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 think the scenario is more like mid to late game, one player has clearly out-played the other player and deserves the big win that's coming his way, when the other dude hops his low level death wizard out of her bunker, goes all-in with the jacked up purple sun, goes IF and sends it across the enemy army, netting gigantic points thanks to losing characters and war machines, as well as huge handfuls of units thanks to the sheer number of dice rolled. Suddenly the game becomes purely about freak luck and rolling dice, instead of pushing the tactical shreds that remain in 8th edition.

The idea is that this kind of "OMG that really happened!!!" is great fun in the garage that GeeDub has written the rules for (look at the terrain rules and tell me that's written for tournament play), while it has no place in more sober tournament gaming. I haven't heard too many arguments that talked about turn 1 aggro suns, though you could definitely fly a caster up and toss that sun across war machine concentrations with several armies for an early game boost. But that's not what the issue is.

FWIW dwellers scares me more than the sun in theory, but I've never faced a Life wizard that wasn't level 1 or 2

- Salvage

bennyboy6189 wrote:It is true that in the games ive played they have deployed badly but isnt it possible for a sorcerer on a mount could fly 20inches or even on a horse move 16 then line up down there battle line?

They could possibly hit more that way yes, however they could not get to the flank of the army with that movement, they would end about 4-5 inches right in front of the battle line assuming both armies lined up right on the 12 inch in line.

They would also be dead next turn from shooting or they would get charged.

Im not saying its not possible to do some damage, however there are quite a few factors.

1. they would have to roll the spell, or have an item that lets them pick spells.
2. The would need to hit the casting value, or use a power scroll to make it IF, they cant use a power scroll if they have a pick spell arcane item.
3. They need to roll decently on the art dice. There is about a 50% chance the spell wont do a thing because they roll a misfire, 2, or 4 (assuming the arent on top of your army).
4. If they dont cast it with IF, they have to have it not be scrolled, OR simply dispelled via a roll on dispell dice.

Also if they are a level 2 suicide wizard they will have to roll a 23 on 6 dice. Statistically, they will not meet the value, as an average roll on 6 dice is a 21. They will have to roll above average. If somehow they dont meet the casting roll and they tried the run up and cast the spell, they are dead next turn.

Sure every now and then the stars align and they do some major damage, however more often then not it flops and they end up losing a 200+ point wizard and they didnt do anything. People tend to complain about when it does do amazing, and forget that for 3 games straight it didnt kill a single model.

Like i said, in a few dozen games of 8th played, not to mention all the others i have watched i have yet to see purple sun do the damage that has been stated over and over on the boards. Dwellers below is the super spell im afraid of tbh.

I think 1 of 2 things are happening.

1) people are theorycrafting the nuts purple sun roll and blowing it out of proportion. This rarely happens at all.
2) Someone did pull off the nuts purple sun and complained about it, so people jump on the hate the spell bandwagon.


To add on to bosses thing.

I can see that happening, but why arent there multiple combats going on at that stage in the game. Also if oyu know the wizard is in his bunker why havent you locked it into combat so he cant move out. Also how is the battleline so perfect that he can cast the spell, hitting all of your units and none of his.

Im really thinking these super spells changing the game are pure dumb luck or extreme tactical oversights/fails.

I totally agree with you the chances are real slim but its happened to me once lvl 4 wizard on elven steed moves up 18 got IF rolled 10 and did alot of damage, took 1 wound from the miscast and got back to 12 power dice.
Then he used his lvl 2 wizard and caused abit more pain using shadows which enabled him to switch his lord with his lvl 2 so now he was safe from being charged.

I know that is a perfect magic phase and its probably never going to happen again but it did and we called it there and just had a second game lol.

Also alot of the new missions start abit closer than 24inches away.

As to the Phoenix guard problem. Not everyone has access to Dwellers below. I play Wood elves and Dark elves. I can take lore of life on a lvl 4 spellweaver and i did get Dwellers below before and killed over 20 PG And teclis in 1 shot. Then the remaining 30ish killed my wizard and slowly munched through everything i had.

