I've been thinking a lot about the magic of warhammer lately, specifically because Chaos Sorcerer's have a lot of exciting upgrades they can take, but they're also points heavy: a tag-team of Tzeentch and Nurgle, both level 2 with good upgrades takes me beyond 400 points, which in an army mostly of Marauders replaces 4 decent units...
I have noticed that magic can almost guarantee you a win, for example: when you max out on wizards and your opponent doesn't have much going for them in the way of magical defence (only dispel dice/scrolls).
I would have thought that the associated points values would mean that a high-magic army should be equal to an army with little-to-no-magic-defence, but it doesn't seem to work that way.
But on the flip side, a high magic army coming up against something with a very good magical defence (Dwarves and High Elves in general, Dark Elves with ring-of-miscasts, Daemons with the Scribes) and a high magic army is suddenly weak.
So, I'm thinking that maybe warhammer is a form of scissors-paper-stone ... Okay, except for if the dice go badly, or if one player's a lot better, assuming even opponents and average luck it looks to me like low magic (paper) get's beated (cut) by high magic (scissors), which get beaten (blunted) by a superior magic defence (stone). However, the final part, where the paper wraps the stone... I'm not sure that an army ignoring magic is at an advantage over an army specialising in magic defence, and some of those armies, e.g. the Daemons with the Scribes, are also high-magic armies, so it blows my ideas out of the water before I've even reached the end...
No matter, I'm just musing here, I'd appreciate seeing anyone else's thoughts on magic in warhammer: especially if you really do or really don't like the way it works now.
Some interesting thoughts there mate. I suspect many people are thinking similar things, though it's worth noting that WoC fill a fairly particular niche in the magic-using scale of armies.
I think it's fair to say that at 'competitive' level, i.e. tournaments and decent players practising for tournies, 'heavy' magic (I'm thinking more than 6 levels plus tricksies like bounds) doesn't come up that much. Obv discount Daemons here. The difficulty is the stone-paper-scissors point you made; however, it's not as simple as lots of magic defence > lots of magic. It's more that e.g. Lore of Nurgle is absolutely brutal against elite armies, but much less so against Hordes. Rot Glorious Rot is IMO the best spell in the book (yes better than Gateway FTW, I know, heresy...) but against an army of 20+ model infantry blocks - even with T3 - it's going to kill a couple of guys from each squad each turn. Quagmire - rude against Empire Knights, pretty useless against most other stuff. You get what I'm saying - if you have to play six armies and you don't know what they're going to be, it's risky to put 1000+ points (for WoC) into L4, 3 L2s, steeds and shinies when they may actually turn out not to do much. Also bear in mind that anyone who chooses to play a WoC army does so for the combat phase, so they've given us a book that doesn't exactly lend itself to avoidance lists...
The corollary of the above is that you sometimes don't
need much magic to do the business. A couple of Empire L2s with Metal can make a horrible mess of WoC, and even if they don't kill anything, they're providing 2 DD and at least 2 scrolls for defence. It's the military combined arms approach. A Challenger tank is big mean and nasty, and in a stand-up fight, can take on any other armoured vehicle in the world. But if the other guy has attack helicopters then the tank is in trouble. Likewise they'll both struggle to take an objective if it's an urban area held by dug-in infantry. I think it's easier to remember this if you've played 40k - what have I got for anti-tank, where's my anti-horde, how many PBIs have I got to hold ground, where are my force multipliers like Rhinos, and so on.
WFB works a little differently in list building, but I'd try to do the same thing by anticipating who you'll be playing, what they're likely to bring, and what you'll need to counter them. If your Sorcerers aren't adding to that, then drop them.
Or, do what Vaughan and I are doing tomorrow, and agree to play a no-magic game. I reckon that this way at least he will only be dominating in three phases rather than all four!
Anyway, to answer your last question, I really do like the way magic works right now, I just recognise that, as with other areas of the game, it's not completely balanced. And if you fancy a change, go Lore of Slaanesh. Go on, fly the booby-worm, you know you want to!
