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Back in ye olde days of 6th Edition, I used to run a Hordes of Chaos army, marching under the banner of Tzeentch and generating a huge number of Power Dice.
Now I have come back to it in 8th Edition, and after loosing half my army (because they were daemons) and consiquently restocking with new troops, I realise that Magic has changed quite a bit since I last played with them, especially Power Dice generating. Should I continue using my army the way I used to, I will end up with three Sorcerers: a Lv 4 Lord and two Lv 2 Heroes. My worry is: will I be able to generate enough power dice to make use of all three Sorcerers or will all those spent points go to waste as they sit around idly without enough power?

I had the intention of the Lord (who is also my General) and one regular Sorcerer having the Mark of Tzeentch, and the third having the Mark of Nurgle. Is this too many spellcasters, and if so who should I cut?

Thanks in advance for your advice and opinions

The advantage of having the 3 is that the first 2 will know all the spells of tzeentch (bo duplicates though except the basic spell) and the other with nurgle spells, so your choice of spells will be better, but you have already pointed out there will be phases where you will have 2 or 3 power dice...

Relying on the magic phase wholly to win is a BAD idea now (unless you play cheezy high elves and use Teclis or the book of Hoeth) so retool your army to have the spellcasters as support. Magic IS indeed still powerful, but the days of simply barreling your way by means of having a bucketful of power dice is over, with the max power dice capped at 12 total.

man I hate Teclis, half the armies around here use him

thanks for your opinion
Thats just the problem, with the limit to power dice I feel screwed with my olde army (fluff-wise I would have thought Tzeentch worshippers would be able to get around that, him being the source of Magic and all). I will be keeping my Lord as he is, though of the other two I'm not sure who I should take - Tzeentch to give better access to his Lore (which is awesome - Treason of Tzeentch and Infernal Gateway are too good to pass up), or Nurgle for some pescilent variety (he also has a good selection of spells).

Are you playing demons or regular?

If you are playing demons then get some 40+ pink horrors, a banner that gives you +1 to casting. You now have a level "5" wizard in the troops department. Now get a herrald of tzeentch to give them a ward save (I think that is what the herrald grants?) and then give hime the power pool power or whatnot that gives you a free powerdice. If you are in a magic heavy playing area you can also get the blue scribe to steal you some more.

And if you got the points to get Kairos he gets a whopping +6 on his spellcasting. And one of the spells genereate more powerdice, but it is risky.

Also, lore of death can gain you back powerdice if I reecal corretly.

3 casters at anything under 3k is too much, and only reason after 3k is for more diversity in spells.

I played in a tourney and took 2 lvl 4 sorceresses for my Dark Elves because I was fairly new with the army and infatuated with their magic. Most of the time one of them just sorta danced around.

Most optimum I have found, is a lvl 4 supported by a lvl 2. Though I know nothing of chaos, so it could be different. I also know that horror unit described by Niiai is really annoying to fight against.

Slithas wrote:man I hate Teclis, half the armies around here use him

thanks for your opinion
Thats just the problem, with the limit to power dice I feel screwed with my olde army (fluff-wise I would have thought Tzeentch worshippers would be able to get around that, him being the source of Magic and all). I will be keeping my Lord as he is, though of the other two I'm not sure who I should take - Tzeentch to give better access to his Lore (which is awesome - Treason of Tzeentch and Infernal Gateway are too good to pass up), or Nurgle for some pescilent variety (he also has a good selection of spells).

I just ran a tourney where no SC were allowed...makes a player think more in designing his characters....

Again, I prefer to think that managing to push through with a game breaking spell is a bonus that you shouldn't rely upon. If the powerful spell manages to clinch the game for you then fine, but in many cases it won't, so prepare your list for that eventuality...

