Is it me or do Dark Elves suck at magic?

[Red...]

I've been playing Dark Elves for some time now and must say I have always struggled to use magic well with them.

I put it down as something I was doing wrong and concentrated instead on other strengths of the army that I did manage to exploit (e.g. mopping the enemy up with hard high impact elite infantry, using super manoeuverable dark riders and harpies etc and pin cushioning my opponents with assassin rending stars, crossbowmen and reapers).

But then recently I started playing with a few other armies and was stunned to find that with each one that I tried the magic offense and defense were easier to use and worked better. That was when I started thinking that maybe it wasn't me, maybe Dark Elves really do suck at magic.

Here's why:

- We lack any offensive bound items. Thats important because offensive bound items give you an extra boost when trying to out-dice your opponent during the magic phase. The Banner of Wrath in a Warriors of Chaos Army, for example, gives its owner the equivalent of an extra powerful magic missile each turn, Nibbla's Itty Ring gives Orcs and Goblins a similar bonus, as do many bound magic items in other army lists. This has two advantages, it either means your opponent HAS to keep 1-2 dispel dice held back to try and counter your bound item (reducing the number of DD he can use against your other spells) or takes a nasty hit at the end of each magic phase. Because the Dark Elf player does not have any such bound items (cloak of shadows is weak at best), s/he gains no such advantage.

- Power of Darkness really isn't that good. When rolling for PoD, you either have to risk it by rolling 1 dice, which means you have a 50% chance of wasting a dice, or roll 2 dice, which means you have a 33% chance of gaining no advantage, even if you cast it. If are successful, your opponent can irritatingly dispel it, which at lower levels of magic (ie if you're fielding equal or less mages than your opponent) can ruin your magic phase. In comparisson, Sorcerors of Tzeentch gain +1 to their casting attempts, High Elves gain +1 to their dispel attempts and Tomb Kings give you -1 to cast. Even O&G can give one shaman a +1 boost through the staff of badlum.

- Our sorceresses are EXPENSIVE. At 100 points for a level 1 and 135 points for a level 2, our sorceresses are amongst the most costly in the game. And we don't add up. 140 points can buy you a level 2 sorceror of Tzeentch who has a) +1 to cast (more reliable and imo better much PoD) b) chaos armour and good combat stats and c) awesome spells (flames of Tzeentch, their level 1 spell gives you D6+1 hits on D6+1 strength - much better than chillwind). Other armies get their mages for considerably cheaper than us.

- Our spells are not that good. Yes, okay, by and large our spells ARE better than most of the standard ones in the BRB. But versus other army lists? Not really. Chillwind is nothing special, doombolt is not bad, bladewind is awful, word of pain is very situational, soul stealer is limited, and black horror is good but not amazing for a top spell (compare the Nurgle or Tzeentch top level spells...).


Don't get me wrong, I'm sure many people play with Dark Elf sorceresses really well and do a lot of damage with them. I also agree that Dark Elves are okay at magic and probably even above average. I'm sure a level 2 DE sorceress is better than say a level 2 empire mage.

But against the other magically oriented races? It just doesn't seem like they do. I'd take a level 2 Tzeentch Sorceror or High Elf Mage over a level 2 Dark Elf Sorceress every time, and that's saying something.

Anyway, I may be over-stating the case, but I figured this might prove some interesting food for thought and I'd be interested in other people's comments/experiences/etc.

[Thenick18]

I completely agree with your statements about PoD. This happens to me all the time when playing smaller games, as I don't want to load up on magic and would like to have some sort of combat oriented hero as well. I sometimes use the sacrificial dagger to up the pressure, however that is an expensive PD that you get from the sacrifice and does not guarantee you will get the casting off. Lately I've been fielding a sorceress just to be anti magic, and that is still expensive, 135 to 165 points depending on the setup. I wish I could reliably rely on just the RoH and multiple talisman to be effective anti magic but it just doesn't cut it and I still find myself needed that sorceress.

