Let's Get This Show... Further On The Road, I Guess?

This was going to be the first post for this blog. After too long staring into the terrifying maw of Tumblr willing myself to write something about my thoughts on game design as the gods intended, I decided to retreat to the gloaming wood and carve my thoughts into mysterious arcane tablets instead[1]. From the fact that it's the sixth to go up, with another 14 things in drafts, you can probably guess that getting it finished has been a struggle. It should be about an hour's reading, counting the footnotes (less if you skim the miscast table and specifics of the spells). That said, if you aren't interested in the design process and just want to get your hands on the ideas you can skip to the section titled 'the current solution, written out for use in play,' and that'll save you a good twenty minutes.

This is a post about Warhammer: the Old World (ToW). If you aren't aware, very briefly, it's essentially[2] a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WHFB), the classic rank-and-flank miniatures wargame that was killed off by its makers, Games Workshop (GW) in 2015, to be replaced by miniatures skirmish[3] game Age of Sigmar. It was apparently largely killed because it wasn't selling well compared to its sibling game Warhammer 40,000, for any number of reason which I won't bore you with here. Throughout this process, I (then a literal child, in my defence) ceaselessly moaned about how this had ruined a great property, I'd never forgive GW for their crimes, etc., to the point that even those of my friends who still liked it started telling me to shut the fuck up.

Thankfully, any homicidal rampage through Warhammer World on my part was averted. Some combination of the loyalty of WHFB's core fanbase (many of whom created replacement games, such as the unofficial Warhammer Ninth Edition and The Ninth Age, migrated to other rank-and-flank systems like Kings of War, or kept playing, even organizing mega-campaigns like the - alas, now-mostly-defunct - Age of Blood) and a surge of new interest when the tie-in videogame Total War: Warhammer was released a year or so after the game was retired prompted GW to announce a new release of the game in 2019.[4] This finally appeared at the start of 2024, and as the teasers released in the months leading up to it my WHFB-loving friends and I watched them with growing excitement. Each one seemed to keep the best parts of the game we'd loved, jettison the worst, and add elements that would provide new and exciting tactical depth.

Then we saw the magic.

"It sucks ... it's terrible, it's really really bad ... [the game] could have been a straight upgrade and instead it's a fairly close sidegrade"

Friend of mine on magic, after our first game of ToW.

And I pretty much immediately knew that, if we were going to enjoy this game like we had WHFB in the old days, I was going to have to Do Something About It.

Prelude: A Call to Arms

I want to be clear about something at the outset: there's no such thing as an objectively, universally bad rule. I'm firmly in the camp of game design thought that states that games exist to create a desired response in the player, and if they achieve that response (usually, everybody having fun, though not necessarily) then they're successful. Thing is, what responses are desired can vary between the makers and players of the game, and even where they're in agreement on the objective, the "grand strategy" of the game if you will, they might well disagree with the "strategy" of actual game design approaches or the "operations" of nitty-gritty play patterns used to get there.5 When they do, I'm firmly of the opinion that it's a player's prerogative to hack the game to pieces and stitch it together again to make it do what they and their play-group want it do do.

Not to pull my worst impression of a grognard, but Games Workshop used to be a lot better at encouraging this. As recent as the release of 7th and 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles (the edition I started with and the one I play most, respectively), the core rulebooks included extensive encouragement and guidance on how to make your own custom models, rules and scenarios.7

This is now, in an innovation derived from 8th and 9th edition Warhammer 40k, replaced by a short section on Narrative Battles which amounts to "there's a special type of game where you can make up your own rules, but it's cordoned off from normal play and we're going to offer d6 tables of suggestions rather than guidelines on how to do it." (I exaggerate slightly, but a comparison of these approaches is a matter for another post). GW now asks fan creators like Matthias Eliasson to remove their own free homebrew content, a move which is legally 'justifiable' under IP law but notably didn't happen in 2010-2015 when Matthias was also creating homebrew works for an active line.8

So, without spiraling into complaining about a company committing a fairly standard capitalism, I think it's incumbent on those of us who love these games to keep that flame of homebrewing alive - fix issues we as individuals have with the rules to better suit what we want from the game and encourage others to do the same. You might not agree with me that the magic system for the Old World makes your play experience more boring than having no magic system at all! Plenty of people don't. But hopefully the process I'm going to go through will provide some inspiration for fixing anything that does bother you about the system. And if you do find the way magic works right now unsatisfying - well, come along for the ride!

Setting a Higher Standard

Let's start by talking about what I'd (or, really, the average of myself and my current play-group would) like to see from our ideal Warhammer magic system, and what we wouldn't. Using the analogy above, on a "grand strategic" level of what we'd want the game to invoke I'm probably quite standard for a lot of Warhammer players - I want, to varying degrees depending on the day, a mix of tactical gameplay challenge and the sense of creating a narrative through the game taking place on the tabletop, after which both I and my opponent(s) walk away feeling we had fun.9 On the "strategic" level of game design objectives, I'm possibly more unusual in that I do not think the game needs to be balanced to do that. An army which is over/underpowered but A) has valid tactics it can pursue, B) plays in a way that evokes what it's meant to be in the setting, and C) makes for an enjoyable experience for opponent and player alike is far preferable to one that has a neat 50% competitive win-rate and creates the emotional experience of playing checkers in my books. (A reasonable number of people in the community seem to agree with me on that, but the comments on those posts suggest it's a divisive topic.)

