Hello and welcome to this actually final installment of
the Magic Lore Deep Dives. And today we have reached the
raw magic, the essential chaos magic.
And with me is a usual day. Hello.
Hello, and our special guest today who also worked with us
when we did the Chaos Army Book review, Jorgon.
Hello. Hello.
All right, So we've been doing this for I don't know how long.
Dave Hoffy, You know, maybe. These ones, yeah, I guess it's
about that, isn't? It yeah, time flies.
So chaos in regards to magic they it was off with a bit of
looking back Dave, how was chaos magic working in 3rd edition?
Prior to third, no idea. 3rd edition.
So initially there was demonic magic, which was kind of the
magic that Chaos sorcerers use along with battle magic.
Well, they could also use necromantic, that they could use
illusionist, elemental, you know, same as any other racery.
They're accessing different amounts of different lists.
And then along came Realms of Chaos.
We all know the you know journey.
Lovely. Those two books, yeah, lovely
books, but pain. Painful in their birthing for
Games Workshop, let's say. And funnily enough, the spells
for the for the chaos powers in those are the same spells,
although how they were did and how they work is slightly
different. But they're the same spells that
came along in Battle Magic for four edition.
So Battle Magic had four chaos spells per one of the three gods
that used magic. Obviously called omitted for
obvious reasons. The only difference, well,
obviously there was a difference in how they work because the
magic mechanic was different. And also in the 3rd edition you
had magical saves. So where the 4th edition spells
had like tough tests against toughness or things like that,
it was test against your willpower for a more safe.
But they're the same spells, same sort of roughly same sort
of effect, except one, there's a zinch spell in Realms of Chaos,
Lost in the Damned. There's no lost.
Second one, Yeah, I think it was lost on Deb, the changed name.
It was exactly the same spell, but it changed its name.
So it was transformation of zinch in Realms of Chaos, and
then automatically it was Bolts of Change.
I think the name Bolts Change came out of Epic.
I believe there's the Lord of Change alt of Change in Epic.
And they obviously went, oh, that's a, that's a caller name.
And it is all Change is a pretty cool name.
So would it have the same effect as transformation of Zinch,
which is basically turns into a bubbling pile of goo?
But aside from that, they're pretty much the same spells.
Yeah, same names. And then I said when we came to
4th edition they took those names, made spells that did sort
of the same thing as a get along until they did the chaos
supplement which was probably about 2/3 of the way into 4th
edition. So for the majority of 4th
edition you were using those 4 spells per chaos God.
If I remember correctly they basically said the greater
demons get those 4 spells anyway, and then the remaining
ones are divvied up between your lesser demons and your
sorcerers. Lesser demons could use one of
the decks one. We've covered this one before,
but each of the different types of lesser demon could use one of
the coloured decks. So Slanesh could use Amethyst,
Nergal could use Jade. Really weird combo there.
This is green, but yeah. It's all of life, but twisted.
What kind? Of yeah, death is kind of what
Nergal is, isn't it really? Decay, corruption, that sort of
thing. And then Zinch could use bright.
Yeah, it was bright because there's the fight obviously.
And sorcerers could use dark magic as well.
I think that's how it worked if if memory serves correctly.
And and I looked at the spells, not the mechanic and suddenly
reals and looked at the mechanic to reflect my memory.
Yeah. So Jorgen, do you, did you have
any experience prior to 4th or when did you get into it?
Nah, it started in 94. Yeah.
So the Chaos box was released by them.
And yeah, should we start looking at what they what Chaos
initially got in the first release, the battle magic?
We got I'll go. I've I've done my usual sort of
building with my own little little table of stuff.
So Nergal got miasma of miasma, sorry of pestilence, plague,
wind, stench of Nergal and stream of corruption.
So miasma of pestilence 2 power spell, 6 inch range and it's an
enfeeblement sort of spell. So any creatures that within 6
inches of the wizard have their characteristics halved whilst
they're within that range of the wizard.
So if they were to move out of the range then their
characteristics go back up to normal.
So it's, it's kind of useful, but it's easy to avoid, Yeah,
you know. I guess this again if you want
to add to these as well, you can of course.
Absolutely. That spell stayed exactly the
same and was part of the deck as well.
Yeah. Later on.
Yeah, absolutely. Plague wind 24 inch range can
because on a single model or unit 3D six hits minus the
targets toughness with wounds SO3D six hits but it's 4 plus
wound wounding role and then for every 3 wounds caused you create
a plate bearer. Yeah, that's cool.
Yeah, it's cool. Cool little spell 3 three power,
though, so you know it's going to be a lot to cost and
obviously bit of a bummer if you don't have any play bearer
models to to create from from the, you know, carnage that you
cause, but still, you know, a good chance of causing wounds
for sure. The instead, you've now got one
power. It's the only one power spell
that they've got another sort of infy woman one casting close
combat in effect, the target model within three.
Oh, no target model. Oh no, it's within 3 inches.
Sorry, it's not close combat. I'm a lie.
So within 3 inches and they lose 1 attack.
All models within 3 inches lose 1 attack another one move out of
the three inch range. You gain your attacks back.
So, but obviously if you if you're, if the attacks
characteristic is relevant, you're probably in close combat.
So you're not moving anywhere until that's over?
Yeah. He's actually lost one attack.
Yeah, probably not doing that much damage.
So it is, it is effective. He's got meaning it it.
It's one of those it has been the right circumstances if your
right circumstances be useful if you're not.
Yeah. And of course in 4th edition, I
mean the majority of troops have only one attack.
So in that sense it's. You know, and combats were drawn
out. So it's kind of probably A1 turn
effect, you know, but but you know, a nice spell, just just
very situational. And then the last one stream of
corruption that was a fire dragon.
That note, was it the fire dragon temple?
I think it was the fire dragon template.
Oh, it's a smaller one. Is it a smaller one?
