End times magic shenanigans
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I'm just confused why they would add storm of magic style super spells and four dice magic phases to make them functional, then turn around and cripple them with the stupid d6 limit.
Hmm, good point. Although you roll the dice after declaring which spell you are casting. So you could get totally screwed on what spells get through in what order. Though it does keep the magic phase from becoming a si
ice fest and it forces players to rely on low casting value spells. Hmm... Actually that is a very interesting twist to 4d6 magic. It curbs nuke spells and the recasting means you will eventually get a utility spell you need through.
ice fest and it forces players to rely on low casting value spells. Hmm... Actually that is a very interesting twist to 4d6 magic. It curbs nuke spells and the recasting means you will eventually get a utility spell you need through.
I agree. How does it work with the Reign of Chaos table since that is based on 2d6 winds?
From what I read (and I don't have the book, so I could be wrong), you can only recast spells you successfully cast. So if you try to cast a utility spell, and roll one for the allowed dice, and then fail to cast it (at least a 1/3 chance, regardless of the spell), then you cannot even try again.
And I'm sorry, but I think allowing spam casting of low level spells is terrible in and of itself. We don't want to go back to that.
How many of you played storm of magic? Did any of you have problems with it? I played several games, and the 4d6 and super spells and such - I thought it all successfully brought out the feeling of an epic magical eruption blowing over the land. It played like I thought it was supposed to play, and it seems like it would have been perfect for 'end times magic' exactly as it was, without the fiddly little changes this new incarnation brings which, frankly, all seem to be detrimental to a good game from where I'm sitting.
Admittedly, I haven't played with these rules yet, but they seem to mostly be frustrating as hell rather than fun. Forcing players to rely on spam casting piddly little spells seems like the opposite of fun, and especially seems like the opposite of epic.
If only you could roll how many dice you get before choosing the spell.
Does anyone know if you have to choose what level of a spell with multiple casting levels you're trying to cast before rolling the die, or if that at least can be decided after?
Infernal Skull
Wight King
For the life of me I don't understand why they can't just use the generation system from 6th Ed magic:
Power: 2D6 dice for the army +1 per wizard level on the table.
Dispel: 2D6 for the army, +1 for every 2 levels, rounded up.
Wizards can roll one more dice than their level when casting. No limit on dispelling. Levels are not added to the rolls.
Simple. Quick. Reliable. Scalable. Balanced.
Unless they just want magic to be totally random and wacky.
Power: 2D6 dice for the army +1 per wizard level on the table.
Dispel: 2D6 for the army, +1 for every 2 levels, rounded up.
Wizards can roll one more dice than their level when casting. No limit on dispelling. Levels are not added to the rolls.
Simple. Quick. Reliable. Scalable. Balanced.
Unless they just want magic to be totally random and wacky.
Because that led to Wizard-spam... which is fine if you're into that kind of thing. Also Dwarves would be f**** with that system.
Infernal Skull
Wight King
Magic was never that bad in 6th, though. None of the spells were game-breaking unit-deleters. And you could take multiple dispel scrolls, so if you didn't want to go magic heavy, you could still shut down a magic heavy opponent. Dwarfs got 4D6 dispel dice for the army and had other magical defenses built into their list. (I think runesmiths generated dispel dice and they may have had runes that equated to magical resistance or dispel scrolls.)
And as far as wizard spam, you were restricted to the number of characters, not the point % of characters, so the number of wizards capped out at a point and if you took many, you wouldn't have any fighting characters.
I used to play a vampire army with +14 power dice and I had a friend whose tzeentch army had +22 power dice. That is before we rolled. Your right that spells were less powerful, so it really wasn't that bad, no different than an army that has a lot of shooting. But it took allot of the interaction out of the magic phase.
Where I think magic should go is somewhere between 6th and 8th. Tone down nuke spells one step. Maybe allow ward saves or look out sir. Rebuild shadow lore so it's more augment and hex based. Right now the lore of shadows and illusions is the best combat lore. That seems wrong.
As for the winds of magic. Roll 2d6 like now, with opponent getting highest of two dice. Then add one for each wizard you both have, with no 12 dice cap. Dwarves add one for each Rune Smith and should have other items that add dice. If your primary army and general are dwarves, you get to add +2 to dispel attempts when not dispelling with a wizard.
Wizards can use up to six dice to cast (and dispel) but for each dice over their level, the wizard risks greater effects on the miscast table. Get rid of broken concentration.
I'd prefer available power/dispel dice to scale to game size rather than number of wizards. Less easily abused that way, and higher level spells can be more powerful without forcing magic spam just to counter the magic spam your opponent might bring.