So, how can we measure a successful application of those ideas to magic?

Narrative: It needs to feel like the magic of Warhammer fiction

Magic in Warhammer, to quote the Wiki, is formed of eight arcane winds, "invisible currents of magical energy - the very substance of Chaos - which flow across the mortal world from the Realm of Chaos[, an] ancient, inter-dimensional force ... of harnessable, emotionally-inflected-and-created energy that can be used by a skilled practitioner such as a wizard, sorcerer or priest to manipulate and alter the very fabric of the natural world ... The influence of the Winds of Magic upon the mortal world is often bizarre, unforeseen, and random, just as the world affects them in bizarre, unforeseen, and random ways ... Magic bends and unbinds the physical laws of creation and can remake reality such that things and processes that otherwise could not exist come into being."[10] (Emphasis mine)

Magic is more powerful when chaos is stronger, less so when it's weaker, but that's a process of change over a long period of time. It also rises and falls regularly, "swirl[s] in unfathomable patterns and eddies," changing in intensity as often as every few seconds in "magically turbulent areas"[11] and then occasionally rising into immense Storms of Magic which seem to strike even in those times and places where Chaos is otherwise weak (such as in Araby, at the equator of the world).

In gameplay terms, then, I'd want magic to feel chaotic and unpredictable, with, given the nature of Chaos in Warhammer, a constant slight edge of malevolence. It should endanger any wizard who dares tamper with it, especially those who are less trained. It also shouldn't have entirely predictable effects even where it is safely used. I'd want it to be stricture-breaking, in the sense that it should be able to change the game's normal 'physics engine' and make things happen that are otherwise impossible. In an ideal world, it would also be great if it was influenced by the world around it - there are mentions in lore, for example, of dark magic pooling around sites of great slaughter, or life magic being particularly strong in forests - if that were achievable without adding too much needless granularity.

Narrative/player fun: It needs to create the kind of gameplay that makes a good story

An interlinked and therefore shorter point: magic should produce outcomes which feel amazing. Even if you're playing in a game with relatively low levels of magic, if both sides have a wizard on the table the norm should be that something unpredictably good or bad is going to happen because of that wizard. At the same time, it shouldn't completely invalidate the use of non-wizards or lead to tipping the game board over every time because the LOLSORANDUMB table of random magical effects declared that all your models turn into frogs on Turn 1. (I generally think that the craziness can get up into that kind of range, but it should do so in ways that either allow dramatically change the state of play whilst allowing the game to go on or have an impact that is probably survivable early on but game-ending once the army is depleted, like knocking a hole in a major unit.

Tactical/player fun: It needs to be interesting to play with

In the pre-game, it should be possible to build an army around the potential opened up by magic, but doing so should also be a risk-reward choice. Wizards have strengths and weaknesses compared to the common warrior-hero - as noted above, broadly powerful but more unpredictable, potentially even dangerous to your own side. During the game itself, casting a good spell should feel like getting a good charge: it should require setup, potentially supporting play from other units, and calculation of risk and reward in both of those and in the outcome. It should add depth not just in the sense that it should draw you into the setting, but that it should draw you into the gameplay. It should never feel like a chore, either because its effects are too marginal to matter or because the mechanisms by which you bring those effects into play are uninteractive.

Diagnosing the Complaint

This section explains in brief(ish) my issues with ToW's magic. If you like the system, I doubt I'm going to convince you and I don't feel the need to! Different strokes for different folks, etc. If you don't like the system, which is presumably most people still reading this, I also don't need to convince you. If you're primarily interested in my alternatives, therefore, just skip this and go and read those. That said, I thought I should lay out my thoughts on virtual paper in the name of ensuring I've not made any horrendous mischaracterizations or errors.

Recap for those not following closely: the Old World magic system allows you, in each phase of the game, to roll a 2d6+Wizard Level with one of your wizards to cast spells appropriate to that phase - so 'Conveyance'/movement spells in the movement phase, etc. Your opponent, if they have a wizard within dispel range (which varies by level, 18-24") or they choose to use their one free dispel per turn, rolls 2d6+Wizard Level, meets-it-beats-it, to stop you. There's no theoretical limit on how many spells you can cast. Double 1s to cast or dispel trigger a roll on a miscast table and the spell fails; double 6s mean it's a 'perfect invocation' that can't be dispelled or an 'unbinding' that automatically dispels the spell.

