Age of Sigmar - Magic Question

[benaiah]

So, in the battle scrolls for just about every unit it says "Death wizards know the spell to summon this unit"

Example: summon vargheists

Do they know this by default or do you need to have a vargheist battle scroll in order for this to apply to any death wizards I may be fielding?

Thanks,
Benaiah

 

[LordTobiothan]

Using the lizard men example, they have a spell that can summon special characters, which you cant summon if you are already fielding them. So following that example, no you do not need the unit in order to use the spell.

 

[benaiah]

Thanks for the heads up. I also was wondering I heard of a spell that allows vampire counts to summon characters, is this true? Or are we no longer able to raise heroes?

Trying to figure out if my nagash can summon my mortarchs.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Not sure, I could barely stomach reading a lot of it, so my knowledge is bits and pieces atm, someone else may know for sure.

 

[benaiah]

I'm with you on that. I just got into VC's last year. I've got a ton of heroes including nagash and mortarch neferata. I've got 20k points in Warriors of Chaos from Tamurkhan to 20 of the forge world plague trolls.

I just need to know everything i can about the AoS magic because honestly it's about the only thing I like. Nagash can summon 8 units turn 1?

 

[Alabaster427]

I'm with you on that. I just got into VC's last year. I've got a ton of heroes including nagash and mortarch neferata. I've got 20k points in Warriors of Chaos from Tamurkhan to 20 of the forge world plague trolls.

I just need to know everything i can about the AoS magic because honestly it's about the only thing I like. Nagash can summon 8 units turn 1?

Nagash can only cast 3 spells each turn, so nothing close to 8 units. However, he has no limit to the spells that he knows. He knows the three on his profile and all of the summoning spells listed on unit warscrolls, but he also knows any spells that other death wizards in your army know.

 

[BarbariAndy]

Nagash can cast 5 extra spells a turn if he has only sustained 3 or less wounds. This plus his base level of 3 spells would give him 8.

 

[Alabaster427]

Nagash can cast 5 extra spells a turn if he has only sustained 3 or less wounds. This plus his base level of 3 spells would give him 8.

Ah. I missed that somehow. So yeah @benaiah Nagash can do that as long as he goes first or doesn't take too many wounds if he goes second.

 

[benaiah]

That's just crazy to me. He can literally raise an army from nothing.

 

[Demian]

He can!

Bear in mind that Nagash should be an equivalent(ish) to Sigmar in terms of power, the wind of Death at his fullest command. He can also fail to cast a spell and keep trying anyways. but not that one, spells are only cast once.

 

[Sception]

Please be aware that there is no rule preventing the use of multiples of the same special character, so it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the designers did intend for the lizardmen special character in question to be summoned in multiples, and one can't take the existance of a summonable named character as confirmation that summon spells are meant to be known even when the unit in question is not otherwise on the table.

Compare to the note for 'necromancer on abyssal terror' at the end of our own faction list. We are told to use the rules for arkhan the black for such a model, even though necromancers on abyssal terrors are not unique, and it is entirely within the realm of reason that you might include more than one in an army, or might include one in an army that already includes an arkhan the black (perhaps a 'nine mortarchs of nagash' army including both arkhanv as arkhan and the abyssal terror mounted dieter helsnicht as another arkhan).

I personally feel summoning was not meant to be restricted in this way, I'm just saying that the lizardmen character doesn't quite meet the bar of definitive proof of design intent, imo.

Summoning does have to be limited in some way, however, as spamming it can easily overwhelm most games, particularly when combined with stacking buffs to casting rolls, of which we have several. As such a limit, restricting summons to already present units is rather insufficient, however. Even if you only have two or three units available, that's still more than enough summoning to really bend this game out of shape. Probably a better option is to just consider units you intend to be able to summon along with your deployed army when working out what seems reasonable to play against your opponent.

 

[Alabaster427]

I was just reading through the TK warscroll and all of their summoning for archers, horsemen, etc. says DEATH WIZARDS know these spells, same as in VC, so RAW it would mean that Undead Legions still exists in some form and that VC and TK wizards can summon both VC and TK units that allow DEATH WIZARDS to do so.

 

[Oppenheimer]

So, in the battle scrolls for just about every unit it says "Death wizards know the spell to summon this unit"

Example: summon vargheists

Do they know this by default or do you need to have a vargheist battle scroll in order for this to apply to any death wizards I may be fielding?

