Strategic Arms Limitation Talks?? No mega Nuclear spells

[Phazael]

I'm continually amazed how people seem to believe the myth that uberspells balance out or discourage deathstars in some fashion. Any deathstar worth its salt is going to be pretty resistant to most uberspells. A chosenstar typically doesn't care about any of the big spells (other than dreaded 13th, and the chaos-knight-star doesn't even care about that). A gutstar is rune-mawed up against most magic, the characters don't care too much about templates as they have Look Out Sir and if all else fails there's the hellheart. Frankly, a decent deathstar is usually more resilient against spells like purple sun than a shot across the battleline of normal troops. I've seen multiple medium unit armies of ogres get decimated by a single psun with a good roll. Characters usually have good Strength values vs dwellers and puny wizards are going to get dwellered wherever they hide.

Let's not perpetuate this myth any longer. When was the last time you saw a beastman player consider not taking a minobus because of dwellers or pit? Those spells will wreck any unit he chooses to spend points on, the minobus is pretty resilient comparatively.

And it needs to be remembered that many spells can trash a whole army. A boosted soulblight at a well-timed moment is game over to a MMU army but a deathstar might survive it. Psun can pulverise a whole army with a good roll. Even a comet if you can get it into a well-packed little area.

Dwellers does significant damage (and snipes characters) out of even S4 blocks. Its probably the most deadly anti Deathstar spell in wide use, though 13th is better against the chosenstar. Also, consider that a spell like Mind Razor, Miasma, Doom and Darkness, or just about anything in the Light lore can effectively end the game for someone who crammed all of their characters into a single bloated unit, often ignoring the defense of the Maw banner or World Dragon standard. Good luck keeping anything alive when the DE guy gets off Mind Razor on his Witch horde.

They do balance Deathstars, simply because armies spread out into several units are less suceptible to individual spells getting cast and can screen expensive characters better.

[DaemonReign]

Did the dwellers incident even happen then?
If it did, then this is a "Whaaaaah my eggs were all in one basket nerf magic" type of post.
If it didn't, then you're just one of the many on these boards that make stuff up to support the comping of a ballanced game.

I'm concidering just stopping making posts on these boards because Ramulots keeps expressing my opinions better than I ever would..

[Askari]

I have lizardmen (and have had for some time).

Touche, although as a Vampire player I can kind of sympathize.

[Duke Ramulots]

I'm concidering just stopping making posts on these boards because Ramulots keeps expressing my opinions better than I ever would..

Ah, my Sweedish brother

Please dont leave us, the compers already outnumber the warhammer players 10 to 1.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Frankly your usernames are sufficiently similar I have on several occasions got you two muddled. I'm just going to call you both DaemonRamulots.

[The Low King]

Frankly your usernames are sufficiently similar I have on several occasions got you two muddled. I'm just going to call you both DaemonRamulots.

Just refer to them as DR, much shorter

[Duke Ramulots]

LOL!!, I can see how that could be confusing.

[Malorian]

Yeah, every time people complain about the miscast table, I want to shove the 7th ed Waaagh miscast table in their face. Hard . They have no idea what a harsh miscast table is, obviously.

Man, that's no joke. Our old table plus the WoC puppet-master item made me not want to even cast a spell... forget dying on a 4+, we just died!

[Urgat]

Just dying was fine . The double 1 was autodeath, S10 hit on everything in contact, and D6 S3 hits on every friendly unit. And people cry about the current table. Laughable. The shaman had 1/3 chance to die outright, and there was no result that wouldn't cripple the shaman for good, either wounding him, removing a spell, making him stupid and frenzied (yeah, both at the same time). Even double 6 wouldn't save him, as you got IF, but had to reroll on the table. Ah, good old days. The sad thing is, I did basically stop casting spells. I only took shamans for dispelling. two shaman, one with the staff of sorcery, and one with the staff of sneaky stealing (the one item I miss from the previous book). If I weren't casting, neither were you, hah!

[Lord Inquisitor]

LOL!!, I can see how that could be confusing.

If it's any conciliation, the two other posters I get confused are The Low King and The Bearded One. Aside from both having the same first name and similar posting styles, once you get past the beard, helmet and battleaxe, dwarfs still all look pretty much the same to me.

