By using arcane vassal w/ Tetto I can usually get within range of fiery with many enemies quite quickly. i've noticed that when I get it off my soul of stone has saved me from power drains and template blasts all the time, making it less dangerous than I thought. However, since the danger of cascade is always present, what kinds of hordes or large groups of enemies should the spell target first for different armies? I would like to know where it should go before i almost put a slann on the line. Thoughts? Fun fact: last game, I got a fiery off on a unit of 40 plague monks, took them down to eighteen, and a skink chief on ripper held the unit up for two turns. Love the spell and potential.
The spell is S4, so any unit with T3 is going to feel the pain from Fiery Convocation. For Elven armies (or any armie with lots of T3, lightly armored units), I would target the Special units first (White Lions, Sword Masters, Executioners, Black Guard, etc.) as they are the most dangerous (and point dense). For Greenskins, I would target any Night Goblins first as they are likely to have Fanatics lurking about (gobbos tend to have larger units). For Skaven I might focus a bit more on the units with the General and/or BSB, same for VC. Beyond that, I'm not sure as I have never played against the other armies.
I'm thinking i'll play against skaven in the near future so targeting their bsb general unit would be a great idea. I was definitely thinking elves would suffer from this, but my fear is the banner of the world dragon. Would you recommend an Arcane Unforging to see who has it and if its destroyed, torch the unit after? Basically spell priority at that point.
I'm not seeing how soul of stone avoids the template and all models within contact of caster getting hit miscasts reliably. It only cuts the risk fo the worst case (2-4) Dimensional Cascade) in half but that just pushes the consequence into the Calamatous Detonation category which is a small template and loss of D6 PD. Pushing a 6 to 7 in a full TG unit is often effectively the same as the template hit, so a 6 is effectively the same as a 7 on the miscast table with in slann in a TG unit, given the size and shape of the Slann model. Depending on the situation, there are times when one might use soul of stone to push an 8 down to 7 and accept the loss of some TG with the slann over risking losing a skink priest with only one wound remaining [or with two wounds (and a cube or scroll) but used for casting the spell (will take one S6 hit from Magical Feedback and one S3 hit from Arcane Vassal miscast rule)]. Similarly, only one of the 5 miscast consequences (10-12 power drain) does not involve losing D6 of the remaining PD. but that consequence means that the caster cannot cast anymore in that phase and loses D3 spells and levels. Early in the game, I would not push 9 (magical feedback) to 10 (Power Drain) to avoid losing the D6 power dice because I often don't want to lose the slann's levels, lose the slann ability to attempt another cast in that phase (assuming the D6 is low or one has a lot of PD left) or lose the spells early and some magic levels off the slann. especially if my skink priest has burned its scroll or cube already or still has two wounds remaining on it. Fiery convocation is expensive to cast but the consequences for common larger small wound model horde units that do not have high MR is devastating. Usually, it gets off only if you roll IF or they roll badly on the dispel attempt or you roll very high and they don't have a scroll. It often forces people to save their DD or save their scroll and let other stuff through like soul quench. Worse yet for the opponent, the consequences are so severe that, if it gets off in that phase, the opponent will either have to burn a scroll or use a lot of their power dice in the next phase phase just to get rid of it. Against many elite single wound model units with more limited armor saves [naked witches without a cauldron, executioners, ghouls, etc.] the consequences are typically a lot worse than dwellers and definitiely worse than final tranmutation, especially when house rules allow a look out sir for characters in such units. T3 means 2/3's of models are wounded. With a "standard" 5+ armour save, that means 55.55% of models are wounded even if they have S4 (which some elite infantry have). With a 4+ armour save even, the unit (including warriors of chaos without shields) will suffer 44.44% wound rates. An more elite infantry unit with S4 and T4, suffers a 1/3 wound rate to dwellers and final transumtion, but suffers a 50% ound rate to fiery convocation with 6+ AS, 41.67% wound rate with 5+ AS and still suffers a 1/3 wiound rate with a 4+ AS. Plus, the spell is RIP, which forces the oppoent to deal with it in the next magic phase. Against High Elves, the common BOTWD on white lions hordes in competitive environments means that the spell is usually useful most of the time in that the army against a large spearmen unit, a large seaguard unit, or a number of 15+ archer units in core which may be targeted. I'd roll it against phoenix guard with only a 4= ward if they are a lot of models in the unit as well. The other issue against high elves is the common use of Book of Hoeth to re-roll one dispel dice each dispell attempt boosts the reliability and average roll of dispel attempts makes the spell a lot harder to get off unless the opponent has fewer dispel dice than you plan to cast with. With the miscast risk, you really need the target to average more than 100 points in damage if the spell goes off. Against a unit of archers, that means 15 models or more and no ward save; a similar number (14 or more without shields and 15 with shields) for a seaguard unit, a unit of more than 20 spearmen, a unit of more than 14 swordmasters or white lions without BOTWD.
There is an issue with using arcane unforging to target a standard bearere in a unit in that p. 94 says that the standard bearer cannot be removed as a casualty and the standard will be pick up by another rank and file model in the unit because the standard belongs to the unit. Rather than debat here, I will post dicussion in a separate thread.
