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.

Thank you muchly! That's some interesting things to think on.

I wonder whether you seek advice to play with or against Goblins ;D

To make them go squish under a heavy plate boot.

Though we're getting a little OT for this thread, I think.

Off topic? Hm....depends

Vs. Goblins, a single spell might just win you the game. There are two types of Goblin armies:

a) lots of Warmachines

b) lots of Squigs

c) hybrid

The key element of all these are huge tarpits of Night Goblins. They come at 3 pts each and average stats, the key being their T3 which is the average T, making them very resistant to normal attacks. With WoC, you want to absolutely avoid getting tarpitted.

Magic can be a great help vs. all those types. Lore of Heavens is great vs. Goblins with a lot of warmachines. First of all, you got the spell that blocks shooting attacks. It's great because such a Goblin army absolutely needs to get a steady volume of fire pumped in your army. Secondly, you got the Meteor - another really great skill, also vs. war machines. The space in the deployment area is limited and since you want to maximize LoS shooting, you might end up having to cluster your war machines. A meteor crushing down on the war machines will be a great deal and cannot be countered once it's done. Another good point: by having a meteor coming down, you force the Goblins to move their regular units forward too and the closer they are, the more likely they get in charge range - which is what Goblins absolutely want to avoid. Animosity has a high chance of making your unit declare a charge, most likely resulting in it failing. Think ahead! Use smaller units, e.g. hounds, to get sth. in charge range. Position them in a manner that allows your other units to get into flanking position. Chaos Warriors in the flanks will absolutely wreck the Goblin unit.

Another good option is Chain Lightning, especially against Squig-heavy armies. Goblins are numerous. VERY numerous. The deployment zone isn't that broad. A single chain lightning can easily wreck your enemy's battleline and maybe even force panic checks. Keep in mind: Goblins have no save against anything! Everything S5 or higher kills a Goblin with a high chance. The same applies for Squigs. No save!

/e: Oh crap, just saw you can't take Lore of Heavens anymore. Sucks :/

The new Tzeentch lore is AMAZING vs Goblins. If you can get Treason just before attacking a Goblin tarpit, you have won the fight. Sure, they are Steadfast, but need to roll vs. LD 5! Furthermore, Tzeentch has a lot of damaging spells with a random S, but most of them rely on using templates. The downfall is the Warpfire rule that might give a Goblin unit regeneration. Then again, chances are pretty low. I'd take the risk.

Lore of Shadows is another good choice vs. Goblins. Lots of debuffs that really hurt Goblins and buff your own units. Goblins only have I3, thus a PoS will kill a goblin with a 50% chance. Remember, if you break the tarpits, you break the army.

Lore of Death, finally, is another great choice. As I said in the previous post, if you manage to snipe the general / BSB out, you're one step closer to victory. Even you causing Fear is good as Goblins will then hit on 5s, not 4s (let me tell you, as someone who plays vs. a lot of elves...that sucks!). Get your wizard in Spirit Leech range and if you get it through, you won the game The bad thing is the low range - if your enemy runs a bunker, you will not be able to get in range. UNLESS! you use ye good old sorcerer on a disk. Careful though, Doom Divers are nasty against lone characters. Make sure to give him a good ward save. Doom and Darkness is another excellent spell with a good range of 24'' or even 48'' (no bunker saves you!). Cast it on the Goblin general and poof, suddenly, the army tests on LD 6 instead of 9.

So all in all, you see, a single magic spell can win you the game vs Goblins. Goblins are a fairly weak army but at the same time, they got lots of means vs. elite armies with heavy armor and that's why I consider them to an easier enemy than e.g. HE, DE (damn you Fear!), Dwarves or Skaven (no idea how to win against Skaven!). A single spell *can* win you the game but as portrai...portraited...eh...shown above, a few weaker spells can do the same

Hope that helps, I suddenly get the feel of 300 angry, small yellow eyes gleaming at me through my vitrine's glass door...uh oh...

You know I can think of a time a single spell won a game.

"ard boyz semis 2011. Dude had 2 units of 10 DE spearbros, a unit of 115 repeater crossbowmen and 4 wizards, the lvl 4 was death with purple sun bsb, general in a folding tower.

I have 30 bloodletters, 30 daemonettes, but they don't matter. I also had fateweaver and 39 horrors with a life herald. Herald marchs to 24 inches out dwellers, miscast, loose dwellers. get the general and 2 wizards and 56 dudes. provided I don't loose anything I win the game with max points.

Flamers almost die before running out of range of this fire power. Fateweaver didn't do anything, however he had final trans and dwellers, however he was not going into dwellers range due to fear of ye olde purple sun.

The guy told me after the game that he knew he lost when I told him I had dwellers twice in my list.

I've seen games swung by a single spell or two, watching a BSB get picked out and killed just before a heavy CC unit swings in, or a Dwellers/Sun/Gateway annihilate the anvil of an army, etc.

