Okay, iv'e been hearing alot about games being won or lost on the roll of some spell dice. The thing is, outside of a teclis list (where a dwellers is cast irresistibly about once a turn) I am yet to see magic decide how the match went. Sure, it can have an impact, but so can miscasts, or 1 bad panic test.

So, where is this trend coming from? A friend seems to believe it's 40k players coming to fantasy and having a culture shock moment at how random and potentially destructive magic can be.

What do you think forum goers?

Dwellers easily killing 50% of your average unit, ToV allowing you to blindly roll dice without negative consequences, same goes for Purple Sun / Pit or #6 Tzeentch destroying an entire unit in 1 go etc. etc.

I started with WHFB, played for 4 years, sold my army in 8th, switched to 40k, much more pleased.

Yes, it can happen.

But the counter is to not have such huge units. Its the counter balance to that massive block of infantry that will never run away.

8th has pretty good balance. Its just if you are unable to see it/refuse to adapt your previous edition tactics and lists that you find trouble.

The 8th army books are extremely well-balanced. The basic rules as well. The only exception is magic that needs to be restricted in a competitive environment but then works out well. Same applies for older army books that are too strong due to changed basic rules.

It's about huge units either, big spells can also threaten smaller elite units.

Yes, but if you have smaller units you have spread the risk out.

True, small and elite units are vulnerable. Its another counter to them being super powerful. Checks and balances.

Anyway, if you don't play anymore why do you care?

I have never seen a single spell win a game, ever. Sure they can do some damage, even 50% of a horde, but that doesn't mean the game is won by it.

I don't see the problem with the big spells, and no, I don't use them. If you bring a horde that is your singular way of winning a game, you better protect them.

This conversation always comes in from more casual players playing in non-casual environments where someone will pull a purple sun on a horde. When I play for fun, I don't use those spells, but in competition, if I have them, I sure will.

8 or 9 stomps with foot of gork, can do it. Sniping a Vampire Lord on turn 1 can win games. But generally no.

I know in my past tourney, in 5 games not a single spell won me any of the games. However two in a row did win me a game.

Playing against VC I had 12-4 magic advantage (CAsket + Arkhan's paripat) Bubble soul blight + Bubble Smiting. Now that did it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, but if you have smaller units you have spread the risk out.

True, small and elite units are vulnerable. Its another counter to them being super powerful. Checks and balances.

Anyway, if you don't play anymore why do you care?

As stated in the other thread, I decided to, instead of endlessly hating on 8th being a dumbed-down version of what 7th was, happily embrace the randomness of it and go balls deep with a 100% goblin army.

Furthermore, as I stated before, a lot of German tournaments use a restriction system for WHFB that makes the game a LOT better, especially toning down magic by a good bit (e.g. max 4 dice per spell, restriction / nerfs on magic items, LOS! vs. 6th spells, among ithers). WHFB needs some work to be a good system but it's worth it.

My first game of eighth edition.
I had my orc and goblin army lined up in a traditional battle line with my mage in an archer unit at the end. This unit was at a slight angle to be able to potentially shoot or release fanatics at more of the demon army in front of me.

On the first turn, the blue scribes (or something, maybe it was just a basic tzeentch herald) stole "Curse of the Bad Moon" from me with some special power and used it to fire a gigantic vortex right down my battle line, wiping out 50% of my army due to failed initiative tests. The rest of the game was a formality.

I sure felt it was worth my time to pack my stuff, walk down to the store, wait for a game, place a hundred and something models on movement trays to essentially lose the game before I'd gotten to do anything due to some lucky rolls on my opponents part.

I was so unimpressed I've barely played any 8th edition since.

inb4 "...but magic is a good counter to this, so balanced!"

It's an extremely weak argument as magic can counter everything in the entire game, be it small elite units or hordes or anything else. That is not a counter. It's an overarching element and the main reason why magic is overpowered overall - it's too versatile. It's poor internal balancing if one element clearly dominates the game.

Hence the need for restrictions. Max 4 dice per spell is a real blessing and a major improvement balance-wise. If people are interested, I could translate the restriction system I am used to. It makes the game a lot more fun

The problem is that if you restrict magic, you also have to restrict unit sizes.

My Ogres fear only a couple things. Magic, hordes of cheap garbage infantry, and large quantities of multi-wound weapons. Take away magic without imposing other restrictions and things get wonky.


Ultimatly, comp of any sort is going to be subjective and thus flawed. Hence I prefer the impartial rules as they were written by GW.

Yup, restriction on unit size is in too

- max 45 models / unit in general
- further rules:

9-11 pts / model: max 40

12-14 pts / model: max 35

15-18 pts / model: max 30

19-29 pts / model: max 20

30-39 pts / model: max 12

40+ pts / model: max 9

I agree with your point about balance being subjective. I'll add that restrictions made by actual competitive players are superior to the ruleset that GW releases given the nature of the group that makes the rules. GW does not consider comp play into consideration and usually releases rules that have seen very little playtesting. Comp players then adding restrictions can really help balance it out.

On the first turn, the blue scribes (or something, maybe it was just a basic tzeentch herald) stole "Curse of the Bad Moon" from me with some special power and used it to fire a gigantic vortex right down my battle line, wiping out 50% of my army due to failed initiative tests. The rest of the game was a formality.

How did you have your entire army in the middle for his vortex to hit? Did you really not plan deployment that well? Sounds more like poor planning since it allowed your enemy to do so much damage..

You're really limited with a goblin army as you need most of it in your LD 8 bubble - thus it's easy prey for any sort of template attacks.

Curse of the Bad Moon is a vortex spell that moves along a linear path. So all he had to do was have LOS down my battle line and roll well and he could hit lots of units. I mean, deploying in a line is a fairly standard thing, and it's kind of unavoidable with orc and goblin armies.

I wouldn't mind losing a single unit to a spell but situations like that along with increased model counts don't make for a fun experience, to me.

I mostly use Orcs for my OnG army, so yeah I guess that would be true. Typically if I know I'll have issues with bigger spells, usually because of DE or daemons I'll spread out, sure it spreads out the LD a bit but its better then losing tons of model.

Just FYI, when a Vortex reaches the end of the distance rolled, if it is over a unit it is move along the line till it is 1" away from any unit. Models mvoed over when this occurs are NOT effected.

Also, Vortex's begin touching the base of the casting model and move from there. They are not put down somewhere else and scattered from there.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Just FYI, when a Vortex reaches the end of the distance rolled, if it is over a unit it is move along the line till it is 1" away from any unit. Models mvoed over when this occurs are NOT effected.

Also, Vortex's begin touching the base of the casting model and move from there. They are not put down somewhere else and scattered from there.

Unless the daemon moved to the flank of Daboss`s battleline somehow, it sounds like it was played wrong.

Yeah, its a very VERY common mistake people using Vortices make.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Also, Vortex's begin touching the base of the casting model and move from there. They are not put down somewhere else and scattered from there.

I have heard of many times of people doing this incorrectly.

Seems to happen mostly with incorrect gameplay or (and?) internet hyperbole.

I havnt played a game of WHFB since 6th, I know I know, but I'm going to be playing again soon with a High Elf Army. This notion of 'one spell wins games' is interesting. Back in 6th it was 'Comet Of Casandora' that every Mage worth Thier salt wanted. In case anybody hasnt heard of this spell, it's basically a nuke that gets bigger every turn.... Nasty stuff....
At the very least, it does 2D6+1 S4+1 to all units within 2D6..

Comet is still around, and it gets bigger each turn it doesn't come down. And you can have multiple Comets on the table at once.

I'm not saying that it never happens. But I really don't think it happens nearly as often as the detractors say it does.

Early on I was the victim of several losses due to Dark Elves+ Power Scroll+Purple Sun, but since that errata, I can only think of one more game lost by a spell- and that was mind razor. Even counting Power Scroll games, that comes to 2-3 games out of over 120.

I can think of games I lost due to an anvil blowing up. I can think of games I lost due to failing a re-rollable leadership 10. For some reason these are more palatable to people? Not sure why.

And of course, as Dwarfs, I can bring quite a stack of magic defense, but it doesn't really add any defense to 6 dice casting- irresistible is irresistible after all.

Much more often, I see a game won or lost by a set of crucial hexes and augments dropped on the pivotal combats.

Personally, I'm glad the big spells are out there- I can say from a Dwarf perspective that its extremely difficult to deal with death stars, and its helpful to have a metagame that keeps them at least partially in check.

Well... Try the flip side of the equation.

Skaven grey seer is general, casts on turn 1, blows himself and his unit up, unit panics, starts a chain reaction that results in 75% of the army fleeing off the board.

Yep, one cast won the game... for the other guy.

I would have to agree with the op, because watching games hang on a spell is a bit much. I started out playing my HE and watched as I worked my magic. I have seen armies break under one spell and because of that limited myself to using that ability. I just felt as a player that doing that had no skill, AND FOR FANTASY PLAYERS TO SAY THAT WARHAMMER HAS MORE SKILL THAN 40K, BAH!!!. Case in point, I tried my best to dbl drain magic each phase so that I could contest 6 dice dread 13th over and over each phase.

Take blood and glory for instants, all you have to do is break the opp and you win. The order in the phase is first the win then oh wait that its, no IF roll whats so ever. So the opp did not have to worry about that.

I am not even going to commit about cannon character snipe in, please..... some skillllllllllllll.

I do admit that warhammer has it tactics only because the rules require it. charging etc and on and on because of the rules.

6 dice purple sun, dwarf player gone,
6 dice pit,, orge player done
6 dice etc....

Golden IF,,,,

Frankly, the biggest issue with imbalance in magic is coming from older books. None of the 8th edition army books have overbearing magic phases.

Its the thrice damned Teclis, Slann, and Daemon players. Abusing their older magic items and abilities.


