8th Ed. Miscats? OMG WHY?! or MEH?

[Mage Priest Phoenix]

AS the topic says I am wondering how bad a miscast will affect a slann? I know the table has alot of bad in it but when I play other people they don't really seem too worried about miscast and will IF spells that really don't need it. SO I was wondering is this the case with a slann running solo with death? if he blows up will it be a bad thing and my army crippled for it or can a slann take these miscasts?

 

[erians]

Well first of all we have amazing miscast protection. Cupped Hands, Soul of Stone and Lore of Life makes miscasts a joke. If you get super unlucky and still manage to miscast, then yeah its pretty bad if you play with TGs and pretty harmless if you go solo slann.

If you play with TGs then its often game over for your TG unit (unless you play a death star but either way its gonna cause huge amounts of damage): Cascade kills 90% of the TG unit and has a 50% chance of gibbing the slann, Calamitous Detonation kills like 7-8 TGs, Detonation kills 7-10 TGs (depends a lot on unit size). That means a roll of 2-7 kills a huge part of your TG unit.

For a solo Slann Cascade has a 50% chance of instagibbing your Slann but if you roll 4+ then its not bad at all. The detonations and feedback are harmless, they might cause an odd wound and ruin the rest of your magic phase but nothing game changing. Power drain is bad, but at least you don't give up any victory points. Basically you need to roll 2-4 and then 1-3 for a miscast to be a catastrophe (loosing 3 magic levels isn't fun either tho).

 

[Euclid]

Just remember that Cupped Hands has a 1 in 6 chance of failure. The last couple of battles when I used it I rolled a 1. Curses!!!

But it seems a must-have for any Slann within TG. I have yet to try Life magic, so I couldn't comment on that.

 

[Clockwork]

You can happily avoid miscasting by gaming the system. Remember its more likely to happen the more dice you use. With a level 4 mage, I try to only roll a maximum of 3 dice and rarely 4. That gives you average rolls of 13 and 16 respectively, which should be more than enough for most spells. With three dice there's only a 7% chance of rolling 2 sixes.

The biggest way to avoid miscasting - and one often overlooked - is to avoid casting spells! Just because you can cast a spell doesn't mean that you always should. The number of times I've seen a miscast go horribly wrong on a two or three dice on an unnecessary low level fireball, just because the player has dice left over.

 

[erians]

You can happily avoid miscasting by gaming the system. Remember its more likely to happen the more dice you use. With a level 4 mage, I try to only roll a maximum of 3 dice and rarely 4. That gives you average rolls of 13 and 16 respectively, which should be more than enough for most spells. With three dice there's only a 7% chance of rolling 2 sixes.

On the other hand that means that your opponent can easily dispel your most important spells. You will miscast less but also get less important spells through. This also means you can never cast any high casting value game changers like Dwellers or boosted Time Warp.

The biggest way to avoid miscasting - and one often overlooked - is to avoid casting spells! Just because you can cast a spell doesn't mean that you always should. The number of times I've seen a miscast go horribly wrong on a two or three dice on an unnecessary low level fireball, just because the player has dice left over.

This is true in a way. I've seen a ton of people chuck 2 dice at some random crap spell that will have a very insignificant impact on the game only to roll a miscast (I played against a friend in 6th who miscasted with 2 dice with his lvl 1Keeper of Secrets and killed him.... on turn 1).

On the other hand if you have dice left over you aren't using your magic phase properly. You should know how many dice you should cast on each spell before the magic phase even begins and just follow that plan. The only situation I can imagine where its better to just not cast any spells and discard the dice is if you play with Death and the spell you save for last generate some PDs.

 

[Clockwork]

Of course. I'm not saying that you should always use only 3 or 4 dice, or never use all your dice up. Just that because you can doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Sometimes you will want to 6 dice something to get it through and risk that miscast. Sometimes you will want to pay cautiously and try to draw out dispel dice.

 

[Arachun]

I usually goes a solo Slaan with death and the diadem of power for that exactly. Ist just Nice to buff the dispel pool with up to two more dispel dice Wien you dont need Them to cast with.

 

[Moniker]

Bah. I'm a risk taker! Throw those dice and see what happens! Mind you, I play mostly with a mate who's literally rolled a half dozen miscasts then I - we counted - so I don't worry about it. If you miscast, well... Make sure you roll those big dice on big spells that'll make a proper difference.

That said, I use Life so I'm not overly worried. one in six? Worth it!


Alea iacta est!

 

[Arli]

I always take cupped hands, even if I take lore of life. When I choose a different lore and I miscast, I will weigh my options after I roll on the table. If the roll is higher than 4, I may let the slann take the damage. If it will take out my temple guard, I will use cupped hands (probably).

Then I will roll a 1 on cupped hands...