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How do!

Recently bought in heavily to Gloomspite Gitz, but at the moment, I’ve not yet bought any Wizard models, as I’m going Squig and Troll heavy.

Not really having a handle on AoS, I’m wondering if that might mean I’ll struggle during games?

Any and all comments and input welcome.

Not for every army. It depends on how optimal and op the spells are at your disposal. If the wizard doesn't have access to optimal spells then taking him is rubbish.

Just remember that wizards are most armies primary way not just of casting spells, but countering spells as well. It's not like the old world where you loaded your leads up with a few counterspell scrolls.

So if you've no anti-magic options within your army, you've just handed the magic phase to your opponent to do what they want with it. Even just one wizard can at least give you a chance to counter a spell and disrupt your opponents plans.

On one hand, Gloomspite are an army that does not need its wizards. It manages perfectly fine without them. On the other hand, adding a wizard or two is simply so dam cheap for them there is little reason not to unless sticking strictly to a certain theme. The fungoid cave-shaman sticks out as a really nice support option since he also generates extra command points and has above average durability.

Wizards are not vital, but certainly useful. Even if only to help dispel annoying endless spells.

As others have said the ability to dispell is pretty big against some armies with bound spells like osiarchs who get big buffs from them.

In addition to what was said, wizards are usually the only way to dispel endless spells, which can otherwise make your life annoying.

 Overread wrote:
Just remember that wizards are most armies primary way not just of casting spells, but countering spells as well. It's not like the old world where you loaded your leads up with a few counterspell scrolls.

So if you've no anti-magic options within your army, you've just handed the magic phase to your opponent to do what they want with it. Even just one wizard can at least give you a chance to counter a spell and disrupt your opponents plans.

And dispel endless spells. You really don't want to　have fec have　chalice always on, even on your turn.

Bad enough if they get　it on their turn. Have half of damage you deal(unless you wipe unit) get healed both turns suck.

Not to mention all the movement blocking etc those can do if you can't get rid of.

Can Endless spells be cast after they’ve been dispelled?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can Endless spells be cast after they’ve been dispelled?

Yup. You can recast them, which is actually why sometimes you want to time the dispel when it's 100% going to affect your units. Sometimes, a lot of them are immobile after the initial cast like the Everblaze Comet, which is safer to leave on the board once you've moved away from it, assuming it's not directly on an objective, since dispelling it only allows your opponent to recast it somewhere else more useful.

Speaking as a Gloomspite (often heavily squig based) player?
Yes, I could absolutely play effectively without a wizard (or several).

But I'd rather not.
Others have already pointed out the value in countering spells and dispelling endless spells.
I'll add the ability to cast our own endless spells to the list of reasons to include Gitz wizards. I LOVE the Gitzs endless spells! Its part of the reason I chose to play the army. Without my wizards I wouldn't be able to do that.

If you want to keep the theme it’s worth noting that troggoth hags are also wizards.
Gives you a big troll and helps with magic.
As a flip side they can also hurt the casters and are fairly resilient too.

And they exude raw sexuality.

Put me in the Essential column.

I think I've included a Wizard in damn near all of my games of AoS 2.0. For a fun pickup game where I can use an Endless Spell for gaks and giggles to a serious game where I can use one of the "usual suspect" Endless Spells. Their utility is just too great to not take a Wizard. Any game where I didn't take one, I had the feeling that I was leaving money on the table, so to speak.

But mainly, it was just to be a dispel machine.

YMMV.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
And they exude raw sexuality.

Ahh, a fellow man of fine taste. A fedora tip to you.

Depends on the army and sometimes the faction of that army moreso than the army itself.

As another new AoS player, it seems kinda complicated, in that some armies are *so* strong magically compared to others that unless you make a massive investment into magic, you'll just get totally shut down if you come up against one of those armies. Like a normal wizard just isn't going to do much of anything at all against Teclis/Kroak/LoC/Nagash that are casting automatically on 10s / getting +3 or more to cast / rerolling casts and auto-unbinding / etc etc.

Some wizards offer stuff besides casting though, so like for your gits it seems a fungal shaman seems popular for the 4+ for a CP and because it's so cheap that even if its casting abilities end up being totally useless in many matchups, it still offers you something. And there are a lot of factions where having at least a single dispell/unbind will come in handy against. So it seems like something you either go heavy into with the tools you need to make it work, or you take one 100ish point wizard and just write off their casting in some matchups.

Given how weedy Gobbos are, do I have anything in particular to fear from Endless Spells?

I mean, D6 mortal wounds on Gobbos, big wow?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Given how weedy Gobbos are, do I have anything in particular to fear from Endless Spells?

I mean, D6 mortal wounds on Gobbos, big wow?

Not all spells just deal damage, and some can really mess up units ability to fight or move, some buff your opponents units. Some are also really good at taking out hordes (Like Morks Mighty Mushroom).

See as a dwarf player I don't really cast magic, but by grungi I do shut it down!

And when you see a 70 point endless spell do nothing because your rune lord did his thing it makes you feel warm inside.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Given how weedy Gobbos are, do I have anything in particular to fear from Endless Spells?

I mean, D6 mortal wounds on Gobbos, big wow?

Howabout half the damage you do gets negated?

-1 to hit/-1 to attack whicherer is inconvenient for you.