The reckoning is coming, your books too shall be updated in time. And I shall feast on your tears. I hope Teclis dies in a hole, a very nasty smelly hole filled with Daemonettes.

Grey Templar


I myself have never used him nor will I ever. I have tasted a few games of power magic and have felt its wrath. I moved away from it so that my opp could enjoy there game vs my list. I tend to build fluff driven list and or friendly list.

Then again you reply does not account for the dread 13th over and over and over and over until he gets IF.

I am not to worried about and update to magic as I am to my army. GW has broken me ah many times with new codexs that trashed my army. Converted 30 grenadiers only to have a new ig dex. Converted up an entire daemonhunter army, still bent over it...

Now im running 6x lion chariots and facing an updated dex that might not allow 6x specials. The good thing is that I have keep the xtra bodies for the drivers and the horse so that I can reset as needed.

See how you feast on 6x lion chariots?

jk,, enjoyed your reply...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Frankly, the biggest issue with imbalance in magic is coming from older books. None of the 8th edition army books have overbearing magic phases.

Its the thrice damned Teclis, Slann, and Daemon players. Abusing their older magic items and abilities.


The reckoning is coming, your books too shall be updated in time. And I shall feast on your tears. I hope Teclis dies in a hole, a very nasty smelly hole filled with Daemonettes.

As a high elf player... i have to agree. Teclis is broken, even in his current dumbed down state. That's right. In 5th/6th the dude could cast from anywhere on the table and none of his spells had line of sight restrictions... so at least 7th was a step in the right direction for him


I actually don't have a problem with the big spells. I think the designers realized that rules favored big ass blocks of infantry and big grinding combats. Lots of smashing and death star action. Answer? Magic. I play elves, while its frustrating getting dwellered its usually my fault. Did i move within 24" of the caster before i should have? Why didn't i bring proper magic defense items? If you're letting throne of vines through you're making a pretty big mistake...

I also think Life magic is still one of the worse lores. Sure it has the sex appeal of dwellers, but every other spell is pretty lack luster. Stop the important ones, eat the wound regeneration then get back to killing. Much scary units tend to be semi-elites that suddenly get hit with several augments.

Ever played against inner circle knights with timewarp and speed of light? They'll win any combat they're thrown into. Or Bloodcrushers with Harmonic Convergence? What about High Elf spears with wyssans wild form? While the 6th spells tend to be nasty, they're not way OTT that it makes or breaks the game. Dwarf players complaining about Purple Sun frankly deserve it. I love watching all of my expensive units getting blasted away before i can even get near that castle.

And really if you're playing Vortexes right anyway they're not super extremely effective. Proper deployment should solve most problems. Yes you need to keep everything close to the BsB and General in low LD armies. But you can also stack units, stagger etc.


TLDR this stupid ramble of mine: While 6th spells are tough, they're not game-winners. They're simply a hard counter to big blocks of ranked up infantry and death stars.

Tarval wrote:
Now im running 6x lion chariots and facing an updated dex that might not allow 6x specials. The good thing is that I have keep the xtra bodies for the drivers and the horse so that I can reset as needed.

See how you feast on 6x lion chariots?

jk,, enjoyed your reply...

How do you get 6 chariots?

This one time I got in a car accident. Therefore, all cars shouldn't drive because they are unsafe.

Anecdotes are fine and all, but really, think about this, what % of all games are almost completely decided by one spell? I'm going to say less than 5% and that's going pretty high.

DukeRustfield wrote:
This one time I got in a car accident. Therefore, all cars shouldn't drive because they are unsafe.

Anecdotes are fine and all, but really, think about this, what % of all games are almost completely decided by one spell? I'm going to say less than 5% and that's going pretty high.

I'd say less than that. In every game I played since 8th came out. It has never happened to me.

Im gonna chime in and support Sigvatr, the ETC system really helps balance the game out a lot...

2000 point game, purple sun cast over my unit of Temple Guard with Slann (Over 1k point unit) = game over.

OK, admittedly it was an "all your eggs in 1 basket" army - but it was still a "1 spell won the game" situation.

To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

I killed one of those with a unit of corsairs and ran down a slaan. I believe that soulblight was in effect, but I may be wrong.

I agree with the magic being reliable at getting rid of it. But it isn't the only way.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

I killed one of those with a unit of corsairs and ran down a slaan. I believe that soulblight was in effect, but I may be wrong.

I agree with the magic being reliable at getting rid of it. But it isn't the only way.

Re-rollable, steadfeast LD of 10 makes them almost unable to lose any battle thus you have to kill each and everyone of them in order to beat them. That's not an easy task with most units and average rolling involved and it takes multiple turns as well.

Not to nit pick but it's only LD 9
And it's only re-rollable if the Slann is also the BSB (though why you wouldn;t do that I don't know)

I agree that it was probably the only way he could realistically take it out - but was just giving an example of a single spell winning the game.

Nope, LD 10. If you roll that combo, you let your Slann be the BSB, pick the +1 LD banner and go for a nearly unbreakable unit (chance to break is like 0.2% or sth...).

Ah yeah, forgot the +1LD banner. Never used it as it was a little overkill LD9 + Cool Blooded + Stubbon + re-roll will see you through 99% of the time

It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Da Boss wrote:
It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Yeah that..is entirely wrong, it uses HIS wizard as the casting point. He never would've gotten his vortex to your lines to do that much damage otherwise.

It hapend to me when I played my Wood Elves once. A single chain lighting ripped through my army and killed about 60% of the army.. This was quite a few years ago and I havent played Warhammer Fantasy in a few years now.. Since my group went to 40k instead..

In a local tournament - Slann and most of his unit killed by single spell - Dwellers below or similar - other player just mopped up the rest.

I lost most of my Vampire Counts army to a boosted Ocrams razor (?) and another spell - killed about 4 units in one turn, with massive nos of I, A etc.

Oh and both big spells were irrisatable so nothing could be done..

Went back to 40K and for the most part enjoyed myself.......unlike WFB - love the fluff to bits and started of liking 8th as a big step up from 7th.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Da Boss wrote:
It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Yeah that..is entirely wrong, it uses HIS wizard as the casting point. He never would've gotten his vortex to your lines to do that much damage otherwise.

Actually it depends on the rule of the demons (which I don't know) He has already stated that it was HIS spell that was cast and that the demon player then "stole" the spell and cast it himself. Now if the rule says that the spell is cast using the origional casters LOS then I would take that to mean that the vortex forms on him as normal. On the other hand if it allows him to steal the spell "As if he cast it himself" then the votex would form at the demon wizard feet - basically it's possible it was played right, it'll just depend on the wording of the rule.

One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

 Sigvatr wrote:
Re-rollable, steadfeast LD of 10 makes them almost unable to lose any battle thus you have to kill each and everyone of them in order to beat them. That's not an easy task with most units and average rolling involved and it takes multiple turns as well.

By the time my corsairs finished, the slaan was on double ones.

But anyway, the likelihood of single spells winning the game is very slim. And a competent player will minimise the chances of this happening.

No it's not. The rule states that he can use his spell as if it was yours thus he has to use his very own mage.

I quote:

This spell may be cast on a single enemy Wizard visible to the caster. The caster may immediately cast one of the target's spells as if it was one of his own. [...]

- DoC army book, p.61

Ask your friend to know his rules before using them.

Ah, okay. That goes some way to explaining it. However, I would still content that any mage with flight could have done the same thing.

So you are saying there is a chance that a set of die rolls can turn the course of a game, given a rather specific setup, some luck, and your opponent's lack of foresight?

OK, but magic is the only way you can think to do that?
Is it just the one that works against the lists you see most often?

Or the biggest change maybe?

It really has been my experience that it comes across as folk using rocks complaining about paper being overpowered when they put almost no scissors in their list.

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

And that's his fault for deploying in a castle...

Remember that characters now get LOS against template spells, they're still knocked out cold against Dwellers, Final Transmutation and 13th.

thelordcal wrote:

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

And that's his fault for deploying in a castle...

Remember that characters now get LOS against template spells, they're still knocked out cold against Dwellers, Final Transmutation and 13th.

Wow, that player deployed horribly, even in a castle setup you don't want to literally place everything right together.

I've lost games to magic phases, not usually spells. But my main opponent was the big two headed chicken daemon with a massive unit of horrors. I wasnt doing to bad at all considering he was playing the ungodly broken flamer and crusher army and wand of wychelm (i play wood elves) helped me more then i should expect...until. He got 10 dice, i got 5, he then preceeded to channel one and steal on of my dispel, the game was over before the magic phase ended.

Please keep posts directed at other posters constructive and friendly, thanks. Personal criticism has a way of coming off rude (which is a violation of Dakka Rule #1) unless it is kept friendly and positive. -Mannahnin

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I've lost games to magic phases, not usually spells. But my main opponent was the big two headed chicken daemon with a massive unit of horrors. I wasnt doing to bad at all considering he was playing the ungodly broken flamer and crusher army and wand of wychelm (i play wood elves) helped me more then i should expect...until. He got 10 dice, i got 5, he then preceeded to channel one and steal on of my dispel, the game was over before the magic phase ended.

Valid point - in your given situation, you could only reliably dispel one of his spells and had to let the others through. As others and myself have already pointed out though, that's only a problem with 7th books magic and a few BRB lores (e.g. Shadow). Otherwise, the system seems to work fine and requires tactics - will you rather dispel 2 minor spells or the big one that might kill your entire unit? Both possibilities have valid pros and cons and I like that change about magic in 8th.

Furthermore, it can work just the other way too, e.g. with Dwarfs generating about 9-10 dispel dice on average and having a +2 on all dispels on top. As said before, with restrictions, the magic system works really well. Vanilla (no modifications, using the original rules) 8th needs work to...well..work and I did not enjoy playing unrestricted 8th. But with restrictions, it's fun and *puts flame cloak on* better than 7th.