[Vesidel]

I do miss having a decent list of bound items. The Black staff isn't something that finds it's way into my list very often.

Still though, I love chillwind not for it's damage ability, but because it prevents wounded units from shooting. This spell is one of the most useful things in the DE army when it comes to combined arms tactics because it protects us against one of the most dangerous threats to our forces.

Unit of skinks about to poison your lord on dragon? -Chillwind

Empire handgunners shooting your blackguard to pieces? -Chillwind

Dwarf Organ gun ready to wipe out your CoKs? -Chillwind

I'm not even that big a fan of the other spells in the lore, but I'd take chillwind over nearly every other first spell in the game.

[Mayordaley]

The other day I played a game against my buddy who has a pretty decent WoC cav. list. I killed everything except a unit of dogs he was hiding in a corner. I'm getting off topic, but the point is his Shaggoth got hit three times by my level 2 with word of pain; and ended up killing it in cc! PoD might not be reliable, but dark majik is pretty good offensive majik. I agree that it is overpriced, but the pressure that you can put on your opponett will probably make him do something he should not do. @DeathKnight27 how do you figure bladewind is awful? When I play against dwarves I pray that I roll it.

[Desert icon]

I started thinking that maybe it wasn't me, maybe Dark Elves really do suck at magic.

I also agree that Dark Elves are okay at magic and probably even above average.

Hmm... Might want to check on that.

But against the other magically oriented races? It just doesn't seem like they do. I'd take a level 2 Tzeentch Sorceror or High Elf Mage over a level 2 Dark Elf Sorceress every time, and that's saying something.

There's the problem. You're comparing the Dark Elf magic phase to that of a magically-oriented race. They're magically-oriented for a reason, that reason being that they have powerful magic.

Also, you're comparing it to Tzeentch Chaos magic a lot. They're Tzeentch. They have powerful magic. It's not really something that is a mystery to people in general. You could figure that they'd be a lot better at magic than some of the less magically-oriented races.

[Church]

Sorry, but I completely disagree. The only thing you can hear from my gaming group after shouting "Darkelfes" is the rustling from scrolls...

Yes, the sorceresses are expensive. They have to be cause well played they are incredibly devastating.

Yeah, Tzeentch mages are better because they are, well, Tzeentch.
No, the dark arts are among the top magic lores of the whole game. Chillwind is a pain for shooty armies, doombolt is good vs tough enemies, bladewind =>magesniper, word of pain isn't only for CC but also shuts down enemy fire, soul stealer has a limited range, but it belongs with black horror and bladewind to the category potential mass murder spell.

PoD... wanna see your opponent making excessive use of his DD? Then use that spell

[Zharnash]

couldn't agree more with church, dark elf magic (for me usually) has to be played incredibly offensivly, and with things like the darkstar cloak, tome of furion, sacrificial dagger and the aforementioned PoD, the amount of dice and spells you can chuck out in a turn is generally very high.

if I take mages, I take a lot of them, and I cast as many spells as I can every turn, until the enemy can't possibly dispel them all

[Red...]

Thanks for the thoughts and comments

thenick18, we definitely sound like we are on the same page with PoD!

Vesidel, I agree that chillwind is useful against missile based armies,including those you mention Vesidel (in fact, the only time I've really seen it make an impact was in a game of DEs vs DEs where I had lots of RxBs: he kept stopping me from shooting, but I still won the battle)...

...But then other level 1 spells are good against certain types of army (e.g. fireball(lore of fire lvl 1) is great against armies with lots of regen or flammable units, burning gaze (lore of light lvl 1) is great against undead and daemon armies)). That makes it hard for me to agree that it is better than the other level 1 spells available - it isn't, its just different. Which, given the amount we have to spend on our sorceresses, just doesn't cut it in my book.

