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Let's talk about Endless Spells


Aginor

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Hey y'all!

I'd like to not clutter up the AMA thread or the general AoS2 thread more than necessary, so I made this thread to discuss endless spells.

 

My opinion so far: I had high hopes for them, especially in the Palisade as it would help armies that suffer from being shot a lot.
Unfortunately it seems the Palisade is easily dispelled, so I think it may not be worth it.

 

EDIT: To sum up what we know:

- We know the warscrolls, from this page (in downloads):
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-Age-of-Sigmar-Soul-Wars-and-Malign-Sorcery-Collection-2018-eng

- A Wizard can cast one endless spell per turn
- You have to pick the endless spells you want to use beforehand and pay their point cost.
- All wizards of your army know the spells you picked
- when a spell is dispelled you can cast it again,  but you can only have one of each spell on the table at the same time.

- at the beginning of a battle round the players take turns moving predatory spells. The player going second moves the first spell, each spell can only be moved once.
 

- You dispel an endless spell at the start of your hero phase, so you cannot cast-use-dispel your own spellportal.
- Endless spells can be dispelled from 30" away by any wizard, but not using artefacts and not by models capable of unbinding that are not wizards, such as a Troglodon.
- The wizard has to use a spell slot to do that, and they have to roll higher than the casting value from the warscroll.

 

So what do you think?

 

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Good idea! You know my thoughts on the palisade already (that it's ok that it's easily dispelled as its potentially very powerful) but I agree it is situational and will not be worth it for a lot of armies - but can be crutch for some.

Do we know how many points it is?

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It’s got a utility use which is great. If you didn’t have to pay points for it it would be great.

As it stands, paying points for niche utility is not worthwhile. I don’t think it’s worth paying for.

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Palisade is 10 pts more than maelstrom and soulsnare, so it's a small enough investment that if you have extra points and don't want any of the others, it's pretty reasonable.

Malevolent Maelstrom and Soulsnare Shackles are the cheapest Endless spells, at half the points of geminids/pendulum/new balewind, and will probably be popular because of it. They're cheap to cast and have reliable enough effects. Soulsnare shackles reducing movement is excellent for some armies, and they cover a large area, though you'll need spell portal or a balewind to compensate for the 12" range unless you're Seraphon with an astrolith.

Geminids and Pendulum are probably the best predatory spells IMO. Geminids -1 to hit and -1 attacks and 2d3 mortal wounds, and it has enough range that you don't have to worry too much about it getting thrown back into you. Pendulum can't change direction, so there is no risk at all of it hitting your own units.

Purple sun is probably the worst, just because of the point cost. It's over double the cost of Geminids or Pendulum, which are both more reliable and significantly better against heroes, monsters, and small/elite units, which are generally the main targets for spells. Purple sun is only better against hordes of 24+ models compared to the alternatives.

Spellportal and Cogs will probably both see plenty of play, but it's probably too much of an investment to bring both (they both cost the same, and only Purple Sun is more expensive to bring). Spellportal and Balewind are effectively exclusive to each-other, as you need to be within 1" of the spellportal to use it. Spell Portal gives more range and safety to the wizard, but costs 20 pts more (balewind dropped by 60pts).

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6 minutes ago, Asamu said:

Purple sun is probably the worst, just because of the point cost. It's over double the cost of Geminids or Pendulum, which are both more reliable and significantly better against heroes, monsters, and small/elite units, which are generally the main targets for spells. Purple sun is only better against hordes of 24+ models compared to the alternatives.

Remember that the purple sun kills models rather than inflicting mortal wounds. It has the potential to be very powerful indeed. 

Still not sure it's worth the cost but against the right targets it's a fair bit stronger than it's rivals.

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35 minutes ago, Aginor said:

- Endless spells can be dispelled from 30" away by any wizard, but not using artefacts and not by models capable of unbinding that are not wizards, such as a Troglodon.

Against some armies this is kind of a brutal. Suddenly an technicly anti magic khorn blades won't be able to stop them.

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1 minute ago, MrZakalwe said:

 Remember that the purple sun kills models rather than inflicting mortal wounds. It has the potential to be very powerful indeed. 

 Still not sure it's worth the cost but against the right targets it's a fair bit stronger than it's rivals.

Yeah, the main issue is that unless it's doing at least 4 damage fairly reliably (so 6+ 4 wound models, ~8+ 3 wound models, 12+ 2 wound models, or 24+ 1 wound models), it's worse than Geminids or Pendulum just on the damage front, and Geminids also applies an extremely powerful debuffeverything it hits.

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11 minutes ago, Asamu said:

Spellportal and Balewind are effectively exclusive to each-other, as you need to be within 1" of the spellportal to use it.