Issues:

There's almost no reason not to attempt to cast or dispel if you can. Miscasts are rare - about 3% of casts/dispels will generate one - and the table of results is pretty toothless compared to earlier editions. Failing to cast doesn't stop you attempting to cast other spells. Thus, the risk-reward of casting is much more limited.
There's no dial to adjust how much risk you take - you're either casting on 2d6 or not at all. Thus, the only element of tactics in spellcasting is positioning your wizards, which was always a thing. You can't risk miscast to throw more power at a spell, which means ludonarratively it doesn't feel like wizards are playing with a living, corruptive force that tempts them to take what they want with it.[12] (Arguably it feels a lot more like 40k's psychic powers, which have always been less interesting but to be fair to them exist in a setting where the power of an individual human is less centred since battles are fought between armies of millions and skyscraper-sized mechs.) By contrast, in recent editions you could choose how many dice to throw at a spell, generating a risk of miscast in the 0-20% range in 7th ed or 0-26% in 8th.
Also because of the aforementioned toothless miscast table, investing heavily in a wizard in your list is much less of a threat. Currently the worst thing that can happen on a miscast roll is that every model under a 5" template suffers a Strength 10, AP -4 hit. Not great! The best that can happen is that you get an automatic cast but can't cast anything else for the rest of the turn - more of a mixed blessing. In 8th, by contrast, the worst result was essentially the same thing but the AP was effectively higher because it scaled by strength, and there was a 50/50 chance of either the wizard getting sucked into the Realm of Chaos and removed or you losing some of your Power Dice, reducing your ability to cast more this turn. The best result was probably the wizard and every other wizard on the same side taking a Strength 6 hit and some Power Dice being lost. This is already a long point, but suffice to say the 6th and 7th tables are similarly nasty relative to the slightly smaller scale of those games.
There's no choice in spell generation any more. Used to be you rolled (wizard level) d6 on spell tables, and you could freely choose spells for duplicates. Now you just re-roll duplicates, and the only choice you get is whether to swap one for a faction-specific/generic lore power.
Spells are powerful, but not directly so. I know a lot of people disliked the raw power of certain big blast-y spells in 8th edition, which could hard-counter some unit choices entirely, and I get that, but the result currently seems to be that most of the buffing/debuffing/movement/terrain spells are as good or better than earlier editions (what I wouldn't give to be able to have an Illusionist place a 5" impassable Column of Crystal on the field in some of my old 8th games :( ) whilst the blasting spells feel rather limp for their casting value (they aren't quite the same thing, but compare 8th's 'Big Fiery Fire Orb' spell Flame Storm to ToW's Pillar of Fire to see what I mean.)
I can't quantify this, but spells just don't feel fun and weird in quite the same way. This is the 'being repeatedly and clinically kicked in the teeth by the Auditors of Reality' of the title. This one might be me being a grumpy premature grognard, but I'm going to turn it into something positive so who's complaining?
It doesn't cover multiple settings well. You can argue that a lower level of power is more appropriate to the setting of ToW, when the next major chaos incursion is still just a glimmer in the portents of crazed diviners and so magic is flowing less freely, but realistically a lot of people are going to want to use ToW to play games set in the era the designers are now referring to as 'the End Times.'[13] Its lack of magical danger and of magical direct power makes it a poor choice for that, which is a real shame because again, in every other way I'd rather play it than any other edition! Alas, in the current state of things I'm too tied to the later setting to feel able to. (Hence this project.)

Potential Solutions

Past Approaches

I'm not going to go into a full genealogy of magic in Warhammer here. For one thing, I've only played 6th-8th, the Armies Project 9th edition, ToW, and various related specialist games (Mordheim, Dreadfleet, Warmaster) and RPGs (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st and 4th editions.)[14] For another, I don't think any of them meet all of the criteria above particularly well, and I don't just want to be super negative.

8th edition is my favourite, but honestly that's just because I'm used to it. It's definitely tactically interesting and replicates the fickle Winds of Magic, but they're just 2d6 each turn that determine a pool of Power Dice for you and a smaller pool of Dispel Dice for your opponent. I'm not a huge fan of the idea that the strength of chaos in the world makes it *easier* to stop spells - 6th/7th's idea of more powerful wizards just getting a flat larger Power/Dispel pool appeals more, though isn't perfect. The lore isn't entirely consistent on what dispelling looks like, but one of the best-described examples, in End Times: Nagash sayeth thusly:

'Mannfred ... the vampire reached out into the swirling currents of magic and breathed new life into his servants. Or rather, he sought to. Twice he stood on the cusp of completing an incantation, yet the winds of magic gusted unexpectedly and the power slipped from his grasp ... again the currents shifted to thwart him. The vampire knew at once that this was not merely the ficklesome nature of the eight winds, but the trickery of elven magi who thought to match his wits.

...

In all his long life Belannaer [the tricksy elf in question] had never known magic to flow so freely as it did that day. There was too much power. Since before the first blow had been struck, he had striven to calm the winds of magic, but still there was a surfeit for his enemy to draw upon. Only through complete focus could the mage counter the vampire's spells; the slightest distraction and he would be undone. Distraction now came in the form of a yowling spectral host that flowed like water over the embattled elves ... a tidal wave of flame burst from the mage's upraised hands and surged outwards ... the dead burned in its embrace ... but Belannaer's face was bleak. He could feel necromantic magics shifting and stirring across the battlefield, and he knew he could not regain his focus swiftly enough to resist them. He had been outmanoeuvred, and now the elves would pay the price.'

