End times magic shenanigans

[Demian]

But I like the "we get all spells from the Lore with all wizards thing" D:

Anyways, we've yet to play a game with both full End Times magic and house ruled magic. I don't know the Storm of Magic rules, though .o.

It's still a good excuse to use Lore of Nehekara for a while. Their spells are quite good too, I believe, and I'll use them before 9th gets to us and we get separated from our cousins again D:

 

[Yorga]

Been bad mouthing the 4D6 and re-casting spells for some time on the forums now. :swear:

Got to finally give it a go last night. Yeah...it's ASS! :slapface: Just as dumb as I imagined. Playing against an opponent with level 4 High Elf Archmage and a Loremaster of Hoeth with Book of Hoeth. He got a 21 dice casting phase. Watched him pick up what looked like a deck of playing cards. Was in fact the entire set of magic cards. Then watched him proceed to one dice each of the low level spells putting hexes and augments into the main combat we had. I finally picked up a magazine and started to read it. If I was a smoker I would have gone outside for a long smoke.

The game was boring beyond belief. Did not matter what our respective troops started out to be. After fifteen hexes and augments you can make gnoblars beat chaos chosen. Could they MAKE the game any more worthy of a YAWN?:boring:

Even though he slaughtered me (with me giving him the game in turn 5) he too agreed that the magic system is ass and that if adopted for tournament play you might as well kiss the two hour tournament rounds good-bye.

Pretty sure my club will be sticking with Warhammer Magic (as is/was).

 

[najo]

I find between lore master and recasting both, it hurts armies that rely on specific support spells like ours because 1) we can't keep up with damage spam and 2) our specific spells might fail from rolling a 1 on number of dice or whatever.

@Yorga what changes would you make or how would you have done end times magic?

 

[Demian]

Sad to hear it Yorga. I was hoping the magic phase would be less cheesy, but by every other report I hear, we're going to have to house-rule it =(

I'd twitch it with the following:

• Know all spells, but no recast: each wizard may attempt each spell he knows once, fail or not, dispel or not.
• D6 roll to see how much dice any wizard can use to cast/ dispel, but leave the Army-dispel limit-free.
• Models that generate spells in other fashion than the "original" (like Loremasters of Hoeth) keep their spell generation as stated (no loremaster for them). Any other "regular" wizards (with usually a singular lore) would know all spells, as per End Times magic.
• No lost concentration (I like this )

Would have to discuss this with my group, and see if we can come to an agreement.

 

[Yorga]

I find between lore master and recasting both, it hurts armies that rely on specific support spells like ours because 1) we can't keep up with damage spam and 2) our specific spells might fail from rolling a 1 on number of dice or whatever.

@Yorga what changes would you make or how would you have done end times magic?

Honestly I would just stick with plain old magic. BUT, if you needed something to really reflect the cataclysmic spells after the Vortex goes down then why not force the players to buy up all those unsold Storm of Magic Books? The magic does dominate the game much more in that book but does not rise to the level of absurd if you use the rules straight out of the book and incorporate the fulcrums and all. The only downside is that book only changed the basic 8 with some new spells. You would have to account for race magic.

IMHO the Khaine magic rules are not fun and ruin the game making it all chance and army selection instead of a competitive game of tactics.

 

[najo]

Ironically, end times magic is mostly a streamlined storm of magic. The 4d6 winds, the spells are taking from storm of magic with only a few changes. In fact, storm of magic covers all the lores, including racial magic.

The real culprit is recasting, lore master for everyone and the d6 dice for casting and dispel. Those are the main changes. If you removed those the rules, you would have a streamlined storm of magic rule set.

 

[Yorga]

No...there is a little wheel you spin each turn and it tells you what lore is in ascendency. It only covers the basic 8.

 

[najo]

The wheel has the eight lore yes, but then four lores are associated with high magic and the other four are associated with dark. Then each secondary lore (vampires, waagh, gut magic etc) is associated to two different lores. That is what the small symbols around the spinner are. So when you get a basic lore, it makes high or dark and then two different secondaries in ascendancy.

Also, the cataclysm spells add spells to every lore in the game. That is where they pulled the end times spells for Khaine from, with minimal revision.

That is what I mean about Storm of Magic covering all the lores.

 

[Sception]

Yup. It's actually a pretty spiffy ruleset. Not balanced, of course, but that's not the point of storm of magic to begin with, and it doesn't fundamentally break core mechanics or render them unfun. The only thing I would add to storm of magic for 'magical apocalypse' games is something to discourage (not disallow, mind) six dicing everything in the hopes of getting irresistable force. My favored options include:

1) miscasts are worse for more dice. Maybe roll as many dice as you got sixes, and your opponent chooses which two are your miscast results .

2) instead of or in addition to the above, perhaps get rid of irresistible force altogether. Instead go back to double ones being miscasts (the spell is still cast if the casting value is met and it isn't dispelled), and make sixes on both casting and dispel dice 'exploding' (ie, for each six, roll an extra die and add to the total, these die aren't exploding but can cause miscasts). That way, if you roll sixes the spell is harder to stop, but not impossible.

3) allow invulnerable saves / look out sir against the auto-death spells, although this might require switching magic resistance back to extra dispel dice instead of improved invulnerable, or it might be too easy to effectively make a few units per army just immune to offensive magic.

For the record, all of these are house rules I've enjoyed and recommend trying for regular games as well.

 

[Yorga]

The wheel has the eight lore yes, but then four lores are associated with high magic and the other four are associated with dark. Then each secondary lore (vampires, waagh, gut magic etc) is associated to two different lores. That is what the small symbols around the spinner are. So when you get a basic lore, it makes high or dark and then two different secondaries in ascendancy.

