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If I cast Mystic Shield three times onto a single unit that started with a 4+ save, this would mean that I would add 3 to any save rolls it made. If I rolled a 1 and add three, I get a 4, which is the required amount.

This is the correct interpretation, right?

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If I cast Mystic Shield three times onto a single unit that started with a 4+ save, this would mean that I would add 3 to any save rolls it made. If I rolled a 1 and add three, I get a 4, which is the required amount.

This is the correct interpretation, right?

Well, assuming you had three different spellcasters, then RAW, yes as they do not state if the abilities do or do not stack. It would be assumed in this case they would stack. Though they wouldn't be 'invulnerable' due to Rending, which could throw a monkey wrench in your plan. Rending lowers their save rolls by that amount, meaning you still have the potential to fail.

Edit: Also Mortal Wounds care not for your extra saves, as they ignore your saves.

You're right, there are ways to make the save worse.

But a 1+ save is pretty great. And with armies like Tzeentch and Elves and Vamps, having that many casters is doable.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
You're right, there are ways to make the save worse.

But a 1+ save is pretty great. And with armies like Tzeentch and Elves and Vamps, having that many casters is doable.

Oh I agree, +1 save is nothing to put your nose up at. Especially for Orcs, since their saves are iffy at best. It'll be a sort of 'cheese' some factions can attempt, especially if running smaller armies with large wound monsters and the like. I don't think any army will suffer from the lack of casters, at least until GW attempts a sort of army construction rules. i could run several goblin shamans if I wanted to do the same sort of save boosting.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If I cast Mystic Shield three times onto a single unit that started with a 4+ save, this would mean that I would add 3 to any save rolls it made. If I rolled a 1 and add three, I get a 4, which is the required amount.

This is the correct interpretation, right?

Correct. You can buff to 1+ on a single unit (even more? need to check wording myself). But that can be a waste of spells. Plus there's rending and mortal wounds.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
You're right, there are ways to make the save worse.

But a 1+ save is pretty great. And with armies like Tzeentch and Elves and Vamps, having that many casters is doable.

Barring outside limits, any list but dwarves should be able to do this.

On the same topic, you can get a +1 to hit and +1 to wound in some armies.

Bretonnians for example, can cast a spell that gives +2 to hit on nobility. Put that on the high king dude and you have +1 to hit, then use the same caster (who can cast twice) to put mystic shield on him. Boom. +2 armor and auto hits in CC.

That dude was a beast to put down. Go Go daemons having lots of mortal wounds! Nurlgle/Tzeentch forever!

With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
If I cast Mystic Shield three times onto a single unit that started with a 4+ save, this would mean that I would add 3 to any save rolls it made. If I rolled a 1 and add three, I get a 4, which is the required amount.

This is the correct interpretation, right?

mortal wounds ignore your saves

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Not really hard to deal with at all. Ignore the zombies for a turn and focus on the Wizards... the Wizards who haven't been buffed with shields. Once they're dead, deal with the slowly moving zombies.

We have no restriction stating that a unit can't be the target of or benefit from the same spell more than once in the same turn.

So, let's look at what we DO know.

1. Wizard A casts Mystic Shield on Unit A. I now have permission based on Wizard A's Mystic Shield to add 1 to all save rolls for that unit.
2. Wizard B casts Mystic Shield on Unit A. I now have permission based on Wizard B's Mystic Shield to add 1 to all save rolls for that unit.

I have two separate permissions to add 1. That's a practical +2 to all rolls. Add a 3rd, 4th and 5th Wizard and you have a +5 to your rolls... meaning an unmodified 1 gives you a result of 6. Of course, you've wasted 5 Wizards in the process and pretty much guaranteed that you won't be able to use your armor as nobody will ever bother attacking you.

Now... consider this. Take a large unit of large, line of sight blocking models and make a big ring. Stick the Wizards in the middle where none of your opponent's models can see them. Make the ring invulnerable. Fun times.

/\ This sold me. It actually seems pretty fluffy to me. Remember in the End Times book how Gelt had all the wizards focused on a magical barrier to keep Chaos at bay? This seems just like that, and as some have pointed out, it isn't unbreakable.

The old rule of "1 is always a failure, 6 is always a success" is dead.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I'll have to find it, but there is a rule that says such boosts are cumulative. So yes, they do in fact stack. I'll pull up the full and post where it is.


Okay, so in four pages, I'm not finding it. Huh...coulda sworn I read that bonuses like this were cumulative. Guess I'm going crazy.

Page 79 I think of the 96 page book in the box is a hints page that mentions cumulative effects.

Running a tournament today and this is one of the questions we are going to discuss. Not necessarily RAW, but how we as a community want to play this game for tournaments. Spell stacking and whether armor saves always fail on a 1.

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Note zombies can never have a save because while you can add all you like to the roll you still cannot roll a -. Note this also meand zombies cannot benefit from cover.

