8th Ed. New Soul of Stone Discipline Percent Effects on Miscasts

[olderplayer]

This assumes one will always use the soul of stone discipline on the slann to move up to 7 if a low roll or down to 7 if a high roll. There are times when one would accept Magical Feedback (8-9) over Detonation (7) in order to keep a unit from being lost or panicking when the mages/mage have/has enough wounds to survive Magical Feedback. Similarly, late in the game (usually the last turn), one might take Power Drain (10-12) and accept the loss of magic levels and spells over Magical Feedback (8-9) in order to keep a mage from dying or in order to allow the second mage to still cast that magic phase (like a skink priest with Wyssan's casting the +1S and +1T spell when it is critical in that last round to +1T keep a key unit alive or win combat to win the battle. and destroy a unit (reduce unsaved wounds taken and increase unsaved wounds given) .

Miscast Concequence Probabilities: Base- With Soul of Stone
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Dies 8.33%- 4.17%
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Lives 8.33%- 4.17%
Calamitous Detonation 25.00%- 19.44%
Detonation 16.67%- 44.44%
Magical Feedback 25.00%- 19.44%
Power Drain 16.67%- 8.33%

Assuming a Slann is about 400 points at least, is the general and BSB, and is in a full TG unit 6 wide and taking into ccount the effect of these roles on likely loss of unit and effectiveness, the point differential (avoided losses) is worth about 40 to 60 victory points with a mean of 49 points saved on average per miscast. with an average of 1.5 to 2.0 miscasts per six turns depending on the use of the Slann and spell selection. This probably underestimated the points benefit of keeping the Slann alive and at full magic levels for magic defense and offense purposes.

 

[Caneghem]

I like your style, Old One! Cutting Dimensional Cascades in half is hard to argue with. I wonder what the point cost will be? I believe it was rumored to be less than the old soul of stone.

 

[walach]

If you're running TG, detonation is pretty awful... assuming you'd move to get feedback instead, what do the probabilities look like?

 

[Caneghem]

If you're running TG, detonation is pretty awful... assuming you'd move to get feedback instead, what do the probabilities look like?

Basically Detonation only if you roll a 6, so 13.88%

Assuming all your 7, 8, 9, and 10 results you change to feedback, your odds are at exactly 50 percent.

10 + 9 + 8 + 7
(3/36) + (4/36) + (5/36) + (6/36) = 18/36 = 50%

Odds are that you might have to weigh whether you really want to feedback if you have a few weak squishy skink priests running around. I guess you could choose whichever result suited the situation, which is in itself pretty nice.

EDIT: Sorry about that, used the word cascade when I meant feedback!

 

[olderplayer]

You can only change the miscast result roll by 1 up or down. I'm not sure the Cascasde calculation is right in the last post, since dimensional cascade is 2-4 and you would always move the 4 to 5 to reduce the damage effect to the saurus or TG unit and eliminate the risk of losing the Slann. 2 = 1/36 and 3 = 2/36.

Also, the point cost of this discipline is half of the cost of the old disciplines, so it is a no-brainer in terms of taking it, even if one had earthing rod as well on the Slann.

Miscast Concequence : Normal Dice Rolll Range + Range with Soul of Stone adjustment
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Dies: 2-4 and then roll 1-3 on D6 +
2-3 and then roll 1-3 on D6
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Lives 2-4 and the roll 4-6 on D6 + 2-3 and then roll 4-6 on D6

Calamitous Detonation: 5-6 + 4-5
Detonation: 7 + 6-8
Magical Feedback: 8-9 + 9-10
Power Drain: 10-12 then roll D3 for lost levels and spells + 11-12

 

[olderplayer]

In the second option, you would always push the 6 for Calamitous Detontation to the 7 to reduce risk of damage to the Slann with Detonation (the mage avoids taking a wound compared with the lower result and no template hits with detonation, just models in base contact, which ends up being the same number of TG hit with a slann on pal and 25mm TG bases). It is a valid point to move 7 to 8, if the Slann can take a wound and you are worried about losing the other models in the unit more than you are concerned about the risk of losing a skink priest or two (assuming you are running a skink priest). If you also pushed every 7 to an 8 to avoid killing TG and to take a risk of a wound on the Slann instead, then the probabilities are as follows:

Miscast Concequence ProbabilitiesL: Base- With Soul of Stone
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Dies 8.33%- 4.17%
Dimensional Cascade-Slann Lives 8.33%- 4.17%
Calamitous Detonation 25.00%- 19.44%
Detonation 16.67%- 13.89%
Magical Feedback 25.00%- 50.00%
Power Drain 16.67%- 8.33%

Assuming the Slann is not at risk of dying through wounds (you expect to lose the Slann only if his unit is destroyed and he is left free to be directly attacked or breaks and runs and is run down) and you do not have a skink priest to worry about or it can take a wound, you would benefit from the second option of moving all 7's to 8's. Either way, the expected reduction in losses in points of models time probabilities is about 50+ victory points with the second option as well in that event with a single miscast.

Since a Slann miscast occurs on average at least once per battle, even with significant use of a skink priest, and closer to 1.5 to 2.0 times per battle on average, depending on the spell choices and aggressive use of magic, the Soul of Stone discipline is worth at least twice its points cost even with the smallest chance of a miscast through casting only 2 and 3 dice spells and use of a skink priest at times.