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eggsPR

Vampire Count
True Blood
Aug 28, 2011
1,136
Dublin
Azhgore said:
Gojira said:
All that said, I think the book isn't that great anyway. It's a bit hit and miss and you could easily lose 3 dice on a 5+ spell. Granted you could cast the 13+ spell on 1 dice but there is only one of those.

i like how u say that losing 3 PD on a 5+ spell is easy, but then make it sound like its harder to get the 13+ spell off with 1 PD when the chance to get either is exactly the same.. biased much? o.o have you used the book yet? if you havent then i suggest u give it a try. even if you do cop the unlikely event of losing the 3PD to the 5+ spell in 1 of ur turns, ill be surprised if you don't finish the game feeling like it was fun and useful.

Whole-heartedly agreed, although I'm probably the biggest supporter of the Book on these forums. The Lore attribute is down right scary in terms of effectiveness. I'll give you an example.

Last night, playing Ogres, my vampire thrall who had the Cursed Book cast Miasma on 1 PD. This thrall was on the flank in a zombie unit about to get tarpitted by 2 fodder units of knoblars. My General, Mannfred (yep, the real deal... practicing for a tourny which is allowing certain Specials, including Manny) was on a one way track towards a head-on collision of 8 iron guts with a Tryant Lord (Crown of Command) and BSB.

So, since I had tons of PD (10?) thanks to Mannys MotBA, he let the Miasma spell go (Mournfang reduced movement).

HOWEVER, what my opponent didn't expect was when I swapped Manny with the Thrall, then 6 diced purple sun, irresistable force horizontally across the battlefield from the zombie unit into his iron gut unit, killing every iron gut in the unit and killing a mournfang (rolled 27 dice and 5-6 got more PD, yep, 8 more PD). Then Spirit leeched (killed) his BSB with lower leadership from Doom and Darkness. My next turn Manny and his unit charged the knoblars and averaged an extra 4 DD and PD for 2 more turns thanks to his sword and chopping up knobblars! Tarpits are grrrreat for Manny!

Yeah baby... THANK YOU cursed book... Because it's hard to target the most important piece of your army when he's teleporting around! An yes, I tabled Ogres (3 purple suns helped too hehe)

Lastly, it really makes me chuckle when ppl don't realize its full potential... Cursed Book is as cool as last editions Blood Drinker or Helm of Commandment... it should be a must take, IMO. But this is a new edition, so when you see it everywhere, ppl will start to catch on.
 

Nagashizzar

Vargheist
Apr 22, 2011
617
Québec City
eggspr said:
Whole-heartedly agreed, although I'm probably the biggest supporter of the Book on these forums. The Lore attribute is down right scary in terms of effectiveness. I'll give you an example.

Greatest move ever!! :) :)

I'm now your #1 follower in the "Cursed Book" fan club. I really overlook this item until you created this thread!!
 

eggsPR

Vampire Count
True Blood
Aug 28, 2011
1,136
Dublin
Chaos_Born said:
You swapped your guys after doom and darknesso.o. But doom and darkness is lore of death, not shadow...

Ohhh crap yes you're right, my bad! Sorry it was Miasma on his Mournfang reducing his movement, Manny cast Doom/Darkness after the swap!

Doom and Darkness from the Book was a different magic phase!

With so many spells going off (Mortis Engine was present) against his level 3 wizard, it's hard to keep track of everything! edits made :)
 

Nedar

Wight King
Feb 17, 2008
438
Las Vegas
It's not that you could get 3dice for a 5+ or 1dice for a 13+ spell. It's the fact that the Cursed Book is a 100% reliable spell...something magic is notorious for not having: reliability.

A majority of the time you will get a clutch debuff out (the spells are useful most of the time) or draw out 2-3 dispel dice; THEN you can start casting your support magic.

I am indeed happy to hear that the Shadow attribute will work...this can get you out of hellheart range if you're lucky :)
 

eggsPR

Vampire Count
True Blood
Aug 28, 2011
1,136
Dublin
Nedar said:
It's not that you could get 3dice for a 5+ or 1dice for a 13+ spell. It's the fact that the Cursed Book is a 100% reliable spell...something magic is notorious for not having: reliability.

