Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

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Swordmaster of Hoeth
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Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#1 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Greetings!

We have observed a very efficient magic phases in many recent battle reports where an Archmage + Mage + banner of Sorcery was present. An interesting thing is that the armies were very different from each other and the magic lores used were not the same either. This is not a surprise, really, as it is kind of obvious that Phoenix Guard will need different spells than Swordmasters to make them more effective in the game.

However, as the magic phase itself goes it seems that having an Archmage with one lore and his trusty apprentice with another creates many interesting opportunities. If the winds of magic are low, usually with a help of Banner of Sorcery, there are still low value spells to cast. While with strong winds of magic there are many other opportunities, such as casting many spells with minimum amount of dice or choosing 2-3 powerful spells and roll strong with many dice. And by proper combination of two different lores one can create many interesting situations in the game.

HE are an army which needs magic I think. It also adds a very interesting dimension to the game. So the question I have is it really the only way to create efficient magic phase? What magic lores do you combine and why? I have no experience with 2 magicians in 8th edition yet hence I would really appreciate your insight!

Thanks!
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#2 Post by Elessehta of Yvresse »

lvl4 Shadow, lvl2 High, Withering/Curse of Arrow Attraction, makes our Archers, as well as my Seaguard dangerous at shooting. People often look down on our shooting but this is a wicked combination.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#3 Post by KJSparkz »

The Archmage mage is the most prevalent way to go magically speaking,It allows you to use complimentary lores to maximum effect and in the event of IF and miscast still allows you a secondary caster should you be unlucky enough to miscast first spell when you have max power dice.

A different combo to Tiralya's could be Beasts /metal combo. Good against everything especially Dwarfs or even WoC. Wyssan's Wildform and Plague of Rust on a unit fighting Dwarfs gives you S4 T4 and them -1 to their Armour save permanently.Also Savage Beast of Horros and Enchanted Blades of Aiban on a character heavy unit for +1 to hit shooting and CC magical Armour piercing attacks with each character having +3 S and +3 attacks.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#4 Post by Paricidas »

I think there are three different points of view here:

1. take a second caster so you have more spells and respond to more threats: example: Mage lvl4 with lore xy, mage lvl1 or 2 with lore of metal. Lvl4 does his job (whatever it may be), lvl2 rolls 6 dice at magic missle against a cavalery unit... mission accomblished.

2. scroll-caddy: In fact, HEs have so many astonishing magic items that this does not need to literally be a scroll, it also can be an annulian crystal or something else. Roll 1 and roll 2 can easily be filled out by a single caster, but certain magic items will make the small lvl2 less effective (a caster with an annulian crystal is less usefull for casting spells than one with a seer staff).

3. Combined forces: You use one caster to power up the other. The most complicated and unreliable way for "caster-teamwork" that will yield spectacular results, if any. There are so many combinations and they are all so unreliable, so just some example for combinations I have seen (or used) in the past:

high+death+ heavy shooting: doom and darkness combined with arrow curse: useful against armies with small unit size and low armor: HE and DE

shadow + life: enfeebling foe + dwellers: useable against anything with less than str 8

shadow + shadow: 2 possibilities to get melkoths miasma through, lvl 4 must follow with pits.

shadow and death: melkoths + purple sun

fire + heavens: flame cage with wind blast/ curse a unit and force it to move. Deadly against most hordes

I honestly have to say that the combinations of point 3 are rather theoretical as I have never seen an enemy that let both spells through his screen of dispell dice. There are spell combinations like whiter + plague, who are very reliable as they have a permanent effect and can be cast in combat, but since most rulebook-lores only last for one turn or are RIP-spells, a spell combo is much more difficult to get off.
Of all lores, lore of life is perhaps the most “uncombinable” as you will most often need throne of vines to let life-lore shine, therefor you raise the amount of spells you have to get through to 3 (if you get off enfeebeling, ToV and dwellers in a single round, you can consider yourself one lucky bastard).
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#5 Post by Prince of Spires »

How about two lvl3 archmages? I know some people tried it early in 8th and it didn't work that well for them, but a lot has changed since then.

Granted you only get +3 instead of +4 to cast. However, you do get the same +4 to disspell as other (non-HE)archmages. And because you have two of them, you could even take a bit more risk disspelling, as you have another mage left to disspell with.

You get 200pts of magic items, and i believe HE have some of the best. You can get between 6 and 9 spells (realistically at least) you can choose from (6 normal ones, drain if you pick High, silver wand and ring of fury). I think it has a lot of potential. The main risk I see in it is that you put too many points in characters.