MayorDaley, Bladewind is awful because you get just 3D6 WS4 S4 hits. That's between 9 and 12 hits on average. At WS4 you're probably hitting with half of them, so that's between 4.5 and 6. Then with S4 you are wounding with probably two thirds or half of them. That's between 2.25 and 4 wounds, with a -1 save modifier. Not great. Against dwarves it would be even worse: between 2.25 and 3 wounds, with a -1 save. Yeah, that's not a bad amount of kills, for a level 1 spell, but for a level 3 spell that needs an 8+ to cast? It's just feeble, really.

Also, although both MayorDaley and Church herald the spell as a good character killer, it really isn't. You can only allocate one attack against each champion or character in a unit. With just a 50% chance of hitting, followed by a 66% or 50% chance of wounding, followed by their armour save at just -1, your odds of inflicting a wound on a hero or even a magic caster are really very low.

I agree that Dark Elves can do well in games, particularly against armies with little or no magic protection, but then that's not very different from any other army...

Desert Icon, thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in my post. Part of that is that I like to take a conciliatory tone, so tend to try to end negative posts with an upbeat note.

My main point is that I think Dark Elf magic is cost ineffective. Their abilities and spells are roughly average or maybe slightly above, but they are not worth the amount of points we have to pay for them. Hope this clarifies it a bit

There's the problem. You're comparing the Dark Elf magic phase to that of a magically-oriented race. They're magically-oriented for a reason, that reason being that they have powerful magic.

Also, you're comparing it to Tzeentch Chaos magic a lot. They're Tzeentch. They have powerful magic. It's not really something that is a mystery to people in general. You could figure that they'd be a lot better at magic than some of the less magically-oriented races.

I'm comparing it to Tzeentch a lot for a couple of reasons.

1) Their magic casters are almost identically priced to ours (140 points for a lvl 2 Tzeentch sorceror, 135 points for a lvl 2 Dark Elf Sorceress).

2) We used to have the +1 to cast ability which has now been given exclusively to them

3) One of my alternative armies is a magic heavy Tzeentch army, so I am very familiar with how much more potent both the spellcasters and the spells they cast are than dark magic.

4) We are also supposed to be a magically oriented army! It's not like having a Tzeentch army precludes you from having uber-hard combat units (chaos knights, chosen, ogres, trolls and chariots to name just a few)...



But I've also mentioned a few other races. I'll talk a bit more about each of them in turn:

Dwarves: Very effective anti-magic abilities. Not cheap to do, but a dwarf player can very easily shut down an opponent's magic phase with a rune smith with two runes of spell breaking and the banner of valaya (5DD, 2 DD and +2 to dispels).

Orcs and Goblins: Very aggressive magic and lots of aggressive powerups (Staff of badlum, nibbla's itty ring, waagh paint, etc). Also, very powerful anti magic (mork's totem usually gives +3 DD, giving a typical O&G army in the realm of 6-8 DD). All of this is very cheap.

Warriors of Chaos Nurgle: Very powerful offensive and combat support spells, and very hard to kill (-1 to hit in CC and -1 BS to hit through missiles).

High Elves: Good bound items, including a non-arcane banner that dramatically boosts the amount of spell casting they can do. Very powerful anti-magic, including +1 to dispel and drain magic.

I've not played as every race in the game and so can't comment on them all.

What I can say though is that, by and large, dark elf sorceresses cost a ton and are supposed to be a very powerful magical race (even fluff wise, our sorceresses are supposed to be very strong), but in reality they struggle more than they should and deliver a lot less than they should.

Just my two cents.

[Thenick18]

if I take mages, I take a lot of them, and I cast as many spells as I can every turn, until the enemy can't possibly dispel them all

There in lies my dilemma, to be successful in magic, and have enough dice to power through DD, you need multiple wizards, since we have the lack of other means to eat away DD.