 Mythantor wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Note zombies can never have a save because while you can add all you like to the roll you still cannot roll a -. Note this also meand zombies cannot benefit from cover.

That's a possible interpretation, but in practice people will just give zombies in cover or with mystic shielding a 6+.

 mikhaila wrote:

 Mythantor wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Note zombies can never have a save because while you can add all you like to the roll you still cannot roll a -. Note this also meand zombies cannot benefit from cover.

That's a possible interpretation, but in practice people will just give zombies in cover or with mystic shielding a 6+.

Page 79 in the AoS book (Hints and tips) specifically states that save values of '-' always fail, even with modifiers.

RoperPG wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 Mythantor wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Note zombies can never have a save because while you can add all you like to the roll you still cannot roll a -. Note this also meand zombies cannot benefit from cover.

That's a possible interpretation, but in practice people will just give zombies in cover or with mystic shielding a 6+.

Page 79 in the AoS book (Hints and tips) specifically states that save values of '-' always fail, even with modifiers.

So a rule that isn't in the 4 pages of rules?

It definitely looks like that page should be in the rules. It says that modifiers are cumulative, but it doesn't say anything on the subject of modifiers stacking with themselves.

It also says that the player whose turn it is uses their abilities first if they occur simultaneously, so I guess that resolves the curse vs khorne thing from the other thread.

 mikhaila wrote:

RoperPG wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

 Mythantor wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Note zombies can never have a save because while you can add all you like to the roll you still cannot roll a -. Note this also meand zombies cannot benefit from cover.

That's a possible interpretation, but in practice people will just give zombies in cover or with mystic shielding a 6+.

Page 79 in the AoS book (Hints and tips) specifically states that save values of '-' always fail, even with modifiers.

So a rule that isn't in the 4 pages of rules?

It *is* in the rules, but we're suffering from having played GW games previously. As someone pointed out, when you roll a did you can add or subtract whatever you like - you will *never* score '-'. We're just used to a system that used terminology like 'increase save by 1' etc. and always started from 6. AoS sets a target number and gives you modifiers to the dice roll, *not* the required score.
So read literally, this *is* in the rules.

in my skaven army i run ikit claw in cover and he has 2 spells so he casts it on himself. goes from base 3 down to 1. It sounds nice but rend and mortal wounds do more damage then you think.

You can't attempt to cast the same spell more than once with each wizard...

 streamdragon wrote:

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
You're right, there are ways to make the save worse.

But a 1+ save is pretty great. And with armies like Tzeentch and Elves and Vamps, having that many casters is doable.

Barring outside limits, any list but dwarves should be able to do this.

Stormcast have no wizards, which makes it harder.
They do get a guy with a lantern who adds +1 to armor save, and any save of 7 or more heals a wound.

I had a Hero (3+ armor) in cover (+1) get illuminated by the holy light of sigmar (+1 save and recover wounds).
This gave me a 3+ save, with +2 to the roll.
He took the charge from a lance of grail knights (rending 1). I made my saves 3+, with +1 to the roll. On 1's, I failed and took 2 damage. On 6's, I recovered 1 wound.
It looked like the grail knights might have a chance, until the horse attacked, and gave me back all my missing wounds.
If I had a wizard, I could mystic shield the Prime, then light him up and go to town, no need for cover.

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Mystic shield provides +1 to the save roll, no matter how many times you add one to a dice its impossible to roll - and therefore zombies and other unarmoured units actually cannot benefit from mystic shield

 Melcavuk wrote:

 gwarsh41 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
With nothing saying that it does stack, I'd argue it doesn't. The rules don't mention it either way, and not stacking seems more balanced to me.

I avoid the "it doesn't say I can or cannot" arguments as much as possible. They get a little odd sometimes. We will no doubt house rule spells not stacking though. As 30 or so zombies with a +1 save if totally possible and would be very hard to deal with.

Mystic shield provides +1 to the save roll, no matter how many times you add one to a dice its impossible to roll - and therefore zombies and other unarmoured units actually cannot benefit from mystic shield

There are actually several spots throughout the warscroll population telling us that adding 1 to a required roll of - gives a required roll of 6. In practice, a required roll of - might as well be a 7.

I'm really curious to find out how the saves of - with bonuses work. I treat them as always failing even with bonuses, but only for a total lack of not knowing either way.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'm really curious to find out how the saves of - with bonuses work. I treat them as always failing even with bonuses, but only for a total lack of not knowing either way.

From the hints & tips section of the book that comes in the AoS box set (page 79)
"Save of '-'
Some models have a Save of '-'. This means they automatically fail all save rolls (do not make the roll, even if modifiers apply)."
As Melcavuk said, roll a D6 and add or subtract whatever you want - you can never roll/score '-'.

I'll have to do a little research later. I know I read something on some war scroll that essentially told you to give a model with a - a 6+ instead. Might be isolated to that war scroll.