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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#6 Post by Elessehta of Yvresse »

hhmm... double lvl3's, that could be deadly!
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#7 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Thank you for very nice examples and quick replies! Definitely much more to think of :)

@rdghuizing
I still want to keep my Prince so there is no room for me for this option. However, recent reports show that you can have a very efficient HE army without him so maybe it is an option for them too.

@Paricidas
Your description of possible lore combinations AND particular theme od the army is very important. The same lore is not going to be as efficient for one army than for the other. As Tiralya wrote, Shadow + High can be nice combination but Curse of Arrow Attraction obviously is better for a shooty army (even if two small units of Archers can benefit from such combination too).
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#8 Post by SpellArcher »

I think if you want to focus on magic this is the best set-up at 2400/2500. Not sure if it's cost-effective at 2000pts.

It does cost you the Prince I think. You can compromise with Radiant Gem but this eats the killer Enchanted Item slot.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#9 Post by dabber »

rdghuizing wrote:How about two lvl3 archmages?
I don't see the virtue over Archmage+Mage. We almost never use arcane items over 50 points, so a Mage can carry those just as well. A Mage is cheap enough to skip giving him a ward save, or you can combine a 5+ ward with several useful arcane items. There is only one 4+ ward save item, so you cannot max protect both Archmages.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#10 Post by Eirik »

dabber wrote:
rdghuizing wrote:How about two lvl3 archmages?
I don't see the virtue over Archmage+Mage. We almost never use arcane items over 50 points, so a Mage can carry those just as well. A Mage is cheap enough to skip giving him a ward save, or you can combine a 5+ ward with several useful arcane items. There is only one 4+ ward save item, so you cannot max protect both Archmages.
I'll second this. The extra +1 dispel from a lvl 3 is great. And after I get my lvl 4 archmage out I want to get as many mages as possible at lvl 2, simply because our number of available lores and our number of arcane items is so great. With thinks like annulian or sigil available, each mage you add to your army is another step towards devastating the enemy magic phase.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#11 Post by Dj Noise »

I have had some success with Fire + Shadow

Mind Razor + Flaming Sword, this makes you Str 8 on spears with + 1 to wound meaning you wound on 1s, and this does work because it has been done in tournaments with Bone Giants with endless assault successfully doing 27 wounds and wiping a unit. so put it on Spears, or you can just Flaming sword a unit of Mastesr, or Lions to make them wound most things on 1s also.

Even for shooting armies this works with Enfeeble + Flaming sword, get them to toughness 1 and your now wounding on 1s with magical flaming arrows and it does work on bolt throwers also, str 6 +1 to wound rank penetrating or just volley 6 str 4 shots wounding most things on 2s without enfeeble.

This also makes the attacks Flaming and Magical which can be useful every now and then in those random Ethereal or Regenerating units. ( specially again'ts a powered up Vamp coach )

Nothing in the rule books say 1s auto fail, you just cannot naturally wound on a 1. So a Str 10 still wounds a T 1 naturally on a 2. The only times a 1 and 6 auto fail is on characteristic tests.

If you can somehow get a 3rd mage for Arrow attraction, that would just be funny and GL with that.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#12 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Well Sword, I think you know what I'm going to say haha!

Life and Light on my Archmage and Mage, in my opinion, is a potent combination, and it all stems down to one thing: redundancy. With my list, I have a plan for what I want my magic phase to do: I want to increase the survivability of my troops and I want to deal with small threats and collect straggling victory points.

People tend to look down the bridge of their noses at the concept of redundancy, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. There is a simple maxim that illustrates why: "Shit happens".

Unlike many of the other aforementioned combinations, my two lore choices can fulfill my task independantly, as well as together. Supporting my magic phase, I have:

Offensively:
A level 4 Archmage with 5 spells on the lore of life
A level 2 Mage on the lore of Light with two spells
The Banner of Sorcery
2 channel opportunities, provided by the two mages

Defensively:
+5 to dispel from the Archmage
+3 to dispel from the Mage
The annullian crystal on the Mage

The lore of light contains a plethora of useful defensive spells (pha's protection, Speed of Light and Light of Battle. Possibly Net too). Odds are I'll get at least one useful one. What this all combines to create is a magic phase that is incredibly hard to shut down, and is extremely resilient to any sort of disruption.

Take my last game - Becalming cogitation could have ruined an archmage's day, and disrupted my primary goal for the phase. Without magic to increase their survivability, my small units of elites would have been extremely vulnerable. The Mage with Pha's however, picked up the slack and filled that role. This is redundancy at work.