Also: a 100% Goblin army is so much fun

I was playing against an ogre player whose own boosted purple sun drifted over his 9-12 strong ironguts unit with general and two other characters. We (incorrectly, apparently) applied it to all the models it passed over untill it was 1" past my units flanking it. That finished the game
(his own fault an ogres player shouldn't use a boosted purple sun vs chaos anyway)

I've had Magic win me as many games as artillery. But usually it isn't my own magic.

Only time one cast has won me the game was in a 500 pt tournament (With a ton of restrictions). I was up against VC. His one necro casts invocation of nehek the first turn on 2 die. Irresistibles. He then razes up 5 skeletons... and gets sucked into the warp. Needless to say, it sucked for both of us.

Then again, same tournament I went up against a HE player who bunkered his mage with swordmasters. Turn 1 my mortar hits it, kills 4 out of the 10. The unit fails the panic check and runs straight off the board. The only game that my mortar actually did something...

Most of the time, things aren't crippling. I've had similar games 1000 points where I irresistible the #6 Tzeentch spell against his hammer/anvil unit and roll a 12 for strength. Funny part is, I hurt myself just as much, and then lost.

I've had a Foot of Gork go off 9 times in a row on me... Even that didn't entirely cripple me as he blew himself up, panicked, then his entire line started running away.

I could imagine with good generals (alot of these games were alot of newer players against eachother), that these games could turn one sided when things happen (or even have better lists built that mitigates the dangers). But fortunately for me, I avoid these players.

The problem is people often over-exagerate their units combat potential, if they fall foul to a unit with magical buffs they didnt think of, or are destroyed by magic.
Case and point me (beastmen) and him(VC) were playing a standard game when i managed using generated powerdice to get mindrazor on a unit of naked minotaurs who were in combat with his Vamp lord and co, he had spent the whole game wipping the floor with me and keeping my minotaurs running around not even really getting the combat bonuses, however when they won the combat it was because "magic like that breaks the game".
Personnally ive lost more games due to failing re-rollable man-bane and then a re-rollable leadership then i have seen a single spell, however the onus is on both players to realise the potential of spells.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, but if you have smaller units you have spread the risk out.

True, small and elite units are vulnerable. Its another counter to them being super powerful. Checks and balances.

Anyway, if you don't play anymore why do you care?

As stated in the other thread, I decided to, instead of endlessly hating on 8th being a dumbed-down version of what 7th was, happily embrace the randomness of it and go balls deep with a 100% goblin army.

Furthermore, as I stated before, a lot of German tournaments use a restriction system for WHFB that makes the game a LOT better, especially toning down magic by a good bit (e.g. max 4 dice per spell, restriction / nerfs on magic items, LOS! vs. 6th spells, among ithers). WHFB needs some work to be a good system but it's worth it.

Why is 8th dumbed down? I ask because I am strongly considering starting a Skaven army, ussualy I dislike fantasy but there's is something in human sized war rats especialy that the models are incredible. Ugh I hate GW they make me bankrupt.

Also do you happen to have a link to those tournament restrictions? Could be in German.

Well... I'll let Sigvatr answer that, but suffice to say that not everyone agrees that 8th is simply a dumbed down version of 7th. I thought there was a lot of not-all-that-clever-yet-still-effective stuff going on in 7th.

I'll not make this a degeneration into whether 8th is "good" or not, though Sigvatr is, of course, welcome to answer your question, but I think if you come in to 8th with an open mind, you'll find a fair amount of depth and strategy in this edition.

Thanks for the answer, obviously everyones opinion is welcomed. I will aproach 8th with an open mind and form my own opinion especialy that I haven't played previous editions, I'm just curious though what is considered a low point of a current ruleset. It helps analysing rules when reading and playing.

Magic is a low spot for sure. It could have been better and has problems with some of the spells being a tad too powerful.

But compared to how things were before, and the rest of 8th edition as a whole, I would say its a forgivable shortcoming.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Magic is a low spot for sure. It could have been better and has problems with some of the spells being a tad too powerful.

But compared to how things were before, and the rest of 8th edition as a whole, I would say its a forgivable shortcoming.

Exalted

Pretty good, short yet valid opinion about 8th.

Short answer, 4th ed. I have not played since 5th but single spells won a few games although more often a single magic phase with a bum hand of cards did it.

Of the top of my head I recall being involved in the following.

3k game. Conflagaration of doom panicing >1500k of elves off the board (horrible luck with LD test more than a magic issue)

IF purple sun across HE army on turn two, all 4 reapers gone 2 units of archers and a large unit of spears crippled and the bsb dead. Pretty nasty in 1500pts.

Bridge of shadows any number of times turned battles, If you remember it I probably don't need to explain.



More often than not however when magic turned a game it was a powerful mage left unchecked by the loss of his opposing number spamming magic unopposed (5+ to dispel) that would turn a game rather than a single casting.

As I stated in a post a week ago magic is not overpowered. Dwellers is only good against low strength units and if they're low strength then they're probably not your best unit on the board. I cast it 3times into a unit of temple gaurd with a slaan. The slaan was ethereal so it was the only thing I had that could kill him. The slaan and 5 temple gaurd lived and charged my 40 halberds with a priest captain and wizard. In 3 turns of combat I killed 4 temple gaurd while my unit was decimated. I should mention he used beasts and buffed his temple like crazy

Jayo'r wrote:
As I stated in a post a week ago magic is not overpowered. Dwellers is only good against low strength units and if they're low strength then they're probably not your best unit on the board. I cast it 3times into a unit of temple gaurd with a slaan. The slaan was ethereal so it was the only thing I had that could kill him. The slaan and 5 temple gaurd lived and charged my 40 halberds with a priest captain and wizard. In 3 turns of combat I killed 4 temple gaurd while my unit was decimated. I should mention he used beasts and buffed his temple like crazy

Uhm, against the average S of 3, Dwellers kill 50% of the unit. That's not weak...

 Sigvatr wrote:
Uhm, against the average S of 3, Dwellers kill 50% of the unit. That's not weak...

Against one unit. And it has a casting value of absurdly high for the default range. And to make the range semi decent the casting value goes up to abdsurdly high-er.

You keep using dwellers as an example of how magic is OP. Yet it is a decent spell in a subpar lore. If an army has access to life, it would normally have access to a better lore. The exception being wood elves.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Jayo'r wrote:
As I stated in a post a week ago magic is not overpowered. Dwellers is only good against low strength units and if they're low strength then they're probably not your best unit on the board. I cast it 3times into a unit of temple gaurd with a slaan. The slaan was ethereal so it was the only thing I had that could kill him. The slaan and 5 temple gaurd lived and charged my 40 halberds with a priest captain and wizard. In 3 turns of combat I killed 4 temple gaurd while my unit was decimated. I should mention he used beasts and buffed his temple like crazy

Uhm, against the average S of 3, Dwellers kill 50% of the unit. That's not weak...

Apparently you didn't really read my post. Like I said if the unit is strength 3 you probably don't care if it dies. And the range is awful with average rolling your wizard it will be combat next turn

Jayo'r wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Jayo'r wrote:
As I stated in a post a week ago magic is not overpowered. Dwellers is only good against low strength units and if they're low strength then they're probably not your best unit on the board. I cast it 3times into a unit of temple gaurd with a slaan. The slaan was ethereal so it was the only thing I had that could kill him. The slaan and 5 temple gaurd lived and charged my 40 halberds with a priest captain and wizard. In 3 turns of combat I killed 4 temple gaurd while my unit was decimated. I should mention he used beasts and buffed his temple like crazy

Uhm, against the average S of 3, Dwellers kill 50% of the unit. That's not weak...

Apparently you didn't really read my post. Like I said if the unit is strength 3 you probably don't care if it dies. And the range is awful with average rolling your wizard it will be combat next turn

Sword Masters of Hoeth, Crossbowmen, basically most normal troops. Pretty sure I'd care about those units. Sure, you will likely be in combat. Against a unit that lost ~50% of its members. I know who I'll bet my money on.

Keep in mind that you can just spam dice on Dwellers due to ToV.

With the exception of Dwellers, LoL is a balanced lore. It's Dwellers that breaks it.

 Sigvatr wrote:
With the exception of Dwellers, LoL is a balanced lore. It's Dwellers that breaks it.

No. Dwellers is a mediocre spell at best. It is one of the two decent spells in the entire lore. The other being Throne of Vines. When Compared to a lore like Shadows which has Mindrazor, Withering, Enfeebling Foe, Pit of Shades and Miasma so that you don't rely on two spells to make the lore effective.

I think life's syngery is based on your army. I love it with my daemons, even without dweller T7 Horrors don't die easy. and using regrowth and lore attribute on a Great Unclean One, that's 1k points that just doesn't die.

A few years back I won round 2 of "ard boyz with Infernal Gateway. My opponent foolishly stacked Archaen in a unit of 18ish Chaos knights. His only other unit was a block of like 20 trolls with the troll king. He charged across the board with his knights and on round 2 I rolled the magic "11"" and sent his General, BSB and only unit with a sttndard to the Chaos Wastes. One spell, with one roll of the dice netted me a 3000 point army from GW. But Tzeentch is fickle and I haven't repeated that since.

When I used to play Empire, I managed to roll 7x 6's after casting Transmutation to Lead spell from the Lore of Metal on an Ogre Bull Horde. Turned his BSB, Slaughtermaster, and 5x Ogres into gold in one shot right before my 30x IC Knight Horde charged in and wiped them all out. Besides that, nothing really too amazing as most of my magic when I had my Empire was to buff my units before combat and let all of my War-Machines do the damage and thin out my opponents.

