# Playing without 7th level spells?



## mynameisgrax (Sep 25, 2009)

I recently heard from a player that follows the competitive tournament scene that many tournaments are banning the use of 7th level spells for all magic lores. This also includes the Skaven's dreaded 13th spell, but not the 6th level spell from any of the pre-8th edition army specific lores.

Although this affects every basic lore of magic (and Skaven), this seems to be mainly aimed at getting rid of Death Lore's Purple Sun and Life Lore's Dwellers Below. Shadow Lore would lose mind razor (rather than pit of shades, which would remain). 

How do you think this would affect the tournament scene, or the effectiveness of certain armies? Do you think it would be a positive change, or is it alter the game that significantly?


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## LordWaffles (Jan 15, 2008)

Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Most definately positive! Though I feel that instead of just outright banning *every* 'big' spell, they only need to eliminate the problem spells;
- 13th spell
- Dwellers
- Purple Sun
- Final Transmutation
- Mindrazor

Things like flamestorme, kadon, chain lightning, birona's timewarp and such aren't nearly as game-changing as the above... (acutally, removing timewarp from the lore of light is yet another nerf to undead who's infantry somewhat rely on that spell!)

Either ban the problem spells, or else allow for 'look out sir' rolls and/or wards to be taken against them.


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## Flindo (Oct 30, 2010)

sometimes Skaven must rely on the 13th spell to secure a victory I find.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Flindo said:


> sometimes Skaven must rely on the 13th spell to secure a victory I find.


Sometimes, Skaven barely need the help of any magic to trounce their opponent, I find.


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## mynameisgrax (Sep 25, 2009)

I know people who play Skaven, and trust me, they don't need the 13th spell. They're plenty deadly without it. 

I have to agree with the consensus, that banning 7th level spells does seem to help the game a lot, making it far more interesting and fun a game.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Defiantely possitive. Those 7th level spells were too broken from their inception. As said though, it really should be the problem ones that are banned, rather then all 7th level... but its still a step in the right direction.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

Flindo said:


> sometimes Skaven must rely on the 13th spell to secure a victory I find.


Well, sometimes VC's must rely on a unit of 35 grave guard w/wight king drakenhof banner BSB, barrows banner, great weapons & helm of commandment to secure a victory I find...
Doesn't make losing to it any more fun than it already isn't!

The problems with 8th are the insta-win crutchs (of all varieties) players seem to think they *have* to rely on in order to win... Banning the 'uber spells means players will have to use some real tactics for once!


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## sybarite (Aug 10, 2009)

same as above l think its most definitely a positive but, do you guys think Gateway should be ban then?
as a WoC player l wouldn't mind either way but its up there as a problem spell.


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## Flindo (Oct 30, 2010)

mynameisgrax said:


> I know people who play Skaven, and trust me, they don't need the 13th spell. They're plenty deadly without it.
> 
> I have to agree with the consensus, that banning 7th level spells does seem to help the game a lot, making it far more interesting and fun a game.


well when you basicly only have 2 IOB boxes and a greyseer its a good spell to have lol.


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## sir_m1ke (Dec 7, 2008)

okaaaaaaayyyy...guess im going to have to be the dissenting voice then

really guys? banning these spells makes the game more fun? why exactly? from what i can see its because people dont like anything they see as being an advantage to their opponent and a threat to their army. Okay then, in that case lets ban Slanns, dwarf artillery, Hydras, HPAs, folding fortress, marauders with GWs and MoK, stubborn units...


actually i play with Beastmen so can we ban all missle fire, High Elves, stone throwers, Flames of the Phoenix, anything that can hurt chariots and anything with a save better than 4+? that would make things more fun for me

come on, this has been going on now since 8th came out about magic. *there is no such thing as a "game breaking" spell*, stop with the sensationalist bullshit, this isnt warseer. Heresy is full of people with good, solid ideas and tactics and yet we still have people who complain about a single opposing spell?? in the words of Zero Punctuation- *go team retard!!*

listen, it takes a lvl4 wizard with a bit of assistance to cast pretty much all of these spells, and the dreaded 13th (which i have been on the receiving end of numerous times) takes a hideous amount of dice and luck to cast. all told your opponent has likely spent the guts of 300-400pts on this guy who COULD MAYBE POSSIBLY wipe out a huge unit, but is more likely to kill about 10 guys. and then he has to avoid blowing himself or his unit up- not worth it at all!!

