For a change last week I decided to drag out my old beastmen army for a game. I totally redesigned my army with a focus on many small herds backed up by chariots and alot of magic (Lvl 4, 2x Lvl 2s; i.e. 10 power dice). The game reminded me why I dont like using too much magic in any kind of army.
First off the spells you get are completely random, so if you are planning some particular tactic based on getting a certain spell, you better have a back up plan. Even if you don’t want a specific spell, you often end up with something completely useless. This wasn’t a major problem in 6th ed. because you could give the power dice over to one of your other casters. However these days you can end up with a few dice left over and nothing worth casting.
The second issue I have with magic is one bad miscast at the wrong time can completely neutralise any plan you put in place. Yes this is true with every aspect of the game but no more so than in the magic phase. A miscast has the added flow on effect of that the scroll your opponent was going to use this turn to stop that game winning spell can be used in the next turn neutralizing yet another magic phase.
These elements make magic in my opinion just too risky relative the reward. Not to mention the points investment needed to provide an effective magic phase.
What do you think about magic, is the risk worth it? do you enjoy the randomness of this part of the game?
Magic is needed in any army or at least, some way to combat its effects. It should never be relied on however. This is for a few reasons. Namely a heavily magicy army may be fun for you to play but try playing against it. Experience has taught me that going against a Lv4 High Elf Mage Lord, with three of his Hero based buddies to pack him up is never fun. Furthermore, other characters will nearly always return their points investment. Magic users either will or wont. Simple as that. I’ll never forget the game I wasted 250pts+ on a Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer Lord only to seem him fluff up every spell before being dragged kicking and screaming into the Realm of Chaos.
This isn’t to say that magic heavy armies shouldn’t be used or that magic should altogether be labelled as cheesey. Magic is as much part of the game as close combat or shooting. But like anything else in Warhammer, it should never be solely relied upon to win games. That comes from carefully taking a little bit of everything, meshing it all together and coming up with a force that excels in all phases of the game.
Totally agree with what has been said. Unless your Khorne, you will always see a token scroll caddy to combat the opponents magic phase. Personal preference really. I’m currently running a lvl4 CD lord with 1 or 2 scrolls and a powerstone and find that that is all you really need to be competative without total reliability. 300pts in a 2250pt list, isnt really that much to spend to compete in both players magic phases.
Cheers,
Matty
Do not listen to these people, they are lying. While it is true that many armies depend on magic, most notably are the undead and elfish armies, nobody else “needs” to use the stuff. Empire; Dogs of War; Bretonnians; Dwarves; Ogre Kingdoms; and Lizardmen are all fully capable of winning without a spell caster to eat up your points.
Of these armies the Empire is probably the best choice for non-magic armies. You are better off spending the same points on an engineer who will keep your big guns firing, then on some sissy in robes who can’t even protect themselves from the average goblin. Taking the wizard means that you are normally forced to waste a unit who could be fighting and killing the enemy to serving as meat shields, because all of that wizard’s godlike powers still can’t stop a single arrow.
The next best non-magic army is Ogre Kingdoms. I know that gut magic is powerful and scary as hell to the enemy, but so is an additional unit of six bulls ready to grind you into the mud. Plus it is now standard practice, to take at least one low level wizard loaded up with dispel scrolls, this guaranties that your opponent has wasted close to 100 points. Those points could have been spent on a weapon that might have threatened your army, such as a cannon.
I know these will not be popular to many, but such tactics have won me more than a few battles. Though I must admit, nothing is as funny as my goblin shaman exploding when I really needed a spell to work.
I actually pity the elves. High and Dark are still (after revisions anyways) the weakest armies in the game. A huge factor is magic. They have NO WAY to get cheap dispel dice like rod of power (seal of ghrond isn’t good enough) or marks and there is limited magical resistance (bar magic items)…the only way they don’t get fried by skaven or slann magic missiles or ‘out raised’ by vampire counts is if they take at least 6 dd and 2-3 scrolls. This, as you can imagine is ultra expensive and costs CHARACTER SLOTS… which means you eat your lord slot for the archmage (if you want all these points spent to be worth something in your own offensive magic phase) or 3 hero slots (and for 6 dd you need annulian crystal or seal of ghrond as well).
Fantastic, all of a sudden you realise you really need a lord to fight enemy combat lords or help out your main battle line units or they are going to get toasted in combat (always strike first or not). If you took the archmage you can’t take a prince and are left with the commander who if you want to fight real fights needs to be equipped to the teeth with magical protection, or you can ditch the archmage for 2 mages and buy a prince (who is a decent fighter if you are willing to pay 250+ pts for the trinkets and as a bonus get the prince).
Re: simply ignoring the magic heavy armies is a huge gamble, and not one I’d like to take…its not like mage hunting is easy either…some of the magic heavy armies have attributes like stubborn on their mages or have names starting with ‘v’ and ending in ‘ampire’.
Awesome. I’m ready to roll… I’ve got 3 lvl2s and a prince, and that’s about 750 pts worth of characters and a mediocre offensive (and more importantly…unreliable) magic phase and a mediocre combat character.
When I do take out high elves for the challenge (they are, without question, a complete disadvantage and anyone who takes them to a tournament is shooting themselves in the foot. If you want combined arms, play empire. If you want all cavalry, play brettonians. The dragon army is the only thing that high elves and dark elves …and soon high elves more, actually do better then any other army. And that itself has serious disadvantages in the -surprise- character department (namely magic)).
Lets start that sentence again.
When I do take out high elves for the challenge what I found works the best is the lvl4, 2xlvl2 combo, with all the magical trinkets. It is usually enough to get something through each phase against the heavy magic defense armies and absolutely tear apart the non magic defense armies. Besides 2 rbt and 2 eagles everything else is pure hitting power and punch (and a block of spears for the things that I need infantry for, ie tomb scorpions, swarms, etc)
My number one hope in the new high elf book was a cheap way of generating dispel dice… like a 25 pt item that can be taken multiple times by combat characters that generates 1 dd. I would pay a 50 pts for 2 dice. I would pay a 100 for 4. Apparently, we did not get that. We actually got our characters made even MORE expensive and lost much of the offensive punch that will make magic even more difficult to take beside the scroll caddie (or, in my case, scroll archmage).
I love the magic system – it adds one facet to fantasy that 40k lacks – one more way to kill your opponent!
The fact that Magic is by nature unpredictable, adds to the fun of using it. I know many people will say its unreliable at best, but still – the purpose of the game is to have fun, not to consistently beat up your friends
I like to play 2x2s in most armies. My HEs do ok with prince, commander and 2x lv 2s against most opponents esp. with drain magic happening.