I agree cost wise our magic is not on par with others of the same value. I do also agree that we do have a good variety of spells, and I view our magic (Dark) as more of a utility magic more than anything. In a specific game vs a specific enemy you can tailor you're lore, however if you have no idea what you will face either army-wise or troop selection-wise, Dark provides good utility to handle just about everything and compliment your army, whether to protect vs ranged attacks, augment your own ranged attacks, cause mass damage or augment your close combat with word of pain. This may be why we pay the price we do. But again, I have a hard time seeing returns on the points I put into magic.

[Mayordaley]

DeathKnight27, you misunderstood what I use bladewind for. You are absolutly correct in your commets pertaining to character killing; it is feeble at best. Against warmachines though it is excellent; because of the fact it is close combat only. Four dwarf crewmen, five with an engineer, usally do not like getting 3d6, ws4, s4 close combat attacks allocated to them. Personally I have had great sucess with bladewind used against warmachines. Empire is evan better! Your math and comments are spot on though, and have found that alot of the players in my group plan on having majik defense for my army. What this does is let me bring low majik lists to fight their high majik defense lists. Besides the majik phase is pretty fun.

[Desmodeus]

I have problem with your 'PoD sucks' after 'crappy Bound spells'... Nominally I agree, PoD is rather a weak spell for the reasons you gave, but what about the Black Staff? PoD Bound spell, level 4 for 55pts. Sure, that's only one Supreme Sorceress, but it's certainly a powerfull item as it removes the limitations on PoD, making it very usefull. (In my eyes at least)

The rest you have a point, but do remember the Druchii Sorcery rule! For small battles, it's a huge advantage for your lower level wizards,

I have to agree with you though, for a race supposadley so kick ass at magic, they're really only above average. I much prefered the old Dark Elf book's rules.

[Dante valentine]

I put a post up a while ago about if magic was worth it and since then many battles have been waged both with and without magic.

I do agree that Dark Elves lack any form of useful bound spell. Something merely doing D6 Str4 hits would be nice.

That said, i presonnly believe that we do have arguably, the best lore of magic availbale. Spell 2 (doombolt) is a bit sucky, though nice to kill fast cav, pretty much meaning that the buggers die (cant think of any fast cav with T4, though that doesnt mean they dont exist!). And Soul Stealer is good agaisnt some lists (skinks dont like it up em!) but sucky against others (WOC giggle at the futility of trying to hurt them with str 2 hits!).

Other than that, the lore produces some nice spells -vortex thingy (spell 6, dont have book with me), can wreck havoc in many armies, esp one's that rely on large units of ranked infantry (Empire - giggle as Greatswords die in droves!).

The problem is however, without sinking an immense amount of points into the damn thing, magic can be RELIED upon to win you games. Im not saying it cant, just that there is no guarntee. VC's have the unique advantage that nearly all their char's are modest wizards while able to hold themselves well in Close Combat.

Most decent players will bring 2+ dispel scrolls in any game above 1500 points. Tournament players generally bring more. Without owning an immense amout of power dice, you will find it difficult to pierce a good defence - and remember that more spells you cast, the more chance something goes wrong. - I have seen a slann mage priest miscast and hit all his temple guard in base contact with a str 10 hit, killing them all. The points he killed there, he never made up for in the rest of the game as he found himself nullified by dispel scrolls and then in range of a ring of hotek.

True, that is an extreme example - but it does demonstrate that if something as powerful as an overweigh frog can actually lose an army points, then we are already wounded before we start.

My advice - in small games, take a few level 2's. Big games take what you think is nessecary but understand that it might be anything up to 750 points of utter uselessness in your list. Just think what three warhydra's and a few spearmen could do for the same points!!!!!!

Overall, magic is good, magic is fun, but its as experimental as s rum soaked pirate with a modern day battleship! - sometimes it can do wonders. Sometimes it will sink!

If nothing else, the sorceress models are kinky buggers and deserve inclusion into any list merely for that reason.

What a rant - i need a life.

Regard

D

[Calisson]

OK, there are many a good argument brought in that thread.

