D.R.A.I.C.H-Magic Items Summary - 8th Edition Update
Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 7:58 pm
Magic Items Summary-8th Edition
An important thing for any aspiring Druchii General is their choice of Magic Items. This summary gives a comprehensive description of all our magic items and what situations they are best used for.
This article is an update of Bounce’s fantastic summary for 7th Edition which can be found Here.
Magic Items Each item has a rating out of 10 to reflect the items usefulness and is colour coded appropriately.
0/10- This item is more than useless, if anything it makes your hero worse than he was to start off with
1-2/10- This item is pretty dodgy, most likely highly situational with only little effect
3-4/10- This item is clearly sub optimal, but perhaps could be used as a novelty now and again. Most likely situational and/or overpriced
5-6/10- This item to other items is mediocre and pales in comparison but wont earn you stunned looks of surprise if you take it to a tournament
7-8/10- This item is a good choice and greatly improves your hero but isn’t exceptional and wont cause dark looks of envy. Often taken once the great items are used up on other heroes
9-10/10- This item is fantastic and a must have in any army if at all possible
Temple of Khaine
Rending Stars 7/10 - with Manbane 9/10
Rending Stars are very useful but only with the right builds of Assassins. With a range of only 12” they aren’t much good if your Assassin is deployed in a large block of Infantry especially if you want him hidden until the unit gets charged. The rending star assassin is best suited for a unit of Shades where he can nicely complement their shooting abilities. Whilst the stars are good on their own, with Manbane they are absolutely lethal as due to the GW FAQ they will wound on a 2+ against T5 or less creatures and have a maximum strength of 7 (against T5+ models), they should be used mainly to snipe at small/lone units which are tough to bring down such as characters or monsters, Giants in particular hate this one.
Dance of Doom 4/10
There are two reasons why not to take this item.
1. If you take Dance of Doom you reduce the amount of killy items you can take on your Assassin or Hag and this isn’t good as their main purpose is to kill things.
2. With no other armour whatsoever a 5+ ward will often not save you, it on average should save every third wound, and only being used on models with 2 or less wounds you will be lucky if it helps even once, the points would be better spent elsewhere.
Touch of Death 7/10 with Black Lotus 8/10
Great for killing enemy characters and heavily armoured troops. However this does conflict with the Assassins innate poison attacks. This can be made up for by swapping to Black Lotus to increase the chance of a killing blow.
Rune of Khaine- 10/10
There is no reason not to take this on your assassin or Hag. The extra attacks are cheap and efficient. Well worth the points, doubly so with the increased usage of light infantry.
Witchbrew- 4/10
A somewhat unconventional item that is situational. The witchbrew offers the advantage of ignoring the CR bonus the opponent gains for flanking you. This isn’t really that great as if you are flanked you will most likely lose combat by a lot anyway. Now that outnumbering no longer applies (which was one of the main things this item offset) and you can Combat-reform to face flank chargers after the first round, this item lost quite abit of its previously already-limited usefulness.
Hand of Khaine- 3/10
With step-up, limiting attacks back against Khainite characters has become more important, however, dropping only one attack against units with supporting attacks this still won’t make much of a difference and there are several caveats. This item is still very situational and of limited use.
Cry of War- 5/10
It would be a lot better if it reduced the opponents WS to 1, rather than by -1. Often by -1 won't change anything depending on what troops you are using.
For instance give this to a Witch Elf hag in a unit of witches. Being WS 4. Cry of War only makes a difference if the enemy has WS 2, 4 or 5. Otherwise nothing happens and you have wasted your points. Plus you can't take any other magic items for hags. Also, now that BSBs allow re-rolls for all failed LD tests and their increased occurrence, a nearby BSB will often remove the chances of this item taking effect. Could tip the balance in a closely-fought combat, but rather situational.
Manbane- 9/10
A very common and good item seen on Hags and Assassins although it does have its drawbacks. It removes your normal poison attacks which is a pity. Also on a Death Hag or Assassin it has no effect against T3 or less troops. So it only has minimal use against Elves, Men, Goblins, Demons, Skaven and Undead troops. For a normal Hag this is a great buy as it really lends the unit a little bit of punch.
