Mastering Magic: Augmenting Damage Spells

Good morning gamers,

We've only got two more posts left in this series - and today we have some really fun spells: Bladewrath, Enchanted Blades, and Enrage Beast. These three spells are held by only five models - three with Enchanted Blades and two special models who alone have Bladewrath and Enrage Beast. While we've looked at spells that do damage (either as a blast, in an area, or to a single model), restore stats/resources, remove stats/resources, protect friendly models from magic, breaking items, neutralizing enemy combatants, scattering models, and provide auric benefits (either by enhancing nearby models/the caster OR by scattering models), today's spells are the only ones that make you more lethal in combat (though I guess a channelled Shroud of Shadows counts as well).

Fair warning, I only have two of the models in this list, so pictures will be scarce . . .

What Do These Spells Do?

The most common of these spells is Enchanted Blades. When cast normally, the caster picks a friendly model within range (6" for all of them) and if cast successfully, the model is allowed to reroll all failed To Wound rolls it makes. When channelled, the target model also receives a bonus of +1 To Wound (which is cumulative with similar rules, such as the bonus provided by using a two-handed weapon or having the Backstabbers/Hatred special rules).

Bladewrath allows a caster to pick a friendly model within range (6" as well) and that model makes Strikes in the Fight phase at Strength 6. If channelled, this is improved to Strength 10. It's important to note that the model itself doesn't become S6/S10, but rather resolves Strikes at S6/S10 (otherwise, this would be a great counter to the Rend/Hurl Brutal Power Attacks or special rules like Monstrous Charge).

Finally, Enrage Beast picks a friendly Bat, unridden Warg, or Spider model within range (12" this time) and increases the target model's Fight, Attacks, Strength, and Courage values by 2 until the End phase. Because this boosts the model's characteristics, this IS a good counter to the Rend/Hurl BPAs and rules like Monstrous Charge. When channelled, the target's characteristics are increased by 3 (instead of 2). While this is a powerful augment, the friendly model then suffers a S10 hit at the end of the round because of how exhausting being awesome can be (most models will be wounded on 3s - which still means a 33% chance of avoiding any damage at all).

All three of these spells are useful - especially if you are using units that "have problems wounding." Adding someone who has these spells can increase your overall damage, but picking the right model to augment is often the difficulty with these spells (and making sure they stay within range). To help with this, let's understand who has these spells and how best to use them.

Who's Got These Spells?

Like I said at the beginning, we're dealing with five profiles today - three Elves, one evil Man, and one Goblin. Let's see who they are and how well they cast these spells:

• Cirdan (Rivendell) has access to Enchanted Blades and casts it on a 4+;
• Galadhrim Stormcallers (Lothlorien) have access to Enchanted Blades and cast the spell also on a 4+;
• Celeborn (Lothlorien) has Enchanted Blades as well, but casts it on a 3+;
• Easterling War Priests (Easterlings) have access to Bladewrath, which is cast on a 2+; and
• Druzhag the Beastcaller (Moria) has access to Enrage Beast, which is cast on a 3+.

How Do You Use These Spells Most Effectively?

At first blush, you might think, "hey, let me find my biggest and baddest hero and make him even better - easy!" In some cases, you might be right, but there are several considerations you should have for these spells - here are some principles to illustrate these concerns:

• Cast with a 50% chance of success;
• Cast this spell AFTER you know all of your engagements; and
• Manage your Will store.

1) The 50% Success Guideline

If you've followed this series, you know the drill - 70% guideline if you're targeting an enemy model and 50% guideline if you're targeting a friendly model. While you want your spells to work all the time, you can relax your standards for casting when targeting a friendly model because he won't be resisting it (he's a traitor if he does). The good thing about these spells (as you can see above) is that the most difficult cast is a 50% chance, so your Will required for each caster is actually quite low (spoiler alert: this table is a lot less interesting than all of the other tables we've done so far):

• Cirdan - Enchanted Blades (4+): free Will point;
• Galadhrim Stormcaller - Enchanted Blades (4+): 1 Will;
• Celeborn - Enchanted Blades (3+): 1 Will;
• Easterling War Priest - Bladewrath (2+): 1 Will; and
• Druzhag the Beastcaller - Enrage Beast (3+): 1 Will.

Two things stand out: first and foremost, three of these casters (Celeborn, Easterling War Priests, and Druzhag) can cast their spells with a 67-83% chance of success on a single die, so you're very likely to get it off with 1 Will alone. The other two casters are sitting right at 50%, but Cirdan's cast is on a free die - and if you're not facing a magic caster and you've already cast all of your exhaustion spells, you don't have an opportunity cost that's lost if you fail to cast Enchanted Blades (so might as well).

