AoS Rule of 1 change?

[Canas]

In the newest white dwarf there's a battlereport between the new fish-aelves an Nagash. In it Nagash repeatedly casts the same spell multiple times thanks to "Locus of Shyish" (basicly undeath wizards can cast a spell from their special lores twice provided the casting roll was 9+).

This seems like a contradiction with the rule of 1. And if this is genuine it seems like stuff like Kroak's deliverance should also be castable multiple times again. Anyone have any ideas what exactly is supposed to be the technicality by which Kroak isn't allowed to cast multiple times but Nagash & friends apparently are?

 

[Christopher]

This is a very interesting question, and one I'd also like to know the answer to. It's not outside the realm of possibility that they simply made a mistake, I suppose. But that rule is so specific in its wording, specifically disallowing multiple castings of the same spell "even if" the wizard has an ability that allow it to do so outside Matched Play. Weird.

 

[Aginor]

Interesting.
I'll check the ability in my Legions of Nagash Book.
My first take on it though: in matched play the Ro1 wins against it.

 

[Aginor]

Ok I looked it up:
You cannot cast a spell twice. It works like this:

- You roll to cast the spell
- If the roll is an unmodified 9+ and the spell is not unbound, do whatever it does twice.

A nice way to maneuver around the Ro1.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Yeah @Aginor is right, the new rules allow the effect of a spell to be used twice if the dice roll is above “x” and unmodified.

I suspect all named wizards to end up with spells like this once they are all updated.

 

[Canas]

Ok I looked it up:
You cannot cast a spell twice. It works like this:

- You roll to cast the spell
- If the roll is an unmodified 9+ and the spell is not unbound, do whatever it does twice.

A nice way to maneuver around the Ro1.

right.. at least the technicality makes sense. But it's still kind of stupid as it still effectivly negates the rule of 1. Not to mention that a 9+ roll happens 10/36. That means your casting value needs to be 8+ before the Locus of Shyish becomes more reliable than just casting the spell twice. That's horrificly effective if spamming mortal wounds spells was such a massive issue.... hell a natural 9+ more likely than succesfully casting Kroak's celestial deliverance twice (without modifiers..)... So much inconsistencies :S

God I wish they'd just get rid of the rule of one and gave us something halfway decent in return...

 

[Jason839]

I’d be willing to lose the rule of one if they would balance magic. WHFB has magic dice so while you could take 3 wizards that all had the same spell, you didn’t have the ability to use them all at the same time. Some other resource would be needed to limit the broken spells from being used more than one time

 

[Aginor]

I agree. The Rules of One (and especially the one about magic) cause more problems than they solve IMO.

Sure, I see how it would be bad if Kroak could just spam his meteors (or even Arcane Bolt) onto one target and basically eliminate any single model in one round without the enemy being able to do anything against it, but the way magic works now, especially for armies who don't have a Spell Lore, is just bad.

@Jason839 I am not familiar with WHFB rules, could you summarize how that magic dice system works?

 

[Canas]

To be honest I think they should just do the following:

1) Not all spells need to do mortal wounds. It'd severly reduce their spamming potential if low level spells didn't all consistently do D3 mortal wounds. And they can still be effective anti-armor spells if you just do something like say: arcane bolt fires d6 bolts dealing 1 damage a -1 rend each can be saved. That's still going to do a decent amount of damage to most targets. Plus, spells tend to be reliable enough that even good saves will start to struggle when being bombared each turn by multiple shots..

2) The same spell can't stack. No summoning starlight on someone till he can no longer roll a positive hit-value

3) For big spells you could just copy WHFB approach with generating dice. Let's say a minor wizard generates 2 dice and arcane bolt has a casting value of 5+. You can now attempt to cast it twice with 1d6 or cast it once with 2d6 (and be far more likely to actually pull it off). Then we have Kroak generating say 8 dice, now give comet call a casting value of 13 and you already need at least 3 dice to succeed, let alone reliably. Tada, even the most powerfull wizards won't be able to spam much anymore.... Hell, even Nagash with his +3 bonus to casting and extra spellcasts at maximum health wouldn't be able to cast the top tier spells fo long.. I wouldn't share dice between casters though like in WFB cuz that seems like it'd get messy quickly..

4) To prevent someone from just taking a bunch of "generic wizard #3" who happens to have a powerfull special spell. Or from just taking the same spell from their faction lore. Add in the rule that each time a spell is cast the next casting attempt of this spell in the same turn will suffer a -1 penalty to its casting roll to represent reality needing to re-settle. This'l also help with stopping Kroak or nagash from taking an "easy" lore-spell and then just spamming that.

 

[Tizianolol]

A question about new white dwarfs.. Battlereport is 2000 points?

 

[Canas]

A question about new white dwarfs.. Battlereport is 2000 points?

2000 is the medium sized games so they seem to be the most common yeah.

 

[ILKAIN]

To be honest I think they should just do the following:

......

4) To prevent someone from just taking a bunch of "generic wizard #3" who happens to have a powerfull special spell. Or from just taking the same spell from their faction lore. Add in the rule that each time a spell is cast the next casting attempt of this spell in the same turn will suffer a -1 penalty to its casting roll to represent reality needing to re-settle. This'l also help with stopping Kroak or nagash from taking an "easy" lore-spell and then just spamming that.

40k just did this with Smite. Smite is basically mystic bolt but you cant choose the target (its the closet model/unit) and its manifest score goes up by one each time, starting at its base 5 for the first cast 6 for the second and 7 for the third etc...

