# Lizardmen Slann Lore of Magic Tactica



## coke123

Alright, ever since 8th edition came around, a Slann has pretty much become a mandatory choice for Lizardmen armies. I've yet to see a workable Lizardmen list of 1500pts+ without a Slann at it's centre. Also, whenever someone posts a new Lizardmen list, at least one of two arguments/questions always crops up - What lore to take? It's an extremely important question, as often the rest of the army will be built around what lore you decide to use. To help shed some light on this question, I have started this thread.

The general consensus amongst Lizardmen players is that one should take one of two lores- either the Lore of Light, or Lore of Life. Both work fantastically well with Lizardmen. Before I get on to these two lores, I will discuss the implications of the other lores of magic for the Lizardmen army. First off, The Lore of Fire.

The Lore of Fire is my least favourite lore. Why? It's bloody unimaginative. When you see that an opponent has taken a Bright Wizard, you bloody well know what he's planning. Anyway, let's discuss what Fire can bring to the Lizardmen. The Lore Attribute is fairly good- especially if there's an enemy deathstar you want to kill with fire. Something it does bring that the Lizardmen lack is ranged firepower. The majority of Lizardmen shooting has a range of 12" or less, the only exceptions being regular Stegadons and a lucky roll with Salamanders, so on the outset this sounds like a great deal, until you realise that Lizardmen can't really play with a static firebase in their own deployment zone, as other armies such as the Empire can. So this becomes a moot point. Furthermore, a similar advantage can be gained via the Lore of Heavens, which Skink Priests are forced to take. So why take a Lore that does what your Priests are already forced to do? Another problem with Fire is the lack of augment spells. Your Saurus are some of the best core in the game, but they still need magical support to win combats against foes such as Chaos Warriors. This cannot be effectively achieved with only _The Flaming Sword of Rhuin_ to back them up. So in short, I wouldn't bother with a Lore of Fire Slann.

Next, Lore of Beasts. When it comes to Lizardmen, this lore is probably even more useless than the Lore of Fire. The lore attribute is too situational- it may prove useful when augmenting Terradons, but why the hell would you do that anyway?. Whilst it does have the augments that Fire lacks, they're pretty crap for the most part. Three of the four augments can only affect characters, and frankly you want to be boosting up your entire army. On top of that, one of those augments, _The Transformation of Kadon_, cannot be used by a Slann, as per the FAQ. So as well as only having one good augment for your troops, you have no 'super-spell'. Fantastic. _The Flock of Doom_ is next to useless as a damage spell, since it hits at S2, although I will grant that _The Amber Spear_ and _The Curse of Anraheir_ are useful. So these two spells, along with _Wyssan's Wildform_ give us three decent spells at our disposal, and that's all they can be described as - decent. So in short, if your Slann is using Lore of Beasts, he's basically using half of a decent lore. I'd avoid Beasts with Lizardmen, although if you desperately want to use it, just take Tenehauin.

Next, The Lore of Metal. This lore provides an interesting ability for the Lizardmen- the ability to deal with armour from a range. Magic aside, the only things that Lizardmen have to deal with heavy armour are Salamanders and Stegadons, so the ability to prey upon one's armour becomes very attractive. Metal has a good amount of hexes and augments, although one in particular is near useless for lizards- _Glittering Robe_. Since this gives 5+ Scaly Skin, which Saurus already have, its only use is to augment your skinks. Now if you're like me, and only use skirmishers, you're not going to be terribly fussed about giving your 70pt skirmisher units a 5+ AS. On the other hand, _Enchanted Blades of Aiban_ is an extremely powerful additive to a block of Saurus. Augments aside, the basic spell can decimate heavy armour, and the 'super spell' _Final Transmutation_ statistically should take out one third of an entire unit, and cause everything around them to become stupid. Not bad. On the flipside, _Gehenna's Golden Hounds_ is pretty much pointless, given that the hits allow Look Out Sir! rolls. So in a similar fashion to Beasts, Metal only has five spells that are terribly useful to Lizards, and on top of this, as with any other army, Metal is a highly situational lore. Should you use it, you'll completely decimate Bretonnians, and put quite a dent into WoC and Dwarves, whilst the Skaven, Beastmen and O&G will laugh at the pathetic pointsink that the Slann is. So whilst Metal can work for Lizardmen, there are much better lores around.

