Ok. So I played a 1500 pt game vs my friend a few weeks ago. I just got into the game and it was his first 8th edition game. He played in 5th and such and is getting back into the game with me. So I rolled a 2 and 4 on my spells for my skink and that is what my questions are about. I'll start from where the prolem started. I casted Urannon's Thunderbolt on his banshee. He said it would effect the whole unit of wriaths. I thought it was a single model attack. I rolled a 6 for hits and got 4,5,5,5,6,6 and blew the whole unit away. Seemed unfair, overpowered, and wrong on a 10+. Is it single model or the unit? Since it seemed unfair we left his banshee up. Then I cast Wind Blast on it. Rolled a 5 and pushed him 4 inches back into a unit of dire wolves. Killed the banshee and maybe 2 or 3 dire wolves. Once again a problem. The wraiths are eatheral. It doesn't make sense that it would take damage for running into a unit of dire wolves. But the spells discription doesn't say anyhing about it being impact hits of physical damage. And I remembered reading this in stewart's death slann thread a few days before. [/quote] So I figured it was magical. He didn't really agree. But since according to his own perception of the thunderbolt spell his unit should already have been dead. So he had no problem counting him as dead anyway. I'm pretty sure that we played it right. As in the thunderbolt effected the whole unit. And the damage from the wind blast is magic damage. But I'd like to know for sure.
Uranon's Thunderbolt does indeed affect the entire unit. You just pleased the dice gods! I believe that since the damage from wind blast is consider a magic missle, it is indeed a magical attack. And as such, would damage the etheral model when pushed into another unit.
Another thing i just thought of, it says if the unit comes in contact with anouther unit it stops one inch away and takes the hits. But the wraths can walk threw other units and terrian i think. Does that mean they wouldn't come in contact with the unit? And i assume it says the wraiths can't stop on a unit. So now I think in that case they would take the hits because they stopped on the wolves. I thought of another question too. For those people in campaign. My group just got up to 8 players. So we naturally are going to start one. One of my friends who has been playing longer than most of us got the box for it. Anyway, he went over the basic rules for us. But I was just thinking, do you re rolls spells for a wizard every game or do you assume they have the same ones as before? Yeah. My luck with dice is not as good as you'd think. I feel when I roll I always roll either way above average or way below average. A few exaples of my fail in that game. He had a unit of 10 ghouls up against my 16 saurus warriors and I killed 1 he killed 4. That is way below average. Then combat rez hits. He can't have a banner. And we were in ranks of 5 each. He had 9 left. I had 11. So I had a rank on him. I roll double 6s and a 5 on my leadership test. F my life. Turn tail and run 11 inches through a sallie unit and roll a 5, 5, 5 or something of the sort on that test and they fled double 2s. Next my skrox vs skelitons, same game. Lost 4 skinks got 1 skelly. Krox turn to swing! 6 attaks. 4 ones! two hits. To wound! SNAKE EYES! pasted leadership with like a 1 and a 2 and something else that didn't matter. Steadfast Saurus flee Skinks hold. OMG. And that was the second round of combat. The krox preformed almost as poorly the round before. like 2 hits and way more then a fair share of ones. At least I stayed consistant 3 rolls in a row twice. It sucks because I feel these rare rolls happen to me way more than they should. It may be the dice I bought or something. It's not fun because I always plan things around 7 being the average roll. And I always seem to way over estimate the dice I need. Or come up way short. At least in the 3 games I've played I have never failed a "look out sir" roll. But let me tell you, I make great use of my jungle pioson it's like my most reliable form of damage. Forgot to mention I was waiting for him to reach my line and hadn't moved my saurus foward like at all. I just angled them in on like a 40 degree angle. And that was the only thing that kept them on the table to rally next turn.
Ethereal cannot move through units (living) though technicly undead units are not living . I would be interested to know what other people play it as. can ethereal move through undead units ?
Ethereal just treat all terrain as open. If they cannot move through opponent units, they cannot move through their own since undead units are not a type of terrain.
Something similar that I was wondering about came up in a game between two friends of mine recently. What happens with ethereal units and goblin fanatics? Do the fanatics run straight through and do no damage? Then what happens if the ghosts run into the fanatic, are they able to kill it? That is how it seemed to be, but it didn't seem particularly fair that ethereal units can just hunt down fanatics, so we decided it would still just move through and no one is touched.
Hmm that is an interesting question. I think just reading the rules, the fanatics definitely do no damage to ethereal since they are not magical. And it does say if any unit stops on them, which suggests ethereal could destroy them even if it doesn't completely make sense. I wouldn't really call it overpowered though since there is so little ethereal in the game, and from the main army that has them it is basically just 1-2 units.
Once again a few more questions. My friend is barrowing my rule book for a week or two. I know the answer to the first one is in there though. Amyway, I was wondering if a mage that is fleeing can still dispell spells or even cast spells? I'm sure it is covered in the book. I just don't have it. haha Secondly, I've been staying away from named characters since I started playing with no intrest in running them. Mostly because I am told/read here on the forums that they are not tournament legal, and they are overpowered. So I feel like if i used them my victories wouldn't feel so well deserved and like my army/me as a player is not up to par with people that aren't running them. In any case my friends have been getting into the game and I've told them they aren't tournament legal. But one of them really wanted to run one. Being newer than me, they base what they do roughly on what I play and tell them. So they have been under the impression, they shouldn't run them for the same reason I'm not, dispite being legal in the campaign we are taking part in. So he asked me where it says they are not tournament legal. And I said I have no idea. Is that even true? Where does it say they aren't allowed? He really wants to run one, but he is feeling guilty or something because of the reason I don't run them.
Re: I got a few more easy questions. (unanswered) You can still dispel while fleeing, pretty sure you can't cast though. Special characters used to have a note saying they required opponents permission to use, that was 2-3 editions ago though. These days they are perfectly fine and legal. They are not always overpowered, they are almost always unbalanced though. The difference being some are very powerful for the points, some are very expensive for what they do and not worth taking. Either way most tend to dominate the game if not with performance, then just by the fact that they are a huge amount of points and if they fall it is a big loss to the army. I'm pretty sure they are tournie legal these days, though not 100%. If he wants to use one, let him. Lots of groups do. I'd suggest only using them occasionally not all the time though, but up to your group.
Re: I got a few more easy questions. (unanswered) GW have a history of making unbalanced characters, they're either horrendously overcosted or game breakingly overpowered.
Ethereal units and characters or units that cannot be harmed by mundane units will be passed through or pass through fanatics without being harmed, if they stop over the fanatics then the fanatics are eliminated. This also applies to mangler squigs.