Black Lotus- 7/10 with Touch of Death 8/10
Useful but takes up points and means you can’t have Manbane. Like Manbane this means you lose your poison attacks which sort of lowers the advantage considerably. Combined with Touch of Death this is a great way to increase your chance of killing blow.
Dark Venom- 3/10
This item might see some increased use now that assassins and Death Hags cannot be used to simply scythe down the enemy front rank and receive no attacks in return. Challenges are now the main way of keeping a Khainite character alive through a round of combat against ranked infantry thanks to step up and supporting attacks, so Khainite characters will challenge more often and so this item will see increased use, it’s bonus on the other hand still isn’t fantastically useful because of steadfast often annulling the advantage of loads of CR, and steadfast comes up annoyingly often against our expensive infantry, so whilst the situation it is used in will be seen more often, its effects still aren’t very good.
Venom Sword- 6/10
With assassins now being used more often (surprisingly) as assassins this item may see some more use. Its main uses being against models with lots of wounds (although KB can be got a lot cheaper and only needs that special 6, and also bypasses armour) but mainly against those with a really high ward save, which KB isn’t effective against. This item is generally most effective against a model with a reasonably low toughness (Withering can help here) and low armour save (Plague of rust), but with a ridiculous ward save such as 2+, which even those nasty sniper spells from the lore of death can’t remove. It is situational and overpriced, it does prevent you from taking any other upgrades for your assassin bar the handbow, it is difficult to use and requires support from magic, but it can provide a means of removing a monster or character which would otherwise be almost impossible to shift. This item would be a lot more useful if it still counted as poisoned, as it is, it is expensive, difficult and situational, but can pay off, don't use it out of hand, this item is for a specific use in specific combinations to take down a specific type of enemy.
Cloak of Twilight- 5/10
Unfortunately bound items took quite a hit in 8th edition, needing power dice to cast them, they eat up some of those valuable dice from the winds which are so often in short supply to send your vulnerable assassin whizzing off. Also if you use the cloak you have to reveal your assassin prematurely which is always a bit of a waste. This item is useful for getting rid of war machines, weak archers and cheap support units, but these things could be accomplished so much more easily with other methods.
An important thing for any aspiring Druchii General is their choice of Magic Items. This summary gives a comprehensive description of all our magic items and what situations they are best used for.
This article is an update of Bounce’s fantastic summary for 7th Edition which can be found Here.
Magic Items Each item has a rating out of 10 to reflect the items usefulness and is colour coded appropriately.
0/10- This item is more than useless, if anything it makes your hero worse than he was to start off with
1-2/10- This item is pretty dodgy, most likely highly situational with only little effect
3-4/10- This item is clearly sub optimal, but perhaps could be used as a novelty now and again. Most likely situational and/or overpriced
5-6/10- This item to other items is mediocre and pales in comparison but wont earn you stunned looks of surprise if you take it to a tournament
7-8/10- This item is a good choice and greatly improves your hero but isn’t exceptional and wont cause dark looks of envy. Often taken once the great items are used up on other heroes
9-10/10- This item is fantastic and a must have in any army if at all possible
Temple of Khaine
Rending Stars 7/10 - with Manbane 9/10
Rending Stars are very useful but only with the right builds of Assassins. With a range of only 12” they aren’t much good if your Assassin is deployed in a large block of Infantry especially if you want him hidden until the unit gets charged. The rending star assassin is best suited for a unit of Shades where he can nicely complement their shooting abilities. Whilst the stars are good on their own, with Manbane they are absolutely lethal as due to the GW FAQ they will wound on a 2+ against T5 or less creatures and have a maximum strength of 7 (against T5+ models), they should be used mainly to snipe at small/lone units which are tough to bring down such as characters or monsters, Giants in particular hate this one.
Dance of Doom 4/10
There are two reasons why not to take this item.
1. If you take Dance of Doom you reduce the amount of killy items you can take on your Assassin or Hag and this isn’t good as their main purpose is to kill things.
2. With no other armour whatsoever a 5+ ward will often not save you, it on average should save every third wound, and only being used on models with 2 or less wounds you will be lucky if it helps even once, the points would be better spent elsewhere.