OK, but similar shape? Was it as a teardrop?
And yeah, and pretty much it's a kind of a dragon breath style
attack, you know, any models more than half under are
affected. And it could be costing close.
Or I don't never defined whether it could or not, but yeah.
But interestingly, if if you're toughness 6 or less, you're
basically dead if you're affected or as if you're
toughness 7 or more, it's D6 wounds instead.
So if you're high toughness that that kind of protected you, but
you know, there weren't a lot of things in the game that had a
toughness 7 or more. You know, John, I think it's
toughness 6. So you know, it's it's not
really much. And weirdly, the only change
between that and the spells when they, you know, expanded the
decks for the chaos books for the chaos books, Sorry, was I
think it's stream of is it stream of one of them?
I can't remember which one it is off the top of the head.
I think it was stream of corruption.
Suddenly magic armor can save you, whereas previously there
was no safe. But they they, they obviously
thought, oh it's a bit too powerful.
It's adding magic armor can protect you.
Yeah, I guess we'll look at that when we review.
The as well through the through the individual ones where they
added in a magic safe. What do you say?
Cool, sorry, cool. I.
Mean how do you roll to save? It's a kill spell.
It's not causes causing any wounds unless you have tout of
seven. Oh yeah, stream crossing.
Yeah. So it's literally just so
anything on the template, it's an initiative.
Test 6 always fails. So if so, you know, your high
initiative stuff's probably more likely to survive, but it's only
if you run with six then then you're dead.
So good against dwarfs and low initiative, yes.
Yeah, but how do you roll the armour save?
Well, I guess that's just literally the.
I guess you're the Yeah, it must be for the number of wounds you
have. You roll an armour save I guess.
But you don't take wounds and. Such well, one of it says
instant death. So if you're 1 moon model, it's
just one one armour save. Yeah, it's multiple wounds and
you I guess you take one per wound.
I would guess it maybe it's not that one that adds in the magic
armor side. Yeah, it is that one.
I have it up here. It is that one.
I'm just curious because there are other spell descriptions
that kill automatically and then they say you can't save versus
something that kills, you can only save versus stuff that
wounds. So I was just interested why
they added that. Yeah, it's a bit inconsistent.
Probably wanted to tone it down. Well, there's not much of A tone
because there's not much of A magic army you can get really in
in the game. There's only only a few.
It's not like magic weapons where there's 10A penny, there's
a few you're done. So maybe that was kind of an
afterthought and added on there. Maybe didn't think about it that
much. You know, different authors
necessarily think things through fully.
You know, add. It on Yeah, well, never happened
before. Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, maybe could be a course of some debate when the if the
issue can comes up, Someone Like You said, Jorgen could claim
that OK, no wounds are caused as such so I there's no roles to be
had for save. But of course in the late
version they explicitly state that there is a save.
So that's slightly inconsistent. Rare circumstance that isn't it
things. Really.
Yeah, so. And the solution of course, they
claimed was to be useless. Roll a die and just decide it
and get on with it. So roll and die to find if
you're going to roll a die. Yeah, I.
Just want to roll the die for the army.
Yeah. And I guess they never made an
FAQ on that one that we know of. It's possibly very much
retrospective and you know, a little while after maybe.
Interesting if I tidy that up for 5th edition.
I've never really played chaos in 5th edition so I don't.
I was money undead in 5th edition.
So you played a lot more 5th edition than I?
The exact same wording in 5th and I still don't know why.
Yeah I I personally interpret it like if you have the D6 wound
since dead then you can take the armour save.
That's how I played it. Yeah, fair enough.
Fair dues. Yeah.
One of those, you know, agree something.
You're an opponent, I guess. Yeah.
And if you're a regular user of the spell, you know, with
regular opponents, I'm sure you're going to soon come to a
decision on what's fair on that one.
Yeah. But again, it's because it's
template, it's fairly easy to get to avoid, you know, you just
stay well clear of that sort. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty nasty,
so you better be aware. Yeah, I think, I think the
Nergal ones generally you can get them off, they're kind of
nasty, but they're easy to avoid though, Yeah, short range and
short range and yeah, not so not so effective as possibly other
ones. Yeah, yeah.
And I guess the, the Costas are usually barely slow moving as
well. I guess you can get it around
that, but they're not the we. I mean, they can.
Still ride monsters and steeds and stuff so they're they're no
slower moving than. But the greater demon doesn't
fly. That's the difference I.
See what you mean? Yes.
Yeah. For the great demon sense.
Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I see what you mean now.
Yes, absolutely. I'll see I guess the plague
bearers if they are casting they are not the fastest either
because we didn't quite cover that one, but I think we did
that at some previous point. But Chaos is unique of course
that their their units can cause spells.
I suppose, I suppose the good thing about a unit plate bearers
doing these spells is because some of them are template or
area of effect. At the short range, you can pick
which plate bearer the effect comes from.
So if you have a long line, you can kind of say, all right,
well, that's going to get much. So I'll cast it from that one,
as it were. But yeah, it's they're not the
best hand of spells for chaos. I don't think is, is what we're
getting at really. You know, the other powers have
more powerful spells, I think. And in fact, in actual fact,
Slanish, reading through them recently of of change my mind on
slanish. I used to think Slanish spells
were a bit rubbish, but I've kind of decided they're actually
pretty good. Which leads us into see, I can
segue. Excellent.
So Slannish's 4 spells then are acquiescence, which I could
never pronounce as a child. It was a horrible word.
Yeah, Acquiescence I used to call it Beam of Slannish, Fleshy
Curse and Pervain of Slannish. Really sad.
I had to look at what Pervain was as well.
There we go. So acquiescence is is that the
close? Yeah, that's one who has to
reach out and touch. So victims are only equal to or
under their initial on the D6 or all their characteristics are
half and subject to stupidity, weirdly on the card.