Dark Lore is a good Lore - provide you can use it:
Our spells are not that good: disagree, the Dark Lore is much better than the other Lores because every spell is useful.
Agree with Church, dark arts are among the top magic lores of the whole game.
Dante Valentine points very well the qualities of what we do have arguably, the best lore of magic available.
Agree with MayorDaley about bladewind.
So, what is the fuss? Overall, our specific Lore should be one good reason to take some sorceresses, if only we could cast the spells - and THERE lies the trouble.


Opposite magic defense can be strong:
Dwarves, Goblins, HE are my usual opponents, I know them. They all have very strong magic defense, especially since they know that I'll bring a good magic offense.
I agree that it is difficult to break this kind of defense: they steal you one of your power dice and have many dispell dice.

Spamming a strong opposite magic defense is difficult:
We lack useful bound items: agree. It means that we cannot use them for spamming low level spells nor for triggering the DD.
That is an expensive PD that you get from the sacrifice: agree with thenick18, so it is not a good solution either.
Power of Darkness is not that easy to use indeed.
Overall, yes, we have trouble to spam lots of low cost spells, because if we do it with PoD, then we soon lack fuel for more useful spells.


A sorceress you can't use is too expensive
The conclusion at this stage brought by deathknight27 is that it is not worth the cost, because you cannot spam through a strong magic defense.
I have a hard time seeing returns on the points I put into magicSure, we have trouble to overcome a rather good magic defense with spell spamming, and if we can't, then our investment in magic is wasted.
Dark Elf magic is cost ineffective What I like in Empire magic, as a comparison, is how cheap it is indeed, and it is much more true for goblin magic. They are much more cost effective. But I find Empire magic less effective as well!
By the way, if you compare a level 1 scroll caddy to another level 1, our sorceresses are very expensive. However, the increse to level 2 is the same cost as anyone. So, actually, only level 1 and 3 are costly, but not level 2 and 4: Go for magic offense!


Piercing a good magic defense, the druchii way.
DE sorceresses' abilities and spells are roughly average or maybe slightly above: Disagree.
Desmodeus points at it: Druchii Sorcery rule!
This is the secret.
Take a Level 4 and a Level 2. Together, they have 2+4+2 PD = 8 PD.
If you cast PoD against a good magic defense, they dispell it and you remain with 4 PD, before you even started to cast any useful spell! Your level 2 is useless and the opponent has remaining DD to counter you.
Now, you should instead cast no PoD, but directly a single spell with each sorceress, 4 PD each, thanks to the Druchii Rule! Cast directly the most useful spell. Even for spell#1, the idea is to make it difficult to dispell.
There, your opponent will have trouble to dispell anything at all.
Chances are good that your 2 spells, which were chosen to be the most useful (easy with Dark Lore), get through! The greatest fun is that, at the end of the magic phase, your opponent has unused DD, just wasted!
So, you paid a high price indeed, but you did cast close to 2 very useful spells per turn through a strong magic defense.
Only druchii level 2 can do that.
Now you object that the opponent has 2 or 3 scrolls. Hey, you did cast since turn 1 with your long range spell! In turn 3, either he has no more scrolls or he had to let go through some spells.
The real objection is that you get quite often miscasts...

Of course, if you face a weak defense, then you can spam PoD and cast several spells per caster.

Also, worth noting, a level 1 scroll caddy can agressively cast her single spell with 3 PD, contrary to any other scroll caddy. Hence the hefty cost. But if you don't even try, then you paid for nothing.

magic is good, magic is fun, but its as experimental as s rum soaked pirate with a modern day battleship! - sometimes it can do wonders. Sometimes it will sink!

Agree.

Magic is not cost-effective for the sake of merely winning games and I would not recommend it for a competition army, especially with all the ETC rules limiting PD available.

However, if you add the benefit of having fun, then our sorceress definitively make up for their price and are worth much more than 15 RXBmen, who are more effective but less fun.