A big issue is that Magic is the one part of the "kill your enemy" trifecta that cannot be ignored. You can shoot, stab, or magic your enemy to death. You can build a primarily shooty army with some magic, a heavily CC army with some magic, a heavily magic army with some of both, etc, you can build any combination of that as long as it includes some element of magic, if for nothing else than magic defense. You can build an army without including shooting elements, or without really any CC elements in some cases, but you cannot build an effective all-comers list without any spell casters.

That I feel is the biggest failing of this edition. You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

 Vaktathi wrote:

That I feel is the biggest failing of this edition. You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

This is a really good point, and the more I think about it the more I realize this is also my problem with magic. Maybe it's naive to want/hope/expect a ruleset that allows all builds to be effective if you play them right, but I wish I could ignore magic if I wanted to, and I can't.

 Vaktathi wrote:
You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

Guess Dwarfs are in trouble then.

 Red_Zeke wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
You can forego the shooty, you can forego the choppy, but you can't forego the magic, because if nothing else you need that scroll and extra dispell ability.

Guess Dwarfs are in trouble then.

Dwarfs got a "slight" extra dispel ability

They still get magic, but it's only the dispelly kind.

Yikes- it was even in the piece I quoted. Nice reading comprehension RZ.

Its a good point, though- in 2500 points, I'd often spend more than 10% of that on a Runelord. That's 250+ on pure anti-magic. For that kind of cost, a lot of other armies can pick up a level 4 and a scroll. Not as brutal defensively, but at least it can contribute offensively.

As a side note, my stealth prediction for the Dwarf armybook is that they will have a slew of bound spells- from items, runesmiths and the anvil to bring them a little closer in line to the rest of the Warhammer World's magic system. And of course, a de-buff to their anti-magic.

Yeah Magic can be quite powerful in this edition its why I never leave home without a Slann or a Grey seer.

I told you RZ lore of the runes is coming.
GW has never shied away from enticing nerdrage.

I'm guess the same. Anvil now has 7 "runes" in the new codex -___-

I'd always predicted a Lore of Runes, working like a list of bound spells that are 'trapped' inside Runes on casters. I thought of this ages ago. So if it's true, I win Dakka, just saying.

I for one had this happen while playing WoC. I managed to cast Purple Sun without it being dispelled, but it scattered terribly into my unit of Chaos Ogres, who then promptly failed all of their Int tests. And then in my shooting phase immediately following my Hellcannon decided enough was enough and went charging forward right into the vortex. Lets just say my opponent was hilariously delighted at not being able to dispell that one.

I've never had a spell win me a game, even the much vaunted Dreaded 13th.

OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

cyborgakadjmoose wrote:I for one had this happen while playing WoC. I managed to cast Purple Sun without it being dispelled, but it scattered terribly into my unit of Chaos Ogres, who then promptly failed all of their Int tests. And then in my shooting phase immediately following my Hellcannon decided enough was enough and went charging forward right into the vortex. Lets just say my opponent was hilariously delighted at not being able to dispell that one.

streamdragon wrote:I've never had a spell win me a game, even the much vaunted Dreaded 13th.

OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

Freaky lucky like this doesn't really argue the point, though. Such a turn of luck could happen in any phase, perhaps you failed several crucial charges, managed to hit, wound and kill an entire unit with shooting even though you were needing 5/6s on each roll, or perhaps you got an insanely good amount of Killing Blows in CC.

We're more on about spells being so powerful that they make or break the game with a single cast, i.e. being able to wipe out entire units.

If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

 Grey Templar wrote:
If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

I was thinking they would go with "Equipped Runes", bound spells equipped to weaponry/army/what have you.

My nights goblins defeated my friends tomb kings - this game was several years ago and has been bitter agout it since

first tun i cast foot of mork, stomped on the main spellcaster ( you know the one that dies the unit have to take a leadership test to stay alive) well he died

and the following turns most of his units started to crumble.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
If Dwarves do get magic it will likely be through innate bound spells. Like Warrior Priests have.


A Runelord would purchase up to a certain number of Runes from a list that would give him bound spells.

Maybe also they would purchase bonuses to dispel.


But i very much doubt they would have actual magic lores.

I was thinking they would go with "Equipped Runes", bound spells equipped to weaponry/army/what have you.

Agreed. But I'm still thinking there'll be a Lore.

So you'll have your seven spells in your Lore listed, but in addition to everything else you'll have details of what units/characters can "equip" them and what, if any, points costs this will entail. I imagine Runesmith/Priest will be necessary to "channel"/"activate" the runes though.

I did it once in Storm of Magic.

I cast Madrigal of Greening, dropped a forest right behind the enemy battle line and proceeded to deploy an entire Drycha army out of it and charge everything from behind.

