7th Ed. Magic Roundup Part 1 - Magic Missiles

[Caneghem]

This is one of the easiest groups to do, since all magic missiles are handily labeled by the rulebook. It's important to do magic missiles separately from things like Uranon's Thunderbolt for the simple fact that magic missiles can be channelled but not cast into combat. Usually as a result of this, the casting cost is lower for magic missiles than their direct damage counterparts, but not always. Channelling is of course the other main reason to cover these separately, as the spells listed here are the complete list of what your Slann can cast through the eyes of his skink priests. I will separate them into tiers based on effectiveness, and I will run their numbers against the following test dummies...
Light Infantry - T3 5+ armor
Heavy Infantry - T4 4+ armor
Heavy Cavalry - T4 1+ armor

Tier 1
Dark Hand of Death - 5+ - D6 Str4
Fireball - 5+ - D6 Str4 flaming
Burning Gaze - 5+ - D6 Str4 flaming, D6 str6 vs undead and daemons

Damages - LI: 1.94 HI: 1.17 HC: 0.29

Gotta start somewhere, these are your basic low level magic missiles. Obviously burning gaze will work great vs. daemons and undead, but for the sake of this analysis we'll assume we're going against generic troops. Obviously these are going to be your lowest damaging spells and you'll typically just toss one of these off at something you are looking to soften up, maybe to pluck off a rank bonus here or there, or to hit something off on its own that shouldn't be. There isn't much to compare here, as they are all cast on the same value. In the context of the Lizardmen army, these aren't that big a deal, as LM dish out a variety of low strength missile hits - javelins, blowpipes, rocks, razordons, etc. Not rolling to hit is the big advantage, but that's an advantage of all magic missiles.

Tier 2
The Crow's Feast - 7+ - 2D6 Str3

Damages - LI: 2.33 HI: 1.17 HC: 0.39

This one is a little bit better than D6 Str4, and is increased in casting cost perhaps more than accordingly. Many a Slann will find himself with this spell at his disposal, since Beasts is such a popular lore. Against lighter troops you can expect to do a bit more damage, but things will probably even out against the heavier stuff.


Tier 3
Wind of Death - 8+ - 2D6 Str4
Fiery Blast - 8+ - 2D6 Str4 flaming
Distillation of Molten Silver - 8+ - 2D6 Str4 flaming

Damages - LI: 3.89 HI: 2.33 HC: 0.58

Now we're cookin'! These will light up some enemy units pretty reliably, and have quite good damage potential against soft targets. However, they remain third tier for the simple fact that they are STILL only a str4 hit. They don't do a thing different than Tier 1 aside from doing twice as much of it. Still some good damage to be done with these.

Tier 4
The Hunter's Spear - 8+ - Str6 no armor, like bolt thrower

Damages - Hard to calculate - Better vs. armored like BT

Average damage is tough to figure out, but the bottom line is it delivers an automatic bolt thrower hit at strength 6. This works great with channelling, just use a flying skink priest and land on the flank of some knights. If the spell goes off, start rolling for wounds without even worrying about rolling to hit. Being able to put a bolt essentially wherever you want is pretty awesome, but firing a single bolt also limits the spell to hitting ranked up units. Skirmishing units are unaffected, and it probably isn't worth casting on lighter targets. The good news is that the Lore of Beasts has another magic missile that is well suited to picking off the lighter targets while this spell goes for the heavy armor.


Tier 5
Creeping Death - 6+ - 3D6 Str1 no armor save

Damages - LI: 1.75 HI: 1.75 HC: 1.75

Probably the most undercosted spell I've found during my spell analysis. I'd be willing to cast this spell at a 9+... a 6+ is just outrageously good. Why a 9+ you might ask? Well, because that's the casting cost of Uranon's Thunderbolt (covered in the next section), and both that spell and Creeping Death do THE SAME average damage against the heavy cav test dummy. The great thing about this spell is that it fluctuates extremely wildly considering the amount of dice involved. Roll up 15 hits on the 3D6 and you could very well find yourself staring down in disbelief at a clutch of 4 6's to wound... which means 4 dead chaos knights! On the other end of the predictability scale, you could roll up a measly 6 hits and not even one wound. This too can be used to your advantage. The more your opponent learns to fear this spell, the further back you can push it towards the end of your magic phase. Always save spells that can fluctuate wildly in effectiveness for the end of your phase, as that way your opponent must ration dispel dice for what your spell MIGHT do. I've also seen some cocky Dark Elves who like to strut (or fly) around with their heavy armor and reverse ward save... they will need to think twice about doing so with this spell on the field. Just find the most heavily armored troops on the field that are T4 and below, and send them some Creeping Death. Against other Lizardmen, fly in with your skink priest inside of the 5+ ward save the EotG puts out. Then channel Creeping Death under the shield at the EotG. The Skink Priest only being T2 means you will actually wound on 5+ with Creeping Death, and while a good chunk will randomize to the Steg, the priest will get blasted quite easily with no 2+ armor save from the Stegadon Howdah.