Next we'll look at the Lore of Heavens. This will be short. Whilst Heavens is a good lore for the Lizardmen to use, _*never under any circumstance take a Slann with the Lore of Heavens*_. Why? It's bloody pointless, that's why! Your Skink Priests are forced to take Heavens, why would your Slann take it as well? Half the point of taking a Slann is to gain access to other lores. If you want to use Lore of Heavens, either take a few Skink Priests, or use Tetto'eko. It'll be much cheaper.

Now we continue on to the Lore of Shadow. The lore attribute is useless for a Slann- since he's almost certainly with a Temple Guard unit, he won't be able to leave it. This can be extremely powerful for the Lizardmen, if used right. The three hexes in this lore are incredibly useful- _Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma_ can potentially bring most opponents down to the same terrible initiative as your Saurus, which could prove invaluable, as well as being able to stunt your enemy's charges by lowering their movement. _Steed of Shadows _is pretty pointless, unless you're playing a higher point game and are taking a Carnosaur Oldblood. Then it's freaking awesome! Whilst you can't make a charge with this spell (as it is made as if during the Remaining Moves subphase), you can use this to get your Carnosaur on to the enemy's flanks or even their rear to make a nice little rear attack. Actually, I would suggestplacing it on the flank so that it keeps overruning into the next unit. _The Enfeebling Foe_ and _The Withering_ are also incredible- Chaos Warriors aren't that scary when they're S2 T2! _The Penumbral Pendulum_ can do a fair amount of damage, but be warned- It will also kill the poor Temple Guard that will inevitably be standing directly in front of the Slann. If you plan on using it, buy a few more Temple Guard to soak up these inevitable extra wounds. _Pit of Shades_ is considered one of the strongest spells in the game- against the right opponents (including your fellow coldbloods!) it will be devastating. Finally, _Okkam's Mindrazor_ is bloody amazing. Seeing as how Saurus are Ld8 across the board, using this spell to augment your Saurus will put them at S8- more than enough to ignore all armour, and easily wound pretty much anything in the game. In short, if you feel like breaking away from the norm and not using either Life or Light, then I would recommend Shadow.

And this brings us to the Lizardmen's most feared Lore- The Lore of Death. To start with, let's look at the Lore Attribute. It's bloody awesome! Anything that adds more to the power pool get's a plus in my books, especially when used in conjuction with the Discipline of the Ancients, The Focussed Rumination. If done right, you can easily get off every spell in the Lore of Death. Now on to spells. _Spirit Leech_ is useful, but its uses are limited. Useful for killing characters, but that's not too much of a problem for the Lizards. Sure, if your enemy is packing Grimgor Ironhide or Skulltaker, you're going to want to off them pretty early, but otherwise this is a fairly situational spell. Frankly, the same can be said of half of this lore- _The_ _Caress of Laniph _and _The Fate of Bjuna_ also have this problem. _Aspect of the Dreadknight_ is useful; put it on your Saurus to give them a slight edge in combat. _Soulblight_ is pretty handy, and could easily swing a combat in your favour, and the larger version is just plain nasty, affecting all enemies within 24". I've seen some interesting tactics suggested involving a combo of _Doom and Darkness_ and a unit of Salamanders. The idea being that you first lower the leadership of a large, expensive enemy unit, preferably a whole heap of clanrats or goblins, or similar, and then fire your salamanders at them. Since a single wound from a Salamander's fire forces a panic test, they must test and with their pathetic leadership they will run. You continue casting _Doom and Darkness_, thereby making them continually fail to regroup, until they have fled the board. I personally don't think that this is a tactic to base an army around, but it does give us another trick up our sleeve. Finally, we have the Lizardmen's worse nightmare- _The Purple Sun of Xereus_ *spits to get bad taste out of mouth*. Now, it would be lovely to just unleash this badboy on your enemy, but keep a few things in mind. Of course, as with _The Penumbral Pendulum_ your poor Temple Guard are going to suffer as they are in the way of the attack. Make sure to account for this. Second, since the Purple-Nurple likes to linger, make sure that you end the spell as you approach enemy lines, because as dangerous as it is to your opponent, it's even more dangerous to you. Third. remember that if you roll a misfire, the sun is placed above the caster. Meaning the Slann, as well as his Temple Guard, are screwed, as well as most of your Saurus, seeing as how it will hover around until another misfire if rolled. Because of this risk, I would strongly advise against Lizardmen players casting _The Purple Sun of Xereus_.
So to cap off the Lore of Death, it has three highly situational spells, one that is just as dangerous to you as it is to your opponent, one really good spell, and two OK ones, as well as an awesome attribute. So in short, I'd avoid this lore.

