Nurfed Fireball

[Stomm]

Out of interest, what was the rationale behind making the fireball spell a 5+ cast 3 attack normal save waste of space in the Empire and other spell lists? It is now an overtly inferior magic missile spell compared to that which the likes of Chaos posses, as by the fireball being blocked by anything that would block LoS, it can only ever affect one unit, never mind of course becoming much, much less useful.

Perhaps someone forgot that a unit can only ever be affected by one fireball spell a turn, it really wasn't ever 'uber-destructive' at all, but it certainly could help to enhance the shooting of other units, in a similar vein to the High Elf 'shoot again' spell, and of course the likes of Gerrof are far more effective at disrupting enemy formations, etc...

[Lex]

Nurfed ??  I dont recall chaning anything 

[spiritusXmachina]

Really? My experience is totally different.

I think it's one of the most beardy (abusable) spells in WM at the moment. I remember a big charge of two cold ones and two dark riders against a brigade of bretonnian knights. Then came a "doombolt" from the side at my knights giving three extra bolt attacks at all my knights (that was really a nice one ).

One might say Doombolt/Ball of Flame etc is a shooting attack - but it's very difficult to argue this at the moment as this is not cleared out in the text. First it says something like "may be targeted at any unit...", "when hitting units in combat hits count as being struck in the first round of combat" as a counter-argument you only have " counts as shooting attacks...". "As"...

But even if you would clearly disallow to target units in combat you could try to target another unit and just "by chance..." hit others in combat (Although I do not judge such cheesy ideas as good).

Another very good (and perfectly allowed) use is when charging a big block of infantry you could target the supporting line with a Ball of Flame and perfectly disarrange it.

I really do think that "Ball of Flame" is a good spell. You just can't use it to "bomb" units in defended areas - that's true. But what for have you got cannons? Or did you leave them behind in favour of a few extra cavalry troops, Stomm?  

Greetings,
Gerald

[Stomm]

So you are saying that the sole reason for inserting LoS blocking terrain as blocking the fireball, whereas orginally it specifically stated that LoS did not block LoS was to prevernt it being used to knock units out of forests and the like?

I take it that the fact that the fireball doing this along is miniscule at best didn't occur to you? I mean first of all you need to be able to cast the damn thing, and if you're doubling up on spell-casters then you've sill only got a roughly 50% chance of doing this. Then to hit anything you still need 5+, and then of course you need to do at least two wounds to even start rolling any drive back dice. So if you do manage to cast it at say a nice line of three units in a forest, you are likely to score maybe one hit against each unit, and therefore have no effect whatsover...


As to firing into HtH combat, it was designed to do so, otherwise it wouldn't be specifically allowed in the rules. And I can think of much, much more effective spells that the fireball spell. That beastlord thingy that the DE's have got for one, never mind summoning undead, and of course the 'lets have a another shot' spell for the HE's, never mind the fact that HE spells are almost universally all cast on 50-75% odds, as opposed to most armies that have two 33% odds spells, maybe one 50% spell of marginal effect (although when used en-mass can be very effective. Imagine a whole brigade of Chaos Knights hit with weird enchantment. But then the Empire only has one wizard for every 1k, the real magic-heavy hitters are those with magical generals or like O&G's two spell casting characters per 1k) and possibly one really nasty (like that chaos combat spell) 16.6% odds spell...


Basically this rules change looks very much like someone was fed up with being fireballed when hiding in a forest, and no-one pointed out how stupid an idea it was to change the nature of a spell that had been working perfectly well up until that point. I can honestly think of no other reason why this change was even suggested, never mind put into place, but then I guess that this is what I get for taking my eye off the ball whilst concentrating on WMA and RL concerns taking centre stage...


Gosh, I'm sounding like a right grumpy old git aren't I? Anyway, just basically voicing my absolute disagreement with this. Changes to the ST I can take or leave, as ultimately I can always just leave it in my figure case as I have done since the game came out. It's still not a useable  unit as it stands, neither in the original rules or the updated rules. This however I think may be as much a function of the over cost-effectiveness of heavy cavalry than anything else, the same is true of most infantry. And these two issues will I know never be really resolved unless we can get a 2nd ed. And we all know the chances of that happening are, well I'm more likely to win the lottery, and I haven't bought a ticket in at least ten years...

[spiritusXmachina]

So you are saying that the sole reason for inserting LoS blocking terrain as blocking the fireball, whereas orginally it specifically stated that LoS did not block LoS was to prevernt it being used to knock units out of forests and the like?

