A Slann Mage Priest has a lot of options available to him (or her or it !) and is an essential character in your Lizardman Army.The Slann can act as the army general and the battle standard bearer (indeed, it has ro be the battle standard bearer if there is only 1 slann in the army).
The Slann can be upgraded to an earlier more powerful generation. Any generation of slann can select 100 pts of magic items (excluding armour and weapons) and/or plaques and sacred blessings.
The slann also gets a bodyguard of Temple Guard (if you choose to take them) and can be placed in the second rank out of harms way but still able to cast spells while the unit is engaged in combat over the top of the front rank.
Additionally, the slann can use any skink mage for line of sight when casting spells although the slann must still be in casting range if the target unit. It can also choose spells from one or more lores of magic and benefits from +1 on attempts to both cast and dispel.
Wow - how cool is that lot ?!
When I tell you the Slann is 325 pts you might think it's actually over priced. It cannot launch hand to hand attacks and can only defend itself (thanks to a very loyal and probably frightened skink attendant).
However, keep reading...
...the slann has a toughness of 5, a weapon skill of 4 and 6 wounds. Even if you think you've hurt it there is still the Shield of the Old Ones to overcome which gives the Slann a 4+ ward save. Given that the slann spends most of a battle in the second rank, out of combat, this character is officially VERY HARD TO KILL !
One final thing...
The slann has a leadership of 9 (better than 10 when you take cold bloodedness into account), carries the battle standard (which the enemy will find very hard to capture) and thus makes an excellent general and will be by far the hardest character for your enemy to find a way to counter.
This makes the Slann a must use addition to a slann army. The only time I would contemplate taking a Saurus Old Blood in a 2000pt armyinstead is if I really wanted to use Kroqgar and Grymlok or, maybe, if I was fighting a High Elf army which can calm the winds of magic to a virtual breeze if they invest heavily in their magic users.
In the next slann post I'll explore the slann mage priest options available to you and be making some suggestions on what to spend your magic item points on.
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