And this brings us to the Lizardmen's bread and butter- the Lore of Light and the Lore of Life. the basic idea of using either of these lores is an attempt to circumvent the Lizardmen's biggest weakness- their pathetic initiative. Light gives a more direct approach, actually increasing their initiative and giving them ASF, whereas Life seeks to improve durability- essentially not caring about who strikes first, since the enemy will struggle to wound T6 or regenerating saurus.

Ever since 8th edition came out people have been arguing over which is better. To be frank, they're both fine choices, however, I'm inclined to towards the Lore of Life.

Firstly. let's look at the Lore of Light. Its lore attribute is highly situational, so there's no pluses there. It makes undead and daemons cry, but nothing else cares. _Shem's Gaze_ is a bit meh, but in all fairness, when it comes to Lizardmen magic we're looking to augment and hex, rather than damage. _Pha's Protection _a good spell, but it's no different to the signature spell from Lore of Heavens, meaning if you want this spell you can just spam Skink Priests, allowing you to more effectively shut down enemy shooting. _The Speed of Light _is one of the major draws of Light- WS10 and I10 saurus? yes please. and the bigger version affecting all my units within 12"? Awesomesauce. _Light of Battle_ is also extremely useful. Since this causes an auto-rally on a fleeing unit, this can be used to allow skink skirmishers to make a 'feined flight' in the same manner as fast cavalry. Essentially they act as bait, flee from a charge, thereby bringing a key enemy unit out into the open. Whilst an experienced general will probably not fall for this, it works a treat against kids who have no idea what they're doing (several of which inhabit my local battle bunker), as well as working against frenzied troops. Plus the larger version can keep your whole battleline in check, since it too affects everything in 12". _Net of Amyntok_ is another doozy- since this is based on a strength test, use this to stop those damned elven spellcasters from shoving purple suns down your throat. Alternatively, it's highly effective at silencing war machine crews. _Banishment_ is pretty straightforward; use it against things that depend on ward saves. Daemon, begone! This brings us to the coup de grace of the Lore of Light- _Birona's Timewarp_. +1 attack, double movement and ASF. Oh, and the higher level, just like _The Speed of Light_ and _Light of Battle_ affects everyone in 12". Beautiful. You can see why so many Lizardmen players are attracted to the Lore of Light.

Before we compare the two, let's check out the Lore of Life. To start with, it has an awesome attribute. Healing Characters for each successful spell gets a big tick in my books. _Earthblood_ gives Regeneration(5+). Not bad at all! _Awakening of the Wood_ provides a nifty little damaging spell. _Flesh to Stone_ is one of the main draws of Lizardmen to the Life- T6 Saurus is nothing to be sniffed at. _Shield of Thorns_ is useful, if you have spare power dice, but not necessary. Very good to help make up for the Temple Guard attacks lost by the Slann displacing them from the 2nd rank. Oh, and should the enemy get by your defenses set up by your magic, no worry! We have _Regrowth_ to replace any models lost. The 'super-spell' for Life is none other than _The Dwellers Below_, often touted as the most powerful spell in the game. Excellent for destroying those pesky hordes that otherwise would have tarpitted your precious, elite Saurus. and finally, we have _Throne of Vines_. As well as giving a 2+ save against miscasts, it boosts all the other Life spells, bar Dwellers (and frankly it doesn't need boosting, now does it?). Now that is a good lore.

On to the comparison of these two lores in terms of Lizardmen. They're both extremely suited to our scaly friends, but there are a few advantages Life has over Light which I'd like to point out.