and if you are having trouble against these spells, maybe its time you looked at your army list- does your whole chance of victory rely solely on 1 or 2 mega-units of pain, well then well done special :headbutt: you just painted a huge "fire spells here" target at them. your fault, not the game's

example a) of what i mean. My most common army is the Lizzies, Slann of course a part of that. My most common opponent is a High Elf user, frequently with lvl4 Book of Hoeth and Banner of Socery combo. Nearly every time the Lore of Shadow, containing Pit of Shades (a huge threat to my low-I units) and Mindrazor, which is a bitch on a big unit of spearmen. So i look and think- should i deploy my bloody expensive frog in a huge unit of temple guard?? Fuck no!! back of the class, Dunce hat wearing time son. 

I MINIMISE THE THREAT- holy crap what a concept!!! actually actively doing something to lessen my opponents strength WITHOUT JUST BANNING EVERYTHING I DONT LIKE- stop crying about spells that go off maybe once or twice a game and could end up frying your opponents forces and ACTIVELY look for a solution, like deploying that slann with a unit of skink skirmishers with a relatively high I and claiming a nice 2+ LoS save against that pit? or taking Becalming Cogitation to remove those 6s and laugh as you opponent cant cast his spells??? Those are Lizzie-specific ideas but other armies can do similar things to lessen the blow of these horrendously expensive and tempermental spells without throwing the toys from the pram and banning them

I am NEVER in favour of banning anything from the game- even the much hated power scroll, hell its a free bloody miscast- thank you very much opponent!! well played! Instead of weakening the game by removing elements, how about we use tactics and decisions that make our own game stronger??? :dunno: just a thought

what galls me most about this is that it is bloody tournaments you are talking about 0_o OMFGWTF HSB tournaments are all about bringing your strongest to the table, why the hell should we weaken the game at that level??? if there was ever to be a game i would even consider banning a spell it would be a friendly game played against an absolute beginner who is just learning the game..

....and even then the deep end is the best place to learn to swim IMO :victory:


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Well said. I am a lizard player as well. I actually took the purple sun spell against skaven last weekend. When I did get the spell off, it promptly misfired and killed my death slann.


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## Creon (Mar 5, 2009)

The spells are in the game, keep them there. I find they go off infrequently enough to not be a major horror. But they can tip a battle with one roll. Maybe just make it so IF doesn't automatically cast those spells, they need to make the 25+ in addition would be a better balance.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

I think you reaction to the spells depends on what points level you are playing.

At very low levels most armies do not contain a Wizard who can cast the spell with any chance of success so most players will swap them. If you are playing high points then you can have enough units that it is less of an issue if one can beaten into the ground by magic, and your opponent will almost certainly only have one of the number 7 spells so they are not casting several a turn. The biggest challenge comes in between, where your opponent can afford a good Wizard but your units are small or low in number so suffer heavily from Vortices.

I do not have a large body of experience (if anyone else has data it would probably give the debate a sound basis) but suspect that the "powerful" spells from the BRB are quite well balanced in games above 3000 points.


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## the-graven (Apr 26, 2010)

A better solution in my opinion, is one my friends and I already use: Give characters a Look out Sir! roll against things like Dwellers and 13th, it's just stupid that your slann dies to dwellers wich means you've just lost your general of awesome magicness.

A look out sir makes them already a bit less problematic cause it saves your character wich is the biggest annoyance IMO, for the rest I don't mind them that much.


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## stevenhassell (Aug 5, 2009)

i love the chaos that the magic throws at you in the game... really guys most armys can give as much as they can get... i laugh when a bad ass spell works perfictly on me.. but then agien i have every army so i just think "hmm... im going to use that combo next time i play my army of that kind"..lol


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Dave T Hobbit said:


> I do not have a large body of experience (if anyone else has data it would probably give the debate a sound basis) but suspect that the "powerful" spells from the BRB are quite well balanced in games above 3000 points.


In my metagame, it seems so. Dwellers Below is devastating against my Dark Elves for example, but I can weather the casualties pretty well at that points level. Conversely, some of the lesser spells get better. AoE especially, but in a tangential way, debuffs and buffs get better as they affect larger units.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

In my local meta, the sheer predominance of 1st turn power scrolling has made undead all but unplayable...
Too many armies using purple sun to obliterate a couple expensive units, or else getting your general's unit insta-pooched by the dreaded 13th.

