I've been thinking about this combination and think this can be very devastating! If you can take the power scroll instead of 3 channel dice and channeling staff (you can still take the 3 channeling dice), you are going to destroy hordes! First you have to make him use his dispel scroll and and most of his dispel dice and leave at least 2 or 3 power dice (try to convince him that you can't cast anything dangerous with those dice). When the moment is right, use your power scroll and Fiery Convocation is now 10+ to cast! It can be easily cast with 2 dice but to be sure 3 is almost certain ( you don't want to fail with this trick). Now his horde takes s4 hits every magic phase if he doesn't dispel it. Because you made sure he can't dispel it on the turn you cast it (which you should by all means!) he now have to dispel at 19+! Lvl 4 wizard must use at least 4 or even more to dispel it, probably meaning that if he rolls poor winds of magic, he may not cast anything and just tries to dispel this (and might not succeed). If he choose to ignore it than his horde would be drastically weaken. This is not a lizardmen only tactic, high elves can do this too, but I'm not sure if they can get loremastery and guarantee that they get this spell. So what do you think? ^^
I think that firstly, an army with mobile S4 flame templates, S4 razordons, and saurus with bucketloads of S4 melee attacks has little particular need of more mass S4 hits. If it's vulnerable to S4 hits, we can kill it, its the models which aren't that tend to be a problem. Second, particlarly bearing that in mind, there are more powerful spells to spend a power scroll on.
While I don't usually condone cheesy mind games in Warhammer I do love this one I regularly play a friend who brings 2-3 hoards of Gobos with Fanatics! This would work wonders on them Thanks for the idea, even if it is technically cheating Chris
There may be more powerful spells that could be done with this. But the point is not the power, it's the position you put your opponent. The s4 on a big unit will hurt. If thrown on something with 40 models, lets say T4 4+ as. 20 hits will wound, and 5+ AS will save about 7 wounds. So it's about 13 wounds made when cast. Then your opponent has two options. Will he see his horde wither in flames or try to dispel it. If he doesn't dispel it, he's losing a big unit. If he decides to try and dispel it on his magic phase, he won't cast many other spells, because they'd like to use at 5 or 6 dice on it to get it away. So it's a great offensive and defensive spell to cast
There is always a use for more S4 hits. I would rather use this against things like chaos warriors, big'uns, white lions, or temple guard instead of puny goblins. The big nasty units with higher initiative and higher strength are the units I fear engaging, this is another way to whittle them down before charging them.
Personally, one of the biggest benefits of fiery convocation IMO is the defensive aspect. So long as the spell is cast on a unit that is high value to the opponent, they are almost certainly going to use PD to dispel it during their next magic phase. This means a minimum of 5 PD gone and likely 6 if they really want to get rid of it with minimal risk. Draining this many PD out of the magic pool is a huge advantage and can really swing the battle even more so than any casualties actually caused by the spell. About the only unit in the game that could ignore the spell is a HE unit with the BoWD to give them a 2+ save but that's why the old ones invented sallies