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I had a similar thought to my other topic, have you ever played without magical items?
Have you played against someone who took magical items and you didnt?
Have you agreed with your opponent that you both would not take magical items?
If you would play without magical items what would you add to your army with the points you normally spend on them?

This goes once again to 6th Edition, but there are a few armies where you could get away with it and have a decent leg to stand on. We had a Dwarfs vs. Chaos Mortals battle once that had no Wizards OR magic/runic items, specifically so we could fit more units in, but it meets your criteria.

Some armies do it better than others, most notably off the top of my head High Elves(where most characters have Strikes First and Ithilmar Weapons) and Warriors of Chaos(with Ensorcelled Weapons and the Enhanced Reflexes Trait).

I play Empire, Renegade Crowns and Dark Elves. I always take magic items. I don’t know why I wouldn’t.

BanjoJohn wrote:
I had a similar thought to my other topic, have you ever played without magical items?
Have you played against someone who took magical items and you didnt?
Have you agreed with your opponent that you both would not take magical items?
If you would play without magical items what would you add to your army with the points you normally spend on them?

I don't think it'd make sense in my games since i play as skaven and most of our shooting is magical. Also our only high damage weapons (which are few in number) are also magic weapons.

I've never agreed with my opponent not to take magic items.

A little curious how you consider magic items since special banners, magic weapons and basically, wizards and their gear and most everything could qualify as having or using magic items including basic gear that has magical weapons such as dwarf runes, those special archer ladies that high elves have and as i said before skaven weapons and shooting that use warpstone to work. It'd also mean i couldn't use a fellblade, jezzails or doomwheel shooting at all in a game where my opponents could us a freaking dragon which is already a lopsided game for skaven.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

BanjoJohn wrote:
I had a similar thought to my other topic, have you ever played without magical items?
Have you played against someone who took magical items and you didnt?
Have you agreed with your opponent that you both would not take magical items?
If you would play without magical items what would you add to your army with the points you normally spend on them?

I don't think it'd make sense in my games since i play as skaven and most of our shooting is magical. Also our only high damage weapons (which are few in number) are also magic weapons.

I've never agreed with my opponent not to take magic items.

A little curious how you consider magic items since special banners, magic weapons and basically, wizards and their gear and most everything could qualify as having or using magic items including basic gear that has magical weapons such as dwarf runes, those special archer ladies that high elves have and as i said before skaven weapons and shooting that use warpstone to work. It'd also mean i couldn't use a fellblade, jezzails or doomwheel shooting at all in a game where my opponents could us a freaking dragon which is already a lopsided game for skaven.

I suppose I mean, items and banners given to characters and units which are magical, but not the equipment that a unit comes with as standard.

I've never been one to go ham on magic items for my leaders (usually one or max two per character) with Dwarves getting powerful rune weapons being the exception. That said, I wouldn't really be interested in playing without them entirely - a magic sword or cursed crown here and there really adds a lot of flavour to the game.

I have always found dwarf runes to be a broken system, custom built magical weapons with tons of properties, never made sense to me that high elves or dark elves didn't have a similar rune system being that they are even more magical, or at least a wider selection of magical weapons to choose from

High Elves and Dark Elves can use magic to cast spells, whereas Dwarves only interact with magic through rune-lore. Makes sense to me - Dwarves want total control over magic and so bind it into runes.

Also, Dwarves are the master craftsmen, much better than elves, in the warhammer world. It makes sense to me that if anyone is going to get a DIY magic item system, it'd be them.

As to the balance, there were always a few nasty combinations but considering Dwarves essentially only got to play two phases of a 4 phase game I think it was alright. There were annoying, uninteractive Dwarf lists but it was mostly the massive amount of guns and cannons that were the problem, not the runes. If I was going to nix something from the Dwarf list it'd definitely 100% be the Gyrocopter, which I feel is really out of place in the list. I think Mantic's idea of Dwarves riding giant ravens is better if you want a flying unit.

my experience back in 7th against dwarves was they were pretty good in all 4 phases.