 

[Canas]

40k just did this with Smite. Smite is basically mystic bolt but you cant choose the target (its the closet model/unit) and its manifest score goes up by one each time, starting at its base 5 for the first cast 6 for the second and 7 for the third etc...

well there's hope then since they do seem to occasionally borrow stuff from 40k

 

[Flo]

I agree. The Rules of One (and especially the one about magic) cause more problems than they solve IMO.

Sure, I see how it would be bad if Kroak could just spam his meteors (or even Arcane Bolt) onto one target and basically eliminate any single model in one round without the enemy being able to do anything against it, but the way magic works now, especially for armies who don't have a Spell Lore, is just bad.

@Jason839 I am not familiar with WHFB rules, could you summarize how that magic dice system works?

The magic dice had 2 (which i remember, may have been more) ways of working depending on the edition

In some Editions each mage generated dice depending on their power lvl

There where 4 of them so a Mage lvl 1 generates one dice a lvl 2 Mage got 2 And so on

In Top of that, you got 2 Base magic dice

If you got an lvl 3 mage and two lvl 1 Mages sou would have

2 Base +3 from the lvl3 Mage and +2 for Two lvl1 Mages that makes a total of 7

If i remember it correctly each mage Could only use its own dice and the base dice, so the lvl3 Mage Could use up to 5 dice für its spells per turn so the two lvl1 Mages would only have one dice left each

Unbinding worked similar

2 Base dice+ 1 dice for lvl1 and 2 Mages or 2dice for lvl3 and 4 Mages

The other way (i Think it was the last 2 editions before AoS, havent played this so not Sure if this is correct) was that you generated dice random each magic Phase by simply rolling 2d6

Most Mages where lvl 1 or 2 for heroes (a skink priest was hat 65 points in lvl 1 and could buy an Upgrade for 35 points to lvl 2 for example)

Generals(that where Limited to 1 per army in a 2k point game) had lvl 3 or 4 (slann where always 4, they where the most powerful Mages besides some named characters back then)

 

[Slanntastic]

I like rule of 1 because it is super simple. No spell can be cast more than once, done. I guess I am not seeing why it is bad/unbalanced...Death has a non-existent shooting phase, which is why I suspect they got the Locus of Shyish.

 

[Canas]

I like rule of 1 because it is super simple. No spell can be cast more than once, done. I guess I am not seeing why it is bad/unbalanced...Death has a non-existent shooting phase, which is why I suspect they got the Locus of Shyish.

The core-issues are as follows:

1. It's dumb and diminishes the cool-factor of wizards by massivly gimping their power. A coven of supposedly supremly powerfull wizards can now barely do anything cuz they don't know enough spells... which is well.. dumb...
2. It severly hamstrings proper wizard-based armies, there simply aren't enough spells to go around with the rule of 1.
3. It's a terrible bandaid solution to stop the mortal wound spam with spells (it neither stops the spam of mortal wound spells nor does it stop the spam of mortal wounds, it just stops spamming of specific spells. Also there's just as much spam that aren't spells and thus avoid the rule of 1)
4. It leads to akward situations where you can only buff 1 of your units, and thus watch your opponent avoid the spell effects by simply attacking the other. E.g. got 2 frontline units in desperate need of protection? Too bad, only 1 can have mystic shield the other is screwed. This severly limits the use of magic. E.g. fielding several starpriest should be a fairly amazing set up, throwing around starlight to deal with your opponents nasty heavy Hitters. But due to the rule of 1 this approach is impossible, and just debuffing 1 heavy hitter isn't nearly as effective a tactic when there's 3-4 behemoths charging your way...
5. It is inconsistent. There's plenty of non-magic stuff that works essentially the same but isn't subject to the rule of 1.

Really the only "good" thin is that it's simple... which is well, dissapointing...

 

[pendrake]

A better Rule of One would be: the casting difficulty goes up by 1 with each attempt to cast the same spell.


(But casting values reset after your turn is finished.)

 

[Canas]

A better Rule of One would be: the casting difficulty goes up by 1 with each attempt to cast the same spell.


(But casting values reset after your turn is finished.)

I really don't get why they didn't just use this approach.. they already had the rule in Kroaks deliverance anyway. Might as well apply it everywhere.

 

[Slanntastic]

@Canas I hear what you are saying but I still don't think it is "dumb", it just changes how you use your magic. Wizards are still some of the most powerful/versatile units in the game. You are right, this does gut wizard based armies but I think that may have been intentional. GW wants us to play big armies full of all sorts of different units not just handful of wizards. I think rule of 1 was about more than just mortal wound spam. Mystic Shield spam was just as bad. I think your #4 is one of the most strategic parts of the game. If I could put mystic shield and summon starlight on both my bastiladons it would make them pretty much invisible (especially inside the Thunderquake) which would be silly and not very fun to play against. I like the hard choice of trying to figure out where each spell would have the greatest effect. I am surprised that prayers aren't subject to the rule of 1, they are effectively just like spells. Command abilities by and large are subject to the rule of 1 because only the general can use them.

@pendrake that is a cool idea, I could get behind that.

 

[Aginor]

I think the problem would be a bit less severe if they finally introduced a spell lore for everyone.
Armies with spell lore (I have the Sylvaneth and Nagash Battletomes, and I have read the Bonesplitterz one) are much more interesting, just because of that diversity.