Should competitive list bring magic?

[Maogrim]

I very much unterstand that it's frustrating to be basically magically bullied by Chad-lis, but this is a rather narratively-driven game. Maybe gigabrain toads that have lived for eons and eons as well as Aelven gods of light and magic should be able to shut down your Orruk shaman with 20 years of experience just like that. 

I think those god-level characters should feel god-like in their field of expertise. All things considered the mortals hold up pretty well on the battlefield.

[Kadeton]

14 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Exactly. I always used to try to my anti-dispel scroll opinion across by pointing out that there is no "negate combat" scroll, for example. Howv annoying would it be to move into position, accurately guess your charge distance (old days), make the roll, pick up your 20 attack dice, and then hear your opponent say "I use my negate combat scroll. All of your attacks miss."

No thanks.

Dispel scrolls were awful.

In fairness, that's exactly what Mannfred von Carstein currently does. And he's not limited to using it once per game, and he gets a free teleport at the same time. Not a counterpoint to the general thrust of your opinion by any means, I just found it amusing that the example you were using already exists in the game, only it's way more powerful than your suggestion.

[Beliman]

So, we have two arguments here:

1. I can't use my little John cast anything because the enemy has a giant toad that remove my own magic phase and destroy my entire army with his magic. NPE!
2. If we had some Dispell Scrolls, we could stop 1 spell from Godlike models (point 1), but Teclis/Frogplayers/etc... are not happy because they pay a lot of points and having an artifact that can take down one of their critical spells at the right moment is NPE!

I think it's time to remove magic!! Do you ever hear about Aethermatics...?

Edited July 21, 2021 by Beliman

[Perturbato]

I play Khorne and i approve you shouldn't bring magic ! It's for the weak.

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, Maogrim said:

I very much unterstand that it's frustrating to be basically magically bullied by Chad-lis, but this is a rather narratively-driven game. Maybe gigabrain toads that have lived for eons and eons as well as Aelven gods of light and magic should be able to shut down your Orruk shaman with 20 years of experience just like that. 

I think those god-level characters should feel god-like in their field of expertise. All things considered the mortals hold up pretty well on the battlefield.

But...why? We don't think the same way about priests. I don't see anyone getting mad that stronger priests don't shut down weaker ones. So why is part of being a strong wizard being able to not only cast your own spells better, but also more or less totally shut down lesser spellcasters? This feels like more a case of "it's how it's always been, so it's how it should be" rather than any actual reason. 

It's also not something we apply to any other area of the game, either. Stabbas hit and wound Archaon (almost, eye of ed sheeran aside) as easily as they hit and wound boglars. We don't say Archaon's a Godly fighter so Stabbas just can't hit him period, the game balances that interaction in other, more interactive, less binary ways. 

 

[Scurvydog]

I think Wizards got a place in all lists, however if your gameplan relies on magic, you are in a bad spot if not playing Teclis/Kroak and maybe Nagash.

Even in my Sons of Behemat list I like making one a wizard, if I get a mystic shield or flaming weapon cast, that is just great and very powerful. If I face any casters with + to unbind it is less likely to do anything, however my primary reason to ensure having a wizard is access to dispell endless spells. Endless spells got set cast values, often not that high, so even your most lowly wizard can sacirfice their cast which probably would not work anyway against good casters, in order to get rid of that endless spell which could ruin your gameplan.

Something like the new shackles can really cause issues for combat armies and at least having a chance to remove them is a big deal.

I have experienced some armies really hurting though, which are those who rely somewhat on their good spells to be competitive, but lack the power to ensure these go through. Imagine Flesh Eater courts, they rely a lot on their powerful spells to do damage, like their arch regents +d3 attacks spell or the chalice, but it is about hopeless for them to cast these and vs Teclic (who pops up a lot in cometitive lately) he can just save his auto unbind. Not to mention Teclis alone basically shuts down all FeC can do, but that is another discussion.

So the answer is that a Wizard or possibly 2 at a low investment is great, if nothing else than to have a few unbinds at hand and to remove endless spells, if no endless spells are present, a mystic shield etc is always nice. 