DE i can't just purple sun them. 2+ ward against Lore of fire. metal or death. Because of caradryan, who can also kill hydras :p but i dont own any ^_^

they may be T3 with 5+ save But they have 2+ ward to magic and 4+ ward to everything else. Pretty much always getting a re-roll to hit and Str 4 is pretty good.
They are just really hard to deal with when they are also Always toughness 7 and bringing d6+1 back to life each turn :(
The problem is facing An entire army of Just phoenix guard, Teclis and 25% Sea guard. Otherwise i would agree, They are just T3 5+ save... Damn PG :(

Thats why in my view i see them as an insanely strong army. But obviously armies which i don't play will be able to handle them easier which explains why others may disagree with what i say.

Kirasu wrote:

Boss_Salvage wrote:I'm willing to say that Teclis deserves banning and hydras cost about 100 points less than what they ought to in 8th (and HPAs are 65 points too cheap as well), but the only truly broken thing to me is purple sun. You know in some Australian and European tournaments they're banning all 15+ spells, in order to eliminate purple sun toolbaggery and the ability of a handful of dice to detonate a game beyond all reason? Seems drastic - and cruel to non-gamebreakers like Beast #6 - but I can get behind fixes like that, will be interesting to see how it plays out.

- Salvage

Thats why I find the euro tournament scene a bit silly.. Lets just ban everything we think is too powerful. Everytime you ban something you simply make something *else* better to take its place

Even if you ONLY allow 2 armies to be played (the rest being banned) something in those 2 armies will be better than the other.. Oh, well might as well ban that too. Purple sun is only amazing vs low Int armies. Against a lot of armies its not horribly effective AND it misfires 1/6th of the time anyway

Pit of shades can kill a whole unit.. but its not a #6 spell! uh oh gotta ban all #5 spells now too.. Too may people dont like their treemen dying, gotta ban lore of fire and metal.

Adapt, learn the local meta-game and build better lists. Success in tournaments is basically a result of skill, pairings and list building. Skill is relative, pairings are random but a good list is a good list

You know what else is cool? Put Korhil in the unit of PG and they are Stubborn.

HE are not unbeatable. Teclis is still subject to possible bad PD magic rolls and everyone is still T3.

My Skaven blasted and shredded a solid HE list today which included a Tyrion spearhead and a Swordmaster deathstar. My 2k-2.5k Skaven list is not a WAAC army and I'd throw it at ANY list from ANY player. You just gotta know what to hit and where, there is no clear broken army.

bd1085 wrote:HE are not unbeatable. Teclis is still subject to possible bad PD magic rolls and everyone is still T3.

The teclis having a low dice magic phase is kind of moot.

Since even if he rolls low he gets an addition 1D3 dice from his ability, and 1d3 dice from the banner of sorcery (which the army will be taking if they run teclis).

So even if he rolls say 4 dice, (double 2's) then gains another 3 from the 2d3, your looking at 7 power dice to your 2 dispell dice...

It really sucks, especially if he rolls snake eyes, then channels, then rolls 6 bonus dice. So your looking at 1 dispell dice to his 9 power dice (this has happened to me).

ShivanAngel wrote:

bd1085 wrote:HE are not unbeatable. Teclis is still subject to possible bad PD magic rolls and everyone is still T3.

The teclis having a low dice magic phase is kind of moot.

Since even if he rolls low he gets an addition 1D3 dice from his ability, and 1d3 dice from the banner of sorcery (which the army will be taking if they run teclis).

So even if he rolls say 4 dice, (double 2's) then gains another 3 from the 2d3, your looking at 7 power dice to your 2 dispell dice...

It really sucks, especially if he rolls snake eyes, then channels, then rolls 6 bonus dice. So your looking at 1 dispell dice to his 9 power dice (this has happened to me).

On the bright side.. atleast his auto-IR ability isnt as annoying when you only have 1 dice to his 9 :p

ShivanAngel wrote:

bd1085 wrote:HE are not unbeatable. Teclis is still subject to possible bad PD magic rolls and everyone is still T3.

The teclis having a low dice magic phase is kind of moot.

Since even if he rolls low he gets an addition 1D3 dice from his ability, and 1d3 dice from the banner of sorcery (which the army will be taking if they run teclis).

So even if he rolls say 4 dice, (double 2's) then gains another 3 from the 2d3, your looking at 7 power dice to your 2 dispell dice...

It really sucks, especially if he rolls snake eyes, then channels, then rolls 6 bonus dice. So your looking at 1 dispell dice to his 9 power dice (this has happened to me).