However since I started playing Dwarfs, I am liking the feel of not having to worry about casting any magic, and out of the 8x games I have played with them, I have yet to have a big spell that changed the game cast on me as no one has been able to hit me with a big spell yet. Big reason why I love my Dwarfs so much, they shut down the magic phase very well and recently I have noticed that mnay opponents dont even bother taking to much magic against me now because of it =D.

 bigyounk wrote:
A few years back I won round 2 of "ard boyz with Infernal Gateway. My opponent foolishly stacked Archaen in a unit of 18ish Chaos knights. His only other unit was a block of like 20 trolls with the troll king. He charged across the board with his knights and on round 2 I rolled the magic "11"" and sent his General, BSB and only unit with a sttndard to the Chaos Wastes. One spell, with one roll of the dice netted me a 3000 point army from GW. But Tzeentch is fickle and I haven't repeated that since.

That's another good example, though, how magic should work: the enemy had a pretty deathstar-ish unit that could kill most enemies in melee with ease. He put all eggs in one basket and dropped it

The problem is that the (hell yeah!) old Gateway was effective against everything due to it still dealing high S hits to any enemy units. It was a no-brainer spell.

A good example of a good 6th spell, imo, would be the 6th Little Waaagh! spell. In its basic form, you still get a test-or-wound spell, but if you're unlucky, you get High Elves to test on I. The stronger form lets you choose and makes it very effective, but on the other hand, it almost forces you to suffer a miscast.

 Sigvatr wrote:

A good example of a good 6th spell, imo, would be the 6th Little Waaagh! spell.

How about the 6th spell in Lore of Vampires? Wind of Death, strong effect but can be really random movement and can blow back on your own guys.

A virulent Plague spell from a Grey Seer sadly took most of my chaos warriors and most of the knights unit next to it. I thought that the BSB carrying exalted hero in that unit would not fluff the panic test, but I rolled a 10, the re-roll was also a 10. Sadly it was the scenario where you count the banners to assess the breaking point of the army. Since my only banner fled off the map, things weren't going too well.
The moral of the story was to bring a dispel scroll for those moments when you haven't got enough spell dice. This means in a 1000pt army, don't bring the hero sorceror since you can't buy him the dispel scroll.
Anyway, better luck next time - maybe I get to mince his Seer first.

I was playing against empire and turned a fifty man horde into a priest and a banner bearer with one plague spell.

As a VC player, I constantly struggle to find ways to either shut down a High Elf magic phase or get a good phase of my own against them. It's rough, man. Maybe VC isn't so magic-dependent now as they used to be, but its weird coming from an older edition when they seemed more dominant in the phase because they had to be.

That's how all 8th and balanced codices work - magic has been toned down in the army books to a reasonable level and often works as a supportive tool.

I fully expect High Elves to (of course) get Teclis nerfed to oblivion (hopefully making him completely useless), get a nerf to the W3 casting dice banner (removed / only +1d), no more +1 on dispelling etc.

I can't say much about VC as I rarely get to play against them, but from the times I did, they seemed like another well-balanced 8th army. They no longer fully dominate the magic phase, but on the other hand, rely less on it. There's some cheese stuff, but overall, it fits right into the line of the really good 8th codices. Playstyles change

1000 pts. game, old gateway kills off my saurus block with the BSB turn 1.



As for 8th ed books, i love them they're very well balanced against each other and i can't wait ti'll my lizards get one too. Screw cheese hands of the old ones and fire lizard spam gimme some new and balanced toys.

Yeah. I feel that most hate towards 8th books comes from people who...aim at winning at all costs. Yes, some army books have flaws such as Marauders now being too expensive resulting in dropping out of WoC armies or Skarsnik now being *ridiculously* expensive and no longer being a viable pick, but overall, the books are damn well balanced.

Yes, they are still far away from FoW levels, but seriously...I'm picking up FoW right now and GODDAMN it's so hard to learn...so many rules... :/

Really? I found FoW to be surprisingly simple.

It appears complicated but in reality the basic mechanics are quite simple.

When I got my friends to play 40k, I could just have the minis ready and tell them the rules by playing at the same time - doesn't seem that simple with FoW. that's not a negative point, I love the ruleset because on the one hand I think "What? Another exception to the rule?", but on the other hand, at the same time, I think "Yeah, makes sense, I would not want to sit on a rolling time bomb (aka flame tank) either!".

It's a very different approach, also in regard to the business strategy. 40k / WHFB aim at the casual crowd and are rulesets that were designed with a beer&pretzels mentality in mind but FoW tries to be as realistic as possible (e.g. the wound allocation rules: on a battlefield, you just don't have to carefully think about what target to shoot thus you aim for those at close distance first).

No need to get this thread sidetracked though, did not intend to, sorry :=)

I've seen a couple of examples, not many though: pit of shades cast on my death star unit with my vamp lord in and somehow getting through. The next one birona's timewarp with a full artillery empire army. It won't win them the game but it will be hard as hell to recover from!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vanhel's dans macabre used to get me last addition occasionally as well...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vanhel's dans macabre used to get me last addition occasionally as well...

Occasionally?! You were doing pretty well then! It was one of the things I hated most about the last vamp book. Oh, look, you're going to spam Vanhel's till you get your magic charge off...

Single spells win games fairly often. But they're not often the point and click 'make unit disappear now' spells people complain about. I've seen more games won with the clever use of Buff and Hex spells than Dwellers or that other spells like that.

Jayo'r wrote:
Apparently you didn't really read my post. Like I said if the unit is strength 3 you probably don't care if it dies. And the range is awful with average rolling your wizard it will be combat next turn

What? You're an Empire player. That's means other than ICK all your troops are Str 3, which means unless you've banked everything on knights, then your core units will be Str 3. And even if they are Str 4, then that means 1/3 rather than a 1/2 will die to the spell, which is still really bad.

Now, I think the impact of Dwellers is overstated, because the range is somewhat limited (meaning there's generally only one cast before you can get into the sweet, sweet protection of combat), and with IF being unlikely there's always the protection of the dispel scroll, and if he does roll IF his miscast can be as big a problem as the spell itself... but none of that means we just pretend the spell can't trash valuable units, because that happens.

With Dwellers, I guess another reason for people (including me) considering it being stronger than it looks on paper is the lore it belongs to. LoL allows you to cast the 6th without a proper risk of rolling on the miscast chart and also contains several good buff spells - it's very versatilemand Dweller seems like a slapped on "Here, you get one of these too!" spell.

 bigyounk wrote:
A few years back I won round 2 of "ard boyz with Infernal Gateway. My opponent foolishly stacked Archaen in a unit of 18ish Chaos knights. His only other unit was a block of like 20 trolls with the troll king. He charged across the board with his knights and on round 2 I rolled the magic "11"" and sent his General, BSB and only unit with a sttndard to the Chaos Wastes. One spell, with one roll of the dice netted me a 3000 point army from GW. But Tzeentch is fickle and I haven't repeated that since.

I wouldn't say I foolishly stacked him in a bunker of 18 chaos knights. That list when through 5 lists, to include 2 high elves Teclis list that were heavy on the magic, and it wasn't easy. Not much i could do, you IF the spell on 4 dice and got off the 11 on the unit. Its a risk people take with all those points in one unit. Id say it was foolish for you to pull your wizard out of his bunker into my knight bus' front arc and hope that spell wiped that unit, at risk of losing your Lvl4. Or id say you were foolish for running around the store hooting and hollering about how a "balanced list" won that game, when it was just classic gateway spam.

I have no issues losing that game, just your poor sportsmanship about it was really the only downside to the game. Just don't knock my list for losing to something i couldn't stop. And please don't confuse your gateway spam for good tactics, because those days are over. Ive been winning alot of games using the same tactics from before with this new book. Hope you can say the same.

That being said i had a good time at that tourney, and to be honest, i rather you win it then the Bretonians guy who was cheating or the skaven dude with a cardboard tower (fedex roll) and 100 ballpoint pen windows drawn on it. He had a pile of skaven bits glued in a huge pile of cotton calling it a block of 100 slaves. when it was just a pile of cotton, glue and bits with no form that he couldn't pull apart. If i could trampoline you past them then it was a win for me.

I've had it happen with my Tomb Kings vs DE (I think it was during 6th ed)
I used my casket, The DE player fluffed his dispel (1,1) and watched as every unit in the DE army (which was MSU with lone sorceress characters) take loads of wounds.
This killed every character in the army, and forced panic tests on the units which almost universally failed.
This happened in turn one.
I killed 2/3 of the army in the first magic phase.
You can't come back from that.

well I can't say a single spell cast won a game for me, but a single opponent's miscast did. his only wizard got reduced to level 0 and then my VC were free to raise massive amounts of skeletons that won me the game. both of us couldn't stop laughing when it happened, it was hilarious.

hachieman2000 wrote:

 bigyounk wrote:
A few years back I won round 2 of "ard boyz with Infernal Gateway. My opponent foolishly stacked Archaen in a unit of 18ish Chaos knights. His only other unit was a block of like 20 trolls with the troll king. He charged across the board with his knights and on round 2 I rolled the magic "11"" and sent his General, BSB and only unit with a sttndard to the Chaos Wastes. One spell, with one roll of the dice netted me a 3000 point army from GW. But Tzeentch is fickle and I haven't repeated that since.

I wouldn't say I foolishly stacked him in a bunker of 18 chaos knights. That list when through 5 lists, to include 2 high elves Teclis list that were heavy on the magic, and it wasn't easy. Not much i could do, you IF the spell on 4 dice and got off the 11 on the unit. Its a risk people take with all those points in one unit. Id say it was foolish for you to pull your wizard out of his bunker into my knight bus' front arc and hope that spell wiped that unit, at risk of losing your Lvl4. Or id say you were foolish for running around the store hooting and hollering about how a "balanced list" won that game, when it was just classic gateway spam.