So that's part 1, 9 spells down, 39 to go. The next category will be direct damage, which tend to have some neat targeting rules. Remember.. beware the Creeping Death!

 

[strewart]

I'm a bit surprised you ranked creeping death so high, but you are right it is a bargain for its casting level. More effective for 'points' vs heavy armour, I guess it depends on what oyu want a spell to do.

Great analysis though, I'm thinking this should go in the index.

 

[Dumbledore]

Yeah good article, the one error is the "get inside the 5+ wardsave" thing againt other lizardmen, don't think it works like that. I may well be wrong.
I will soon revamp my dormant magic guide article for the guide and change its structure so that it does not overlap with this series on spell choice.

 

[strewart]

'Any ranged attack that originates from more than 12" ' sounds like it includes spells to me. I can see normal spells being immune, and just springing up where they are cast rather than going through the shield, but a missile certainly indicates it travels through the shield. Fluff aside, other spells still originate from outside 12" and are long range.

 

[Caneghem]

"I'm a bit surprised you ranked creeping death so high, but you are right it is a bargain for its casting level. More effective for 'points' vs heavy armour, I guess it depends on what oyu want a spell to do."

If I were evaluating it from the perspective of some other army, I may very well have had a different ranking structure. Lizardmen are just really good at dishing out loads of low strength attacks to begin with. We even have terradons who can drop rocks which gives us the auto-hit effect that magic missiles usually have as their claim to fame. So while more auto-hit stuff is always welcome, it is not until you get the armor bypassing spells that you get to ones where they really add a unique damage type to the army. Hunter's spear falls just shy of being totally unique, since LM already have a poison bolt thrower that can do D3 wounds. There's no denying Hunter's spear can get into a better firing position, however. And while Creeping Death is strength 1 and cannot harm models T5 and above.. that's where our skinks really start to shine with their poison shots.

"Yeah good article, the one error is the "get inside the 5+ wardsave" thing againt other lizardmen, don't think it works like that. I may well be wrong."

I thought about this, but the rules for channelling seem to indicate that it works...
"The Slann can channel a magic missile spell through any Skink Priest within 24". The spell is cast as if the Slann model was where the Skink Priest model is." (p.28)

So I can see it being interpreted either way, but the way I envision channeling working is not the Slann firing off the spell at the skink priest, and the priest redirecting it (otherwise you'd need LOS to the priest wouldn't you?) I see it more as the Slann briefly possessing the mind of the skink and casting the spell using his body, meaning if the skink is within the 12" bubble, that the missile would never cross the barrier and the ward save would not apply. I think you'd treat it as the Slann being where the skink priest is standing. It also makes more sense that way, as otherwise you'd have magic missiles that were actually flying further than 24".

 

[Dumbledore]

Quite right, I was completely wrong.

ps: Flying skink priest and hunters spear is a great synergy

 

[hellbreaker]

May I put in that Burning gaze is the worst possible spell against daemons.
As is any spell from the Lore of light.
Since no daemon player with a sane mind is going without at least one banner of use-lore-of-light-and-you-die-cause-we-are-cheating.

Cheers!

 

[Eternity_Warden]

no daemon player with a sane mind is going without at least one banner of use-lore-of-light-and-you-die-cause-we-are-cheating.

sigged!

 

[Caneghem]

May I put in that Burning gaze is the worst possible spell against daemons.
As is any spell from the Lore of light.
Since no daemon player with a sane mind is going without at least one banner of use-lore-of-light-and-you-die-cause-we-are-cheating.

Cheers!

lol. I didn't know about that banner, thanks for pointing it out. I'll be sure to check for that banner before choosing Lore of Light. Oh and it also looks like they get to crap all over whatever lore you pick with your Slann since they choose which one to penalize AFTER spells are chosen. What an incredibly powerful magic item.

 

[Caneghem]

Quite right, I was completely wrong.

ps: Flying skink priest and hunters spear is a great synergy

The Second Sign of Amul synergizes this even further, as it does with the stegadon bolt thrower as well. Say you only needed a 3 to wound the second knight in the line but you fluff your roll and get a 1. Just use your reroll and kill him for a shot at yet another knight.

Second Sign of Amul synergizes with anything that does even more damage contingent upon successful rolls up front. So in the case of the giant bow and hunter's spear, being darn sure those first couple wound by rerolling failures is beneficial, because it opens up possibilities for more wounds. I would say it is not worth rerolling a 5+ or 6+ to wound though, unless you are pretty sure you won't be needing that reroll later. You may want to reroll the to-hit roll of the giant bow though, since getting that first hit is the hardest part and each hit can produce a large effect.