Later, Mannfred directly attacks Belannaer with his spellcraft, and

'The elf mage was ready ... his incomparable intellect pushed to the limit as he sought the proper combination of cantrip and counterspell. After one heartbeat, the mage had discarded a hundred possibilities; after another he had discounted as many again. At last, Belannaer found the solution and strove desperately to weave a shield that would deflect Mannfred's assault. He made it, but only just, and even then his shield did not disperse the storm outright, but merely held it at bay.'

Wow, that Belannaer seems like a really cool guy. I sure hope nothing happens to him, his soldiers, his fellow officer, his commander, the princess he's trying to save, his best friend, his home institution, his home nation, his life's work...

Wow, that Belannaer seems like a really cool guy! I sure hope nothing happens to him, his soldiers, his fellow officer, his commander, the princess he's trying to save, his best friend, his home institution, his home nation, his life's work...

There's a lot of fun stuff here! The 'dispelling' proper is being done by manipulating the flow of magical power itself, making it gust uncontrollably or trying to reduce it, not by just throwing power around. It requires focus, focus which has to be traded away to cast! When true counter-spells do come into play, they're a defensive measure against a spell that's been cast, not a way of stopping one entirely. Can a gameable system practically incorporate all of these within the general framework of ToW's other rules? I don't know, but I want to find out!

Ahem. Tangent over. Prior approaches!

WFRP 4th ed gets the actual process of spellcasting to feel pretty good too - you test your Language (Magick), an Intelligence-based skill, to actually form the invocation and then get a certain number of degrees of success, or if you wouldn't be able to get enough to cast it in one (which is the case for most wizards for most stuff) you can Channel (a willpower-based skill) over several turns to gather enough power to do it. That's an idea - not the 'taking longer' bit, because tabletop turns are implicitly much longer than RPG ones anyway, but the idea of channeling power as separate from casting the spell itself and requiring different skills, mental fortitude rather than raw confidence, seems like an idea that might mesh nicely with some of the ones about dispelling above. Like in ToW, dispelling in WFRP has a range - (Willpower stat) yards, so generally in the 30-50 range for PC casters. That doesn't necessarily mean anything in tabletop terms, because warhammer is somewhat ambiguous about what scale of battle it represents - is one figure one soldier? Twenty, as in many games? A hundred, for plausible-scale armies? Probably another post... but at any rate, dispel range ties to a Leadership-equivalent stat and is fairly long on an individual scale. Otherwise, dispelling here is a pretty boring single roll.

WFRP miscasts, however, are fantastic! Not the triggering thereof - that's fine, but reliant on d100 being an easy roll to put a lot of potential outcomes into, so not really relevant here. But the effects - YES. You roll on a d100 table which could cause anything from daemonic whispers corrupting your wizard slightly to spontaneous bleeding from all orifices, and one of the higher-end results puts you onto a second, much nastier table where daemons start manifesting or your head explodes. We want a big miscast table/s for sure.

Spellcasting in Dreadfleet, Warmaster and Mordheim... it's simple, for games that are too big for sole spellcasters to matter in the former two cases and too small for powerful ones to turn up in the latter. Works for the scale, nothing interesting to add.

My Failed Attempts

After the aforementioned first game of ToW, I sat down and bashed out this list of ideas.

This is ... basically a way of porting 8th ed's magic system into ToW whilst incorporating the channeling idea I had above? It's fine, but quite a lot of complexity for relatively little added value IMO. I like the idea of expanding the miscast table, and upcasts from 8th were a cool idea - they could be played with a bit more to add some escalation between different time periods of play, as will be seen in the list below.

Some other notions I've played with but ultimately discarded as too fiddly or not hitting all of the points I wanted:

As per normal ToW casting, but if your initial casting result is too low, you may roll up to Xd6 (where X is some value the game gives you, maybe fluctuating each turn) to channel additional points to your casting roll and if the d6s rolled for that lead to a double-1 then you miscast.
Casting is 2d6 roll-under Leadership by a given amount (so casting numbers vary from 0 for super simple spells to maybe -7 or 8) If you don't get under by enough, you can roll a number of d6 equal to your wizard level with each 4+ channeling one die, but if you fail to channel you miscast.
You can choose to channel (Ld test vs base value) dice each turn, each of which gives you a re-roll on a casting roll but if you fail the leadership test to channel you miscast and you can't re-roll your way out of a miscast.

Eventually, triangulating between the bits of these ideas and those mentioned above that I liked and extensively reading lore descriptions of casting for inspiration I hit upon...

The Current Solution, Written out for use in play

Quite a lot of this is the same as ToW, but I've rephrased elements which are so I can't be accused of posting their rules for free online. It's significantly different overall, of course, but one never can tell with GW. My commentary on my design process is presented in [Italicized square brackets.]