Those spells need to change to make them more balanced against _*all*_ armies. At the very least allowing a look out sir roll for characters, or else allowing wards (and thus magic resistance as well) to work.
Maybe it's just me, but watching your army crumble on your very first turn isn't much fun...


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Magic Resistance *really* needs an overhaul. Add the ward save to debuffs and such (working on a 6+/5+ or whatever depending on resistance), allowing ward saves against instant-killers, make those instant-killers deal a single wound, etc., etc. These are some easy fixes. So easy, I'd houserule them.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

sir_m1ke, I'd quote you for truth, but I don't really think that the thread needs another wall of identical text.



Arli said:


> Well said. I am a lizard player as well. I actually took the purple sun spell against skaven last weekend. When I did get the spell off, it promptly misfired and killed my death slann.


:rofl: and that, children, is why I've always said that the sun (and death in general) realy shouldn't be used by Lizards.



experiment 626 said:


> In my local meta, the sheer predominance of 1st turn power scrolling has made undead all but unplayable...
> Too many armies using purple sun to obliterate a couple expensive units, or else getting your general's unit insta-pooched by the dreaded 13th.
> 
> Those spells need to change to make them more balanced against _*all*_ armies. At the very least allowing a look out sir roll for characters, or else allowing wards (and thus magic resistance as well) to work.
> Maybe it's just me, but watching your army crumble on your very first turn isn't much fun...


Yes, but that can be achieved without superspells. If you're going to complain about losing your characters leading to crumbling, then you might as well ban the entire Lore of Death. And Hochland Rifles, IIRC (not an empire expert).



Masked Jackal said:


> Magic Resistance *really* needs an overhaul. Add the ward save to debuffs and such (working on a 6+/5+ or whatever depending on resistance), allowing ward saves against instant-killers, make those instant-killers deal a single wound, etc., etc. These are some easy fixes. So easy, I'd houserule them.


No, it already got an overhaul. What it needs is to be changed back to the free dispel dice system. As it stands now, MR is retarded, but it's what we have to deal with.

Guys, we play 8th edition. Tournaments should really be using the entire ruleset, not just picking and choosing the bits certain loud people find acceptable- if you want to do that, then go home and play with your friends. If you want to compete, then show that you can do so without simply deciding to remove the bits which put you at a disadvantage.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

But what if said rules make entire armies basically unplayable like Ogres, First turn Fly, Scroll, Purple Sun, half your army dies. Good game, again?

Saying it's ok because everyone can do that same amount of of dickery doesn't help those armies that get the shaft in the first place. 

I played a fun game against Beastmen the other day there, my Damsel cast IF Dwellers on his army three turns in a row making his army go away. I say fun, fun for the Damsel, less fun for him.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

coke123 said:


> Yes, but that can be achieved without superspells. If you're going to complain about losing your characters leading to crumbling, then you might as well ban the entire Lore of Death. And Hochland Rifles, IIRC (not an empire expert).


The point is it's far too easy to kill an entire undead army with super spells... The worst ones don't need line of sight and there's no defense anymore against them. (well, aside from a very expensive 1 use only talisman)
Before you had to actually fight your way into the undead's battelines to get at the general. Now you simply have to get within your spell's (rather generous) range, whip out a power scroll, chuck 6 dice and cough a wee bit from the exploding dustcloud of an entire army!

Stuff like long rifles aren't game-changing in the same way as the 'uber spells. Needing LOS, plus the large amount of to-hit modifyers and the chance for armour + ward saves more than balances out those other sniper abilities... (even the sniper spells from death aren't nearly as bad as getting whacked by purple sun!)
But how the hell is it supposed to be a 'fun & challenging game' when you simply watch your opponent throw 6 dice into a spell and kill your general before you even get a single turn?!


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

Sure, let's leave the game as is. Then we can have tournaments with lizardmen, High Elves, Skaven and an occasional Dwarf or WOC. The rest of us'll just have to hope for 9th.

I guess it all boils down to your idea of fun. For myself, it doesn't include games that take longer to set up than they do to play.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> But what if said rules make entire armies basically unplayable like Ogres, First turn Fly, Scroll, Purple Sun, half your army dies. Good game, again?


