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So I'm new to Fantasy (haven't played a game yet, have been playing 40k for years) and have just finished reading the main rule book and am wanting to play but I keep hearing that the end times rules are different and are harder to learn. I'm not wanting to get surprised by crazy rules but wont have time to read the end times rules in detail before my first game so can someone give me a brief generalization of what is so hard and different about the end times rules?

They're really not harder to learn. They flatout replace some parts in the main rulebook though.

For example, it's now 50% Lords and 50% Heroes choices rather than 25% Heroes/Lords.

Magic phase changes are probably the single most complex collection of changes:


4d6 power dice instead of 2d6 ; no pool cap anymore. Opponent gets highest of those 4d6 for dispel dice.

"Broken Concentration" is gone ; however native die rolls of 3 or less is still a failure to cast.

You can now cast any spell that 1) has a cast cost of 14 or lower, 2) is not a boosted spell, 3) and is not an end times spell as many times as you want during a single magic phase.

When you cast a spell, you pick a spell and a target ; you then roll a d6 ; this is the number of power pool dice you are allowed to throw on it. If you have special rules that allow for additional dice (like Morathi's +d3 on every cast, for example), yous till get those. This is the big neutering of 6 dice level 6 spells, because you have to commit to both spell and target before you roll this dice. YOu also may not cast a spell you have earlier failed to cast in the same phase, though you may cast other spells.

End Times spells (only found in End Times Khaine ; 1 per lore) are not dispellable.

If you know 1 spell in a lore, you know ALL the spells in that lore, including signatures. (so yeah, Brolocks and Sisters of the Thorn just got even better!)

If you have Loremaster in a lore, you may re-roll the dice on a cast of that lore by that caster - you may even re-roll an irresistable, which is cool.

If you're a level 3 or above you know the end times spell for your lore automatically.

If you're a level 3 or above you know "summon arcane fulcrum" automatically (I personally recommend having storm of magic on hand, as End Times Khaine omits a gak-ton of Arcane Fulcrum rules... without which arcane fulcrums are asstarded broken).


... i think that's all the major points, i might have missed one or two, but that's the main gist of the changes to the magic phase.



Past that, you can take up to 50% on lords and heroes now, and there are different list compilations for Chaos, Dead Things, and Elves.... there are also spells and rules for summoning undead (and a whole new lore which anyone can use!), and summoning Daemons (which only chaos people get access to).

Thanks guys, that's very helpful. And I do have the Nagash book. Are all these rules in his book?

The 50% Lords/50% Heroes and the Undead Legions(and the new Morghast Harbingers/Archai for Vampire Counts+Undead Legions) are in Nagash. The new Lords/Heroes rules though apply to all games (unless someone's just being a stick in the mud )

The new Magic rules are in Khaine, which sold out quickly. They'll have a softcover variant available in the next few weeks likely.

Glottkin did not have a whole lot that was gamechanging, but it did include new rules for fighting in towns.

So the new magic rules in Khaine will apply to everyone, not just Elf armies? Dammit, way to get my money, GW!

Chosen Praetorian wrote:
So the new magic rules in Khaine will apply to everyone, not just Elf armies? Dammit, way to get my money, GW!

Yep, and actually the rule is "if either player wants to use end times magic, then end times magic is used". In practice if you don't, you can just not play, but it's not a "get your opponent's permission" thing. Your opponent can refuse to play you, but the rules are now the law of the land if you want to use them.

And before anyone gets all huffy about that, that's probably because this is what we can expect 9th ed. magic phase to look like. Frankly i love it ; no more auto 6 dicing level 6 spells, and now i actually have the ability to potentially cast several spells instead of 1-2. New magic phase rules are nice in my book.

 Haight wrote:

If you know 1 spell in a lore, you know ALL the spells in that lore, including signatures. (so yeah, Brolocks and Sisters of the Thorn just got even better!)

I had to double-check that. My word.

 Haight wrote:

If you know 1 spell in a lore, you know ALL the spells in that lore, including signatures. (so yeah, Brolocks and Sisters of the Thorn just got even better!)