As for deathstars, I'm fine with ogres running a runemaw banner, that means they can pretty much forget about buffing the unit so heh.

Ah, we got a FAQ for that. Rune Maw is back on the menu!

However, even so, I tend to run my deathstar without the Rune Maw and I've had reasonable success with it. There just aren't any spells that really scare me. It is extremely rare that I will lose a game because some uberspell neuters my unit.

Dwellers does significant damage (and snipes characters) out of even S4 blocks. Its probably the most deadly anti Deathstar spell in wide use, though 13th is better against the chosenstar. Also, consider that a spell like Mind Razor, Miasma, Doom and Darkness, or just about anything in the Light lore can effectively end the game for someone who crammed all of their characters into a single bloated unit, often ignoring the defense of the Maw banner or World Dragon standard. Good luck keeping anything alive when the DE guy gets off Mind Razor on his Witch horde.

They do balance Deathstars, simply because armies spread out into several units are less suceptible to individual spells getting cast and can screen expensive characters better.

I just don't see it. It isn't that these spells aren't effective against deathstars, it's the idea that they don't work just as well against a MMU approach. Mindrazor FTW lists work against everyone, in fact, my experience is that deathstars can do better because there is one critical magic phase you need to get mindrazor off or the deathstar hobbles your army and defensive items like dispel scrolls, hellheart, whatever can break that one critical phase and the back of the enemy army. Feed the enemy your army in manageable packets (even all at once) and they'll still get mindrazored. Plus fill up your unit with ward saves and you can even take a mindrazor unit and spit them out (I've done it!). Other spells equally can work against MMU armies - light is good against deathstar but equally you can bubble the spells and protect your whole army against multiple threats.

Man, that's no joke. Our old table plus the WoC puppet-master item made me not want to even cast a spell... forget dying on a 4+, we just died!

The old ogre miscast table was pretty hair raising too.

[Urgat]

The old ogre miscast table was pretty hair raising too.

Yeah, it was almost as bad. Guess which two armies I was playing during 7th ed Come to think of it, I haven't even tried my ogres with 8th ed.

[Maoriboy007]

Did the dwellers incident even happen then?
If it did, then this is a "Whaaaaah my eggs were all in one basket nerf magic" type of post..

Personally I've seen Psun banked across 3VC skeleton units taking out the majority of the units and two characters, I would not condsider that eggs in one basket. Also I've dwellered the majority of a skeleton unit and a heirophant just to prove a point, I've seen a Psun lightly brush a heirotitan then plow into a 50 large skeleton unit devestating both units and a prince that happened to be in the unit, again if those are eggs in one basket your defenition is pretty broad.
Dark elf units removed twice in one game by gateway, A ghould unit that just happened to have the General in it removed by gateway, a Tomb King in a chariot unit Gateway just because a unit has a character in it does that make it "eggs in one basket"? hense worthy of removal . Should those characters be instead wandering the battlefield alone and exposed?

And I don't get the justification for these unit destroying spells that as "you shouldn't be fielding "big" units" when 8th was hailed as the edition that brought back big units of infantry. How big is a unit allowed to be before it deserves to get wiped out by such a spell.

The main problem I have with such spells is first , unless you are inherently immune or have supreme magic shutdown power, there is little to no defence against them. Straight away that throws balance out the window as it automatically separates armies from the pack.
Second, these spells should not "auto-kill" anything. Multiple wounds would be more than sufficient threat to characters and monsters to keep them honest , without leaving you feeling cheated.
Third: The new generation of spells in army books indicate that GW at least on some level realise thier mistake and are attempting to avoid repeating it , with mixed success.

If it didn't, then you're just one of the many on these boards that make stuff up to support the comping of a ballanced game

8th is just a new balance to 7th really, there are still armies that are at the top of the scale and others at the bottom,the combat system is the most marked improvement, even if there are some issues. , but magic is all over the place.

[Duke Ramulots]

If it's any conciliation, the two other posters I get confused are The Low King and The Bearded One. Aside from both having the same first name and similar posting styles, once you get past the beard, helmet and battleaxe, dwarfs still all look pretty much the same to me.

