AoS The AoS 2.0 Tactics Thread

[Aginor]

correct me if i'm wrong, but its written that you can only dispel an endless spell only at the beginning of your hero phase.
so you cant chain spell/dispell/spell it again.

Correct.

That is what he did, not chaining it.

Though honestly if we can't chain spell/dispell/spell it rather diminishes their value massivly and it'd be rather gamey...

Yeah, but I understand that it would probably break balance if someone can cast a lot of spells with good modifiers. Kroak and Nagash are the best examples.

 

[Canas]

Correct.


Yeah, but I understand that it would probably break balance if someone can cast a lot of spells with good modifiers. Kroak and Nagash are the best examples.

meh, kroak would only gain 1 extra cast that way, that's nowhere near broken. Nagash is really the only one who could manage to make it broken, which considering he has 9 casts in a game where 2 is above average is kind of a given…. I really don't get why they stuck with that for him, it all but guarantees he'l break any interesting magic mechanic...

 

[Aginor]

meh, kroak would only gain 1 extra cast that way, that's nowhere near broken. Nagash is really the only one who could manage to make it broken, which considering he has 9 casts in a game where 2 is above average is kind of a given…. I really don't get why they stuck with that for him, it all but guarantees he'l break any interesting magic mechanic...

I think that is not even the main reason.
If you could dispell your own spells after you used them then some armies would use them like this:
- cast a predatory spell (like the Geminids) with Kroak, it does some damage
- dispell it
- use it again, with your Starpriest
- dispell it
- use it with another Starpriest
- dispell it

Even with that rather cheap spell you have now caused 6d3 mortal wounds to multiple targets. And the spell isn't even on the board anymore so no risk of the enemy using it.

Also: the way it works now the spell portal is at least a small risk. Sure Kroak can cast his Celestial Deliverance through it. But since he cannot close it afterwards an enemy might use it to hurt him as well.
Same for Nagash.

 

[Ektor]

Though honestly if we can't chain spell/dispell/spell it rather diminishes their value massivly and it'd be rather gamey...

Have you read the fresh new spell for sigmar ? everblaze comet
a spell which can be cast at 36" (so bigger than the 30" dispell range)
every unit at 10" of the spell will immediatly take 1 to 3 mortals.
so if we can cast several times the same spell, by dispelling it ourselves, a stormcast could easely do 6 comets in a row, 6 to 18 mortals on a area of 20", at 36" of the casters. No way to block it.

 

[Canas]

I think that is not even the main reason.
If you could dispell your own spells after you used them then some armies would use them like this:
- cast a predatory spell (like the Geminids) with Kroak, it does some damage
- dispell it
- use it again, with your Starpriest
- dispell it
- use it with another Starpriest
- dispell it

Even with that rather cheap spell you have now caused 6d3 mortal wounds to multiple targets. And the spell isn't even on the board anymore so no risk of the enemy using it.

Also: the way it works now the spell portal is at least a small risk. Sure Kroak can cast his Celestial Deliverance through it. But since he cannot close it afterwards an enemy might use it to hurt him as well.
Same for Nagash.

It's not all that different from spamming spells in general though. At least provided the endless spells aren't massivly better numbers-wise than your "normal" spells.

It does make sense with respect to the risk aspect I suppose. Does prevent you from casting an endless spell and moving it in such a way that it only goes over your enemies without touching your own stuff and then dispelling it so you don't risk it running over your own troops next.

Imho, they should've used some other mechanic for that though. Casting & dispelling it in quick succesion would allow for interesting tactics. Similarly summoning multiple of em could result in quite ingenious, or at least fun, tactics. Just imagine making your enemy run through a barrage of aethervoid pendulums swinging back and forth. Admittadly that would probably require different numbers..

Imho I would've prefered the following:

1) (Some) spells aren't "controllable" e.g. they simply chase the nearest target or roll a dice, on a 1,2,3,4 it goes north/east/south/west on a 5 or 6 you choose.

2) Multiple copies can be on the board, but the more there are the more unstable magic becomes. Casting value goes up by 1 for each copy and failing the roll results in your wizard exploding.

3) Spells coming near eachother cause interactions, preferably on a spell by spell basis but that's probably too complex.

4) Casting-dispelling in sequence is possible, but again magic becomes unstable the more it's done in one turn and you risk shit blowing up.

It'd be quite interesting.

Also; as for "it'd be unbalanced when nagash is involved". As long as the guy is allowed to cast as much as he is pretty much anything that's fun and balanced with (several) "normal" wizards will be vastly overpowered with him if you don't put some arbitrary limits on it like the rule of one. 9 casts on a single model where 2+ is considered "much" for one model is just Always going to be problematic. At this point Nagash + the endless spells + 3-4 units of skeletons to fullfill battleline would probably be a viable army in friendly games (and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't entirely terrible in an actual tournament as well..)