Wizards

In this rules variant, all models capable of casting spells are described as 'Wizards', although specific armies might instead call them seers, shamans, butchers etc. [No change]

Levels of Wizardry

Wizards are ranked by level of wizardry or simply 'level' or 'wizard level,' numbered 1-4. [No change]

Lores of Magic

Wizards know spells from Lores of Magic. Which Lores they know spells from are listed on their profile. If multiple Lores are listed, you must choose one. [No change]

Spells and Spell Generation

Before deployment, players randomly generate the spells their wizards know from their Lores of Magic, rolling for wizards in an order of their choosing.

To generate spells for a Wizard, roll 1d6 for each Level they have and choose that result from the Lore(s?) they know. If your roll duplicates a spell the Wizard or another Wizard in your army already knows, you may replace it with any spell that you wish from that Lore. You may always choose, after rolls and substitutions, to discard one spell and instead select your Lore of Magic's signature spell. Any number of Wizards in your army may do this.

[This replaces the re-rolling of duplicates with a degree of potential free choice for more powerful casters, a straight-up quality of life improvement as far as I can see which allows you to at least somewhat build around getting a particular spell without needing to take six levels worth of wizard to make it a reasonable certainty. That little (s?) is in there to open up future design space for wizards knowing spells from more than one lore, since the one-lore limit only ever really made sense for the Empire and only then after the invention of Colour Magic.]

SPELL CATEGORIES

There are seven[15] types of spell, each cast in different phases of the game and using different targeting rules.

Enchantment spells provide boons to the caster's fellows, and may thus target only friendly units if they require a target. They can however sometimes have an effect on enemy units. Multiples of the same enchantment spell may not be stacked on the same unit during a single turn. They may never take any characteristic below 1 or above 10. They are cast during the Conjuration sub-phase of your Strategy phase.
Some Enchantment spells place new units on the battlefield. Those that do so may not place them within 1" of any enemy units.

Hex spells weaken the caster's foes and may only target enemy units if they require a target. They can however sometimes have an effect on friendly units. Multiples of the same hex spell may not be stacked on the same unit during a single turn. They may never take any characteristic below 1 or above 10. They are cast during the Conjuration sub-phase of your Strategy phase.

Conveyance spells transport allies about the battlefield. They may only target friendly units, and no unit may be targeted by more than one per turn. They are cast at any point during the Remaining Moves sub-phase during the Movement phase.

Magic Missiles are offensive sorcerous strikes, which can only target enemy units within line of sight, hitting automatically. They are cast when a Wizard is selected during the Shooting phase.

Magical Formulations are sorcerous shapes conjured unto the battlefield. They are not targeted, but placed on the table, represented by a template - often but not always a round template - placed so that it is not touching the base of any model and its centre is within the spell's range. Once placed, they remain on the battlefield until they move off it or are dispelled. Some move at the start of each turn; if this move would end with one inside an enemy unit or a piece of impassable terrain, position it as close as possible on the other side unless the spell specifies otherwise. They are cast when a Wizard is selected during the Shooting phase.

Assailment spells are hasty battle-invocations, which can be cast only on units with whom the Wizard is engaged in close combat. They require no roll to hit.

Counterspells are defensive magicks, which may be cast only in the enemy's turn when a Wizard or their unit is targeted with a spell by an enemy spellcaster. They are cast immediately after the enemy spell is cast, but before its effects are resolved.

THE EIGHT WINDS

Spellcasting is enabled by the eight Winds of Magic which flow through the world, each drawn to its element. In game terms, the Winds determine the base value for how much power Wizards may attempt to Channel.

Before the Game

Players should decide whether they are playing in a time of Limited Magic (the norm in the Old World's setting), of Flowing Magic (the norm during significant Chaos incursions and in the early End Times), or of Great Magic (the norm during Storms of Magic in any era and in the late End Times.)

After terrain is set up but before play begins, roll 2d6 and consult the following table to determine the starting Winds Strength. Winds Strength should then be noted down.

2d6 roll	Limited Magic	Flowing Magic	Great Magic
2	0	0	0
3	0	1	1
4-5	1	2	3
6-7	2	3	5
8-9	3	4	7
10-11	3	5	8
12	4	6	9

Nexi of Magic

Certain spots on the battlefield draw the power of particular winds to them. Wizards within 3" of such a site automatically count as channeling two additional points when they attempt to Channel, whether they succeed or fail. Points generated in this way may be expended only on spells of the appropriate Wind. The effects of multiple Nexi may overlap. Which Winds a spell draws upon are listed in its description.

Aqshy, wind of Fire: Counts burning or volcanic terrain as Nexi.

Shyish, wind of Death: Counts ruins, graveyards and charnel pits as Nexi. Counts the entire battlefield as a Nexus from Turn 4 onwards.

Ghur, wind of Beasts: Counts terrain at least 27" from any manufactured structure as a Nexus.

Chamon, wind of Metal: Counts any piece of terrain comprised in significant part of metal as a Nexus.

Hysh, wind of Light: Counts Nehekharan monuments and desert terrain as Nexi.
Ulgu, wind of Shadow: Counts swamps and collections of 3 or more buildings within 3" of each other as Nexi.
Ghyran, wind of Life: Counts forests, rivers and farmland as Nexi.
Azyr, wind of Heavens: Counts any terrain piece over 5" tall as a Nexus, or the entire battlefield if set amidst mountains. Any flying Wizard counts as within 3" of an Azyr Nexus.

