With the endless spells info now in the wild. I could not but think of combining the effects of the chromatic cogs and the balewind vortex. Both spells give you an extra spell cast slot so to speak. Giving a base Slann 5 or kroak 6. Is there something preventing this because this just seems a little broken to me. For kroak with an astolth bearer that’s almost a carnosaur a turn
I wouldn't necessarily say it is broken. You spend 100 points for the two spells and 450 for Kroak, who cannot do anything else except gathering summoning points.
And that's the key point. 550 points for Kroak sitting on his vortex doing nothing but summon means that you're playing roughly 1500 points to your opponent's 2000. There's the value of his unbinding rolls, but that's a very tough thing to value, since it's entirely dependant on what your opponent has. Against Tzeentch, unbinding is extremely high value. Against Khorne, it's worthless. Casting spells on the other hand is always worthwhile since it's not dependant upon your opponent's army. Tossing out a Starlight onto a key unit is always useful. Furthermore sticking your Slaan on a Vortex means he's most likely stuck out in the open for everyone to have a good old shot at, whereas keeping him on the ground offers far more opportunities for hiding. Even Kroak isn't invulnerable, and if you lose your Slaan and Astrolith Bearer then any summoning points you gathered are entirely useless. I'll reserve judgement on summoning until I get some games under my belt. Currently I'm much more worried about Slaanesh summoning than Seraphon; the thought of my Carnosaurs being batteries fuelling Slaanesh summoning has me quite concerned. But for Seraphon, I think summoning will support our tactics but not replace them.
How tall is the balewind vortex? I feel like it would be much easier to hide your Slann and Cogs behind a piece of LOS block terrain.
Can't measure it now but IIRC it is around 15cm high. It is so large, I doubt you can hide it anywhere to be honest.
Visibility isn't a problem since slann will be 2+ rerollable (cover+balewind+cogs) and -2 to-hit at lest (10 skinks for lookout+summon starlight), Depending on realm artifacts and realm spells, this can be rised up to -4. New artifacts and spells give a lot of possibilities to protect slann. My opponent didn't even bother attacking it, while he was near warden on balewind controling cogs.
Yeah you cannot prevent the enemy from trying dispel the two endless spells, so probably the best things to do are these: - kill enemy wizards whenever possible - keep the cogs behind the BWV (I think wizards need line of sight to dispel) - set up the Slann on the BWV as far away as possible to make it harder for the enemy wizard to be in range for dispelling - maybe keep them busy with an aggressive endless spell such as Quicksilver Swords so they have to use a spell slot to dispel that one.
Most wizards cast one spell per phase and to dispel cogs, they need to roll 8, which is not the easiest dispel. They have to sacrifice their possibly important casts for attempts. It's not likely that both Vortex and Cogs will be dispelled same turn. Having Geminids that spit mortal wounds and debuff important units is a good distraction too. And even if they got dispeled - just recast it. Most of times you will have +1\+2 for the cast and it is basically free. Take a starpriest or too to cast Cogs and starlight, serving as vassals at the same time. This way Slann is always protected and can both generate celestial conjuration points and casts important spells. I feel, Shadowstrike will shine even more this edition.
The cogs getting dispelled is not too severe since anyone can cast it. The BWV is more of a problem. It is easier to dispel since you cannot hide it due to its size and its casting value is only six, and only the wizard who wants to be on top can cast it, so you definitely lose one spell if you have to recast it.
Ahh, just wondered because for Arcane bolt, Mystic shield it says "visable to the" but nothing about dispel and all the batraps I've watched they never check if the wizard has LoS they just roll.
few questions about the balewind vortex. can you still use teleport to move the vortex with an wizzard on top?(slann/kroak) do you need to have extra point if you recast the vortex when it got dispeled?, or do you just have to pay 40 points 1x and use it trough out the battle? thank you in advance
Something you could do to further frustrate attempts to shut down the combo, is take Prismatic Palisade. Solves the Line of Sight issue provided it isn't dispelled, which either way you're happy about (if they fail they can't try again until their next hero phase, if successful it's burning up an unbind or casting slot which is still money). You'd probably want a third Wizard though, either a second Starpriest or a Starseer (so you can chuck it out before you attempt Balewind or Cogs).