Just for general discussion of item picking across all armies... Am I right in thinking that the sword of swiftness is an autoinclude for whatever Saurus leader you use? To offset awful initiative.
I think it is far from autoinclude. Hitting with S5 with no AP is not what we have saurus leaders for. They are one of few answers we have to ridden monsters/monsters/monstrous cav/cav and as such should be kitted to deal with them. I think great weapon is often the way to go, especially if mounted on cold one/carnosaur. High mobility means that you can get a charge fairly easily and strike at I4. This means you strike before many monsters/mounts and you have a good chance at dealing some real damage with S7 Ap-2 and armour bane. I would rather offset low initiative with good protection, so a ward save/-1 to hit/good armour save.
I think the biting blade is the best value for money sword for us. St5 is already good. I agree the sword of swiftness isn't worth it.
The only place I may see that sword (but still not convinced on that) is on a hero/temple guard champion inside an infantry
I would like although to ask your opinions about two other items: cube of darkness, lovely autodispel (but even with risk to dispel own remain in play spells) sunstaff if I may see an use on the first I still cannot see a use for the second one. 3 hits at 4+ at best with moviment is not so good …
I sort of think becalming contagion is all we need to dominate the dispels. I am not certain I like many items for the slann aside from a lore familiar. The wand of jet could also be useful too, especially with necromancy which I think is my favourite, but only if you had particular spells i.e. if you had the lore familiar already (and you cant have both)
I'm trying that one in my current list combined with razor standard on the unit. A cheeky 3 attacks that hit first with armourbane 2 could kill some rank and file, and in turn increase the odds your other TG can fight.
Nah definitely not. It is meta dependent, but i am currently in the firm camp that in 2K games, an army without Monster Slayer is a bad army, so you probably need Dragon Slayer Sword. It also just depends on what he is riding. Not a lot of things can onetap a Carno, so then it is not even a problem if you strike last then.
I like the Ogre blade for monster killing. It’s significantly more expensive but having the d3 multiple wounds is hugely beneficial considering ridden monsters combine their wounds with the rider having two sets of attacks getting d3 multiple wounds (assuming the old-blood is on a Carnosaur) means you have the potential to take out the character in a single round of combat.