Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I play Daemons and I was wondering how many dispel dice are generally adequate against different armies.....

The list I'm running right now with my Keeper of Secrets has 5 dispel dice and I'm taking an icon which gives enemies caster -2 to cast. A good third of my army (Khorne) has magic resistance also. Is this enough to get me through against an average 2000 pt game without getting wiped out in the magic phase?

Obviously there's some armies that I just won't be able to compete with like VC, so I'm trying to think of alternate strategies for a magic-heavy army. I have Screamers in my list to go mage hunting, I can maybe get a dispel scroll in there, but other than that I'm a bit stumped as for how to play a magic heavy army with alot cheap PD generating mages.

5 isnt a bad amount, it should be ok unless you fight a devoted magic army.
screamers are great for mage hunting

only thing you should really struggle with is the slann.
they throw out alot of magic each turn, and once geared up and thrown with temple guard they are hard to move.

I've found that 6+ dispel dice and 1-2 dispel scrolls do all the work you need on magic defense to get a close combat based army where it needs to be before getting too chewed up by magic.

4 and 2 scrolls is the minimum I'd ever take

The bare minimum I take for magic defense with my Close combat style Lizardmen now is an Engine of the Gods with a Skink Priest toting a dispel scroll and Diadem of Power. That lets me throw down 6 dispel dice and a dispel scroll and offer most of my army a 5+ ward save for the first 1-2 turns of movement.

JD, I had 5 dice and did fine against a slann plus his little skink priest buddy.

Always save your dispels for that big casting spell you opponent has in mind (i.e. Conflagration of Doom, Doom and Darkness etc.) that will put you at a serious disadvantage. If your opponent shoots out some fireballs or the burning head, just let it go.

I think the real question here is: why aren't you taking advantage of the fact that Daemons can take Core choices that give you dispel dice. You need to fill your minimum Core requirement anyway, might as well do it with Horrors.

I don't think you really need to have a lot of dispel dice. Sure, it's nice to be able to disable an opponents magic phase, but usually you can do fairly well with 3 dispel dice and 2 dispel scrolls. You only need to stop the gamebreaking spells and you only need to do this for the first couple of turns. After that you will either have killed the wizard with your wizard hunters, or you will be locked in combat, so he won't be able to cast the most devastating spells on you.

Isn't it just great to meet people who have spent lots of points on magic defense, only to find out you have no magic phase and have only taken one scroll caddy? Obviously, some armies have units which are worth it anyway (Ancient Stegadon riding Priest with Diadem and Scroll, Horrors etc.), so people who play those armies will usually have a bit more magic defense without really investing a lot of points in the sole purpose of magic defense.

The only thing is that those armies that have spent a sizable chunk on magic defense will come up against a single scroll caddy and suddenly have a magic phase. Unless their defense was in the form of items, excessive scrolls, or they play dwarfs.

dogma, I totally disagree. If the army with only a single scroll caddy has enough magic defense to handle a magic heavy army for a turn, then why would the same army have problems against the magic of an army which included wizards for the sole purpose of magic defense.

Or to put it in other words: If your defense (against magic) is strong enough to withstand blows from a professional boxer (the magic heavy army) for a while, then why should you have problems with an amateur boxer (the magic light army)?

Airmaniac wrote:dogma, I totally disagree. If the army with only a single scroll caddy has enough magic defense to handle a magic heavy army for a turn, then why would the same army have problems against the magic of an army which included wizards for the sole purpose of magic defense.

By wizards do you mean multiple hero level casters? If so, then I'll say I've seen this method employed effectively (though obviously not at tournaments) by several different armies. The basic premise is that while no one spell is game breaking, the ability to influence the battle in multiple small ways allows for greater options.

Airmaniac wrote:dogma, I totally disagree. If the army with only a single scroll caddy has enough magic defense to handle a magic heavy army for a turn, then why would the same army have problems against the magic of an army which included wizards for the sole purpose of magic defense.

Or to put it in other words: If your defense (against magic) is strong enough to withstand blows from a professional boxer (the magic heavy army) for a while, then why should you have problems with an amateur boxer (the magic light army)?

That depends, with my Skaven I'm able to put together a very good magic phase for the first 2 turns while still being mainly for magic defense. A Warplock Engineer with a dispel scroll and a Storm Daemon and a second Warplock Engineer, both fully upgraded outside of warplock pistols provide 4 dispel dice and a dispel scroll for defense then 1 power level 5 re-usable Warplighting and 6 casting dice plus two warpstone tokens which provide a one time +1d6 to a spell. That means first turn they can cast with 8 dice + Storm Daemon then following turns can cast with 6 + Storm Daemon. It's enough to make any army worry about some serious damage, while primarily being on the table for magic defense.

What I mean is this:

If an army with a single scroll caddy has enough magic defense to defend itself against a magic heavy army, then why should the magic cast by wizards who are primarily there for magic defense, be a problem to them?

In other words: If a Dark Elves army has enough magic defense (in the form of a single Sorceress with 2x Dispel Scroll and a Ring of Hotek somewhere else in the army) to stop a Tzeentch Daemons / Vampire Counts magic phase, why would the same Dark Elves army have a problem with the magic phase of your Skaven with 6 PD + 1 Bound Spell?

I'm just saying, magic is an all or nothing deal. Either you build a massive magic phase, or you take the bare minimum to give you a chance against armies with a massive magic phase. Anything in between is just a waste of points, as non-magic armies will easily have enough magic defense to disable your magic phase (they have enough to withstand the heavy-magic armies) and heavy-magic armies will overpower your magic phase.

The issue with the ring of hotek is it breaks big spells. You know the ones. That Tzeentch spell that eats units but casts on a 15+. With 4 dice (which is the minimum you'd want to attempt to cast this with) you run something like a 17% chance of a normal miscast, god knows what it would be if ALL doubles are taken into account. The 12" range effectively creates a 2 ft bubble of "don't cast magic over here". Vampire Counts magic wouldn't be too affected by this as most of their spells are spellbound or they only use 1d6 to cast, making miscasts impossible. What would be a better investment is to give a few unit champions and other heroes null talismans as Magic Resistance (1-2) are great for stopping low level spells and the Ring of Hotek would stop the bigger ones. Your only issue is that for Magic Resistance to take effect the unit with it must be targeted directly. Also, you have to think about what units you may have that might be outside of your ring's bubble. From what I've seen mostly from the Dark Elves is that they are a powerful close combat army, with above average magic and shooting. If you were trying to play the shooting game, then this won't matter much as most of your force could sit around inside of the bubble and ignore your opponent's magic. If you had a magic heavy army you'd have to worry about the ring causing miscasts to your forces as well. If you had a close combat style army, your movement phase would have to be VERY deliberate to avoid hanging any high priority units out in the breeze to get magic'ed to death for beign 2" too far away.
Besides, it would only take one successful casting of Warplightning to bang up any DE infantry unit pretty bad. 2d6 strength 5 hits are no joke to an army mostly consisting of toughness 3, armor save 5+ models.
It's mostly a personal taste thing. I can't force myself to take a wizard purely for defensive reasons unless I can potentially bloody my opponent's nose with him somehow. So if I end up playing an opponent who has a very soft magic defense or none at all I have an advantage over him, while against a magic heavy army I've got just enough to get by until I can kill some wizards or get in close combat where I won't have to worry about magic as much.