[Grimaldus]

Yeah you have to sink quite a few points into it but depending on how you set things up our magic can be pretty brutal. Cloak of twilight on an assassin with throwing stars and manbane is pretty devastating in any game ive use it in, Cause either I can use the cloak to set up a charge or put him in a much better position for throwing his stars. Trick with the cloak and black staff is to use them after casting the rest of your spells and hopefully your opponent has used up all his dispelling. Like even if he has a dispel scroll to counter the cloak, the cloak is a 20 bound magic item your opponent has to constantly watch for with his dispel dice otherwise your assassin will just rampage through his lines.

Chillwind is pretty solid for shutting down ranged attacks, especially against stuff you dont wont shooting at your dragons or hydras.

Doombolt is pretty solid

Word of Pain is good in some situations

Bladewind can be devastating depending on your luck and what your firing it against. By being able to pick out unit champions and other characters it good for softening up a unit before charging into it. As mentioned prior, it also decimates war machine units.

Soulstealer is probably one of my favorite spells. I usually like to play games with Malekith on foot in a blackguard squad and this spell just makes that unit even more devastating to deal with because if they lock into combat with someone you can just replenish any lost wounds and gain some with this spell on Malekith and plow throw most units. Its an incredible spell against any horde army.

Black Horror is probably one our most potent spells mostly cause it can be placed anywhere, causes panic, ignore armors and magic resistance.

Like this past week I played 4 games at 4000 points with 2 lvl 4 supreme sorceresses, Malekith, 3 lvl 2 Sorceresses and it did a lot of damage against the armies I was playing against. Yeah youre not gonna have as big of an army as the other guy but if you pick your combat units wisely you can dominate your opponent without much hassle.

[Kargan daemonclaw]

You are also overlooking the choice of lores. Against heavily armoured opponents take metal. Against lightly armoured take fire you don't just have to take Dark magic.

Also you need to look at how Druchii deal with magi defense with their wider army. Harpy Kamikazi charge. If the enemy wizard is in a unit charge with a unit of harpies. You get 3 harmpies to attack the wizard that's 6 attacks with a good chance of doing the 2 wounds needed to kill off a low level wizard. All for a 55 point unit. After stripping off the enemy wizards you have a much easier time casting spells.

[Sulla]

We are awesome at magical defense and above average at magic vs low toughness opponents. Even with Metal, we struggle vs high armour, high toughness armies like chaos.

As far as magic heavy armies go though, we do have one advantage; assassins. We can go magic heavy on our characters and still fit excellent combat characters in our army. Most armies reduce their combat potential by going magic heavy. Plus, we can build an excellent avoidance army with pegasus sorceresses or a dragon.

[Calisson]

@ Grimaldus, Welcome in D.net!

@ sulla, good point with the assassins.

[No one]

you also have to remember that the cloak of twilight can actually be very dangerous if you use it to catapult assassin's around the board, you might even suicide charge him into an enemy lord level caster or warmachines, if you kill him you got your points back and some more

@grimaldus: like Calisson, welcome (do you play black templars BTW?)

[Desmodeus]

I've actually picked up a few nice tricks on this thread: Normally I only made sure I had at least a level 2 Sorcerress to stop myself being totally dominated, (I always preffered melee heavy armies.) but a few tips here might prompt me to be more aggressive with it.

[Thenick18]

I've actually picked up a few nice tricks on this thread: Normally I only made sure I had at least a level 2 Sorcerress to stop myself being totally dominated, (I always preffered melee heavy armies.) but a few tips here might prompt me to be more aggressive with it.

