Mastering Magic: Precision Damage

Good morning gamers,

Today is our seventh post in our series on magic and we turn our attention to spells that do precision damage (that is, damage to a single target). While we've already covered Sorcerous Blast and area-of-effect spells, these spells require a lot of thought to use well - just plucking off a Wound here and there or sniping a random warrior could leave you drained by the end of the game without doing enough for the cost you pay. The spells we'll be covering today are the feared Chill Soul, the deceptively alluring Black Dart, the cool (mostly for Kardush) Flameburst, the very-much-hated Paralyze, and . . .

BANISHMENT!!!! Credit: Quora.com

As I was preparing this post, I didn't see a lot of places that needed pictures, so I've passed on them again. Call me lazy, I guess.

What Do These Spells Do?

Two of these spells do Wounds: Chill Soul does 1 Wound against whoever the target is (need to specify if the mount or rider is the target if the model is a cavalry model), while Banishment does 1 Wound against a target Spirit model. If Chill Soul is channelled, you add 6" of range to the spell, which means you'd only want to do this if you need that range (more on this later). Banishment moves from doing 1 Wound to doing D3 Wounds against your target. This could mean one-turn-killing many Spirit models in the game (even if they pass all their Fate). As has been discussed in previous posts, sometimes that D3 roll will still result in a single Wound - whatever.

Two of these spells do Strength-something hits: Flameburst does a Strength 6 hit (which is a pretty decent hit - any model in the game will be wounded on a single die, most warriors will be wounded on a 3+ or a 4+, heavily-armored troops and most combat-oriented heroes will be wounded on a 5+), while Black Dart deals a Strength 9 hit (which will wound most things on a 3+, really tough things on a 4+, and Sauron on a 5+). While you have to specify the mount or rider for Black Dart, Flameburst damages both mount and rider.

When channelled, the Black Dart deals D3 hits instead of one hit, which (again) means that sometimes your channel will do absolutely nothing because you will roll a 1 or 2 and end up doing 1 S9 hit. Flameburst, when channelled, adds Set Ablaze to the target (mount and rider), which deals an extra S9 hit and a S5 hit at the end of each turn until the model a) lies down and crawls (aka, chooses to be prone for a turn), b) walks through water (aka, risks drowning or is entering difficult terrain), or c) dies. This can be REALLY useful at forcing an enemy hero to step away from the fighting for a turn or two, but more importantly, this will make whoever you're facing think twice about whether their hero can just press through and kill stuff. 

Finally, Paralyze on its own doesn't do any damage, but functionally, models that are Paralyzed will take damage from whoever charges them. As we discussed in our podcast on evil spell-casters, when you choose to cast Paralyze, you need to make it count - charge that model with strong stuff, beat the model into a bloody pulp, and move on. Paralyze, at the moment, cannot be channeled - it's channelled version is cool, but not game-altering (each turn the model is Paralyzed, they take a S5 hit - this would be really good in some cases, but since most of the targets for Paralyze tend to be big models that you don't want to deal with, you probably aren't wounding on better than a 5+ each time).

Mastering Magic: Magical Protection

Good morning gamers,

Today we start our sixth post in our "masterclass" series on Magic in MESBG. We've looked at Sorcerous Blast, Immobilize (et al), auric spells, restoration spells, and area-of-effect spells. Today we turn our attention to some of the most useful spells a caster can have when facing an army with a spell-caster of its own (or multiple spell-casters - THE HORROR): Fortify Spirit, Protection of the Valar, and Shroud of Shadows. While we'll only be looking at five models today (three Forces of Good, two Forces of Evil), several of these heroes (Galadriel, Lady of Light from the White Council, Gandalf the Grey from several lists including the White Council, and Ashrak from Moria) can ally with all but four factions in the game either Conveniently or Historically (woe to Arnor, Numenor, Barad-Dur, and Sharkey's Rogues). This means that understanding what these heroes do - and why they might be slapped into a list - is good for any player to know.