Second, while you can channel these spells, many of these casters would do well to hold onto their Might points to make sure these spells go off instead of channelling - an Easterling War Priest can probably get off 3 successful casts of Bladewrath in a game, but what happens if he gets a 1 and has already spent his Might point? Personally, I think you're better served by boosting a friendly hero's Strength to S6 than run the chance that a channelled cast fails on a casting attempt of a 1. While there are certainly instances where being S10 is helpful, most of the time, S6 will be just fine. Since three of these heroes (Cirdan, Easterling War Priests, and Galadhrim Stormcallers) only have 1 Might point, you probably want to save it to boost this spell (assuming Cirdan hasn't spent his Might point channelling Blinding Light).

2) Picking the "Best" Model

The great thing about magical powers in this game is that they can be cast at any point in your Move phase (so long as your caster hasn't been charged). When thinking about casting a spell that augments your damage, you want to know what all of your options are. To do this, you want to charge all of your important models first if you get to pick the engagements OR see where your most important models are if you're moving after being charged so you can pick "the best one."

Celeborn can cast Enchanted Blades on a number of heroes: Haldir/Celeborn both get two extra rerolls, Galadriel benefits greatly from a reroll in Contest of Champions, and the Captain on the charge against infantry would get SIX extra rerolls!

Which model is "best" greatly depends on the spell being cast. Since Enchanted Blades allows rerolls of Wounding dice, you want to pick a model that a) wounds decently well (rerolling any non-6+ won't translate into as many wounds as rerolling any non-5+), b) wounds a high-priority target (such as an army leader, banner, or auric support model), and c) doesn't already get to reroll Wounding dice (such as a model with the Lord of the West special rule). 

Cirdan: So you're both Lords of the West - who gets the credit if I give you a few more rerolls on your wounding attempts?
Elrond and Glorfindel together: WE DO!
Cirdan: Darn . . .

Can you cast Enchanted Blades on a model that has the Lord of the West special rule (aka, should Celeborn cast this on himself)? He certainly could, but would he get more mileage out of a reroll or a mounted Galadhrim Captain on the charge? I think the latter gets more out of it, personally.

Bladewrath works similarly: most Easterling heroes are S4 (and Easterling Captains can Piercing Strike up to S5 - and technically you can weapon-swap your Dragon Knights to have axes so they can Piercing Strike up to S5 as well). As we've said in previous posts, sometimes increasing your Strength doesn't do much against the targets you're facing. The general rules for a "good" target for Bladewrath include a) as many attacks as possible (mounted and on the charge is best), b) the target should be facing foes who are D6 or below (to change wounding on 5s to wounding on 4s), and c) the target should be engaged with one important unit or lots of grunts. Fell Beasts on the charge don't make good candidates - you're already S6, after all.

3) Will as a Limited Resource

We talked about this in our last series on magic, but it bears repeating: most of these casters are either combat mages (Celeborn) or auxiliary mages (everyone else besides Cirdan). Both categories are composed of mages with limited Will and no way to get these Will points back innately. Easterling War Priests, Galadhrim Stormcallers, and Celeborn only have 3 Will points, so at a maximum you'll be casting these spells three times (unless you include a character who can give you more Will OR choose to spend your Will on something else - such as another spell, passing an important Courage test, or resisting a spell). Druzhag has 5 Will points and so can go the distance much longer than the rest, but you'll still find that the store is VERY limited - so don't waste Will!

Lest you think this doesn't apply to Cirdan, you'd be wrong: Cirdan is an unlimited mage, but his Will (and Might point) are likely to be spent casting his three exhaustion spells (see his character review below for how to use Cirdan), so you're really only working with your free Will point each turn. If you use it to cast Enchanted Blades and then get hit with a Sap Will, you will only have your Resistant to Magic die (and possibly any left-over Will you have in your store) to resist the spell - and that could be devastating. So even if you're using Cirdan, manage that Will store (and keep in mind what you need to do with your free Will point).

When Do You Use It?

Using these spells has already been covered in brief, but let's look at some case studies for how to employ this spell for each of the five models we have today.

Use Case Study: Easterling War Priests and Bladewrath

I'm not a big fan of Easterlings - if you've read our stuff for any length of time, you probably already know that (I take jabs at them all the time). What makes an Easterling army good or bad in my book has nothing to do with its inclusion/exclusion of Khamul, Amdur, or Dragon Knights - it all comes down to whether or not they have an Easterling War Priest (or more than one). War Priests do something that the rest of the Easterling list can't do: turn decent fighting heroes into EXCELLENT fighting heroes. Sure, this spell doesn't increase your Fight/Attacks value like Enrage Beast does, but getting to S6 is often enough for a Heroic Combatting power hero (like Khamul on a horse, Amdur, or a Dragon Knight) to crack through his initial opponents and smash through some other ones!