A majority of the time you will get a clutch debuff out (the spells are useful most of the time) or draw out 2-3 dispel dice; THEN you can start casting your support magic.

I am indeed happy to hear that the Shadow attribute will work...this can get you out of hellheart range if you're lucky :)

Very true. I've never failed to cast a Cursed Book spell... last night Mannfred used 3 dice plus the Mortis Engine Tome to cast the medium ION at casting value 12. I rolled 1, 2, 2... failed at 11... again, the Book never fails and always forces the opponent to make a decision to throw DD, key in getting off ION etc which activate goodies such as corpse carts!
 

Demian

Vampire Count
Oct 28, 2011
1,245
Plus all Remains in Play spells cast will draw even more attention if not dispelled, and I believe the Book casts 3 of them, and nice ones!

:D
 

Gojira

Skeleton
Feb 12, 2012
96
I did give the flip side of my own argument so I'm not sure why you think I was being biased, I gave the worst example and right afterwards I gave the best example. There are one of each, everything else is in the middle range, sorry if you misunderstood my post. I shall endeavour to up my brevity quotient!

I did also say I thought it would be ok in a heavy magic army and would draw out dispel dice. I will give it a shot at some stage. But it will most likely be in my MOTBA list. But not sure when I'll be finished with my no vamps phase.

Anyway, I was being unbiased and I did mention a way I thought it would be good despite me saying I didn't like it, which at least implies and giving the opposite side some thought. Maybe I offended some with my comment about the last book being boring. Again my apologies.
 

Dreadgrass

Necromancer
Dec 20, 2009
846
I like the Cursed book in support of a Ghoulking.

I don't use many big big spells so my army's pretty light on PD requirements besides a few raises. So I don't often miss the D3 dice the book absorbs,

If cast against an enemy fighting my Ghoulking they either:

1) lose D3 WS to take the emphasis off the fear test
2) lose D3 Strength so they have a harder time wounding him
3) lose D3 Toughness so they are wounded easier
4) lose 1 S and 1 T essentially the minimum results of 2 & 3 combined
5) lose -3 LD to make failing that fear test even more likely
6) Have to re-roll 6's to cut down their number of hits, wounds and saves. Plus it also make it very difficult to poison/ Killing Blow

Also, for those looking at the potential of "casting a 5+ spell with 3 dice" Every single other spell is at least a 9+ to cast, primarily being 10+. I'd be throwing 3 dice at any of those to get them off with any certainty anyway, so theres a much greater chance of getting "more bang for your buck" which is also certain to cast and unable to cause a miscast (especially useful when near a Mortis engine. My Ghoulking throws D3 dice into this and 1 dice into Invocation, so he can't miscast... at least not by MY actions, darn Hellheart)
 

LordUnderlord

Skeleton
Nov 3, 2011
55
There are too many flaws for it to be worthwhile imo.

  • It's expensive.
  • Takes up an arcane item slot.
  • Casts a random spell.
  • Inneficient usage of power dice compared to a level 4 caster.
  • Easily dispelled.

I'd rather take a dispel scroll, or something.
 
Jan 17, 2012
43
London-ish
Initially I looked over The Cursed Book and passed, but reading the comments here and mulling it over, it seems like a great item.

On average you're looking at 7 Power Dice, maybe more with Master of the Black Arts and channelling, to play with in your magic phase. If you're magic heavy then losing 1 to 3 Dice seems like a large bite from the potential spells you can cast, but if you're relatively magic light the Book seems a great investment.

Say you have a Vampire Lord (level 1 Wizard) and a Necromancer (level 2 Wizard), and one of them has The Cursed Book. At worst 3 Power dice go into the Book and draw out 2 or 3 Dispel Dice; or 3 Power dice go into the Book and your opponent doesn't Dispel the effect.

In both situations you're left with 4 Power dice vs. 1 to 6 Dispel dice (assuming the best roll of 4 and 3 for Winds of Magic and that they used 3 Dispel dice to stop the Book; to the worst roll of 6 and 1 and that they choose to ignore the Book).