Roadblock you　have to move around at half speed?

Wall that blocks los, another roadblock and　gives -1 to hit on 5+ to nearby units.

Generally all can be used to roadblock your army big time. Remember you can't walk through them.

I'm a big fan of using Endless Spells with my Sylvaneth for just that purpose, block more LOS, charge lanes, and choke the board even more when used with loads of Wyldwoods. (now if only Sylvaneth was effective in any playstyle besides facesmash Winterleaf build)

Yep. Haven't found endless spell i would like to take for mw's yet. It's always other effects and roadblocking. Purest damage endless spell i use is geminidis and that's more for -1 to hit or attacks.

My favorite Endless spells to use are Gemenids, Prismatic Palisade and Balewind Vortex.

The massive damage ones I'm a fan of are faction specific. The Nightmare Hunter (OBR) is good for hero hunting. And the Warp Lightning Vortex is just disgusting, even still with it's range nerf. Obliterating someone's deathstar of tightly packed powerful units and heroes feels good

So basically less damage output than teclis's spell on shorter range and high cast value. While sweet enough not that it's even going to wipe stuff out(I face the Teclis one often enough and while it hurts it's still just 2.2MW per unit. This one does less). The movement hurting feels like the real winner here too

I'm not sure which you're talking about specifically, but the Warp Lightning Vortex is not weaker than Teclis' spells. Through spamming spells, Teclis can output loads of damage(Dirty Teclis player here), but the Warp Lightning Vortex is no joke.

On the turn it's cast, it can hit every unit within 6" of any of it's pylons, for 2x d3 damage, potentially spiking to d6 if you roll 6s on the effect roll. If you stick it on a mob of enemies, with all 3 pylons near them, the chance to deal mortals is a 2+

Then, if the enemy doesn't dispel it, or cannot move out of 6" from the pylons, they get hit with potentially another d3/d6 damage.

2x d3/d6, potentially 3x d3/d6 on everything within a large footprint is pretty damn solid from a single spell cast.

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not sure which you're talking about specifically, but the Warp Lightning Vortex is not weaker than Teclis' spells. Through spamming spells, Teclis can output loads of damage(Dirty Teclis player here), but the Warp Lightning Vortex is no joke.

On the turn it's cast, it can hit every unit within 6" of any of it's pylons, for 2x d3 damage, potentially spiking to d6 if you roll 6s on the effect roll. If you stick it on a mob of enemies, with all 3 pylons near them, the chance to deal mortals is a 2+

Then, if the enemy doesn't dispel it, or cannot move out of 6" from the pylons, they get hit with potentially another d3/d6 damage.

2x d3/d6, potentially 3x d3/d6 on everything within a large footprint is pretty damn solid from a single spell cast.

Oh missed the start and end. But for normal at best on 2-5 it's d3 mw, on 6 it's d6. Teclis does basically to every unit in enemy army d3 MW on 2-4, d6 on 5+. So twice odds get d6 MW.

Sorry about missing that twice doing effect. Though pretty easy to move away generally especially for units that worry about effect. Still it's only some units vs basically entire army with 2.17 per trigger vs 1.92 per trigger for vortex.

Didn't say it isn't solid but even with double effect I would say 2.17 per unit vs maybe 3.84 per unit when 3.84 is only for some vs 2.17 is essentially vs entire army.

Of course teclis costs more so one expects spell to be better.

It's harder than you'd think for your average unit to get out of range of the pylons, if they're caught in the middle of them, if they even get a chance to move away from them. Also the footprint of spell is pretty damn big. 3 pylons, 7 inches away from each other, and each pylon projects a 6" bubble from it. 6" range, +1" or 2" for the models' base, 7" space to the next pylon +1 or 2 for base, 6" range out of a second pylon. Nothing in a triangle roughly* 21" on each side can run or fly, and need to move away from that area or keep taking damage. My preferred delivery is a throw-away Grey Seer Skitter-leaping in to the front and catching a chunk of the enemy army in it. If the damage/placement is good enough, I might not even lose the greyseer

Though, I may be biased. I don't play against many naturally fast-moving armies in my local group. The fastest armies I see are Beastclaw Raiders (pylon sucks vs them anyways), Ironjawz, and FEC.

However, looks like it's my turn to be wrong about rules and make my local group even more angry at Teclis, I missed that Storm of Searing Light was for all enemy units within it's range. I thought it was a decent spell, but was using it as single target.

I shall fix that, by never playing against Skaven. Or Teclis

The Skaven Endless spell isn't typically taken. It's expensive and hard to cast, making it a hard sell to just toss in to any Skaven Army. I'm a big fan of the spell, so I write lists with it in mind, making it easy to deliver and cast.

Teclis however... You may not run in to him often. He's in a brand-new army that came out just this year, so nobody in your area might play him yet. But yeah, he's pretty damn strong.

I would say it's important to have a wizard in your army for magic defense purposes. Will it do much against some armies like Nagash, Skaven, or Teclis? Not really but you can try to dispel that key spell you don't want to see cast and you can attempt to get rid of endless spells on the board too. I play Ogors, Chaos, Legions of Nagash, and Seraphon and they all have characterful casters. If you're going with a cave list for grots, and it's not as fluffy then try a handful of games without one and see how you do. Worst case you find you need one best case no issues.