Yeah forgot about his ability but I faced off against that banner yesterday too. Only one magic phase did I get owned with his 6 dice to my 1. He was using Life and Light and throwing around +4 toughness and all that craziness. Still, I rocked his world with all my war machines, weapons, and solid magic I could throw (Scorch 4tw!). There's only so much a T3, 5+ Armor army can take.

How was he using light and life?

I think he means that there was another sorc in the army besides teclis.

I love how everyone is saying how overpowered warmcaines are now. To me they are just to fickled and a waste of points. I normally run four cannons and two mortars and they rarely ever earn their points back. Then I get monkey stomped in the face by my oppenants infnatry which are cheaper then mine. Too much risk in warmachines plus posion attacks take them out quickly. When I play against lizzies with my empire he monkey stomps me all over the place, stupid skinks. Anyways I think HE are the most broken. Tecils is a unholy beast who owns the magic phase everyturn. Plus swordmasters and white lions or more beast then they were before. Ive taken 21 swordmasters with a lord in the unit and I slaughters hords of dudes like its nothing. due to haveing 7 in the front 24 attacks, with rerolls. 16 hit then with rerolls 5 more hit for a total of 21 hits 17.5 of those will wound with no saves to night goblins or say skaven. Plus Ive also had some great experiance with lion chariots hiting in the flanks while the more elite troops deal with the hords. HE=broken now.

Thanks to all who posted replies in response to my question. I was kinda testing the waters, so to speak, with regards to what people thought about Lizardmen. Thankfully, although Slann have been mentioned a ton, the Lizardmen as an army haven't, which I take as a good sign. Hopefully, people won't cry "cheese" when my Lizards hit the table.

Well, one way to be pretty sure of that is to not take a slann, gus_papas . You can take a skink priest with cloak of feathers, diadem of power, level 2, and have decent anti-magic. Then put the points you would have run in a slann into some more hard-hitting units. It'd be a different take on them, since basically Everyone and their uncle will include a slann now!

RiTides wrote:Well, one way to be pretty sure of that is to not take a slann, gus_papas . You can take a skink priest with cloak of feathers, diadem of power, level 2, and have decent anti-magic. Then put the points you would have run in a slann into some more hard-hitting units. It'd be a different take on them, since basically Everyone and their uncle will include a slann now!

This.

No army is stupidly broken in 8th currently, there are annoying things like Teclis, fully kited out Slann, and insane Gunlines but for the most part every army at least has a chance to be competitive (assuming equal generals).

bd1085 wrote:You just gotta know what to hit and where, there is no clear broken army.

The thing to remember is that we've just seen a reboot with the new system. There's not been a chance for people to establish the most powerful armies yet, nor have we seen new army books written with the new lists.

7th was pretty balanced for a while there as well, but then the Vampire Counts book came out.

Wow... Anyway it really pains me to hear all this whining about spells and die rolls in a game that retains a random factor out of sheer realism. No matter the plan things can and will go wrong and instead of blaming spells just realise that it is also due to many other factors... I love high elves and decided now was a great time to start playing them and yes out of sheer love for fluff I will be running Teclis but it sucks to know how this new player will be sneered at for playing the army he loved since he opened a white dwarf for the first time 10 years ago. I will run him in tournaments and it's wonderful to know I may be comped for playing what I love... I miss Mordheim... this foolishness never reared its ugly head there.

Honestly I think it's Warriors of Chaos. Tzeentch Warriors are ridiculous, and the champions killing characters for extra victory points rule really favors chaos... because their champions are better than most characters.

That or Slann... or maybe even Tomb Kings (WUT?) maxed out on casters with the new % rules... then firing a million arrow shots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly I think it's Warriors of Chaos. Tzeentch Warriors are ridiculous, and the champions killing characters for extra victory points rule really favors chaos... because their champions are better than most characters.

That or Slann... or maybe even Tomb Kings (WUT?) maxed out on casters with the new % rules... then firing a million arrow shots. Lore of Life is broken, too.

maybe even Tomb Kings (WUT?) maxed out on casters with the new % rules... then firing a million arrow shots.