I have no issues losing that game, just your poor sportsmanship about it was really the only downside to the game. Just don't knock my list for losing to something i couldn't stop. And please don't confuse your gateway spam for good tactics, because those days are over. Ive been winning alot of games using the same tactics from before with this new book. Hope you can say the same.

That being said i had a good time at that tourney, and to be honest, i rather you win it then the Bretonians guy who was cheating or the skaven dude with a cardboard tower (fedex roll) and 100 ballpoint pen windows drawn on it. He had a pile of skaven bits glued in a huge pile of cotton calling it a block of 100 slaves. when it was just a pile of cotton, glue and bits with no form that he couldn't pull apart. If i could trampoline you past them then it was a win for me.

Bazinga!

I fail to see how the TO could honestly accept the Skaven player. It's one thing if you couldn't finish that last model of your unit for a tournament and it looks rather unfinished, but proxying stuff (very poorly on top of that!) for a lame, cheesy list is in no way fitting to a competitive tournament - then again, unrestricted tournaments in WHFB are a bad idea to begin with. Gateway spam never was a sportmanship-like tactic anyway, I always gave people with such lists 0 sportsmanship points.

On the other hand, that huge unit of extremely strong models can hardly be beaten in melee, but must either be tarpitted or be quickly annihilated - and magic is the only reliable way to do so. Still, I am so happy Gateway got changed - nobody should lose a match because of 100% luck.

Bazinga!

I fail to see how the TO could honestly accept the Skaven player. It's one thing if you couldn't finish that last model of your unit for a tournament and it looks rather unfinished, but proxying stuff (very poorly on top of that!) for a lame, cheesy list is in no way fitting to a competitive tournament - then again, unrestricted tournaments in WHFB are a bad idea to begin with. Gateway spam never was a sportmanship-like tactic anyway, I always gave people with such lists 0 sportsmanship points.

On the other hand, that huge unit of extremely strong models can hardly be beaten in melee, but must either be tarpitted or be quickly annihilated - and magic is the only reliable way to do so. Still, I am so happy Gateway got changed - nobody should lose a match because of 100% luck.

I agree the skaven guy shouldn't of been allowed to use a most of that crap. And i also agree that magic is the most effective way to kill units like that, Orkams mind razor for one was my scariest threat. But that being said, i dont think the spells are too over powered because alot of the time you risk miscasting the scary ones.

hachieman2000 wrote:

Bazinga!

I fail to see how the TO could honestly accept the Skaven player. It's one thing if you couldn't finish that last model of your unit for a tournament and it looks rather unfinished, but proxying stuff (very poorly on top of that!) for a lame, cheesy list is in no way fitting to a competitive tournament - then again, unrestricted tournaments in WHFB are a bad idea to begin with. Gateway spam never was a sportmanship-like tactic anyway, I always gave people with such lists 0 sportsmanship points.

On the other hand, that huge unit of extremely strong models can hardly be beaten in melee, but must either be tarpitted or be quickly annihilated - and magic is the only reliable way to do so. Still, I am so happy Gateway got changed - nobody should lose a match because of 100% luck.

I agree the skaven guy shouldn't of been allowed to use a most of that crap. And i also agree that magic is the most effective way to kill units like that, Orkams mind razor for one was my scariest threat. But that being said, i dont think the spells are too over powered because alot of the time you risk miscasting the scary ones.

I think anyone who has ever played against a 7th edition Chaos army book list has been on the wrong side of a gateway. I played against my friend and had an epic game wherein he used gateway and sent my about 700 pt 40 plague monk with furnace and plague priest block into the ether. Of course in the final magic phase of the game i Got Dreaded 13th off on his Chaos Warrior block of tzeentch. rolled a 17 on 4d6 he had 16 guys. game ended in a tie.

 bigyounk wrote:
A few years back I won round 2 of "ard boyz with Infernal Gateway. My opponent foolishly stacked Archaen in a unit of 18ish Chaos knights. His only other unit was a block of like 20 trolls with the troll king. He charged across the board with his knights and on round 2 I rolled the magic "11"" and sent his General, BSB and only unit with a sttndard to the Chaos Wastes. One spell, with one roll of the dice netted me a 3000 point army from GW. But Tzeentch is fickle and I haven't repeated that since.

Oh man! Great job! I hate fighting dou*** lists like this, I mean, 18 Knights, Archeon, and 20 trolls with trogg! I have been gatewayed before, it always sucks but it is apart of the game, but at least you weren't has foolish as this guy only having 2 units to support himself through a 3k game. I mean, really, no room to complain. I would have been dancing around with joy to see one of those blocks get sucked down a hole.

Worse thing I had happen to me is when I had withering casted on my lizardmen then followed by dwellers. It wasn't just one spell but it utterly destroyed my army.

This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

18 Knights, Archeon, Throgg and 20 trolls! That sounds so foolish it hurts my placenta!

hachieman2000 wrote:

Bazinga!

I fail to see how the TO could honestly accept the Skaven player. It's one thing if you couldn't finish that last model of your unit for a tournament and it looks rather unfinished, but proxying stuff (very poorly on top of that!) for a lame, cheesy list is in no way fitting to a competitive tournament - then again, unrestricted tournaments in WHFB are a bad idea to begin with. Gateway spam never was a sportmanship-like tactic anyway, I always gave people with such lists 0 sportsmanship points.

On the other hand, that huge unit of extremely strong models can hardly be beaten in melee, but must either be tarpitted or be quickly annihilated - and magic is the only reliable way to do so. Still, I am so happy Gateway got changed - nobody should lose a match because of 100% luck.

I agree the skaven guy shouldn't of been allowed to use a most of that crap. And i also agree that magic is the most effective way to kill units like that, Orkams mind razor for one was my scariest threat. But that being said, i dont think the spells are too over powered because alot of the time you risk miscasting the scary ones.

Sounds like someone got the gateway crutch out and used it as a weapon. Being a WoC player myself I have used it time to time myself, but if I sink half my opponents army down a hole I really don't count it as anything to brag about. If I lead his knight block away with petty units and then killed trogg to let the trolls wonder around like the dummies they are, then I would consider myself a hero.

Also, I would have flipped the table on someone who fielded an army of skaven that were cotton balls. What is he going to do, get mad that I hurt his models? Seriously, I know people have a price with the game but if you are going to play, play it with real models. I don't want imagine what 100 slaves in a fed ex tower would look like.

 Red_Zeke wrote:
This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

Thanks! I normally don't get on forums but when I saw this guy complaining that he lost due to gateway when he had those two death stars it just made me go hulk angry.

Has anyone had Final Transmuation kill them off with terrible rolls? You just roll 5's and 6's and that's all you can roll and then you just feel sad inside.

ABDanger wrote:

 Red_Zeke wrote:
This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

Thanks! I normally don't get on forums but when I saw this guy complaining that he lost due to gateway when he had those two death stars it just made me go hulk angry.

Has anyone had Final Transmuation kill them off with terrible rolls? You just roll 5's and 6's and that's all you can roll and then you just feel sad inside.

Yes I sure did bring 2 deathstars, its ard boyz and every one brought no comp cheese. I'm not complaining I lost, I just dont see how I'm foolish for putting archeon in a Knight bus for protection. So go hulk angry, It doesn't bother me. I'm just frowning on bad sportsman ship and crutch spells.

ABDanger wrote:

 Red_Zeke wrote:
This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

Thanks! I normally don't get on forums but when I saw this guy complaining that he lost due to gateway when he had those two death stars it just made me go hulk angry.

Has anyone had Final Transmuation kill them off with terrible rolls? You just roll 5's and 6's and that's all you can roll and then you just feel sad inside.

Dude, no comp. Death stars were everywhere. This is the very core of this thread, one spell wins a gave vs people having to actually fight other units. Really if you are counting your wins by how many times you can sink a unit it is kinda sad. I think its fine to put archeon and trogg in respective blocks how else are you supposed to do it?

Gyar wrote:

ABDanger wrote:

 Red_Zeke wrote:
This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

Thanks! I normally don't get on forums but when I saw this guy complaining that he lost due to gateway when he had those two death stars it just made me go hulk angry.

Has anyone had Final Transmuation kill them off with terrible rolls? You just roll 5's and 6's and that's all you can roll and then you just feel sad inside.

Dude, no comp. Death stars were everywhere. This is the very core of this thread, one spell wins a gave vs people having to actually fight other units. Really if you are counting your wins by how many times you can sink a unit it is kinda sad. I think its fine to put archeon and trogg in respective blocks how else are you supposed to do it?

I think it's less about them being in blocks and more about them being the ONLY two units in the list.

Just saying.

Stoupe wrote:

Gyar wrote:

ABDanger wrote:

 Red_Zeke wrote:
This thread is getting awesome.

Nice first post ABDanger!

Thanks! I normally don't get on forums but when I saw this guy complaining that he lost due to gateway when he had those two death stars it just made me go hulk angry.

Has anyone had Final Transmuation kill them off with terrible rolls? You just roll 5's and 6's and that's all you can roll and then you just feel sad inside.

Dude, no comp. Death stars were everywhere. This is the very core of this thread, one spell wins a gave vs people having to actually fight other units. Really if you are counting your wins by how many times you can sink a unit it is kinda sad. I think its fine to put archeon and trogg in respective blocks how else are you supposed to do it?

I think it's less about them being in blocks and more about them being the ONLY two units in the list.

Just saying.

Hey when your fighting for a 3000pt army at ard boyz, your right I'm gonna bring the cheese, everyone else is. All the other regular tourneys I'm just in it for roadtrips and beer. Oh I also had a warshrine.

Personally, I think every army that plays skaven should have dwellers for a free upgrade. That way if you get 13th, you can auto return the favor.

