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Endless spells: your thoughts?


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Is it just me or are the vast majority of endless spells not that great?

I like the pendulum (D6 mortal wounds and easy to cast), vortex (extra range is very useful), Cogs (versatile and rarely backfires) and Germinds (good range with nasty debuffs), but the other are just so incredably naff. 

The template for the rest of the damaging spells seems to be meh range, D3 mortal wounds and -1 bravery.  Combined with the potential to backfire, these feel inferior to almost all damage spells in spell lores, hell I'd often prefer an arcane bolt.

Shackles are just so easy to dispel that there uses becomes very situational (at least they are cheap).

Spell mirror has just been nerfed to death (one spell or one endless spell) and I can't see it being worth all those points.

Would love to hear others thoughts?

MOD EDIT: Changed the title & couple of other tweaks to make this a positive discussion

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  • RuneBrush changed the title to Endless spells: your thoughts?
5 minutes ago, AaronWIlson said:

Soulsnare shackles can literally win you games and break the back of some armies for 20 points, Quicksilver swords for 20 points are reasonable and absolutely money against Chaos. 

Really? I've avoided using it because it's so easy to dispel and only has an effect in the enemies movement phase.

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4 minutes ago, Magnus The Blue said:

Really? I've avoided using it because it's so easy to dispel and only has an effect in the enemies movement phase.

Clever placing of the shackles can actually stop non-flying monsters moving until they're dispelled, even if they are it "uses up" one of your opponents casts for a turn.

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I suppose my views are slightly biased, as I mostly play Tzeentch with LOTS of magic buffs, so opponents casts are rarely doing much. But yes I take your point, for 20 points and with the risk of not being dispelled it's a solid options. 

Anyone have any positive experiences with the rests of the endless spells?

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I've seen some super clever use of the palisade & gravetide to physically block movement, they're both huge and can massively hinder where your opponent can move / end. I've also seen the burning head be used to give a bunch of war machines re-rolls 1s to hit paired with a ordinator it was rough. 

Purple Sun, Emerald Lifeswarm & Gnashing jaws really are the only spells I've not seen perform a function. 

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To answer to the question, i did not use them for now but i think that one of the advantage is that it can put damage every turn, but you did juste use your summoning abilities once.

So first turn, yeah its meh. But turn 2, you have your spell + the endless spell. 

So if you take your first 2 turn to summon two endless spell, you can have what is effectively 3 spells with a lvl1 magos. But with the risk to backfire it.

There is also the fact that the other wizard, if he want to dispell it, cannot spell. So it might be good to take a wizard to counter another powerful wizard...

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4 hours ago, Magnus The Blue said:

Really? I've avoided using it because it's so easy to dispel and only has an effect in the enemies movement phase.

It doesn't say enemy movement phase, it states at the start of the movement phase. So it can also do the mortal wounds twice a round. Once in yours, once in the enemy phase.

I have had it jank up some situations by messing with enemy movement and sniping out wizards over a couple turns. Worth the 20 points vs some armies (like Idoneth)

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11 minutes ago, Ninelives said:

What is the consensus people, can we move through the spells if we don't fly? I haven't found a rule or FAQ saying one thing or another... 

Definitely not, the Endless Spells are models on the battlefield and you can only ignore models while moving if you have Fly.  As per pg. 53 of Malign Sorcery "...it is treated as a friendly model by all armies for any other rules purposes." and pg. 4 of the Core Rules "Whenever you move a model...but cannot be moved across other models or their bases..."

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It took me a while to get the hang of the pallisade, but now I find it useful even against all flying armies.  Models can't end their movement on the bases of endless spells so it's actually really useful to block things and force them to burn a dispel on it or have to work around it.

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My opinions on endess spells in Matched Play:

Great - Lots of usage in many different lists, easy to use
Aethervoid Pendulum, Chronomatic Cogs, Geminids of Ugh-Gyish, Everblaze CometMortalis Terminexus

Good - Situational but still powerful
Balewind Vortex, Purple Sun of Shyish, Quicksilver Swords, Umbral Spellportal,

Okay - Situational but not very powerful, difficult to use properly, or outclassed by other spells, or just a little too expensive
Emerald Lifeswarm, Prismatic Palisade, Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws, The Burning Head, Soulsnare Shackles, CelestianVortex, Dais Arcanum, Shyish Reaper

Bad - Not very good, or hard to make it work
Malevolent Maelstrom, Suffocating Gravetide, Vault of Souls

My favourite way of using the Endless Spells is open play games where ever wizard knows how to cast every spell.