Update: as was mentioned to me on Facebook by a Khand player, this is also great on Khandish Kings, who pair Monstrous Charge with a hand-and-a-half axe for S6 and +1 to wound . . . you might need to spend might to win the fight, but you won't need to spend Might to wound (wound D4 and below on a 2+, D5-6 on a 3+, D7-8 on a 4+, and D9-10 on a 5+). Pair this with the large base and the ability to historically ally with the Easterlings and you've got a real winner. Charge this Khandish King into the same fight as Amdur (to call Strike for the Khandish King) and you are in REALLY good shape.

As was pointed out in the comments, though, Piercing Strike increases the Strength of the model to S5, while Bladewrath changes what Strength the strikes are resolved at - so while a Khandish King can be S5 for Monstrous Charge with Piercing Strike, he can't make Strikes at S7.

We'll cover the long-awaited Fury spell next time, but I'll tip my hand a little here: I think you should cast Bladewrath (unchannelled) three times in a game with any Easterling War Priests you have UNLESS you're facing an army that has Terror on almost everyone and Harbinger of Evil (or some similar Courage penalty) surrounding their Terror troops. Whether you're facing an Angmar Orc horde led by Spirit heroes or the Return of the King Legendary Legion, you want to be able to pass your Courage tests to charge with Easterlings - and you don't want your opponent picking the match-ups. In all other situations, cast Bladewrath!

"Use" Case Study: Galadhrim Stormcallers and Enchanted Blades

Galadhrim Stormcallers have two great spells: Call Winds (which we covered last time) and Enchanted Blades. As great as rerolling To Wound dice is for Lothlorien (especially on their cavalry models who can't get +1 To Wound), I think Call Winds is the better spell - it's cast on a 3+ instead of a 4+, it knocks backwards and Prone an enemy model within 12" instead of increasing the damage potential of a model within 6", and it will mess up your opponent's strategy for a single model instead of potentially killing off more of his models in one area. With this being the last spell for the Galadhrim Stormcaller, using him is quite simple: cast Call winds three (or more) times in a game, saving your Might to boost your roll.

Use Case Study: Cirdan and Enchanted Blades

Cirdan showed up prominently in one of our first posts (auric spells) and has since been put on hold while we made our way through lots of other spells. Today, we wrap up our discussion on him - his priority order can change quite a bit based on what you're facing. While Enchanted Blades will appear near the end of this list, know that the inclusion of this spell is great for Cirdan, as it gives him something to do after he's done casting his other spells:

• If your opponent has a strong archery contingent and is not within charge range on the first turn, channel Blinding Light with your free Will point + 1 Will from your store (3 Will left);
• If your opponent does not have a strong archery contingent (and within charge range on the first turn IF you have priority), cast Aura of Dismay with your free Will point + 2 Will from your store (1-2 Will left, depending on whether you channelled Blinding Light on the previous turn);
• If you don't have a big hero ready for combat (or are within charge range on the first round and have priority), cast Aura of Command on your free Will point; and
• If all three other spells have been cast OR if you have a big hero who is ready for combat and within 6" of Cirdan, cast Enchanted Blades on that hero. Note: Rivendell Knights within range can make good targets as well, but the best targets will be:
• Elladan/Elrohir on foot with their twin blades OR on the charge (rerolling +3 Attacks);
• Galadriel, Lady of Light as a Historical Ally (rerolling +3 Attacks);
• Gil-Galad/Elrond (rerolling +2/+3 Attacks depending on whether they're mounted or not);
• Mounted High Elf Captains on the charge (rerolling +3 Attacks);
• Don't bother casting this spell on Erestor - he already rerolls all failed To Wounds.

"Use" Case Study: Celeborn and Enchanted Blades

I think Enchanted Blades is a great spell for Celeborn to cast once in a game (on 1 Will). If it goes off, great - if not, eh. Cast on yourself, you'll do a BLAZING amount of damage with Celeborn, but cast on someone like a mounted Galadhrim Captain, Haldir, Rumil, or Galadriel in a Contest of Champions game can be huge. The main question for me is what to do with his 2 remaining Will - and that is determined greatly by the army he's facing. With this post being the last post on Celeborn, let's see what his priority order should be:

• If you're facing a Terror-heavy army that doesn't have Ringwraiths in it, cast Aura of Command on the first turn on 1 Will (saving 1 Will in your store to keep it alive);
• Find a round where you can cast Enchanted Blades on yourself/a friendly model with 1 Will where they are facing a good priority target (see the above discussion for what qualifies);
• If you didn't cast Aura of Command, find a round where you can cast Immobilize against an important enemy model (following our directives in the Immobilize et al post).