Had one game where I was dwellered via a slann. My leaders rolled a 2 and live and in returned pitted the slann and most of the unit off the board, Thus the reasoning behind having dwellers as a free upgrade vs 13th.

Do unto others.....

6x lions chariots are from the HE dex which we are allowed to take.

I have not seen this subject in awhile,, good to read up on all the views.

13th is guaranteed to be removed or drastically changed whenever they get a new codex anyway - trend is to let instagib threads disappear (for good).

And really, a spell that can only go of with IF is stupid to begin with.

 Sigvatr wrote:


And really, a spell that can only go of with IF is stupid to begin with.

I think this gets overstated a bit, 13th needs a 25 to cast which is exactly average on a 6 dice casting. Something that you will cast with average dice isn't really something that needs IF to go off.

8th Edition WHFB is like a mile long see-saw balanced with a herd of elephants at each end.

What I mean by that is that it's a balance of extremes. There are two things which are very strong in this edition and that is Large Units and Magic. Large Units, thanks to Steadfast, Horde and other such stuff are very hard to crack by conventional means and can take on most things, even big scary monsters. Everything except "Sixth Spells" which can potentially remove a large proportion of that unit in a single cast. So, you can take Large Units, giving yourself an advantage, but then run the risk of losing hundreds of points in a single cast. Risk vs Reward. It's balanced. By the same token, if you load out on tons of powerful magic users, that's less space for the aforementioned massive units, so you're losing an advantage there. A large part of the game is finding the balance between these things that works for your playstyle and your army.

I used to run a Wood Elf army and being an underpowered book to begin with often struggled against most armies, especially out of the newer books and their magic. In my opinion magic is ridiculously overpowered and if designed right can break or make a game for you.

What ended fantasy for me (besides the steadfast rule) was when an opponents Slann wiped out my entire army basically single handed in two turns. I promptly sold my 3000pt. army and went head first into 40k. The results have been much better as 40k is definitely much more balanced.

 gmaleron wrote:
40k is definitely much more balanced.

Lol, no.

 Tangent wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
40k is definitely much more balanced.

Lol, no.

Seconded.

I don't know if its more balanced but for me:

Its much much more fun.

Its scenarios/misisons are much better suited to a more tactical play beyond one shot units / super spells and precise angles of movement (which is ultra dull for me).

I often find that there is more opportunity for small units to actually do soemthing other than during deployment.

At least it paved the way for premeasuring in 40k which is only a good thing in both games.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Tangent wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
40k is definitely much more balanced.

Lol, no.

Seconded.

Thirded.

I feel the way 6th has been going might actually fix it up a bit however, so long as they keep the power balance of current codex going right. (Just like 8th fantasy)

I laugh at people complaining about Teclis you moan about his op IF casts. Try playing a mono khorne army with no wizards. The Key is to taking units big enough that you can take some casulties and keep on ticking. For example I had to play against a goblin player at 1k points I took 12 chaos warriors with additional hand weapons khorne and full command x2 chaos lord with sield Mark of Khorn 5 chaos knights full command MoK. Bear in mind I had less points than him and I curb stomped his goblin army into the ground 9he had a level 4 and 2 level 2s). His magic wasnt even that scary.
On another note I also play Dark Elves and some times I use lore of shadow and tbh I prefere to use the withering + enfeebling foe + miasma as its much more efective than Mindrazor.

Captaintyrius wrote:
I laugh at people complaining about Teclis you moan about his op IF casts. Try playing a mono khorne army with no wizards. The Key is to taking units big enough that you can take some casulties and keep on ticking. For example I had to play against a goblin player at 1k points I took 12 chaos warriors with additional hand weapons khorne and full command x2 chaos lord with sield Mark of Khorn 5 chaos knights full command MoK. Bear in mind I had less points than him and I curb stomped his goblin army into the ground 9he had a level 4 and 2 level 2s). His magic wasnt even that scary.
On another note I also play Dark Elves and some times I use lore of shadow and tbh I prefere to use the withering + enfeebling foe + miasma as its much more efective than Mindrazor.

a) You played against one of the weakest lists aka Goblins - and a seemingly new / not good player. 12 Chaos Warriors cannot do anything against a proper Goblin list at 1k points - Doom Divers / Mangler Squigs / Fanatics make short work of them.

b) Taking a lvl 4 Goblin Shaman and 2 level 2 is the biggest waste of points I can possibly imagine. I am pretty sure you confused the list though and he did not really field those shamans. A lvl 4 and a lvl 2 Goblin means that you got all spells of the Little Waaagh! covered and the remaining level 2 only has the signature spell (as no spell may be taken twice in the same army and Goblins can only choose the Little Waaagh!).

c) The Little Waaagh! has little to no offensive spells, it mostly is a supportive lore with a lot of hexes / buffs.

d) "withering + enfeebling foe + miasma" might be more effective, but that's 3 spells. You will never get all of these off in a proper game unless you roll IF for all 3 of them.

e) I could easily win vs. your list without any magic at 1k

So, I don't want to offend you. It just seems that you don't have as much experience as other players. That's why made these points - your example isn't a proof for the (in)effectiveness of magic

1) Mangler squaigs and fanatics are really not a problem for M\ono Khorne WoC its called running quite a few ten man units of Marauders and 5 man of war hounds just so that I can take care of said things. 12 chaos warriors with Khorne and Adhw will do more than you think. His level 4 had the sig spell and 3 spells one of his level 2s took the sig spell and one other spell and the other level 2 took both spells. Yes I will get all 3 of those spells off clearly uve never heard of a Dark Elf Magic Item called the Sacrifical Dagger or the Dark Star cloak. I can quite easily get them off because guess what I generally cast after casting one of them? Power of Darkness, its such a under rated spell that its unreal. Try taking my list on at 1k and watch as your goblins fall to my Juggerknights. Difference is in a goblin list only fanatics and mangelers + pump wagons and bolt throwers can crack my armour yet I should be in combat by turn 2 or turn 3 at the latest. Overall if you play against someone who knows how to use a Mono Khorne army effectively theres very little which it fears. Btw I was taught by my friend who plays both Mono Khorne Warriors and Mono Khorne Daemons. While the internet says full Khorne isnt viable that is true in some cases but in most it isnt. Frenzy isnt such a issue as people make it out to be

Small, costly and highly armored units are the smallest danger to any Goblin player. Spear Chukkaz, Doom Divers and Mangler / Fanatics tear them apart. A unit of Chaos Knights usually dies in turn 1 or 2 as a single Doom Diver hit takes them out of the game.

You will never make it into melee in turn 2 given that you can deploy at a distance of max. 12'', then move max. 8'' per turn with your infantry - which will be the main part of your army unless you take fast cavalry. Heavy cavalry will never make it to the enemy in time.

Then there's the tarpit issue: 12 AHW Warriors cannot do anything vs. a unit of 50 Goblins. First of all, let's assume you're having a good day and 9 Chaos Warriors make it into melee range and the enemy did not take any fanatics:

9 Chaos Warriors strike first, that's 6 models in base contact, thus 24+3 = 27 attacks. They hit at 3s, thus 18 hits. They strike with S3 (nets) and thus wound at 4+ => ~9 wounds caused. Goblins get a 6+ armor and the 6+ ward save, thus all in all, we're looking at ~7 dead Goblins.

The Goblins strike back, that's 10 attacks, hit with 4s, thus 5 hits, wound with 4s, thus ~2.5 wounds, 4+ armor save, thus ~1 dead Chaos Warrior.

Goblins lose the fight by ~5, thus test at re-rollable LD 8. 43 Goblins remaining that will most likely tarpit the entire unit of Chaos Warriors until the rest of the game.

Realistically, you will make it into melee with ~6 Chaos Warriors aka one rank. Similar results. No magic, champs etc. involved in the math, just the normal combat units.

Not to mention the other big unit of Goblins and Wolf Chariots / Wolf Riders, Squigs Hordes etc.

MSU Marauder units are really vulnerable though and flanking is hardly possible. They now cost as much as e.g. 2 Goblin Wolf Chariots - that make short work of them

I got 2 Chaos players at the place I play and both are the easiest enemy I can get matched up. Goblins are very effective against those armies especially now that you cannot spam Marauders anymore (1 Marauder now being as expensive as 3 Goblins).

And when we're talking about actual game sizes, Mono Khorne at ~2.5k points is likely to be an auto-lose against most armies. Your enemy gets a static +8 (!) to all casting attempts (+4 for lvl 4 casting and you get +0 for not having a wizard to dispel) compared to normal lists. Any current tournament army would have a field day vs. a Mono Khorne list and chow through it at ease. Even Dwellers kill 50% of a Chaos Warrior unit per cast and against Teclis, he'll laugh and pick Lore of Metal to table you by turn 3

Captaintyrius wrote:
I laugh at people complaining about Teclis you moan about his op IF casts. Try playing a mono khorne army with no wizards. The Key is to taking units big enough that you can take some casulties and keep on ticking. For example I had to play against a goblin player at 1k points I took 12 chaos warriors with additional hand weapons khorne and full command x2 chaos lord with sield Mark of Khorn 5 chaos knights full command MoK. Bear in mind I had less points than him and I curb stomped his goblin army into the ground 9he had a level 4 and 2 level 2s). His magic wasnt even that scary.
On another note I also play Dark Elves and some times I use lore of shadow and tbh I prefere to use the withering + enfeebling foe + miasma as its much more efective than Mindrazor.

I like how you laugh at people who complain about Teclis, then proceed to use an example where you beat a horribly weak list that doesn't even have access to Teclis.

Teclis is a hard counter to WoC. He gets to pick his spells before the game and thus chooses Lore of Metal - that's it pretty much for your army.

