power of darkness

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Gamblemonkey
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power of darkness

Post by Gamblemonkey »

so is this still viable? since now if you cast a spell and roll a natural 1 or 2 the spell will not go off regardless of modifiers, this makes rolling for PD dangerous dont ya think?
would hate to run my lvl 4 try to get more dice then oops shes is screwed the rest of the phase lol.
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Post by The virgin forest »

Course it is.

Rolling one die always had a 50% chance of being a waste, so that was just ****.

Rolling two dice will only fail 1-36, will at least give you the two dice invested back, and your opponent should waste at least 2 DD to counter it.

The magic phase is after all, just an exercise in draining your opponents DD in order to get your spells through.

-

You will however regret it, when you roll an IF on it though ;)
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

I think it's viable. I've been running a magic-heavy list in 8th edition (two level 4 casters and a level 1 in 2500 points) and I cast Power of Darkness a lot.

Based on the risk you identify, I generally roll 2 dice on Power of Darkness now. If my opponent dispels, then it's fewer dispel dice to stop my other stuff. And if it goes through, I at least get those 2 dice back.

Plus, if you have the Sacrificial Dagger, you can cast with 1 die and decide whether or no to sacrifice based on that first die roll.
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Post by Meteor »

I did that TWICE on two dice one game. First IF my lv4 lost two levels, second time she got sucked into the warp altogether. :roll:
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Red...
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Post by Red... »

The opposite, its more relevant than ever.

I see where you are coming from, as its a spell I struggle to use. If you try to roll it naturally, you risk failing to cast it. BUT its only one dice. You are taking a 33% chance risk, for the potential benefit of a minimum of between 1-3 extra dice (or your opponent needing to waste one of his even more precious dispel dice trying to dispel it).

But a nice way to insulate the risk is to take a level 4 with a sacrificial dagger, inside a block of warriors. If you roll a 1 or a 2, kill one of your warriors and roll a second dice. If you originally rolled a 2, then you can can reliably cast the spell, if you rolled a 1 though, you again face a risk of just 16.666'% of rolling another one. Its possible, but the odds are heavily in your favour...
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Calisson
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Post by Calisson »

If you roll it with 1 die, whatever the level of the caster, it will fail on a natural 1 or 2.
But not only you fail to cast, also you loose concentration and cannot cast anything anymore with the same caster.

The dagger is superb for mitigating that.
Another solution is to cast it with the last PD available. If it fails, no big deal, you have no more PD anyway. If it passes, then you get 2-4 PD instead of only 1, probably enough to get a nice spell off, at a time (end of the phase closing) when your opponent is rather likely to have little DD left.
Finally, if you have many spell casters, then probably you don't have enough PD for all spells. Cast with 1 die at the start of the magic phase. If it is cast, all the best. If it is dispelled, you've been dispelled only 1 die! If it fails, then your sorc is neutralized by now but you have several other sorc to make a better use of the PD pool than this incompetent one. She will be chastized later.
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Post by Doug »

When I am down to my last die that is when I roll for the DoP
spell, so if I don't get it no harm done cause it is the end of that magic phase for that caster any how. If I do get it I have that many more PD and my oppent probably use most or all of his DD. It seems to work ok for me.
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Post by Dalamar »

When you use PoD on your last die, you limit yourself to finishing your magic phase with the sorceress that cast the PoD. Those Power Dice are not shared between sorceresses.

Much better choice is start casting PoD when you're down to as many Power Dice as you have sorceresses.
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Post by Masked jackal »

Dalamar wrote:When you use PoD on your last die, you limit yourself to finishing your magic phase with the sorceress that cast the PoD. Those Power Dice are not shared between sorceresses.

Much better choice is start casting PoD when you're down to as many Power Dice as you have sorceresses.

Yes. This also can create problems for your enemy, if they do have any dispel dice left, as they'll usually only have enough to get one. If they don't, then basically you can get whatever off you need. I find this works very well with a Level 4 with Sacrificial Dagger and a Level 2 with Tome of Furion. A total of 7 + 2 signature spells will give you enough to cast, and once you're down to your last two dice, you throw out PoD with the Level 4, killing a guy if necessary, then throw the extra pool dice at the Sorceress. Each, if they get it off should be able to cast an extra spell with little chance of retaliation. Especially since with some selective use of sacrificing, you can eat up all the dispel dice before you get to PoD.
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Post by The virgin forest »

Meteor wrote:I did that TWICE on two dice one game. First IF my lv4 lost two levels, second time she got sucked into the warp altogether. :roll:


What did you expect? Its the Power of Darkness, not the Power of Purty Flowers and Widdle Butterflies :twisted:

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Post by Calisson »

The last die for PoD requires some hard choices for your opponent:
The first time you keep a single dice, he will dispel the previous spell. Then he'll discover what you can do with PoD.
The next time you cast a spell with all but one die, he needs to make a decision: keeping 2 dice for PoD, or none?
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Post by Valkyre »

I think it all depends on the number of PD ye rolled at the start of magic phase

if its a dismall roll, like 4 or 5 or so, better start with Pod, if it fails, well, to bad, there were not enough dice to cast all spells anyway.

this one is off course with a sorc that has a nice spell to cast, but not a fundamental one, and then ye use just 1 dice indeed.

if you had dismal dice, so has the opponent on dispel dice in general.

If ye get a high roll on the winds thou, first use some of those dice to cast spells, drain dispell dice, but keep enough spare, that as soon as ye have 1 vialble spell left for a sorc, ye use Pod with that one.

Also, do not forget, ye can just trick yer oponent into saving dispells for a pod ye actually dont even intend to use.

if ye tricked him the first turn in a 1 last die PoD, why not save 1 die at the last spell ye want, letting him save up dice for a PoD instead.

last nasty trick, use a Pod with a HS, and then at the end use a last die to use the black staff as a trick for another PoD
(expensive, but a nasty trick after all) and well, magic is all about tricks anyway :)
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Post by Masked jackal »

Valkyre wrote:I think it all depends on the number of PD ye rolled at the start of magic phase

if its a dismall roll, like 4 or 5 or so, better start with Pod, if it fails, well, to bad, there were not enough dice to cast all spells anyway.

Personally, if it was 4 or 5, I'd cast a critical spell first, then roll PoD for my two sorcs. With that roll, the enemy can only reliably dispel one, and even with critical spells, the choice between that and keeping the power dice low is a hard one for your enemy. Even then, if you get off two PoD's, they could whiff one of the rolls to dispel, or the critical spell. Generally, with my setup, there will be multiple spells with critical value that would be within reach on 2-3 dice, so the choice becomes even harder for the opponent.
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Post by Nellamik »

Can you cast PoD if you are using any Lore?
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Dalamar
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Post by Dalamar »

PoD is a spell known to all Dark Elf Wizards no matter the lore they choose.
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