Breaking the magic phase with two level 1s

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Swab
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Breaking the magic phase with two level 1s

Post by Swab »

I was talking to a friend of mine about our magic phase and how to use it effectively. He seems to believe that in order to have an effective magic phase you need to bypass or "break" the standard rules.

Dark Elves have 3 ways to break the magic phase into their favor.
1. Power of darkness
- Low cost spell which will regenerate more dice. Thus giving us the ability to use more than the standard 12 power dice.
-Gives us a powerful phase even if you only generate 2-5 dice
2. Sacrificial dagger
- Gain additional power dice AFTER you've rolled for the spell. Makes it safer to throw less dice and still get the same spells off. Resulting in more successful spells.
3. Throwing more than 6 dice
- We can throw a massive amount of dice at a extremely critical spell. More chances of IF or a spell cast so high that 6 dispel dice won't be able to stop it without IF.

For us to have a good phase, we NEED to use one of these abilities.

The obvious one we can use is PoD but the problem is to guarantee a success you need to throw 2 dice. The return isn't as beneficial as only throwing 1 dice which has a 1/3 chance to fail. Sure this is nice whenever you get down to one dice and your opponent has nothing to defend with. You still can't rely on it though.

Most people run a level 4 with Shadow or metal and a dagger. This is pretty much a staple in dark elf competitive lists because we can overwhelm each opponent with an insane amount of dice. We will hopefully get at least 2 spells through their defense which can be critical.

I've heard of another way to run a dark elf list, I haven't really seen it much on here though, that will take advantage of the third option and save us points.

This is two level 1 sorceresses with Metal and Fire.

The plan is pretty straightfoward. You throw all of your power dice at either the big signature fire spell or the bigger signature metal spell depending on your opponent. This will help you cleave droves of infantry out of the way or heavily armored knights.

The first spell will most likely not go through (without IF) because your opponent will dispel with a scroll. After that though, most of your spells should go through and do insane amounts of damage.

This does put you a bit back on your magic defense. I take a dispel scroll, seal of ghrond and the scepter of stability to counteract this. This should be enough to prevent too much retaliation.

Thoughts or ways to improve this method would definitely be appreciated.
Last edited by Swab on Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Red... »

Well, first off the bat, any gaming strategy or tactic which involves deliberately attempting to 'bypass' or 'break' the standard rules is fairly cheesy and imo against the true spirit of the game in question. I'd refer you to your own signature there. I don't actually think any of the options you have listed are cheesy - but the deliberate pursuit of finding breakages in the rules is. If that makes any sense at all?

As to the issue itself. Yes, Dark Elves have some fairly powerful tools available to them. We don't need to use these to have a good magic phase (you can obviously have a good magic phase through adept casting without any buffs whatsoever) but they do obviously provide a boost.

The two level 1s strategy is viable, although certainly not infallible. Consider the following: You roll a seven (five and two) for winds of magic: you gain seven dice and he gains five. You roll all seven at the big fireball and get 1,1,2,3,4,4,6. That's a total of 21. Add in your +1 and you have 22. He then rolls his five dice and gets 1,3,4,5 and 6. Add in his +4 for his level 4 mage and he gets 23. Your magic phase is over, no impact achieved.

Of course, I've given you a sub average roll there (7 dice would give you an average of 24.5 not 21 as in the example) and him a very slightly better than average roll (five dice would give you an average of just 17.5 not 19 as in the example). But the point is that it doesn't take a lot of bad luck for you to fail to get the spell off and/or for him to dispel it.
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Post by Swab »

I must have said that wrong. I guess I meant bend the standard rules into your favor. Not necessarily create a broken or cheesy list.

Your example is a good one because it is possible. Rolling a 1 in your winds of magic phase is going to hurt regardless of what the other number is. You're only 1 dice ahead in your roll and that is countered by him having 3 levels on you.

This means luck would have to come into play pretty heavily in that particular situation. You would then need to try to use PoD (2 dice) to gain more dice or force him to burn dice.