I take it that the fact that the fireball doing this along is miniscule at best didn't occur to you? I mean first of all you need to be able to cast the damn thing, and if you're doubling up on spell-casters then you've sill only got a roughly 50% chance of doing this. Then to hit anything you still need 5+, and then of course you need to do at least two wounds to even start rolling any drive back dice. So if you do manage to cast it at say a nice line of three units in a forest, you are likely to score maybe one hit against each unit, and therefore have no effect whatsover...

So if this spell was never ever of much use in terrain why you complain?
No shooting magic is easier than 5+.
No other spell may be used more than once on a unit...
There are'nt a lot of other shooting magic spells that are able to wound more than one unit.
What are you expecting?

I was not involved when this change was resolved (it's obviously an older one). But I remember discussions that no shooting could overcome 2cm of dense terrain so Ball of Flame would contradict this rule. And having this in mind I think it was a wise decision to cover that in the new text.
As far as I remember Ball of Flame never specifically allowed shooting a whole line through a wood it just was interpreted like this by some players while others interpreted it otherwise. So it was more of a Q&A that cleared that.

And to be honest I think that Ball of Flame is and was one of the better spells.
There are a lot of worse spells (even empire has this strange teleport spell no one knows what to do with it).

[Stomm]

First of all, just looking at the HE spell list you can see that there are plenty of shooting attacks that are cast on much, much less that a 5+ on one dice.

Firstly the obvious Hail of Destruction, which is a 5+, but with the reroll effectively becomes a 3+ to cast. I'm sure someone has figured out the odds that have been modified by not allowing a 1 to re-roll, but a straight 5+ with a reroll if my memory of statistics has survived intact after not using it since I last moaned about the HE spell list effectively gives you a 56% chance of success.


Then of course you've got Heaven's fire, which is in effect a 75% successful cast rate version of Hail of Destruction, but with the added bonus that its effective range can be as high as 60cm. The only downside of course is that it has to follow normal targetting rules once succesfully cast, but since the unit's target will likely be one that you'd want to shoot at again as the unit will have already shot at it, and of course as you can choose which unit to cast it on, this isn't really as much of a problem as you might think.


And then of course you have Storm of Stone and Light of Battle, both infinitely more destructive than any Fireball in combat, and of course that much easier to cast with the HE reroll.



And that of course is just looking at the HE spell list, I haven't even bothered looking elsewhere for spells that 'out-do' the fireball spell in both ease of casting and effect...


As to a general 2cm limit to missile fire into dense terrain. Well I can't see that anywhere, and what then of cannon bounce and bolt thrower kebabs?


Basically there is no rationale that actually stands up for imposing such a restriction, especially when there are far more destructive or disruptive spells in the arsenals of other wizards that are also that much easier to cast.


Edit: I should point out that I cannot find any reference anywhere that terrain blocks shooting effects, only that it blocks LoS for shooting itself. And of course most spells don't even require LoS in the first instance...

[lilith]

in my opinion with the empire you have other spell very usefull , for hurt people in shooting phase you have plenty of stuff , if i play empire i think i never try to use fireball unless a train of enemy is happily coming  in range   

[Stomm]

Yes, but the spell does not exist purely in the Empire spell list.

[Guthwine]

A 5+ twice is not the equivalent of a 3+ for the roll itself. Two 1/3rd chances dont become a 2/3rd chance with a second try as far as I know.
 
But ok, thats it for highelfs with that unique ability. Everyone else is on the same level of the empire (except for the slann).

As a bretonian player I would love to have the empire magic, the weird enchantment alone on a 4+ is very useful both offensive and defensive.

But I agree that shooting (5cm bounce, or the imaginery line,..) should not be limited by dense terrain and as I recall we never played it that way.

[jchaos79]

A 5+ twice is not the equivalent of a 3+ for the roll itself. Two 1/3rd chances dont become a 2/3rd chance with a second try as far as I know.

Guthwine is right.

So, going into the spells... I think as Guthwine, that HE spells are not really a good comparison with any army. As we know HE and Slann have the "special background of magic". So... As a game of simulation (not historic, but simulation anyway) I could accept that the different armylist have different levels of spell powers to simulate how is that "army/race/whatever" related with the magic. So IMO I do not make a point seen if some spell is just "harder" than other spell similar of different list. They are representing different features of uniques army. I loved when first read the warmaster spell, the fireballs where slightly different!

that was my general opinion. I could understand that in tournaments (I have never been in them) all has to be balance to the extreme and so on. But I prefered the simulation than the 100% effective armylists.

About the teleport spell I see it very funny. Just teleport the mage and throw that fireball where more damge is needed, as a unexpected action. Then the mage is isolated inside the enemy lines, but ... isn't it dramatical effect?!