Pre-warning: no pictures in this post, mostly because I only own the two Gandalf models and have photographed them a lot already in this series. Call me lazy.

What Do These Spells Do?

Two of these spells are quite straight-forward: Fortify Spirit gives a friendly model (which could be the caster himself) not one but TWO free dice when you make a Resist test against a magical power - and yes, this stacks with other free dice that might come from Heroic Resolve, Resistant to Magic, or a Staff of Power, and they don't require you to spend a Will point of your own to use them. They're just free. When channelled, the highest Resist die also gets +1 to its result (meaning you can automatically resist any spell that is cast against you on the roll of a 5 or 6 - wow-zahs). This spell is an Exhaustion spell, so once cast, you want to make sure the caster (not the person who is the target of the spell) retains 1 Will in their Will store to keep it up.

Protection of the Valar is also straight-forward in that the friendly model that is targeted by the spell is immune to both magical powers and weird special rules for the round (I'm looking at you Golden King of Abrakhan and Dead Marsh Spectres!). When channelled, this spell affects the target and all friendly models within 3" of the target, which can make A GROUP of heroes immune to any magical barrage. Unlike Fortify Spirit, however, this spell isn't an Exhaustion spell, so you need to cast it every round in order to make it work (the opportunity cost is certainly higher, but not being affected by magic for the round is guaranteed).

Shroud of Shadows is the most nuanced of the spells and also the most powerful. Based on the most recent Designer Commentaries, the friendly model that is targeted by the spell is not only immune to magical powers (except from Ringwraiths, maybe Sauron), but is also invisible (granting all kinds of movement benefits) and is immune to shooting attacks and requires a Courage test to charge the model with a reduction of Courage based on the distance the model is from the target. As clarified in the most recent FAQ, models that fail this Courage test get to move normally and aren't rooted in place. When channelled, any enemy models in base contact with the target halve their Fight Value (rounding up). While definitely useful at keeping models from being targeted by spells, this spell ALSO makes it hard to shoot or charge them - perfect for keeping a very important model safe.

Quest for the Ringbearer: What I REALLY Want From The Legendary Legions

 Good morning gamers,

Earlier this week, we were given a few hints from the Warhammer Community Team via Jay Clare about what was officially coming in Quest for the Ringbearer. If you haven't read the article yet, you should. As a long-time lover of the Felllowship of the Ring movie (and as a proud owner of the old Fellowship of the Ring Journeybook), Quest for the Ringbearer has been the sourcebook I've been most excited about to date. While I've been guessing for a while about the Legendary Legions that were coming (I had seven in mind, five-and-a-half of which showed up in the book), I figured I'd get my guesses on paper before they're spoiled so I can either say "I called it!" or "But I had this really great idea . . ." Without futher ado, let's get into those Legendary Legions!

TMAT Talks, Episode 6: Big Honkin' Things (Evil)

After a long (editing-induced) hiatus, Tiberius, Centaur, and Rythbryt dive into their top-10 "Big Honkin' Things" for the forces of evil, which of course means some time in the sun for everyone's favorite evil war beasts and siege engines (plus a couple surprise entries). After giving their rankings, they top things off with three more ally-able army lists (450 points or less) in the pocket-full-of-power segment! 

Music: Happy Haunts by Aaron Kenny 

Intro (0:00)

Honorable mentions and low-accuracy projectiles (5:06)

Catapults and Towers (47:28)

Mumaks and Death Wagons (1:24:57) 

An unsurprising top-3… mostly (1:52:27) 

Pockets-Full-of-Power (2:28:45) 

----------

You can now listen to TMAT Talks everywhere you listen to podcasts!* If you like what you hear, leave a 5-star rating to help us spread the word!

