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Hey guys,

First off I want this thread to be based on actual play. No theory hammer, no math hammer, no "Well what if X". I understand people are worried about the new magic phase, that said I want to have a discussion amongst people who have ACTUALLY USED them.

On with the show...

So I was very worried about end times magic. Mainly the new endtimes spells and being undispellable. However yesterday I played a game using them and they really aren't that bad. Only level 3s know those spells and even then you generally need 4 dice (hoping for 4 4's) to get most of them off. This means you are hoping for a 4+ and even then hoping for above average rolls. I'm not saying they won't go off but it's unlikely they'll go off every turn.

As for the 4d6 magic phase with highest d26 dispel. It's not that bad. Again the d6 dice per attempt means sometimes you just won't have the power. It also helps with repeating spells. You cannot attempt to recast a spell for which you previously attempted & failed to cast. So if you roll 1 or 2 power dice on a decently high spell or even 1 powerdie on a low spell you could just fail outright.

Getting all the spells does hurt. Playing nagash I summoned neferata and had access to Lore of: Vampires, Nehekara, Light, Death, Undeath, Shadow. However I found most of the time I wasn't using anywhere near all of them. I had the 3 or 4 I wanted & just used those.

One thing that got a little nuts was my opponent failed to dispel doom & darkness & I proceeded to spirit leech his general until it was dead with 3 casts. Since his mage failed to dispel he couldn't stop me as nagash was at dice +5+d3.

So yes magic can be a bit more powerful but I think it's actually workable. It's not as crazy bent as I had thought and if it becomes the new norm ala FaQ sure my playstyle will have to adapt a bit but it won't be the end of warhammer.

I used morathi at 1200 using the new magic. It was not pleasant for my opponent. He lost his stonehorn, level 4, and big block on turn 1. Turn 2, my warlocks word of pain'd his remaining block to S1, and then put a black horror through them. I went first. He didn't get a second turn.


The magic phase now truly has the potential to ruin the game. Especially with characters like Teclis, Kairos, Nagash and Morathi.

@TDA: at 1200

Yes at points levels this low especially using a special character like Morathi the game starts to break down. However I think this speaks more to your play style than the impact of new magic rules. Remember most events & the game itself tends to be balanced around 2400.

I played a 1250 prep game for an event last night using Karios, a herd stone Lore of beasts, rest of army horrors.

I went first against a pretty filty empire army with Stank, Demis, a lot of knights, lore of life and stuff.

Killed stank and all of his demi's turn 1. Curse of Anrehair killed 1/3 of his core knight block his next turn. He did dwellers a horror unit and increase toughness, but vs searing doom on two-three dice over and over it didn't matter. Had to gateway his general as he had 2++ vs fire.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
@TDA: at 1200

Yes at points levels this low especially using a special character like Morathi the game starts to break down. However I think this speaks more to your play style than the impact of new magic rules. Remember most events & the game itself tends to be balanced around 2400.

At 2400, it wouldn't have changed, assuming he made the same moves. I'd have done the same thing.

 thedarkavenger wrote:



At 2400, it wouldn't have changed, assuming he made the same moves. I'd have done the same thing.

No theoryhammer please. You played at 1200 I will concede at 1200 yes it becomes increasingly broken, however I do not think WHFB is balanced for 1200 pt games.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:



At 2400, it wouldn't have changed, assuming he made the same moves. I'd have done the same thing.

No theoryhammer please. You played at 1200 I will concede at 1200 yes it becomes increasingly broken, however I do not think WHFB is balanced for 1200 pt games.

its not balanced at 2400+ either. Morathi is bent. She's generally got +1-3 pver your level fours. And can spam a lot of game changing spells.

@TDA: No theory hammer. I don't care what you think. You said you've played it at 1200 I don't care what you THINK about 2400, this thread is for discussion of ACTUAL GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCES. Please try to stay on topic. There are plenty of threads loaded with theoryhammer & mathhammer, that is not the topic here.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
@TDA: No theory hammer. I don't care what you think. You said you've played it at 1200 I don't care what you THINK about 2400, this thread is for discussion of ACTUAL GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCES. Please try to stay on topic. There are plenty of threads loaded with theoryhammer & mathhammer, that is not the topic here.

The lack of balance isn't theoryhammer. Morathi, Nagash, Teclis, and Kairos prove that.

Except what you're doing is still, for all intents and purposes, theoryhammer.

Talking about "X being broken" when your only real proof is doing something at a low points value now, that you would not have been able to do before the 50% Lords/50% Heroes change(Morathi is 375 pts. 1200 * .25=300) is right in the same ballpark as theoryhammering.

I mean, I could go around saying that Araloth is a superpowerful character because I can take him in a 600 point list....but that doesn't change the fact that someone could kill him with relative ease and massed fire/attacks.

