No news, that Slann is the key model in our army, and while he is alive, Seraphon still has chances to turn the tide no matter the odds. No wonder, that he will be target number one for enemy army. I'm still pretty new with the game, and our meta is not that large. I'm going to a large tournament in october with many player from different towns and I want to be prepared for things that can kill Slann outright. Only thing I know now is VoZD with artefact that gives him bonus movement once per game, so it can easily get in range turn 1. Knight Venator also seems a formidable threat with his anti-hero abilities. What about 40 Kharadron with 12 skyhooks? Or thundertusks with 6 MW outright? Maybe, Ironjaws with their collossal movement? And what artefact, do you think, the best for the Slann? -1 to-hit? Ward save? Protection against mortal wounds? Something else? In short, how other armies can dispatch Slann quickly and how to counter this?
Slyvaneth can blow up single targets with shocking speed or chip them down with mortal wound storms. Fire slayers can also do some deepstrike shenanigans. Beastclaw can try to dirtysnowball your Slann to death. Most armies have some way to reach your Slann, but don't give up hope. The main advice I have is to keep your Slann out of line of sight and in cover whenever possible. You have universal range on unbinds and he is really just there to let you summon on your sideboard. There isn't much need to let anyone get vision on him. You should plan to provide your Slann screens with Skins/Suarus Warriors/ Suarus Guard. I would recommend either Skinks or Saurus Warriors. Saurus Gaurd are currently just too vulnerable due to the prevalence of mortal wounds available to most Teir 1 armies. Should you still feel your Slann is too vulnerable you can bring a Saurus Eternity Warden; or better yet, summon one if needed. Bringing a Balewind Vortex will increase the number of spells you can cast and let you reroll all failed saves for the Slann atop it, but do not expect to avoid line of sight unless there is very tall terrain. Incandescent restricts is a solid, all be it unimaginative, option for artifacts. There are a number of artifacts of the realms that add negatives to hit, saves against wound and/or mortal wounds, or even just provide health return. Despite all the new options available in the Malign Sorceries book I still almost always take Incandescent Rectrices. I hope this is helpful. Best of luck in your tournament.
As said above. If someone wants to focus on your slaan (as you said most will) then they will certainly do just that. Just make it as hard as possible - usually an EoTg or two can be seen lurking rather close to him (for summoning potential) not only are they two big ass dinos that can hit back a little in their own right, they can also summon a potential 40 skink between them a turn (not a bad meat shield) a warden is always handy and/or a razodon or two can be handy (they react to charging units by attacking with 2d6 each) two of those spamming out 4d6 attacks with rend at close range can be pretty nasty (average 14hits) Also I like to carry soul shackles in my list - for 20 points you can pop them down and spread them out (6 inches apart if I remember rightly) so that can make a nice wide unappealing wall - that not only slows anyone close to it by half it can also damage them, not bad for 20points. The key to threat deterrents though is ‘create too many threats’ by having a number of high threat targets - the opponents will have to decide what to focus on or risk spreading themselves too thin - if they leave your slaan they risk letting heavy combat troops like carnos or ripper run riot and tear holes in lesser troops - and visa Versa if they focus on your combatters they leave your slaan to stash away CP that can be used to quickly summon back the lost troops or send armies onto objectives now out of reach for the opponents (with teleports) So in short (apologies for the spam) Go for a mix of heavy ‘scary units’ funnel away your slaan and summon like a man frog while your combat heavies do the hard work - just re-supply them with teleported units summoned by EoTg/slaan (They can’t move turn 1 so they act as a nice shield, next round - ping them over to help bog down units) Come turn 3+ your slaan becomes somewhat redundant as the game is coming to a close/ended so it’s mostly just keep him alive for 2 turns to summon up something fun to replace him
Thank you for the replies! I plan on using 2xBastiladon+EotG and Thunderquake starhost. I hope thunderquake will be enough threat on its own in case slann is taken down. I will surround slann with 10 skinks to have Look Out, sir! And summon more the first turn. I didn't think about LoS-hiding. There are two main problems with it: 1) I want Slann to be caster-summoner, not pure summoner. There are several neat spells in Realms and I don't have too much models to summon; 2) I want to use Balewind for bonus cast+ save and, most importantly, range of cast. I really like Palisade idea. At least, it will help against Kharadrons to block LoS for them. They also don't have much anti-magic to dispell it fast. On warden: from the one hand, it literally doubles slann's health. From the other hand, it costs half of bastilladon (both in points and conjuartion points). Without his starhost, he is really just 140 pts upgrade for slann. However, I like the idea of giving him artefact that ignores mortal wounds on 4+. Statistically, he gives a Slann +14 wounds. On the rectrices: I hate two things about them: 1)They are random. Curse of Fates always will be on EotG, so Slann will be revived on 3+ only; 2)If Slann is overkilled, they want help, because allocated wounds are not lost. That's why I think about giving Slann an artefact to prevent him from death, not to revive. As a distraction, I want to use a Scarvet on Carno with a weapon artefact. If enemy ignores him, he definitely can wreck some havoc.