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I don't think I understand, what's the benefit of a second spellcaster in an army? Is it just redundancy in case alpha dies or loses casting ability?

1) Redundancy. If your main caster fails to cast on a bad roll, a secondary can pick up some of the load. If the main caster blows himself up, you still have a second caster. If you only have one, you are SOL.

2) Variety. Multiple casters can take different lores and have more options.

3) Power. More casters can channel more dice and carry more spell- or PD-boosing gear.

4) Defense. More casters mean more options for dispelling, and you will always have someone available to give their level bonus to the dispel roll. You also have more options for carrying defensive magic items like dispel/hex scrolls.

5) Risk Management. With multiple casters, you can afford to take chances both in placement and in casting that a single caster cannot... at least, not without risking having no caster next turn.

6) Modeling. It might just be fun to paint extra casters.

Redundancy is truly the main reason, altho getting more than one arcane item in the army is quite the incentive, that might be my lizard side talking as our arcane items are the bomb.

In my armies, I'll generally take multiple casters for all the reasons Vulcan mentioned. In particular, I like to keep my "main" caster (or Hierophant in the case of the TKs) relatively back and well protected. I then keep a centrally located mini-caster in or around my hammer or anvil unit.

The idea is to keep the "battle caster," as I like to call him within range of the fighty troops to give them the most benefit from things like augments and hexes. Waaaaay too often I find myself just a wee bit too far away to give a unit the little edge it needs to turn a battle.

This is especially true of liche priests and the Empire's warrior priests, as the shorter range incantations and prayers can have a huge impact on how they perform.

More casters = better coverage.

Most important, as Strelka mentions, with support Lore casters such as Life.

As has been said it could also be because the casters have differant roles to perform. Take VC for example, you could have a caster who sits in the back healing your units or raising new ones and then have another caster closer to your lines increasing the fighting ability of your units. Have 2 (or more) casters allows you to do this where as with 1 caster you would probably have to choose either or.

Even for lizardmen with our uberslaans it is a bad idea to only have one caster.

Well plus with our Lizards it's always cool to be able to use channeling

Yea, too bad it's only for magic missiles, direct damage might be a bit OTT but i think they should have thrown buffs and hexes in there.

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say that although I can certainly see the place for 2 casters in many armies, I highly prefer to only take one. Actually, I've never taken two... those are points that, if you're being careful and protecting your caster, might not be adding to your capabilities. I play combat armies, and in 8th you're hitting combat in turn 3 at the latest most of the time. Your caster doesn't necessarily have to make it through the whole game... just through the period where you can do the most damage and/or are in the most need of protection, depending.

Obviously, there are a host of scenarios where things go wrong and a backup caster is helpful, but if things don't go wrong (and you can do a lot to try to aid that being the case) then it can be a waste of points, that could have gone towards giving you the tipping point in combatting, shooting, or diverting your enemy.

Double down on the lore of fire with a pair of level two dark elf sorceresses.
Take the dagger on one, and the +1 power die cloak on the other.
Hope for a LOW roll on winds of magic.
+1 power die, +1 power die per spearmen whacked, a pair of powers of darkness and the +D3 from the lore of fire attribute equates to quite a bit of damage.

Low rolls for winds leaves your opponent with very few power dice, and you're sitting on a volcano of flaming power die production.

-Matt

For certain lores, having 2 casters can ensure that one of your casters is getting the spell he wants to get.


say you have a level 2 and a Level 4.

you really want your level 4 to get Throne of Vines, Flesh to Stone, and Regrowth.


you roll for the level 2s spells first. if he gets any of the spells you wanted your Level 4 to have he can swap for the signiture spell.


your Level 4 then knows the rest of the lore automatically and most likely all 3 spells you really wanted him to have. and you are assured of getting the spells you wanted on 1 of the wizards.

Because then it's nowhere near as easy to take out your wizard (and thus your magical role in the game) quickly. Throw in a level 4 and a level 2, and your magical power is very strong, you have access to more lores, and thus, more options in battle, and your stronger dispelling strength can deal with enemy magic.

If they take out your only wizard early in the game (with the HE Giant Eagles, or Skaven Gutter Runners, or any other war machine/wizard-hutning units), you are then fighting with a leg and an arm tied behind your back, expecially if they have a powerful magic army, which can then cast some devastating spells with relative impunity.

The strength of magic in WHFB means wizards are important enough pieces n the board to want some more of them.

You can fail Ward saves and dispel attempts, and no effort to protect a character in CC is foolproof.

I could drop the 164pts that normally goes into my Plague Priest. I could get s'more weapon teams, or Rat Ogres, or whatever.
But having two wizards equals a stronger magic phase. You won't need two casters as much if all you do is pitch as many dice at one or two casting/dispelling attempts as you can each phase, but spell selection, range, LoS, equipment option, Loss of Concentration, miscasts, and...oh yeah. Death. They're all reasons that you can benefit from 2+ casters.

Do these things justify the points you spend on your wizard? Sometimes, but not always. Exactly like, sometimes, the extra points you spent on X didn't work out.

If I had to lean one way or the other, I'd say 2-3 casters is a solid choice. Not for all armies and not for all lists, but, in my opinion, versatile is better than not.

yeah, for example.

the optimum number of casters for ogres is 2-4. simply because they can stack the buffs the spells give and can do it quicker. and the spells don't require many dice to get off.

Vampire Counts can raise massive numbers of undead warriors and more wizards equals more raised warriors per phase.



the other books don't get as much benifit from having multiple casters. aside from having back ups.

With VC magic is extremely important, given that they raise their dead who would otherwise be relatively easy to sweep away. I've seen armies with 3 wizards to just keep raising their dead over and over.

But even with other armies, wizards are key, and wizards die. A bad miscast can take out a single wizard (not to mention any number of other deaths). Wizard redundancy makes you a more prominent player in the magic game.