With the new balewind rules, the model on top and the balewind itself are treated as a single model so there is nothing preventing the use of both - I certainly have some very tasty combos lined up already

3 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Against some armies this is kind of a brutal. Suddenly an technicly anti magic khorn blades won't be able to stop them.

they can try to dispel them when they are originally cast but yeah, difficult for them when they are already on the tab;e

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The fact that you cannot cast two endless spells in one round makes combos with the Spell Portal or the Balewind Vortex a bit harder.

But it can work. For example could a Starpriest cast the Spell Portal next to a Slann, and the Slann can cast spells through it (and possibly close it with the last spell slot afterwards).  That way the Slann can avoid having his spells unbound.

If you are a gambler you could even do this using a Slann:

First round:
- Check if outside 30" of dispeller. If not teleport into position.
- Cast Balewind Vortex.
- Spend the other two spell slots for...something. You could summon ten Skinks or so.

Second round:
- Teleport your Astrolith Bearer near you if need be.
- Cast something nasty through the BWV, such as an endless spell. You have a good casting value now, you might still be out of range so you cannot be dispelled, and your range is now 14" better than it normally would be. Some endless spells (like the Geminids) have pretty decent range so you might get them deep into enemy territory.
- you still have three spells with your Slann, so do whatever you like. The good thing for your opponent is: Slann don't have many spells to their disposal that can actually harm someone.

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5 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Do all the range extension and spell chanelling stuff work with the big spells? Some factions can stack command abilities and cast them from outside of the normal dispel range.

I assume they do in my examnple above, but I am not sure. As of now I don't  have any indication that they don't.

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1 minute ago, GeneralZero said:

Is an unsuccesful cast considered as a cast? I explain: can a wizzard try to cast until he's successfull? 

And then, if an ennemy unbind it, can the wizz try the cast again?

I don't know, you should ask in the AMA thread.

But I am 90% sure you get only one try, regardless whether it is dispelled or just fails. Just like with all other spells.

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I have 30 points spare in my DoK army so I will surely use Prismatic Palisade. As sometimes in first turn it will be useful when I can't cast any spells and if only my opponent uses one casting to dispel it I think it's worth it. 

Also it's very good for Morathi ;)

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So it takes 600 points to have access to all the endless spells.

Are there any battle line units that are wizards?  Then the rest of the points on wizards.  Is tzeentch the way to go here?

It's going to be hilarious even if it's terrible.
 

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I think it's possible that enough magic will be flying around to build up the summoning pool for Tzeentch to overcome the points cost of the endless spells.

Hmmm...

A friend of mine is doing Tzeentch daemons, so maybe I'll have to borrow some for one of those hybrid matched play and narrative events that happen every now and again.

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Of the damage spells I can see Aethervoid Pendulum being useful. At caster value 6 is reliable enough that a casting-focused army won't have trouble getting it off, it's got a predictable course so you don't have to worry about your opponent getting control of it and you can set it up to clear enemy units off of objectives or other valuable map space. Finally, if it's dispelled that's arguably to your advantage as you can just cast it again and you get a "free" move on the turn you cast it to lob it at an enemy.

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I also kinda like the Geminids. They have good range (18") and can also be instantly moved toward the enemy, so the spell is rather unlikely to hit the caster's army.

That's especially interesting for me since it means that a Seraphon army using an Astrolith Bearer can cast it on a 6+ and place it 26" away, then move it 8", so it can hit a target over 30" away. That means the enemy cannot try to unbind it.

Same goes for the Malevolent Maelstrom, which could be really useful to shut down magic based armies. The bad thing about it is that it is practically useless against all armies that don't use magic, so in that case it is wasted points. But then that's not too severe because it is only 20 points. Might be worth it because Tzeentch or Seraphon as enemies.

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I agree that the pendulum is probably the most reliable of the bunch and often reducing variables is what makes things competitive.  The geminids also look super reliable.

I'm in love the prismatic palisade even if it's easy to dispel.   One wizard casts a mirror and then the other throws the palisade closer to where the shooting unit is likely to be rather than the target.  I'm sure there will be lots of times where you want the palisade near your stuff, but I think there's lots of potential to have it in distant locations.

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2 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

I agree that the pendulum is probably the most reliable of the bunch and often reducing variables is what makes things competitive.  The geminids also look super reliable.

I'm in love the prismatic palisade even if it's easy to dispel.   One wizard casts a mirror and then the other throws the palisade closer to where the shooting unit is likely to be rather than the target.  I'm sure there will be lots of times where you want the palisade near your stuff, but I think there's lots of potential to have it in distant locations.


Yeah I think putting it right in front of an enemy unit might have its uses. If it isn't dispelled it covers so much of the firing arc of that unit that it is a pain in the behind.

And even if you don't use it against a ranged unit: It is an obstacle the enemy has to walk around. That could potentially mess up some formations. Thinking of a huge blob of Skeletons for example. At the least you will take away a spell from their Necromancer who has to dispell your Palisade instead of casting his stuff.

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