Except that ogres are very beatable without superspells. Superspells are but one of several problems for ogres in 8th. You'd need to do a hell of a lot more to fix those guys, so removing one element that makes them sad pandas is hardly going to fix the situation.

Not to mention, the scroll is far from a sure thing. IIRC, it's still only like a 55% chance of actually getting the required double for IF (although I've not done the calculation, if I'm wrong on that please correct me). So something like 45% of the time (assuming I'm correct), that silly little spellcaster will quite probably fail, , will have wasted their one-use-only trick and will then be subsequently shot/charged.



Durzod said:


> Sure, let's leave the game as is. Then we can have tournaments with lizardmen, High Elves, Skaven and an occasional Dwarf or WOC. The rest of us'll just have to hope for 9th.
> 
> I guess it all boils down to your idea of fun. For myself, it doesn't include games that take longer to set up than they do to play.


You forgot daemons. and Empire. and it's more than just the occasional WoC and Dwarf (considering Dwarfs have some of the best magic defense around, they're quite likely to not be too phased by big spells). and Dark elves still do fine, although they do require a more experienced hand. Greenskins are pretty alright as well, although I've not had a good chance to check out their new book, and nor have I played them, so I can't say I really know them that well.

So really it's not that bad, only low I armies that aren't lizardmen are shafted. So VC, Ogres and TK. and the TK are being redone, so there's really no telling how they'll do. Since they're meant to be fairly magical, I can only imagine that they'll have reasonable magic defenses. Oh, and wood elves, I guess, but their problems lie outside of the magic phase (yeah, dwellers, but they're quick and shooty, and dwellers only has a 12-24" range, and requires LoS).

But hey, I've just realised, most of you guys live on the other side of the world to me. So you know what, do whatever you want to your tournaments- it won't make a lick of difference to me.


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## LordWaffles (Jan 15, 2008)

So all I have to do to win with my Teclis list is to see what army you play and pick the best magic lore against it, than roll six dice and win? Neat.
I'm glad we hail this game as being more tactical and requiring more thought process than 40k. It really is when you don't factor in the winspells of eighth edition.
Purple sun auto beats dwarves, ogres, trolls, and stomps on slann as well. And since most(if not all) wizards can just pick the lore when they hit the table, why wouldn't they metagame against which army they find staring at them from down the field?
A quick solution is to simply require the lores you wish to use in the game be written in listbuilding, picked before the game. Tournaments would become significantly more difficult and less one-sided. Let's say you played teclis and assumed you'd see a bunch of armies that are weak to purple sun, so you take lore of death, you show up and find it's nothing but high elves and WoC, which purple sun doesn't do a damn thing to.

Failing that I entirely agree they should be removed. Just factoring in die-cost per spell, even at a cursory glance, would bring the obvious judgement of them being wildly overpowered. If you wanted to factor in the cost of the mage for his performance, if he gets any of these spells off(And he will if he throws six dice at it) it'd be a joke. I think the core problem lies in how the spells function.
When you introduce the concept of an effect in a game that works conversely related to the number of models in the intended target, you introduce something that is inherently poorly written.

With gateway you're looking at 2d6 hits, at 2d6 strength. So regardless of the targets number, you will(disregarding the 11 or 12 on the strength, which is so infinitely small in odds it's almost negligible; 1/36 if the math is correct?) at most kill 12 models. So if I fire it at a unit of 10 to 10,000 it will still only deal a maximum of 12 wounds.

As compared to Final Transmutation, which has a longer reach, a stronger effect, and ignores any statistics, saves, or special rules the targeted unit has. And it's power is conversely related to the number of models, so it's potential range of devastation is only limited to the amount of points the game is being run at. If fired at a 300 point unit of single-wound models it will kill 100 points worth. If fired at a 3000 point unit, it will remove 1000 points of models from the game, without saves. So while against a list of many small targets(In which the spell does not have such high consequences, even though with the bubble stupidity rule it can still reach out and affect more), the cost of the wizard carrying said spell(Even a max level, fully geared out choice) is not crippling enough that the hard counter will be efficient enough to win the game most of the time.