Yeah. So when you're on the conference
they say a dispel will negate the stupidity but but surely the
the would also negate the half characteristics as well?
So just generally A dispel will dispel the effects of this
spell. Do you even need to put that on
the card? Yeah, that's a bit.
I guess maybe, I guess maybe the argument is that midterm it
would get rid of the stupidity, if you see what I mean.
So when you do so maybe that's the kind of thing.
But I don't think I think that's needless wording on the card is
1. Yeah, it it very useful.
I think that 1/2 characteristics is terrible.
You know, half wounds, half, you know, rounding up, obviously
because you only have one wound, you half that you round up.
And of course, it makes stupidity much more likely to
take place as well. Yeah.
Absolutely with characteristics with leadership half it's it's a
horrible spell. Then beam of slanish is A2
power. Sorry, just say acquiescence is
1 power spell, 2 power, 24 inch range and it's a single model
again and it pretty much does the same thing except this one
is you take a lead trip test on 3D6 and then you catch some
stupidity. Doesn't mention that dispelling
it will get rid of the stupidity on this one, so obviously they
can't fall into their own trap. Yeah, they're not even.
They're consistent with the. Yeah, again, that never
happened. Yes, fleshy curse.
Yeah. That's a nice name.
Or maybe not a nice name. Juicy name.
Exactly. Yeah.
In actual fact, that's. I'm sure that you don't come to
this, so I'm going to steal this something.
That name disappears. The spell remains when the name
disappears later on. Snow.
Yeah. Then this is 2D6 Tuffany's hest
or the victims turning to spawn. And these are spawn of battle
magic rules, not spawn obviously of chaos supplement rules.
So they're really it's not as nasty turning into a spawn.
It's still pretty, you know, horrendous and same sort of
principle. We know 2D6 movement and random
attacks. But yeah, it's not got the cards
obviously for for giving gifts. Yeah, it's basically just two D6
stuff in his test. We turned into a sport.
Yeah and yeah and of course that's a non reversible effect.
So we true module module it's got.
Yeah, I always found that weird because in my head, it's only in
my head obviously, which is a weird place.
Don't go there, but but in my head, that's more of a zinch,
zinch sort of thing. Turning someone into a spawn.
I always like there's the sort of change as well.
I've always thought that really should be a zinch sword to my to
my thinking, you know, he's the Lord of China.
But I know all the powers do dabbling do have chaos sport but
it just seemed to me it is a bit of a OK not with that lame but
the effect to me is more resinch sort of kind of spell.
I guess Lanish is into weird body stuff so that sounds.
Well, yeah, it's to enjoy your model big penis running around.
I don't know. The last one then Pervain of
Slannish. So yeah, I did my look up.
Pervain was a dance. I never knew that.
I've never really worried about names of dances really.
They go pervain was a dance and that's an entrapment once it
basically it's kind of like some of the grey spells where it's a
leadership test 2D6 and if they fail they can't do anything.
So, so Grey have a variation of those, but a couple of
variations of 1 where they can't do any one where they dance and
dance with despair, isn't it? So they have very similar
spells. Great.
But it's that kind of principle. And yeah, just kind of locks you
up, which is a pain in the rear end.
It's not just kind of it holds you there, but you can still do
stuff. No, you just can't do anything.
You're done. Nasty.
Yeah. And then it's then Zinch.
I guess we go to Bolt of Change. Boone.
A Zinch, pink fire, Zinch and Zinch's firestorm.
We'll take a break there, I guess, because we've got 4
minutes left and I'm not going to get through all of them.
No, I think so, yeah. We might sneak in a break here.
So we will round off the sort of initial spells and then Jurgen
will guide us into the Extended Improved so.
Most of the are exactly the same though.
Yeah, yeah, you've got 18 more spells to do.
Yeah, Yeah. You know why we've been doing
this? We've done like 10 or maybe 20.
You know 18 is a good number to still go through.
So, but yeah, since you have covered a few that we might be
able to, yes, you know what I'm saying, That was all the same,
but there's quite a few to. Look at SO.
Yeah, see you in a little while. All right, so we're back.
We've gone through 2/3 of the original spells you got in the
box. So I guess take it away, Dave,
from finance. Yeah.
So as said, it's Bolt of Change, Buddha Zinch, Pink Fire, Zinch
Zinch's Firestorm. So we're bolt of Change, single
model effect, two power, 12 inch range and basically first fixing
path has to take a toughest test on TD6 or they become a steaming
pile of bubbling goo. Lovely.
Yeah, another another, no wounds, nothing like that.
It's just you just gooey tastic. So you know, 12 inch range would
seem prohibitive, but you know, if you've got a zinch sort of
flying around on a disc, it makes range less of a less of a
an issue. You know, cheap flying ability.
That can't be cool. That's under you.
And as far as I recall, that was not a very uncommon sight if you
face. Yeah, Boonezinch is probably one
of the best, at least this version of Boone.
This is the one that changes. I'll let Jurgen discuss the
changes. Not to steal his Thunder, but
this is the the spell that changes.
So Boonezinch in this version of the chaos decks, So the the the
early decks, let's say one power and basically you gain a college
deck spell if you cast it. But it doesn't say you can only
have one college spell at a time.
So you could cast it, you know, every, every magic phase in
effect and gain another spell. So you've got a one like a level
1 wizard. You can sort of have a massive,
vast range of college deck spells.
It also doesn't say you have to stick to the same deck every
time you cast. So you could go between the
decks. And you know, obviously some
decks are going to be more effective than others.
So I think you're probably going to be taking Amethyst Celestial.
Great, Maybe if you want to have a bit of speed.
Yeah, but probably, let's be honest.
Yeah, probably not going to be doing the Jade, let's be honest.
Yeah, there's like one or two great spells in Jade.
The rest of Pooh, well, when compared to others, let's say.