As a guy who sometimes organizes tourneys, 1 thing I like about 8th ed is that the freedom of movement is much better so much so you can actually design funkier scenarios to keep players on their toes without taking away from the fun of the game...I used a variant of the surprise encounter scenario (somewhere at the back of the book) as well as a modified ambush and breakthrough scenario where the traditional pitch battle battleline is kaput, and the players enjoyed them immensely. My take home message here is that I believe that balanced builds is the best way to go for 8th, and I foresee a lot of varied scenarios in tourney play which forces players to be flexible...

I just ran a tourney where no SC were allowed...makes a player think more in designing his characters...

Not at all, it only makes like the *Two* armies that have decent SCs think about what to take.. Most armies have horrible special characters and there is no reason to ban them because they suck

Its just Teclis + doc characters that anyone has ever used

I just ran a tourney where no SC were allowed...makes a player think more in designing his characters...

Yeah but what about special characters like Throgg or Skrolk, where they allow you to field a kind of army that you are not allowed to otherwise. If I could design a character that could let me take certain units as troops then I would, but I can't. So I turn to special characters. Not every special character is a Teclis in the making.

Well thats the fallacies of GW's current stance on different army lists with SC and how tournaments are handled I guess

Talk to your local tourny staff and see how they run things

The next tourney will have SC's, makes the scene fun and variable, and also keeps you on your toes when it comes to making your army lists...

I always felt there should be some sort of penalty when a SC was killed, much like Tau were affected when they lost an Ethereal. After all, this is a renowned figure of the battlefield your marching under, so I would expect everyone to have to take a Panic test when they are felled, and suffer a Ld penalty for the rest of the game as their hero is down.

Just my opinion though.

Slithas wrote:I always felt there should be some sort of penalty when a SC was killed, much like Tau were affected when they lost an Ethereal. After all, this is a renowned figure of the battlefield your marching under, so I would expect everyone to have to take a Panic test when they are felled, and suffer a Ld penalty for the rest of the game as their hero is down.

Just my opinion though.

Nah thats just a huge crutch for tau. If that happens, no one would take SC!

kenshin620 wrote:

Slithas wrote:I always felt there should be some sort of penalty when a SC was killed, much like Tau were affected when they lost an Ethereal. After all, this is a renowned figure of the battlefield your marching under, so I would expect everyone to have to take a Panic test when they are felled, and suffer a Ld penalty for the rest of the game as their hero is down.

Just my opinion though.

Nah thats just a huge crutch for tau. If that happens, no one would take SC!

Ah, I guess thats just my irrational hatred of SCs talking. I've collected almost every army in both fantasy and 40K, but never have I had a SC nor wanted one. The only one I did concider was Knight Commander Pask.
If they did take such a suffering, all SCs would have something to protect themselves, something like a stackable 5+ Ward save for being a renowned hero, or something along those lines. But, thats just how I feel about them.

I've said this like a bemillion times, but I guess I'll say it one more time...

Stop counting casters, and start counting spells.

The average number of powerdice you're going to have is 8. That's 4 spells at 2d6 per spell. or 3 spells at 3d6 per spell. If you have artificial ways to bump the number of dice you have up, then increase your spell count, at a rate of 1 spell every 2 or 3 dice, depending on your strategy coming in.

1 lvl 4 wiz is the best option. 2 lvl 2's is a decent option, 1 lvl 4 and 1 lvl 2 all from the same lore is also ok. Anything else is a waste unless you're generating massive amounts of power dice from some other mechanic.

I don't know if I'd say it that generally. 1 lvl 4 and 1 lvl 2 with different lores can make for some nasty combos...

Sometimes you need diversity, I run a lvl 4 shadow caster as my main caster. I take a lvl 2 with a magic item so they can grab a third spell, this caster takes lore of metal.

There's no real combos here, only reason for the metal is the off chance I face a high armor list. My dark elves can't really deal with armor too well, something like a steam tank would have a field day with them. This is where the secondary caster comes in.

It's true that more casters doesn't equal a stronger magic phase. More casters DOES equal a more adaptable magic phase.