In any balanced tactics game, if one were to place a large initial investment in one unit, and the opposition placed equal amounts of points to have a hard counter to it, the countered player would be at a strong disadvantage. But with these 8th level spells, that is not the case; which is where I feel they become inherently against the core concept of a strategic game, which is usually what we masquerade warhammer fantasy as.



tl;dr=
With 8th level spells you get more points worth of benefits, than you lose by taking the choice of the caster with the spell. Points invested<Points Advantage.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

LordWaffles said:


> So all I have to do to win with my Teclis list is to see what army you play and pick the best magic lore against it, than roll six dice and win? Neat.
> I'm glad we hail this game as being more tactical and requiring more thought process than 40k. It really is when you don't factor in the winspells of eighth edition.
> Purple sun auto beats dwarves, ogres, trolls, and stomps on slann as well. And since most(if not all) wizards can just pick the lore when they hit the table, why wouldn't they metagame against which army they find staring at them from down the field?
> A quick solution is to simply require the lores you wish to use in the game be written in listbuilding, picked before the game. Tournaments would become significantly more difficult and less one-sided. Let's say you played teclis and assumed you'd see a bunch of armies that are weak to purple sun, so you take lore of death, you show up and find it's nothing but high elves and WoC, which purple sun doesn't do a damn thing to.


Your argument loses weight when this is already required.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

LordWaffles said:


> So all I have to do to win with my Teclis list is to see what army you play and pick the best magic lore against it, than roll six dice and win? Neat.
> I'm glad we hail this game as being more tactical and requiring more thought process than 40k. It really is when you don't factor in the winspells of eighth edition.
> Purple sun auto beats dwarves, ogres, trolls, and stomps on slann as well. And since most(if not all) wizards can just pick the lore when they hit the table, why wouldn't they metagame against which army they find staring at them from down the field?
> A quick solution is to simply require the lores you wish to use in the game be written in listbuilding, picked before the game. Tournaments would become significantly more difficult and less one-sided. Let's say you played teclis and assumed you'd see a bunch of armies that are weak to purple sun, so you take lore of death, you show up and find it's nothing but high elves and WoC, which purple sun doesn't do a damn thing to.


Read the rules- 8th edition demands that you include your lore in listbuilding. The only one who can circumvent this, last time I checked, is Teclis, and Possibly Fateweaver, but Fateweaver costs too much for standard sized games anyway, IIRC.

Page 162, Spell Generation, beginning of the second paragraph. Matt Ward even shames those who tailor their magic.


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## Kulzanar (Aug 10, 2010)

The spells should in no way be removed from the game. Most tournaments have now banned the power scroll, making it difficult to losen these devastating spells. Look out sirs rolls are also now permitted as there's no fun in losing your character this way. 

The spells are strong but still depend on what you cast. Like said before, purple sun will do barely anything against WoC, Elves, Skaven and so on. Like Dwellers will barely do anything to things like Ogres, worthy Lizardmen units (eg, not skinks, you don't do this to kill 10-12 skinks), lots of WoC units, some Dwarven units. 

The chances vary from 1/2 to 1/3 on having a kill. On the right moment and the right unit, these are the game-breaking spells but the banning of power scroll means 6 dice need to be rolled if you want to get this off. You hope for an irrisistable which can always end up badly for the caster. If not an irrisitable it can be scrolled or irrisistable dispelled so you'll get nowhere as well and the magic phase is as good as done.

The only problem to those spells is the no save of any kind. I understand it if it has cost a great effort to cast these spells but then I come to my theory of MR. MR has for some gotten better, for others not. There's no way, we're going back to MR being extra dispell dice, because in this system that would be overpowerd, where your PD and DD are random and not fixed like in 7th. MR was good to have a 4DD army stand a chance against a 9-10 PD army. In my oppinion, those spells that do not allow any saves of any kind should allow MR ward saves. After all, the damn thing is called magic resistance and is supposed to stop such things from happening. It would be a small improvement, not taking out the power of the spells and giving more armies a chance of defense against it. For example it'd give Ogres a 5+ ward save with their spell against the purple sun which is just devastating for them ( ex: a unit of 12 bulls would suffer 8 casulties and possibly save 2-3 in theory, not that bad, the unit still stands but has lost half of it so the spell did quite some damage), but it would be only 1 unit so neither would it break the spell.

To then finish, lets go over the powerfull spells.

Lore of metal: Final transmutation.