At the other end of the scale if you got Kroak or Teclis or Nagash, you can play the magic game, but for anything in between you might have a lot of issues if you face any of those big guys, as they will more likely than not cancel your still rather heavy investment and gameplan. Either invest lightly or go all in, but never in between.

[Rors]

I think ultimately if the question is should COMPETITIVE armies ignore magic due to the magic dominance of some models the answer is definitely no.
The four big center peice casting models are Negash, Teclis, Kroak, Morathi.

Neither Negash or Teclis are competitive, you give up dominance in every other phase to own magic and that's not enough for what you loose. The better LRL lists usually don't have Teclis and Negash is very rare at the prodium.

Kroak is in tournament winning lists, however his new scroll is no where near as good as his old scroll and honestly it's more of an issue with the entire faction being undercoated.

Morathi is competitive but not that great at magic by comparison, her strength is that she's also good at combat in an army that's also very well costed.

There's other competitive magic dominant lists with stuff like Kiaros but again you don't beat that army through magic you win in other phases. Also, against armies like this, they have small wizards so your little dudes have a target for unbinds.

I get that from a game design perspective, the binary nature of magic may not be as fun as it could, but if the question is about competitive play, tournament stats I've seen suggest that it's not really a problem, although there are some competitive magic builds.

If part of your list design includes magic, you'd weaken your list in most situations to gain an advantage in an off meta match up by removing them. Doesn't mean all little wizards are great, but there are plenty that are strong options and the existence of mega-casters doesn't invalidate them.

It's early in three though, I could end up being very wrong.

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Rors

[stratigo]

Nagash has definatgely shown up in early competitive lists. He kills an infinite number of 3 plus save hero monsters.

[Rors]

7 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Nagash has definatgely shown up in early competitive lists. He kills an infinite number of 3 plus save hero monsters.

Has he? I know he can be combo'd to be 'strong' but that makes the list he's in very weak. In general, neither Bonereapers or Gravelords are competitive in general (not that they can't win, they're just not S tier or even A tier).

What tournaments have had a Negash list win?

[stratigo]

Just now, Rors said:

Has he? I know he can be combo'd to be 'strong' but that makes the list he's in very weak. In general, neither Bonereapers or Gravelords are competitive in general (not that they can't win, they're just not S tier or even A tier).

What tournaments have had a Negash list win?

It was mentioned in the early tournament results thread here.

 

He is a strong counter to the pushed meta unit of three plus save monsters because he just trashes them so hard, and can do so fairly efficiently.

 

Note, bonereapers is probably NOT a good place for him cause he really benefits from the new command abilities. 

 

Lot of folks think SBGL are an A tier army right now.

[Rors]

5 minutes ago, stratigo said:

It was mentioned in the early tournament results thread here.

 

He is a strong counter to the pushed meta unit of three plus save monsters because he just trashes them so hard, and can do so fairly efficiently.

 

Note, bonereapers is probably NOT a good place for him cause he really benefits from the new command abilities. 

 

Lot of folks think SBGL are an A tier army right now.

Well, if he's winning tournaments he's winning and I stand corrected. I could not find any tournament links in this thread though.

Playing with half the army your opponent has to win the magic phase seems like a guarantee to loose the objectives and leaves you with a lot less options for secondaries. I'd be really interested to watch a game with a skilled player take Negash through a competitive scene because they'd have to perfectly optimize everything little thing they do with him. I guess if the opponent is Boulder head Maw Tribes he's in a good place to do some damage.

[Maogrim]

41 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

But...why? We don't think the same way about priests. I don't see anyone getting mad that stronger priests don't shut down weaker ones. So why is part of being a strong wizard being able to not only cast your own spells better, but also more or less totally shut down lesser spellcasters? This feels like more a case of "it's how it's always been, so it's how it should be" rather than any actual reason. 

It's also not something we apply to any other area of the game, either. Stabbas hit and wound Archaon (almost, eye of ed sheeran aside) as easily as they hit and wound boglars. We don't say Archaon's a Godly fighter so Stabbas just can't hit him period, the game balances that interaction in other, more interactive, less binary ways. 

