Dispelling

[MorGrendel]

Serban et al,
Page 35, refers to the dispelling rule we were discussing. In short, if you fail to dispel, that wizard can no longer attempt to dispel, just like casting. Also, like casting, rolls of a natural 1 or 2 automatically fail, regardless of bonuses. However, the army can always attempt to dispel without any bonuses. Adds strategy to the dispel phase, but may also slow the game down (not when playing me, my opponents always seem to have more dice than me).

[Berserker]

You're right. Dang it! That makes magic attacks even more powerful and unbalanced. High elves everywhere rejoice ;)

[Fritz]

Actually in Jeff and I's current game I keep forgetting to add the additional +1 to dispel. Oh well, he's not getting a whole lot off anyway.

[Berserker]

I say again: High elves everywhere rejoice!

[MorGrendel]

Ha, they don't need Magic. One unit cut down my Hellpit and Doomwheel before they ever got a chance to swing.

[Fritz]

Not my fault you threw the Hellpit and the Doomwheel at the unit that is designed to kill big things. You could have thrown them against any other unit in the army and been fine. You threw them directly at the monster killing White Lions.

[MorGrendel]

Slaves = 1 wound.
Clearly, I need more cannons and cowbells.

[Fritz]

Slave (as you have them)=2.5 points
White Lion= 15 points

6 Slaves=1 White Lion
The best way to deal with White Lions is to throw cheap low toughness units at them. Their main strength is being high strength. Their main drawback is they are T3 with a 5+ armor save. If you were to throw one of those 40 man slave unit up against them, you would make up the points by killing just 7 White Lions. Now that' not that terribly easy to do since Slaves are WS2. You hit on 5s and wound on 4s. That's translates to about 1-2 dead elves per round of combat. However, you're not trying to kill the White Lions in combat (at least not with slaves). You're tying up 355 points with 100 points for at least 3 turns. You're denying WL the chance to kill bit things which is their entire purpose.

I think our current game is an unfortunate case of back luck on your part and pretty good luck on my part. Your deployment put you in a bad spot. Frankly, the left flank never stood much of a chance. If you had gotten some impact hits, it would have killed a bunch of White Lions, but the Hellpit and Doomwheel were never going to survive the fight. However, you SHOULD have at least gotten impact hits from at least one of those damned things. The White Lions were going to win that flank, but they should have walked away far far more bloodied. On top of that, your shooting has been fairly ineffective and magic has been swinging heavily in my favor.

[MorGrendel]

Not to get too off tanget here, but I did deploy badly. In most scenarios, we deploy farther away so blind deployment doesn't matter so much. You deploy to your strengths, I deploy to mine. In this scenario, I had the advantage of deploying second, and I did not use it. I put my beef on the flank figuring I'd roll. I was wrong. My deployment is bad, top to bottom, short range plague bubble spells, right next to my cannon and WFT. Not good.

Mayhaps, next time we should fight for objectives. I think that might work better for Tele-hammer, as some of the book scenarios may not translate well. Or maybe I stop being a dumb ass.

That said, I wanted to test the Plague Speed Bumps, and I like them enough to use them again. Is it a winning tactic, who knows.

Back to dispelling, I prefer the new rule. I think the dispeller should be at a disadvantage. Now if I could ever roll anything other than # and 1, that be great.

[Berserker]

The dispeller already is at a disadvantage as they have fewer dice than the attacker.

[MorGrendel]

The army itself can dispell. Advantage Dispeller.
You can use a higher level wizard than the caster. Advantage Dispeller.
The caster can fail, without the dispeller doing anything. Advantage Dispeller.
You know what caster rolled. Advantage Dispeller.
Once you see all those ones and twos, you can use less dice than the caster. Advantage Dispeller.
Casters can blow up. Advantage Dispeller.

You start with less dice. Push.

[Berserker]

The army itself can dispell. Advantage Dispeller. - No.
--- If the army dispels, they are always at least at a -1 vs the caster, usually much higher then that.

You can use a higher level wizard than the caster. Advantage Dispeller. - No.
--- You can use a higher level wizard then the dispeller.

The caster can fail, without the dispeller doing anything. Advantage Dispeller. - No.
--- The dispeller can fail as well. So what?

You know what caster rolled. Advantage Dispeller. - Yes
--- Yes, this is an advantage. But on the flip side, you don't know what the caster will be casting next so you have to plan your dice accordingly, which is a caster advantage.

Once you see all those ones and twos, you can use less dice than the caster. Advantage Dispeller. - No.
--- This is the same point as above (you know what dice were rolled), so I will not give it to you twice.

Casters can blow up. Advantage Dispeller. - Yes
--- Yes, this is an advantage.

You start with less dice. Push. - No.
--- Having less dice is not a push, it is a disadvantage.

Magic is very powerful in this edition. It can truly make or break a game in one magic phase. Your army list is not yet updated so you're missing spells, which hurts, but once it does, you'll realize just how powerful magic is in this edition. Heck, look at the elves. ;) Heck, look even at my army, at all those spells that made my army so extremely hard to hurt (like the +1T, +1S coupled with another +1T, or the 4+ Regen.. Oh and bubbled, so all units get them).

Either way, it's a moot point, as if that rule is in the book, we'll go by it. However, I do continue to disagree with you that the dispellers have it better then the casters.

[MorGrendel]

Don't misunderstand me, I reconize the power of mages, and welcome it. They neutered magic some time ago (stupid chaos) and I think only now it is returning to where it needs to be. If you pay the points for a caster, you want him to get some spells off.