So you're probably not going to be doing that one.
But very good for me. It's a great spell, you know,
getting other spells very handy, very handy indeed.
Pink fire pink, not pink via pink fire of zinch one power
spell, 6 inch range. So again, a really short, very
short range single model effect. Oh, it's not moving strikes
first one in the path D6 hits with the strength of four plus
D6. So up to so it could be 5 might
be 10 whole range in between. So that's pretty powerful, yes.
OK, it's only hitting a single model, so it's not hitting an
entire unit. You know, if you could split the
the hits out across the entire that'd be really good.
But you can't. So it's single model, but very
good for getting rid of, you know, your Wizards and single
wandering heroes free handed. And then the last one, Zinch's
Firestorm 3 power up 24 inch range model or unit.
But you're probably only going to cast it a unit.
Place a template any model touch, not any model more than
half under which most template this is any model touched by the
template takes a single strength five hit and for every 3 wounds
cause it's not all it's not for every 3 casualties, it's free
for all three wounds cause so if you take a wound off a multi
wound creature that counts towards the three yeah.
And for every three who's caused you get a pink horror and of
course the annoyance that is you get 1 pink horror, then you get
2 blue horrors. So you know so that that's a
very annoying 1. You could get a very big unit
quite quickly with that one, obviously similar, similar to
similar to plague wind in the sense of it creates plague
bearers, but obviously because of the division of pink horrors
into blue horrors, it just it's more of a pain in the rear end
because you go from no unit that's sunny.
What's going on? If it's a starting the game pink
unit, you know what's happening, You know, you can see I'm not
actually going to start killing that just yet because or or you
try to get on with it and kill them off and get rid of the blue
horrors as quick as you can. But that one is kind of, oh, the
pink horrors have come from nowhere.
And then you kill pink horrors. Oh, now there's like the blue
horror. What's going on?
Yeah. So it's it's, yeah, it's, it's.
Kind of not. I believe you get hit by that
one most likely. Yeah, that's, that's the initial
chaos spells, Yeah. So that was what you had to
settle with for a while during 4th.
But then something happened, Jurgen, you got the.
I think Jurgen happened. Yeah, Jurgen happened.
Yeah. Something happened.
We got a big chaos box and it wasn't just like the other army
books as most people know. A big box with full of gifts
rewards and a new new decks for the Chaos Sorcerers with 10
spells each. And I, I guess the box itself,
you know, deserves a bit more attention perhaps with the chaos
gifts and everything, but we're focusing on these spells today,
so yeah. I think I will give Prudh.
I'm in the same order as Dave. So we start with the Nergal
magic and just like with the original 4 spells, the Nergal
deck has a lot of low range spells.
So in my opinion it is the weakest of the chaos magic
decks, but there's still some nice spells in there.
Do you want me to go through each spell or what?
How do you? Well, I mean it's if you want to
do the highlights or the special ones.
I think we, it's up to you really how you want to do it.
If we go through everyone, maybe we don't have time in this
session to go through all of them, but yeah, so yeah.
I'll do the highlights that yeah, yeah.
So the Nurgle deck, we have a power one spell that's called
the cloud of Flies and it has a short range of 12, but it the
targets either a unit or a model with and the victim may neither
move nor shoot did it. As we know, that's very
powerful, and for only one power, I think that's a great
spell. Yeah, a lot of those sort of
analogues to that one, but I don't think it's very common
that they have one power spells that do all that because maybe a
few. But yeah, that's very good of
course, because you know, take the NS miss most powerful unit
and you basically neutralized it for as long as it's
permisective, so. Yeah.
And then there's one that I like to have on a high level wizard.
It's called Fly Swarm and Power One, and the first wound
inflicted on the sorcerer is automatically saved and if he is
hit by something that kills outright he will be saved on a
roll of four up. I think that's very good for a
power one spell. That's great to have on a unit
of play. Bearers of course, but very nice
on a high level sorcerer. And the final one I want to take
from the Nergledeck then is Rancid Visitation power 2, range
18 and can be cast on any unit causing 2D6 string four hits.
But the big thing here is that no armor cells are allowed.
I think that's very great for A2 power spell.
That's. True, so you said you thought
maybe No, it was not the most powerful of the three.
Which chaos pause did you play at the time or did you do mix or
how was your? Back then I mostly played the
cinch, now what I I actually prefer playing slanish.
OK, so Nergal hasn't been your main chaos.
Power No. I I've played it a bit, I've
tried it, I I even built a Nergal army, but I'm not a fan
of their spells. No, OK.
Yeah, I think, yeah. Yeah, I think with Nergal, the I
I love the mark power. The plus one's toughness is
brilliant. But yeah, the spells are a bit
Neff. They, they feel pretty
characteristic. I mean, the, the names are
disgusting and cool and everything and I, I guess sort
of the short range and they're being slow and just, you know,
slow disgusting things moving towards you.
Hard to do like I do like the fact there's cloud of flies and
fly swarm. Maybe the same thing really.
Maybe the swarm is slightly bigger, I don't know.
Yeah, good point. Yeah, so I mean, cool fun, but
if you want to maximize the power, maybe you know, isn't the
way to go. But definitely, you know, you're
giving your opponent a hard time to actually kill a lot of
models. They're tough.
They're going to it's hard to score a lot of points from a no
Good on me I guess, but you can avoid them if you like.
Play would also something you're going to be running around and
probably not getting into combat.
Yeah, that's the problem with the spells as well, because a
normal Nergal army is slow moving and because of that I
want spells with a good range. Yeah, but these spells don't
have that. So it it doesn't help the army
that much. Yeah, that's true.
If the enemy is maneuverable, he can avoid both combat and the
spells. So it's, you know, not going to
be too much fun for the Nergal player not having much to do, I
guess. Yeah.
That's why you take Dark magic instead.
