Tutorial Book of Ashur Deliberations Slann

The book of ahsur is a 35ss arcane item that adds +1 to each cast and dispel attempt. It is an item that is rarely used in warhammer because it is difficult to defend the bearer with only 30 points of gear, and previously slanns would buy extra PD instead.

I think the new book gives us an opportunity to revisit the item.

Wandering Deliberations - all of the spells are at 10 or less casting cost with boosted versions in the teens. Normally you would three dice a 10+ spell because the 28% chance to fail and lose concentration is too great, but this has an 8% chance of miscast. Three dice enough spells, and it will happen over the course of the game. This has caused players to remove their slann from the TG bunker because the risk is too high. Earthing Rod and Soul of Stone won't help because a 7 or less blows away 100-200 points of temple guard into the warp wounds any Vets.

+1 Casting

So how does the book of ashur help? You can two dice every spell with wandering deliberations, reducing your chance of losing concentration on a 10 to 17% (1/6). Your miscast chance drops to boxcars, 1/36. Now you can leave your slann in the TG bunker, and you can three dice boosted Burning Gaze and Fireball. You only need to leave the TG bunker to four dice boosted seeding doom.

When faced with this, your opponent will quickly realize that you can cast 4-6 spells a turn by two dicing away his DD and then 1 dicing until you lose concentration on fireballs. This discourages them from trying for ID and also encourages dicing (and possibly failing) instead of burning scroll caddies. The +1 casting increases the chance of failing to dispel. Imagine the look on your opponents face after you roll two-dice an 11 and inform him he has to beat 16 to stop wyssan's wildform.

Synergies and Gear

So the book of ashur lets you leave the slann bunkered the entire game, how best do we leverage that?

Eldritch Battery or Becalming Cogitation for offense vs defense
Obsidian Amulet/Unfathomable Presence for MR
Mask of Eee!/Harrowing Scrutiny for terror
BSB, with flaming, mr(1), skavenpelt, etc. Note that the hatred against the bearer for skavenpelt will never happen!

Personally I'm a fan of lichebone pennant + flaming banner with obsidian amulet, becalming, and harrowing scrutiny. Give the slann flaming so you duck out against 2+ dragonhelms. This makes the TG 3+/4++ vs magical wounds - even in my turn - and 6+/2++ if you get off earthblood against heavens magic, fire for buildings and regen, and terror. Since WD has spirit leech to snipe BSBs and ice shard blizzard, the terror/fear might actually do something. Add a ScarVet to take challenges and you'll have a death star with strong magic and magic defense that is only vulnerable to war machines.


+1 Dispel

The +1 dispel is a nice bonus, but is harder to take advantage of. The main use of book of Ashur is in your magic phase and list building. You aren't going to start saving DD just because of the +1. That said, it does interact with Eldritch and Becalming.

If your opponent flubs a roll, say rolls a 5 on three dice, you can two dice him and then pocket the 3rd dice. Your opponent may also resort to IF more often, leaving you with unused DD. +1 PD in your phase is essentially +1 successful spell casts. One dice miasma, one dice iceshards - something you can cast last as a nice-to-have spell.

If you stack MR, you may choose to let through any magic missiles and also save dice - this isn't unique to the book but the book allows you to bunker and stack MR.

Obviously, becalming becomes more reliable with the +1 dispel. If you flub a roll you just might tie, and even if you don't you can reroll and make it count.

Dwarves and L2s

The saying for the last book was that lizards were OP in magic and Dwarves were OP in dispel. When the armies clash, the lizards magic phase was merely average. Does the book of Ashur pass this test? Does it flip the game?

Dwarves often get a four dice swing and on average rolls have 8 DP to your 6 or 7 if you take eldritch battery. The book of ashur gives a margin of +3 to casting attempts and by two dicing spells you can draw out 3 DD and get an advantage. His eight dice might stop three spells and your six dice can get off four - 2, 2, 1, 1. Spirit Leech, Fireball, Iceshard, Miasma would be a good rotation and every spell has a chance and you could swap spirit leech and fireball for wyssans and earthblood in melee.

I think that counts as an average magic phase, no?

TL;DR - Book of Ashur lets you two dice a deliberations slann, lets you leave him in the bunker fo to low miscast chance, and can mess with your opponents dispel dice if you can pick off the L4. This is a spendy build that costs about 500 plus the TG, but it is a block you can base your list on.

 

I think you might just be on to something there.

 

I like the idea a lot, but with my luck I'd still manage to miscast. But it's an awesome concept getting all your spells on a 5+ (I think every signature spell is 10+ or less correct? I don't have the book in front of me.) Too bad you can't cast a spell multiple times; that would be a lot of fireballs.

 

Cast Fireball, Searing Doom, and Shems is 3d6 of fireballs, really. Just SD is going to be dependent on the AS of the target. So 2D6 St 4 and 1d6 st X. Not bad for a total of 2+2+2 PD. It is still a 1/12 chance of miscast though. I think I can live with those odds.

 

If you feel like gambling you could even one dice them after you get the good spells off. With Ashur you are guaranteed to one dice an 8 casting cost unless you role a 1 or 2, and you can't miscast

 

Intriguing. Definitely worth checking out.

 

I editted it to clean up grammer and typos,and I added a section about the +1 dispel aspect of the item. Its a bit long for an article, but the TL;DR remains the same. Take the book of Ashur with wandering deliberations and it will fundamentally change your list for the better by greatly reducing the chance you blow yourself up.

 

This sounds awesome. Definately have to try it out. Book of Ashur for 70points sounds quite a lot though.