Note that is WIZARDS who know 1 spell. Some people have tried making the argument that the luminark is loremaster light or the hierotitan knows all of light & death. This rule doesn't extend to knowing bound spells.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 Haight wrote:

If you know 1 spell in a lore, you know ALL the spells in that lore, including signatures. (so yeah, Brolocks and Sisters of the Thorn just got even better!)

Note that is WIZARDS who know 1 spell. Some people have tried making the argument that the luminark is loremaster light or the hierotitan knows all of light & death. This rule doesn't extend to knowing bound spells.

Yup, very true, worth noting for the rules lawyers. It's also pretty clearly spelled out, so people arguing that .... yeah... just no.

So far i'm loving the new rules. My friends and I are having a blast with it, and by proxy, are getting a lot more games in.

Lots of fun ! Only (minor) gripe is that the magic phase now takes a lot longer.

So by knowing one spell in that lore you know them all.

So if you have a level 3 wizard that can pull from 3 different lores he can generate one spell from each lore and then will be able to cast all the spells from 3 different lores?

And how does this work with multiple wizards not being aloud to know the same spell except for signature spells?

And does knowing the signature spell count towards giving you complete access to the entire lore?

Most wizards of any level must generate spells from only one table. Thus, they would only know that one table.

Signature spells count as part of the table. An example given in the book is the Loremaster of Hoeth. He knows the sig spell of all book magics. Because of this he knows *all* of the book spells! Kinda crazy...

Khaine magic rules are optional. It certainly would be fine to insist on not using them if neither of you could produce the rulebook.

The other big thing, IMO, is that the book heavily hints that WHFB is going to transfer to something without the familiar numerical power levels soon, perhaps importing 40k's 4+ system.

Bharring wrote:
Most wizards of any level must generate spells from only one table. Thus, they would only know that one table.

Signature spells count as part of the table. An example given in the book is the Loremaster of Hoeth. He knows the sig spell of all book magics. Because of this he knows *all* of the book spells! Kinda crazy...

Khaine magic rules are optional. It certainly would be fine to insist on not using them if neither of you could produce the rulebook.

The other big thing, IMO, is that the book heavily hints that WHFB is going to transfer to something without the familiar numerical power levels soon, perhaps importing 40k's 4+ system.

Oh god please no


Anyhow I had a question you stated that for each spell you roll a D6 and that is the max dice for that spell + special rules from some models? Is that just for repeat spells or every spell?

Bharring wrote:

The other big thing, IMO, is that the book heavily hints that WHFB is going to transfer to something without the familiar numerical power levels soon, perhaps importing 40k's 4+ system.

no. Please no. I know GW is stupid at times but did they not learn from having to release a new edition what 2 years after the previous & the drop off in 40k sales that 40k rules are a mess? NOBODY I know likes them and I've seen many 40k players quit (myself included) due to how gakky the current rules are.

Fantasy works. For the most part. It needs some tweaks but don't take a mostly working system & import rules from the broken piece of gak that is 40k.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

Bharring wrote:

The other big thing, IMO, is that the book heavily hints that WHFB is going to transfer to something without the familiar numerical power levels soon, perhaps importing 40k's 4+ system.

no. Please no. I know GW is stupid at times but did they not learn from having to release a new edition what 2 years after the previous & the drop off in 40k sales that 40k rules are a mess? NOBODY I know likes them and I've seen many 40k players quit (myself included) due to how gakky the current rules are.

Fantasy works. For the most part. It needs some tweaks but don't take a mostly working system & import rules from the broken piece of gak that is 40k.

Fantasy's current magic system is solid, ET isn't broke yet (until I get 500 zombies painted) I've even quit 40k over the mess it is.

Bharring wrote:
Most wizards of any level must generate spells from only one table. Thus, they would only know that one table.

Signature spells count as part of the table. An example given in the book is the Loremaster of Hoeth. He knows the sig spell of all book magics. Because of this he knows *all* of the book spells! Kinda crazy...

Khaine magic rules are optional. It certainly would be fine to insist on not using them if neither of you could produce the rulebook.