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Anchor:

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Mastering Magic: Area of Effect Spells

Good morning gamers,

Today we start our fifth post in our "masterclass" series on Magic in MESBG. We've looked at Sorcerous Blast, Immobilize (et al), auric spells, and restoration spells. Today we look at some of the most fun spells in the game: area-of-effect offensive spells! As fun as rooting a model in place can be, as great as regaining heroic resources is, and as awesome as augmenting models around you is, we REALLY want to do massive damage. While you can do that with Sorcerous Blast under certain conditions, it's easier with some other spells - or is it? The spells we'll be covering today are: Collapse Rocks, Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, Panic Steed, and Tremor.

What Do These Spells Do?

These spells can be grouped together in different ways, but here's the basics of each spell:

• Panic Steed removes the mount of the target (becomes an area-of-effect when channelled);
• Nature's Wrath knocks enemy models Prone near the caster (and deals S2 hits when channelled);
• Wrath of Bruinen also knocks enemy models Prone near the caster, but also inflicts a S2 hit (channel for higher Strength on the hits);
• Collapse Rocks deals a S5 hit to a target model that is near a rocky piece of terrain (becomes an area-of-effect when channelled); and
• Tremor deals a S6 hit and knocks models Prone who are on a D6" line away from the target model.

All of these spells have the ability to affect an area of the board - but some require you to channel them in order to get the area of effect to occur. Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, and Tremor all affect a given area of the board (3" around the caster for Wrath of Bruinen and Nature's Wrath, D6" line away from the target for Tremor). Collapse Rocks and Panic Steed become area of effect spells when channelled (2" around the target for Collapse Rocks, 3" around the target for Panic Steed).

Most of these spells also knock their targets Prone: any hostile figure within the affected area of Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, or Tremor are Knocked Prone (with cavalry suffering from Knocked Flying instead of rolling on the Thrown Rider chart). Collapse Rocks and Panic Steed don't innately Knock Prone, but Panic Steed does require a roll on the Thrown Rider chart.

Most of these spells do damage: Wrath of Bruinen does Strength 2 hits (Strength 3 if channelled, Strength 8/9 if the target is in a water feature) to all affected models, Collapse Rocks does a Strength 5 hit to all affected models (so long as the targets are near a rocky piece of terrain), and Tremor does a Strength 6 hit to all affected models. Panic Steed removes the mounts of the affected models, but otherwise doesn't do any damage. Nature's Wrath does no damage innately, but does a Strength 2 hit to all affected models if channelled (basically becomes Wrath of Bruinen without the water feature rule).

Finally, most of these spells affect only enemy models. Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, and Panic Steed only harm enemy models (which makes them great spells to cast when your opponent charges one of your battle lines). Collapse Rocks and Tremor have to be used more carefully, since their damage (Strength 5 and Strength 6 hits!) are suffered by both friendly and enemy models.

For those of you who like charts, here's the visual summary of what is described above:

	Collapse Rocks	Nature's Wrath	Panic Steed	Tremor	Wrath of Bruinen
Area of Effect?	*	X	*	X	X
Knock Targets Prone?		X	**	X	X
Damage Spell?	X	*	**	X	X
Affect Only Enemy Models?		X	X		X

* Channelled version meets the requirement

** Models that get a 1 on the Thrown Rider chart will be Prone and take a S3 hit

THRO 2020 Army Preview: Raise the White Hand!

Good morning gamers,

With THRO 2020 approaching, I had a tough time settling on the army I was bringing. I had six very strong contestants in the running and almost all of them showed up in my series on List Building that I worked on for more than half the year. In this post, I wanted to go through what we know about the tournament and why I chose the army that I did.

THRO is a "safe" tournament for players in our TMAT community to run - it's not our "grand tournament," and is often used to experiment with new tournament formats, scenarios, and weird faction pairings. We've seen LOTS of custom scenarios, trying out new army building methods, thematic battles (we did a Rohan/Lothlorien vs. Isengard/Dunland tournament one year), all-hero forces (including the Fellowship and all-Ringwraiths) - it's been great. More importantly, it's a great tournament BECAUSE it's so wonky for new Tournament Directors to cut their teeth. This year, Red Jacket wanted a swing at it - so I happily stepped aside to "just go to a tournament" (something I haven't done in a long time).