Dhar, dark magic: Counts charnel pits and any site linked to past atrocities as Nexi.

Qhaysh, unified magic: Counts elven waystones and Lizardmen monuments as Nexi.

Chaos, raw magic: Counts idols to the Chaos Gods as Nexi.

WAAAAAGH!, green magic: Counts idols to the Greenskin gods as Nexi.
All: Counts Level 4 wizards, Sorcerous Portals and terrain tied to powerful sorcerers past as Nexi.

[Obviously just a new thing. I think it's quite fun to have the terrain tied to magic, it adds some interesting distinctions to things and makes it so the lores you end up with are a bit less aggressively determined for.]

THE WINDS PHASE

After the Start of Turn phase and before the Command Phase, the Winds phase takes place, wherein Wizards try to draw upon the fickle power flowing through the world. [I realize this breaks the four-subphase pattern ToW is going for, but it's the neatest way to do it.]

Steer the Winds

At the start of the Winds phase, both players may choose one Wizard in their army to attempt to Steer the Winds, either increasing or decreasing their strength. If a player does select a Wizard, they roll 1d6 per Level of that Wizard. For each 5+, they may either increase or decrease the Winds Strength by 1. Both players' results are applied.

If neither player selects a Wizard, roll d6-3 and adjust the Winds Strength by that much (to a minimum of -2).

Winds Strength may not rise above the highest possible roll on the chart for the time in which you are playing or fall below the lowest.

Channelling

Next, any of the active player's Wizards who did not attempt to Steer the Winds may instead attempt to Channel Power, also known as Channeling. Resolve one Wizard after another in turn. Each Wizard first selects how much power they wish to Channel, to a maximum of the Winds Strength + the effects of any relevant Nexi. The Wizard then makes a Leadership test to control the flow of power, which may not be re-rolled. If they succeed, they gain that many Channeling Points, which may be expended later to add to casting rolls. Note down the Channeling Points accrued by each wizard. If they fail, they must make a Loss of Control roll.

Loss of Control

When a Wizard fails to steer the Winds of Magic, they put themselves at dire risk. Form a dice pool comprised of the number of dice you attempted to channel + the total Winds Strength (it's always more dangerous to Channel in times of high magic). Then roll the pool. If you roll a number of 1s less than the Wizard's level, they are unharmed. If you roll a number of 1s equal to or greater than the Wizard's level, they must roll on the Miscast table.

[This is the big ole tactically-interesting-decisions section as a whole. You're not at any penalty if you attempt to Steer the Winds in your opponent's turn, whereas in your own turn your Wizard can't channel. But if both players only ever Steer in the enemy turn, presumably to drive the Winds down, then ultimately they'll dwindle to nothing. On the other hand, if you leave them be they'll gradually creep upwards on average. Who does that benefit? And when it is your turn, you can trivially get the spells you want off if you're willing to take the risk of a massive channel, but that risks a potentially-catastrophic miscast. Loss of Control is a bit fiddly, but hopefully isn't happening so often that it'll massively slow play. Plus big handfuls of dice are fun.]

SPELLCASTING

Casting Spells

As noted above, Enchantment and Hex spells are cast in the Conjuration sub-phase of the Strategy Phase; Conveyance spells are cast at any point during the Remaining Moves sub-phase of the Movement phase; Magic Missile and Magical Formulation spells are cast when the Wizard is selected during the Shooting phase; and Assailment spells are cast at the same time as the Wizard's Initiative step during the Combat phase. Spells may only be cast by Wizards who are not Fleeing. Each spell may be cast a maximum of once per turn per Wizard. Wizards engaged in combat may cast only Assailment spells or spells with 'self' range.

Spells are cast by declaring the spell, the intended difficulty, and the intended target.

Spell Difficulty Levels

Spells list three Levels of difficulty. These may be referred to as the First, Second and Third Level. In most games, you will have access to only two of these - the lowest two in Limited Magic games, the highest two in Flowing Magic and Great Magic games. You must select one of these two Levels of difficulty, and this determines the Casting Number.

Choosing a Target

Unless otherwise specified, the target must lie within the Wizard's vision arc, within range, and must not be engaged in combat. Spells with a range of Self always target the Wizard, but may cause an area of effect to emanate from the caster.

Casting Roll

Once a target has been selected, you must make a Casting roll. To do this, first decide whether you wish to expend any Channeling Points on the casting. Then, roll 2d6+Wizard Level+Expended Channeling Points. If the target has any Magic Resistance, subtract that from the roll. If the result equals or exceeds the Casting Number for your chosen level of difficulty, the spell is successfully cast. Rolls of double 1s automatically fail, and trigger a Miscast; this is known as a Catastrophic Mishap. Rolls of double 6s automatically succeed, and trigger a Miscast; this is known as Irrestistable Force.