I wouldn't say running 2 level 1s is a game breaker in any sense. Sure you can murder anything with Regen and lone characters. But it is another option than using a level 4 shadow list.

I want to run magic and deviate from the 2 main standards of level 4 shadow or level 4 metal with the executioner horde.

I was considering putting a level 4 on a peg and flying around with Death, or using dark magic with the tome of furion.
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Re: Breaking the magic phase with two level 1s

Post by Dyvim tvar »

Swab wrote:I've heard of another way to run a dark elf list, I haven't really seen it much on here though, that will take advantage of the third option and save us points.

This is two level 1 sorceresses with Metal and Fire.

The plan is pretty straightfoward. You throw all of your power dice at either the big fireball or the big metal spell depending on your opponent. This will help you cleave droves of infantry out of the way or heavily armored knights.


The most fundamental problem with this strategy is that you will only get the big metal spell 1 out of 6 games. You might be better off just taking a single level 1 with the Pendant (to help survive miscast-caused hits) and throw all your dice at Fireball every turn.
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Post by Vincere »

Hey, all.

I just picked up the Dark Elves Army Book today and have been browsing through it. This thread touches close to something that I was wondering myself: how viable would it be to take three level one Sorceresses all with the Lore of Fire? I'm thinking that the first move in each magic phase is to cast Power of Darkness with all three each on one die; then use whatever dice are available to basically spam as high-level a Fireball as each Sorceress can cast at one unit across the board.

Combined with a couple of units of Repeater Crossbowmen, I can see units getting wiped out pretty fast.

Sure, some of them will be dispelled and occasionally we'll fail to cast a spell, but with three Sorceresses there's redundancy galore.

Thoughts?
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Post by Romark »

Bear in mind that failing to cast ends the magic phase, so if 1/3 single dice throws on PoD fail (as mathematically mentioned above), especially with a lvl 1, you will most likely have to throw 2 at it. Oh, and you can only have one spell once per army, so Fireball would only be used once (except when specifically stated, like Pod). Also, can any Sorceress use the dice generated from PoD? I assumed it was just the one that cast it.

Personally don't like this, i normally, if i can, leave one or 2 dice till the end then cast it for a basically 'bonus spell'.
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

Failing to cast does not end the phase -- it does end the phase for the caster who failed though, so it is best to use 2 dice on PoD.

Only the caster who used PoD can use the dice generated.

Since Fireball is a Signature Spell, multiple casters can use it.
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Post by Romark »

Ahh, knew something was wrong with the first bit, just couldn't think!!

Didn't know that multiples could take the Sig Spell, good to know.
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Post by Swab »

I should really clarify everything when I post.

The big metal spell I meant was the big signature spell. So 2d6 hits.
Same with Fireball. 3d6 S4 hits

@Vincere - That may work. On average 1 of the sorceresses won't get PoD off.
But the average roll to get a 17 will require 5 dice. Throwing 6-7 would be a much better bet. Although, you do get the bonus +d3 to your casting value as the lore attribute.

Try it out and see how it works.

I prefer the fire and metal combo though because at least one sorceress will have something for every army. Fire for the massive amounts of infantry and metal for the heavy stuff.
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Post by Red... »

The further slight downside of the strategy is that 2D6 can be 2 and 3D6 can be 3.

That said, I think it could work, it's just a bit too much of a gamble for me. Like rolling seven dice and hoping for at least one six. Yes, you should get it, but are you willing to risk your game on it?
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Post by Meteor »

The thing is, you want magic defense too. Lv1 doesn't give you any reliable defense. Hence it's better to take a single high level caster and maybe a lower level one for backup.

A high level mage will still be able to take advantage of all three elements you had listed, so...why not take a high level mage over multiple lv1's in a standard list?

And by the way, a Lv4 with Dagger isn't a staple build for competitive play... = =
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Post by Lepaca »

Meteor wrote:And by the way, a Lv4 with Dagger isn't a staple build for competitive play... = =


It's fun though. :D

What would you consider to be the most competitive option?
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Post by Romark »

Lepaca wrote:
Meteor wrote:And by the way, a Lv4 with Dagger isn't a staple build for competitive play... = =


It's fun though. :D

What would you consider to be the most competitive option?