I tend to think like this as I find charging in and running units over with my knights much more enjoyable than a point and shoot method. In any event I'm always stuck taking a Lvl 2 with the seal, because I want to keep my defense up while still at the same time, hoping that one of my 2 spells does go through. If I know I have no chance at POD I'll toss all 4 dice at it. The only thing I have a hard time swallowing is if the 165pts is worth it. But I have to look at it as a preventive measure rather than an offensive move. 165pts to save more valuable points elsewhere during magic doesn't sound as bad as a 165pt wizard that doesn't kill anything. I had also overlooked power stones, I may add those in to my list and maybe that first phase unleash hell and then sit back and rely on my combat skills. 165pts I can fit an assassin that I know will do some serious damage to whatever it faces, but instead I have a sorceress who does her nails all match.

[Xzazzarai]

If you think magic is that bad, you are just playing it wrong.

First of all:
Druchii Sorcery is AWESOME! A level 2 dishing out a 5 PD black Horror? Yeah well... get used to it!
Out low-level mages are not severly limited if they should get spells with high casting value.

Allso, we have great magic items to boost this. Black staff, Darkstar clock and the dagger. Allso, there are powerstones, for example.

PoD is situational. It's not awesome, but you have to know when to use it.
If you can out-magic your opponent allready, PoD is golden and will help you dominate the magic even more.
At those situations, allways cast with 2 dice.

If you do not so clearly dominate the matgic, save it. Make sure you have 1 dice left for one ot two of you mages after you have unleashed som big nasties. Then, attempt to cast PoD with one dice. If your opponent has saved one or more dice - Too bad he didn't use them earlier to stop something that caused damage.
If he doesn't have any - good for you if you get 4+!
Just make sure that you have spells left to cast...

Further more. Our Lore is good but not great.

Chillwind is awesome though. DE are Very sensitive to shooting, so if we can harm them AND stop the shooting...?
It's one of the best default spells there is!

Doombolt: Str 5 is actually quite usefull against armoured foes like knights. But not a great spell.

Word of pain is actually more psychological than dangerous.
Though it is Very effective when it comes to stop enemy shooting.

Bladewind: Have you ever cast this at a warmachine? No? Try it and you will love this spell...

Soulstealer: It's a bit expensive. But, vs heavy armoured units it's great. Allso, healing a caster can allso be pretty nice!

Black Horror: A spell that bypassas armour, magic resistance AND causes panic...? How can you not love it?

DE do have a tough time dealing with heavy armour. RBTs can do it to some extent and AP bolts do help. But magic is the only really effetive way of doing it, even if some of the spells are a little expensive...

[Drek]

I think the value of our magic has decreased with the last two releases because of the prevalence of large monsters. It could suffer with the new Beast list as well. Only three of the six are useful against them, and a magic heavy list is forced to take few troops to take on such beasties.

However, I still think we have one of the most potent magic phases in the game. Our spells can devastate. Druchii Sorcery, PoD, Blackstaff and the Sacrificial Dagger allow us to pressure the enemy dispel so much that a magic heavy list is virtually guaranteed to crush one unit per turn.

Finally, ask the players in your local gaming group what they think of our magic phase. My guess is you will hear a tirade about how powerful it is. Sometimes the only way to appreciate the potency of something is to face it on the battlefield.

[Thenick18]

True, but there in lies what I thought to be the premise of the whole thread, we cannot do much with one wizard, its all or none for us, then taking a strong magic list, we lose many troops. For the point cost, I would have expected a little more of a success rate (2 turns or more of actually casting successfully) out of 1 sorceress than having to load up to be successful. Maybe its asking too much. I like to play balanced lists and in doing so I find it more difficult to have a normal/good magic phase than setting up for anti-magic, which is the reason I include a wizard. To me, this hinders my list from being truly balanced. It seems like most armies has a standard 4 DD. So a single lvl 2 won't do much. Maybe this requires a new topic, keeping an army balanced, but how do you keep the magic balanced as well.

These are just my personal feelings and experiences and not really aiming to instigate a debate on what I said, rather looking for ways to increase what a single lvl 2 wizard can do. I'm sorry if this is somewhat of a tangent than the original intention of the thread. Yes I have read Dyvim's article on magic. And for the most part I follow most everything he had to say however I still end up with my problem.