[I've mostly tried to stay about as complex as the book, but it's quite long here so I'm resorting to some naturalistic language. Will it work? We'll see. It saves several hundred words of guff which isn't going to be useful to anybody experienced enough in the game to be reading this article. Also: bringing back Irresistable Force, because I just prefer to have 'success at a cost' as a thing. If you don't, easy enough to cut the bit about double 6s being a miscast too. Note that expending more power at this stage doesn't increase the risk of a miscast spell; that element of the lore is already covered by the risks of Channeling.]
Counterspells
After the spell is successfully cast but before it is resolved, enemy wizards have the opportunity to attempt a Counterspell. This is cast as if it were your opponent's turn; however, they will not have Channeled, and as such Counterspells are usually harder to cast in practical terms. The range of a Counterspell may be measured to either the casting Wizard or to the spell's target or target point, if it has one. Counterspells may not be used against a spell cast with Irresistable Force.

[Main note on replacing Dispels is that I think it maybe helps balance high and low level wizards a bit? Essentially, the amount of swing required for a low-level Wiz to get off a tough spell no longer automatically includes the probability of a Level 4 getting rid of it immediately afterwards, and if the Level 4 is to try and oppose it in some fashion they're going to be sacrificing a slot that could be used for another spell. It also keeps one thing people consistently state as a reason for Old World magic 'still being tactical': your antimagical measures have a range.]

Remains in Play
A spell that Remains in Play continues to effect the state of the board until it has been countered or released, being maintained by the wizard who created it. A Wizard may maintain only one Remains in Play spell at once, and may choose to end it at any point during your turn. At the end of the Winds Phase, enemy Wizards may attempt to Counterspell the Remains in Play spell if either the target/effect of the spell or the wizard who cast it are within range of their Counterspell. As such, it is always a good idea to note the Level at which the spell was cast.

Resolve Spell
If the spell was cast successfully and the casting Wizard is still alive after Counterspells are rolled then the spell takes effect, at the level of difficulty it was cast at. Otherwise, the spell does not take effect.

Bound Spells
Some magic items and special rules grant 'bound spells,' which are treated as normal spells except where specified here. Models with Bound Spells are not (necessarily) Wizards. Only one Bound Spell may be cast per model with Bound Spells per phase. They do not add the Wizard's level to the casting roll; if a Power Level is listed, they add this, otherwise they use the natural roll with any added Channeling Points. Catastrophic Mishaps and Irrestistable Force are not possible with a Bound Spell.

MISCAST TABLE

Roll d66

11 Malignant Menace - Something sinister, feeling the flows of arcane energy, lurks in the aethyr about the battlefield waiting to feed. All Ward Saves of units on the battlefield are reduced by 1, and Unstable creatures or creatures with Daemonic Instability double the number of Wounds they lose due to these rules. The next time a Miscast would occur, instead of resolving the effects normally remove the triggering model from play with no saves of any kind allowed as its soul is consumed; this effect then ends.
12-14 Minor Manifestations - Sparkling lights, ghost noises, minor mutations, or other effects which may be of great narrative significance but have no other mechanical effect. You and your opponent/s decide amongst yourselves what these effects are.
15 Power Drain - The Wizard may not cast spells for the rest of the turn, and the Winds Value is reduced to 0. At the beginning of the next game turn, roll a new Winds Value as if you were beginning the game.
16 Lambent Witchlight - The area within 3" of the Wizard counts as an area of line-of-sight blocking terrain. Within this area, dice rolled for a Loss of Control roll contribute to a Miscast on a roll of 1 or 2.
21 Profuse Bleeding - Blood or other fluids dribble from the Wizard's orifices. They lose a wound at the end of each of their player's subsequent turns.
22 The Earth Shakes - The ground within 6" of the Wizard's location is treated as Difficult and Dangerous terrain until the beginning of their next Magic Phase.
23 Hinderance

24 Sly Temptation - The next time the Wizard is selected to cast a spell, they must make a Leadership test. This test may not be modified or re-rolled. If they fail, the enemy may target and resolve the spell as if the wizard were under their control. The Wizard remains part of the same army, however, and treats the same units as friendly and enemy units, as usual.
25 Aethyric Swarm - The Wizard's unit suffers 3D6 S2 hits, ignoring armour and regeneration saves.
26 Antimagical Feedback - Every wizard on the board suffers a number of Strength 4 hits equal to the current Winds Strength, ignoring armour saves. If any wounds were caused, the Winds Strength is then reduced by 1.
31 Errant Arcana - If the spell has a specific target, it targets a random appropriate target within range. All units are treated as being both friendly and enemy for purposes of this targeting. If it targets a point, you choose the target point normally and the point then scatters 8d6". This may take it outside of the normal range of the spell.

32 Nightmare Ascent - The Wizard is hurtled into the air by cackling daemons, who hold them suspended before dropping them on some lofty spire in view of all their friends. Remove the Wizard and replace them atop the highest point on the battlefield. (If this is atop a piece of impassable terrain, they are still placed there, but are now trapped and unable to move unless they can Fly, are Ethereal etc.) The Wizard suffers a S5 hit with Multiple Wounds (2). All friendly units which can draw Line of Sight to the Wizard must now make a Panic test.