Some more examples:

Roll low for winds - odds are you'll recover some of the lost ground with the banner and/or a channel
Lose your primary caster - Your secondary caster keeps you magically supported
Fail to cast a spell - Your phase isn't over, the other caster picks up the slack

Essentially, if you take any one element out of the equation - face it, it happens *all* the time - the show goes on.

Being redundant isn't a bad thing, provided it is one of the primary objectives of your list. Over-investing in something that doesn't fall in line with what your list is meant to do is definitely a waste. For example, if Seredain were to invest more in magic, it would take away from some other key area of his list. He, however has redundancy built in to another area of his list - He's got two characters that fill a very similar role of being highly mobile, difficult to kill pain delivery systems.

So the real question is, how do you want to build your list? What is your primary goal, and if it is magic oriented, I'd *highly* recommend utilizing a combo that instead of relying on each other to be effective, can function similarly and independantly. Would you rather have a very effective phase once a game, maybe? Or would you rather have a less effective phase, but reliably so every magic phase of the game? Get rich slow or fast? haha.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#13 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

SpellArcher wrote:I think if you want to focus on magic this is the best set-up at 2400/2500. Not sure if it's cost-effective at 2000pts.
Indeed, I am thinking about 2400-2500. As a matter of fact i find it very difficult now to consider 2000 points armies, which is interesting as there was a time when it was sufficient amount of points :)
Dj Noise wrote:I have had some success with Fire + Shadow

Mind Razor + Flaming Sword, this makes you Str 8 on spears with + 1 to wound meaning you wound on 1s, and this does work because it has been done in tournaments with Bone Giants with endless assault successfully doing 27 wounds and wiping a unit. so put it on Spears, or you can just Flaming sword a unit of Mastesr, or Lions to make them wound most things on 1s also.
I didn't know you can make anything wound automatically. It sounds like a deadly combination if it is the way you describe. Do you give Seer Stuff to your level 2 mage to ensure Flaming Sword? I assume you have Archmage with Shadow.
Brewmaster_D wrote:Well Sword, I think you know what I'm going to say haha!
Just a little :)
Brewmaster_D wrote:Life and Light on my Archmage and Mage, in my opinion, is a potent combination, and it all stems down to one thing: redundancy. With my list, I have a plan for what I want my magic phase to do: I want to increase the survivability of my troops and I want to deal with small threats and collect straggling victory points.
That is very important thing you wrote. You focus on troops protection. While Shadow+Light, for example, amplifies the ability to deal significant damage and helps in the depertment elves need help. Namely strength of their attacks.
Brewmaster_D wrote:Unlike many of the other aforementioned combinations, my two lore choices can fulfill my task independantly, as well as together.
This is something I want to achieve with my magic phase. However, it would be good to have such an army that can deal damage without magic support as sometimes it is still difficult to break through magical defences of the enemy. So the idea is "no - magic - good, magic on - better".
Brewmaster_D wrote:Supporting my magic phase, I have:

Offensively:
A level 4 Archmage with 5 spells on the lore of life
A level 2 Mage on the lore of Light with two spells
The Banner of Sorcery
2 channel opportunities, provided by the two mages

Defensively:
+5 to dispel from the Archmage
+3 to dispel from the Mage
The annullian crystal on the Mage
That is good thing to underline this. Even without the ability to cast spells it is equally important to have proper defences. I guess second mage with annulian crystal adds some insurance here. You have 2 channel opportunities here as well :) The good think about magic defences is that they work no matter what lore you choose.

Going back to offensive magic, Life tends to be protective lore. Dwellers are good but more often you will try to toughen up the troops, give them regeneration or regrow them. Because you want protection for your troops you combine two magic lores which help you with that greatly. Having spells like banishment or dwellers, however, adds a little more uncertainty for your opponent and makes his decision making more difficult.
Brewmaster_D wrote:The lore of light contains a plethora of useful defensive spells (pha's protection, Speed of Light and Light of Battle. Possibly Net too). Odds are I'll get at least one useful one. What this all combines to create is a magic phase that is incredibly hard to shut down, and is extremely resilient to any sort of disruption.
Could you elaborate that more? Isn't it true about any lore combination? You have 6-8 spells to choose from and that alone should ensure you get some which you can cast no matter what is the stage of the game and how strong winds of magic are.
Brewmaster_D wrote:Essentially, if you take any one element out of the equation - face it, it happens *all* the time - the show goes on.