If they have 1 or 2 Dispel dice left you're at the advantage, as you have 4 Power dice. If it's 5 or 6 Dispel dice, they had to let The Cursed Book through to have so many, so what have you really lost? You've just got off a spell from the Book.

If you hadn't used the Book, you'd still be relatively even with 7 Power dice vs. 4, 5 or 6 Dispel dice, which would likely see you getting one spell through anyway. The only difference is you'd choose that spell, while the spells in the Book are random.

That's at the worst, the Book swallowing 3 Power dice, with an average Winds of Magic roll. If the Book only takes 1 Power dice or you roll above average for Winds of Magic, you're in an even better position, surely?

And, looking at the reverse, in a poor Winds of Magic phase, say 3 to 4 Power dice vs. 2 to 3 Dispel dice, what spells are you effectively going to be able to cast? Perhaps you can have a confident attempt at one? Maybe try your luck at two and risk not meeting the casting values? So, why not then use the Book again, as you at least know as long as you have 3 Power dice it will work? And if the Book takes less than 3 Power dice, you can then use what's left on another spell, possibly unopposed.

The Cursed Books seems amazing for low magic armies.

A similar, positive arguement can also be made for magic heavy armies (ones with a level 4 Wizard and lower level support), you just need to decide after rolling Winds of Magic if the Book (and its spells or drawing out Dispel dice) is better value than an attempt (which can fail) at another spell from your repertoire.

With +4 to cast, on 2 dice you're rolling an average of 11, which is slightly higher than the casting value of four of the Books' spells, double one of them, and slightly less than the last. Five of those spells you'd throw 3 dice at anyway, and, although you can use 1 die, you'd probably want to 2 dice the last one. If the Book swallows 3 Power dice, yes, you're less powerful than if your level 4 had thrown 3 dice at a spell, but the trade-off for the Book being underpowered 33% of the time (by about 4 to 5 in terms of casting total) is that it doesn't fail to cast or miscast.

So, surely the only time you wouldn't use The Cursed Book in any army is if you had a more important spell to cast? Or needed all your Power dice to cast a combination of important spells?
 

Nedar

Wight King
Feb 17, 2008
438
Las Vegas
LordUnderlord said:
There are too many flaws for it to be worthwhile imo.

  • It's expensive.
  • Takes up an arcane item slot.
  • Casts a random spell.
  • Inneficient usage of power dice compared to a level 4 caster.
  • Easily dispelled.

I'd rather take a dispel scroll, or something.

*35 points isn't exactly "expensive" especially since you don't need much else on a necro.
*True, but then again necro's are cheap and all Vampire's can carry arcane items.
*Random spell, but they are almost always useful. Worst case would be Doom and Darkness against unbreakable armies really.
*Maybe, but it's GUARANTEED. A level 4 wizard can still fail an 8+ spell on 3 dice...The book will always get it's spell off and force a choice between a Hex (3 RIP ones) or dispelling.
*Perhaps, but that's kind of the point. Force them to chose between a free spell or using up dispel dice.

The Cursed Book is a wholly unique item, and gives VC players an interesting option: sacrifice PD for a guaranteed spell.

It can also add actual psychological fear into some opponents.
 

LordUnderlord

Skeleton
Nov 3, 2011
55
Nedar said:
LordUnderlord said:
There are too many flaws for it to be worthwhile imo.

  • It's expensive.
  • Takes up an arcane item slot.
  • Casts a random spell.
  • Inneficient usage of power dice compared to a level 4 caster.
  • Easily dispelled.

I'd rather take a dispel scroll, or something.

*35 points isn't exactly "expensive" especially since you don't need much else on a necro.
*True, but then again necro's are cheap and all Vampire's can carry arcane items.
*Random spell, but they are almost always useful. Worst case would be Doom and Darkness against unbreakable armies really.
*Maybe, but it's GUARANTEED. A level 4 wizard can still fail an 8+ spell on 3 dice...The book will always get it's spell off and force a choice between a Hex (3 RIP ones) or dispelling.
*Perhaps, but that's kind of the point. Force them to chose between a free spell or using up dispel dice.