Yeah, yeah, you could do that. Yeah.
So that's an option, of course. Right.
So Naugle, yeah, fun. And you know, it's in spirit,
but might not be the easiest one to pull off.
But if any listeners you know have been having great
experience with Naugle spells, let us know.
Continuing with the slanish deck then, right?
Yeah. So I want to point out a thing
before we talk about the spells. First of all, the casters are
fast, so range isn't as much of an issue here.
You have access to states of Slanish and you have mounted
demonets. And another thing, the mark of
Slanish for their spell coasters is, well, it's geared towards
defense and it's probably the best defense in the game.
And for those who don't that don't know, any unit within 12
cannot shoot or cast spells against the spell coaster.
So that's another reason it's very powerful when you write up
and they can't do anything about it.
Yeah. And that helps making Saanich a
lot stronger, of course, but it also help with the short range
spells, making them a lot more powerful in my opinion, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Because the steeds, they have
sort of a ridiculous move, is it?
Well, yeah, that's about the highest you can get on a land
mover. So sweet.
So the we have the four original spells like he, like Dave said,
and there's another few that's quite powerful.
There's a spell called Lash of Slanish.
It's a power one spell that hits its target for 2D63.
Four hits. It's only range 8, but as I
said, movement isn't an issue, so I think it's very good for
its power. Then there's the.
Yeah, I'm not. I'm not sure how to pronounce
this cacophonic chore. Help me there, Dave.
Choir. Choir.
Yeah, OK, yeah.
So yeah, all enemy models within D6 inches of the caster sustains
a strength five hit with no armor saves allowed, not even
magic armor. It's also a power one spell.
So this is one of my favorite spells to get on a spell
coaster. You write up in between 2 units
that can't hit you and then you just roll off these and kills.
Against Knights or something Should be proper nasty.
Yeah, so a very powerful spell and it's only power one as well.
Yeah. And then they have the bondage
of Slanish, and so it's another power to range 12 and the unit
can't do anything. But those are powerful spells
for a Chaos army. And the final one I have I want
to talk about is the Suker of Chaos.
Is that right? Succor soccer?
It's another one as bad as it. Sounds this sounds something
else. There is still extra likey, but
not that. No matter how one felt, range 12
and this is 1 you cast on a friendly unit instead and it
adds plus one to your to hit roles in combat.
Yeah, it's very nice for a Chaos army which are trying to hit as
many models in combat as possible and then Power 1, so
they have a lot of low power spells.
And then we have the final, which Dave has already
mentioned, but it's called Chaos Spawner, Yes.
And then, yeah, the what do you say?
Fleshy curse or what? Yeah, it was fleshy, cursed for
which is just horrible sounding. Yeah, they updated the name.
Can't think why. Yeah, but it is pretty much the
same spell. Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, I have killed or I have turned vampire Lords and
stuff into spawns and that's a very powerful spell.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So I think having super DD slannish is also running around
behind your ranks or close to them will make anyone a bit
nervous of what's going on. So, you know, when you choose
spells, are those the ones you would sort of go to spells if
you could choose which one were were there any spells in those
texts that you would immediately discard that are notably weaker
than the others, or are they mostly all useful, would you
say? Well, most are useful, but like
the slicing shots of slammage, it's it's a nice spell, but it's
basically rancid visitation. But it allows armor saves, so
that's a big difference. And it's still power to, it has
a slightly longer range, but I would prefer having no armor
saves allowed. And then the one I'd never like
get getting is the Pavain of Slanish.
It's so easy to avoid. Yeah, it's a normal leadership
test, and that's too easy to avoid the effects of a power to
spell, in my opinion. OK.
So would you agree, Dave, how much, how much did you play by
now? Did you play a lot of chaos or
do you? I've played Chaos
intermittently. I was, I was more of a zinch
player or Noble player and noble, and really it was prior
to the box coming to the Chaos Army's box coming out.
So it was for me, it was the first four spells I was, I was
mainly using, I kind of like the vein of slanish as long as it's
used against the right troops. So if you're looking at, you
know, probably humans and anything lesser say Scaven,
goblins, you know, that sort of thing, then it's a pain in the
arse spell. Anything with highly, you know,
8 plus, yeah, OK. It's less effective, 100% I
agree. So it's got to be used like my
spell. It's got to be used in the right
circumstances. Yeah.
So depending on your opponents, maybe that's the keeper or 1 you
would discard. Agree, I I think from comments
that you've made as an empire generally in the past has I
think it's not a spell you'd want to see in the hand of the
chaos clouds. No, no, I think I did encounter
that one a few times and it could be pretty frustrating.
Yeah, yeah, right. So moving on to the final one,
sort of master of Chaos magic. Yeah, the Tinch bells.
The Tinch bells, The entire deck is quite fun.
And just like with Slanish, we have fast moving sorcerers with
the discs, so range isn't as much of an issue as with the
noodle sorcerers. And I want to pick out quite a
few in this deck because I I like them.
Yeah, they're quite unique. And as Dave mentioned, some have
been changed and not always for the better, but different in and
still good. So the first spell blue fire
cinch D6 strength, four hits nor with normal almost save, but
power 1 range 18, quite good. And you have the bolt of change,
which is unchanged, but killing a model to power 2 range 12,
they have to roll against toughness on 2D6.
So 90% of the time it kills a model that's very powerful
against the enemy spell coasters, even an enemy general
or something like that. So Bernard cinch different power
1 still and it's changed to be the chaos player may draw the
three magic cards and cast a further spell immediately if he
wants to. I think this is actually a must
dispel spell, yeah? Yes.
It's only power 1 so at worst you will get a new card and you
could get unlucky and get a dispel card but it's some with
medium luck you are getting 2 power cards and getting ahead in
the magic face is quite powerful.
I think this is a great power one spell.