 

I think you have a few misconceotions here. First is the narrative nature of how magic usually works in fantasy settings. Wizards use energies that are there and weave them into patterns to create effects. These patterns can be unwoven (unbound) by opposing wizards. In contrast priests and clerics pray to their gods for aid. If succesful the prayer reaches the deity's ear and heart and they grant a fraction of divine power. How are opposing priests able to interact with that?! Yell so loud that the deity can't hear the priest? Launch a smear campaign that the priest is in fact a heretic or a satanic pizza child trafficer?!

Secondly physical attacks and bodies are the bread and butter of the game and will ultimately make or break it. Teclis and/or Kroak can't generate the amount of attacks and damage that their points value in troops can generate. Nor can they absorb so much damage or hold as many objectives. Even if you can't compete in the magic there is still combat, shooting (arguably equally if not more dominant  than magic!), prayers and command abilities, the latter of which can also summon troops (in certain armies) and can't be unbound every turn.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Maogrim

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I think if we want to introduce a mechanic that helps magic-weak armies compete without just making supercasters even stronger, we probably need to reward bringing multiple small wizards. One way to do this would be to allow them to "team up" to cast or unbind by giving the player the option to forego a cast/unbind on one wizard to get +1 to cast/unbind on another. That would make it so that players could push up the probabilities to get that one important spell or unbind through, but without guaranteeing it and at a non-negligible cost.

Just, you know, make it so that Lumineth battleline can't exploit this for once.

[KrispyXIV]

4 hours ago, Beliman said:

So, we have two arguments here:

1. I can't use my little John cast anything because the enemy has a giant toad that remove my own magic phase and destroy my entire dudes with his magic. NPE!
2. If we could use some Dispell Scrolls, we could stop 1 spell from Godlike models (point 1), but Teclis/Frogplayers/etc... are not happy because they pay a lot of points and having an artifact that can take down one of their critical spells at the right moment is NPE!

I think it's time to remove magic!! Do you ever hear about Aethermatics...?

I'm less concerned about how a Dispel Scroll affects Teclis or Kroak - who will just try again next turn and autosucceed on their massive spell - than how it affects factions who only have access to "normal" wizards.  

A "normal" wizard may only succeed at a big spell (cast value 7 or 8, making it a coin flip, with a significant chance to be unbound normally) once per game - and an unbind scroll or similar will wipe out that entire contribution.  

Any solution that hurts super wizards that also DESTROYS normal wizards isn't a solution to the "issue" being discussed here, and that's exactly what dispel scrolls do. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by KrispyXIV

[mmimzie]

The heart of the issue is that your magic's usefulness fluctuates wildly in any situtation where you have a fixed list. This negatively impacts tournmanet players, new players, and people who just make one list. 

 If you bring middling magic that aspect of your list has it's usefulness go from either SUPER impactful to none existent depending on what is across the table.  

If you look at any other aspect of the game the only things that come close are playing shooting army against IDK, but even then the shooting army can still roll dice and the movement phase gives you some counter play. before you shoot.

For me there are a few fixes that fix makes this less depressing:
1. as others have said reducing the unbind range is good. It lets you play with your toys until stuff gets too close. 

 

2. as has been said by me and other access to limited dispel scrolls as the primary tool for shutting down spells. 

3. remove unbind as a feature. 

The more i read this thread the more i like the  3rd options.  I think a wizards should be balanced  more in a vacum of what spells they have access to and how many bonuses to cast they get. The counter balance of unbinding only really hurts average wizards. 

 

@KrispyXIV sorta mentions the main issue in his last line of his previous post. 

[Rors]

Weirdly in a world with no unbinds armies with cheap spamable wizards become a powerhouse. It would certainly switch things up. With the enhancement that gives everyone an extra spell selection. Gitz could probably cast every spell they have access to without much effort using units like the Gobapaluza. Which would go from being terrible to insanely valuable.

Conversely a unit like Teclis would be terrible. You could get more casts with more wounds across more places just by taking the little ones.

