Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This one time I got in a car accident. Therefore, all cars shouldn't drive because they are unsafe.

Anecdotes are fine and all, but really, think about this, what % of all games are almost completely decided by one spell? I'm going to say less than 5% and that's going pretty high.

DukeRustfield wrote:
This one time I got in a car accident. Therefore, all cars shouldn't drive because they are unsafe.

Anecdotes are fine and all, but really, think about this, what % of all games are almost completely decided by one spell? I'm going to say less than 5% and that's going pretty high.

I'd say less than that. In every game I played since 8th came out. It has never happened to me.

Im gonna chime in and support Sigvatr, the ETC system really helps balance the game out a lot...

2000 point game, purple sun cast over my unit of Temple Guard with Slann (Over 1k point unit) = game over.

OK, admittedly it was an "all your eggs in 1 basket" army - but it was still a "1 spell won the game" situation.

To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

I killed one of those with a unit of corsairs and ran down a slaan. I believe that soulblight was in effect, but I may be wrong.

I agree with the magic being reliable at getting rid of it. But it isn't the only way.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair though, I have to agree with Grey Templar about your case: a unit of Temple Guard with Slann cannot run from battle (statistically) and bears a lot of killing power. Strong magic is the only reliable thing that can get rid of them.

I killed one of those with a unit of corsairs and ran down a slaan. I believe that soulblight was in effect, but I may be wrong.

I agree with the magic being reliable at getting rid of it. But it isn't the only way.

Re-rollable, steadfeast LD of 10 makes them almost unable to lose any battle thus you have to kill each and everyone of them in order to beat them. That's not an easy task with most units and average rolling involved and it takes multiple turns as well.

Not to nit pick but it's only LD 9
And it's only re-rollable if the Slann is also the BSB (though why you wouldn;t do that I don't know)

I agree that it was probably the only way he could realistically take it out - but was just giving an example of a single spell winning the game.

Nope, LD 10. If you roll that combo, you let your Slann be the BSB, pick the +1 LD banner and go for a nearly unbreakable unit (chance to break is like 0.2% or sth...).

Ah yeah, forgot the +1LD banner. Never used it as it was a little overkill LD9 + Cool Blooded + Stubbon + re-roll will see you through 99% of the time

It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Da Boss wrote:
It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Yeah that..is entirely wrong, it uses HIS wizard as the casting point. He never would've gotten his vortex to your lines to do that much damage otherwise.

It hapend to me when I played my Wood Elves once. A single chain lighting ripped through my army and killed about 60% of the army.. This was quite a few years ago and I havent played Warhammer Fantasy in a few years now.. Since my group went to 40k instead..

In a local tournament - Slann and most of his unit killed by single spell - Dwellers below or similar - other player just mopped up the rest.

I lost most of my Vampire Counts army to a boosted Ocrams razor (?) and another spell - killed about 4 units in one turn, with massive nos of I, A etc.

Oh and both big spells were irrisatable so nothing could be done..

Went back to 40K and for the most part enjoyed myself.......unlike WFB - love the fluff to bits and started of liking 8th as a big step up from 7th.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Da Boss wrote:
It's entirely possible the Daemon player had his rules wrong, but he told me (and didn't have the army book to check) that the ability he was using used my wizard as the casting point as you guys were saying. The problem was that my archer unit (which had the wizard) was slightly angled, so he could draw a LOS from my wizard down a significant portion of my battle line.

It's possible we played it wrong, but I am still leery about the time spent deploying just to have a unit wiped that quickly.

Yeah that..is entirely wrong, it uses HIS wizard as the casting point. He never would've gotten his vortex to your lines to do that much damage otherwise.

Actually it depends on the rule of the demons (which I don't know) He has already stated that it was HIS spell that was cast and that the demon player then "stole" the spell and cast it himself. Now if the rule says that the spell is cast using the origional casters LOS then I would take that to mean that the vortex forms on him as normal. On the other hand if it allows him to steal the spell "As if he cast it himself" then the votex would form at the demon wizard feet - basically it's possible it was played right, it'll just depend on the wording of the rule.

One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

 Sigvatr wrote:
Re-rollable, steadfeast LD of 10 makes them almost unable to lose any battle thus you have to kill each and everyone of them in order to beat them. That's not an easy task with most units and average rolling involved and it takes multiple turns as well.

By the time my corsairs finished, the slaan was on double ones.

But anyway, the likelihood of single spells winning the game is very slim. And a competent player will minimise the chances of this happening.

No it's not. The rule states that he can use his spell as if it was yours thus he has to use his very own mage.

I quote:

This spell may be cast on a single enemy Wizard visible to the caster. The caster may immediately cast one of the target's spells as if it was one of his own. [...]

- DoC army book, p.61

Ask your friend to know his rules before using them.

Ah, okay. That goes some way to explaining it. However, I would still content that any mage with flight could have done the same thing.

So you are saying there is a chance that a set of die rolls can turn the course of a game, given a rather specific setup, some luck, and your opponent's lack of foresight?

OK, but magic is the only way you can think to do that?
Is it just the one that works against the lists you see most often?

Or the biggest change maybe?

It really has been my experience that it comes across as folk using rocks complaining about paper being overpowered when they put almost no scissors in their list.

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

And that's his fault for deploying in a castle...

Remember that characters now get LOS against template spells, they're still knocked out cold against Dwellers, Final Transmutation and 13th.

thelordcal wrote:

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
One spell can quite easily win the game, i got a second turn (I went first) 30" purple sun off against a dwarf player in a tourney three weeks ago from my great bray shaman (irrisestibly cast) and it killed five war machines his bsb and two thirds of his dwarfs...there is no ambiguity about it that single cast spell won the game

And that's his fault for deploying in a castle...