I would love it if it was the same as before, but even now I
think it's a great spell. Particularly if you compare it
to the dark magic version that came in when they split out the
necromantic spells. So the dark magic version, only
the wizard that gets the cards can use them and there's a
chance of death, whereas the boomers each same power, only
one power, but any wizard can. So if you get it for a level 1
wizard, it's still useful because it's worthwhile getting
the cards and you're not going to risk death as well.
So I actually think if you compare the two, it becomes an
even better spell by comparison of the alternative version of
it. Of course, you could be really
unfortunate and go for Chaos man, and you get both those two
spells, but now the spells, which would be rather
unfortunate, but you know, the chances of that are pretty
remote. Yeah, a good one, yeah.
Then a quite simple one gift of chaos power one.
But you may take a chaos gift which actually very powerful
most of the time. I don't know if we talked about
those gifts the last time, but there's some really powerful
ones. Like you.
You can turn one of your models, and it doesn't have to be a
character into a free chaos bomb.
That's very good. And there's something that makes
you immune to magic. There's regeneration.
There's a lot of good stuff. So you don't want the chaos
player to draw extra chaos gifts?
No, I don't remember. I I don't think we went in
through the gifts in detail, did we did last time.
No, well, they kind of fall in this weird area, don't they?
They're not. They're not like rewards, which
are in effect magic items, so they're in game.
So maybe we want to do a brief session on the weirdness that is
the Chaos Army book. Not well, no, not not the books,
put the box set in general, yes. So, so the other things that you
got, I mean, it's pretty much gifts.
We could do rewards in that as well.
And then, you know, not do them when we look at magic items,
maybe, yeah. Right.
So yeah, cool. Yeah, and then we have Glean
Magic, which is power to range 24 and it steals a spell from an
enemy wizard. It's very fun and it's actually
very good because as long as you have stolen that spell, you
don't need to cast it. And then the enemy, we sort of
can't cast that spell. Yeah, against like undead that
are really dependent on certain spells, I guess that could be
really great or annoying for anyone, but those who base their
tactics on specific spells could be of course extra devastating
to. Yeah, thankfully for opponents
of Chaos, it's not. You can pick the spell
automatically, random selection. So it's not like you can cast it
and get rid of Van Hal's Dance McCall for the entire game.
You may be able to see, but a random pick.
Yeah. And that that's where it's
beneficial that all of the. You know that the necromantic
deck became its own thing because with the dark magic
spells, yeah, no less of an issue.
I'm going down a tangent. Doesn't really exist.
Basically there's no tells with the cards as to which ones
which. So that would be very dangerous
if there was some sort of distinction between so like a
dark magic card and necromantic card.
Oh, I know it's that one. You can take it.
That's least, you know, a, a safety net for, for an undead
wizard. I'm particularly focused on
undead wizard because obviously I do fight a bit, but it's a
great and it's kind of like the reinvention of the original
version of boon of Zinch, isn't it?
It's it's kind of a, it's not the same spell, no, but a
similar principle of gaining a spell.
Yeah. And I think that's also one that
your opponent will always, you know, seriously consider if
they're going to dispel or not not doing it.
You know, that's very risky, so. Well, jade was it might let them
do it. Not that rubbish spell.
It also locks you up. You, you can't once you've got
one, if you can't sit again, you lose the one you grab.
So it's not like a game permanently.
It's a temporary thing. You get the card and if song
casts, then the original wizard gets the spell back if if
someone spells it or, or if you cast it again.
So yeah, it's it's not, it's not a forever for the rest of the
game situation. Yeah, but you can, because if
you glean one spell, then you don't have if it is the most
powerful spell, then you don't have to count either glean MAD
or that spell for the rest of the game.
I agree, I agree 100%. But yeah, it's, it's obviously
it's not a absolute gotcha. It's not a kind of, you're
definitely going to get it. It's there's a chance you're
going to get the one you want to get.
But generally speaking, most of time, whatever spell you get,
it's going to, you know, you're going to stop the opposing
wizard from doing something. So it's it's always a good idea.
Yeah, yeah, I really like it. And I I think it fits the theme
of the Master of Sorcery. Very, and then we have one I
like to use against enemy research and they will have to
correct my on my wording again. Oh God, now you're awesome.
Incandescent assassin. Perfect incandescent assassin,
Yes. OK, so power to range 24.
You pick a single model, the target rolls D6 and adds their
weapon skill, while the Chaos sorcerer rolls D6 and adds 6.
If you score higher, then you inflict a number of wounds equal
to the difference. And there's armor saves, but
with a -, 3 modifier. Against most research they have
a quite low weapon skill, three O 4.
So I like to this one too. Yeah, use as some kill enemy
with soft spells. Yeah, we'll definitely make a
post a bit nervous seeing that one coming.
And would it be OK? Well I mean monsters have a lot
of wounds, but if you have like a monster with high toughness
but low weapon skill, could that be kind of useful?
Yeah, of course. Yeah, I think so, yeah.
So, yeah, she's not even a toughness, is it?
So yeah, that's that's probably one of the best uses of it, as
it were. Anything with with with high
wounds and low weapon skill. Yeah.
Yeah, a giant, perhaps. Yeah, yeah.
That's a great idea. Yeah.
And I suppose against trolls and
things like that as well maybe. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good shell.
That's fun. Yeah, we already talked about
since Firestorm, it's the same and the one that I really like
and the final one I want to lift from the Cinch deck is the
Shield of Fire. Oh yes yes, say power one spell
and the sorcerer summons a fiery shield to protect him and any
enemy trying to hit him in combat must roll A6 to hit.
And the next part is what I really like.
If any enemy attacks the sorcerer with a magic weapon, on
a roll of 1 to hit, the weapon is destroyed.
Yes, that would make anyone think twice about trying out
that one. Yeah, I think that must be one
of the best one power protection spells around.
