8th Ed. Was Cupped hands too strong?

[Kharn The Betrayer]

Do you think cup hands is fair or do you agree it needed to be eliminated? Or just think it should have costed more?

 

[Rettile]

too powerful? No. We used it to protect the Slann from miscasts and to damage the enemy wizards. Protecting the slann was a must, because it was already expensive in 7th and because we needed that frog... exactly like now...
the offensive aspect was not overpowered: look at the OK hellheart! It's very similar. I think it should have costed more but stay. The nasty combo was cupped hands + banehead + additional dice to every spell + loremaster. You KNOW you'll have that overpowered spell because you HAVE IT for sure, you KNOW you're going to cast it succesfully thank to the additional D6 and PROBABLY you'll cast it IF. Then you will pass the miscast and double eventual wounds. THIS was too strong. They fired the banehead, loremaster (almost) and the additional D6, so cupped hands could stay (even if i'd prefer the burning blade of chotec... or the stegadon spear... or even the plaque of tepok...). And since we're on topic, I think Vetock could give us at least a +D3 to each spell discipline which cannot contribute to cast with IF. Come on, a slann has no casting bonuses. Really?

 

[Sleboda]

Cupped Hands was insanely good. Even as a player who has embraced Lizardmen after it went away, I'm very glad it's gone.

I would not enjoy a game vs. a Tomb Kings player where I tossed 6 dice at Purple Sun, killed his monsters and half his Tomb Guard unit, gained all 6 dice back, and then, just for kicks, crippled his magic (and thus his army) by passing the miscast into his Heirophant.

 

[Rhodium]

Cupped hands was far too powerful

The ability to throw 6(7) dice at a key spell that turns a battle for you, then not just potentially ignore that negative effects of an IF but pass those negative effects onto the opposition was hugely powerful.

Considering some armies are forced to take generals who are wizards, the ability to throw a huge spell out and then maybe get their general to fall down a hole was insanely game changing and frankly had to change.

Although I sure would love to have cupped hands back to deal with daemon princes!

 

[Arli]

It was too powerful. I wish they would have kept it after toning it down though.

Ogres have the HellHeart. That is not the same, but it is a very strong arcane item that causes the other casters to explode.

 

[n810]

Keep in mind the Slann from the previous book (6th edition) had complete immunity from miscast.

 

[rychek]

too powerful? No. We used it to protect the Slann from miscasts and to damage the enemy wizards. Protecting the slann was a must, because it was already expensive in 7th and because we needed that frog... exactly like now...
the offensive aspect was not overpowered: look at the OK hellheart! It's very similar. I think it should have costed more but stay. The nasty combo was cupped hands + banehead + additional dice to every spell + loremaster. You KNOW you'll have that overpowered spell because you HAVE IT for sure, you KNOW you're going to cast it succesfully thank to the additional D6 and PROBABLY you'll cast it IF. Then you will pass the miscast and double eventual wounds. THIS was too strong. They fired the banehead, loremaster (almost) and the additional D6, so cupped hands could stay (even if i'd prefer the burning blade of chotec... or the stegadon spear... or even the plaque of tepok...). And since we're on topic, I think Vetock could give us at least a +D3 to each spell discipline which cannot contribute to cast with IF. Come on, a slann has no casting bonuses. Really?

I agree that it was the combination of things that made Cupped Hands too powerful. However, they could have made it a single use item, like the Hell Heart, and kept it.

 

[JuQ]

It was a single use and too powerful. It should have been bouncing the miscast on a 6 only and 2-5 just ignore it. It was also over the top that you coulddo it after knowing what kind of misscast was.
Now we need something to mitigate the miscasts, because it is way more painful for a Slann than for any other wizard on the game. Most of the time you will be killing 140 points worth of Temple Guard.
IMO the Slanns should have his own miscast table more forgiving than the regular one.

 

[RipperDerek]

There is an easy solution to that problem: don't put the Slann in a unit of temple guard.

Temple guard are better without the Slann anyways, and the Slann is better without the temple guard.

 

[Kharn The Betrayer]

There is an easy solution to that problem: don't put the Slann in a unit of temple guard.

Temple guard are better without the Slann anyways, and the Slann is better without the temple guard.

