Warhammer Fantasy Thread VI: The Undiscovered Country

[hamishspence]

In Storm of Magic, they'd be absolute terrors, though. Probably. Putting that thing on a fulcrum...

But then, Storm of Magic is so broken no one plays it, with good reason.

The End Times magic rules are basically a stripped-down version of Storm of Magic (they're in the End Times: Khaine book) - with a few things unique to it.

[Eldan]

Oh? I've only read Nagash so far. Stripped down how? Just more dice? Gigantic spells?

More dice is a house rule in our store anyways for large games. I think we ruled 2d6 magic dice as normal, +1 die per 2000 points for very large games.

The gigantic spells I really didn't like much. Magic is good enough, it doesn't need to dominate that much.

[Drasius]

Oh? I've only read Nagash so far. Stripped down how? Just more dice? Gigantic spells?

More dice is a house rule in our store anyways for large games. I think we ruled 2d6 magic dice as normal, +1 die per 2000 points for very large games.

The gigantic spells I really didn't like much. Magic is good enough, it doesn't need to dominate that much.

4d6 for caster, 2 highest for dispeller.
All casters know all spells in any lore that they already know at least 1 spell from.
Existing loremasters get to re-roll failed casts
Roll d6 to see how many dice you can use to cast. Also roll seperately for how many you can use to dispel.
Can cast any spell of >15 as many times per turn as you have dice for until you don't successfully cast it. a result of 3 or less is a fail regardless.
Can only attempt to cast any 15+ spells once per turn, regardless if you fail or not.
All factions get one of the Storm of Magic big spells. These cannot be dispelled, even with a scroll, though only lvl 3 & 4 casters can use them.
Broken concentration is removed.

Has basically changed from spam big #6 save-or-die spell (Dwellers/PSoX/Final Trans etc) to spam el-cheapo spells (fireball/wither/comet/iceshard etc) since they are either a virtual certainty regardless of # of dice you have to cast (fireball, Iceshard) or stack in unintended ways (wither/Iceshard/D'nD), preferably both. Pit of Shades is the only notable save-or-die that can still be "spammed" since the small version is only 14.

[Eldan]

Hmmm... that actually seems a more or less solid change that adresses some of the problems.

How is it in actual play? Is low-level spell spam bad? I've never seen damage spells as all that terrible, at least not the low level ones like fireball. Killing a handful of infantry is never all that good.

[Drasius]

Hmmm... that actually seems a more or less solid change that adresses some of the problems.

How is it in actual play? Is low-level spell spam bad? I've never seen damage spells as all that terrible, at least not the low level ones like fireball. Killing a handful of infantry is never all that good.

I cast wither 3 times (casts on an 8 I believe). Your entire T3 unit is dead, no saves.

If I can get enough Iceshards off, you can't hit me in combat at all.

I cast Comet across your entire line of advance AND on your war machines.

I cast searing doom as many times as it takes on all your empire/bretonia cav. You now have no army.

I spam Flame cage. You can't move. Bonus points if you combine this with a heavens caster for Comet or wind blast.

Doom and Darkness + spirit leach = perpetual motion machine of pain.

I'm sure there's more if you look too.

[Eldan]

Riiight.

Time to house rule that.Same spell several times yes, but each spell only once per caster? So if you want three lightning bolts, better bring three warlocks?

Or possibly just lower the limit of what counts as a "low level" spell. Comet really shouldn't be low level.

[Drasius]

Riiight.

Time to house rule that.Same spell several times yes, but each spell only once per caster? So if you want three lightning bolts, better bring three warlocks?

Or possibly just lower the limit of what counts as a "low level" spell. Comet really shouldn't be low level.

Or just don't play end times?

Technically comet is at the upper end of "low level" (12 vs max of 14) and will need a minimum of 2 dice to get off successfully, but regardless of what you specify as low level, there will always be something just below it that will be problematic when spammed. Currently at recasting 14's and below, you can multicast pit of shades. At 12 it's comet, at 11 it's flame cage, Enchanted blades and plague I believe and so on and so forth. Almost anything can be broken when spammed. Hell, even fireball can be deadly and that's cast on what? A 5?

Oh, IIRC, banishment sneaks in below the 15 limit as well, I'm guessing you could do horrible things with a light council.

Some people here like it, most don't, some flat out refuse to play if the opponent wants to play end times magic. Depends on what you find fun I guess.

Edit; Keep in mind, to get away with casting comet 3-4 times, you're going to have to have rolled quite high on the winds or have a fair advantage in caster level or dice luck. Still, it's not hard to get a 20 vs 12 magic phase and 1-2 dice wither/iceshard/D'nD when they have no dice left, or to open with that to get dice advantage and then try for your big spells and that way if you only get 1/2/3 dice, just shrug and throw 1 at it or laugh maniacally if you can throw 5/6 dice with them having already burnt their scroll.