I agree with rychek that this spell is devastating vs. T3 troops, and should make Elves cry. However, I wouldn't reserve it for T3 stuff, and especially not cheap units like Goblins. Yes, of course, you'll wreck a Goblin unit with this - at 3+ to wound and no armor to speak of, you can easily take down half the unit. But we have plenty of ways to kill Goblins, and if it's the Fanatics you're worried about, there's a thread around here somewhere with several ways to deal with them. If I'm going to put my Slann on the line, as you say, then I want to be taking out expensive troops, not throwaways like Goblins. At S4, Fiery Convocation still has the chance to do serious damage to tougher units, so I would actually give first priority to the enemy's most precious units, especially if that unit is a big block. Facing an O&G army, I would target Black Orcs first, Savage Orcs second, and Boar Boyz third. ...I've only played a little with this new lore, but so far, Fiery Convocation is absolutely devastating. The enemy has no choice but to fear it!
Even in a horde of White lions with Banner of the world dragon will the convocation be a solid choice. they have a 3+ against shooting and best avoided in combat so in any case the +2 save isnt much worse than any other option you have. I actually find it better because no matter how defensive that unit is it will still roll 1's and it will do so EVERY magic phase, which means supported with ranged attacks even white lions will go down to harmless size. also: how do you think the HE player feels in this situation? It has some psychological effects on the player too. He knows it is his elite unit that most players fear He knows he has BOTWD on it which is the best magic defense item out there (IMO) This is the best infantry unit he and a lot of armies can get, it is his solid choice that he relies on will get the job done, thus he wants to protect it at all cost, which made him add the banner in the first place. Then it gets hit by Fiery Convocation. He sees that even though the banner ( this mighty "everyone-calls it broken" banner) keeps them alive way longer they still die at a solid pace. How can this be? his elite unit? to some: THE elite unit? with THE banner of the world dragon, is STILL crumbling like a skeleton horde who lost their general? does he REALLY AFTERALL have to spend precious dispell or powerdice to remove it? even though he invested in the banner? ..yes he does.. because what the banner works against is 1time effects, and not constant bombardment. No matter how big a save there WILL be 1's, and the more dice rolled the more 1's will show its ugly face. Fiery convocation is not just a damage spell, it is a constant pressure point which effect every turn to your advantage, and once it goes of you can COUNT on it. My last game I took out a big unit of lions doing this: Cast Fiery convocation put a 12x Skink skirs with javs in front of them placed a Skrox unit for a followup charge if the lions chose to run the Skirs through and then I waited. every turn the convocation took 3 or 4, and in my turn the skirs plucked 1 or 2 with their javs. He didnt want to charge as he knew that he was already to thin to take a 4krox skrox unit to the flank He didnt want to use his dispel dice because "the banner SHOULD deal with this!" Instead he just marched them up close to the skinks, and waited...hoping he got a chance to get them out of the way with something else (he used shooting, but skirmishers + shield isnt a easy task to break with shooting with a LD10 slann close by) when the unit was halfed I got of an Arcane unforging on the banner, so it was finished, but had I not the lions would still be worn down slowly and by another turn be useless anyway. Conclussion: the convocation is awesome. the more dice your opponent rolls is more dice for him to get 1's. ...and after that colossus of a praise I have a question: If you cast the convocation and chose to forget it to roll for another spell, what happens? Does it stop since he no longer knows the spell? I think not as "remains in play spells only stop if the wizard chooses them to or if he dies"
It's true that Soul of Stone doesn't help blowing up your TG at all. It really helps against having your Toad sucked into the warp or losing lvls though. So what do we learn from that? We don't want our toad to blow up while sitting in his bunker. To me that means I want to cast high lvl spells early on while my Slann sits behind the TG and joins them in Turn 2 or 3. I usually try to 6dice fiery convocation on my first magic phase, hopefully get double 6s and get a minor blow up due to SoS. Also I than forget the spell because it's highly unlikely that I want to cast it again once I got it of on his Elite block.
Since you resolve spell attributes before miscasting, and you use the lizards high magic to discard the spell before you lose it to the miscast? As for how to cast it, I've been leaning towards power scroll. Turn 1, pop the power scroll, halving the casting values. I'll throw +D3 BS onto my block of 6 razordons, a Walk between worlds on the pair of salamanders, and a Fiery Convocation on whatever the enemy has that is a big block. One of those is bound to get through, all of them are dangerous. If I have enough dice, I'll spit out an unforging as well.
The high magic spell attribute states that "at the end of magic phase" you can choose to forget spells so no avoiding misscasts 10-12
Your Powerscroll seems to do sth else than the one in the german BRB oO In my book it says: "One use. Can be used when attempting a cast a spell. Every doubles causes IF and misscast." Am I missing anything? A FAQ or sth? O.O
The BRB FAQ turned the power scroll into an item where any double is IF and a miscast. Still 35pts. They also added +1 Dispel (always on) for 35 as well.
Just checked: It halves the casting value (round up). Only of a single spell though, not the whole magic phase.
Ah, you're right. I've got the older faq where it affected the caster for the caster phase. I wonder if the power scroll or power stone is better? Reduce the casting value by 9, or add 2D6 to the casting total?
Right, so dropping it by 9 makes it easier to cast. Add 2D6 to the casting value makes it much harder to dispel. -Matt