To expand and expound on this further...
To do magic from the "Visual School of Magic" the casting mage would need to have the appropriate models for what he was doing.
Turning the enemy into Boulders would require a selection of Boulders mounted to figure bases. Turning a giant into a boulder would need a 50x50 base with a nice Menhir mounted to it...to put in place of the giant.
They wouldn't necesarly need to be the same size,and making a bunch of em should be straightforward enough. They only real downside to it would be that you could rapidly end up having to carry quite a lot of stuff around with you. Though that shouldn't be that much of an issue either.. Most places you play at should be relativly prepared, plus for a lot of them fairly simple markers can make due. In the worst case just leave the giant standing there and put some marker on it to remember what happened with it.
To be honest interesting effects that we currently seem to be missing and what would help make magic vastly more interesting would be the following:
- conjuring stuff that affects the shape of the battlefield; summoned walls of flame, petrified Giants...
- disrupting the enemy; teleport an enemy out of the way, scare some unit so it breaks formations and turns tail to flee, enrage a unit causing it to just attack everything in sight friend or foe, mindcontrol.....
- Lasting effects, pretty much all abilities and spells need to be continuously reaplied. Which causes the whole spamming of your 1 usefull spell every turn. Having lasting effects would open up a lot more tactical use of wizards. If only because it would open up the option of shielding the unit and then providing firesupport until the shield needs to be reaplied. A default cleanse would also be needed in this case, but you could potentially use the unbind mechanic for it (unbind the new spell, or unbind the existing (de)buff)
- Effects that increase or diminish over time. A curse of impending doom that wipes out the target after "X" turns would lead to interesting situations. Put it on the opponent's big scary thing and now run away from it till it dies horribly. Similarly a blessing of greatness that causes your puny model to become more powerfull each turn until finally it starts oneshotting dragons & Giants could lead to interesting tactics (do I kill the puny dude now before he becomes a threat, or do I kill his big scary thing that's actually a threat now?)
And finally:
-
some way for spells to interact directly. All the spells are oneshots that don't particularly effect eachother. The most you really have "I cast 3 things so my important trick is guaranteed to work" It would be wonderfull if there was actuall interaction. Conjure up a patch of oil which causes the enemy to slip, once they enter it set it on fire. Petrify that giant, now shatter it pelting its allies with shards of rock. Even just the simple "you cast X so I cast Y to minimize its effect".
Admittadly this last one would probably require some rework of how magic currently works since we don't get to respond to the opponent before the cast is finished.
Also, the increase of duration and the effects that would change over time would probably require significantly longer matches.