Guys please stay on topic. TDA this thread was created purely for actual game experience. If you are not talking about what actually happened in an actual game Iand you want to discuss opinions & theoreticals I suggest you go to another thread where that is already ahppening or start your own.

Please stay on topic of how the new magic has impacted actual games you have played in.

The theory/maths can be discussed elsewhere.

Let's keep this thread about actual experiences.

Thank you.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Except what you're doing is still, for all intents and purposes, theoryhammer.

Talking about "X being broken" when your only real proof is doing something at a low points value now, that you would not have been able to do before the 50% Lords/50% Heroes change(Morathi is 375 pts. 1200 * .25=300) is right in the same ballpark as theoryhammering.

I mean, I could go around saying that Araloth is a superpowerful character because I can take him in a 600 point list....but that doesn't change the fact that someone could kill him with relative ease and massed fire/attacks.

So having level 5+ magi vs level 4s isn't broken?

Especially when those magi can spam their spells on 4D6 dice repeatedly. With no upper dice limit. Sure. When I hace loremastery of death and have +1-3 over your level 4 and can repeatedly spirit leech, caress, and fate your characters off on turn 1.

When I also drop a unit of elves to I1 and pit/purple sun them off.

When I drop elves to S1, and black horror them off.

With Morathi on the field, you're only hope is that the players run out of dice, or she fails a casting.

And yes. I have done all that.

In that vein, I can mention a pretty fun thing that I got to test yesterday...

The High Magic spell, "Deadlock"? Yeah. That's great for a Wood Elf army fighting an army with a nasty caster and for synergy with "Hand of Glory".
Especially when you have a few Waystalkers and a big unit of Waywatchers or a nasty charging unit of Wild Riders hitting an enemy unit.

The synergy between Deadlock preventing the enemy caster from dispelling Hand of Glory(or any other buffs/spells from the Spellweaver with High magic for that matter) makes it a great opening gambit for your Magic phase, and it removes a lot of potential protections/offensive capabilities that an enemy can use in their following Magic phase.

 reds8n wrote:
The theory/maths can be discussed elsewhere.

Let's keep this thread about actual experiences.

Thank you.

GENTLEMEN! ENOUGH! Please see above & get back on topic.

You realize that nothing about my post was math/theoryhammer right?
I played a game. That was my experience.

I should have been a bit clearer in that I was getting the point across that "The new End Times spells have opened up some new tactical opportunities" admittedly,

Sorry it seemed like you were just continuing to argue with TDA.

Played a 2k game against the Eternity King with a toned down variation of my investment banking list, these were the things I noticed.

- My ability to bank with Arkhan saved me everytime I rolled 1 or a 2 for a big spell and some little ones too

- I noticed even with the level 5, re-rolls and the circlet, I noticed neither myself, nor Malekith got off particularly more spells then we would have in the old magic phase except we probably traded 1 big spell for 1-2 more little ones.

- Instead of relying on my roll I had to rely on attrition to get spells through.

So I just played a 2400 point game against UL with slaaneshi/Nurgle CL. Turn 1 I doom and daekness's Nagash and then got song of seduction off.

Turn 2 I summoned Arkhan on a 24 dice phase using 5 dice. Nagash rolled a 7 on the miscast and lost one dice. I then just used him and Arkhan to summon as many terrorgheists as I could. My opponent conceded.

This does raise a question. How does RoC work with the 4D6 Magic?

Well if you read its rules, you would see that it says, if you ever roll more than two dice, you use the highest two.

The updated Arkhan from the undead legion rules really makes rather more sense under Magic of the End Times - with regular fantasy rules it felt like a big downgrade vs being able to store dispel dice.
But, the ability to store those power dice until you need them for the one time you roll a 1 or a 2 to cast a big spell is so handy. It made the difference between being able to cast a Purple Sun and not being able to

It's even better when you roll a one or a two for a spell that would fail, so you bank both of the dice.

Tis a shame he isn't as good as Mannfred still, but I'll take any improvement I can get.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
I used morathi at 1200 using the new magic. It was not pleasant for my opponent. He lost his stonehorn, level 4, and big block on turn 1. Turn 2, my warlocks word of pain'd his remaining block to S1, and then put a black horror through them. I went first. He didn't get a second turn.


The magic phase now truly has the potential to ruin the game. Especially with characters like Teclis, Kairos, Nagash and Morathi.

Just out of curiosity, why would you actually do this? Did you just set out to have an unfun experience for both you and your opponent?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OP, my experience was much more similar to yours. I recently played a 2400pt game. My Combo-Undead with Manfred vs my friends O&G. We both had two level 4 casters.