I personally normally take the Tome, or Focus Familier. Though, i've started using the Dagger myself...
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Post by Meteor »

Well, I don't have a 'competitive' option. I normally either take a Dispel Scroll or a Tome of Furion, mostly a Dispel Scroll. It really comes down to what is necessary for my list. I don't like a Dagger, kills my models, forces me to sit in a unit to be truly effective.
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Post by The warchief »

Just adding a few of my thoughts to the debate…

I'm assuming this is for a 2400 point game…

To get the most out of 2 x level 1's you need to spend on magic items to make up for the deficiencies (scroll, tome, dagger, seal etc…). Maxed out they cost 300 points (and thats only on foot). A level 3 with an average load out often doesn’t cost more than this.

Taking 2 x level 1’s starts eating into your hero % whilst leaving your lord % relatively free. Taking 3 x level 1’s leaves you little or no room for a BSB or a peg master.

Another advantage of lord level casters is that they get a bigger choice of spells, and a higher percentage of getting the big spells you want as well as the little spells that are often more useful.
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Post by Mr. anderson »

One thing I've been thinking is using the feedback scroll. 5+ to inflict a wound doesn't seem that much at first, but the (few) games I've played have highlighted a certain tendency to throw a few low level spells at the opponent to burn away dispel dice and then throw 4 or 5 at something you really need to get through. Sometimes it's dwellers below which, for obvious reasons you don't want to get through, but it could be Mindrazor or some other buff which you can survive for a single turn - let it through and then hammer them with the scroll in hopes of killing the caster. 3 wounds on 5 dice doesn't seem too outlandish to me, and even if he's left alive with a single wound all you need is a suicide charge of some harpies to knock that one off.

Another tactic that springs to mind is letting your opponent know you've got it - they'll probably never use more than 4 dice, hence making it rather unlikely they'll get IF and giving you a decent shot at dispelling with a level 4.

And something else - as far as I've understood it, you can use it even when a spell is cast with IF so that the wizard is probably taking a wound anyway and then even getting two wounds on him will be enough. A wizard with a single wound is also much more susceptible to miscasts, again making your opponent cautious about using a lot of dice to cast spells which is only good for your odds of dispelling the dangerous stuff.
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Post by Swab »

I'm just not sure about the feedback scroll.

If they throw 6 dice, on average you will do 2 wounds to them.

You won't be able to use it if they get IF though. "When an enemy spell has been cast, a Wizard who has a Feedback Scroll can read it instead of attempted to dispel the spell.

If you cannot dispel the spell (IF) then you can't use the scroll.

I would probably take the item if it was half it's current cost. It is just too pricey and we have better magic items to use.
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Post by Red... »

In some ways the Feedback Scroll is best used as deterrence.

If you have a regular (or semi regular) opponent(s) and you start using it on a regular basis, they will come to expect that you have the scroll. Few things terrify a player more than having to roll six dice and losing their caster if they roll three 5s (for a mage lord) or two fives (for a mage hero). It's actually not very reliable at all, but the fact they know you have probably have it and their fear of losing their caster in a single go will help to reduce their likelihood of casting a single spell with six dice.

Of course, against a Dark Elf opponent the scroll is worth its weight in gold: "Cast a spell with 9 dice? you're going to regret that..."
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Post by Mr. anderson »

True, the odds aren't great. But tournaments seem to be moving towards open list, so your opponent knows about it. And getting 5+ two or three times on 5 dice isn't all that unlikely. Won't be a sure shot to take out the mage but it should make it easier to take him out subsequently. I'm not sold on using it in a competitive list because it is quite a chunk of points that could buy a whole lot more nastiness. But I have been looking around for options other than the dispel scroll to stop big game changing spells going through once, because once seems to be all you need (from my very limited 8th ed experience) before you get into combat or get the mage.
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