The nasty toad

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Fil
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The nasty toad

Post by Fil »

Greetings druchii.net

I would like to know how you counter the lizardmen slann-mage priest.

I played versus a lizardmen player today, i thought i had the toad in my grasp when i managed to charge him with a noble on pegasus equipped with the Ring of Hotek and a Spellthieving sword (The wizard that suffer wounds forgets a spell). But after 3 turns the toad was still alive thanks to his 5 wounds, his +4 ward save and he was getting back the wounds i caused using the spells of the lore of life.

It´s almost impossible to kill it from a distance because of a +2 ward save against all ranged attacks it gets from a enchanted item.

Do you know why a naked lvl 4 Sorceress is only 15 points cheaper than a lvl 4 loremaster slann with 5 wounds and +4 ward save? I can't see any weakness on the toad.
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Phierlihy
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Post by Phierlihy »

The toad has initiative 1 so dies when fairly well when hit with the initiative test-spells. If you instead take your ring-bearing noble and just fly him near the toad and not engage him, the Toad will miscast. Make sure you hide your mage where the Frog can't see her and he can't pass off the miscast. And Throne of Vines is something you should be dispeling every turn if he gets it off at all.

In Hand-to-Hand combat the Slaan in his unit of Temple Guard are hard to kill so don't bother. Feed that unit trash units and use your quality units on his other stuff.

The Slaan is nasty to face but he's also expensive. Instead of trying to destoy him, just try and cripple him while you deal with everything else.

And for the record, a Slaan is about the only thing I don't feel dirty fielding a pair of Hydras against!
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Post by Valkyre »

ring of hotek will do well enough on him indeed, just keep that throne spell out of play and if ye field casters, your casters out of his LoS (he can probably pass on his first miscast).

temple guard are tough, but if he has to suffer his own miscast, a lot of them die without having to fight.

if the toad was running alone (else i would not know how ye could engage him, just make a pincusion out of it, or KB it (it is classified as infantry)
A.wagg
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Post by A.wagg »

No, Monstrous infantry. And it will be in the second rank in its temple gaurd, you won't even get attacks against it.
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Post by Eglard »

I've found that throwing your best units at the temple guard works quite well. I have used exequtioners and black guard for this purpose. After a few combat rounds there wont be any temple guard left. You will want to dispel the spells that he can use to boost the temple guard, as well as the throne. Use shadow magic to cripple his WS so that he hits you on 5's. If you engage him with BG, reducing the toughness of the temple guard is brilliant, as is Ockkams mind razor.

If the Slann is on his own tie him up with something fast, like your pegasus master, and bring in something that can give static CR. If you made your pegasus master a bsb you should give him the standard of slaughter. You will win the combat by 3-5 even if you do not cause any wounds. Most probably you will cause some wounds and win the combat and break the toad.
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Phierlihy
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Post by Phierlihy »

A Slaan BSB will be Stubborn, Cold-Blooded, and have a re-roll. He isn't breaking from combat resolution (unless you Doom & Darkness him first).
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Tethlis
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Post by Tethlis »

phierlihy wrote:A Slaan BSB will be Stubborn, Cold-Blooded, and have a re-roll. He isn't breaking from combat resolution (unless you Doom & Darkness him first).


Where's the Stubborn coming from? In eglard's example, he specifically mentioned the Slann being on his own.

I also agree that killing off a pile of Temple Guard isn't hard to do if your army is built for it. There's always the option of a game-breaking big spell (pit of shades, purple sun, Mindrazor) which are all capable of devastating such a unit, but even without them, it's not too tough for Dark Elves to bring some concentrated killing power to bear and go through even a huge unit of Temple Guard in a few rounds of combat. Granted, this assumes that you're able to engineer a nice nasty combined charge against the Slann, but given how expensive a Slann + Temple Guard are, it's not unreasonable that you can knock out/tie up support units and be able to go after the Slann himself.

My Black Dragon, Hydra and Cauldron buffed Black Guard go through 29 Temple Guard in one round of combat... Not bad. The fact that they now have to use their halberds is even better, since it detracts from their survivability and makes them easier to chew through.
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Scotty80
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Post by Scotty80 »

I agree that the Slann with lore of life is one of the nastiest things in 8th edition. Our local lizardmen player has one on its own which we still haven't worked out how to deal with. With the etheral ability, and its ward save (plus healing from lore of life) it's near invulnerable to most ranged and close combat attacks.

Valkyre wrote:ring of hotek will do well enough on him indeed, just keep that throne spell out of play and if ye field casters, your casters out of his LoS (he can probably pass on his first miscast).


Hard to do though. Any sensible player pumps a good few dice on the throne opener. As spells resolve before miscast, he can IF it and then ignore it on a 2+ (or as stated, likely have the item to see the miscast result and then pass it to you on a 2+).
On his own, it's hard to keep your own mage out of LOS.

phierlihy wrote:The toad has initiative 1 so dies when fairly well when hit with the initiative test-spells.