The Cursed Book is a wholly unique item, and gives VC players an interesting option: sacrifice PD for a guaranteed spell.

It can also add actual psychological fear into some opponents.

Excuses, excuses... there are plenty of other options that don't require so much rationalization - I still don't see a reason not to take them instead.
 

Nedar

Wight King
Feb 17, 2008
438
Las Vegas
Rationalizing? I'm just answering your points.

The only item i'd seriously consider over the cursed book is the rod of flaming death, and that's not even arcane.
 

LordUnderlord

Skeleton
Nov 3, 2011
55
Nedar said:
Rationalizing? I'm just answering your points.

The only item i'd seriously consider over the cursed book is the rod of flaming death, and that's not even arcane.

You were making excuses for my points, rather than refuting them.

The rod of flaming death and all of our other bound spells are even worse than the Cursed Book. They all suffer from the same flaws (except for the randomness obviously) but to a much larger extent. There are plenty of better things to spend your points on, the Book is simply extravagant.
 

Azhgore

Skeleton
Jan 17, 2012
56
LordUnderlord said:
You were making excuses for my points, rather than refuting them.

The rod of flaming death and all of our other bound spells are even worse than the Cursed Book. They all suffer from the same flaws (except for the randomness obviously) but to a much larger extent. There are plenty of better things to spend your points on, the Book is simply extravagant.

take it easy mate, its constructive argument. how is putting forward rational points to disagree with your own claims a bad thing? if you want refuting arguments, then ill have a go as well.

i agree that its not expensive. u pay the same for 1 magic level. what do u rather take that u think is more effective for those points and why do u think that they are more effective spent that way?

yes its an arcane item, imo that would only be a problem if you only took one wizard and wanted him to have a dispel scroll. do u only take one wizard in a VC army? most lists that u will find on these forums have 2-3 wizards and VC certainly do perform at their best with good magical support. what other items do u take that u feel are better for arcane slots than the book?

u were right that its a random spell, but i believe that is a mute point considering that they all do one thing, and that thing is help your units win combat. it does this by making the enemy weaker so that u will either take less casualties, or inflict more, or in the case of soulblight, both. in some cases they do even more eg. decreased leadership will make them more succeptible to banshee and terrorgheist wails, terror tests, break tests and fear tests (the last of which also helps you hit more and get hit less, making your unit take less casualties and inflict more). so when im using the book, im thinking: if my opponant lets one of these spells go off, im going to have more chance to get a higher CR than my opponent.

i think that inefficient use of power dice is a good argument to make, and in fact i did have this opinion until people on this forum changed my mind. my mind changed because: its a guarunteed spell with no chance of miscast, it gives u access to hexes that u wouldnt have unless you randomly generated them, enemies hate having hexes cast on their untis (psychological fun), so in many cases ur enemy will use more DD than u used PD to get the spell off and in some cases even dispel scrolls, and lastly the book has remains in play spells, which, if cast, decrease ur enemies magic phase potential by making them use PD to get rid of lingering hexes.

easily dispelled is also a good point, but i dont believe that is a bad thing either. its also easily cast, with no chance of a miscast. like i said just above, a lot of the time the enemy will use more DD than u use PD with it just because of the psychological effect of them not wanting their units to be weaker. this takes pressure off of the rest of ur magic phase. i understand ur argument being that a lvl 4 wizard can get a spell off with higher casting values and that is indeed the trade off we are talking about. i beleive that it is worth it for the reasons i mentioned. i dont feel like this will change your mind so its probably an agree to disagree moment here.

it seems to me, correct me if i got it wrong, that u dont like the way bound spells run because theyre cast at weaker levels. i think that to then make them effective, they should be used either at the start of the magic phase to make ur opponent use more dispel dice than u used to cast them with to gain u a dice advantage (they will do this if they feel that they need to dispel it, which comes down to ur target selection), or at the end of the phase after your opponent has no dispel dice left. seeing as they are generally cheap to cast, u will be able to get them off with 1 or 2 dice.

imho it takes a lot of reasoning to realise the full effectiveness of the book, because at face value its easy to miss its good points.
 