A pretty low casting value for quite a terrific spell. It's range of 18" and extending of 36" makes it even better. It has a 1/3 chance to turn a normal model into gold, and a 1/6 to turn a multi-wound model into gold. So you do not quite lose the entire unit. The good of the spell are the stupidity tests that need to be taken by every enemy within 12" (honestly this should have been friend or foe, I mean, GOOOOOOOLD) An effective spell against several armies but not against Ogre kingdoms for their multiple wounds. WoC Beast armies also need not fear anything from this. Yet it will still "only" destroy one third of the unit for other armies. At perhaps a high cost, the low casting value allows for several turns of casting it but if you want to get it through and not scrolled or dispelled you'll need 6 dice and an irristable. Possibly paying a high price for perhaps not to much damage.

Lore of Life: Dwellers Below

Possibly the most annoying spell, because it works on S. It's a lot easier finding S 3 than I 3 so it'll do more damage than purple sun or pit of shades. It has a short range so mostly has to be cast on it's extended version which then becomes a bit harder. Almost requiring (and you better go for it) an IF. Not much can be said about this as it's very clear, very good against low S armies/units , not so much against high S armies/units, which are still many.

Lore of Shadow: Pit of shades

This is one of the spells I find is mostly overlooked. Yes it scatters which makes it a bit worse. But the low casting value and good range of this spell make it deadly. Especially since in the lore of shadow you also have Melkoth's mystifying miasma, so it's even able to drag high I armies like elves, WoC and skaven to their doom. Because it's being overlooked so easily, it's not needed with an IF as some people won't be paying much attention to it, spending their dispell dice to soon and then being unable to avert this situation. Don't forget it scatters D6" which isn't much, an average 3 and it can still bite a chunk out of the unit. Another reason why I think pits is accepted is because it was around in 7th as well. 

Lore of Shadows: Okkram's mindrazor

A spell that should not be cast out from the book. One that doesn't even deserve it's place in the so called game-breaking spells. This is a simple buff spell. Removing this would also require to remove Flesh to Stone as these two cancel eachother out. It also allows for saves, although with AS modifiers. It has quite a large casting value and can't be pulled every turn. Mostly used to buff the casters unit so an IF is unwanted. I just threw this one in because I noticed it somewhere as one of the spells that should be removed. A very big no.

Lore of Death: The purple sun of Xereus.

Pretty much the same as pit of shades, working on I making it good against Ogres, Dwarves, Empire, etc.. and not that well against elves, skaven, WoC,... It being a vortex does make it a bit less as well. A 2 or 4 on the artillery dice won't make it go far, a misfire will make you go boom. So that leaves, 6,8 and 10. That means it has a 1/2 chance of actually reaching it's target. If it does not and then goes random the next turn, you have a sort of Skaven shooting fest where templates fly around scattering, not discriminating between friend or foe. A low casting value makes it a good spell to be used certainly once per game. The large template has a huge casting value making it very difficult and risky. You do not want to IF, have a str 10 template on your unit, and then misfire or let it land in front of your feet and see it return. The scatter is also a D6 so you can easily avoid it by moving away. In my eyes, far from a game-winner, except with some luck.

Lore of Tzeentch: Infernal gateway.

An average casting value and a good range. But totally random. There is nothing certain about this spell. You may find yourself chaos realming the first unit you cast on, or have an entire battle roll an incredible 10!!!! str 3 hits. or 4 str 7-8 hits. Completely random, it's not something to fear, or is it? You can't prepare against this spells, it fits Tzeentch and fate. When cast all you can do is cross your fingers and hope your gods are stronger or Tzeentch might be in a fickle mood today.

Lore of Ruin: The dreaded 13th spell.

A spell that has gone terribly wrong. Killing 4d6 models outright, without even the chance on a test, is random but has an average of 14. So it can quite effectively kill a unit. But the downsides are, a grey seer is required (ok not that much of a downside, you see those pesky whitefurs everywhere), you'll need an IF, it only works against infrantry units and war beasts (not sure on the WB). Bretonnia is saved for the day, but watch out for that cannon, and mortar, and other mortar, and furnace, and abomination oh and this this this and that. That's the real skaven menace. So you might be able to avoid this spell. The IF drawback isn't that bad for the Skaven. I mean, they number over 150 models, it's not like losing 10-15 will matter to them if they can do the same to you. 