The other big thing, IMO, is that the book heavily hints that WHFB is going to transfer to something without the familiar numerical power levels soon, perhaps importing 40k's 4+ system.

So what if I just want to take multiple Vampire lords and only use lore of vampires for all of them, would one Lord get them all and the rest only get the signature spell?

All of them get all of them. The rule you're looking at never gets triggered, as you never actually roll. Just choose the lore.

And I, too, hope I am completely wrong about the 4+ thing, but the rulebook seems to hint strongly...

(I was hoping they'd just port Fantasy magic to 40k)

I hope they don't switch to the 40k Magic/Psychic system, it is not as fun as in Fantasy.

No issue with the rest of current 40k though, my gaming club is having a blast with it.

 Hubris wrote:
I hope they don't switch to the 40k Magic/Psychic system, it is not as fun as in Fantasy.

No issue with the rest of current 40k though, my gaming club is having a blast with it.

Same here. 40k's system would be terribad in Fantasy without some serious tweeks, as psychic heavy armies are nearly impossible to limit unless you're also running at least a couple psykers of your own.
Mind you, I'm also not liking this rule about having to roll a D6 to first see how many casting dice you can throw at a spell attempt, but that's probably because I seem to roll nothing but 1's all the time.


Whole heartily agree though about the rest of 40k though! Provided you're not simply looking to purposely break the game or ruin it for your opponent just so you can prove what a total 'uber master you are, the game is *much* improved on the crap heap that was 6th...

I have a question about D6 limits. I just got my paperback copy of the Khaine book and read this: Any spells or magic items that modify the number of power dice used to cast a spell, will work just as they would have done previously; the only change is that the maximum number of dice you can choose is changed from 6 to the roll of D6.

Now I assume the rules that say you can roll these in addition the the normal limit of 6 would allow me to go past the D6 limitation because the item specifically states that it does?

Sounds like it.

Bharring wrote:

Khaine magic rules are optional. It certainly would be fine to insist on not using them if neither of you could produce the rulebook.

Actually, no, they aren't optional.

Read the section and it says "if either players wants to play with end times magic..." Either. No get permission from your opponent, if you both agree, etc. If either player wants to. A very binary statement.
Book II of End Times: Khaine, page 8, section "Using Magic of the End Times", final bullet.


Now, in reality, if two players sit down for a game and one says "i want end times magic!" and the other goes "no!", then either they are going to compromise somehow, or not play one another. However by the Rules As Written, End times magic is NOT optional if either player wants to use it. I'd put money that End Times Magic is how the magic phase is going to run in 9th, maybe with some tweaks.

Yeah, optional for the players combined, not optional as in either player can say no, which is odd. But if neither of you has the book on hand, it'd be the same as trying to use a FW model without the rules.

Still optional as in nah-id-rather-not-play though. Of course.

 Haight wrote:

Bharring wrote:

Khaine magic rules are optional. It certainly would be fine to insist on not using them if neither of you could produce the rulebook.

Actually, no, they aren't optional.

Read the section and it says "if either players wants to play with end times magic..." Either. No get permission from your opponent, if you both agree, etc. If either player wants to. A very binary statement.
Book II of End Times: Khaine, page 8, section "Using Magic of the End Times", final bullet.


Now, in reality, if two players sit down for a game and one says "i want end times magic!" and the other goes "no!", then either they are going to compromise somehow, or not play one another. However by the Rules As Written, End times magic is NOT optional if either player wants to use it. I'd put money that End Times Magic is how the magic phase is going to run in 9th, maybe with some tweaks.

Yeah it's odd and unenforceable ruling but I think the point is that they're trying to say "This is going to happen, get used to it."

Third edit : i dont know what is going on with my browser, i saw a double post then not, then did again.... haha!


Bingo Shas. I agree ; this is paving the way to 9th's magic phase i'm willing to bet.

I have yet to meet anyone in real life that i can confirm has played a game with the new rules that doesn't think its a big improvement over the tic tac toe horsegak of 8th ed (by that i mean the constant 6 dice throwing on level 6 spells trying to engineer an irresistible).