls to make his spellcasting miserable.


You are making big assumptions here-

1) Your Grey seer is less valuable to your army than the slann is to your opponents
2) you will get any of the spells you mentioned off with no 6's rolled and against an equally as adept wizard
3) your brass orb goes off correctly and doesnt malfunction
4) the slann fails his LoS roll
5) the slann fails his I test

of these all, only the last one is in your favour

Warlock engineers with scrolls= a lot of points tied up in 1-use items. Slann can comfortably chuck out 3-4 spells a turn, those items dont last long

WLC are one of the few genuinely big threats to a slann, but again it is dependent entirely on no misfires, a gd strength shot and a good D6 wound roll. plus the slann failing his LoS

Magic artillery and flying magic stuff is the answer, against most other things the Slann has good defense


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## Gulstaf (Aug 15, 2008)

sir_m1ke said:


> You are making big assumptions here-
> 
> 1) Your Grey seer is less valuable to your army than the slann is to your opponents
> 2) you will get any of the spells you mentioned off with no 6's rolled and against an equally as adept wizard
> ...


I don't think many of these are assumptions, Like I said I believe a little luck is necessary when playing skaven.

1) my grey seer is much less valuable to me then a very potent enemy wizard who will most likely cost more points anyways.
2) you assume that I would be foolish enough to place my most powerful caster/best shot at taking out a slann priest within the 24" necessary to have you negate his 6's, this being said however, the warp energy condenser still provides additional power dice on rolls of 5's aswell.
3&4) brass orb only has 1/6 chance of blowing up in my face, the same chance that you will fail a look out sir rule
5) the slann's initiative is garbage, which would make him much more likely to succumb to cracks call or a brass orb.

and at the end of the day, these may be huge point sinks especially the massed warlock engineers with items, but I play skaven and can feild large amounts of troops for little points. If worse comes to worse however I don't have to even use magic to take down your slann, I can always send my deathmaster after him one way or another.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Sword masters will chop a Slann and his body guard to bits. Just march them up to him protected by banner of the world dragon, flanked by 2 small units of Phoenix guard (to hold off units like Stegadons). 

Failing that. You have a Slann hiding in a unit of temple guard? I've got Teclis hiding in a unit of PG under the banner of the world dragon and Banner of Sorcery.

A potential 6 extra PD to me, and a potential extra 3 DD. 4+ ward saves and I'm mmune to spells. Ugh, cheese.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Orochi said:


> Sword masters will chop a Slann and his body guard to bits. Just march them up to him protected by banner of the world dragon, flanked by 2 small units of Phoenix guard (to hold off units like Stegadons).
> 
> Failing that. You have a Slann hiding in a unit of temple guard? I've got Teclis hiding in a unit of PG under the banner of the world dragon and Banner of Sorcery.
> 
> A potential 6 extra PD to me, and a potential extra 3 DD. 4+ ward saves and I'm mmune to spells. Ugh, cheese.


Skink Skirmisher diversionary units shooting the crap out of them and redirecting would solve that I think. Not to mention the ungodly cost of the number of Swordmasters you'd have to take to take on Temple-Guard, compared to how fragile they are.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah its a good point- swordmasters are a great counter to temple guard... but skinks are a supurb counter to swordmasters. The SM could be deathstar'd to make them awesome against lizards (eg sacred incense, world dragon etc) but thats for another discussion.

Personally with HE I much prefer white lions to SM for any battle... the WL would cause slightly more damage against TG in a standard formation (5 wide with champion) then SM (16 attacks at S5 vs 11 attacks at S6), have a 3+ save against shooting (so will take half as much damage as SM from skinks) and are stubborn to boot.

If the enemy is T3 and/or has WS5 then SM start to become better, but for armies with T4, good armour and WS that isnt 5 white lions are just plain better.

Against Slaan/TG I would like to have a big block of WL that I can buff with something to make them more survibable in combat. 5+ ward (high lore), 4/5+ regen and/or T5/7 (lore of life), T4 (lore of beasts) etc... they already do teh damage needed to cut through the TG, but they might not live long enough to do it (locally TG units are normally ~30 strong).


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Ah, I overlooked WLs.

