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While most lores give you a +1 or -1 to hitting/wounding, which is statistically speaking a 0.167% change...the lore of heavens only makes lets you re-roll a 1(or forces your opponent to re-roll a 6).

Which is uh...pretty much pointless. The chance to get a 1 is 0.167% in the first place, if you hit/wound on a 4+, only 1/3rd of the misses can be re-rolled, in which case your chance to hit/wound only increases by about 0.08%.

Signature spell is worse than pha's unless your opponent is running a giant death star, in which case pha's is better.

Comet is too random and isnt even that destructive compared to the usual save or die spells.

d6 s6 hits are a joke at high CLs are a joke.

While it might be useful in a 40K setting, I'm thinking you'll get better answers over in WFB land!

First off, I think you may have posted in the wrong section, my friend... You probably wanted this in the WHF section.

Secondly, to talk about the Lore of Heavens, I'll agree that "Harmonic Convergence" and "Curse of the Midnight Wind" are fairly useless spells. "Chain Lightning" and "Urannon's Thunderbolt" aren't the most effective of MM or DD spells, but at Str 6, that's hard to ignore against smaller and more point concentrated units.

I would agree that against Swarm or Horde-like armies that the Lore is less useful, but against point intensive armies or armies with more Flying units, it can be effective.

Harmonic and Curse sound bad on paper, but they are pretty nice in practice. Re-rolling 1s for to hit, to wound, and armor save is quite a bit. Especially if you need like 3s or 4s on your roll. Curse is great for making your opponent's Parry saves, Poison, and Killing Blow useless, on top of maybe taking a few less hits/wounds.

Thunder and Chain Lighting don't sound that good in this day and age of "I cast Dwellers/Puple Sun/Final Transmutation. I win." But they are good at knocking off Knights, Montrous Infantry, Monsters, or Warmachines. Chain Lighting's casting value is a little high, but it will kill quite a few models if you opponent has units bunched together.

Pha's is arguably better than Blizzard, but Blizzard is a signature spell, so you can have many wizards with it. Remember that Blizzard is also -1Ld and it is a Hex with really long range, so you can have it where ever you need it.

A well placed comet can wipe out a good number of units and is death to Warmachines.

Wind Blast is the only real dud, but even that can be used to keep people from running from the Comet.

The thing about heaven's isn't its downright uselessness, but more how it's incredibly situational.

Iceshard is really the only spell in Heavens besides comet that has a use more often than not. Convergence requires you to actually roll 1s, and Curse requires 6s to be rolled. Curse is more useful due to parry, but apart from that, how often do you face units with lots of poison and/or Killing Blows? It's best against Daemons (notably Khornate, since their Bloodletters have KB) but against other armies... not so much.

Wind Blast is pants.

Urannon's is crap, D6 S6 hits? Great if you're sniping a lone character, but otherwise, it's not that great. An average of about 3 dead models per cast? Awesome... I think...?

Comet is the only other good spell, but can be moved out of the way of. Good for interrupting gunlines or... nope, that's pretty much it.

Chain Lightning is an overpriced Urannon's Thunderbolt that requires enemy units to be close and will only become more than Urannon's Thunderbolt 2/3 of the time.

EDIT: Re-checked Curse's rules, and it only re-rolls armour saves. Parry saves and other wards are unaffected, making it even less useful (which i'm not surprised about, seeing as it's a Heavens spell).

The comet is a great way to isolate part of the board (can you say watchtower?) Also I really enjoy windblasting things into dangerous terrian or out of my flank. Heavens is alot more finesse than most lores you see (see Life). While I agree that Chain Lightning leaves alot to be desired against a gunline it wrecks face.

Also while this is rare if your using heavens and dont have cannons or the like a well placed boosted comet can kill a dragon and its rider faster than most things in the game (I got 3 under my belt!)

Honestly there is only one lore that sucks in my mind and thats Metal and sometimes Light. Heavens is great you just gota know how to use it

Also while this is rare if your using heavens and dont have cannons or the like a well placed boosted comet can kill a dragon and its rider faster than most things in the game (I got 3 under my belt!)