I suppose with more spells that are in the 8+ to cast range, there would still be reason for less point efficient big casters.

[Ragest]

The only problem for me is kroak, 4 casts/unbinds with +4 cast and +3 unbind/dispel coming from auto mechanics that deals damage with no range/vision and  unbind from no range aswell with 18 wounds surrounded by 10/20 wounds to pass damage and with another free +6” is something any game that wants it to be considered competitive must have.

Then is teclis, that works something different. Is a pretty op caster, almost the best (in most situations +3/+4 cast works better but whatever), but is tied to umbral to make damage (now you can take it off in teclis' turn and he can’t recast it). Apart from casting he has just an autounbind and the rest is just +1, wich is average. 
 

Loc is good aswell, but is not as strong and the rest of wizards are not such powerful. 
 

Imo kroak should disappear, take off the stupid free +4 or the global unbind and teclis has been pretty nerfed with the recast mechanic, but should have some different mechanic, something like you can make 1, 2 or 4 spells, 1 is auto, with 2 you roll 4 dices and that’s the cast, with 4 you roll 3 dices and that’s the cast, and with a double 1 in those rolls you get a miscast

[mmimzie]

29 minutes ago, Rors said:

Weirdly in a world with no unbinds armies with cheap spamable wizards become a powerhouse. It would certainly switch things up. With the enhancement that gives everyone an extra spell selection. Gitz could probably cast every spell they have access to without much effort using units like the Gobapaluza. Which would go from being terrible to insanely valuable.

Conversely a unit like Teclis would be terrible. You could get more casts with more wounds across more places just by taking the little ones.

I suppose with more spells that are in the 8+ to cast range, there would still be reason for less point efficient big casters.

I mean you make the point there at the end. 

WIth no unbinds spells and wizards become easier to balance. By changing the power of spells, thier castability, and who has access to what you have more than enough handles to balance magic.

 

Magic loses all sense of balance or fairness when unbinding enters the picture and different armies have vastly different access to ways to stop said magic. Where spaming cheap wizards against an army that has no unbinds or opted not to bring them  those cheap wizards are power houses and rule the game, and on the other hand those wizards are useless against armies that have the means to shut it down.

Unbinding creates this feast or famine land scape, where as just balancing spells on the spells themselves and the wizards who can cast them is a more realistic.  Cheap utility spells that are +1 to hit on one unit could be like 5+ and powerful spells could be 9+. I think it speeds up the game and makes all wizards interesting. 

@Ragest I'd say you're still in the boat where taking 1 necromancer is many cases useless under in the current state of the game, where even with you changes he'll only get any decent spell off like 50% of the time or less. 

[Landohammer]

4 hours ago, Rors said:

I think ultimately if the question is should COMPETITIVE armies ignore magic due to the magic dominance of some models the answer is definitely no.
The four big center peice casting models are Negash, Teclis, Kroak, Morathi.

Neither Negash or Teclis are competitive, you give up dominance in every other phase to own magic and that's not enough for what you loose. The better LRL lists usually don't have Teclis and Negash is very rare at the prodium.

 

 

And Kairos. Lets not forget him. But really any Tzeentch list is going to dominate magic, especially host arcanum. 

I am going to have to disagree about Teclis not being competitive. The "Tecnado" combo is a regular in our meta and it absolutely shreds armies, especially when combo'd with Lambent light and ~30 sentinels. In an edition that encourages smaller unit sizes, taking D3-D6 mortals on most of them every turn is extremely powerful. 

One of the main weaknesses of Teclis in 2nd was his relative fragility if he didn't pop the 5+ ward spell. But now he has easy access to at least three different +1 save abilities, and a reliable heal. I would much rather face a LRL without him anyday of the week.

[Perturbato]

Just increase the points of the god level casters that are not playing the same game as us .. magic is fine because it can be shut down or fail but if it works it's a powerfull weapon.

Same for the charge now : you can redeploy or unleash hell .. if you stop unbinding then stop redeploy or don't roll saves when i hit successfully ?

 

[Honk]

4 hours ago, stratigo said:

He kills an infinite number of 3 plus save hero monsters.

