Protecting Mages: Ward Saves Worth The Points?

[Maldor]

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on protecting mages, particularly against shooting. My roommate (aka most frequent opponent) plays Wood Elves, and it doesn't take much for my Sorceress to find the unit she was hiding in decimated by missiles and out on her own.

In terms of Magic Items, I see 4 options:

Ring of Darkness: Half enemy BS good, 40 cost bad (no room for arcane items)

Pendant of Khaeleth: Possible best bet, but only allows Tome of Furion

Talisman of Protection: Weak, but better than nothing

Black Dragon Egg: T6 for a turn, worthwhile?

Then of course there's the CoB ward save, but not if you need it's effect elsewhere.

So then, given those options, what are people's preferences for protecting lone mages?

[Calisson]

Focus Familiar!
Screen your babysiter with corsairs and cast from behind.

[Sadisticity]

Focus Familiar works... but it takes up 25 points which is vital for a lvl 2 sorceress.

Or either way you've plenty of options to take out or disable their Missiles.

1) Chillwind
2) Harpies
3) Repeater X-Bow
4) Dark Riders
5) Shades
6) Offer potentially more dangerous targets to shoot at.

Another way is to attach your Sorceress to 20 Warriors and reduce the chances of them hitting the sorceress. Also a viable tatic since you can give her a sacrifical dagger to sacrifice 1 model for an extra power dice.

Be creative in protecting your sorceress... Protection need not be direct but taking the aggresive stance could be an excellent form of defence as well.

[Yoshiro]

Hmmm, personally, I think you're going about this the wrong way. If you can go to the effort of ensuring that your sorceress probably isn't going to be hit, you can then give arcane items which max out their strengths.

What I would do is put her somewhere near the back with an RBT, or maybe a unit of about 8 shades in a forest, then give her the Lifetaker. This way, not only do you pose a threat in the shooting phase AND the magic phase, you can draw away much of your enemy's shooting into a target they likely cannot hit.

For example, your RBT will nearly *always* be in the long range of small arms, and she will only be hit by 1/9 of the shots.

Shades, being skirmishers in light cover, have fairly prohibitive -3 to hit, so either way works i guess.

[Dyvim tvar]

With the excpetion fo the Pendant on a Supreme Sorceress, I don't think the available protective items are really worthwhile. Dark elf casters are pretty fragile regardless of what items you give them, and you could be using those points to boost their spellcating.

[The virgin forest]

Supreme sorceress with Soulstealer, Black Amulet and Focus Familiar - with 6 wounds even a 'thirster will have a 50% chance of beating her in fight - while she'll be slinging spells left and right, as if she couldn't be bothered.

Beyond that, movement and terrain is the best means to protect a caster. I find a Lvl 2 hanging out with dark riders and sporting Lifetaker to be quite a >nasty derogatory word censored<

[Rabidnid]

Supreme sorceress with Soulstealer, Black Amulet and Focus Familiar - with 6 wounds even a 'thirster will have a 50% chance of beating her in fight - while she'll be slinging spells left and right, as if she couldn't be bothered.

Beyond that, movement and terrain is the best means to protect a caster. I find a Lvl 2 hanging out with dark riders and sporting Lifetaker to be quite a >nasty derogatory word censored<

I am a big fan of black amulet and on supreme sorc. If she can land soul stealer on someone it gets pretty funny.

[Bounce]

Unit of 30 spears with the Pearl of Infinite bleakness will take a huge amount of shooting.
orsairs even more so though they suffer from being a bit expensive.

Ward Saves are great but as the only defence they will fail just by chance and you can't afford to lose such an expesnive model to a single bad roll. Even the Pendant fails on a 6 and then splat.

[Timz]

Unit of 30 spears with the Pearl of Infinite bleakness will take a huge amount of shooting.
orsairs even more so though they suffer from being a bit expensive.

Ward Saves are great but as the only defence they will fail just by chance and you can't afford to lose such an expesnive model to a single bad roll. Even the Pendant fails on a 6 and then splat.

At least in fantasy there's no Instant Death like in 40k, so if one bloodthirster attack gets through because you 6 the pendant, there's a large chance you still have 2 wounds left and can laugh it off.