Although the magic was a bit more digusting, I think reading the rules and spells makes it seem like things are much worse. Having 50% lords overall has a larger impact on the scope and tactics of the game versus the new additions to the magic in my opinion. Plus, when half your army is filthy characters I expect there to be some pretty nasty magic flying around. In the end though, it didn't break the game and we were able to play a full 6 turn game

riburn3 wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
I used morathi at 1200 using the new magic. It was not pleasant for my opponent. He lost his stonehorn, level 4, and big block on turn 1. Turn 2, my warlocks word of pain'd his remaining block to S1, and then put a black horror through them. I went first. He didn't get a second turn.


The magic phase now truly has the potential to ruin the game. Especially with characters like Teclis, Kairos, Nagash and Morathi.

Just out of curiosity, why would you actually do this? Did you just set out to have an unfun experience for both you and your opponent?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OP, my experience was much more similar to yours. I recently played a 2400pt game. My Combo-Undead with Manfred vs my friends O&G. We both had two level 4 casters.

Although the magic was a bit more digusting, I think reading the rules and spells makes it seem like things are much worse. Having 50% lords overall has a larger impact on the scope and tactics of the game versus the new additions to the magic in my opinion. Plus, when half your army is filthy characters I expect there to be some pretty nasty magic flying around. In the end though, it didn't break the game and we were able to play a full 6 turn game

Models. I had just gone to visit GW after some tournament style games.

Played a game of Ogres vs. Rats.

Ogre level 4 maw vs. Rats with a friggin smorgeshboard of shamans and engi's with ruin and plague.


On the whole i found that magic can be more intense, but it can also be a lot less predictable. The entire "roll a d6 to see how many power dice you can throw on your spell" really changes things up a lot. My Rat playing buddy loved that all his guys had access to the full spectrum of spells, so he had LOTS of options from different vectors. I definitely liked that i had the entirety of gut magic at my disposal.


As for "broken" ... i think its too unpredictable to get consistent results to call out broken. Even Morathi can roll a 1 on that roll, and be limited to, at best. 4 + 1 + 3+ 6 = 14 on a cast. THat's an average roll for a level 4 to dispel, and that's assuming morathi rolls perfect on her one power dice and bonus d3. And this is Morathi ; the single most efficient caster in the game.

That gak can happen a lot, and it takes the surety out of auto-six-dicing level 6 spells a lot.


Personally i like the new magic rules so far. I want to get a game in against Nagash to see how absolutely nutty his force multiplier tendencies can get with the new magic phase.

I played a 2800 point game the other day. I had Vlad, Kemmler, and two level ones and my opponent had a WE lvl 4 on High magic and the Phoenix king. Since this was our first game with the new rules (having literally opened the book 2 minutes before the game) we definitely did a couple of things wrong.

Overall, I found the magic phase to be a little overwhelming when we're talking about knowing something like 20 spells each. The magic phase took quite a bit longer than normal. We both had the impression that it made magic far less reliable, though it obviously neuters the 6 spells to a large extent. We definitely had trouble getting a few of the higher casting cost spells off.

The main thing I remember is that it felt like more often than not we would roll high for the number of dice we were allowed for lower cost spells, and cap out at 3 dice for the higher costing ones. Perception and all, but it's certainly a problem, when your lower level wizards can't even get off invocation regularly.

I kind of feel like there's little place for low level wizards now. What's the point of a lvl 1/2 if they're gonna struggle to get anything off? With something like VC or Beastmen I typically take one lvl 4 with a couple of lower level casters. If everything is a loremaster and you have to randomly determine how many dice you get, I might as well just take two level 4s and never take the 1/2s.

I feel like it is a serious flaw anytime a game forces (or strongly encourages) specific list construction. This is applicable to both army books (wherein there's one or two playable lists) as well as the game itself. Why have the option for a level 1 wizard if the only ones that are any good are the level 4s?

I played a 2000 point game of my Empire v. LoC. I had 2 Lvl. 4s and he had 1 lvl4 Bray Shaman-lore of Beasts.

I saw that End Times Metal spell and it was a done deal.

I found that the 4d6 didn't totally make it crazy, because it was offweighed by the dispel being the top 2. There were most of the turns where I would roll a 6,4,2,1 or something similar. So, under those circumstances, I didn't really get a huge edge at all. The key was that d6 power dice allowed per spell. That really made me think a lot about what I wanted to cast and when. It's going to make a power stone a gimme for all my lists from now on.

What really made me excited was the having all the spells thing. I like my Gold wizard, but in previous rules, if you didn't get the right spells in the right circumstances, you are toasted useless. First thing is that ET Metal spell was BEAST, but I also was able to choose the buffs or to target his chaos chariots. His list was chaos warrior chariots and a horde of gors and 6 Minotaurs.