Light doesn't have the miscast protection of Life. Meaning once you've used the Cupped Hands (and I certainly hope you take it) it's gone
Life gives superior protection in general- Light only really protects your units in combat. _Pha's Protection_ only goes so far. Life helps defend against those pesky gunlines as well
Life has generally lower casting values- Light depends much more on using 'higher', 'boosted' versions of spells with incredibly high casting values in order to pass on your spells' benefits to as many Lizards as possible. This means that you're almost relying on miscasts to get these spells off, which without the protection of _Throne of Vines_ means you'll be depending on your Slann blowing up.
Lower casting values means it's easier to saturate your opponent and force him to make bad decisions
Life has a superior Lore Attribute- OK, the lore attributes aren't too important, but they still count!
Whilst the only advantages of Light I can think of are


Superior combat ability
Protection against attacks that prey on low initiative- i.e. _The Purple Sun of Xereus_
_Light of Battle_ allows for superior tactics with skinks, seeing as how you can make 'feined flight' charge reactions, and then know that they'll regroup, as well as knowing that they won't panic your lines. When you first think about it, the skinks passing panic on to their fellows mightn't seem like a problem, but I've had a Salamader's flee reaction panic my entire line once. It happens.
As far as I'm concerned, the second point isn't too much of an advantage, seeing as how the Discipline of the Ancients, The Becalming Cogitation prevents *most* Irresistible Force from the enemy, which means a simple dispel scroll can deal with that.


So that's it from me. Tell me what you think. And if advocates for the Lore of Light would put any arguments forward as to why Light is better, please do so- I love being proven wrong, it makes me a better player.


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## CLT40k

Great article + Rep


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## Vaz

Quick note - protection against attacks which prey on low Leadership - you mean Initiative right? Good stuff, all the same. I'd rep, but you got it recently.


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## boreas

Love it! After using a Life Slann for my first game, I'm looking forward to try a lone Ethereal Shadow Slann. This way, I can move around supporting my troops while casting the Pit and Pendulum (haha - Love Poe!).

Phil


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## coke123

Vaz said:


> Quick note - protection against attacks which prey on low Leadership - you mean Initiative right? Good stuff, all the same. I'd rep, but you got it recently.


Dope! Wrote this fairly late in the evening after a day of Christmas shopping. You are correct- edited accordingly.



boreas said:


> Love it! After using a Life Slann for my first game, I'm looking forward to try a lone Ethereal Shadow Slann. This way, I can move around supporting my troops while casting the Pit and Pendulum (haha - Love Poe!).
> 
> Phil


An interesting idea. The only trouble is, this tactic excludes you from using Temple Guard. Now, some are under the impression that they're overpriced, which they are, ever so slightly, but still, they're a good unit. If employing this tactic it may also be an idea to keep a sacrificial skink character within 18"- That way should a unit with magical attacks threaten it (or any unit, seeing as how combat res will break him) you can just cast a shadow spell and blip the Slann out of there. Just a couple of thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback guys! It's nice to know it's appreciated!


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## Vaz

Step Up made them viable. Try taking the Magic Carpet for a Flying Ethereal Shadow Slann. You'll be pinging all over the battlefield - although watch out as you'll be instagibbed by the 13th Spell Abuse.


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## coke123

Step Up? Is this a rule I missed?


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## boreas

Step up is the rule that makes you take casualties off the back of the unit. Thus, even our slow ini TG can now attack with full first and second rank attacks even if they've taken casulaties.

Phil


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## coke123

Ah right. Should probably learn the names of the rules, rather than just calling them "that thing where we remove them from the back now".


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## the-graven

Nice thread, I've always either used the Lore of Shadows or Light (love them fluffwise), used Life once, but the survivability doesn't bother me too much.
When HE is your main opponent Speed of Light and Timewarp become incredibly attractive!
I play very offensively, so Light serves me better.

About Beasts, perhaps one use is, take a Lone Slann and 2 Saurus blocks with 2 Scar vets w/AHW and LA in in each block.
Now cast power-up of savage beasts, every scar vet now has 8 ws5 s8 attacks, now you have 2 of these in each block, so 16 ws5 s8 attacks extra in each block, that is dead killy, 16 of those attacks will kill ~9.5 elves, that rocks!
Only downside is 4 of those scar-vets are ~360 points. And then you have Amber Spear to take care of chariots/dragons/eagles and Wyssans and Curse of Anraheir are still nice, Panns Pelt can make those scar-vets more survivable too.
I know this might not be the most effective lizard list, but if you want to use Beasts, this can be nice.