Do you mean in general or only in your Life+Light combination?
Brewmaster_D wrote:Being redundant isn't a bad thing, provided it is one of the primary objectives of your list. Over-investing in something that doesn't fall in line with what your list is meant to do is definitely a waste. For example, if Seredain were to invest more in magic, it would take away from some other key area of his list. He, however has redundancy built in to another area of his list - He's got two characters that fill a very similar role of being highly mobile, difficult to kill pain delivery systems.
Very good point and the one I intended to make too. It is so easy to buy all these nice characters and then find out you have no troops to support them. Hence additional question, is that Archmage+mage combination viable when the Prince is also present? In your list characters clearly support your troops. In Seredain's his Silver Helms make sure his Prince and BSB deal damage in close combat. jwg20 seems to be in between with his eagle prince being a formidable unit on his own while spell casters do their best to make life easier for the troops.
Brewmaster_D wrote:So the real question is, how do you want to build your list? What is your primary goal, and if it is magic oriented, I'd *highly* recommend utilizing a combo that instead of relying on each other to be effective, can function similarly and independantly. Would you rather have a very effective phase once a game, maybe? Or would you rather have a less effective phase, but reliably so every magic phase of the game? Get rich slow or fast? haha.
Indeed, that is the most important question :) And a tough decision to make. What is more important? Protecting the troops or making them unstoppable killers? That obviously depends more on the army composition itself. Ah well, choices choices :D

Thanks for ideas! Keep them coming as I am sure there are many more :)
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#14 Post by Baeronvonbleat »

Death and Shadow -

Spells Required - Purple Sun, Miasma

Bonus Combos - Reduce Toughness and Bjuma's, etc.

Use a Lvl 3 with Seerstaff (Death), and a Level 4 with Silver wand (Shadow)

This opens your magic phase to 8 spells, and lots of devstation. You can double hex to reduce strength and toughness by 4! (maximium, 2 minimum), reduce intiative, and swap between Death and Shadow throughout the phase to replenish dice (using the Death effect).

The dual combination of spells changes the game from an Over Powered Spear Unit (Okkams), to an entire army of low toughness fodder. Great for reducing some of the power house combat heroes to be completely vulnerable to a High Elf assault.

These combos are not for the feint of heart, but mages that dabble with Death and Shadows really empahisize the darkness in the High Elven army! :D
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#15 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Brewmaster_D wrote:
The lore of light contains a plethora of useful defensive spells (pha's protection, Speed of Light and Light of Battle. Possibly Net too). Odds are I'll get at least one useful one. What this all combines to create is a magic phase that is incredibly hard to shut down, and is extremely resilient to any sort of disruption.

Could you elaborate that more? Isn't it true about any lore combination? You have 6-8 spells to choose from and that alone should ensure you get some which you can cast no matter what is the stage of the game and how strong winds of magic are.
What I mean by this is that instead of the effects of my two wizards requiring each other to be very effective (For example miasma and purple sun), instead they each have individual effects that accomplish what I want, or stack with each other to produce greater effects.

So my goal being defensively oriented magic, if you take out my level 2, I still have flesh to stone and earthblood on my Archmage. If you take out my Archmage, I still have Pha's, or Speed of Light, or other defensive light spells on my Level 2. If I have both of them available, I can stack the effects, potentially creating T7 units at -1 to hit, or spread them out over my units.

Alternatively, if you look at my secondary goal - using ranged magic to clear up smaller units - I have options in both lores here too: Awakening the Wood, Shem's burning gaze, Banishment. Shut down one of my casters, and I can very likely still accomplish it with my other. Shut down one of my spells, and I will accomplish it with another. I have a very high chance, in any given magic phase, of getting what I need done done. I'd take this any day over the chance of a killer combo that has devastating effects but a low chance of success.

Now let's take an example where the spells rely on each other to be effective. I'll use Miasma and Purple sun versus high initiative armies as an example. Lose either the death or shadow mage, and the combo loses potency drastically. Disrupt either of these spells and the combo loses potency significantly. A lot of these combos rely on delicate chains of events which a smart opponent will shut down reliably. That's not to say it's ineffective - if you can pull it off, the rewards could very well be worth all the risk - but it *is* relatively unreliable.
Do you mean in general or only in your Life+Light combination?
I mean in any combination you create, think about what you're trying to accomplish with your magic phase. Whatever your primary objective is, try to build into your list more than one option to accomplish your goal. It certainly isn't limited to defensive magic. Part of the reason Shadow is one of the more popular lores is because it has redundancy built in; when it comes to increasing offensive capabilities, withering and mindrazor have similar effects.
Hence additional question, is that Archmage+mage combination viable when the Prince is also present?
It depends on the list. Can you clearly define his role? Characters are expensive, and it's important to think in terms of opportunity cost. What are you giving up to include him, and how is he going to justify his cost? A fully geared prince costs nearly as much as a unit of 10 Dragon Princes, or 20 of our elites. So the answer is - can you tell me concisely what his role is within your army, and how your army would suffer were he not included? If yes, then absolutely you could write that list. If no, then I'd say leave him out.