[Eldan]

Our rule on the dice was, anyway, that the opponent doesn't get half your dice but your dice minus the lowest. So, 3 highest out of four, five highest out of six, etc.

[Tehnar]

Being the devils advocate, the end times casting goes with end times characters and mote importantly assumed end times point levels. It seems to me all end times book assume 3500 to 4000 point games. Dont think the magic system is broke at those levels.

[Vaz]

It kind of is. However big flying monsters with shared statlines and equipment profiles like KFA and Imrik bring combat characters back, while 50% lords allows powerful combat characters to work.

One thing I'd love is to see Fantasy gain Regiments of Renown back. Similar to how Detachments and Formations work in 40k.

For example, Carroburg Greatswords for Empire;1 Captain with Greatsword and Full Plate Armour, and a Greatsword unit, maybe get +1 to wound forces of destruction for example. Or a True Princes of Caledor formation for 3 Princes mounted on Dragons.

[Eldan]

That would be nice.

Another thing our store frequently debated was getting the old mercenaries back. Perhaps with something similar to ally rules in 40k. Plus then, there's plenty of smaller races and nations that could get something like allied detachments. Like, I don't know. Make a book on small human nations, with a chapter "Tilea" that details two options for Tilean commanders and three different tilean units and rules for a Tilean detachment of one commander and two units. Cathay, Araby, Estalia, Kislev, Border Princes, Ruresh, Ind, Nippon, Hobgoblins, Albion, the Southlands... there's a lot of options there. And one could bring back the summoned monsters à la Storm of Magic, because those were a lot of fun. I still have my Clan Moulder Arachnarok standing around gathering dust.

[Vaz]

That would be nice.

Another thing our store frequently debated was getting the old mercenaries back. Perhaps with something similar to ally rules in 40k. Plus then, there's plenty of smaller races and nations that could get something like allied detachments. Like, I don't know. Make a book on small human nations, with a chapter "Tilea" that details two options for Tilean commanders and three different tilean units and rules for a Tilean detachment of one commander and two units. Cathay, Araby, Estalia, Kislev, Border Princes, Ruresh, Ind, Nippon, Hobgoblins, Albion, the Southlands... there's a lot of options there. And one could bring back the summoned monsters à la Storm of Magic, because those were a lot of fun. I still have my Clan Moulder Arachnarok standing around gathering dust.

Would be nice to have something similar. An Ork Squiggoth in Fantasy would be brilliant. I always thought the fluff behind the Scrolls of Summoning were ridiculous though.

A dogs of war allowance for an army to let things like Ogre Mercenaries, Bretonnian Errantry War, Dwarf Slayer Throng... I'd love to be able to use my Rugluds Armoured Orcs again. After all, think of all the great alliances in Warhammer history - whether it's Magnus joining forces with the Kislevites and Dwarfs while aided by Teclis and his 2 other Sapherian Mages, the Storms of Chaos...

Creating specific armies like the Undead Legion seems a little counter intuitive. Having specific exceptionslike how Cypher cannot be taken in armies with Dark Angels despite being allowed for Armies of the Imperium, or Black Templars not allowed to take Librarians in their detachments could allow for someone like Settra to not be allied with Vampire Counts, could be done.

I hope this is the case, but rumours suggest otherwise.

[Eldan]

There were a lot of great units of renown that would be fun to have back. The birdmen of Catrazza. Gotrek and Felix. Galloper Guns. Pirazzo's lost legion. The Slayer Pirates.

I always wanted the Dogs of War back. They were fun, if occasionally broken (no, not every army needs cannon).

Several people in our shop mentioned how having something similar for 40k would be fun, too. Mercenary detachments that could take the place of allied detachments. A good way to bring in minor aliens. Apparently, Lexicanum lists around 150 alien races.

[CantigThimble]

I recently discovered the Mantic Games Kings of War system and model range. Has anyone tried these before? The models naturally aren't GW quality but 2/3 to 1/4 the price which is significant. The rules look a lot like warhammer but with significant streamlining, which after a 6 hour game in which I got through turn 3, sounds pretty nice. I'll try to find an opportunity to play test it.

[Winterwind]

after a 6 hour game in which I got through turn 3

How many points was that for?
A 2000 vs. 2000 points game usually takes me 2-3 hours total, all six turns of it.

[Eldan]

Let's see... our shop goes with 1.5 hours per 1000 points when reserving tables, so that should be 4000 points per side, but they only played half... some 8000+? Maybe 5-6000 with particularly slow players.

[CantigThimble]

10,000 points per side. All I can say, it wasn't my idea.

[Eldan]

Well, I've had games like that. Yeah, they aren't really all that much fun.

Another reason why I've stopped playing apocalypse in 40k. The other one was that the organizer in our last game was either terribly biased or just had no idea how missions worked. (Why yes, my swarm of close-combat monster infantry would like to walk across three turn's worth of flat, coverless terrain at a fortified city full of artillery in a mission where we get points for conquering buildings and killing enemies.)