Initative 2 but agree that spells like pit of shades seem the best chance taking it out.
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Masked jackal
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Post by Masked jackal »

However, since it's a template, it allows LOS against it should the Slann be in the Temple Guard.
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Eglard
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Post by Eglard »

If he is on his own he will most probably have the etheral dicipline and probably 4+ ward. The best and cheapest way to kill it is to charge it with something that generates a good amount of CR, and if possible causes a few wounds. If you do not have any units that are fast enough and can cause CR, charge it with some harpies. The combat will most likely be a draw on the first round, and you will loose it on the second round by 1 or 2. This however should be enough for your slower units to get into CC with it.

If the Slann is in a temple guard unit just kill the saurus around it. It is a lot easier than it sounds. BG, Exes, dragons lords and Cok can all do this if you support them properly.

If your army doesn't have any units that can punch through the saurus in CC you should focus all your fire and magic on the temple guard. If the scenario is "blood and glory" you will probably win the game by killing the slann and saurus, since that is 4 points, and I think it is the only way to win most lizardmen armies who field a Slann in temple guard.
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Post by Malekii »

I'd Charge it with a dreadlord on cold one, caldors bane and potion of strength. Hes strength 10 if you charge and ignores scaly skin which is good against Lizardmen. Even better if backed up by CoK
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Nellamik
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Post by Nellamik »

How exactly do you build your characters to deal with the Slann?
I see mentioned The Ring bearer Pegasus build and a Black dragonlord.
But what about the sorceress? how many? what level?
Lets say at 3K what would be a good list of characters?
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Cerelil
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Post by Cerelil »

As a Lizardman player, I can tell you this.

It is not a good tactic to try and beat the unit on CR. If he is using lore of life, you are unlikely to do any damage to him, he will almost always be in the death star unit, which is stubborn ld 9 with a BSB. And if chakax is there, its unbreakable. Combinations of banners and ranks can give the unit +6 CR, he can bring back his guard with spells, heal himself, buff up their toughness and give them regen. Big insta kill spells are unlikely to work due to LoS, which can be rerolled if chakax is there.

To kill chakax in close combat, refuse his challenges them hack him to pieces. Chakax can kill just about any character in a challenge, he could easily kill even Skulltaker.

When they use the ringbearer trick, I usually repond with a unit of skinks with javelins. Hitting on 4s pretty much all the time, poison attacks.




Two tricks for dealing with Slann, ones that hurt me as a lizardmen player.

First: Its a fire magnet. That unit will kill pretty much anything, and if you pump everything into it, the rest of the army runs rampant.
He focuses his spells on his own unit, so ignore him. Kill rest of the army which wont be supported by magic

The other, get something to fly over/out flank then use bolt throwers etc to kill temple guard till the rear ranks are gone and the slann is exposed.
While the Slann's rear is exposed, ram the flying unit you had with magic attacks into his behind.

A wood elf player killed my Slann (Only time its ever died) because the unit guarding my rear/flank failed a ld9 cold blooded panic test, which allowed his treeman to go into the rear of my temple guard unit which was softened by shooting. That said, I had a string of terrible magic phases where I never managed to get any protective spells off so alot of my army was killed.
I can adept to this mistake by fielding more temple guard on the rear ranks and many other ways.

So of the two tricks, I reckon the best would be to ignore/supress it. If you can force the Slann to use protective magic on his own unit, go for rest of army.
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Auere
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Post by Auere »

A Supreme Sorceress with dagger and seal of ghrond in a unit of spearmen can compeat with the Slanns magical abilities fairly well and stay out of range for becalming cogitation if she is using a lore like shadow with a 36' range on most spells. Should keep the game even in terms of magic.

Saurii, Kroxigors and Stegadons are good in combat, but not that good. Dark Elves generelly outshine lizardmen in that division, so if you can match the magic phase and take out the salamanders you are proberbly going to get the upper hand...
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Well if it is a deathstar unit then there's very little point in going after it, since it's designed to kill everything in its path. So yea, avoid it as best as you can.

I was told the Slann is classed as an infantry model? Is it really not? :(

The only times I came close to defeating a Slann was by killing off its unit of temple guard, thereby, making it no longer stubborn. But by the time I did that, I was charged by two Stegs so didn't end up breaking that Slann.
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Senluthan
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Post by Senluthan »

Not dealing with it, but if it is a deathstar unit, then you should be able to charge the unit with an unkillable DL Crown of Commands for steadfast, and just stay with the unit for the rest of the game, at least i dont think Slann can use magic while engaged in CC?
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

only magic missiles can't, he still can cast direct damage to something else ahead since only magic missile requires line of sight.
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Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

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Post by Cerelil »

Senluthan wrote:Not dealing with it, but if it is a deathstar unit, then you should be able to charge the unit with an unkillable DL Crown of Commands for steadfast, and just stay with the unit for the rest of the game, at least i dont think Slann can use magic while engaged in CC?


They can, they have a special rule that lets them cast in combat.

One game against skaven, my unit alone was killing 2 units a turn lol, once in melee, one in magic phase.
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