Yes, close combat, certainly. Yeah, I I think it's great.
It's it's definitely one that if you've got a Lord flying around
on a disc, I think it's a good shout.
Look, I mean, Chaos Source was a pretty good in close combat
anyway. So, you know, sticking that on
them, I think it's definitely a good shout.
Yeah, So, yeah, solid deck. I guess it's the as it should
be, of course, since they are supposed to be the OR Stan,
she's the sister, the masters of magic in a sense.
All right, So yeah, we don't have too much time on this one,
but maybe just a little bit. How how would your sort of magic
setup look like in an army? How many coasters did you have?
What spell levels did you aim for?
And so on, both of you. You can start Dave.
Oh gosh, wasn't prepared for that.
Cool. I unless he's undead.
I'm pretty standard. I depend on size of the game.
If it's like 1500 or lower I've probably got one, maybe 2 level
2 or a level 1. Anything above that tends to be
a level 4 and a level 2. And as said, I kind of flitted
between. Zinch was where I began with
Chaos really. I moved to Nergal because I was
escaping player at heart and it fitted better.
And then recently, probably more recently, I've gone back to
Zinch has been my my preference. I do want to paint some
demonettes and a keeper of secrets and they're going to be
allies for my, for my dark health army probably.
So they're cool. That's good.
I like that. But yeah, generally as a level 4
and level 2, greater demons cause me an issue.
I probably wouldn't include a greater demon unless I'm playing
4000 points. They'd be the majority of the
extra 1000 points obviously, and then end up with two level fours
and level 2. I wouldn't want a level.
I wouldn't want a great team to be 1.
Main spellcaster is what I'm getting at.
It's it's not my style. Cool and Yuri yoga.
Yeah, back. Yeah, back then I usually played
around 2500 points and the usual setup would be two level three
sources of cinch on discs and certain magic items to help out.
Nowadays when I play we usually go down to 2000 and I usually
bring just like Dave, a level 4 and a level 2 instead.
The level 4 being the main caster and the level 2 more of a
dispelled scroll carrier sports caster.
But I could see using two level freeze with slanish as well
driving around being as fast as they are.
It also depends whether I take demons or not because the demons
are spell casters and that also fills in.
Yeah. And, and obviously also, it
depends on who you're playing against.
Yeah, if you're against dwarfs, it's not such a necessity to
take a level 4. Necessity for level 4 would be
mainly defensive. So it's making sure that you're
not on the back foot on rolling for dispels.
But against dwarfs, obviously there's no need to worry about
that. So you know the the back report
where they launched Chaos, you know, the the dudes, Richard
Halliwell, who was playing the Chaos player, he took level ones
and a unit of Pink Horizon that was just level 2.
He had 6 I think in the inch. He was just level 2, didn't have
any level threes or fours, didn't need them because he
didn't need that many. You know, there wasn't the worry
of the opposition spellcaster to have to take into account.
So it does depend on who I'm fighting as well.
Yeah. And against wolves, yeah,
probably. I'll drop down and save some
points, which is always a good idea.
And a chaos army because everything cost the earth.
Yeah, we're running out of time now actually for this session.
Maybe we should just have a break and maybe sort of a few
finishing words. That's OK.
So, yeah, we'll be back with the the summarizing of this, you
know, right. So we're back and just a few
finishing words from our guests. And Dave, I I haven't played
chaos, so I'm not going to add anything.
Just saying that I was definitely scared facing chaos
and those disk riding sources that were hard to kill and
extremely hard to pin down. So that was sort of on the
receiving end. I was not happy about that.
But if you got one down, it was reason to celebrate for sure.
So for you guys, how important was magic for Chaos?
Of course, that depends how you created your army.
But if you had a like a level 4 and a level 2 was the death of
11/4, was that a disaster? Could you pull through?
Well, and as you said, that depends on the army and what
you're up against and stuff like that.
But most of the time I felt that I relied quite heavily on my
spell coasters, at least until I got into close combat.
So a level 4 dying quickly, that would be a disaster.
And it's also like 400 points or something, so.
Your greater demon? There's even more.
Yeah, yeah. So what was, you know, if that
happened, what what usually took place was a spell.
So did your opponent sort of gear towards killing your source
or was it just bad luck? What was your sort of fear of
facing in that scenario? For me it was what we called
suicide characters and sheep characters, with the stuff like
the heart of Bow, of course, and then there was a dark maze of
death and yeah, stuff like that. So Van Hossman Speculum they
often mounted on a Pegasus or. Something like that.
You can see the yeah, what's coming there.
Yeah, makes sense. You, Dave, was it the same or?
I don't really remember situations of of that Ilkoff.
You know, I haven't played Castle that much, but I get a
bit not huge amounts. Generally speaking, lots of
level 4 wizard is is disastrous as as Jurgen said, you know,
it's it's a point sink. So, you know, you're looking at
300, if not 405 hundred points, you know, and then then stick a
monster on top of that as well. And yeah, maybe monster on top
probably isn't the right that's you're going wrong there
anyways. Monster should be underneath.
But you get my principle. Yeah, it it, it will be a
disaster. And yes, often it is.
He's a suicidal sort of kind of character that will do.
It can also be obviously, you know, chaos sorcerers are an
exception to the rule generally in the you probably don't mind
getting cow saucer into close combat.
Most others, most other Wizards, you kind of want to avoid that.
But cow sauce was pretty decent in close combat.
And obviously the beatsmen, shame in all, to a lesser extent
and greater demons are to a greater extent.
You know, if you're not getting a great demon into close combat,
you're probably doing something wrong anyway.
But you still have to sort of pick your combat a little bit.
Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, you probably don't
want to run towards the Lord who's most likely got a demon
Slayer sword. Yeah, he said it's disastrous
for any army losing level 4. And you know, the same rules and
principles for avoiding it, you know, are the same for chaos
with sorcerer, slightly different in that you probably
are wandering away from the safety of units with like our
sources, because as you said, you know, they're they're either
on a steed of slanish or disc of zinch quite often if they're,
you know, of those power persuasions.
So you've got to be a little bit careful with that.
You can mitigate it a little bit, I guess, with a steed of
slanish if you've got if he's running alongside some cavalry
disc of zinch flying thing. I don't think that would count
as you know, being near a unit of infantry.
I think it would probably still, you know, not count as
protected. So you know they're within X
distance probably wouldn't work. So in that sense you can't
protect them quite as well. But you know, there are with,
with chaos armour and with certain spells that protects A
sorcerer, you know, as as Yogen was saying about, you know, the
slanish ones and the Zege ones. But there's even a no one as
well, isn't there? So there are things to protect
your sorcerer. So really, if you're a level 4,
you wouldn't be trying to get one of those.
Yeah, there may be a few medic items as well to support.
Exactly. Well every evil army probably
goes for black amulet, and every good army probably goes for
golden and Batrazole. No reason those can't switch
over and you can't use, you know, golden and ratazole evil
army and black good army, absolutely no reason.
But generally speaking, that's the way they tend to fall
because they sound like good and bad items.
They're interesting in in there is an argument that wizard can't
use golden helm of Atrazar because it's a helmet and they
can't wear armour. And then in fifth, they changed
the golden crown of Atrazar, didn't they?
So I think that was kind of going, let's let's allow Wizards
to use this item. So, yeah.
But Black Amy, generally speaking, is a good item to
protect your wizard with if he's a if he's a well, it's not
relevant because we talk about chaos, about savings, a savage
short, then you've got or whatever you've got magic
wallpaper. Generally speaking, yeah, Black
Emily, it's probably the way to go for your Level 4 source or if
you want to protect them. Yeah, yeah, there's a few chaos
only items as well, like in the reward section.
Yeah, yeah. Like there's Zinch, there's like
Fortune or Zinch, isn't that, isn't it?
I think yeah, yeah, those kind of things, Yeah.
And obviously regeneration is going to help anyone.
Yeah, so. That's always a.
Good one as well. Yeah, absolutely.
All right, So that was the end of the spells.
Of course, there's probably more to talk about if you want to do
that, but I guess we will next because of course we are not
done. There's much more to talk about
for tradition in general. So he has a few minutes maybe.
And your take as well is welcome.
Joe, again, we we're going to look into magic items next.
And I think we concluded a bit of it early on that going
through every single magic weapon, for example, that's
going to be tedious and you know, no one is going to enjoy
that. A few of the other categories
that is probably more doable. Like, you know, bounce bells,
they're not called that, are they?
But yeah, you know, the idea where there's like a dozen or
something that we can do, but our idea is that we sort of do a
couple of categories that each member in the chat will choose,
like my favorite item, my least favorite, maybe one that I never
seen used, but maybe need it's spots in the highlights for a
minute and something like that. What do you think about that
jargon? Would that be interesting to
listen to or participate in? And I would say yes to both.
I would love to do one of those and I would absolutely listen to
that. Excellent.
So yeah, I guess that would be our next thing then.
And yeah, that would keep us occupied for another six months
maybe if we do one per month. Yeah, yeah.
And anyone listening who, you know, feel that.
Oh, I always wanted to talk about medic items.
Feel free to hook us up and you're welcome to join.
Absolutely. Maybe we'll do an advertisement.
We're in the full edition group just in case on Facebook, just
in case anyone wants to wants to come and join us for it.
You know, we, we, you know, we make use of people that we know
through the, the group really and other streams, but that's
not to anyone that's kind of newer to the group or, you know,
just hasn't conversed very much. Not to say that your opinions
aren't worthy and that we don't want to hear them.
So yeah, let's let's do that and, and see if people would
like to, to join in. And even if they don't want,
maybe if they don't even want to join in on the chat, they could
submit their ideas and we can discuss them anyway without them
joining. If they're a little bit, you
know, state, I know there are people we've asked in the past
and it's not been for them appearing on a, on a podcast.
That's that's fine. But please do feel free to, to,
you know, share your, your opinions on magic items.
And we'll, we'll endeavour to maybe do an episode of listeners
questions, Listeners magic items sort of principle.
Yeah. Maybe.
That that'd be cool. Maybe.
In fact, generally we do an episode of that, you know, is
there anything that, you know, especially Matase doesn't talk
as much as I do on me. I know I don't let people, but
if people have got questions from Matteis, maybe send them
in. And I will, I will say send them
in post on the Facebook group and I'll post and I'll put them
to because he always asks us about our physics.
And I think the Empire one we definitely did, but a lot of
times we didn't replay them. So he ducked out of it, but we
wanted some of his things as well.
So maybe that's another idea for some.
We can have some light hearted. They never, they're never.
Not tongue in cheek, I know, but more more not necessarily a
focus as such, but just general chat about fourth edition or
opinions of it and stuff like that.
Great sort of panel debate or whatever.
Yeah, there's a lot of things to be said and done, so we'll
definitely get into that. And of course, there are several
sources of magic items. You have the original box, you
have arcane magic, battle magic, and you have Chronicles of Magic
and the the army books, specific ones.
So yeah, we can look into all of those, of course.
Yeah. So great.
We will get back to the first episode in that instalment.
Well, fairly soon. I hope so.
Yeah, check in. And of course, as always, thanks
to Josh doing the editing work. Heinstein's work.
Yeah, yeah, that's great. And also publishing it on on his
channels. It's of course great help to
reach out to broad audience. So thanks a lot Jurgen, and
looking forward to get you back on talking about magic items.
Sure. Thing.
Yeah, good stuff. Have a great Sunday everyone and
catch you later. Cheers all.
See you. Bye.
Bye.