I got lucky and was able to stick my 2+ ward save where it needed to be when it needed to be there. The light wizard was less successful, but did manage to save some things with automatically passing Ld tests.

My opponent took serious advantage of casting the same spell over and over again, mostly with Wissan's Wildform. He was able to get some serious smash on with his guys all with just one caster.

Highlight of the game for me was when his Gors plus his Lords and Heros did something like 30 wounds to my Greatswords, and after armor saves and 2+ ward, I lost 3. Of course, earlier in the game his Gorebeast chariot hit my warded militia and did 6 kills, because I rolled badly.

Anyways, there's something there to analyse maybe, but ultimately it was a lot of fun.

Played a game tonight: 2500 points - I played Host the Eternity King rockin' a level 4 high magic high elf mage, a level 1 dark elf sorcereress rockin' dark magic, a MSU of Brolocks, and a MSU of Sisters of the thorn.

Opponent played skaven with 3 voidlock engineers, and a level 4 shaman, and ... there might have been a plague level 2 on a plague censor, but i can't remember exactly at this point.

Anywho... we up front made a gentleman's agreement ; he wouldn't 13th rat, i wouldn't dwellers below. This was more because we were testing new list options more than anything else, and wanted an opportunity to let some stuff play out.


Brolocks... good lord. They murderated a doomwheel turn one with some death magic, and failed to cast power of darkness. I then moved to the high mage who cast apotheosis and firey convocation after getting a spell or two dispelled. The Firey one was a bit lucky, i rolled 2 fives and a six, where my opponent rolled 4 dice to dispel and came up 2, 1,1,1. Yeck. High Magic mage was in a unit with Cauldron of Blood with Death Hag, 21 sword masters, and high elf... so Cauldron is now rocking a 3++ (due to the cap), and sword masters are rocking a 4++ with the mage. Sweet!

Sisters try throwing out the Life +2 toughness spell, but its dispelled.

Opponent goes and throws 3 back to back warp lightning which i dispel down. THen throws a wither which i let go (idea is this was the unit i am going to put Life +2 toughness on, and if i can get Throne Of Vines up, then it'll be net +3.... so meh, go ahead and wither). Throws a Plauge, which i use a dispel scroll on. Finally throws one last final chain lightnign with last caster. He then dispels Convocation before it can do any more damage.


Next turn, Put 4 wounds on doomwheel 2 with brolock death magic spell. Fail again to cast power of darkness with both Brolocks and level 1 sorc. Sisters throw out +2 toughness, but Throne is dispelled. High elf mage gets hand of glory and apotheosis out again maintaining wards.

Opponent gets a vermintide and disappointing cracks call off (only does 3 wounds to a unit... probably not a great spell to play vs. Elves, lol), i dispel 2 of 3 warp lightnings, the one that goes through the same unit of Sea guard the vermin tide hits, killing about half of the unit. Ouch. Death Frenzy goes up on Plague Monks (which i fail to dispel).

Final turn before we called the game ; Cauldron's bound spell for Frenzy, Level 1 sorc in the Cauldron unit gets power of darkness off finally, and takes a wound in the process, Apotheosis and Hand of Glory go up, i also drain magic the death frenzy off the monks (now whole frickin' cauldron unit is sitting on 3++... gross) Brolocks doombolt a target but fail the cast (rolled double ones on 2 dice), sisters get throne of vines dispelled.



You might be asking why i didn't throw out any purple suns, or black horrors, etc.... well for one thing i wasn't overly confidant on either the level 1 sorc or the level 2 brolocks getting off a Black Horror when i'd need a 4+ on the dice allowance roll... so i just opted for easier things to cast that i felt would return more results. In addition i found that i had enough dice to pull off lots of little stacking effects that ended up making a huge splash. My opponent and I both felt like we were never absolutely starved for either power or dispel dice, which was nice, and i could try to get and do multiple things done in the phase.


Only drawback ? I was tenative to take any big risks, as if i pick purple sun on my brolocks, and i roll a 1, its basically an auto failure. I opted for more safe but still dividend returning results.

Only other drawback ? What used to be a roughly 5 minute phase sometimes took 20-25 minutes on the turns we rolled hot on dice.


All in all i think the new magic phase is great.... but i think they will need to be really careful giving any caster a rule like Morathi's ... i can see her getting frickin' nuts quickly. I plan to proxy good ol' one-tata next game to see how badly i can crack the phase wide open.
That said... without the ridiculous extra D3 per cast, i think most level 4 and 5 casters are just fine.

I'm disappointed you didn't use the High Magic End Times spell.

Well, I ran into an annoying one. Dark Elf player spamming Savage Beast on his dreadlord - a few stacks of that and suddenly he's strength 10 and 10 attacks, rerolling hits and wounds.


So how do we all feel about stacking identical buffs and debuffs?