Special note: if you're fighting an army of Ringwraiths, don't cast Immobilize or Aura of Command - save those 2 Will for resisting magical powers. Enchanted Blades can be really useful in killing Ringwraiths, so consider saving it for that moment (my go-to guy would be a mounted Galadhrim Captain)! Consider the following scenario:

• A Galadhrim Captain on horse charges into a Ringwraith on horse (F6/2A vs. F5/1A);
• The Galadhrim Captain is targeted by Enchanted Blades and it succeeds in going off;
• The Galadhrim Captain chooses to fight two-handed, suffering a small penalty to win, but is confident in his higher Fight Value/additional number of dice to win the fight;
• If the Galadhrim Captain wins, he would normally wound the Ringwraith on a 6+, but that becomes a 5+ while wielding his weapon two-handed. A normal enchanted blades gives him two dice (both of which can be rerolled) to try to get the requisite 5+ - that's 1-2 wounds pretty reliably!
• NOTE: a channelled Enchanted Blades would make this a 4+ with rerolls to wound a D8 model . . . and this would become even better if the target model was an infantry model!

Use Case Study: Druzhag the Beastcaller and Enrage Beast

Ah, Druzhag - I love this guy. Unlike all other Fury-carrying models in the game, you've got 2 Might on this guy (in addition to your 5 Will and 2 Fate points). This means you can probably channel Enrage Beast once in a game and you can probably cast it 2-3 times in a game if you've cast Fury (assuming you like Fury). Because you give a +2 bonus to the friendly model's Fight/Strength/Attacks/Courage, some models become downright beastly while pretty weak models become really good killing machines. Consider the following table of models that can benefit from a non-channelled Enrage Beast spell (all of which are found in Convenient alliances with Moria, so you can run Druzhag and Durburz with a host of creatures and Goblins to supplement these power-houses) - the models highlighted in green get to/above F6:

Model (Faction)	FV	S	A	W	C*
War Bat (Azog’s Legion)	5	6	4	2	5
Bat Swarm (Dark Denizens of Mirkwood)**	3	5	4	4	4
Wild Warg Chieftain (Angmar)	7	8	5	3	6
Wild Warg (Angmar)**	5	6	3	1	4
Fell Warg (Azog’s Hunters, Dark Denizens of Mirkwood, Dark Powers of Dol Guldur)**	5	6	3	1	4
Shelob (Mordor)	9	9	3	6	6
The Spider Queen (Dark Denizens of Mirkwood)	8	8	4	3	6
Broodling (Dark Denizens of Mirkwood)	4	5	3	1	4
Giant Spider (Dark Denizens of Mirkwood)**	6	7	4	2	5
Mirkwood Spider (Dark Denizens of Mirkwood, Dark Powers of Dol Guldur)	4	7	4	2	4
The White Warg while NOT ridden by Azog (Azog's Hunters, Azog's Legion)	7	7	4	2	6

* If any of these models are within 12" of Druzhag, they can use his Courage (which is C4 by default, but becomes C5 if you have a Moria Goblin Drum/War horn).

** These models are either innately in Moria or available to Moria if you take Druzhag.

Bladewrath, Enchanted Blades, and Enrage Beast

These spells add some much-needed flavor to the factions they appear in - Lothlorien tends to be viewed as the weakest of the Elven factions when it comes to damage, while Easterlings are considered to be one of the toughest armies to crack but one of the easiest armies to grind with because they are so limited in what they can do (I think their pikes should be spear-axe weapons like the Lossarnach axes or the War Priest's stave - would help a lot). Adding some extra killing power to your creatures in a Moria list or getting that slight edge in a Rivendell list can be game-altering and learning to use these spells effectively is well worth the time put in.

In our next post, we wrap up our discussion of the magical powers by discussing one of the first magical powers I ever used: Fury. Ah, Fury - all the changes and changes and CHANGES that have happened between the various editions of the game. Is it worth casting? Is it worth channelling? Is a shaman an auto-include for any army that can take it? Should everyone who can take Fury cast it? This wouldn't be a proper discussion without the help of the full TMAT team - listen to our discussion of Fury in our podcast on evil spell-casters and get ready for a great discussion. Until next time, happy hobbying!