so had a game last night with the skaven, slann took shadow for fun, lvl2 2 priest had chain lightning and wind. lvl1 priest had comet (yes!!!) level one was equipped with power scroll and comet spell. turn one i cast steed of shadows, he did not dispel, moved lvl 1 priest close to thee units behind is line, used power scroll and cast commet buffed version. went off on his magic phase as strength 8 with a 11 inch bubble wrecked havoc on clan rats, storm vermin and some slaves and destroyed warpfire thrower. over course skink priesnt died also but it was 100 points and it did some major damage.
I'm glad your strategy worked. But... Why did the skink have to get so close to the enemy to cast his spell? I thought the Comet could be targeted at any point on the table.
He probably had to roll 6 dice plus the power scroll at the spell. Was hoping for a IR cast and then expecting the priest to explode (next to an enemy unit).
Aha! Drop him right in their midst, throw a ton of dice, and hope for 6's. Hope you don't mind, I'm gonna have to try your strategy in my game tomorrow. I may have to use cloak of feathers if I don't take Shadow lore with my Slann, but still, it sounds like you can cause far more damage than it costs.
i originally was going to use cloak of feathers and use same tactic but then i read the power scroll. on six dice your guaranteed a double just about on six dice. another way to do it is, use a small cheap skink unit that way you get an enemy in base contact but all the same get em really close and hope to blow up and cast a really big spell. it definitly took out more points then it cost.
This is what I hate about the new magic rules. Lone Level 1 wizards chucking a ton of dice knowing they will only misscast if they get an irressistable force. A level 1 wiz takes a wound and obliterates his opponents units without them being able to do a thing about it. What is fair or logical about that?
There are disadvantages.. If you roll a 7 on your miscast, you only hurt them if you actually charged your mage into combat, since you need to be in base contact. Roll anything above a 7, and you are only hurting yourself. Every mage takes a strength 6 hit or the caster loses all casting ability. You still have to roll for your spells, and only having 1 spell there is a good chance the one you get will be useless anyway, so you won't get the "double-whammy" effect. If your suicide mage gets a buff spell, but he's way far away from the rest of the army, you will be wasting that spell essentially. Also there is no guarantee you will roll up 6 power dice on the turn you expose your mage in the middle of the enemy. Not likely, but still another possibility. Most of the miscasts additionally cause you to lose D6 dice from the pool. This means that your entire magic phase will essentially be just this one suicide bomb. A Slann makes much more effective use of power dice. Consider also that the mage costs near 100 points when effectively equipped for this strategy. Be sure you are going to be able to take out that much from the enemy before trying this one. It is a situational strategy at best. I would guess that in an army with no Slann you could make some good use of it, but having a Slann in your army you wouldn't want to waste a whole magic phase on this risky move.
Good point kermie/caneghem, but how cool/funny is it! I'm thinking of taking a whole bunch of suicide skinks, modeled up with explosives.... Is this the future of 8th....
Kamikaze skinks? Really? If I wanted to kill more I'd spend those points on another Scar-vet of mine. But that's me. Cheers!
Against opponents that try this, I'd be more worried about whatever spell it is going off irresistible than I would the miscast itself. A 2-4 roll is really the only thing to sweat, since in most cases the wizard is going to be at least 1" away from everything. Still though, it'll be legendary bragging rights if someone gets this to go off perfectly...
it works great it just so happend i had rolled the comet on the power scroll skink, but also think the more you roll on the heavens lor the more chances of duplicate numbers and may choose to get the comet on a suicide skink
Unless you roll it on two others first. I think I would roll each skink until I was forced to take the signature spell, then I would roll the suicide skink and hope for the best.