Other 7 spells, are things like, brionna's timewarp (very effective and have seen a demon list with a big block of bloodletters. Not fun, you can either dispell the I 10 WS 10 on them or brionna's timewarp, make your choice, it makes them absolute killers), Chain lightning (meh on a 3+ or when they're out of units, only 6" and D6 hits. Spread out enough and it won't have much effect, I feel comet is better), Transformation of Kadon (very do-able, leaves the character unable to cast further which means the army loses quite some buffing power, the beasts have close to no save and wounds done on them will carry over when the spell is dispelled. Requires an IF to really get one of the big ones.) and flame storm (low casting value, but not that good, just a s 4 hit).

Having the 7th spells removed from the game or tournaments, proves that those people are not thinking through enough. The spells can be countered, they can be overcome. Casting them requires energy (lots of PD) and brings risks. Play, win/lose, learn, adjust, play again. Try new lists, if you notice one list doesn't work or the principal of the list just doesn't work, start from scratch again, neither be afraid to make a ridiculous list to just play-test one certain bit of it.

Things that should really come into consideration are not the spells but 7th armybook items, such as the book of Hoeth.


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## LordWaffles (Jan 15, 2008)

Masked Jackal said:


> Your argument loses weight when this is already required.


See:


coke123 said:


> The only one who can circumvent this, is Teclis


See:


LordWaffles said:


> So all I have to do to win with my Teclis list is to see what army you play and pick the best magic lore against it, than roll six dice and win? Neat.


My sincerest apologies if my point was led astray via a rambling drug-fueled rant. But I still find this to be unabashedly true. My arguments never lose weight, they lose direction. 
Possibly clearer explanation:
In most circumstances of playing the game you can tell who your opponent is, either via scheduling a game, knowing your current meta, or simply by knowing what models they have and metagame accordingly; while this isn't a problem with a closed-list tournament, it turns anything else into a joke. I'm not attempting to debate waac players vs fun players, I'm just presenting an observable flaw inherent in the games design, namely that being that certain spells REAM certain armies, and with some forethought into who you play(either by pre-existing knowledge) or by just plopping Teclis down, you bend them over rather thoroughly without much chance on their part. 
Also since deciding on a generic lore cost no points you could potentially have a higher percentage of people botching which lore they use or changing it using the same list otherwise.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

OK, I somewhat see your point there. Since the main problem is now 'Teclis=instawin', why not just ban Teclis, rather than punishing everyone because of those naughty, naughty High Elf players? That seems to make far more sense.

And the thread is actually about tournaments banning superspells, so your argument about it not being fine outside of tournaments when tailoring is rampant is somewhat irrelevant. Outside of tournaments, do what you want, so long as your opponent agrees, I personally don't care. and as for the metagame, there is a fair amount of diversity around. There are tons of Lizards, Dwarf players, and the like of low I armies, but there are also tons of skaven, elves, etc, neither of which are both affected by the main superspells too badly (seeing as how it is very rare for a model to have both crap initiative and strength), bar final transmutation, which only works on a 5+ anyway.

If people are tailoring against you, then that ain't cool. They shouldn't be. So don't play against list tailors. Alternatively, play pick-up games. both players won't know what to bring until you're setting up. If in a regular gaming group collect a couple of wildly different armies. And never let them know what you're bringing. A lot of people do this. So there are lots of alternatives to sitting down and arbitrarily deleting rules from the book.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

coke123 said:


> (seeing as how it is very rare for a model to have both crap initiative and strength), bar final transmutation, which only works on a 5+ anyway.


Only VC's & tomb kings get hosed by both... Most units are S3 and I2.
And final transmutation is equally as big a bitch as the 13th spell since it's still got a 1/6 chance of insta-pooching your general and only the carstien ring can protect against it...

8th is kinda the 'lets repeatedly kick undead in the face' edition.



coke123 said:


> If people are tailoring against you, then that ain't cool. They shouldn't be. So don't play against list tailors. Alternatively, play pick-up games. both players won't know what to bring until you're setting up. If in a regular gaming group collect a couple of wildly different armies. And never let them know what you're bringing. A lot of people do this. So there are lots of alternatives to sitting down and arbitrarily deleting rules from the book.


Well, my local meta is all 'ard boyz centric and list tailoring... Which is why I only have about a half dozen or so like-minded opponents who I'll play - basically those few of us who aren't out to play a heavy WAAC's style game.

The big super spells in 8th really help lend to a WAAC's mentality since you don't need to be a half-decently skilled player anymore - just get the right combos going (which the internet freely provides) and get a decent winds of magic roll...