May I ask how? The distance of comet is only 2D6, with a March move of 20", a dragon should surely be able to move away before you even get the first roll to see if it comes down...

Its 2D6+ the time counter and when you roll boxcars or an 11 you can peg a dragon easy nuff


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Also its a radius not a diameter which makes the comet huge on a good roll

Ralin Givens wrote:Its 2D6+ the time counter and when you roll boxcars or an 11 you can peg a dragon easy nuff


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Also its a radius not a diameter which makes the comet huge on a good roll

My rulebook says 2D6" on either side, the only thing mentioned being altered by the markers is the 2D6 hits the unit takes. There's nothing there about altering the size of the impact zone.

If you want to throw all your dice at 1 big spell, heavens is not for you.

I've done really well with a heavens vampire. Locking into combat, then dropping the I re-roll ones, you re-roll 6's over a 12" radius is pretty brutal.

Pushing units around is always good, really fun to push cannons off of hills.
I don't normally go for chain lightning, and use the threat of the thunderbolt to keep characters in units (since I have no other shooting to do so).

The default spell giving -1 to hit and -1 Ld is huge, fail that Fear Ld test and you're WS1 with -1 to hit. That means you hit ghouls on 6's. Tends to make for a very lop sided combat. Especially when you have to re-roll 6's...


I think you have 2 good options for heavens.
Take it on a level 1 level 2. Count on casting the signature spell (which is very good), and if you get a 2nd decent spell, great.
Take it on a Lore Master, where you'll either get 3 decent long range spells (lightning, chain lightning, comet), then shift to the up close spells (signature, +augment and hex).

Also, don't skim past how easy some of the spells are to cast. You get a comet on a 12+.
That's not a RiP spell, so do it every round. The damage does add up.

-Matt

Comet isnt that impressive though. A spell like dwellers can easily kill half o 1/3rd of a unit on average...comet kills like 5 models and they can take saves. Probably only effective if your opponent is runnig a gunline with plenty of 10 man ranged troops.

Magic missles are just a joke generally. Killing less than a handful of models is just completely unimppressive, especially with CLs on par of far more useful spells. Even if you cast it on knights, your chance to kill 2 models is only about 25%.

-1 LD is fairly un-noticeable when everyone has LD 9 or 10 options and re-rolls. Doom and darkness is far better, even LD 10 will get dropped to LD 7 and he has a 41% of failing the first roll.

Statistically speaking re-rolling 1s is inferior to hitting on a 2+ from a 3+. So on so forth. Unless you wound on a 2+, then yes it is better.

How does a S10 Comet with 2D6+6 hits kill only 5 models? I really suppose if you are targeting Ogre Kingdoms or something of that type then I could see that, but most of the time you crush them (though dont expect to wipe out a unit). I have almost tabled a Bret player with a good shot and alot of throw away units holding them in place. For comet to be amazing target it in the middle of a slug fest and just hope you can hold the enemy untill it comes down

Hmm re-rolling 1s isn't great, unless you use it on swordmasters and then it can become almost the same as autowounding on t3 models (35 out of 36...). Also combines well with wither actually.

Similarly on re-rollings 1s, great on dragon princes, who tend to have pretty good saves, giving them re-rolls is pretty awesome. Same near autowounds as swordmasters.

Curse is useful when cameleon skinks are running close to you, or just skinks in general. Also handy against khorne daemons, as getting rid of killing blow can be helpful. Also good against things like skeletons, as they hit often on 5s on elite things, so it reduces that nicely, especially with the wound re-rolls as well. Synergizes nicely with the sig spell.

My current best use for it would be my bloodletters with -ld banner charging a unit with curse and blizzard in it. They have ok chance of failing fear (-3ld) in which case they hit me on 6s and have to reroll. so 1 in 36 chance to hit me. Then wound (re-rolling 6s of course) and i get my 5+ ward. takes 67 s5+ attacks to cause 1 wound on average, or 129 s3 attacks.

Also side note, but I completely disagree that light and metal are bad. I feel like they are like heavens, at times situational but always have their uses.