Magic Magic Magic. Its great and its also horrible, its like anything in this game of fantasy, if you a **** about it you can give someone a very frustrating game, its a pity theres no way to include in points a magical points system like 2250pts with xxxpts of magic, then at least you wont bring a spoon to a knife fight. Gotta say though after playing a game against a slann with my new TK and having 5 dispell dice (max for a TK army would be 7!) it certainly makes you decide what you let go and what you try and stop!
Magic is good but as in all things it is very dice dependant, some armies work more on magic, vampires and Tomb Kings some to a lesser extent and some magic negative like Dwarves. now a nurgle wizard is good against DE's with no magic defence thanks to spam buboes on the BG champion but against a DE with more magic defence it becomes a lesser issue.
magic can be neutralised by aggressive mage hunting by some armies are extreme defence.
The current metagame is either good magic defence or non, and normal in a tournament is 5DD and 2 scrolls. For example a kairois army is going to own a Gateway army as Kairois can cast GAteway on a 5+ with a re-roll but a ring of hotek will really hurt.
My advice to you is play a Dwarf army for a year and learn to cope with 4 dispel dice and either 1,2 or no dispel runes.
I currently run a daemon army with 3 dispel dice with mainly Khorne and Nurgle in it.
Magic is a double edged sword imho. Just like any thing in warhammer that has its own phase (combat, shooting and magic), if you create an army that is loaded in one or more of these phases, then you have potentially a nasty army. However you need to consider 2 things. Firstly the fickleness of the dice - I dont think I need to expand on this at all really as we have ALL experienced that! Secondly and more importantly, its about the player experience - specifically your opponent. How is that person enjoying the game - probably not. Go read the WPS code of conduct based on a J files article re the game itself and how you effectively enter in to a contract with your opponent when you play a game.
My opinion is that despite the obvious imbalances in WFB at present (and we wont know the true extent of this until ALL the bloody army books are released) the truly great players will have an army that is balanced and has some thing to counter and take part in every phase of the game.
WAB.....sorry but magic is a large bit of WHFB if you are unsure of how to deal with magic then look to ancietns. ... Yes there is inbalance between magic & xxxx but by the same token how big a gap is there between an empire gunline and a WoC Warrior hoard? The thing about having magic as its own phase is that it brings up differant tactics and planes.
Before any one complains I have 4K+ lizards, the same of both WoC and Brets plus whats shapping up to be a 2.5K ancient Early Imperial Roman army.
Edit - Sorry for the above tone - I was a wee bit drunk (:o) point I was trying to make is surley you play Fantasy for the magic phase?
Slasher i have my WAB as well so maybe a game of that sometime as well. Most the armies have ways to deal with the magic and counters in place. But most armies can handle magic, but things will always go crazy. The newer army books gives different options but the top 3 at the moment have options to deal with magic.
well still putting me Romans together but when I have would love to.
(21-06-2009 09:19 PM)Marauder Mitch Wrote: [ -> ]The newer army books gives different options but the top 3 at the moment have options to deal with magic.
Very true. IMHO the reason some of the new books (cf Dark Elves and Lizzies especially) get slagged by people (such as myself, though I'm usually kidding
) is that they can compete in all phases of the game. As nepalese ninja says, bringing a balanced list that has movement, magic, shooting and hitting power is both more effective and more fun than a Gateway FTW! list - or for that matter a Slann plus three engines, or avoidance DE, or Daemons... well any Daemon build at all, really... only kidding NN.
For eg, I play WoC, tend to have a all-cavalry force, and like to bring some magic. A mounted L4 and L2 is a nice amount. It means enough PD to get some spells off, without completely dominating. But it also leaves the points to have some fast choppy stuff. The problem with 8-10 levels of magic is you can smash an enemy that can't defend against it, and don't have much else in the army if your sorcerers can be countered by a heavy anti-magic build.
I think the problem with magic is based around points and structure.
Points wise, magic seems to be priced in an exponential way. The idea behind it is that if you upgrade 1 magic level (from 2 level 1's to 2 level 2's) vs 2 or 1 level 1's, you go from your initial investment in your wizards doing pretty much nothing, to them doing something, and dominating the opponents magic phase.