They had units you didn't want to fight that could slowly march up to you.
They had enough guns to may staying away from them dangerous. ]
They had enough magic resistance or dispell dice to nulify enemy magic phase (and maybe use anvil of doom or whatever it was to cast rune spells)
And they had T4-T5 units/characters with good armor and crazy rune weapons to demolish people in combat.

everything dwarves had was just... better points wise than what my high elves had to dish out.

Which is PRECISELY why I say to this day that that book was totally imbalanced for 6th.

I will say, I don't know how good dwarves are in the old world, I should read their army list.

It seems like, with Strength being de-coupled from AP, that many weapons are less deadly, and it also seems like you don't gain +1 armor for being mounted any more, just +1 armor for barding.

Edit: it just feels like high elves should have like... 12 magic weapons and more magic armor options for being so "magical", I don't think focusing only on spell casters and having limited combat character choices is fitting for them.

I'm not a big fan of that 6.5 edition book, prefer the older 6th ed book myself - the writing is just a lot more fun in it too.

But Dwarves were always just boring and unfun to play against more than over powered. Like they're a frustrating denial list, and you've got an unpleasant game ahead of you dealing with them.

It's a shame, because I absolutely love the look and background of Fantasy dwarves, but I never really felt the army was living up to it. I prefer Warhammer Renaissance's fairly elegant solution of just giving the bloody Dwarves movement 4. Might seem like heresy, but they only had movement 3 from legacy rules in earlier editions where heavy armour and shields reduced infantry movement much like barding reduces cavalry movement in 6e. I think giving them just that extra inch of movement allows you to therefore tone back a bunch of the more obnoxious shooting and have a mixed army with credible offensive capability.

As for High Elves, I thought the 7e book was reasonable enough, though I didn't play them. They had Always Strikes First which acted defensively fairly well, and bonkers good magic as well. I recall that in 6e they were a little bit on the lower end of the power curve along with Dark Elves, I think it's always been tricky to balance Elves where the defensive aspect needs to come from something other than toughness and armour.

Edit to add: I'm not against High Elves having access to bigger points allotments for magic items at all. Sounds cool to me, might be something to further make them feel different. High Elves should be badass.

I’ve played a few games with no magic items (paid for upgrades) as part of a campaign and it was fine, they got added as the campaign progressed so they felt like they meant something. I wouldn’t do it for one off games though.

I do wish magic items were a little more limited over all as they really just turn into list building tricks rather than cool and flavourful things (what respectable Orc Warboss lets his goblins run around with a magical banner? He’d nick it).

No magic items on my tomb kings? Sounds absolutely awful if I'm honest.

I'm an army of magically infused skeletons and statues. Would feel weird no magic items.

However a renegade crowns/empire civil war event where between rounds you earn magic items? Sure thats awesome!

I have played with no Magic Items.... it was called Warhammer Ancient Battles.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
No magic items on my tomb kings? Sounds absolutely awful if I'm honest.

I'm an army of magically infused skeletons and statues. Would feel weird no magic items.

However a renegade crowns/empire civil war event where between rounds you earn magic items? Sure thats awesome!

This actually sounds like a challenge. I've built a rather sizeable TK army for 6th, and I think I'll give "no magic items" a shot when they hit the field. Which would mean, I assume, no Casket.

BanjoJohn wrote:
I had a similar thought to my other topic, have you ever played without magical items?
Have you played against someone who took magical items and you didnt?
Have you agreed with your opponent that you both would not take magical items?
If you would play without magical items what would you add to your army with the points you normally spend on them?

Yes to the 1st three.

As for what I'd add? More minotaurs is my default.
Seriously though it'd depend upon the army & what I was in the mood to use. All of my Old world armies are just my existing WHFB armies. All of wich are in the 3-5k pts range. Add to this that I don't have set lists.
So I've got plenty of options.

When playing against Kislev or Dogs of War, indeed. They are limited to the Common ones, so it feels... fair.

BTW I discovered not so long time ago that the Dogs of War, in 6th edition, had a list of Magic items published for a Campaign Weekend in 2005 and 2006 by Games-Workshop Italy!

We have tested them and they seems balanced enough, so we are including them.

That leaves Kislev... being Kislev.