Ralin Givens wrote:How does a S10 Comet with 2D6+6 hits kill only 5 models? I really suppose if you are targeting Ogre Kingdoms or something of that type then I could see that, but most of the time you crush them (though dont expect to wipe out a unit). I have almost tabled a Bret player with a good shot and alot of throw away units holding them in place. For comet to be amazing target it in the middle of a slug fest and just hope you can hold the enemy untill it comes down

I see nowhere in the description that the comet instantly comes down doing s10 2d6+6 hits.

No it does not but in my experience a +power level does not come in untill the counters hit 6

Hmm well I guess that only gives 2 movement phases and 3 combat phases to get out of the way. Probably works well with Vamps, as your units are unbreakablish and if you loose a few you can just resurrect them.

Though at that point you need, what 24+ to cast. I guess its situational, but I think I would rather have dwellors, final transmutation etc. You only have a 65% chance of casting fully powered comet given a lvl 4 and 6 dice. Whereas you have a 87% chance to cast a powered up dwellors on 6 dice. And a 97% chance of casting final transumatation, on 1 less dice no less.

Of course my models tend to be more expensive than my opponents and I need to get into combat to win, which may have something to do with comet seeming very much.. meh to me (Gunlines aside of course, as them moving to me is always a bonus, and getting off a powered up comet is usually death to all of their warmachines)

I think it's deceptively good. Kiwidru's been using it to good effect in our games. What I like about it (or don't like, being on the receiving end) is that it has a balance of ranged effects on combat buffs.

And the combat buffs/debuffs are particularly effective if you apply them to the right units. Harmonic Convergence is a pretty cheap cast on its boosted bubble level, and iceshard gets you double dipping in combat- not only is the enemy more likely to lose, but they'll be at -1 when they do so.

It's certainly not a lore that is extremely in-your-face and obvious, but I quite like it.

While Doom and Darkness does give 1 unit a -3, Lore of heavens can actually move your opponents general or BSB out of range.

Try this as a 1-2 punch.
Drop a comet in front of the enemy general/BSB unit, then Wind Blast them to push them back.
You don't want to walk towards a comet, but you don't want to leave your battle line behind. It can put your opponent into a lose-lose situation.

Yeah, Dwellers kills 1/2 to 1/3 of a unit. Comets kill 7-8 models per unit, usually striking more than one unit. It isn't that much of a loss of killing power, has unlimited range, and can be cast while in combat. Oh, and it's SIX easier to cast then dwellers.

Now I'm going to have to try a sky is falling list with 2-3 casters with comet.

-Matt

Just tried it out in a 1500 game(check battle reports), very underwhelming.

Comet is too random and a mobile army has a pretty good chance of dodging it, and he only managed to dispel it once. Boosted comet is only near uncastable even with 6 dice and a level 4, which is hilarious because its nowhere as powerful as say, a large template purple sun.

The buffs and hexes basically made little to no difference throughout the course of the game, and i never had the spare 3 dice to drop on curse of midnight.

The one time i did use thunderbolt on a flying unit, it caused one wound.

Another lore more for theme than anything else.

So your judging Heavens based on a game you played against Brets? Yah they are going to run away from the Comet like its noones business but it still has its uses. Like the fact if you place it closer to you they wont travel towards it.
Also against Brets CL would of been better.

Question wrote:Just tried it out in a 1500 game(check battle reports), very underwhelming.

Comet is too random and a mobile army has a pretty good chance of dodging it, and he only managed to dispel it once. Boosted comet is only near uncastable even with 6 dice and a level 4, which is hilarious because its nowhere as powerful as say, a large template purple sun.

The buffs and hexes basically made little to no difference throughout the course of the game, and i never had the spare 3 dice to drop on curse of midnight.

The one time i did use thunderbolt on a flying unit, it caused one wound.

Another lore more for theme than anything else.

Amazing, the signature spell that gives -1 to hit/-1LD didn't even get a mention. How is it that the Hexes never made a difference, but you never had the dice for Curse of Midnight?
My guess is that your units where small enough that the lances were running right through you.