The mechanism is non linear in 2 ways - 1. whoever has the upper hand dominates and the other guy does nothing 2. when you already spent 300 points on wizards etc, spending another 150 to make them actually effective seems like a good deal, if you were afraid that 300 points of wizards would actually have done nothing.
And this non linearity continues - if you spent 500 points on magic, and it is not doing anything, spending another 200 to make it useful also seems like a good return on your 200 points, because with an extra 200 point investment you finally unlock a total of 700 points worth of magic.
The problem is that if you spent those points on regular units, the scale linearly - the first 10 unit of spearmen costs the same as the 2nd unit of spearmen. Although, 2 units together will probably do much more than twice what 1 unit of spearmen does.
Both magic and combat have exponential returns, and synergies between units but magic is priced exponentially, while units are priced linearly.
The second issue is structure. Most armies are limited by the heroes / lord choices in how much magic they can take. Then there are armies that break the structure like Demons and Vampires (and Dark Elves to some extent). A normal army which devotes 100% of its characters to magic will still be trumpted by one of these "broken" armies in the magic phase, if these build a magic heavy list.
So the conclusion of this rambling is:
1. If you are Demons or Vampires (or other exceptions perhaps) go ahead and build a magic heavy list because your list is capable of dominating everybody and it plays to your list's strength.
2. If you are not Demons or Vampires do NOT go magic heavy since:
A. you get more bang for your points in regular units (linear pricing vs non linear pricing)
B. even if you do go magic heavy, if you go against Vampires or Demons who are magic heavy you automatically lose.
I have been using moderate magic a lot recently and it is very useful. HOw you structure your phase is important and how reliably you use it to hold off there magic. If your 2 level 2's help you avoid being gatewayed off the table but more defensive a role the points are invested.
If you build you list for a specific game and you know what your opponent is magic is hit or miss but in a event you need ways to increase your magic dominance or reduce the enemies magic dominace, hence why bunkered VC's are so hard to get any points off. Some armies can get away with little magic defence but usally dead bodies means less affects but DE Frodo is a risk as i have found out.
It is not just just Daemons and vampires that let have magic dominance, warriors wuith gateway and the 2 compulsery Nurgle wizards to kill the hotek bearer, DE shooty magic avoidance, Empire with Pope, Warrior Pirest and 2 level 2's and the list goes on.
Warhammer is a game won on movement so you might cover the table like a skaven army but if you get hit hard in a focused area you gain the movement and they are reacting to you.
The only army you should ever have all your characters as wizards is Vampires. Ish won the final with just 2 horror units for DD, but he dominated the movement and actively mage hunted.
Who is Ish? Andy Isherwood?
interesting thing with empire is its warrior priest which brings some fight ( a lot with war alter) and magic defense rather than just more magic which is a very balanced way of doing it so you can have a viable magic defense army which has some fighting ability. he does have some offensive spells but bound on a 4 aint broken.
Oh, yes. Ish is Andy isherwood, nice bloke and a tough player.
The key thing in a list is potential to handle anything your opponent can throw at you.
Most of the best players i know, Biggsy, the Bens, Tamplin, Daan Heelan, Russ all have solid lists which mean you have to control the magic phase. 1D lists NEVER work so you need balance and dealing with magic is prime one, as a MM won't do much against Warriors but against WE's it is almost take the unit off.
Isherwood is a very very good player - Won GT heat, and the GT, and the Irish GT. Top bloke too.
A solid list that can compete in all phases will always do well in a tourney.
Best all rounder lists have to be dark elvs and DoC, whcih (amoungst other reasons) they always tend to do well in that kind of setting.
As a WFB orc, thus non competitive player i have a very blinkered opinion of magic. Let me put it my way (as a feeble, blindfolded newbie) I like magic, and in my army it's good for a random laugh. Jeez, if i get waugh and actually pull it off it's a game winner. Im my mage decides to explode on turn 1, killing all around him (as i put him in my black orcs, as i hate mages suffering animosity) then i'm a bit stuffed. Fairly uphill from then on.
Look, on a non competitive urge it's all compulsory. ya gotta. if it's what your list works with, fill up. if it's not, don't. my ork boyz horde will still, as a melee bunch just run forwards against daemons / chaos and be butchered. that's how it is.