Just remember, the more you invest in characters, the thinner your margin for error gets. If you're running lean on troops, using each troop you have effectively becomes more and more imperative.
What is more important? Protecting the troops or making them unstoppable killers? That obviously depends more on the army composition itself. Ah well, choices choices :D
Indeed, this is the question. Defensive troops with offensive magic? Or offensive troops with defensive magic. This speaks testament to our versatility, and is part of why I love this army!
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#16 Post by Dj Noise »

Dj Noise wrote:
I have had some success with Fire + Shadow

Mind Razor + Flaming Sword, this makes you Str 8 on spears with + 1 to wound meaning you wound on 1s, and this does work because it has been done in tournaments with Bone Giants with endless assault successfully doing 27 wounds and wiping a unit. so put it on Spears, or you can just Flaming sword a unit of Mastesr, or Lions to make them wound most things on 1s also.


I didn't know you can make anything wound automatically. It sounds like a deadly combination if it is the way you describe. Do you give Seer Stuff to your level 2 mage to ensure Flaming Sword? I assume you have Archmage with Shadow.
The Flaming Sword trick does work, the only thing with it is people debate how exacty, IMPO all it does is give you plus one to wound, so if you need a 5 its now a 4 and so on. Others say it specificly flips the dice, so if you roll a 4, you flip the dice to a 5, which then brings up the debate with do you now Killing Blow on a 5 only? or a 5 and 6? or does the 6 flip to a 7? which just sounds rediculaus to me.

The other debate is does this count as wounding automaticilly? basicilly that is what it does, but its not like a magic item or rule that says something along the lines of " all successful hits wound automatically" its you now just need to roll a 1 to wound. If it works as you just need a 1 to wound and not technically automatic, you bypass all those you cannot be auto wounded rules. Unfortunetly every judge you ask has a diffrent opinion on how it works besides the fact that yes you then can now wound on a 1.

Until they put out an offical FAQ saying yes or no to this working and if so it works this way it will continue to be debated, until then though its fun to wound on 1s 8)

This spell even on its own its powerful, i've seen Empire players boot it on a Mortor and.... shenanagins galore, teams with Ogre Kingdoms putting this on the Ogre Death Start... jabillion and one str 6 attacks almost always auto wounding

snf yes i give my Shadow mage +1 spell and my fire mages choice of spells so i will always get flaming and Enfeeble or Mindrzor but most likely both
Last edited by Dj Noise on Thu Jun 16, 2011 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#17 Post by Dj Noise »

I just went and re read the main book FAQ and found this

Q: Does a To Wound roll of a 1 always fail to Wound? (p42, 51)
A: No. Though it is very rare for a model to be able to Wound
on a 1+.

So yes, Flaming sword offically makes you wound on 1s if you needed a 2 prior to wound :) guess it was updated a few months ago, i should check more often i guess heh
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Re: Is Archmage + Mage a way to go?

#18 Post by Arch Mage »

Thanks guys, any thoughts on an arch Mage then to lvl 1s one with the ac? I just think say giving one fire ball really really screws with your opponent and if your arch mage miscasts or breaks concentration you still have say a high magic user to use drain magic and shield to protect sm if say your main faster was light.

Then finally fire ball...
The lore of fire on average isn't great but my view on this spell is that at 3 casting values if you had a good amount of dice and for some reason the others can't cast or something or you just want to make him sweat, those options allow for

A) annihilation
B) destruction
C) damage

It can also force a scroll early on so although he is not that useful he is a great redundancy and by no means a one trick pony!

Never actually tried this... So any thoughts?
[color=#4000FF]The Arch Mage of light and true magic[/color]

600 trolls and climbing! :mrgreen:
[color=#FF0000]
[url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=40633&p=775432#p775432]if you are drowning out there as a beginner, I hope this helps.[/url][/color]

[url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=40964&p=778044#p778044]my army lists[/url]
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