 Sigvatr wrote:

And when we're talking about actual game sizes, Mono Khorne at ~2.5k points is likely to be an auto-lose against most armies. Your enemy gets a static +8 (!) to all casting attempts (+4 for lvl 4 casting and you get +0 for not having a wizard to dispel) compared to normal lists. Any current tournament army would have a field day vs. a Mono Khorne list and chow through it at ease. Even Dwellers kill 50% of a Chaos Warrior unit per cast and against Teclis, he'll laugh and pick Lore of Metal to table you by turn 3

Not that I'm disagreeing with the general point, but where are you getting +8? In a 'normal' list of a level 4 facing a level 4, they come out even (+4 vs +4). In this case it's +4 more (+4 vs +0).

I'm also genuinely curious what parts of WoC you think might give you trouble. I'd like to know what to consider for my own lists.

 Evertras wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

And when we're talking about actual game sizes, Mono Khorne at ~2.5k points is likely to be an auto-lose against most armies. Your enemy gets a static +8 (!) to all casting attempts (+4 for lvl 4 casting and you get +0 for not having a wizard to dispel) compared to normal lists. Any current tournament army would have a field day vs. a Mono Khorne list and chow through it at ease. Even Dwellers kill 50% of a Chaos Warrior unit per cast and against Teclis, he'll laugh and pick Lore of Metal to table you by turn 3

Not that I'm disagreeing with the general point, but where are you getting +8? In a 'normal' list of a level 4 facing a level 4, they come out even (+4 vs +4). In this case it's +4 more (+4 vs +0).

I'm also genuinely curious what parts of WoC you think might give you trouble. I'd like to know what to consider for my own lists.

Point 1: I'm an idiot Yes, you are correct. Mage A (lvl 4) attempts to cast a spell and gets +4 on the attempt while the enemy lvl 4 attempts to dispel, thus +0 on the attempt. No level 4 means losing the advantage and thus, as you correctly stated, you are at a +4 disadvantage. My bad, I apologize.

Point 2: Mostly magic. Haven't played against the new army book yet, but Tzeentch gave me a lot of trouble in the past. Gateway of course and Treason wrecked havoc among my poor little Goblins. Marauders were another big issue as they were only 2x the price of a Goblin yet were superior. Some mathhammer:

30 Marauders w/ Khorne, THW vs. 50 Goblins (not fair point-wise, but that's a usual battle): 18 attacks, hit at 3s => 12 hits, wound on 3s => 8 wounds, 6+ ward save => ~7 dead Goblins

Goblins strike back with 10 attacks, hit at 4s, 5 hits, wound on 4s, 2.5 dead Marauders, steadfast Goblins. The thing is that Marauders were able to both tarpit themselves vs a lot of enemies and still packed a lot of punch. That's no longer the case, fortunately, and Marauders are likely to lose.

What Goblins lack is anti-horde. We got Stone Lobbaz, but can only field two of them, and only our 6th spell is a template-based weapon that almost needs to be cast with IF in order to be fully effective. The other major downfall, and the main reason why Goblins are really weak, is no resistance to any sort of damage. Massed small arms fire completely wrecks us. The old Nurgle rain spell was instant death for Goblins. 5'' S2 hits destroyed a Goblin unit...any Goblin unit. Squig herders are a staple unit but lots of S2/3 fire kills them outright.

Hell Cannons are a big issue too as they have high S attacks, force panic tests and our normal anti-artillery units aka Wolf Riders cannot kill them, but rather get killed in return.

Warriors are not much of a problem as they can easily be tar-pitted.

Animosity is another big problem as you do not want to get in melee fights with Goblins, you need to rely on your war machines to thin the enemy out.

The easiest part is heavy cavalry such as Chaos Knights. Doom Diver, 1 hit, takes the unit out of the game. Same goes for Chariots: hit them with a Doom Diver, take them out.

Inexperienced Goblin players frequentlly make the mistake of not deploying over the entire zone, thus you could squeeze some scouts in. Marauder riders are a must. Try to force them behind the enemy battleline and wreck havoc among the war machines. Keep in mind that it's just Goblins operating them and they die on the spot. Disabling the war machines is key to defeating Goblins.

Another effective mean is Death Magic - if you can snipe the BSB / general out, you almost won the game. Most Goblin players run a bunkr behind their main line so it's harder to reach, but if you can somehow snipe the general out, Goblins will soon fall apart. Even with re-rolls, they now test on LD 5. Game over

Overall, Goblins have a good chance vs. WoC and the new army book seems to tilt the balance further towards Goblins. 6 Spear Chukkaz come at so few points and destroy anything with armor at ease.

Thank you muchly! That's some interesting things to think on.

I wonder whether you seek advice to play with or against Goblins ;D

To make them go squish under a heavy plate boot.

Though we're getting a little OT for this thread, I think.

Off topic? Hm....depends

Vs. Goblins, a single spell might just win you the game. There are two types of Goblin armies:

a) lots of Warmachines

b) lots of Squigs

c) hybrid

The key element of all these are huge tarpits of Night Goblins. They come at 3 pts each and average stats, the key being their T3 which is the average T, making them very resistant to normal attacks. With WoC, you want to absolutely avoid getting tarpitted.

Magic can be a great help vs. all those types. Lore of Heavens is great vs. Goblins with a lot of warmachines. First of all, you got the spell that blocks shooting attacks. It's great because such a Goblin army absolutely needs to get a steady volume of fire pumped in your army. Secondly, you got the Meteor - another really great skill, also vs. war machines. The space in the deployment area is limited and since you want to maximize LoS shooting, you might end up having to cluster your war machines. A meteor crushing down on the war machines will be a great deal and cannot be countered once it's done. Another good point: by having a meteor coming down, you force the Goblins to move their regular units forward too and the closer they are, the more likely they get in charge range - which is what Goblins absolutely want to avoid. Animosity has a high chance of making your unit declare a charge, most likely resulting in it failing. Think ahead! Use smaller units, e.g. hounds, to get sth. in charge range. Position them in a manner that allows your other units to get into flanking position. Chaos Warriors in the flanks will absolutely wreck the Goblin unit.

Another good option is Chain Lightning, especially against Squig-heavy armies. Goblins are numerous. VERY numerous. The deployment zone isn't that broad. A single chain lightning can easily wreck your enemy's battleline and maybe even force panic checks. Keep in mind: Goblins have no save against anything! Everything S5 or higher kills a Goblin with a high chance. The same applies for Squigs. No save!

/e: Oh crap, just saw you can't take Lore of Heavens anymore. Sucks :/

The new Tzeentch lore is AMAZING vs Goblins. If you can get Treason just before attacking a Goblin tarpit, you have won the fight. Sure, they are Steadfast, but need to roll vs. LD 5! Furthermore, Tzeentch has a lot of damaging spells with a random S, but most of them rely on using templates. The downfall is the Warpfire rule that might give a Goblin unit regeneration. Then again, chances are pretty low. I'd take the risk.

Lore of Shadows is another good choice vs. Goblins. Lots of debuffs that really hurt Goblins and buff your own units. Goblins only have I3, thus a PoS will kill a goblin with a 50% chance. Remember, if you break the tarpits, you break the army.

Lore of Death, finally, is another great choice. As I said in the previous post, if you manage to snipe the general / BSB out, you're one step closer to victory. Even you causing Fear is good as Goblins will then hit on 5s, not 4s (let me tell you, as someone who plays vs. a lot of elves...that sucks!). Get your wizard in Spirit Leech range and if you get it through, you won the game The bad thing is the low range - if your enemy runs a bunker, you will not be able to get in range. UNLESS! you use ye good old sorcerer on a disk. Careful though, Doom Divers are nasty against lone characters. Make sure to give him a good ward save. Doom and Darkness is another excellent spell with a good range of 24'' or even 48'' (no bunker saves you!). Cast it on the Goblin general and poof, suddenly, the army tests on LD 6 instead of 9.

So all in all, you see, a single magic spell can win you the game vs Goblins. Goblins are a fairly weak army but at the same time, they got lots of means vs. elite armies with heavy armor and that's why I consider them to an easier enemy than e.g. HE, DE (damn you Fear!), Dwarves or Skaven (no idea how to win against Skaven!). A single spell *can* win you the game but as portrai...portraited...eh...shown above, a few weaker spells can do the same

Hope that helps, I suddenly get the feel of 300 angry, small yellow eyes gleaming at me through my vitrine's glass door...uh oh...

You know I can think of a time a single spell won a game.

"ard boyz semis 2011. Dude had 2 units of 10 DE spearbros, a unit of 115 repeater crossbowmen and 4 wizards, the lvl 4 was death with purple sun bsb, general in a folding tower.

I have 30 bloodletters, 30 daemonettes, but they don't matter. I also had fateweaver and 39 horrors with a life herald. Herald marchs to 24 inches out dwellers, miscast, loose dwellers. get the general and 2 wizards and 56 dudes. provided I don't loose anything I win the game with max points.

Flamers almost die before running out of range of this fire power. Fateweaver didn't do anything, however he had final trans and dwellers, however he was not going into dwellers range due to fear of ye olde purple sun.

The guy told me after the game that he knew he lost when I told him I had dwellers twice in my list.

I've seen games swung by a single spell or two, watching a BSB get picked out and killed just before a heavy CC unit swings in, or a Dwellers/Sun/Gateway annihilate the anvil of an army, etc.

A big issue is that Magic is the one part of the "kill your enemy" trifecta that cannot be ignored. You can shoot, stab, or magic your enemy to death. You can build a primarily shooty army with some magic, a heavily CC army with some magic, a heavily magic army with some of both, etc, you can build any combination of that as long as it includes some element of magic, if for nothing else than magic defense. You can build an army without including shooting elements, or without really any CC elements in some cases, but you cannot build an effective all-comers list without any spell casters.