So im not the only one getting those two confused?

[Malorian]

8th is just a new balance to 7th really, there are still armies that are at the top of the scale and others at the bottom,the combat system is the most marked improvement, even if there are some issues. , but magic is all over the place.

There will always be a scale but I would argue that the difference between top and bottom tier is a lot closer in 8th than it was in 7th.

[Maoriboy007]

There will always be a scale but I would argue that the difference between top and bottom tier is a lot closer in 8th than it was in 7th.

Possibly, but for all the talk of the "big Three" in 7th ed, by the end of the edition Skaven ,Lizards , Dark Elves , VC , DoC were all fairly even (demons probably leading the pack) with some other armies being able to field equivalent nasty builds to keep them close to the pack, but isn't that about where we are now with just a different order and possibly meta?
If the uber spells are balancing the game then I would think there is a problem if you have to cast these spells just to stay in the game with the other contenders, skill and gameplay should have much more to do with it than comitting to "purple Sun for the win"
I can see the temptation though, against Dwarves and Ogres its sometimes frustrating enough that you want to send a hadouken down thier flank, but thier really needs to be a better way. But you also see armies that don't really need the advantage in a matchup being able to takeit as a soft option to seal the deal, or to pull an easy win after being outplayed. Its probably just me but I'm not really that fond of the style of play they promote, but I can guess some would like the Micheal Bay effect. I'd like them to have some kind of defence and less autokill, but at the moment a mutual non-aggression pact is a courteous way to go ATM.

[Duke Ramulots]

You get defense, dispell dice, scrolls, and rolling low on your I check.

[Gaargod]

If you changed Dwellers (and Final Transmutation, although that should probably be lowered to 5+) to allow LoS, people would be a lot happier about them. Then they would actually be anti-massive-unit spells, not killing characters into the bargain. Ever seen what happens when a Slann dwellers the enemy's Lv4 and proceeds to run rampage over the magic phase? Ain't pretty.
If you changed it from autokill upon failing the test into D3 wounds, even with no saves, that'd be a lot less stupid too. Autokill really shouldn't be in the game - contrast (Heroic) Killing Blow, which only works 1/6 of the time and still allows ward saves AND certain items ignore it.


If I'm honest, I dislike nuke (mindrazor counts!) spells just as much as I dislike deathstars. Both of them seriously reduce tactical elements in the game. Given a choice between a couple of magic missiles or deleting 1/2 of an enemy unit, it's just too easy for people to plump for the 'bomb them' option. Similarly deathstars reduce tactical options - I don't mind large units, but any unit which has more than 1/3 (or certainly 1/2) of your points in it will start to make the army dull. Having 2 of those kinds of units makes it very dull.

[DaemonReign]

I don't think LookOutSir/Saves make any sense for the spells we're talking about. I like them the way they are. Everything about 8th Ed - the perhaps biggest improvement in my book - encourages 'bigger games' and those are the kind of games that really makes the hair on my arms stand up. Your 'deathstars', Gaargod, would be just 'another unit' in that setting. In my experience (and I do have a lot of experience actually) with these über-spells is that they are only the worth the risk of trying to cast them about 1/3 of the time, and only game-winning in like 1/10 of the games I've seen them used.

About LookOutSir.. It's a good rule for the most part. But nothing on the table should be completely safe(!) as far as I am concerned.

Again and again I feel we're all blessed that GW doesn't appear to take user-votes.. Because gosh darn it I think this lovely player-base would water the game down to utter rubbish in no time.

[Souppilgrim]

My group doesn't have problems with the big spells at all. With dispel scrolls, not rolling that high of magic dice on half the turns, and regular dispels, coupled with non deathstar lists, it ends up not being that big of a deal when having those spells go off.

[Duke Ramulots]

My group doesn't have problems with the big spells at all. With dispel scrolls, not rolling that high of magic dice on half the turns, and regular dispels, coupled with non deathstar lists, it ends up not being that big of a deal when having those spells go off.

NO NO NO, every turn of every game you get 12 power dice and throw 6 at each of two uber spells getting IF 100% of the time deleting every important unit/character by turn 2. At least thats how some people make it sound.