[Winterwind]

We played a game like that once, too (I think we had 14k per side; may have been more) - I usually like big games like that, mostly because they are big social events - six to eight players all playing together, with plenty of breaks to go to a restaurant or such, and the whole thing planned for the entire day and most of the night. The problem is, in 40k Apocalypse we almost always ran into balance issues¹ (because Tau and Eldar are silly overpowered. Saying this as the Eldar player, for the record.), and in "Fantageddon", well, let's just say it had teething problems.

We came up with a whole bunch of houserules to make it work, and it kinda did; the main problems, I think, were some lack of balance between the teams (moreso in terms of list-building and which models which side had than actual army-balance, I think; when one side builds its armies mostly along the principle of "a little bit of everything!", while the other goes for "let's bring as many Soulgrinders, Daemon Princes and HPAs as possible!", the results tend not to be pretty), as well as a lack of a house rule limiting Reign of Chaos, so effectively, the comparatively small detachment of Daemons of Chaos ended up removing thousands and thousands of points worth of stuff just by being there.


¹ Though I do remember that notable moment when who won and who lost a 15k-per-side-game was decided by whether my five Grey Knight Terminators would succeed on enough saves not to be eliminated from the mission objective they were holding, and then whether they'd succeed on their Leadership 9 test not to run away. The two of them that survived (thanks to a rather lucky streak of save rolls) managed not to break, and we won. That was epic.

[Vaz]

Warhammer Forge have now released PDF's of the rules for the models they have released from Monstrous Arcanum. http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/fwDownloads

Signs that they're ditching the failed experiment?

[Grim Portent]

Warhammer Forge have now released PDF's of the rules for the models they have released from Monstrous Arcanum. http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/fwDownloads

Signs that they're ditching the failed experiment?

What was monstrous arcanum? Summoning magic?

The PDFs don't seem to mention which armies can take which creatures, are they allowed to be taken by any army?

[Eldan]

I haven't seen the book, so I'm not sure, but several of these were also in Storm of Magic, where they were summoned.

[Drasius]

So, there's a limit on 1 set of Skaven Dice, Hardback and limited edition End times books. The limit of 1 dice set makes me sad, since there's only 10 dince in there. What sort of self respecting skaven player ever rolls 10 or less dice? I wonder if this will mean that more people who actually want the hardback & dice will get some since re-sellers will have to make additional accounts to get copies of the good stuff?

The GW servers went down briefly but repeatedly, and it took exactly 60 minutes before I could complete my order.

I'm not entirely sold on the Thanqol & Boneripper model yet. I think I'll wait and see when our store manager gets one and puts it together before I decide one way or another.

Edit; Limited edition gone already (under 90 minutes I believe), though the dice and hardback are still available. By experimentation, it would appear you can order 1 set of things multiple times. Hopefully I have another dice set on its way to match the other one and the LE end times I nabbed earlier. Store was registering as down for maintenance for quite a while after my order went through. Hope peoplegot their toys that they wanted.

2nd edit; Interesting stuff here; http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-wo...uol-ebook.html

blah, blah... Warhammer: Thanquol continues the epic tale of the End Times, following the twisting plots of the skaven and their conquest of the surface world. Covering the complex machinations and insidious schemes of the followers of the Great Horned Rat, this book presents new armies, villains and heroes. Inside you will find rules for mighty characters like Thanquol and his gigantic bodyguard Boneripper, the dread Verminlords and the empowered dwarf slayer king Ungrim, Incarnate of Fire. blah, blah...

Emphasis mine.

Screaming bell and plauge furnace seen on round bases in the backround, supporting portions of the 9th ed rumours

Spoiler: spoilered for size

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and the new armoured rat ogres

Spoiler: spoilered for size

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Reminds me of ogryn a bit. Loving the look of the cannon on the guy in the background's arm.

[thethird]

Now I want to convert some rat ogres into a 40k Chaos lord.

[Drasius]

New white dwarf for next week

[Vaz]

Round bases? (On the bells)

Combine with 9th edition rumours, I'm not impressed

[Tehnar]

Boneripper is still on a square base. And so are the rat ogres. Could mean anything. Perhaps its just a modelling thing, or just the bells will get new rules.

[Eldan]

Gaaah. If there's one thing I hate and can't stand on a model, it's flabby flesh. Especially if it's painted in pale colours. Why do they keep putting that on all the monsters.

Oh well. That means there will be extensive green stuffing. And probably some armour put on that Boneripper. He's not mechanical enough for my tastes anyway.

Loving those ogres, though.

[Killer Angel]

Rule question.
Let's say that I've got a Skink Chief opon a Stegadon. Given that it goes together with skinks crew, do I have "look out sir"? (I suppose I don't, but hey, who knows?)

[Jormengand]

Rule question.
Let's say that I've got a Skink Chief opon a Stegadon. Given that it goes together with skinks crew, do I have "look out sir"? (I suppose I don't, but hey, who knows?)

No, because the crew count as part of the monster, not as infantry.