But good post, also Fire's lore attribute lets you 1-dice most spells 

Actually all lores are usable, some require more thinking then others, also you NEED to build your list around your lore, whenever I want to try out a lore I think "what works well with that lore" instead of taking a standard list, you need to build your list around a lore if you want to be competitive


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## coke123

the-graven said:


> Nice thread, I've always either used the Lore of Shadows or Light (love them fluffwise), used Life once, but the survivability doesn't bother me too much.
> When HE is your main opponent Speed of Light and Timewarp become incredibly attractive!
> I play very offensively, so Light serves me better.


Yeah, but I find that Life helps one survive all the High Elf attacks just as well as Light



the-graven said:


> About Beasts, perhaps one use is, take a Lone Slann and 2 Saurus blocks with 2 Scar vets w/AHW and LA in in each block.
> Now cast power-up of savage beasts, every scar vet now has 8 ws5 s8 attacks, now you have 2 of these in each block, so 16 ws5 s8 attacks extra in each block, that is dead killy, 16 of those attacks will kill ~9.5 elves, that rocks!
> Only downside is 4 of those scar-vets are ~360 points. And then you have Amber Spear to take care of chariots/dragons/eagles and Wyssans and Curse of Anraheir are still nice, Panns Pelt can make those scar-vets more survivable too.
> I know this might not be the most effective lizard list, but if you want to use Beasts, this can be nice.


360pts of Scar Vet can only be done in, what, 1440pt+ battles? Even then there are far better uses for the points. Like I said, Wyssan's is nice, except it's not the most effective use of a Slann. You'd be better off taking Tenehauin. Like you said, probably not the most effective of lists.



the-graven said:


> But good post, also Fire's lore attribute lets you 1-dice most spells


Except a Slann with the Focussed Rumination can one-dice most spells anyway. Especially those in Life, with their lower casting values, so it's a bit of a moot point.



the-graven said:


> Actually all lores are usable, some require more thinking then others, also you NEED to build your list around your lore, whenever I want to try out a lore I think "what works well with that lore" instead of taking a standard list, you need to build your list around a lore if you want to be competitive


Well said. Just that some are more usable than others.


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## the-graven

coke123 said:


> Yeah, but I find that Life helps one survive all the High Elf attacks just as well as Light
> 
> But Light lets you kill more
> 
> 360pts of Scar Vet can only be done in, what, 1440pt+ battles? Even then there are far better uses for the points. Like I said, Wyssan's is nice, except it's not the most effective use of a Slann. You'd be better off taking Tenehauin. Like you said, probably not the most effective of lists.
> 
> But if you're set on using beasts (fluff etc.) you can try it, still not very effective, also you will only see a slann in 1100+ , since the most common point values are 750, 1000, 1500, 2k, 2.5k etc. The slann will only be seen in the 1500 and up where you can use those scar-vets too
> 
> Except a Slann with the Focussed Rumination can one-dice most spells anyway. Especially those in Life, with their lower casting values, so it's a bit of a moot point.
> 
> A lot of spells are 10+/11+ wich with 2D6+4 you will fail about 50%/40% of the times, so that D3 is very usefull, though Fire is perhaps only usefull against elves and men, low T and low AS (also elves are costly making it worth a little bit)
> 
> Well said. Just that some are more usable than others.


If you want to use a lore, learn what complements that lore and use that, though some are just frickin' hard to work with.


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## coke123

I agree with all points except one-If you wanted a fluffy army with Beasts, Tenehauin's probably better anyway- Red Crested Skinks is probably one of the most common fluffy Lizardmen armies I've come across. My main gripe with Beasts is that a Slann can't take advantage of the Transformation- so no super-spell. And we both have agreed that, as you said earlier, that particular Beasts setup is probably not the most effective. And as for Fire, it is a good Lore, but it provides Lizardmen with something they don't particularly need- the augmentation/hexing from Life, Light or Shadow is far more beneficial to the Lizardmen than some ranged firepower from a single caster. Now, I couldn't recommend Fire enough for say, a gunline army, but since Lizardmen are pretty much about short ranged shooting and a solid combat phase, the aforementioned Lores are the best choices- the augment/hex mentality much better suits their 'in your face' style.

But regardless, so long as you build your force around your Lore, you should do fine. Although I'm not too sure how you'd build an effective Lizardmen force around Fire or Beasts...


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