Here's your question: you're asking whilst comparing it to GT lists. how does it belong in a spoon fight?
p.s. would anyone be interested in a really, really organised (and pre-written ) wfb campaign? (i'm talking may next year, as I'm interested in BBowl, and necromunda, and have 2 campaigns elsewhere at the moment. nut boys, i've been playing and running campaigns in my abscence, and i'll be there throughout for this one, and keep it much, much simpler. oh, and everythings painted now (as a nice touch)
Magic is a variable factor in the game, the 2 most reliable phases are VCs and TKs due to mass spamming, even in non "GT" games or tournament games, magic still has it role, theres no fun when someones themed Tzeentch Daemon army with a obscene magic phase or themeed Warriors army that gateways you off the table.
All the army books are not written balanced which means the game is not balanced how GW design games is power hiking to increase sales and not like privateer press and they never admit when they are wrong.
Magic is all risk and reward and i have seen worse armies in stores than i have at events.
Magic in this version is not well balanced between armies, but there are serious rumors that magic might change in the next version, wich would explain some weird rules in recent some books (beastmen for exemple)
Quote:The Winds of Magic
by Avian
Another way of doing the magic phase. Essentially this is the same system that was used in fifth edition (which is the same as was used in fourth, except that in fourth wizards could cast spells in either player's magic phase). I quite liked this system and the flaws as I see it was that the system used cards which were so easy to forget, that two different wizards couldn't have the same spell and that some spells were a lot more powerful than others for the same casting cost. This system happily has none of those flaws.
How it works
The biggest change is that wizards no longer generate magic dice and armies do not get the two basic magic dice. Instead the Winds of Magic are determined by a random dice roll, pretty much like it was back in fourth and fifth edition. The number of dice rolled is shown on the table below. The table also shows how many power dice the player whose turn it is (the active player) gets and how how many dispel dice other player gets.
Army size in pts Dice rolled Active player gets Other player gets
less than 2,000 Three D6 Highest + lowest dice - one Middle dice
2,000 - 2,999 Three D6 Highest + lowest dice Middle dice + one
3,000 - 3,999 Three D6 Highest + lowest dice + three Middle dice + three
Example: In a 2,500 pt game three D6 are rolled, giving a 6, a 4 and a 2. The active player then gets 6 + 2 = 8 Power Dice, while the other player gets 4 + 1 = 5 Dispel dice. This is regardless of how many wizards a player has.
In this manner the number of power dice one player gets is linked to how many dispel dice the other player gets. At the 2k level the active player gets between 2 and 12 Power dice, while the other player gets between 2 and 7 Dispel dice, while at the same time getting at most 5 dice less than the active player.
That is the first big change, the second is this: At the end of each magic phase each wizard can retain unused own magic dice and use them in the next magic phase. Each level 1 or 2 wizard can retain dice while each level 3 or 4 wizard can retain 2 dice. Retaining dice in this manner means that power dice become dispel dice and vice-versa.
For simplicity's sake retained dice are not lost if the retaining wizard is slain before the next magic phase. This is the easy solution and avoids a considerable ammount of book-keeping, though players are free to note down or in some other way keep track of exactly which wizard has stored how many dice if they really wish.
Example: The winds of magic blow strongly and provide 10 Power dice to the active player and 7 Dispel dice to the other player. The active player only has a single level 1 wizard with the Second Sign of Amul, which he attempts with two dice. The spell is cast with a roll of 8 and the other player then successfully dispels this using three dice and rolling 10. The active player then retains one of his remaining 8 Power dice until the next magic phase, while the other player, who has a level 4 wizard and two level 2 wizards retains his remaining four dice (two for his level 4 and one each for his level 2s). The next turn the winds of magic blow somewhat more weakly and provide the active player with seven dice, which is increased to 11 with his remaining dice, while the other player gets four Dispel dice, to which he adds his single retained dice, to make up 5 Dispel dice.
Note 1: Non-wizard characters that generate dispel dice still do this.
Note 2: Marks, Spawnings and magic items that generate magic dice still do this.
Rumors also say that magic phase would happen just before moving phase.