Tying the game's rules to much to the point value becomes too meta-y. If I build a heavy shooting or fighting army, my guns don't shoot better in a higher point game and my troops don't fight better. Magic having the winds of magic roll to keep it somewhat balanced, and then allowing wizards and anti-magic choices to boost armies magic or magic defenses is totally fine. If I am playing a magic heavy army, and you have little magic defense, I should get spells through.
With that said, magic needs to be fine tuned for balance. Tone down the worse offenders. Make effects a bit more utility/ hex/ augment and support for our armies (thus requiring dependence on armies to accept hex/augments and provided bunkers for the wizards). Shadow is a prime example of a lore that plays the least like its fluff feels. It be amazing if shadow had subtle, but powerful effects. Things like making a unit harder to hit or successful to hit rolls against them having to be rerolled. Making their attacks ignore armor saves. Making the units compare Initiatives instead of WS to hit in combat and compare LD values to deal damage (i.e. mindrazor). The lore doesn't feel very shadowy right now.
Magic resistance needs retooling too. The value should add to the casting value needed if your spell target's that unit, in addition to boosting the ward saves against damage. That way it would work against anything choosing that unit as a target, but wouldn't lead to the abuse of previous editions.
With that said, magic needs to be fine tuned for balance. Tone down the worse offenders. Make effects a bit more utility/ hex/ augment and support for our armies (thus requiring dependence on armies to accept hex/augments and provided bunkers for the wizards). Shadow is a prime example of a lore that plays the least like its fluff feels. It be amazing if shadow had subtle, but powerful effects. Things like making a unit harder to hit or successful to hit rolls against them having to be rerolled. Making their attacks ignore armor saves. Making the units compare Initiatives instead of WS to hit in combat and compare LD values to deal damage (i.e. mindrazor). The lore doesn't feel very shadowy right now.
Magic resistance needs retooling too. The value should add to the casting value needed if your spell target's that unit, in addition to boosting the ward saves against damage. That way it would work against anything choosing that unit as a target, but wouldn't lead to the abuse of previous editions.
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Bring back the Card system from 5th edition =P
In all seriousness though.....whatever they do to magic, I think they need to make it less random. Get rid of these extra dice rolls. I mean, really, Is there any other phase in the game where you would say for instance, "ok now before you nominate charges, you need to roll a d6 to see how many charges you can declare," or "ok, now before your units shoot, roll a d6 to see how fast the wind gusts are and how many units will be able to shoot." It's stupid. It's lazy game design really. They realized that they couldn't actually write a balanced set of rules for magic, so they just added in extra randomness to cover there mistakes.
In all seriousness though.....whatever they do to magic, I think they need to make it less random. Get rid of these extra dice rolls. I mean, really, Is there any other phase in the game where you would say for instance, "ok now before you nominate charges, you need to roll a d6 to see how many charges you can declare," or "ok, now before your units shoot, roll a d6 to see how fast the wind gusts are and how many units will be able to shoot." It's stupid. It's lazy game design really. They realized that they couldn't actually write a balanced set of rules for magic, so they just added in extra randomness to cover there mistakes.
I agree totally this new magic system is ridiculous and needs changing.
How much magic can you use this phase? - dice roll...
ok how much of your magic do you want to put into this spell - decide
ok how much of what you want to put into that spell can you? - dice roll
ok now can you successfully cast it? - dice roll...
ok will it be dispelled? - possible dice roll...
way too much randomness and rolling for each spell going on.
How much magic can you use this phase? - dice roll...
ok how much of your magic do you want to put into this spell - decide
ok how much of what you want to put into that spell can you? - dice roll
ok now can you successfully cast it? - dice roll...
ok will it be dispelled? - possible dice roll...
way too much randomness and rolling for each spell going on.
But neither do you have a cap on number of hit rolls attempted. You don't roll
6 at the start of the shooting phase to determine how many models may attempt to fire that turn, and if you did then it would be exceptionally foolish for that roll not to scale with points value.The winds of magic provide exactly such a limit on attempted spells cast, and it is problematic for that limit not to scale with game size. Imagine, again, if shooting was that way. If you could expect more or less exactly the same amount of cannon and mortar fire regardless of how many points you were playing. Likewise, imagine if only units with ranged weapons were allowed saves against shooting attacks, which is what hinging dispel dice on number of wizards selected amounts to.
There are plenty of narrative reasons that could justify it scaling the winds with the game size - larger armies mean a greater emotional surge attracting warp/waagh energy, more death attracting more dark magic, and a greater fate hanging in the balance. Tying dice available to casters seems equally odd narratively, and, from my own experience, would be far worse, mechanically.
This I strongly agree with - not so much that it's too much randomness, but that it's too many rolls. In practice, it's likely to be the full on opposite of random, as players pick one or two cheap strong spells and reliably spam them out four, five, six, seven times per magic phase.