 

A bare bones slann with wandering deliberations and the book is quite affordable, and the book functions as a defensive item in a LM list in the sense that it prevents you from killing yourself and your temple guard and it tilts the magic phase in your favor. The build gets spendy when you start building combos and adding things like MR(x), BSB's, ScarVets and psychology.

Like all strategies, it scales. A 6x4 block of 20 TG + Slann works at 1600. A 6x6 block of 30 TG + 2 ScarVets + Toys + Slann works for 2500.

 

Well thought. It's really a boost to the Slann. I always fail my casting attemps and seems that my slann is there to only give LD and stubborn to TG.

Another hint. EOTG increase the easy cast of one lore, So you can go full heavens or beasts. The trick I use is to have two lvl2 priest and a slann. I first roll one chaman, In order to get 2 spells I dont want my slann to take. If someone bigger is rolled and I'm Ok with the second spell, I trade the big one for signature. Or maybe keep both, so the slann will have the 4 remaining ones and just trade one by signature.

If the chances of getting the big spells with slann are bad then I roll the second priest and then the slann will have the four spells remaining which you can "choose".

For example in beast:
Priest 1: rolls 3 & 4. As I want to have Amber with Slann and dont want neither 6,2 & 1 I trade the 3 for 0.
Priest 2: rolls 4 & 1. Then reroll 4 to 6. I keep 0 and 6.
Slann: "rolls & rerolls" into the 4 remaining which are 1,2,3,5. I trade 1 for 0.

So you can try to get comet for example at a 100% success with your slann casting at +5, which is such a pain.

 

This is a great idea, Ill try it in my next game for sure

 

...why have I never thought of this ^?
Suddenly I feel that I have been so spoiled by loremaster in the old book that I have forgotten other ways to do stuff..this is so obvious and so brilliant and I have to take Heavens for a spin .



and for OP:

I like this a lot:

Not only does it bring safety but it actually also gives us something I would call a "reliable magic phase".
You KNOW what spells you have
You KNOW that you only need 2PD for each to get them of.
You KNOW that even if you roll 2PD in winds you can still get something useful of.

You can actually build around it as you can "count" on getting 4PD most turns.

a bonus note: your opponents Dispel Scroll will count for less, as he will probably have to burn it for a 2PD spell..

I smell tournament builds ad-libitum.

 

I like this idea a lot. Good thinking here. Kudos.

It's a lot of points (more than the Harm Convergence + channeling staff combo) but does seem to be a safer bet for casting.

Is +1 to Dispel better than the chance of an extra dice most magic phases (I tend to average out on this and channel 1 extra dice a round)?

Need to see where I can trim my list to fit it in...

 

I just tried this build in a 1600p game vs high elves!

Worked out great; no failed casts, no miscasts.

My high elf opponent had an easy time dispelling though, with the book of hoeth he dispelled a lot of the low cast spells.

The match making magic phase was when I got 11 dice and got off iceshard and maisma on his phoenix guards, which won me the game.


GG

 

When i sit down and correct / finish the handbook in a weeks time i think i'll take a look at the book of ashur again.

Great idea

 

a thought just occured to me....from this

In the 8 signatures spells...we have a couple that does the "same thing"
Example: I want to tip a combat, meaning I can cast miasma, wyssans or iceshards

...if Ondjage's results are more common than not, wont that mean that we can achieve our "thing"
through "partial successful casting" ?

If I have 6 dice and an opponent has 5 wont this scenario seem realistic if not even a little pessimistic?

I throw miasma on targets weapon skill, 2 dice - dispelled with 2 dice
I throw iceshard blizzard on target, 2 dice - dispelled with 2 dice
I throw wyssans on target, 2 dice - not dispelled due to the last 1 die wasnt enough.

in theory: you just 6diced a Wyssans Wildform to make sure it got of with close to no miscast or failcast danger, + you had a realistic chance of getting of several other positive effects along the way.

I guess the same thing will apply to "hurt" spells, as your opponent wont be able to stop all of them.

My point is: we are now able to pick spell-quantity over spell-quality and do so with stability, as its no longer "all or nothing" but "all or SOME" in most cases.

add a venusaur or two and you can actually fire off quite a lot of spells with little to no risk.

 

OP here. When I tested this I was dicing against dwarves and an L4/2 combo. When the L4 eventually flubs a dispel and you knock him out, the L2 won't br able to hold a candle to the gap between an "L5" and an L2. You'll be able to get everything.

And while two dicing is the way to go, I've been experimenting with one dicing. If you rolled a 2&2 you could 2 dice wyssans first, then one dice miasma, then one dice iceshard.

 

IMO, Harmonic + Staff will be superior in both phases for raw power as the extra dice is worth 3.5 and for expensive spells like conflagration being able to four dice it is more important than getting +1. The +1 only helps you in both phases if it prevents a bad outcome - dispel or not enough power. Harmonic + Staff will be superior and cheaper for a solo slann and works better with high magic. If you miscast, most outcomes do nothing id solo.

The Book of Ashur is similar, but its main benefit is the suicide-prevention. Without the book, you *will* overreach and blow yourself up, but more importantly you blow away 150-200 points of temple guard and really risk the unit.

The trick is that you can now two dice the 10s (wyssans, boosted miasma, boosted fireball, searing doom) and one dice the 8's (earthblood). That saves you dice and it saves you miscasts and increases the chance your opponent loses concentration on *any* of your casts, which is a real boon.

 

If you throw Tet'o'eko into the mix, you can 1 dice a lot of spells reliably. And even if you fail and loose concentration, you can throw the remaining power dice at something from lore of heavens like a Comet!!!

Ray