Touch of Death 7/10 with Black Lotus 8/10
Great for killing enemy characters and heavily armoured troops. However this does conflict with the Assassins innate poison attacks. This can be made up for by swapping to Black Lotus to increase the chance of a killing blow.
Rune of Khaine- 10/10
There is no reason not to take this on your assassin or Hag. The extra attacks are cheap and efficient. Well worth the points, doubly so with the increased usage of light infantry.
Witchbrew- 4/10
A somewhat unconventional item that is situational. The witchbrew offers the advantage of ignoring the CR bonus the opponent gains for flanking you. This isn’t really that great as if you are flanked you will most likely lose combat by a lot anyway. Now that outnumbering no longer applies (which was one of the main things this item offset) and you can Combat-reform to face flank chargers after the first round, this item lost quite abit of its previously already-limited usefulness.
Hand of Khaine- 3/10
With step-up, limiting attacks back against Khainite characters has become more important, however, dropping only one attack against units with supporting attacks this still won’t make much of a difference and there are several caveats. This item is still very situational and of limited use.
Cry of War- 5/10
It would be a lot better if it reduced the opponents WS to 1, rather than by -1. Often by -1 won't change anything depending on what troops you are using.
For instance give this to a Witch Elf hag in a unit of witches. Being WS 4. Cry of War only makes a difference if the enemy has WS 2, 4 or 5. Otherwise nothing happens and you have wasted your points. Plus you can't take any other magic items for hags. Also, now that BSBs allow re-rolls for all failed LD tests and their increased occurrence, a nearby BSB will often remove the chances of this item taking effect. Could tip the balance in a closely-fought combat, but rather situational.
Manbane- 9/10
A very common and good item seen on Hags and Assassins although it does have its drawbacks. It removes your normal poison attacks which is a pity. Also on a Death Hag or Assassin it has no effect against T3 or less troops. So it only has minimal use against Elves, Men, Goblins, Demons, Skaven and Undead troops. For a normal Hag this is a great buy as it really lends the unit a little bit of punch.
Black Lotus- 7/10 with Touch of Death 8/10
Useful but takes up points and means you can’t have Manbane. Like Manbane this means you lose your poison attacks which sort of lowers the advantage considerably. Combined with Touch of Death this is a great way to increase your chance of killing blow.
Dark Venom- 3/10
This item might see some increased use now that assassins and Death Hags cannot be used to simply scythe down the enemy front rank and receive no attacks in return. Challenges are now the main way of keeping a Khainite character alive through a round of combat against ranked infantry thanks to step up and supporting attacks, so Khainite characters will challenge more often and so this item will see increased use, it’s bonus on the other hand still isn’t fantastically useful because of steadfast often annulling the advantage of loads of CR, and steadfast comes up annoyingly often against our expensive infantry, so whilst the situation it is used in will be seen more often, its effects still aren’t very good.
Venom Sword- 6/10
With assassins now being used more often (surprisingly) as assassins this item may see some more use. Its main uses being against models with lots of wounds (although KB can be got a lot cheaper and only needs that special 6, and also bypasses armour) but mainly against those with a really high ward save, which KB isn’t effective against. This item is generally most effective against a model with a reasonably low toughness (Withering can help here) and low armour save (Plague of rust), but with a ridiculous ward save such as 2+, which even those nasty sniper spells from the lore of death can’t remove. It is situational and overpriced, it does prevent you from taking any other upgrades for your assassin bar the handbow, it is difficult to use and requires support from magic, but it can provide a means of removing a monster or character which would otherwise be almost impossible to shift. This item would be a lot more useful if it still counted as poisoned, as it is, it is expensive, difficult and situational, but can pay off, don't use it out of hand, this item is for a specific use in specific combinations to take down a specific type of enemy.
Cloak of Twilight- 5/10
Unfortunately bound items took quite a hit in 8th edition, needing power dice to cast them, they eat up some of those valuable dice from the winds which are so often in short supply to send your vulnerable assassin whizzing off. Also if you use the cloak you have to reveal your assassin prematurely which is always a bit of a waste. This item is useful for getting rid of war machines, weak archers and cheap support units, but these things could be accomplished so much more easily with other methods.