That I feel is the biggest failing of this edition. You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

 Vaktathi wrote:

That I feel is the biggest failing of this edition. You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

This is a really good point, and the more I think about it the more I realize this is also my problem with magic. Maybe it's naive to want/hope/expect a ruleset that allows all builds to be effective if you play them right, but I wish I could ignore magic if I wanted to, and I can't.

 Vaktathi wrote:
You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

Guess Dwarfs are in trouble then.

 Red_Zeke wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

Guess Dwarfs are in trouble then.

Dwarfs got a "slight" extra dispel ability

They still get magic, but it's only the dispelly kind.

Yikes- it was even in the piece I quoted. Nice reading comprehension RZ.

Its a good point, though- in 2500 points, I'd often spend more than 10% of that on a Runelord. That's 250+ on pure anti-magic. For that kind of cost, a lot of other armies can pick up a level 4 and a scroll. Not as brutal defensively, but at least it can contribute offensively.

As a side note, my stealth prediction for the Dwarf armybook is that they will have a slew of bound spells- from items, runesmiths and the anvil to bring them a little closer in line to the rest of the Warhammer World's magic system. And of course, a de-buff to their anti-magic.

Yeah Magic can be quite powerful in this edition its why I never leave home without a Slann or a Grey seer.

I told you RZ lore of the runes is coming.
GW has never shied away from enticing nerdrage.

I'm guess the same. Anvil now has 7 "runes" in the new codex -___-

I'd always predicted a Lore of Runes, working like a list of bound spells that are 'trapped' inside Runes on casters. I thought of this ages ago. So if it's true, I win Dakka, just saying.

I for one had this happen while playing WoC. I managed to cast Purple Sun without it being dispelled, but it scattered terribly into my unit of Chaos Ogres, who then promptly failed all of their Int tests. And then in my shooting phase immediately following my Hellcannon decided enough was enough and went charging forward right into the vortex. Lets just say my opponent was hilariously delighted at not being able to dispell that one.

I've never had a spell win me a game, even the much vaunted Dreaded 13th.

OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

cyborgakadjmoose wrote:I for one had this happen while playing WoC. I managed to cast Purple Sun without it being dispelled, but it scattered terribly into my unit of Chaos Ogres, who then promptly failed all of their Int tests. And then in my shooting phase immediately following my Hellcannon decided enough was enough and went charging forward right into the vortex. Lets just say my opponent was hilariously delighted at not being able to dispell that one.

streamdragon wrote:I've never had a spell win me a game, even the much vaunted Dreaded 13th.

OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

Freaky lucky like this doesn't really argue the point, though. Such a turn of luck could happen in any phase, perhaps you failed several crucial charges, managed to hit, wound and kill an entire unit with shooting even though you were needing 5/6s on each roll, or perhaps you got an insanely good amount of Killing Blows in CC.

We're more on about spells being so powerful that they make or break the game with a single cast, i.e. being able to wipe out entire units.

If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

I was thinking they would go with "Equipped Runes", bound spells equipped to weaponry/army/what have you.

My nights goblins defeated my friends tomb kings - this game was several years ago and has been bitter agout it since

first tun i cast foot of mork, stomped on the main spellcaster ( you know the one that dies the unit have to take a leadership test to stay alive) well he died

and the following turns most of his units started to crumble.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

I was thinking they would go with "Equipped Runes", bound spells equipped to weaponry/army/what have you.

Agreed. But I'm still thinking there'll be a Lore.

So you'll have your seven spells in your Lore listed, but in addition to everything else you'll have details of what units/characters can "equip" them and what, if any, points costs this will entail. I imagine Runesmith/Priest will be necessary to "channel"/"activate" the runes though.

I did it once in Storm of Magic.

I cast Madrigal of Greening, dropped a forest right behind the enemy battle line and proceeded to deploy an entire Drycha army out of it and charge everything from behind.

Nearly every game I played in 8th ed. From a Big Waagh rerolling to hit and damage spells getting off allowing my opponant to hit and wound every one of his 60 attacks, (yes, 60 kills) to me debuffing an enemy with Lore of Shadow so that they had a 1 on all important stats, to watching a maxed Purple Sun cast by the enemy go through the his line, he loses one unit, and then it lingers for the rest of the game, destroying whole units of mine and never touching his.

Magic has been more than significant every time. And if it wasn't Magic, it was ridiculously unavoidable large numbers of dice.

Maybe I have terrible luck and I have seen all of the worst (and best rolls) that no one else should see (multiple times,) but that just means I have less love for a more luck based system than its predecessors.

Last night I had a single spell that won the game... for my opponent.

I was playing my Empire army vs a Wood Elf player who vanguarded a unit of Wild Riders. My lvl 4 Beast Wizard was in a detachment of Archers hidden right behind my halberdier block. With the very first spell of the game, I decide to cast Curse of Anraheir on the Wild Riders, taking 5 dice and even saying out loud "Oh, I'll only roll 5 dice because I really don't want a miscast." Lo and behold, roll the dice, 2 sixes. Roll on the miscast chart, get dimensional cascade. Roll to wound, wound all 14 halberdiers, my wizard, and all but one archer, and then roll a 3 and my wizard is removed from the board

Both me and my opponent were just shocked at how ridiculous this was. I played the game out, but as I had lost my magic defense and the ablative bodies on my halberd horde it was a lost cause. My halberds lasted longer than they should have, but having to be in combats against magic buffed units without any buffs on their own and without the bodies to grind it out really did them in. That single spell won the game for my opponent, easily

 HidaSeku wrote:
Last night I had a single spell that won the game... for my opponent.

I was playing my Empire army vs a Wood Elf player who vanguarded a unit of Wild Riders. My lvl 4 Beast Wizard was in a detachment of Archers hidden right behind my halberdier block. With the very first spell of the game, I decide to cast Curse of Anraheir on the Wild Riders, taking 5 dice and even saying out loud "Oh, I'll only roll 5 dice because I really don't want a miscast." Lo and behold, roll the dice, 2 sixes.

I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

I still maintain that many of these situations people have posted are occasions of freak luck that just happened to occur in the Magic Phase, rather than the cases of the overpowered-ness of Magic winning you or your opponent the game.

Playing first Game of Storm of Magic - cast a minor spell with Morathi - 3 dice - miscast and dimensional cascade and she was gone. :(

Tried to cast another spell with sorceress, miscast and she exploded, the game only went downhill from there.............

To be fair, anyone playing Storm of Magic is playing an expansion specifically designed to have magic potentially blow the game out...

I have had two instances where I won with a single spell. Basically, I had a single Tzeentch Chaos Sorcerer Lord and both times my opponent decided to have a huge deathstar with all of his characters in it. First time was against VC, First turn I got off Gateway with IF, boom goes the dynamite! Other time was against Skaven, he had all his characters in a giant unit with the Bell and GreySeer. Again, Gateway with IF. But really, out of tons of games, those were pure luck!

 streamdragon wrote:
OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

I've won a Blood and Glory game against a Lizardman player in the same way. He played a better game than me and the dice went his way, and it looked like I was good for about another turn before my banner count dropped below the minimum, while his slann & temple guard were still solid, as was one of his other Saurus blocks. As he'd already used Cupped Hands I told him 'basically the only way I'm going to win this is if your Slann miscasts himself off the table.'

First spell double six, buh bye Slann, hello cheap win for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shadow wrote:
I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

People frequently cast spells with enough power not just to beat the casting value, but to make a dispel unlikely. I'm not sure about the situation in HidaSeku's game, but he might have assessed Curse of Anraheir as the only spell that really needed to be cast that turn, and was happy to burn most of his dice on it.

I still maintain that many of these situations people have posted are occasions of freak luck that just happened to occur in the Magic Phase, rather than the cases of the overpowered-ness of Magic winning you or your opponent the game.

There's a lot more scope for dice to produce crazy results in the magic phase. That's exactly how its been designed.

Personally I think it's a good thing, magic should be unpredictable.

 sebster wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

People frequently cast spells with enough power not just to beat the casting value, but to make a dispel unlikely. I'm not sure about the situation in HidaSeku's game, but he might have assessed Curse of Anraheir as the only spell that really needed to be cast that turn, and was happy to burn most of his dice on it.

That is exactly what happened in my game. It was 1st turn, and didn't need any of the other spells that badly, and had 7 dice to use that phase. I figured I'd draw out a dispel scroll or at least most the dice as the Curse of Anraheir, if cast, would save my cannon. I for sure was a little reckless, but I must not have prayed to Sigmar enough that day because that miscast was a doosey!

Why do people get so angry when these things happen? Its just a game...? What do you expect from a random chance game with a little skill thrown in.

We all know what can happen with a magic phase, becasue it's pretty much always been like this - we all know that it rarely happens, so when it does, just get over it.

If you're worried about being one spelled off the table, don't take a list where this will hurt.

Also, have a read of the fluff, its the bits that the rules designers try and bring to the table. In that, magic is quite powerful and random, and destructive, and fun, and dangerous, and crazy. That's basically one of the foundation principles the warhammer world has been built upon.

If all else fails, just remember its a game

sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shadow wrote:
I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

People frequently cast spells with enough power not just to beat the casting value, but to make a dispel unlikely. I'm not sure about the situation in HidaSeku's game, but he might have assessed Curse of Anraheir as the only spell that really needed to be cast that turn, and was happy to burn most of his dice on it.

Quite possibly, but you should know the risk of chucking that many dice into a spell and therefore should be sure that the rewards outweigh the potential risk. You can't blame magic's OP-ness because of said risk.

I still maintain that many of these situations people have posted are occasions of freak luck that just happened to occur in the Magic Phase, rather than the cases of the overpowered-ness of Magic winning you or your opponent the game.

There's a lot more scope for dice to produce crazy results in the magic phase. That's exactly how its been designed.

Personally I think it's a good thing, magic should be unpredictable.