Also, the cataclysm spells add spells to every lore in the game. That is where they pulled the end times spells for Khaine from, with minimal revision.

That is what I mean about Storm of Magic covering all the lores.

Dangit! You're 100% right Najo. I own Storm of Magic but could never get my 'mates' to play it. I totally missed the secondary ascendancy notations. The other part about Storm of Magic that made that campaign more balanced was that victory was simply who had the most fulcrums. Loss of troops and such were irrelevant. Some of the End Times scenarios work like that. But Tournament play does not work like that and thus is skewed by adding Khaine Magic.

 

[Seneschal]

What tactics do people suggest using khaine magic? I've listed mine already after playing a dozen games but what do you all recommend?

 

[Yorga]

What tactics do people suggest using khaine magic? I've listed mine already after playing a dozen games but what do you all recommend?

Besides pretending it doesn't exist and ignoring it altogether? Well assuming we're talking about tactics Undead can use, I'd say the Casket of Souls is a must. Book of Ashur really helps a lot. Hex Scroll is a must for dealing with those annoying level 2 Loremasters of Hoeth. Sure he has 56 spells. Let the first one go through and then turn him into a frog.

Take a combination of vampires, necromancers and lich priests that have access to Shadow, Death, Light and Vampire spells. Hex and augment your combats. Forget the big nasty spells. With the right augments and hexes, skeletons and even zombies can waffle stomp Chaos Warriors.

 

[Patrunkenphat7]

So I'm sure this has been discussed a lot... But I play Undead Legions, and my buddy plays Legions of Chaos. We also play with non-Legions opponents like Ogres and Dwarfs. Should our playgroup use the End Times magic rules? The easy answer is obviously "do whatever you want," but rather than testing the new magic and putting it up for a vote, I'd just like to know if the new magic is meant to be played in games outside of playing against the new Elf super army. I guess the new magic falls into four potential categories in my mind, and I'm wondering what the consensus is:

-Khaine magic is meant for all games of 8th edition Warhammer
-Khaine magic is meant for any game of Warhammer involving any of the End Times armies
-Khaine magic is meant only for games with the new Elf super army
-Khaine magic is only meant for optional special End Times scenarios regardless of what armies are playing

Also if I play my UL army against a random opponent, do they have any standing to tell me it's not a real army? Obviously before Khaine I would think the consensus is no. But now what if I play against someone who wants to play Khaine magic rules? Can I tell them no, or do I pretty much not have an argument since I am playing an End Times army? I'm just confused.

Thanks for your input!

 

[Smacula]

After playing a few games, I agree that you need to load up on low cost hexes and augments. and just recast. I think a magic heavy vampire lord/MN, the casket and titan are good, anything that allows to add dice or value to a cast is also extremely helpful.

My issues are recasting and knowing all the spells. I think wizards should know the signature and then roll for the rest as normal. Knowing 6,000 spells as is the case with Slann and the Lore Master of Hoeth, is bad for both players. Waiting for your opponent to decide which of their 7,396 spells to cast totally bogs the game down and then when they recast miasma or the withering on your entire army is just tiresome.

Multiple wizards should be allowed to have the same spell, but should not be able to recast. I am not sure that limiting the known spells really meshes with the large number of dice. If you don't break concentration, I think it should be ok.

That said, I also prefer the standard magic rules to End Times magic.

It was my understanding that the end times magic rules only "have to be played" if you are playing an elf legion. The magic isn't in either chaos or undead. If you are playing Chaos and Undead, you get the summon infernal legion spell, Lore of Undeath, and updated chaos tables, and changed to unstable for demons and generals of undeath, but not ET magic.

 

[najo]

So I'm sure this has been discussed a lot... But I play Undead Legions, and my buddy plays Legions of Chaos. We also play with non-Legions opponents like Ogres and Dwarfs. Should our playgroup use the End Times magic rules? The easy answer is obviously "do whatever you want," but rather than testing the new magic and putting it up for a vote, I'd just like to know if the new magic is meant to be played in games outside of playing against the new Elf super army. I guess the new magic falls into four potential categories in my mind, and I'm wondering what the consensus is:

-Khaine magic is meant for all games of 8th edition Warhammer
-Khaine magic is meant for any game of Warhammer involving any of the End Times armies
-Khaine magic is meant only for games with the new Elf super army
-Khaine magic is only meant for optional special End Times scenarios regardless of what armies are playing

Also if I play my UL army against a random opponent, do they have any standing to tell me it's not a real army? Obviously before Khaine I would think the consensus is no. But now what if I play against someone who wants to play Khaine magic rules? Can I tell them no, or do I pretty much not have an argument since I am playing an End Times army? I'm just confused.

Thanks for your input!

The army lists in the End Times books are all official. Undead Legion, Legions of Chaos and the three Elf lists you can play as normal armies.

The End Times Magic technically is used when either player uses an end times elf unit or list OR if one of the players wants to use the end times rules. Most players seem to agree the End Times magic rules are poorly designed, so we are seeing house rules or banning of them more than them being implemented. Because of the complication and length added to Warhammer games by end times magic, most tournament scenes are not allowing them. My advice is get your local players to either agree on how they want to use End Times magic OR require both players to have to agree to use it in a game.

I will go on record of saying End Times magic is pretty jacked up. I personally am not a fan of it and I love Warhammer and nearly 99% of what GW does most the time. GW got it wrong this time sadly.

Here is a suggestion from me about End Times house rules:
https://www.vampirecounts.net/threads/najo-ideas-for-end-times-magic-feedback-wanted.28379/