I'd have to disagree, I've been playing 3 years and my slann has NEVER died when I buy him a tg bunker, only died from miscast or lore of death my whole time as lizardman player

 

[RipperDerek]

What worked well in previous editions doesn't necessarily hold true in this one.

Between the changes to the Slann's magic defenses, the advent of hordes, the general increase in the killy-ness of all models, and the fact that the Slann is no longer immune to challenges, putting him in a TG unit has become a very bad idea. A horde of temple guard with the razor standard is one of our most competitive units, but putting a Slann in it takes away 4 attacks while increasing the point cost of the unit by 50%. Then when he miscasts you blow up half of the unit. Very bad idea.

Even if you take smaller units (not recommended), you still get devastated by miscasts, you can't compete with other elite infantry blocks because you're both small and you're losing out on attacks, the unit is even more disproportionately expensive than it should be, and you still have the problem of the slann getting challenged. Save yourself the headache and don't do it.

 

[Pofadder]

Firstly it was made for 7th edition books. So yes that was our nasty, powerful item. Was it too powerful? Imo, no, it was not...comparing to items like Hellheart and Banner of the world Dragon I'd say it was on par. Yet we lost Cupped Hands.

Was it game changing? hell yes! but so can immediately having to roll on the miscast table with all my wizards (hellheart)

Many armies have very powerful items in 8th ed or gifts etc. Soul leech on a nurgle DP, casket of souls, and the list goes on and on.

Did our opponents like our miscast handed to them...no...but tough, because Slann had that awesome niche of shutting enemy wizards down and helped us attain magic superiority. We lost most of that and now have to rely on extra channeled dice etc. Now other armies like Dark Elves actually have more in the magic suppression than we do.

 

[Lizardmen_Jeff]

If they had changed it for 8th by saying you only ignore the miscast and not pass it off, I'd still pay the same amount of points and opponents would likely not have as much of a problem. W magic being such a crux for lizards, I think better miscast protection should have been included in the book. But eh, gotta work w what we've got

 

[Khornefed]

it is way more painful for a Slann than for any other wizard on the game.

I'm not sure non-lizzie players would agree. It is painful for anybody to lose their tooled up level 4. If you have invested that much in the magic-phase, losing it is a serious hole in your battle strategy. The difference in cost between a slaan and say a WoC Sorcerer Lord is not enough of a difference for the WoC player to say "Wow, glad that was only my Lvl4SL and not a Slaan that got sucked into the warp!"

 

[Lizardmen_Jeff]

It's not so much the cascade that I'm worried about, it's the 12 temple guard that he is regularly in base contact with. Off the top of my head I can't think of another caster that is in b2b w so many models, usually they will put them in the corner of a unit so they only touch 3 other models. so the miscast table is very detrimental for a slann in tg, I'd say more so than other casters. For that reason I usually keep him in a skink unit the first turn or two, then hop him into the tg. Just wish they had a little more miscast protection, maybe an exspensive6 arcane item that let's them resolve it ala kroak or the old cupped hands minus the bounce, but gotta work w what we've got!

 

[olderplayer]

If cupped hands were just ignore the first miscast on a 2+, it would not have been bad and would have made sense given the essential role of a slann as general and BSB and primary caster in the old book. I have seen a lot of games decided in turn one or two with the slann blowing himself up without cupped hand and it is not a fun game, even for the opponent, when it happens. Without the ability to put the miscast on an opposing wizard within line of sight, It would then have definitely been,worth playing but not at all overcosted; but the ability to pass the miscast on to the opposing wizard was too much. As someone who has played a lot more against Lizardmen, I can tell you it was infuriating. It was especially infuriating when my opponent 6 diced dwellers or final trensmutation in the first turn using the +1 diie in the casting attempt and took out half or one-third my best unit (dark elves) that i needed to fight the TG and then to add insult put the miscast on my lvl 4 (line of sight) on turn one. Even if they just put a short range on passing off the miscast, like 12", it would not have been so bad. At least, I could keep my mage out of range.

