Daemon characters guide, Math hammer and strategic tips.

Now THAT is an excellent point and something I had totally missed from the basic rulebook! Not only it makes rods of Nurgle much better but it actually makes Hellfire standard pretty reliable and effective standard. Wow, thanks for clearing that one out. I will change it to the guide up there =)

DeamonReign: wording on a page 37 goes like this:

So as daemonic gifts ARE innate abilies it will not break the gift.

Also, at the top of each daemon lore it says: Daemon can swap one spell for "spell name" if he does not generate it randomly. So it is treated as a signature spell.


EDIT:
I added nurgles rod spam under the heralds. I also added that nurgles rod benefits from banner of seeping decay rerolls and added rod as a optional choice to GuO.


Edit2:
Feez: While it is true that tomb kings for example like to cast many spells they rarely get to cast more than 3 spells per phase. Most of their spells cost 7 to 9+ to cast so they will likely use 2-3 dice to that meaning that even with good winds there wont be tons of spells like in 7th edition. From those 2-3 spells you will likely dispell atleast one and might scroll another leaving very little use for Scribes.

But they work in addition to however many dice you roll for winds of magic barring limitations etc. Obviously, Blue Scribes are going to be useless (as far as I know) in regards to whether you're playing against a Dwarf army or those odd people out there who like to field nothing but Khorne Daemons (possible exception being of course Hellfire banner... but even then they'd likely take Sundering instead), but to me at least Blue Scribes are basically 'mana batteries.'

Especially if you have Lords of Change in your army who remain 'merely' Loremasters with Daemon lore of Tzeentch.

I think they're crap in regards to Scrolls of Sorcery though; but there's nothing saying that they have to cast spells.

Wow. That was great news. Kalandros was right all along, there's no debate. Talk about "assumption being the mother of all screw ups".. haha
Ok well that sheds a whole new light on these "bound spells" we get through Gifts..

In fact, I need to check what we did with them in the re-write.. 'cause with this misinterpretation of how they worked (i.e. no more Gift on IF vs no more casting this phase) we have probably buffed them unnecessarily.

Cheers for that info!

FeeZ: I understand what you are trying to tell here but this is how I see it. For starters most common number of dice to get from winds of magic is 7 as it is avarage of 2D6. Many players tend to "put all eggs in one basket" and caste their ultimate spell (dwellers, sun, timewarp, 13th spell) at 6 dice and try to get IF. Against those players you are going to get 1 dice with Scribes if the opponents gets IF since you have all of your dice to use for dispelling the last spell he might throw. If opponent didnt get IF but succeeds with the spell (ok this starts to sound funny) you will likely scroll the spell due to its high value and spend rest of your dice dispelling the little spells he might throw resulting 0 dice to you. If opponent fails casting his big spell his casting with that wizard ends and you will likely end up with 0 dice.

Then there is people who rather cast many small buffs and spells rather than one big one. Casting with only one dice is risky since spell can fail on 1/3 chance regardless of the wizard level and end the casting, so many will cast with 2-3 dice. This commonly gives opponent 2-4 spells per turn to cast if he uses only one dice with the last spell and winds are good while opponent has dice to dispell 1-2 and scroll one spell. So in most cases scribes net you 0-1 more dice again but against casters like this they can really get job well done and net you even 3 dice but any more is over estimating it.

So in most common scenarios you would get 0-2 dice maximum from the scribes with good winds. Opponent might get low winds too (2-4 dice) or fail at the first casting roll and end his magic phase and in those cases you would not get much dice with scribes. You might also get lucky and roll 12 on your winds, or roll 10 and channel 2 dice where scribes would again get useless as you cannot have more than 12 dice.

Scribes cost 81pts but you can get 100% reliable power dice at 30pts on your LoC or heralds. This however is not used much atleast for heralds as they cannot get MoS then. Scribes are also ridiculously easy to kill and will likely die on just 18 S3 hits that will hit on 4+. So in most cases regular archer unit can take him down in one turn of shooting. In my opinion many Tzeentch armies (or any armies) would benefit more from picking 6 more horrors as they likely grow the magic level and make casting easier.

So in short, he is unreliable, dies easily and can be easily replaced by better ways of getting more dice. That is why I prefer something else.