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I've been enjoying them so far. My first attempt was an emerald lifeswarm in a Sylvaneth list. 5 games and only cast it once when Alarielle needed a touch more healing. Not worth it's points. 

I then played a dozen games with  mixed order list with Geminids and an everblaze comet. The comet needs no explanation, but it's amazing how much it can throw an opponent off. I often really liked having geminids pop off the wounded remnants of enemy infantry heroes left after being comet-struck. 

In an all comers list I'd probably always try to squeeze in a damagey predatory spell if only because A: an opponent may think twice about going first in a battle round if there's a bunch of mortal wounds coming at him between rounds and B: it gives a chance to chip away at Morathi between turns so she might not last as long. 

Oh and I played vs a Nagash with palisades and that was a nightmare. Can be used to control fire lanes, movement and combats. Great spell that one. 

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There's also the fact that whoever goes second in a turn gets first move of endless spells on the battlefield. Endless spells have made taking the double not quite the no brainer it once was. It's not game breaking but considering that they give your opponent another decision to make is good in my opinion, seeing as it can potentially lead to them making the wrong choice.

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Thanks for all the responses, lots of food for thought.

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13 hours ago, PJetski said:

My opinions on endess spells in Matched Play:

Great - Lots of usage in many different lists, easy to use
Aethervoid Pendulum, Chronomatic Cogs, Geminids of Ugh-Gyish, Everblaze CometMortalis Terminexus

Good - Situational but still powerful
Balewind Vortex, Purple Sun of Shyish, Quicksilver Swords, Umbral Spellportal,

Okay - Situational but not very powerful, difficult to use properly, or outclassed by other spells, or just a little too expensive
Emerald Lifeswarm, Prismatic Palisade, Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws, The Burning Head, Soulsnare Shackles, CelestianVortex, Dais Arcanum, Shyish Reaper

Bad - Not very good, or hard to make it work
Malevolent Maelstrom, Suffocating Gravetide, Vault of Souls

My favourite way of using the Endless Spells is open play games where ever wizard knows how to cast every spell.

 

Very curious about Purple sun as good, always look to be as over-costed  and not very effective.  How have you used it to good effect?

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I think the key with any Endless Spell is understanding how it works and having a plan for how to use it in the game, especially when it comes to Predatory Endless spells which can be controlled by your opponent; thus meaning that you want to put those kinds of spell in a position not just where they are not a threat to you now, but where they will not be a threat after you move them during their first activation. Furthermore you want to have them somewhere where, in an ideal world, your opponent has very few choices of where to move it to. Throwing a Purple sun at the edge of the enemy army and then moving it over one unit of troops into the middle of their formation would be a perfect example. It appears, does damage and then in the next round if the enemy takes over it first the Sun is in the middle of their forces; they basically can't do anything with it to harm you, nor move it without hurting themselves. 

 

Of course that is an ideal example that you might only rarely get to use in game, but it highlights the point that you've got to think ahead with these spells at least one or two turns. Many of the others are the same, walls and shackles work when you're thinking ahead of the game not just reacting to the game state now. 

Also think outside the box; a Pendulum can be used to deny access to a corridor/pathway by sending it down the length of it; even if you're not actually doing any damage to any  thing as the enemy avoids it. If that means that you've now got an objective that the enemy can't  contest then that can win you the match more than thinking the spell has to "kill back its points" from the enemy. 

Another is to remember the board edge; throwing down a predatory spell and moving it over enemy units so that it ends outside of the game board means it dispells on its own; doesn't give the enemy a chance to control it; can be resummoned next turn and dealt damage to the unit it moved over/past/throw. 

 

I think the risks with them are when you end up playing in a reactive situation and throw them down in a place that results in them giving you denial to an area or which gives your opponent a chance to take over the spell and use it against you. 

 

 

The other aspect is mage positioning. As you can't boost the range of Endless Spells you've got to work on moving your mage(s) around the battlefield so that they are in a position to use the spells where you need them. This is their biggest weakness; you can't use the portals to boost range; nor any other range boosters. So using Endless spells can put your mages at risk. 

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9 minutes ago, Overread said:

The other aspect is mage positioning. As you can't boost the range of Endless Spells you've got to work on moving your mage(s) around the battlefield so that they are in a position to use the spells where you need them. This is their biggest weakness; you can't use the portals to boost range; nor any other range boosters. So using Endless spells can put your mages at risk. 

Worth saying you can however move them through the spell portal.  Just don't forget that your opponent can theoretically move them back through, so either swarm you end of the portal so there is no-where to place them or just use the Pendulum ;)

 

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