S3 arrows that hit on 5s are pretty scary. 100 arrows kill a whole 5 saurus!

nieto666 wrote:I love how everyone is saying how overpowered warmcaines are now. To me they are just to fickled and a waste of points. I normally run four cannons and two mortars and they rarely ever earn their points back. Then I get monkey stomped in the face by my oppenants infnatry which are cheaper then mine. Too much risk in warmachines plus posion attacks take them out quickly. When I play against lizzies with my empire he monkey stomps me all over the place, stupid skinks. Anyways I think HE are the most broken. Tecils is a unholy beast who owns the magic phase everyturn. Plus swordmasters and white lions or more beast then they were before. Ive taken 21 swordmasters with a lord in the unit and I slaughters hords of dudes like its nothing. due to haveing 7 in the front 24 attacks, with rerolls. 16 hit then with rerolls 5 more hit for a total of 21 hits 17.5 of those will wound with no saves to night goblins or say skaven. Plus Ive also had some great experiance with lion chariots hiting in the flanks while the more elite troops deal with the hords. HE=broken now.

High elfs have to waste 25% on the worst core in the game , you get bows or spears or elfs with both lol.And then nearly 25% on 1 mage to stand a chance, they really are not broken.
Yes swordmasters rock but if you have 2 mortars and cant kill some swordmasters you need to prioritize, throw in an engineer if you have to, 1 hit and your gunna wipe out half a unit.

yeah unless the there are more then 20 swordmasters in the unit they are dead to magic/shooting before they get halfway across the board.

With the severity of magic buffs in 8th, any unit can become elite. You may build your list to be buff heavy. In this case, core footsloggers can become boken. +4T. Occumsrazor, W10/I10, etc.

Throw one of these buffs on an already elite unit, and then I believe you have a legit 8th ed deathstar.

bennyboy6189 wrote:

nieto666 wrote:I love how everyone is saying how overpowered warmcaines are now. To me they are just to fickled and a waste of points. I normally run four cannons and two mortars and they rarely ever earn their points back. Then I get monkey stomped in the face by my oppenants infnatry which are cheaper then mine. Too much risk in warmachines plus posion attacks take them out quickly. When I play against lizzies with my empire he monkey stomps me all over the place, stupid skinks. Anyways I think HE are the most broken. Tecils is a unholy beast who owns the magic phase everyturn. Plus swordmasters and white lions or more beast then they were before. Ive taken 21 swordmasters with a lord in the unit and I slaughters hords of dudes like its nothing. due to haveing 7 in the front 24 attacks, with rerolls. 16 hit then with rerolls 5 more hit for a total of 21 hits 17.5 of those will wound with no saves to night goblins or say skaven. Plus Ive also had some great experiance with lion chariots hiting in the flanks while the more elite troops deal with the hords. HE=broken now.

High elfs have to waste 25% on the worst core in the game , you get bows or spears or elfs with both lol.And then nearly 25% on 1 mage to stand a chance, they really are not broken.
Yes swordmasters rock but if you have 2 mortars and cant kill some swordmasters you need to prioritize, throw in an engineer if you have to, 1 hit and your gunna wipe out half a unit.

Spearelves fighting in 4 ranks with ASF and usually re-rolling to hit? They're not the worst core in the game, they're the worst infantry in the High Elf list, that's a big difference.

For there points nearly every other army has better core even empire 5points for the same tougness and strength who cares about the always strike first as we will still get all our attacks back as we will more than double you in unit size.

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

bennyboy6189 wrote:

nieto666 wrote:I love how everyone is saying how overpowered warmcaines are now. To me they are just to fickled and a waste of points. I normally run four cannons and two mortars and they rarely ever earn their points back. Then I get monkey stomped in the face by my oppenants infnatry which are cheaper then mine. Too much risk in warmachines plus posion attacks take them out quickly. When I play against lizzies with my empire he monkey stomps me all over the place, stupid skinks. Anyways I think HE are the most broken. Tecils is a unholy beast who owns the magic phase everyturn. Plus swordmasters and white lions or more beast then they were before. Ive taken 21 swordmasters with a lord in the unit and I slaughters hords of dudes like its nothing. due to haveing 7 in the front 24 attacks, with rerolls. 16 hit then with rerolls 5 more hit for a total of 21 hits 17.5 of those will wound with no saves to night goblins or say skaven. Plus Ive also had some great experiance with lion chariots hiting in the flanks while the more elite troops deal with the hords. HE=broken now.

