8th Ed. Optimising the New Magic System

Delicious Drain Magic spam... mmmmyumyumyum...

 

Having played with FoM I'd say that's the better way to go. You don't have as much flexibility in the first turn but it doesn't take long to build that up. You also don't really need as many spells in khaine. By turn 3 I had 5 more lores (I kept making sure to ditch at least 1 each turn for High so I never lost any) but found that I ended up sticking with High for the reroll anyway. As a lore it heals monsters, adds WS, BS, and I, let's us move 10 inches, removes items, pump out 2d6 magic missiles, and most importanty removes DIY death stars and debuffs.

 

Can you elaborate on this? I thought you lost the spell you swapped with to gain a whole new lore. Seems to me the more you use the lore attribute, the fewer spells you have to benefit from loremaster.

 

The lore attribute says that when you swap a spell you generate a spell from the chosen lore. It then elaborates that if you chose to generate a spell from High Magic you can generate ones you've previously swapped. So in the old rules say you've dropped soul quench and tempest if you swap fiery convocation you have an equal chance of generating each of those spells. But with ETK it specifically says that when you generate spells you get all the spells of the lore.

 

Oh, man. Good point lol. Hadn't looked at it like that.

 

one more reason which makes me prefer wandering slanns now: now FoM slanns are a wonderful way to make you have long discussions with your opponents
Anyway I see your point guys and I really like it. I will playtest this, but swapping spells could be hard before, and now will be more difficult because of the D6 thing... so which lore would you priorize? Death for PD reset?


edit: just thinking... a slann using high magic could swap a spell for Lore of undeath and summon a necromancer with access to nehekara and vampire lores. I don't think that would be great (low level caster and we cannot use properly many spells), but it's one more possibility

 

It's not that hard. First turn I was able to cast 3 spells so traded for Life, Undeath and High. Turn 2 I swapped for Beasts, Death, Light, and High (I got Fiery Convocation off but it is pretty much useless against my HE opponent). Turn 3 I swapped for Death, Shadow, and High. We called it after turn 3 because he absolutely roached a saurus unit in one combat with a DIY corestar.

Don't forget that Apotheosis also gives a unit Fear so it is still worthwhile to cast (I like it on Skink Cohorts). And Drain Magic can target units even if there's nothing to get rid of. Both are easy and safe for a FoM Slann to cast on 1 die so you should be adding 1 lore per turn regardless of whatever else you cast.

In terms of lores to pick up I'd say that Shadow and Light are probably more important before Death depending on your match up. Shadow lets you teleport a unit wherever you want on the board (with supporting units brought in via WBW) and Light lets you make units autopass leadership checks which is important for surviving charges during your opponent's turn when he DIY's his charging units up.

 

From the games I have played so far (7 or 8 now, using the dispel = failed casting interpretation) I don’t think there is a best choice between wandering and focus.

If there are only a few spells you want then focus is fantastic. As has been stated you can normally pick up two to three lores per turn while retaining access to the fantastic spells in high (breaking the banner of the world dragon then burning them all brings me so much happiness!)

However wandering gets us all the more combat orientated spells from the get go which can be important if we lose first turn and find something horrid like a pair of daemon princes or a handful of frost hearts shoved 20” straight across the table. I think these things need to be reacted to right away, with no time for messing about trying to assemble the correct spells from multiple lores.

As a result I have been leaning more toward wandering for my style of army and style of play (I like lots of combat blocks, and pushing across the table). I find with high magic I need to delay a turn or two before advancing and end up on the back foot. If I were using an army more focused on avoidance this probably wouldn’t be an issue.

Something I have just started experimenting with is using wandering to really put out some combo’s using spells from a lot of lores. I haven’t fully decided if Im trying to be too clever and its an unreliable waste of dice or if I might be onto something. This type of thing uses a fair few lores so would take a turn or two to build up with high, by which time I might be wanting to switch straight into direct combat augmentation/hexs.

An example is opening with a soulblight, this then boosts any further damage, net, dwellers etc that I might want to follow up with. Another would be if I cast curse of anrahire on a unit any further casts wind blast or the four winds become a problem. Even throwing out a vortex or two then using wind blast/four winds to push units onto them, or even move the vortices in multiple directions (had one great instance where I cast a murder of crows on some witch elves, then pushed them back through the vortex with four winds, then pushed the vortex back through them again…...it was carnage)

Basically wandering vs focus probably comes down to personal preference. They are both fantastic.

 

Under this interpretation I'd probably lean towards Wandering too. But then house rules can really change base experiences.

 

I’m guessing you go for the re-cast regardless of dispel option? I can certainly see how infinite casting of arcane unforging could swing my preference towards high magic!.......although infinite casting of net and soulblight could be pretty horrible as well.

Don’t know if I’d call either interpretation a house rule since the rules in khaine are rather ambiguous.

 

So pretty clear. Before a dispel (which starts on page 35) you make a casting attempt. If you beat the casting value of the spell the attempt is successful. If you don't it isn't.

So again we have casting attempt which happens before the dispel attempt as per the BRB.

 

Hopefully we wont derail the thread to much with this since there are many many threads debating this across the net already:

I don't think its that straight forward since you are ignoring the summary paragraphs in khaine which state that “....as long as all previous attempts to cast the spell have been successful”.

The hangup is whether or not “attempts to cast the spell have been successful” is the same as “successful casting attempt”, which is complicated by the fact that there is no such rules term as “successful casting attemp”, we can only guess what it is and when it applies in a section of the rules that is already a horrible mess of terminology.

What is a successful attempt to cast a spell? Its not defined anywhere, and both interpretations fit grammatically e.g. a successful casting attempt (whatever that is) is not necessarily the same as a previous attempt to cast a spell being successful.

A spell isn’t “successfully cast” until it isn’t dispelled.

Once you meet the casting value of a spell it becomes “cast” (not a “successful casting attempt”)

If you fail to meet the casting value the “casting attempt” fails (so logically if it doesnt fail it must be successful – but that isnt the case with “cast” and “successfully cast”, so can we make this assumption? I dont think so, but I cant prove Im right, no one can)

If you take the line of logic that the key quote above is 'only' from a rules overview and can thus be ignored then it also means that:

end times spells can be dispelled as normal (since the main rules say they cant be dispelled once “successfully cast”, but a spell isn't “successfully cast” until it isn't dispelled anyway)
the dispelling player never has to roll a D6 to see how many dispel dice can be used
Since these rules are only mentioned in the overview.

Overall I don't think either interpretation can be definitively proved so we just have to make a call with what we are using as a community until (if) an FAQ comes out. Here in WA we have decided to use the “dispel = no recasting” interpretation (and I think the eastern states have decided to use that as well for the most part).

 

Wow yeah we're done with the rule talk.

 

Lol would I be correct in thinking you do not like the reasoning in this interpretation?

 

Yeah.

Under any interpretation I'd have to say that it feels correct that these rules are what Lizardmen were meant to be playing with. When it comes to maximizing utility out of the phase it really is a matter of how you want to go about it. You have to think along a few lines now instead of just 6 dice spam. Trickle casting got very good for Slann and Silverfaith hit on a good method of 3-4 dicing with level 2s instead of splurging on a Slann. Hail Mary is still viable but not as reliable. Lucky for us we've got all the tools to go with any method without having to do too many army list gymnastics.

 

Yes. Being able to cast things on 1-2 dice is very powerful because you can just spam a ton of different spells either with WD or with a particular lore. Just make sure to check with your gaming group for which interpretation of the rules you are using.