Mathhammer (and in game observations) say that the signature spell + midnight is rad.
Marauder horde with great weapons vs Empire swordsmen
Normal: 13.89 Kills
Signature: 9.26 kills
Just Curse: 11.19 kills
Curse and Signature: 5.97 kills.

-Matt

>Go to the thread
>Ctrl+F "blizzard"
>Multiple hits in the magic phases

I can see you didnt even read the battle report...

I got above average PD almost every phase(9 or higher). Even then the best i could do was cast blizzard and harmonic, and then followed a choice between comet and curse of midnight, of which comet was obviously a superior choice.

Mathhammer (and in game observations) say that the signature spell + midnight is rad.
Marauder horde with great weapons vs Empire swordsmen
Normal: 13.89 Kills
Signature: 9.26 kills
Just Curse: 11.19 kills
Curse and Signature: 5.97 kills.

Or i could, you know, pick another lore and get much better results in favor of the swordsmen in this example. Whats the maths on pha's + speed of light, that is also incidentally easier to cast?

So using the same 40 maruader attacks, light gives 4.63 kills. So a bit better. Also gives +1 to hit.

Lore of life - flesh to stone gives 8.33,
throne+flesh to stone gives 2.778,
earthblood gives 11.111,
throne + earthblood 8.333.
Throne earthblood and flesh to stone 1.67.
Earthblood and flesh to stone 6.67

Shadow- Enfeeble foe at -2 strength gives 5.56 (+ lvl 3 miasma 3.7)
Enfeeble foe at -1 s is 9.26 (+ lvl 3 miasma 6.17)
Enfeeble foe at -3 s is 3.7 (+ lvl 3 miamsa 2.47)


Metal- Glittering robes 9.26

Beast- Wildform 11.11
-1 to hit curse + wildform 7.407

Death- soulblight 9.26

those are about all the beneficial ones I can think of.

Question wrote:>Go to the thread
>Ctrl+F "blizzard"
>Multiple hits in the magic phases

I can see you didnt even read the battle report...


Or i could, you know, pick another lore and get much better results in favor of the swordsmen in this example. Whats the maths on pha's + speed of light, that is also incidentally easier to cast?

I must have missed that link to the battle report.

You'll get more mileage out of 2 heavens wizards. That's the big advantage of signature spells.
The other factor not to be glossed over; with either single spell, the marauders are usually winning combat. With 2 spells, they lose. With heavens, you toss another -1 on the leadership. In a grind, -1 Ld on steadfast does matter.
Weapon skill is the deciding factor with light. WS5 models don't care as much about speed as WS4 models do.

Try heavens with the suggested tactic of using Windblast to put distance between the General/BSB and the bulk of the army. Pushing them out of the command range and taking on units with base leadership (or base leadership -1) is very good.

-Matt

Sorry for the threadcomancy but I wanted to add my two cents as a regular heavens user.
First, heavens needs to be used in the correct context, which I've found to be in a combat based army... All my examples will be based on my WoC sorc lord with spell familiar. It's damage output is quite low for the cost of the spells (other than comet 12+) and 1/2 it's spells are only useful in melée, so it doesn't suit artillary mages/lists. It's also in contention for the worst lore attribute, as few flyers have a T low enough to be scared and it's useless in all other situations, so that's also a negative.
But there are a few areas where the lore excells, most of which I will cover by spell. However one underrated aspect is that none of it's spells are remains in play, ergo cannot be dispelled in the opponents phase. This is Iceshard, Harmonic, Curse, Comet; All other spells are immediatly resolved. This is unlike all other lores where hexes/buffs can negated Prior to your opponents combat phase, thus ensuring you get two full combat turns of buffs/hexes instead of one. This can't be underestimated.

Iceshard Blizzard: This spell is the batmans utility belt of heavens, and has so many uses I might have not even discovered a few. Of course the most obvious is in melée, an additional -1 has reduced incoming hits by 16% best vs great weapons or other situations where the opponents "hits=wounds". It can also be cast on the opponents general, so he is projecting a weaker bubble, on warmachines so the don't fire 1/2 the time (the boosted is 48" 10+, so still achieved on two dice), on flyers for attribute damage, on any unit where the opponent is likely to lose combat and hold, on any unit with exploitable psychology. In short there will NEVER be a magic phase where you won't have a good target for this spell, it falls under the non-rip spells benifit I mentioned earlier, and that's exactly what you want from a low cost signature spell.