Great reading stuff, and usefull to, thanx LAV-Kitsune-

But is it a magic item or not these days?
If not, it would be pretty cool to not have to worry about it breaking.

@DARK LORD:

Hm... In the case of the Banner of Hellfire I think you still have to worry about them miscasts. Because it's not an "innate ability" but rather a separate Icon ('item').

The way Kalandros and LAV explained it to me *above* that's the way I interpret it anyways.

But yeah.. Banner of Hellfire might actually be worth taking in 8th Ed if you couldn't risk breaking it by rolling that double six.

----
Speaking of these innate abilities.. Just to clarify so that I know that I got it all right:
In the case of Staff of Nurgle if you roll a double 6; Is it correctly understood that you DO get "irresistable force" but you don't actually roll on the miscast table..(?)

Because in that case, well, that's kind of cool.. You can actually spam Rancid Visitation once or twice per phase and try to force them through with "lots of dice" without having to worry about any negative feedback.. (well, you might get negative feedback from your opponant, but that's beside the point..)

Basic rulebook Page 37.
Bound spell miscasts

Daemons armybook page 92.
Daemonic gifts

Daemons of chaos errata:

So it would seem that Staff of Nurgle is not affected by miscasts and suffers absolutely no negative things at all from double 6s'

Icon on the other hand counts as a magic standard and thus is considered to be a magic item and can break. How very unfortunate, but looks like there isn't anything else to it. Atleast the rod is awesome again =)

The only problem is the 25% Heroes limit, if only it would be 50% Characters or if we had some Lord-Heralds x;

oh well!

Nice writeup, Kitsune.

Here's a couple things to consider:

1) Threats to GDs / Princes. You state that the biggest threat outside of combat is canonballs, and while I agree that canonballs are a nightmare, a more common threat is the much more ubiquitous stone-thrower, available to far more races than a canonball. With the 8th-Ed stonethrower rules, the odds of a central hit are far too high for comfort, and so these need to be taken into account when considering defensive strategies.

2) Combat Res. With only 5 wounds on most GDs, it's pretty easy to get a GD into dire straits by issuing a challenge with a character holding a 4+ Ward, and simply letting static CR hurt that GD, sticking him on his last legs.

3) Blue Scribes. When you consider how big one extra power dice is in the new phase, especially if you push the buff spells, these guys are actually very useful. Also, following your later debate, I think you're getting hung up on a very area-specific trend, namely people throwing all 6 dice hoping for a huge spell. From what I've seen, better players do not push for the huge spells, but rather draw out the magic phase and shove unstoppable buffs down the other guy's throat. These guys neatly punish what I consider to be much better play.

4) Skulltaker. Just a quick word of warning, that he can easily be neutered just by turning down his challenge. Newer players always accept challenges, but better players tell you precisely where you can stick your challenge, at which point Skulltaker starts looking a little silly.

5) Kairos. It's worth mentioning that Kairos gets to pick a new set of spells every game, something very few wizards get to do. With the spell access at his fingertips, that is an absurdly powerful ability.

6) Bloodthirster + Firestorm blade. With the ease of 2+Wards Vs flaming, I think this is a bit of a liability, and the Axe of Khorne could easily replace it, keeping him a solid threat to big armour models.

7) HoT. This guy actually is very useful for his Locus if you're playing a big unit of horrors. While they're not dishing out bloodletter-level damage (or even plaguebearer), they're a great anvil / tarpit unit, sitting with a 4+ Ward and steadfast. If you're going to use a decent-sized horror block, you're shooting yourself in the foot by keeping them away from the action.

All I can think of for now. Nice writeup, and a good idea.

-und_ed

Skulltaker's flaming attacks are also a big downside to taking him now.
Good luck getting a 5+ KB that many characters will ignore on a 2+ ward vs fire (;

yeah, and Tomb Kings are the worst imo. Sure they're flammable, but they take a 5 point item to nigh negate a 150point unit. Imo, that should be the definition of bullshit.

Considering the utter garbage that is the TK book, I really don't think you need to get upset that they make use of one common item, Feez.

-und_ed

Thread pinned - nice one LAV

Well, it's either that 5 point item or the 10 point item that does the same thing. I honestly don't even bother with Skulltaker anymore in TK games.

But yes, I get much more upset with Chariot units of 6, as they tend to hurt... a lot...