Hi, Anyone played this? I'm interested in buying it, but is it any use without buying all the monsters too? Thanks for any info.
The hard part is finding other players who want to try it. If you can overcome that obstacle, you don't have to buy a bunch of new monsters assuming you already have a Lizardmen army. You can field Carnosaurs, Stegadons, and the like as your monsters with out having a competitive disadvantage. Since Storm of Magic games tend to be more informal than regular games, you can generally get away with proxying different monsters. You can also play SoM games without extra monsters. I play it with my secondary Vampire Counts army. if you dual collect armies you can have a pact with Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, or Daemons with your bonus points. While GW made their main selling point about the game the monsters, the real change to Storm of Magic is making the magic phase enormously potent. Players roll 4d6 for power dice rather than 2d6 and every wizard gains additional spells. If more magic sounds good, Storm of Magic is for you. If it's not your cup of tea, I'd pass. I wrote a Tactica on it a while back, don't know if that helps.
Thanks a lot for the info. That helps a lot. Only me and my son play 8th where I live so we'll have a go at SoM. More potent magic sounds good. We have O&G, Lizards and Vamps on hand. I'll also check out your Tactica. Thanks again.
Note that SoM is in fact composed of several variant rules (special scenarios with the fulcrum, 4d6 magic phase, epic spells, monsters and summoned undead or daemons points), so you can chose to use any of all of those variants. For exemple you might simply play normal games with the extra poitns for monsters (and/or undead/daemon detachments), without the fulcrum, 4d6 magic phase or epic spells. Some players even chose to simply allows the monsters (or at least the thematic options) as rare choices, like a wild stegadon or carnausor (without any rider) in a lizardmen army. You can also play the fulcrum without the 4d6 magic phase or epic spells if you want.
the 4D6 magic phase actually sounds a lot like what End Times: Kaine did to magic, there's even mention of a fulcrum.