I just thought of a very evil combination.. Unfortunately, I think ti could only be used in 3k games, it wouldn't be much good giving the blade of realities to a Slann even if he could use it. Cast Doom and Darkness on a target (particularly lords who normally have ld 10) before attacking with the blade of realities. This spell reduces their ld by 3 and can be cast into combat! I do wonder if there is any way to get it into a 2k game... hero level dogs of war maybe? I am not sure what is available though. What options do the special character skinks have?
I thought of this to, until my friend pointed out to me that the Blade of Realities uses the models Unmodified Leadership, so this doesn't work.
Hmm, I think it might actually work. When the rules say, "the model's unmodified leadership", it usually means you can't use the general's leadership or the leadership of beast handlers in the case of monsters. But I'm fairly certain the spell works against stubborn troops, because their own unmodified leadership actually drops due to the spell. Now if we're talking about an area of effect Ld penalty, say a spooky standard or something, that would be a modifier similar to the general's Ld, so it wouldn't influence BoR or Stubborn. This at least has always been how I've played it with my own Stubborn troops.
If it says that it doesn't affect unmodified leadership, then Doom and Darkness won't have any affect on the Blade of Realities effect (thought it was certainly a nice thought. ) Being stubborn won't change this.
I was just comparing it to Stubborn, since the rule for stubborn uses the same wording. It says the model tests on "its own unmodified leadership", just like the description of Blade of Realities. I'm thinking certain spells actually modify their targets statline, so their unmodified leadership is now 7 instead of 9.
Alas, doom and darkness makes leadership tests get -3, not reduce the models leadership by 3 so saying the statline changes won't stand up.. I missed the unmodified line in the blade of realities, so I guess the combo cannot be done. I can't think whal else the unmodified line would be referring to, it is in the combat phase so no modifiers for half unit casualties or whatever.
The word "unmodified" is what makes the Blade so powerful. Say a Ld 4 Varghulf is sitting next to the Ld 10 Vamp Lord, the Varghulf tests on its own unmodified leadership (like a stubborn test).
Yeah I just realised that and was about to come back and edit. Unmodified works for us most of the time, but makes a combo with doom and darkness useless. Oh well, I think I am happy to stick with it the way it is. I would say the wording was designed for negating general's leadership, not things like DaD, since it starts with 'on its own leadership', but there is no case to be made for DaD working.