Harmonic Convergance: this spell is incredible for it's cost, either as a 3 dice bubble, a two dice long range garuntee, or a single dice at the end of the phase. This spell is best used when the unit in question is making a 2+/3+ roll, and the more the better!! So warriors that hit on 3+/wound on 3+ and save on 3+ are ideal (vs average units), you are rerolling 1/2 of each failed roll for a "probable" positive effect... Knights are the PERFECT target for this spell as the hit on 3+ wound on 2+ and save on 2+... They can run headfirst into anything and blend away for two turns... With iceshard they have a punchers chance at breaking any non-bsb unit. But most importantly cast this on units that are going to make 2+/3+ rolls, on any other targets it is statistically a non-factor.

Windblast: This is one of the weaker spells as it's damage is pathetic, but being able to move opponents units has many uses, such as moving warmachines off hills, steadfast units into forests, general/bsb out of an important range (or moving the unit away from the character), breaking a battle line by making one of an opponents units declare a long (unlikely) charge, clogging a chokepoint, etc etc. However this is one of the spells I generally swap for iceshard, as it's highly situational.

Curse of the Midnight Wind: this spell is the opposite of Harmonic and accordingly is best used in the opposite situation: when an opponent's unit is making a lot of 5+/6+ rolls. This has all the statistic benifits of harmonic in terms of dice manipulation, with the added bonus of being able to combine with Iceshard to allow warriors/knights virtual immunity to melée strikes. So any unit(s) with ws 5 or lower are hitting on 5+ rerolling 6s, wounding on 5+ rerolling 6s, and then saving on a 5+ rerolling 6s, If they are heavy armor hw/s. Once again that's an optimal/average example, Curse also gimps any unit that uses poison/killing blow. The bubble is out of reach of anything less than 6dice, so focus more on a 3 dice single target on either the opponents most Killy unit, or the one that is likely to make the most 5/6+s.

Urannons thunderbolt: the other weakest spell. High str is nice, but not enough hits to merit cost vs other damage spells and is a magic missle so can't be cast while in combat. Best used as a threat to any heros outside of units or pesky fast cav. Other likely candidate for exchanging iceshard.

Comet of Cassandora: this spell is incredible! It can decimate a warmachine mound, inflict hits into combat, strategically deny ground to keep you from being overwhelmed, can stack without possible dispell, is cast easily on 3 dice. It's most valuable asset is your opponents fear of you dropping a giant meteor on his prized unit and then cackeling for the rest of the game as you say "you knew it was coming lolol". So he is gonna do whatever it takes to avoid the blast spot, and since you know that you can move into positions to take advantage of the "null zone". I highly recomend pretending to be a character from Dragonball as the comet tics up, making flexing motions and quietly going "rrrrrrrRRRRRR (his power level is off the charts, it's nothing I've seen before!) but all things considered, each unit hit will lose a rank or two... Which isn't all that much compaired to other lores mega spells, but it has infinite range and can be cast from combat (possibly crushing some of your opponents back ranks)

Chain Lightning: High str is good again, bounce is usually favorable, can be cast while in combat, is a good compliment to the dispersed damage from comet, and gives you another long range spell as you close to combat.

So as you can see it's best in an army such as warriors that uses the buffs/hexes to steamroll lesser foes that are numerically superior, and the ranged damage to fire a few warning shots across the bow to keep the opponents head down as you close.
Hope it helps you get the most out of the heavens!

cheers guys really boosting my opinion of my all skinks magic phase ha

I like to take a level 1 mage with heavens and just take the signature spell. The best "armor save" in my experience for my sword masters is to not get hit. And with their WS6 most people are hitting them on 4's and with the spell signature spell, it's 5's. Plus, I use him as a dispel scroll caddy.