Nearly every game I played in 8th ed. From a Big Waagh rerolling to hit and damage spells getting off allowing my opponant to hit and wound every one of his 60 attacks, (yes, 60 kills) to me debuffing an enemy with Lore of Shadow so that they had a 1 on all important stats, to watching a maxed Purple Sun cast by the enemy go through the his line, he loses one unit, and then it lingers for the rest of the game, destroying whole units of mine and never touching his.

Magic has been more than significant every time. And if it wasn't Magic, it was ridiculously unavoidable large numbers of dice.

Maybe I have terrible luck and I have seen all of the worst (and best rolls) that no one else should see (multiple times,) but that just means I have less love for a more luck based system than its predecessors.

Last night I had a single spell that won the game... for my opponent.

I was playing my Empire army vs a Wood Elf player who vanguarded a unit of Wild Riders. My lvl 4 Beast Wizard was in a detachment of Archers hidden right behind my halberdier block. With the very first spell of the game, I decide to cast Curse of Anraheir on the Wild Riders, taking 5 dice and even saying out loud "Oh, I'll only roll 5 dice because I really don't want a miscast." Lo and behold, roll the dice, 2 sixes. Roll on the miscast chart, get dimensional cascade. Roll to wound, wound all 14 halberdiers, my wizard, and all but one archer, and then roll a 3 and my wizard is removed from the board

Both me and my opponent were just shocked at how ridiculous this was. I played the game out, but as I had lost my magic defense and the ablative bodies on my halberd horde it was a lost cause. My halberds lasted longer than they should have, but having to be in combats against magic buffed units without any buffs on their own and without the bodies to grind it out really did them in. That single spell won the game for my opponent, easily

 HidaSeku wrote:
Last night I had a single spell that won the game... for my opponent.

I was playing my Empire army vs a Wood Elf player who vanguarded a unit of Wild Riders. My lvl 4 Beast Wizard was in a detachment of Archers hidden right behind my halberdier block. With the very first spell of the game, I decide to cast Curse of Anraheir on the Wild Riders, taking 5 dice and even saying out loud "Oh, I'll only roll 5 dice because I really don't want a miscast." Lo and behold, roll the dice, 2 sixes.

I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

I still maintain that many of these situations people have posted are occasions of freak luck that just happened to occur in the Magic Phase, rather than the cases of the overpowered-ness of Magic winning you or your opponent the game.

Playing first Game of Storm of Magic - cast a minor spell with Morathi - 3 dice - miscast and dimensional cascade and she was gone. :(

Tried to cast another spell with sorceress, miscast and she exploded, the game only went downhill from there.............

To be fair, anyone playing Storm of Magic is playing an expansion specifically designed to have magic potentially blow the game out...

I have had two instances where I won with a single spell. Basically, I had a single Tzeentch Chaos Sorcerer Lord and both times my opponent decided to have a huge deathstar with all of his characters in it. First time was against VC, First turn I got off Gateway with IF, boom goes the dynamite! Other time was against Skaven, he had all his characters in a giant unit with the Bell and GreySeer. Again, Gateway with IF. But really, out of tons of games, those were pure luck!

 streamdragon wrote:
OTOH, I did have a friend have a single spell cast lose him a game, when a miscast sucked his only wizard, who was ALSO the general, into a dimensional cascade along with a handful of chaos warriors. I was basically up 300+ VP in a 1,000 point game and I hadn't even taken a turn yet. Good times. Good times.

I've won a Blood and Glory game against a Lizardman player in the same way. He played a better game than me and the dice went his way, and it looked like I was good for about another turn before my banner count dropped below the minimum, while his slann & temple guard were still solid, as was one of his other Saurus blocks. As he'd already used Cupped Hands I told him 'basically the only way I'm going to win this is if your Slann miscasts himself off the table.'

First spell double six, buh bye Slann, hello cheap win for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Shadow wrote:
I don't exactly think that this was the fault of the magic mechanics.... Think about it. Curse of Anraheir is cast on a 10+, with your wizard's level factored in, you needed to roll a six. Based on the logic that with two dice you're most likely to roll a seven, you had a very good chance to cast that with two dice. If you wanted to make sure, you should have used a third. Not a fifth. Maybe that was a little reckless.

People frequently cast spells with enough power not just to beat the casting value, but to make a dispel unlikely. I'm not sure about the situation in HidaSeku's game, but he might have assessed Curse of Anraheir as the only spell that really needed to be cast that turn, and was happy to burn most of his dice on it.

I still maintain that many of these situations people have posted are occasions of freak luck that just happened to occur in the Magic Phase, rather than the cases of the overpowered-ness of Magic winning you or your opponent the game.

There's a lot more scope for dice to produce crazy results in the magic phase. That's exactly how its been designed.

Personally I think it's a good thing, magic should be unpredictable.