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

coke123 said:


> Except that ogres are very beatable without superspells. Superspells are but one of several problems for ogres in 8th. You'd need to do a hell of a lot more to fix those guys, so removing one element that makes them sad pandas is hardly going to fix the situation.


They are very beatable, sucks to be them. That doesn't change the fact certain magic combos are way over powered against some armies. Dwellers using against a Vampire Army turn into 'Roll a 6 to lose the game' for the Vampire player, which is really good fun. 




coke123 said:


> Not to mention, the scroll is far from a sure thing. IIRC, it's still only like a 55% chance of actually getting the required double for IF (although I've not done the calculation, if I'm wrong on that please correct me). So something like 45% of the time (assuming I'm correct), that silly little spellcaster will quite probably fail, , will have wasted their one-use-only trick and will then be subsequently shot/charged.


You might want to check your Maths on that bad boy coke. What are your chance of rolling a double on 6 dice then?


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Aramoro said:


> What are your chance of rolling a double on 6 dice then?


As I had several minutes to do maths, I thought I would save anyone else having to try.

I make the chance of at least one double 319/324 (approximately 98.46%).


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## Gromrir Silverblade (Sep 21, 2010)

Hey Guys, we're having a bit of a barny about this in my gaming group. I host a group of mates every Wednesday and we have a game. After witnessing Dwellers in action, I thought crikey that's mental and went on the forums where I discovered a lot of people with the same opinion. However I read on and you guys have some good points. There are counters. The trouble I have at the moment is due to fixing dates people always know who their fighting and tailor their armies. Do you think it's fair to ask that an army list be submitted before you know who you're fighting?

Secondly, the Dwellers spell has been compared to a Dwarf Gun line that consists of 16 Thunderers, 16 Quarrerlers, 1 Organ Gun, a Grudge Thrower and a cannon. Do you think this is a fair comparison? Bear in mind that since 8th we've never seen a wizard die from a miscast, and because the dice gods hate me I loose a warmachine every game from misfires.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Gromrir Silverblade said:


> Do you think it's fair to ask that an army list be submitted before you know who you're fighting?


Absolutely fair if any of your group favour winning over fluff. The only reason to know what you are fighting in advance is the meta-concept that real battles do not happen in a vacuum, which is fluff and not rules.


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## Kulzanar (Aug 10, 2010)

Dave T Hobbit said:


> As I had several minutes to do maths, I thought I would save anyone else having to try.
> 
> I make the chance of at least one double 319/324 (approximately 98.46%).


The skaven eats a token, the goblin noms a mushroom and the dark elf just uses 7 dice (or 6 and uses sacrificial dagger) and it's 100% (Chaos with the blood of Tzeentch could turn it into 99.99% probably (no I did not do the math)). Not fun since skaven and dark elves can together cast 4 of the nasty spells. And just give the DE pendant of Khaleth and she need not worry unless a 2-4 is rolled. Although 10-12 neither is funny.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> They are very beatable, sucks to be them. That doesn't change the fact certain magic combos are way over powered against some armies. Dwellers using against a Vampire Army turn into 'Roll a 6 to lose the game' for the Vampire player, which is really good fun.


OK, a less than 1/6 chance to destroy the opponent (since there is still the chance the spell will fail) is really not that bad. I'm assuming you're talking about the power scroll- in which case after trying this little trick, probably failing, your wizard then proceeds to blow itself up, and quite probably not being able to pull of this trick again.



Aramoro said:


> You might want to check your Maths on that bad boy coke. What are your chance of rolling a double on 6 dice then?





Dave T Hobbit said:


> As I had several minutes to do maths, I thought I would save anyone else having to try.
> 
> I make the chance of at least one double 319/324 (approximately 98.46%).


I'm going to say now that I'd had a long day when I'd made that post, and couldn't be arsed doing the maths (which in hindsight is stupid, considering I'm the one introducing maths into the argument). I will admit that that particular claim was wrong, and cheerfully withdraw that point. You're still wrong about the other stuff, though .



Gromrir Silverblade said:


> Do you think it's fair to ask that an army list be submitted before you know who you're fighting?


Absolutely. I make a point of having my lists made up before I come. Not only does it prevent tailoring, but it means that you're not keeping your opponent waiting, which to me seems to be a pretty basic courtesy. I've lost count of the number of times I've been left sitting around waiting for my opponent to write his bloody list, and it drives me mad to no end.


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