Under this system there are far too many rolls going on per spell attempt, and with the system strongly encouraging spam casting of small spells on few dice while doubling the dice available, there is also likely to be far more spell attempts per magic phase. This is a recipe for boredom and immersion breaking gamey spell spamming.
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It's not as random as it first seems. Winds of Magic is a bell curve. Your opponent gets the highest of the two and the pools you build are choices, with each added die to either pool removing randominess but increasing the odds of miscasting.
The new system adding a flat d6 cap to your total dice for add randominess. But the other parts are not as random as they appear.
The new system adding a flat d6 cap to your total dice for add randominess. But the other parts are not as random as they appear.
It adds a lot of time consumption (especially with reign of chaos added) to games where you already struggle to finish in two hours at tournaments. Therefore I do not like it.
Infernal Skull
Wight King
This, exactly.
it's the difference of:
"My army generates X amount of dice."
vs.
"I roll to determine the WOM pools."
"Then I roll to see if my wizards add any extra."
"Then I roll before each spell is cast to see how many dice I can roll."
And there's more book keeping to manage which spells have been failed so I don't try to cast them again with other wizards.
Don't know if it was answered... but:
In the Glottkin book, the Chaos Legions use the two highest results of the Winds of Magic roll..
With this, we will see a lot more harmful Daemon effects than before, and very few 2-4 results. There is also a thread where the Black Coach got steroids and can insta-fwoosh!!! on turn 1 (fwoosh: term to describe powerful magic by wizards).
I do like the fact that every wizard knows all spells from his magic lore. I tried to argue why a wizard could not cast some spells fluff-wise before, taking the example from the BRB to sustain my argument, but even then it kinda felt... odd.
Anyways, I don't have all the rules yet and maybe there are some designer's notes restrictions or RAW stuff that prevents cheesiness, but I doubt it.
PureSphinx
Ghoul
Well the good news is my Beastmen are good now 
Khorne marked Shard of the Herdstone Shadow coven army anyone?
Khorne marked Shard of the Herdstone Shadow coven army anyone?
Timothias
Zombie
Having tried out the new magic mechanics I have to say it's a lot of fun and feels very tactical, by no means crazy or silly or anything like that. We played it that if a spell is dispelled, it counts as failed - not sure if that is correct given some of the debate I've seen, but it certainly feels right.
The most broken thing about it actually is the massive toolbox of spells some wizards get. Nagash has a repertoire of 40 spells to choose from...
On the topic of stacking spells, what does stack? This is on the VC FAQ:
Q: If I have already cast a ‘remains in play’ spell such as Doom
and Darkness, what happens if I cast the same spell with the same
Wizard as a result of the Cursed Book? Can I target the same unit
for a cumulative effect or must I target a different unit? (p63)
A: You are free to target any enemy unit with the duplicate
spell as normal, including a unit that has already been affected
by the spell, in which case the effects are indeed cumulative.
The most broken thing about it actually is the massive toolbox of spells some wizards get. Nagash has a repertoire of 40 spells to choose from...
On the topic of stacking spells, what does stack? This is on the VC FAQ:
Q: If I have already cast a ‘remains in play’ spell such as Doom
and Darkness, what happens if I cast the same spell with the same
Wizard as a result of the Cursed Book? Can I target the same unit
for a cumulative effect or must I target a different unit? (p63)
A: You are free to target any enemy unit with the duplicate
spell as normal, including a unit that has already been affected
by the spell, in which case the effects are indeed cumulative.
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As I see it, the same wizard can't have multiple compies of RiP spells, but multiple wizards can use the same spell (if able.. which is possible now) once, targeting the same unit if they so wish it, to accumulate the effects.
So:
3x Curse of Years will NOT speed up the wounding rate, but cause 3 checks.
3x Doom & Darkness will make any Elf or Dwarf cower before a Bashee/ Terrorgheist.
Actually... RiP spells will be awesome (as they've always been) and bringing 2 lvl 4 wizards to stack them will be very dangerous.
Also, I like the idea that a spell fails when it's dispelled, since it'd be plain stupid to force a Doom & Darkness on a unit, just hoping you roll higher on your D6 than your opponent and fwoosh it.
So:
3x Curse of Years will NOT speed up the wounding rate, but cause 3 checks.
3x Doom & Darkness will make any Elf or Dwarf cower before a Bashee/ Terrorgheist.
Actually... RiP spells will be awesome (as they've always been) and bringing 2 lvl 4 wizards to stack them will be very dangerous.
Also, I like the idea that a spell fails when it's dispelled, since it'd be plain stupid to force a Doom & Darkness on a unit, just hoping you roll higher on your D6 than your opponent and fwoosh it.
Tomb Kings are rocking now too. Light council and their own magic plus Heiro titan.Well the good news is my Beastmen are good now