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I was wondering what people thought constituted a magic effect and what exact can hurt Ethereal stuff.

We know magical attacks (defined in the FaQ), magical weapons and magical spells can hurt Ethereal stuff.

How about magical banners?

This is how I'd break down the rules:

Option A: Any attack made by a magical banner (i.e. breath weapon) is a magical attack and therefore effects ethereal stuff. However a unit carry a magical banner that effects their attacks can not hurt an Ethereal unit. For instance a unit with the banner of eternal flame does not have magical attacks and therefore can not effect Ethereal units and the magical effect of the flaming is on the unit carry the banner and therefore is irrelevant to the Ethereal unit.

Option B: As above but taking a banner that has a magical effect on your attacks makes them hurt Ethereal units. Not because they give you magical attacks, but because Ethereal creatures can be hurt by magic effects and the banner is magically effecting your attacks. Therefore if using the Dragonhide banner on the charge you would be able to hurt ethereal units (as it allows you to re-roll all 1s to hit and wound on the charge).

I'm quite on the fence about this, for me having the Bannner of Eternal Flame making my weapons have magical fire means that I should be able to hurt Ethereal units. Having my swords magically sharpened by the Razor standard is more of a stretch but I could see that but just making a guy magically more aggressive on the charge via the Dragonhide banner shouldn't be able to hurt my ghosts. But from a rules perspective if it works for one banner then it works for all. How to play this?

Q: What are ‘magical attacks’? (p68)
A: All attacks made by spells and magic items are considered to
be magical attacks, as are all attacks that are specifically noted
as being magical attacks. Shots fired from magical items are
also considered to be magical attacks, unless their description
specifically states otherwise. Hits inflicted by rolls on the
Miscast table are treated as magical attacks.

Where those flaming attacks made from the banner? No, they came from the unit. The banner added a special rule to the unit, flaming, but did not attack itself. Flaming itself is not defined as magical.

The breath weapon, in this case the Dragonhide banner, DOES come from the magic banner, and therefore would be.

Just because you have a magic banner doesn't mean the unit suddenly has Magical Attacks, unless the banner says so.

Davall summed it up.

Just because you have a magic banner doesn't mean the unit suddenly has Magical Attacks, unless the banner says so.

Have you even read the question?

Has anyone got some actual light on the question at hand rather than innane babbling about magical attacks (which have no bearing on this question).

Does anyone know what constitutes magical effects?

Davall Answered your question. Just because you have a banner does not mean you have magic attacks. Magic attacks come from magic items and unless stated magic banners do not convey that rule.

If you choose option two you run into further issues: does a banner that makes a unit frenzy also give magic attacks? It would be the exact same, a magical source of a special rule. Or would only the frenzy attack be magic since the others are not from a magical source.

It might seem strange but it's just a rules quirk like the ever popular Why can people poison warmachines? Sometimes you gotta step back and say, "this is a complex game that has some silly rules"

FlingitNow wrote:

Just because you have a magic banner doesn't mean the unit suddenly has Magical Attacks, unless the banner says so.

Have you even read the question?

Has anyone got some actual light on the question at hand rather than innane babbling about magical attacks (which have no bearing on this question).

Does anyone know what constitutes magical effects?

For those of you confused by FlingitNow's response. He's specifically wanting a discussion on what people would view as being a 'magical effect' as the Ethereal Rule specifically mentions that 'magical effects' can damage them.

I have no opinions on the definition. I chose Option A probably for the same reason most players do, because if they wanted the banner of eternal flame to give magical flaming attacks then then description of the item would say so...just like the old VC banner.

The questions were answered.

No.

No Augment, from a spell or item, gives a unit magic attacks unless it says, "gives unit magic attacks." There are dozens of Augments in the game, none of them, that come to mind, allow your units to attack Ethereals.

If a unit is under an Augment to give him KB (Nek Spell) and I10 and WS10 (Light Spell) and has Regenerate (Life Spell) and granted Poison attacks (Hero Ability) and has flaming attacks from a Banner (Item), it still can't hurt Ethereal units because none of those say "grants Magic Attacks."

Davall has listed what constitutes magical attacks.

Again why is everyone talking about Magical attacks. I've never stated that the banner gives you magical attacks. Magical attacks has nothing to do with this debate.

Has anyone got any rules to back up whether or not a banner that magically effects you attacks enables you to hurt Ethereal creatures?

The rules were given that are available. There is no definition of a "magical effect", so it is ignored.

Once they define it (if they feel the need), then we can discuss it.

Ethereal rule, page 68.
Can be hurt by spells, magical attacks, magic weapons or effects.

If you take a look at the FAQ of magical attacks, you'll see the spells have been now classified with weapons as magical attacks. GW has decided to lump all these magical hits into "magical attacks".
Magical effect would be something like a miscast or lore attribute.

It's pretty clear how to play it, and I doubt it will ever get a FAQ.


Interestingly, the FAQ for the flaming banner says it doesn't affect magic attacks. So if the banner did give a magical attack to the weapon, it would instantly turn it self off, then, not being magical, back on, then off... and so on. Flicker.


-Matt

The rules were given that are available. There is no definition of a "magical effect", so it is ignored.

Cool so we can ignore the marching rules because they don't define what double means?

Awesome so any rule where I can find a word that is not defined we get to ignore? Is that what you are suggesting is the rules?

FlingitNow wrote:

The rules were given that are available. There is no definition of a "magical effect", so it is ignored.

Cool so we can ignore the marching rules because they don't define what double means?

Awesome so any rule where I can find a word that is not defined we get to ignore? Is that what you are suggesting is the rules?

Continue to be obtuse all you want. It doesn't encourage people to "discuss" this with you. Just because you don't like the various answers doesn't mean it's what you have.

Its not whether I like answers or not. But firstly going on about magical attacks and then claiming that we just simply ignoring any rule we don't understand doesn't sound like a sound basis for discussion about Magical Effects.

Re-reading the FaQ on magical attacks seems to imply that miscasts and lore attribute might be what is considered magical effects.

As the magical attacks FaQ repeats everything in the Ethereal rule (magical weapons, magic spells) except magical effects. Yet the only thing it mentions which aren't already mentioned in the Ethereal rule are the miscasts (and debatably lore attributes) so seeing those as magical effects would make the FaQ sync up nicely with the Ethereal rule.

It wasn't ignoring a rule we don't understand (magical effects); it was ignoring something that isn't defined. There is a huge difference.

There, you came to your own conclusion on magical effects, which doesn't include banners.

/thread