Teclis - By The Lieutenant

Ok folks, guest article by The Lieutenant, on a subject very close to my heart (Teclis). He's awfully fun to use and such, but he sits next to hydras in my own personal hell. The score-outs and the bracket commentary is mine (you can tell because it sounds like a conversation).

See this is the problem about The Lieutenant's stuff appearing on my blog, my opinion invariably seeps through...



Teclis is a wanker. I just want to make this very clear, before we start any high notioned shenanigans or comments about him saving the Old World. He did, okay? And yes, it is impressive that him and another 2 High Elves managed to turn back a tide of Chaos that all the Empire, Bretonnia and the Dwarfs couldn’t. But, still: Teclis is undoubtedly a wanker. He is one of the most annoying wizards to play against. Why? Because you touch yourself at night.

Actually, that’s a lie, but let’s look at the reasons exactly why Teclis is in fact, a wanker.

1. 475pts. You can fit him into a 2000pt army, which is the standard game around here. You have no idea how relevant this is. The Dwarf Runelord special character on the Anvil of Doom is 505pts. This angers me. But, we’re discussing the exact reasons for Teclis being a wanker. Lets continue.

2. He gets D3 free power and dispel dice every turn. Yep. Every turn. Plus cause he’s a HE Mage, he gets an additional +1 to dispel, meaning +5 and there’s a decent chance you’re gonna have equal dispel dice to your opponent's power dice. Not great, but not a bad chance. The power dice(If you’re taking him, ALWAYS take the Banner of Sorcery so your army gets 2D6+2D3 dice a turn. Plus channelling) are nice, meaning with the banner as well, he goes from getting an average of 7 (Archnomad says: 9, as he gets 7+D3) PD a turn to an average of 11. This guy with Lore of Death is not fun. Getting average(AVERAGE, mark you. He can get up to 19 with some spectacular rolling) 11 PD plus getting them back on a 5+ with Purple Sun…Yeah. I saw that happen to a 66 strong unit of Saurus. Needless to say, Teclis was immediately back at 12 dice. He is one of the few wizards who can happily run out of spells before dice. And he will know 7.

3. His Scroll of Hoeth. Admittedly, this is roughly the same as the 40pt magic item Sigil of Asuryan, but hey, Teclis has it. And Teclis is a wanker. This is basically a dispel scroll, but after that, both you and your opponent roll a dice. If you roll higher, the wizard who cast the spell forgets it for the rest of the game. Lovely to use against big hitters like Purple Sun (Archnomad says: Cause if you're playing Teclis, and therefore high elves, an init test is the greatest of your worries, not soulblight), but remember, they are most likely going to be Irresistible if they are cast. Best thing to use this thing on is actually stuff like Throne of Vines. If you take that out, it cuts Lore of Life right back like a judiciously applied machete. And it generally takes away the other wizard’s (I’m thinking Slann here) protection against miscasts, making him wary of using more than maybe 4 dice to a spell. No one likes to see their 350pt wizard roll a miscast and die because someone took away their ability to cast Throne of Vines. Hence: Teclis=Wanker.

4. Not such a huge thing this, but he is still a HE. He gets I5 and ASF, plus his sword is one of the best weapons in the game. Always wounds on a 2+ no save. Yeah, he only gets one attack, but hey, if the worst comes to the worst and he is in combat, he has a surprising sting for any would-be assassins.

5. This is the main reason why he is a wanker. Are you ready? He auto-irresistibles any spell on ANY double. That means if he rolls 2 dice, gets a double 2, he irresistibly casts Purple Sun of Xereus on a 25. Aye, that much of a cock end. This is the single most annoying thing about Teclis. He is impossible to stop. Also, he doesn’t roll on the Miscast table unless it’s a double six. And, you want to know the really fun part? He ignores the first miscast he suffers every turn. If he has Life, Throne of Vines, he basically doesn’t miscast. Ever. If he doesn’t have Life, he still basically doesn’t miscast. Ever. This CAN have a downside though, If you cast any spell which isn’t Irresistible, then your opponent will probably just dispel it, cause he knows that any spell you really want to cast is going to be irresistible. I’m no maths student, but Clayman pointed out that on 6 dice, Teclis has something like a 97% chance of getting an irresistible. Generally, use 4 (Archno says: 5 if you want it irresistable and it's important, 72% chance of a double on 4D6, 90.7% chance on 5D6) dice on each spell. 6 dice is kind of pointless, cause you have such a high chance of getting a double on 4 or 5 dice. Save the extra dice, use them for more spells.

There are a couple of reasons he’s not a wanker samaritan. I’ll explain,

1. He is T2, 3 wounds, no save. For 475pts, that is fragile. Keep him the hell away from combat. Or shooting. Or magic. Or, like, a strong breeze (Archno says: Or warp lightning cannons. Hur hur hur!). Or some kittens. Or, you know, a goblin. Or the general concept of death wanker's cramp. For the love of Asuryan, don’t let him catch the cold. The guy is fragile. He’s the ultimate expression of the HE military prowess. He hits like a tonne of rectangular building things. (Actually, scratch that, several tonnes. With some knives in it. And a nuke.) but he is so damned fragile I’m scared to even touch the model in case he loses a wound (Archno says: But he's not cause he's a wanker). Spells like Flesh to Stone can help here, but ultimately, he is fragile. I know I said that word a lot in the previous paragraph, but you really need to get it sunk in to your heads.

2. Err….he’s 475pts…and really easy to kill once you get to his unit?

3. That’s it.

4. Yep, really, he only really has the one minus point, and it’s that he is fragile. Weak. A pussy. He’s about as hard as Elijah Wood (Archno: All the wanking gave him a constant boner, but let's not poke fun at Frodo and Sam, homosexual consensual sex can be a beautiful beautiful thing).

5. Err…He saved the Old World? And the actual world. It’s in Giantslayer. Check out that series, by the way, it’s awesome (Archno: Yeah but then you have to compare Gotrek to Teclis, and you just know Gotrek would have Teclis, as Gotrek is wearing roughly the mass of Cathay in Plot Armour).


So, I hope from this article, you’ve seen why precisely Teclis is a wanker. Course, I still use him. Why? Because I’m okay with it a massive dickhead with a power fantasy friend of Archnomad's who loves a competitive game. He’s awesome a wanker. I realised he was the same cost as the two mages I was using before, started using him (because I told you to, how I regret that) instead, and he’s approximately 37 times more effective. Welcome to GW’s world of special characters (Archno: Tretch Craventail, Gor'rok and Shadowblade say hey baby hey baby hey).

Enjoy using Teclis. Or not using Teclis. It’s up to you. Don’t blame me if you start using him, and your friends begin to slag you off mercilessly. Course, don’t blame me if you do start using him, and win. A lot. Wank wank wank wank wank. That’s not called blame, its called acclaim wanking. ;)

Night folks. I’m off to attend to the essay which I’m ignoring to write this.
Stay safe!

The Lieutenant