Here's what we knew about THRO 2020:

• 700 point limit
• 3 rounds, each 2 hours in length
• Scenarios will be Lords of Battle, Storm the Camp, and Breakthrough

With that in mind, here's what I figured:

• Some of my factions fight better at 800 points than they do at 700 - Mordor comes to mind, as does Rohan.
• Some of my factions can play at 700 or 800 just as well - Isengard, Minas Tirith, and the Kingdom of Moria in particular.
• We don't have to worry about Maelstrom or any "race to the center" missions (though there is a race-to-the-other-corner, so speed is an issue).
• Because there's a two hour time limit, we don't want an army that will take forever to move.

With all this in mind, the List Builiding Series came in clutch, since those principles are based on creating armies that have a chance of winning any scenario you draw (ruling some out is just gravy). So, let's look at the five runners up and see why I chose not to use them.

Mastering Magic: Restoration Spells

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our "masterclass" series on magic today by looking at spells that regrow heroic stats (Might, Will, Fate, and Wounds - which is technically not a heroic resource, except that heroes tend to be the only ones with more than one of them . . . though not always . . . if you ignore monsters . . . and Half-trolls . . . you get the idea though).

We've already looked at spells like Sorcerous Blast, Immobilize (and all its lil' friends), and auric spells - all of which are included in the casting arrays of some of the best casters in the game (Saruman and Gandalf in all their various forms). The spells we'll be looking at today - Blessing of the Valar, Renew, Refreshing Song, and Strengthen Will - might not look like much, but in many ways, they have a tendency to be the go-to spells for those turns where "you don't have anything to do." Their impact, however, can be game changing.

What Do These Spells Do?

Two of these spells do the same thing as each other, just targeting a different heroic resource: Blessing of the Valar restores 1 Fate point that was previously spent (or D3 Fate if channelled), while Renew restores 1 Wound that was previously lost (or D3 Wounds if channelled). Since many heroes have 2 Wounds and 1 Fate point, I doubt either of these spells would be channelled much - plus, one-out-of-three times you channel it you get the exact same result as an unchannelled version . . . so why take the risk of wasting a Might point (see my post from February 2019 on magic and my post on wasting Might points for more info)?

Refreshing Song restores 1 Might, 1 Will, 1 Fate, AND 1 Wound that were previously spent/lost. This spell currently can't be channelled (neither caster who has these spells has Heroic Channelling - and neither has any Might anyway), but if it could be channelled, it would restore all lost Wounds (which makes it pretty much like Renew - which you probably won't channel). This is a really powerful spell (even unchannelled - I think it's the best spell in the game) because it can refresh 4 stats simultaneously. If used on a caster (who is likely burning through Might and Will to cast channelled spells, and possibly also Fate and Wounds if he's being attacked), you can turn 1 Will point from Tom Bombadil or Goldberry into more than one heroic resource on someone else. This is great!

The final spell is Strengthen Will, which on paper looks to be the Will-equivalent of Blessing of the Valar and Renew. But there's a key difference: 

Strengthen Will doesn't restore a Will point that's been lost in the fight - it gives the target a Will point.

This small difference allows the target model to have Will if they didn't start with any Will OR allows them to increase their Will above their starting amount. This is a key difference and goes into the strategy of some of the heroes who have this spell.

One final note on these spells: they can all be cast on the caster instead of a different model nearby (since all models are considered friendly to themselves). This is huge, since getting Will points back on a caster, restoring Wounds on an expensive hero, or regrowing Fate points on an important model is huge. The exception to this is casting Refreshing Song, since the casters who have these spells can't be affected by magical powers.