Have you read the fresh new spell for sigmar ? everblaze comet
a spell which can be cast at 36" (so bigger than the 30" dispell range)
every unit at 10" of the spell will immediatly take 1 to 3 mortals.
so if we can cast several times the same spell, by dispelling it ourselves, a stormcast could easely do 6 comets in a row, 6 to 18 mortals on a area of 20", at 36" of the casters. No way to block it.

That's an issue with the numbers of that ridiculous spell though, not with the basic concept of repeatedly casting and dispelling… Which seems to be a tad common in AoS, especially regarding magic. There's several things that could be very cool when allowed, but with the current numbers would easily result in horrific situations.

 

[Galen]

Have you read the fresh new spell for sigmar ? everblaze comet
a spell which can be cast at 36" (so bigger than the 30" dispell range)
every unit at 10" of the spell will immediatly take 1 to 3 mortals.
so if we can cast several times the same spell, by dispelling it ourselves, a stormcast could easely do 6 comets in a row, 6 to 18 mortals on a area of 20", at 36" of the casters. No way to block it.

Spells like that are exactly why you'll find every competitive list will have Allegiance: Hysh, purely for access to a single artifact, the Lens of Refraction:

Each time a friendly unit within 6" of the bearer would suffer any mortal wounds from a spell cast by an enemy WIZARD, roll a D3 and reduce the number of mortal wounds suffered by the result

It's just icing on the cake that Hysh also gets you access to another brilliant artifact that supports your Command Point usage, the Aetherquartz Broach:

Each time you spend a Command Point, roll a dice. On a 5+ you recieve 1 Command Point.

Coming from 40K, where that exact same artifact exists, I've seen plenty of Imperial lists that take a single tiny detachment of Imperial Guard just to gain access to that artifact. It's going to be just as popular in AoS.

 

[Aginor]

Spells like that are exactly why you'll find every competitive list will have Allegiance: Hysh, purely for access to a single artifact, the Lens of Refraction:



It's just icing on the cake that Hysh also gets you access to another brilliant artifact that supports your Command Point usage, the Aetherquartz Broach:



Coming from 40K, where that exact same artifact exists, I've seen plenty of Imperial lists that take a single tiny detachment of Imperial Guard just to gain access to that artifact. It's going to be just as popular in AoS.

Yeah Hysh is definitely one of the best because of those.

 

[Flo]

That lens is scary, imagine using it AGAINST a Kroak, he would be almost useless until the lens bearer is dead

 

[Aginor]

That lens is scary, imagine using it AGAINST a Kroak, he would be almost useless until the lens bearer is dead

That's why lists that rely on just one model/tactic/source for damage will probably have a hard time in the new edition. Something that I think is good for the game as a whole.

 

[Canas]

That's why lists that rely on just one model/tactic/source for damage will probably have a hard time in the new edition. Something that I think is good for the game as a whole.

meh, relying on one model/tactic/source is generally bad. But having something that (virtually) invalidates a model/tactic/source is just as bad... Imho, this artifact will do more harm than good. Take our army for example, we don't have much going in terms of rend and our only mortal wounds come from wizards. Take this artifact on a sturdy hero with re-roll ablesave 2+/3+ and it becomes virtually imprevious to our attacks. Similarly it'l be disproportionally good against a Tzeentch army seeing as those have wizards by definition. Stuff like this tends just creates an arms-race as opposed to anything else...

 

[Aginor]

meh, relying on one model/tactic/source is generally bad. But having something that (virtually) invalidates a model/tactic/source is just as bad... Imho, this artifact will do more harm than good. Take our army for example, we don't have much going in terms of rend and our only mortal wounds come from wizards. Take this artifact on a sturdy hero with re-roll ablesave 2+/3+ and it becomes virtually imprevious to our attacks. Similarly it'l be disproportionally good against a Tzeentch army seeing as those have wizards by definition. Stuff like this tends just creates an arms-race as opposed to anything else...

Yeah I think it goes without saying that the artefact is probably as broken in a defensive way as something causing huge masses of mortal wounds would be offensively.
It feels like it isn't well thought through.

 

[PJetski]

If it was denying 1 mortal wound it would still be very powerful. Denying D3 is... insane.

 

[Canas]

If it was denying 1 mortal wound it would still be very powerful. Denying D3 is... insane.

Against a D3 spell there's a 2/3 chance of completly negating the damage, it's rather ridiculius.

 

[Tokek]

Against a D3 spell there's a 2/3 chance of completly negating the damage, it's rather ridiculius.

So do your mortal wounds another way. Actually I quite like that there is a commonly available counter to one of the main sources of mortal wounds as the risk otherwise is that the game becomes all about that. To be fair once Kroak gets the almost-inevitable FAQ back to where he was in AoS 1.0 it is going to feel a bit harsh to be facing this all the time with him but at least we have a viable plan B of just summoning junk all over the table against opponents who can counter his MW spells.

Oh and it slows down my son turning all of my models into Brimstone Horrors and Tzangors which is totally what he is all about in 2.0.