Thanks,
Benaiah

Although many people have jumped on the any death wizard can summon anything band wagon it isn't actually clear. You should decide for yourself what you and your friends want. I personally am only going to allow summoning of warscrolls that are present in my starting line up.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Although many people have jumped on the any death wizard can summon anything band wagon it isn't actually clear. You should decide for yourself what you and your friends want. I personally am only going to allow summoning of warscrolls that are present in my starting line up.

Not a very useful answer in regards to pick up games though. You dont have time to clarify how each of you wants to play every uncertain rule, especially when you already need to decide how to make balanced forces.

Thats kind of the point of a rules section of the forum, people dont ask hoping for a "decide for yourself" answer, they are hoping the game handles it without any bias.

When it doesn't people tend to call it a flaw in the game, aos is somehow not being held to that standard though by a lot of people.

 

[Demian]

I have another question:

can diferent Wizards cast the same spell?

House ruling it... I don't know. I'd be inclined to say no for a number of reasons:

Casting Mystic Shield several times on the same unit can actually make a unit invulnerable to non-Mortal Wounds. Why? because the spell affects the scores obtained during the dice roll, not the dificulty itself. So a unit with a 3+ dificulty save has 2 Mystic Shields on, even on a roll of 1 (which by the way is no longer an auto-fail, regardless of modifiers) will get a 3.

It's a "long shot" I know, but having 2 Mystic Shields on a unit seems err... flawed.

Any thoughts?

 

[Alabaster427]

I have another question:

can diferent Wizards cast the same spell?

House ruling it... I don't know. I'd be inclined to say no for a number of reasons:

Casting Mystic Shield several times on the same unit can actually make a unit invulnerable to non-Mortal Wounds. Why? because the spell affects the scores obtained during the dice roll, not the dificulty itself. So a unit with a 3+ dificulty save has 2 Mystic Shields on, even on a roll of 1 (which by the way is no longer an auto-fail, regardless of modifiers) will get a 3.

It's a "long shot" I know, but having 2 Mystic Shields on a unit seems err... flawed.

Any thoughts?

To me, it seems like you can. Otherwise, having Nagash know all of the extra spells would be pointless outside his casting bonus. Additionally, taking more than one necromancer would also be pointless, save for if one dies.

 

[Demian]

Hmmmm well yeah, that makes sense.

I'm hungry, I'm not thinking clearly .o.

 

[GDD]

The way I understand it the spell "summon zombies" is part of the magic section on the zombie warscroll, thus you only know the spell if you have the scroll in your army. The spell wound then be used to sustain said units, or get more of them on the board.

I totally get LordTobiothan example, and I don't think I would blame anyone for playing that way. I mean it does say your wizards know the spell.

 

[Alabaster427]

Zecharias had an infinite number of scrolls with him at all times.... Nagash has nine (at least) Lexicons... I think it's fair to say that the wizards know the scrolls, even if they aren't fielded, but I also understand the logic behind not knowing them; I just think that the argument for the latter is much weaker, especially if you consider how it evolved from 8th edition to End Times summoning, to AoS.

 

[Infernal Skull]

At the risk of threadomancy, I'll put this out there:

Warscrolls are not units. When setting up your army, you're deploying units, not warscrolls. The warscrolls are simply the rules for the units. In theory, you have ALL the warscrolls, but are only using a portion of your force. That doesn't mean you don't still have those warscrolls available to you, and their rules would still apply. So, if you deploy a Death Wizard, he knows the summoning spells.

Also, many special characters (particularly in the Lizardman list) can be summoned. So, the logic that a unit can only be summoned if it's already on the table would mean that characters like Chakax, Tehenhauin, Tettto'Eko, Oxyotl, etc. could only be summoned if they are already there? That doesn't make any sense. Of course you're supposed to summon them to join the battle, not to add a clone of them to the battle.

 

[Alabaster427]

At the risk of threadomancy, I'll put this out there:

Warscrolls are not units. When setting up your army, you're deploying units, not warscrolls. The warscrolls are simply the rules for the units. In theory, you have ALL the warscrolls, but are only using a portion of your force. That doesn't mean you don't still have those warscrolls available to you, and their rules would still apply. So, if you deploy a Death Wizard, he knows the summoning spells.

Also, many special characters (particularly in the Lizardman list) can be summoned. So, the logic that a unit can only be summoned if it's already on the table would mean that characters like Chakax, Tehenhauin, Tettto'Eko, Oxyotl, etc. could only be summoned if they are already there? That doesn't make any sense. Of course you're supposed to summon them to join the battle, not to add a clone of them to the battle.

Well, there's debate on which summoning spells are known. I lean to the side that all wizards in play know all spells that say they know them, regardless of whether or not that particular warscroll has a representative unit on the table or not, but I'm not going to rules lawyer at this stage.