I msut say, World dragon is a must agaisnt a slann unless you're with Teclis. The Slann can jsut blast out magic like no tomorrow...and Teclis is the only thing better at it, and the banner makes the Slann in effect, useless against the unit carrying it.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I think a lot of Lizard players use the lores of life/light on their Slaan. Life is a standard one in my meta- almost everyone takes it for any army if they can. It gets a bit boring but is very effective: T6/8 TG with 4+/5+ regen is pretty hellish. Light is also a nice one with a nice mix of manouver, combat bonuses and direct damage. Personally I would take a light slaan: temple guard able to march 16" a turn with -1 to hit from shooting (and only 50% the shots from warmachines), you could up them to I10 to counter their biggest flaw (and laugh at purple sun/pit of shades) and still pump out the damage...

These sorts of Slaan are principally there to buff their own armies, and as such greatly reduce the effectiveness of defensive items (magic resistance, world dragon etc). The best way I can think of to counter them is items that steal power dice or affect the structure of the magic phase. Stealing power dice means your defence is better and the slaan may need to add extra dice to force spells through but may also run out of dice early (1 dice plus 1 free dice at a spell is something I see quite often).
Items that change the magic phase are very rare; in particular Im thinking of things like the HE vortex shard and ogre hellheart. The first just ends the phase then and there while the second makes all doubles a miscast (on the ogre table): few lizard players want to risk casting while a hellheart is being used unless they have cupped hands (the ogre miscast table is nasty- 1D6: 1-2 either kill or stop you casting and a 6 makes you frenzied... which is just funny on a Slaan but not really going to affect the game).

While I love the hellheart, cupped hands really can break it. The Slaan can cast at will until the first miscast (doesn't take long) and throw it onto you (and if you roll a 1 your slaughtermaster/butcher is dead and all other butchers on the field take D3 wounds).
It can be quite comic though- I've used it twice, first time the slaan failed his cupped hands roll and then got a 2 on the ogre miscast (some wounds and can no longer cast spells) so there was a non-magical frog on the field and the other he put the miscast onto me and then rolled (although Im sure it should be ther other way round) and got a 6, making me frenzied, just as I was about to charge him .


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Good point. World dragon only is effective against spells that affect the unit. And as you said, Lizardmen slann usually take the back seat and buff the army.

Moving away from HE, but taking what you said in the last paragraph into account, VC have just that.

2 Black coaches (who drain power dice from both sides) alongside 2-3 Balefire Corpse carts would put a real strain on the Slann's power dice supply.
Coaches absorbs (and buff up) on 1/6 power dice each player. 2 Coaches increases this chance. Balefire is -1 to cast (so 3 carts is -3). -3 to casting basically neutralises a power die (ish). And with maybe 2 drained from the Coaches, the slann has lost 3 dice. Thats 18 dice average in a 6 turn game.

Although, Lizardmen in CC will stomp VC. So...it's kind of a mute point.


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## Troublehalf (Aug 6, 2010)

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but since I'm a Lizardmen player I thought I'd post.

For my Slann I normally take Lore of Life, Divine Plaque of Protection (xx points) which buffs his Ward Save on Ranged Attacks to 2+. I then throw the ever so useful Cupped Hands of the Old Ones (xx points) throw in a Dispell Scroll at xx points for any magic heavy opponents. I then throw a Sun Standard of Chotec ontop of him which makes all missles fired at the unit (so Temple Guard included) from within 12" suffer an additional -2 to hit and outside 12" to suffer -1 to hit. Coupled with his Plaque and the Slann is pretty hard to hit with any missle weapons. I then choose Focus of Mystery, Unfathomable Presence ( (3) Magic Resistance), The Focused Rumination and then depending on what I face, another one.

It allows Anti-Slann weaponry like Cannons and the such to become much less effective. Therefore it's down to Magic and Melee... but they also have (3) Magic Resistance which also affects the TG making them pretty resistant to magic that does get cast against them. So it comes down to melee to do real impact, but Lore of Life has the tasty +4T buff, which makes the TG very nice. Throw in Chakax and they become even more tough AND get protected from the Death Star heroes which might wander over.

Please don't post itemised points costs
T/S


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## HiveMinder (Feb 8, 2010)

My Skaven fight Lizardmen more often than I'd like. (My wife plays Lizards.) My tactic for the Slann has always been to shoot the hell out of the unit with Jezzails, WLCs and poison wind until it gets small enough to use the 13th spell on them. 