Frankly, it was the combination on the slann plus the reduced miscast risk given by cupped hands that made opposing players so angry. The combo of becalming and foucsed rumination with cupped hands just made you feel powerless in the magic phase because you either ended uo staying out of range of the slann and limiting the options for targetting and choosing spells or got in range, accepted becalming, and used it to avoid miscasting but having to throw more dice at spells (fine if one is a dark elf and has a sac dagger and power of darkness to power dice or burn dispell dice) in order to overcome the loss of the 6's and loss of focus risk and, thus, having fewer casting attempts and having the slann dispell all spells attempted in the magic phase (even with a second lvl 2 to work with). .Especially with a life slann, the extra power dice plus throne of vines plus cupped hands meant I had to let a lot of spells get through and suffer the consequences just to hope to stop the big threat spells only to face the risk of an IF with the miscast hitting my mage. There were players that would six dice throne of vines just to get it off and could do it with a good winds of magic roll because of the extra power dice created by focused rumination. It would then focce me in my magiic phase to either choose to dispel throne and leave me with too few dice to push my own spells through or to burn my dispell dice in the next magic phase and leave myself open to magic offense with all the extra power dice generated by focused rumination.

 

[Sleboda]

I can appreciate that some people think the Lizardmen army is dependent on magic and, in particular, the Slann, but I feel the need to chime in on that topic.

No, it's not. It was not before and is not now. It's less so now than before even.

For all armies in the game except Tomb Kings, magic is a 'nice to have' option, not something you need. If you were building your entire army around the idea of a Slann (or two) in order to dominate the magic phase, fine, but that's your choice, not a requirement.

If you want to go all-in on magic, you should be prepared to handle the incredible frustration that can result. The winds do blow weakly some phases. Sometimes you do fail to cast. Sometimes you don't even get the spells you wanted. Sometimes it goes horribly wrong and the caster loses his mind or dies. The current book has ways to get around pretty much all of that to an extent, more so than most armies can. The only risk the current book doesn't really get rid of is miscasts, and at least there is still the Earthing Rod if you want it.

My problem with the Cupped Hands, and indeed the Hellheart still, is that the Tomb Kings army does exist. I know, I know, I bring up that army a lot. Sorry. It's just that I have a long developed intimate familiarity with that army that I'm willing to bet that most Lizardman players don't have. If you think your army "depends" on magic, try playing TK for a few years, for a few hundred games. That's real dependence. Even VC cannot claim to be as dependent as their army can march and fight well without magic, plus they have the option for a backup to avoid crumbling. TK have no such luxury. I say without the slightest hint of exaggeration that even a single bad magic phase is often enough to decide the game for TK players. That being the case, can you imagine how devastating it is to have your main caster die in turn one? It's almost always game over when that happens.

Lizardmen armies can be built with little to no reliance on magic. That's how I play them in fact as I am sick to death of having my games almost totally determined by the fickle nature of magic as a TK player. I find Lizardmen a hugely refreshing change.

TL; DR - Magic is and was a luxury for Lizardmen. The Cupped Hands was the cherry on the icing on the chocolate sauce on top of the sundae, not the ice cream itself.

 

[Khornefed]

Lizardmen armies can be built with little to no reliance on magic. That's how I play them in fact as I am sick to death of having my games almost totally determined by the fickle nature of magic as a TK player. I find Lizardmen a hugely refreshing change.

Well said. Your whole post. As a WoC player, I favor Khorne, and often take no sorcerers at all. Leaves me anywhere from 300-500 pts to spend on a couple more dependable units. And I have noticed that those possibilities exist in Lm armies as well, though time and experimentation (I'm new at this army) will tell. Personally, I hate the magic phase. I think it adds too much more chance to a game that is already rife with fickle dice rolling. Always thought they should make it a support mechanism rather than the 1-turn game winner it can be.

 

[Kharn The Betrayer]

He's not a liability to the TG when he is an ethereal beasts slann with fencers blades >

 

[Andy06r]

Not to trumpet my own post (even though I am), but the Book of Ashur Deliberation slann guide I wrote is very powerful for a temple guard slann.

TL;DR, Book of Ashur lets you 2-dice all of your spells and reduce your chances of a miscast to boxcars. You beat your opponent with quantity, not quality, of spells. Bring a forbidden rod caddy for that key turn.