Tawg

Vampire Count
True Blood
Jan 16, 2012
1,130
Something funny about the book, in regards to casting a Shadow Bound spell as well I thought of..

..The book specifies that you switch places with a model of the same unit type by the rules, so if a Necromancer with the Cursed Book were to be riding a CC, he could potentially switch places with a Vampire on Coven Throne :ghost:

Unless I have terribly mistaken the rules.


Also, to the nay-say of the Book, it's a bit silly to say the book is purely a bad item. Sure it involves risk, but if nothing in the game involved chance (And after all the entire game is chance) then what fun would there be?

I don't think it's over priced, for the same price of a wizard level you enable a vampire that you were putting off to the of your army purely for unit support very much variety in his ability. The spells would help any unit survive/kill in CC, so random or not, there are very few spells from the book that are completely worthless (Ld vs something immune to fear maybe?). Everything else will do something to help your CR, just don't throw the book around when it would have no impact.

Besides, we all know a dispel scroll it worthless because anything you actually want to counter is going to be cast with Irresistible force :skull:
 

Mikael.K

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Feb 25, 2008
2,643
Eskilstuna
Besides, we all know a dispel scroll it worthless because anything you actually want to counter is going to be cast with Irresistible force

Not all of those spells are IF, some go through by beating the casting value. The scroll is still viable I´d say xD.
 

Sneglzillas

Skeleton
Nov 23, 2009
74
Yes, a Corpse Cart is a chariot...

Smart thinking. Would be a cool rabbit to pull out of the hat :)

Cheers Tawg :devil2:

Sneglzillas
 

N.I.B

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 26, 2007
2,369
Most of you are looking too narrow on it. The Cursed Book doesn't exist in a vacuum. The problems I have with it is that in the new VC book, you're really hard pressed to squeeze in all the stuff you need. I like a combat lord, meaning I'm more or less forced to buy a necromancer scroll caddie (who cost more points in the new book). If I would want to add the CB, I would need a different build.
In other words the Cursed Book comes with an additional cost of 65 points for the extra necromancer. Forcing me to consider making the army weaker in other ways (for instance swapping a Wight King BSB for a Vampire scroll caddie BSB).

And in an optimized army you want reliability. Reliability is king in a tournament. You want to know exactly what to expect from your army. You can't really build a list around 'perhaps' getting a swap of characters from a Shadow spell, you can't skip defensive items for your lord as you could if you could count on the effect.
I think the Cursed Book is an excellent tool to draw out dispel from your opponent, and it adds flavour and fun. But I'm still hesitant to call it tournament worthy (with the disclaimer that I've yet to try it out).

Rod of Flaming Death now, is a different story.
• Enchanted Item = your Wight King can carry it in the front rank, doesn’t force another necro.
• Control – you know exactly what it does and can build and deploy around those effects.

Having both in your list is probably a bad idea, as they both will drain your magic phase. I’ve done just that here https://www.vampirecounts.net/Thread-Master-Necro-2400-pts , I guess I’m still in the 7th ed thinking of spamming bound spells is a good thing.
 

Kuwanger23

Skeleton
Jan 17, 2012
78
The problem I find with the CB is that it is in fact random. You don't know that you are getting the leadership debuff off until the magic phase so chances are your terrorgheists and or banshees are not set up for that as there would be no way to anticipate getting that result. I do like the debuffs it brings however but without getting a +2-6 to cast it from your caster lv it is far too easy to dispel. On average you lose 2 dice. Those two dice would generate a result of 11 with a lv 4 casting a spell and 13 with a mortis engine buff around. And you might lose 3 dice! It is not a bad item but I look at it as more of a fun item. I have yet to give it a whirl. I am thinking of running it in place of a power stone I play in 5-8 games to see how it fairs. It looks like it would be at least fun. Guess I'll see.
 

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