How does he do that? And how does he win while doing that?

I had a nice bolt-action list with Nagash in 2.0, but the damage output was/is weak, considering he is 1/2 your army on moving 9“… and of course 16hp with 3+(rr 1)/6++ or mw 4++ is kinda tough against normal damage, but  not unkillable. 

and his back up is 1k of Soulblight 

Kroak and Teclis are on another level, just because they do the same thing with 2/3 the resources. And can shut down my FEC buffs with a smile… same goes for Tzeentch LoC 

maybe redesign the unbinding as suggested above is a good way to get what you paid for without getting hard countered in some matchups…

12“ range, for gods & kroak maybe 18“ (24“) so you‘ll have to get them into the thick of it to deny buffing spells… and by doing so getting their unfair heads chopped off… also please unbind prayers in 12“ 😝 take that bloodboil spammers 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, Perturbato said:

Just increase the points of the god level casters that are not playing the same game as us .. magic is fine because it can be shut down or fail but if it works it's a powerfull weapon.

Are you thinking Nagash levels? Or even beyond that? Becaus Nagash definitely can't go much higher before he's just unusable. You already need to make some pretty big concessions if you want him in your list.

Personally, I prefer the idea of powering down some of the super-casters a notch, with points to match. Don't really like the idea of one model being more than a third of your army, I think that makes things a lot swingier in general.

[stratigo]

12 minutes ago, Honk said:

How does he do that? And how does he win while doing that?

I had a nice bolt-action list with Nagash in 2.0, but the damage output was/is weak, considering he is 1/2 your army on moving 9“… and of course 16hp with 3+(rr 1)/6++ or mw 4++ is kinda tough against normal damage, but  not unkillable. 

and his back up is 1k of Soulblight 

Kroak and Teclis are on another level, just because they do the same thing with 2/3 the resources. And can shut down my FEC buffs with a smile… same goes for Tzeentch LoC 

maybe redesign the unbinding as suggested above is a good way to get what you paid for without getting hard countered in some matchups…

12“ range, for gods & kroak maybe 18“ (24“) so you‘ll have to get them into the thick of it to deny buffing spells… and by doing so getting their unfair heads chopped off… also please unbind prayers in 12“ 😝 take that bloodboil spammers 

Arcane bolt is really good is how.

[Liquidsteel]

I like the concept of removing unbinds, and just letting magic do its thing. 

Make casts harder across the board if needed, and provide bonuses as appropriate to fit the fluff/balance.

God tier casters like Nagash and Teclis can be given additional power in casting/effectiveness of spells if needed.

Unfortunately with the release of the Mouth of Mork, it's clear unbinding is here to stay til at least 4.0.

[Ragest]

33 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

I mean you make the point there at the end. 

WIth no unbinds spells and wizards become easier to balance. By changing the power of spells, thier castability, and who has access to what you have more than enough handles to balance magic.

 

Magic loses all sense of balance or fairness when unbinding enters the picture and different armies have vastly different access to ways to stop said magic. Where spaming cheap wizards against an army that has no unbinds or opted not to bring them  those cheap wizards are power houses and rule the game, and on the other hand those wizards are useless against armies that have the means to shut it down.

Unbinding creates this feast or famine land scape, where as just balancing spells on the spells themselves and the wizards who can cast them is a more realistic.  Cheap utility spells that are +1 to hit on one unit could be like 5+ and powerful spells could be 9+. I think it speeds up the game and makes all wizards interesting. 

@Ragest I'd say you're still in the boat where taking 1 necromancer is many cases useless under in the current state of the game, where even with you changes he'll only get any decent spell off like 50% of the time or less. 

Stadistic is stadistic but I have played tons of matches in 2nd with lumineth, with sole buffs to cast, rrs and important spells going to cv4-5-6 and I have failed tons of them and even my auto 10 teclis got unbinded by some random mage. 
Maybe your necro can’t cast anything, ao you should play knowing that, but he will unbind or cast at least once in a match and is paid or you can put him out of unbind range. Again, the problem is kroak that bypass every possible magical counterplay.