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Okay, so, I'm just getting familiar with the Warmahordes ruleset, and an interesting thing came up in my recent game against my friend's Retribution. Are magical special attacks like those of the Vassal and Battlemages spells that the Choir can protect their 'jacks from with the Shielding ability, or not? The exact wording of the choir ability is "The warjack cannot be targeted by enemy spells" The vassal page (menoth sourcebook, page 116) mentions in the tactics box that "performing a magic ability special ability or special attack count as casting a spell" , but it doesn't say so explicitly anywhere else that i can find in the rules, and i'd really like to have something more firm than a tactics box for a single solo to base my battle-plan on. Any help or thoughts would be much appreciated.

They are spells. I don't have access to Prime, but HORDES: Primal MkII, pg. 85, has the same rule here:

MAGIC ABILITY
Some models have the ability to cast spells as a special action or attack without spending fury. The spells a model can cast are listed in its entry under its Magic Ability special rules. Magic Ability special attacks are magic attacks but are resolved using the model's Magic Ability score instead of the FURY stat ...

And so on. But note that these are spells, they follow the rules of spells save in how they work on the model's activaiton (special actions and attacks), their cost, and how they resolve attacks. And in the above quote, replace all instances of fury or FURY with focus or FOC and you're good to go.

And stuff.

Thanks a ton. I don't know how I missed that in the rulebook. The choir now seems as good as I believed it to be, rather than " oh, this rocks against everyone But these one or two match-ups."

As Blaque said, they are spells.

So if I were a Battlemage, I'd just punch the poop out of a Menite.

And Batltemages are a bit suprising for a spell-casting unit for their ability to suddenly start punching things to death, I've noticed.

And stuff.

I agree that they'd punch the crap out most things. It was really a tactical issue because at 15pts, I tend to do the " three jacks, minor support, advance up in cover from jacks" thing. Such a tactic works significantly Less well when ones jacks are being pushed and pulled out of alignment and being knocked down.