Remember that characters now get LOS against template spells, they're still knocked out cold against Dwellers, Final Transmutation and 13th.

Wow, that player deployed horribly, even in a castle setup you don't want to literally place everything right together.

I've lost games to magic phases, not usually spells. But my main opponent was the big two headed chicken daemon with a massive unit of horrors. I wasnt doing to bad at all considering he was playing the ungodly broken flamer and crusher army and wand of wychelm (i play wood elves) helped me more then i should expect...until. He got 10 dice, i got 5, he then preceeded to channel one and steal on of my dispel, the game was over before the magic phase ended.

Please keep posts directed at other posters constructive and friendly, thanks. Personal criticism has a way of coming off rude (which is a violation of Dakka Rule #1) unless it is kept friendly and positive. -Mannahnin

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
I've lost games to magic phases, not usually spells. But my main opponent was the big two headed chicken daemon with a massive unit of horrors. I wasnt doing to bad at all considering he was playing the ungodly broken flamer and crusher army and wand of wychelm (i play wood elves) helped me more then i should expect...until. He got 10 dice, i got 5, he then preceeded to channel one and steal on of my dispel, the game was over before the magic phase ended.

Valid point - in your given situation, you could only reliably dispel one of his spells and had to let the others through. As others and myself have already pointed out though, that's only a problem with 7th books magic and a few BRB lores (e.g. Shadow). Otherwise, the system seems to work fine and requires tactics - will you rather dispel 2 minor spells or the big one that might kill your entire unit? Both possibilities have valid pros and cons and I like that change about magic in 8th.

Furthermore, it can work just the other way too, e.g. with Dwarfs generating about 9-10 dispel dice on average and having a +2 on all dispels on top. As said before, with restrictions, the magic system works really well. Vanilla (no modifications, using the original rules) 8th needs work to...well..work and I did not enjoy playing unrestricted 8th. But with restrictions, it's fun and *puts flame cloak on* better than 7th.

Also: a 100% Goblin army is so much fun

I was playing against an ogre player whose own boosted purple sun drifted over his 9-12 strong ironguts unit with general and two other characters. We (incorrectly, apparently) applied it to all the models it passed over untill it was 1" past my units flanking it. That finished the game
(his own fault an ogres player shouldn't use a boosted purple sun vs chaos anyway)

I've had Magic win me as many games as artillery. But usually it isn't my own magic.

Only time one cast has won me the game was in a 500 pt tournament (With a ton of restrictions). I was up against VC. His one necro casts invocation of nehek the first turn on 2 die. Irresistibles. He then razes up 5 skeletons... and gets sucked into the warp. Needless to say, it sucked for both of us.

Then again, same tournament I went up against a HE player who bunkered his mage with swordmasters. Turn 1 my mortar hits it, kills 4 out of the 10. The unit fails the panic check and runs straight off the board. The only game that my mortar actually did something...

Most of the time, things aren't crippling. I've had similar games 1000 points where I irresistible the #6 Tzeentch spell against his hammer/anvil unit and roll a 12 for strength. Funny part is, I hurt myself just as much, and then lost.

I've had a Foot of Gork go off 9 times in a row on me... Even that didn't entirely cripple me as he blew himself up, panicked, then his entire line started running away.

I could imagine with good generals (alot of these games were alot of newer players against eachother), that these games could turn one sided when things happen (or even have better lists built that mitigates the dangers). But fortunately for me, I avoid these players.

The problem is people often over-exagerate their units combat potential, if they fall foul to a unit with magical buffs they didnt think of, or are destroyed by magic.
Case and point me (beastmen) and him(VC) were playing a standard game when i managed using generated powerdice to get mindrazor on a unit of naked minotaurs who were in combat with his Vamp lord and co, he had spent the whole game wipping the floor with me and keeping my minotaurs running around not even really getting the combat bonuses, however when they won the combat it was because "magic like that breaks the game".
Personnally ive lost more games due to failing re-rollable man-bane and then a re-rollable leadership then i have seen a single spell, however the onus is on both players to realise the potential of spells.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yes, but if you have smaller units you have spread the risk out.

True, small and elite units are vulnerable. Its another counter to them being super powerful. Checks and balances.

Anyway, if you don't play anymore why do you care?

As stated in the other thread, I decided to, instead of endlessly hating on 8th being a dumbed-down version of what 7th was, happily embrace the randomness of it and go balls deep with a 100% goblin army.

Furthermore, as I stated before, a lot of German tournaments use a restriction system for WHFB that makes the game a LOT better, especially toning down magic by a good bit (e.g. max 4 dice per spell, restriction / nerfs on magic items, LOS! vs. 6th spells, among ithers). WHFB needs some work to be a good system but it's worth it.

Why is 8th dumbed down? I ask because I am strongly considering starting a Skaven army, ussualy I dislike fantasy but there's is something in human sized war rats especialy that the models are incredible. Ugh I hate GW they make me bankrupt.

Also do you happen to have a link to those tournament restrictions? Could be in German.

Well... I'll let Sigvatr answer that, but suffice to say that not everyone agrees that 8th is simply a dumbed down version of 7th. I thought there was a lot of not-all-that-clever-yet-still-effective stuff going on in 7th.

I'll not make this a degeneration into whether 8th is "good" or not, though Sigvatr is, of course, welcome to answer your question, but I think if you come in to 8th with an open mind, you'll find a fair amount of depth and strategy in this edition.