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Hey, I've been lurking the WHFB forum for a while now and finally decided to start my own army. I got a few questions if anyone cares to throw me a bone. Thanks ahead of time.

-I remember a while back reading about how one army had tons of mid-level mages. I must ask, what is the advantage of having 3-4 level 2 mage versus one level 4? As I understand it, if one mage miscasts he can no longer cast correct? But on the other hand, spells are random so with more mages you might not even get the spell you want.

-Just how debilitating are random spells? Considering that you have an entire phase in WH dedicated to magic, it seems strange that you can't even tell your mages what spells to know before hand.

-Why are heroes so expensive? Having played 40k for a long time, 200 points on a hero in 40k is considered extravagant and here in WH, I see people regularly dropping a whopping 300-500 per hero. Since models don't seem cheaper across the board, I can't see why people would ever take them. Vlad for example costs more than 100 zombies.

Thanks for taking a look

terranarc wrote:

-Why are heroes so expensive? Having played 40k for a long time, 200 points on a hero in 40k is considered extravagant and here in WH, I see people regularly dropping a whopping 300-500 per hero. Since models don't seem cheaper across the board, I can't see why people would ever take them. Vlad for example costs more than 100 zombies.

Expensive? My Orc Heroes costs 55 points. Anyway, Heroes and Lords are there to kill the enemy Lord/Hero. If you lose your General it's gonna hurt. You also got to remember that most units are cheaper in this game than WH40k, so you'll have enough anyway. For example - with my Orc Warboss with my usual equipment will deal almost as much damage as 7 Black Orcs would do and then he also got some other rules + W3, higher armour, ward etc.

In other words - Heroes/Lords are usually better in WHFB than in WH40k.

terranarc wrote:
-I remember a while back reading about how one army had tons of mid-level mages. I must ask, what is the advantage of having 3-4 level 2 mage versus one level 4? As I understand it, if one mage miscasts he can no longer cast correct? But on the other hand, spells are random so with more mages you might not even get the spell you want.

-Just how debilitating are random spells? Considering that you have an entire phase in WH dedicated to magic, it seems strange that you can't even tell your mages what spells to know before hand.

-Level 4 adds +4 to your casting value after rolling your power dice and +4 and your dispelling value which you add to whatever you rolled to dispell, Level 3 adds +3 and +3 to dispel and do on. Also a mage knows as many spells as his level is so a level 4 would know 4 spells in a lore (some exceptions some items could add a spell and things like gray seers can choose spells from 2 specific lores).

-Spells are rolled for randomly so your level 4 would roll 4 dice to find out which spell he knows. If a double is rolled he can swap it with one of the player's choice. You can swap any spell you don't want for the signature spell of the lore. If you have multiple wizards with the same lore each wizard can only know a unique spell so if you roll the same spell for 2 wizards you have to change it up, exception is signature spells which more then 1 can be known in an army.

Lvl 4 is nice especially chaos mot woot.
You get as many dice as magic lvl so a lvl4 gets 4 dice to get the spells you want.

I spend what 375+ points on a sorcerer lord and 375+ on a combat lord.
Heroes range between 180 to 250.

They are worth their points.

A lvl is not a bad choice lots of spells +4 to cast and dispel.
That and you haves better chance getting the spell you want.

terranarc wrote:Why are heroes so expensive? Having played 40k for a long time, 200 points on a hero in 40k is considered extravagant and here in WH, I see people regularly dropping a whopping 300-500 per hero. Since models don't seem cheaper across the board, I can't see why people would ever take them. Vlad for example costs more than 100 zombies.

Like in 40K, your hero or lord adds his leadership to the squad he's commanding. However, in WHFB leadership matters a whole hell of a lot, as units can be expected to take a lot more leadership tests, and often with modifiers. And more than that, the guy with the best leadership in your army is the general, and any unit within 12" of him gets to use his leadership, so having one model with high leadership at the centre of your army becomes hugely important.

Also, in 40K the loose formations mean everyone piles into combat as quick as possible, often everyone in each squad is fighting in the first round these days. A character with an extra couple of attacks, even with a powerfist, is going to score you an extra couple of kills, but there will be troops scoring a bunch of other kills as well. On the other hand, in WHFB troops keep in formation, with only the first two rows fighting, this can mean that even in very large units of 50 or more guys, only the first ten will actually be fighting. In that situation, scoring an extra couple of kills from a character is much more important.

Very true ld is ridiculously important in fantasy.

Some troops have high ld but most need a character to give em that boost.
Pretty much every army.

As was said the first 2 sometimes 3 and rarely 4 ranks fight meaning most of the unit is kill counters so that those front 10 20 or more guys have a chance to make it into combat and deal damage.

Personally I play WoC and my lords are over 200 points base so might as well make em live long and hit hard if you are already paying an arm and a leg for them.

Where as gobos and skaven can just have a ton of them since 60 or so points for a guy is not too much.
Still in those armies 60 points can get you what 30 slaves.

Still lords are important they keep your units around maybe not win combat but hey you may only loose by 1 or 2 and only take a test on ld 7 or 8 rather than ld 3 or 4.