[Jjfelber]

I disagree that one sorc is worthless. It very much depends on who you play against. In a tourney, yes, one is erratic and easily defeated. I'm played a campaign game last night at 1500pts. I knew I was to face a brettonian player. So I took one Sorc on a DP, with the tome and life taker. So yea, only 4pd, but he knew he had to bring 2 Scroll caddys because of it. I didn't kill a thing with the sorc until turn 5 and 6. He had 4 dd and 4 scrolls. It wasn't until I killed one of his caddies and he used both of his scrolls that I could do any magic, but when I did she was awesome. She killed 7 knights of the realm, the 2nd caddy and a paladin in 2 turns. That more then makes up for the points.

All of that killing without fear of getting attacked back.

Not to mention. The Lifetaker doing it's thing all game, at basically 50" range because of the DP. And she charged fleeing knights giving her another 6 Knight of the Realm kills.

POD is not bad if you use it at the correct time. If you know that they can't dispell it and you have 2 dice. It is basically a free chance at an extra 1-2 dice. If you have one dice left at the end of you turn and what else are you going to do with it? The job of a sorc is more then just her magic ability, but how you use her.

[Camaris]

I agree that our magic phase is far from the most powerful in the game; perhaps, one could make the statement that it should be when looking at fluff.

That being said, I am not disappointed with druchii magic due to the fact that I would be so bold as to say that it is the most versatile in the game. In most armies magic phases require you take about 6-8 levels of magic if you want your magic phase to be able to blow significant sized holes in the enemy army; this equates to about approximately 600-1000 pts that you are spending on one phase of the game. If you want to spend less points on magic, such as 2 lv 2s for instant, your magic takes on a very supportive role due to the fact that they can only cast low level spells. For example, the 2 spellsingers in my wood elf list simply sit around and cast tree singing. Tree singing is a good spell, but in most instances it is not game breaking. Now, when I take 2 lv 2s in my druchii army; both have scrolls and are on steeds; one has darkstar cloak, and the other has tome of furion. One of them almost always gets a 6th level spell, which they can cast thanks to druchii sorcery, which almost always goes off once per game. That's a unit of chaos knights that you just killed with spirit of the forge, or half a unit of empire greatswords that you killed with black horror, a plague bearer unit that was eliminated thanks to wall of fire, or my favorite: a slaan that just bit the dust from the pit of shades. This is just one spell; I haven't even began to account for the damage that they have done by chillwinding shooting units or throwing fireballs at regen units such as abominations. All for a little less than 400 pts? Sign me up!

The above configuration is only one example. I have caused havoc with my ghrond list that has eight levels of magic led by Morathi, and everything in between. I have even read a thread where people claim to be using one lv2 to kill things, hence my previous statement that we have the most versatile magic.

Another thing that people have been commenting on is our lack of bound items. Though this is true, I would not say that it is too much of a deterrent when you look at our arcane items. Most competitive players that want to field a magic heavy tourney list have one or two useful arcane items to pick from. However, I have seen every single one of our arcane items in multiple tournament lists! This in itself is huge. For example, when I see a wood elf list with 6 levels of magic, I can confidently say that the lv 4 probably has wand of wych elm, and the lv 2 has calaingors stave. When I see an equivalent druchii list, I have no idea what the sorcs are packing.

I think the frustrations that some people feel stem from the fact that magic is one of the hardest phases to use barring the use of teclis or invokation spam. In the past week, I played two games and won both, because my opponents did not use their magic phases properly, and I, myself, have lost games because of my lack of competence in the magic phase. After all, it is a lot easier to take an unkillable dragon lord and laugh as he eats his way through the enemy army. That being said, I would encourage people to keep attempting to master the magic phase. It can be very rewarding, and you will probably become a better player because of it.

cheers,
Camaris