High elfs have to waste 25% on the worst core in the game , you get bows or spears or elfs with both lol.And then nearly 25% on 1 mage to stand a chance, they really are not broken.
Yes swordmasters rock but if you have 2 mortars and cant kill some swordmasters you need to prioritize, throw in an engineer if you have to, 1 hit and your gunna wipe out half a unit.

Spearelves fighting in 4 ranks with ASF and usually re-rolling to hit? They're not the worst core in the game, they're the worst infantry in the High Elf list, that's a big difference.

And the points it costs me to get those 4 ranks? A skaven players gets twice as many Clan Rats.

djones520 wrote:

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:

bennyboy6189 wrote:

nieto666 wrote:I love how everyone is saying how overpowered warmcaines are now. To me they are just to fickled and a waste of points. I normally run four cannons and two mortars and they rarely ever earn their points back. Then I get monkey stomped in the face by my oppenants infnatry which are cheaper then mine. Too much risk in warmachines plus posion attacks take them out quickly. When I play against lizzies with my empire he monkey stomps me all over the place, stupid skinks. Anyways I think HE are the most broken. Tecils is a unholy beast who owns the magic phase everyturn. Plus swordmasters and white lions or more beast then they were before. Ive taken 21 swordmasters with a lord in the unit and I slaughters hords of dudes like its nothing. due to haveing 7 in the front 24 attacks, with rerolls. 16 hit then with rerolls 5 more hit for a total of 21 hits 17.5 of those will wound with no saves to night goblins or say skaven. Plus Ive also had some great experiance with lion chariots hiting in the flanks while the more elite troops deal with the hords. HE=broken now.

High elfs have to waste 25% on the worst core in the game , you get bows or spears or elfs with both lol.And then nearly 25% on 1 mage to stand a chance, they really are not broken.
Yes swordmasters rock but if you have 2 mortars and cant kill some swordmasters you need to prioritize, throw in an engineer if you have to, 1 hit and your gunna wipe out half a unit.

Spearelves fighting in 4 ranks with ASF and usually re-rolling to hit? They're not the worst core in the game, they're the worst infantry in the High Elf list, that's a big difference.

And the points it costs me to get those 4 ranks? A skaven players gets twice as many Clan Rats.

Delicious Warp Fire thrower

Boss_Salvage wrote:Just read another Euro report where they've simply banned all the upgraded versions of Death ...*
[...]
*Other restrictions at this tournament include no double rare, no triple special, no quadruple characters, no special characters, etc

Oh wow... that is... just... wow. I think I've been made speechless again o.o

Melissia wrote:

Boss_Salvage wrote:Just read another Euro report where they've simply banned all the upgraded versions of Death ...*
[...]
*Other restrictions at this tournament include no double rare, no triple special, no quadruple characters, no special characters, etc

Oh wow... that is... just... wow. I think I've been made speechless again o.o

I agree, that is just bogus.

If you ban a special character i can see that fluff wise it would make sence but in game terms isnt that character just fighting in his army?

Purple sun is so overrated. it is good.. yeh i guess.. but your risking IF miscast killing your own men and a 1/6 chance of killing your own men with the spell!!

i dont think any level of magic, not even teclis ruins the game because magic is very powerful.. so why shouldn't they implement thta in the game? magic has risks and so does anything else. purple sun in particular is extrmley risky.

HE are far from broken.. a pheonix horde 5/4+ only goes so far... they might strike first and get to ignore some armour and attack in three ranks(as a horde).. yeh but they dont against shooting..

Theres is something to kill everything. Id love to see teclis stop a Cygor from eating his head. or maybe they hide there mage at the back.. again beasts number 6 spell will sort that out. theres no broken army, because every strength has a weakness, and if your oponent is a WAAC player, then exploit that weakness.

And for all those bloody people who dont allow you to use characters.. seriously are you going to deny one of the main points of the game? the glory of heros..

The problem with characters is some of them are just stupid powerful for the cost. While other army books characters are just complete garbage.

For example, Teclis is INSANE for 475 points. Daemon special characters (especially their hero level) are also extremely undercosted for what they do... 90 points for 5 WS 7, I7 S4 armor piercing attacks, with 3+ ward and an ability that can drop a units leadership or movement by D3... Thats insane.

Not allowing special characters just evens the playing field quite a bit.