 

[Aginor]

What I don't like about it is that it is so easy to shut down magic with it that it becomes an auto-include for many armies. There are only very few artefacts that can compete with it in terms of usefulness.

At the same time some armies (including ours) only have access to a very limited amount of spells that don't do damage. If that wasn't the case a player could just react to the artefact by turning his casters into buffing machines instead of casting destructive spells. However that's not possible because you have to pick your spells before knowing your opponent's list.

 

[Canas]

So do your mortal wounds another way. Actually I quite like that there is a commonly available counter to one of the main sources of mortal wounds as the risk otherwise is that the game becomes all about that. To be fair once Kroak gets the almost-inevitable FAQ back to where he was in AoS 1.0 it is going to feel a bit harsh to be facing this all the time with him but at least we have a viable plan B of just summoning junk all over the table against opponents who can counter his MW spells.

Oh and it slows down my son turning all of my models into Brimstone Horrors and Tzangors which is totally what he is all about in 2.0.

Except we don't have any other way. And that's kind of the point. As @Aginor points it, it just sorta breaks most of the wizards in the game seeing as they have no way to respond by switching to a different tactic. It'd be fine if the wizards then have something to respond with, or if the artifact was significantly less powerfull. A much more acceptable version would be "reduce damage by D3 up to a minimum of 1". Similarly "roll a dice on a 4+ reduce damage by D3" would also be a lot more acceptable. There's loads of ways to make an effective anti-wizard artifact without it outright breaking the wizard.

Also, the game is already all about mortal wounds anyway. If curbing magic as a source of em is the intent behind the artifact then this is a similar band-aid solution like the rule of one was were they try to curb abuse by gutting a mechanic resulting in a situation where the formerly "abusive" cases become "balanced" and the formerly "balanced" cases get curbstomped and become pointless to use… Not to mention it does nothing about the other 8923749872 abusive cases that do the exact same thing but without a wizard being involved...

 

[PJetski]

Lens is very strong but it only "shuts down wizards" if your list is only wizards. You can kill the hero holding the Lens using other means, then destroy the army with your wizards. An EOTG with Curse of Fates can kill most foot heroes with its D6+1 mortal wound (especially backed by insight) and teleport/charging a Stegadon should definitely finish them off.

It feels like they added Lens to make people realize you cant just spam wizards and expect to win.

 

[Canas]

Lens is very strong but it only "shuts down wizards" if your list is only wizards.

Tzeentch say hi....

Plus, generally speaking your army has a certain focus due to synergies. E.g. our skink armies have wizards at their core as heroes. Swapping one of em out for a saurus is fairly pointless if you want it to actually synergize.

It invalidates pretty much all of that. Or well, hits those tactics rather hard.

Anyways long story the idea behind the artifact, a protective bubble against damaging spells, is fine. However, this incarnation has several issues.

1) It's too reliable, working against all spells & guaranteeing to block at least 1 damage.
2) It's too powerfull having a 66% chance of completly negating about 90% of all offensive spells in the game. I mean it's frequently going to be better than trying to unbind which is supposed to be the main anti-magic mechanic….
3) It turns any hero into an anti-wizard character at very little cost or effort.
4) The wizard has nothing to respond with (calling in friends still leaves the wizard to stand around looking pretty in the best case scenario while waiting for the carrier of the artifact to be pummeled by his friends...)

Better variants of the same artifact would be the following:

1) On being damaged roll a d6, on a 4+ block damage, significantly reducing its reliability
2) Block damage to a minimum of 1, guaranteeing spells still do something even if they are significantly less effective.
3) Limiting the amount of spells it can block (e.g.; it only blocks the first spell each turn, or after blocking a spell there's a chance the artifact breaks)
4) Give wizards significantly more tools in their base-kit so they can actually choose to do something else when their destructive spellcasting gets neutered by the artifact.

All of those would still make for a powerfull anti-wizard artifact but give the wizards some options to actually respond with thus being far better variants. And that's just the variants I can think of quickly of the top of my head, there's bound to be more that'd avoid completly breaking wizards while still being more than powerfull enough to be good anti-wizards artifacts.

 

[Tokek]

Except we don't have any other way. And that's kind of the point. As @Aginor points it, it just sorta breaks most of the wizards in the game seeing as they have no way to respond by switching to a different tactic. It'd be fine if the wizards then have something to respond with, or if the artifact was significantly less powerfull. A much more acceptable version would be "reduce damage by D3 up to a minimum of 1". Similarly "roll a dice on a 4+ reduce damage by D3" would also be a lot more acceptable. There's loads of ways to make an effective anti-wizard artifact without it outright breaking the wizard.

Only one of our wizards really does mortal wounds so to me it would only be a worry if I took Kroak which currently I do not. Agreed that it is a real issue if you are running a Kroak list.

I am not sure why our other wizards would care.

 

[Seraphage]

It should definitely exist imo ! If there wasn't a good counter for all the magic heavy lists, it would totally be broken + as said, it's really easy to just dispel it, not big deal