8th Ed. Magic in 8th edition. Do it pay of?

Hello Lustria!

So, when i played back in the days, power dices was generated by mages and their lvl. If i remember correctly.

In this edition it seems that power and dispel dices is generated by the winds of magic, this sounds kinda random to me as bad luck with winds of magic will not make a magic heavy army pay of.

But then again, i am not sure that i interpret the rules right.

What is your guys experience?

 

That is correct.

There is a significant random element; however, that balances out just how game-changing magic can be - especially for an army with significant weaknesses, such as Lizardmen, that can really only be improved with magic.

How much you invest is a risk that you have to take, and there are ways of mitigating that risk: Slann disciplines can store dispel dice or allow multiple channel attempts (combine this with the Channeling Staff), there are magic items like Power Stone or Forbidden Rod that can offeset a bad magic phase, or just take multiple Skink Priests to increase your odds of channeling. Remember though that the average of two dice is 6.

 

Or 7


I agree, especially in lower point games, as the winds of magic doesn't scale with points. For example, if you throw Fiery Convocation on a unit in your magic face, and the opponent rolls snake eyes for winds of magic in their next turn, the victim is gonna get two more rounds of S4 hits on all the models in the unit.

But magic is supposed to be dicy, that is what makes it fun!

 

I would prefer if it were a bit less random - maybe only 1d6 plus something to do with wizard levels. I have had a games where a single bad roll for winds of magic has turned the entire battle. Sure it's a game of dice rolls, but I don't like a single bad roll hurting quite THAT much. It's especially bad for people like me, who seem to be cursed by the dice gods.

I guess I just don't like GW s recent trend of making everything more and more random.

 

I understand what GW was trying to do in 8th ediiton with winds of magic by making it such that you could go without any mages and still have some decent magic defense (you get the greater D6 of the 2D6 power dice in dispel dice)) and some hope that the opposing general will not roll welll in terms of winds of magic. Also, you can run a single mage in 8th edition and, with a good winds of magic roll, get off a lot of magic. I also understand that GW designers (esp. Matt Ward), think some randomness is "fun" or "interesting" for the game and, to a point, they are probably right, especially for newer players. As the new army books have come out written for 8th edition, they have taken away or reduced the ability of armies to generate a lot of power dice in addition to the winds of magic without a significant points commitment or risk., except with the lore of death. Notice that they also have gone away from the uber spells that both do not allow for any save and either hit and destoy all models in the unit that fail some test or hits and destroys all models touched by the template and fail some test (or destroys the number of models rolled for in the case of dreaded 13th) in the newer army books as compared with the 8th edition common book like purple sun (lore of death vortex spell), dwellers below (lore of life direct damage spell), and pit of shades (lore of shadow direct damage spell).

In 7th edition, the number of power and dispel dice was determinable based on the mix of mages taken but the rules could be abused such that one ended up with mismatches occasionally against some armies in the magic phase (like against some Liardmen, Daemons, dark elf sac dagger and power of darkness , and vampire counts builds). The spells were also generally less powerful but miscasts were less damaging. The ability to take multiple dispel scrolls also helped a bit.

The biggest problems/complaints with 8th edition magic are the lack of scalability for smaller battles and the dislike by more experienced and tournament players of the randomness of the magic phases combines with the semi-autowin spells in certain match-ups making the game less predictable and too often based on luck. We often house rule the scalability issue by having the winds of magic reduced to say 2D3 power dice and the greater D3 dispell dice at or below 1000 point battles and scale up from there to 2D6 at only 2400 to 3000 point battles. [ 2(D3+1) dice for say 1250 to under 2000 point battles for example]. Otherwise, in smaller campaign and warband events and escalation events, armies with cheaper mages can cast a lot of spells and armies with expensive mages can't cast at all given the character points limits (or are at a disadvantage). When playing larger team battles, we have a modified power dice pool and dispel dice pool scaled up to the size of the armies and number of players on each side.

 

I'd like to see winds of magic rolled per game turn, rather than player turn.
It sucks to have one player get 11 or 12 dice, followed by 3 or 4 for the other player.

If you rolled winds of magic at the start of each game turn, and then had players channel during each magic phase, you're get a more balanced game, while still having magic be unreliable. It would just be equally unreliable.

-Matt

 

I agree with Lizardmatt.

It always sucks when my Bretonnian friends` lone damsel dominates the magic phase during the turns we charge, while my my Slann sits uselessly on his palanquin wishing she'd teach him the ways of magic - which seems to happen more than it should.

 

Well, in the system that was before, one needed to pay points in form of mages and maybe items to get more dices and then more magic. Now it seams that one pay for the potential to cast spells and then hope for good winds of magic. Which makes for a good option to have some mage in the army, but it seams hard to go really magic heavy..

Would it not kinda be like rolling for each turn to devide how far the units can walk? And some units, like cavalry gets extra movement on top of the roll. like 2d3 plus 4. Then paying for the potential to get far movement but it is still random and a lizardmen army can potentially get more movement then a elven army.

I just feel it might be a bit unfair for army's that depend on magic, and pay a lot of points for magic that could be spent on other things if it is really random like winds of magic. It is still random to get the spells working anyhow.

But i have not played the new system yet, and could be pleasantly surprised.

 

This ^

I to am frustrated with how random the game can be, and when you are playing an army like LM that rely so heavily on magic, its very frustrating when you get that horrible winds of magic roll on the turn you REALLY need it! The previous slann dealt with it jsut fine as he was getting the extra dice w each spell, but now we gotta cross our fingers like everyone else

 

I'm also qquite disappointed with the magic. It's expensive and too random, first you need to have luck rolling the right spells (this doesn't really affects slanns that much) then luck rolling your winds of magic, then luck casting the spells, but not too much luck while casting because a IF may be your doom.
Such a big investment for such a lot of randomness. I keep trying fielding lvl4 mages but usually doesn't pay off.

In my last game I tryed to use the bigger version of the metal signature on a Tzeentch Chaos warrior hero mounted on a daemonic monstruos cavalry thing. It was the first time in that game I was rolling 6 dice to cast a spell and I got IF, got a 4 on the misscast chart and I wiped 19 of my 21 temple guards and my slann got a free trip to the beautiful realms of Chaos. About 800 points went down the shink in one phase and my opponent didn't have to move a finger. The Chaos hero had an absurd 3+ ward rerolling the results of 1, so for more scorn he survived the spell.

I will try to field the Slann again, but I'm starting to think that it's a better option to field a couple of Blastiladons instead, because at least having an innate spell gives you stability and you don't place too many eggs on a single basket.

 

I find that Magic isn't that effective at higher points-values- I don't think I've ever had a game come down to a magic roll, since I always play at 3,000 points minimum. I can see it being a huge deal in smaller games, though- with the Damage spells being more effective.

That said, getting off baseline "Wyssan's Wildform" or something can completely turn a big combat around. In my recent battle (in the Battle Reports section), I kept casting Wildform on my Saurus Warriors, while my opponent kept casting that +2 Toughness Life Spell on his Grail Knights, meaning that we were locked in combat with elite stats, so neither had the advantage- if either of us had screwed up a spell, that would have gone way on the other side, and led to hundreds of Victory Points being lost.

Having a bad magic phase sucks, but since your opponent can often have the same kind of luck, it's not such a big deal. Also, Slann are among the best Wizards in the game, especially with the "roll 2 Channeling Dice" thing, a second Dispel Scroll-ish thing, Loremaster (High Magic) and Wandering Deliberations. They have as much of a shot as dominating Magic Phases as anybody.