I also like giving a Brass Orb to a Warlock Engineer and Skitterleaping him behind the unit. That usually goes a long way to thinning the herd.


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## Dragearen (Sep 8, 2009)

Troublehalf said:


> Sorry to bring up an old thread, but since I'm a Lizardmen player I thought I'd post.
> 
> For my Slann I normally take Lore of Life, Divine Plaque of Protection (xx points) which buffs his Ward Save on Ranged Attacks to 2+. I then throw the ever so useful Cupped Hands of the Old Ones (xx points) throw in a Dispell Scroll at xx points for any magic heavy opponents. I then throw a Sun Standard of Chotec ontop of him which makes all missles fired at the unit (so Temple Guard included) from within 12" suffer an additional -2 to hit and outside 12" to suffer -1 to hit. Coupled with his Plaque and the Slann is pretty hard to hit with any missle weapons. I then choose Focus of Mystery, Unfathomable Presence ( (3) Magic Resistance), The Focused Rumination and then depending on what I face, another one.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry to say your build is illegal. The Cupped Hands are an Arcane item, and same with the Dispel scroll, meaning you must choose one or the other. Also, taking Cupped Hands, Divine Plaque and the Sun Standard is going over his 100 point allotment.

And how does the MR3 carry over to the TG? My understanding is that it only applies to the Slann. I myself like this build(though I have only played one 8th game, so I'm not sure quite how good it is), which I'll be taking up against the new Tomb Kings this Saturday:

Slann - Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, HSoC, Becalming Cogitation, Cupped Hands, Divine Plaque, BSB, Lichebone, Lore of Life
So +1 PD, wizards within 24" don't get to count 6s for spells, only magic attacks have an effect, and he has Loremaster. On top of that, I can ignore a miscast on a 2+(does this stack with Throne of Vines? I.E he fails his Throne of Vines save, so can I use Cupped Hands to have another try?), have a 2+ ward, and he's a BSB, giving him and his unit MR1(1+ ward save against magic missiles, not like that really helps any). 540 points.


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Dragearen said:


> Slann - Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, HSoC, Becalming Cogitation, Cupped Hands, Divine Plaque, BSB, Lichebone, Lore of Life
> So +1 PD, wizards within 24" don't get to count 6s for spells, only magic attacks have an effect, and he has Loremaster. On top of that, I can ignore a miscast on a 2+(does this stack with Throne of Vines? I.E he fails his Throne of Vines save, so can I use Cupped Hands to have another try?), have a 2+ ward, and he's a BSB, giving him and his unit MR1(1+ ward save against magic missiles, not like that really helps any). 540 points.


With Becalming Cogitation you only get to nominate one wizard. Cupped Hands takes place after you roll on the miscast table. The way the spell is cast= spell cast IF, spell effect, roll for throne of vines. Failing the throne of vines then makes you roll on the miscast chart, then you could use cupped hands. That is the way that I understand it.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Not counting 6's to cast spells would be godly for Teclis. As by my understanding, the only way he can miscast is with a double 6 (if a double 1 is rolled, the spell still goes off).

I think this is true, but I'm usually crap with WFB rules.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Dragearen said:


> And how does the MR3 carry over to the TG? My understanding is that it only applies to the Slann. I myself like this build(though I have only played one 8th game, so I'm not sure quite how good it is), which I'll be taking up against the new Tomb Kings this Saturday:


MR is carried over from a character to any unit they are with. Personally I've always played that its worked out on a per unit basis but this is technically wrong (if a champion had MR1 it wouldn't carry over to anyone else as the rules are written).


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## kain1989 (Dec 1, 2009)

I just played a slaan with my wood elves last weekend. I ran small units, and let him cast his buffs on his slaan unit, I ignored the slaan and killed the rest of his army, which i was lucky because he seperated his army out, allowing me to run around him, and focus fire.

but I was also lucky because he miscast twice, and killed all but the front rank of the tomb guard unit. 


but with buffing slaans, I let them buff some units, ignore them, and kill the untouched ones, that doesn't really answer how to kill a him, but that's how i deal with them.


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