33 Multiplicitous Chaos - roll two times more, using both results.

34 Hellish Stench - the caster may not join units for the rest of the game, and immediately leaves any unit of which it is a part by the shortest possible route as if it were the movement phase. If it is mounted, it scatters d6" at the end of each subsequent Remaining Moves sub-phase as its mount bucks and twists beneath it.

35 Incantation Incontinence - the caster must attempt to cast the same spell each turn for the rest of the game, on a random valid target within range if applicable. Whether a unit is a friendly or enemy unit is not considered for the purposes of this targeting.

36 Humiliating Transmogrification - The Wizard is temporarily turned into a frog as per the effects of a successful Scroll of Transmogrification.

41 The Land Crawls - all terrain features within range of the spell move 3d6" directly away from the caster. If they move through a unit on this path, the unit counts as moving through them. If this would be impossible, the unit moves out of the path by the minimum necessary distance and must make a Dangerous Terrain test.

42 Pattern from Madness - Each unit within 8" of the wizard is turned and moved the minimum amount so that its sides sit at a right angle to the nearest board edge and its models are positioned in a regular grid. This does not change the formation of i.e. skirmishers, merely forces them to rearrange into a tidy rectangle whilst maintaining space between them. All affected units automatically roll the average result on their next die roll (round fractions down).

43 Heart Attack - the wizard must make a toughness test. On a failure, they lose a wound, and the next time they cast a spell, after resolving its effects they are removed as a casualty.

44 Spatial Flicker - the wizard teleports 6d6" in a random direction. If this would take them off the board, they return after a turn as reinforcements on your turn.

45 Deceptive Mirroring - Replace the Wizard model with d3+1 duplicates if they are Infantry or Cavalry type, or with two otherwise (you might need to use tokens...). Each duplicate is treated as a separate copy of the model, except that they count only as one Wizard for the purposes of spellcasting and channeling (you may cast spells from any of the models, but you remain limited in how many as if there were only one). Whenever one of the duplicates is killed, roll a d3. If you roll over the number of duplicates, the real Wizard was killed and all duplicates vanish. At the end of each player turn when there is more than one duplicate remaining, roll a d6 for each; it vanishes on a 4+ and is removed from play. If only one then remains, that is considered to be the real wizard henceforth and the effect ends. If none remain after the rolls on a given turn, the real wizard has become lost in the Crystal Maze of Tzeentch, and must make a Leadership test with no modifiers or re-rolls of any kind allowed. If they pass, they return to play as reserves next turn, from a board edge of the player's choosing. If they fail, they are removed from play.

46 Horrors Beyond Reckoning - Shrieking nightmares swoop and plunge through the material and aethyric space around the Wizard. All units within 2D6" of the Wizard must make a Panic test.

51 Traitor's Whim - whispering voices call upon those near the Wizard to turn on their companions. The Wizard's unit, if any, or the nearest friendly unit within the maximum range of the spell cast, rolls 3D6 and compares the result to its Leadership. This is not a Leadership test. For each point by which the roll exceeds its Leadership, the unit suffers a hit resolved with its own combat profile. If different profiles are present in the unit, a random non-character profile is used for all hits. Assign hits between any models in the unit, in an order of your opponent's choosing. If a unit suffered at least one wound from this effect, it has -1 Leadership for the rest of the game.
52-3 Chaotic Explosion - Place the Small Blast template over the Wizard. All models under the template, including the Wizard, suffer a Strength 6 hit at AP -2.

54 Maw of the Void - Place the Large Blast template over the Wizard. All models under the template, including the Wizard, suffer a Strength 10 hit at AP -4 with Multiple Wounds (2). After this is resolved, roll a D6. On a 1-3, the Wizard is then dragged into the void and removed as a casualty.

55-61 Murderous Mutations - The Wizard must make a Toughness test. If they fail, roll 2D6 on the following table and gain the resultant special rule and the Fear rule. Humans, except those aligned with Chaos, also gain the Loner rule. Elves treat this result as a roll of 62-3.
2 - Regeneration (5+)
3 - Timmm-berrr! (The wizard explodes in a burst of gore)
4 - Strike First

5 - +1 to one stat, chosen by your opponent, and -1 to one stat, chosen by you. You choose first. You may not choose the same stat

6 - Strike Last and Armoured Hide (5+)

7 - Random Movement (2D6)
8 - Poisoned Attacks
9 - Flammable
10 - Fly
11 - Swiftstride
12 - Flaming Attacks and Breath Weapon (Strength = model's maximum Wounds, AP -1)

62-3 Shrieking Insanity - The Wizard must make a Leadership test. If they fail, roll a D6 on the following chart. The Wizard gains the Special Rule rolled:
1 - Hatred (Everything). Additionally, the Wizard's unit immediately suffers a number of automatic wounds equal to the amount the leadership test was failed by.
2 - Frenzy
3 - Stupidity
4 - Immune to Psychology
5 - Impetuous
6 - Loner

64 Arcane Upsurge - Place a marker on the Wizard's current location. Henceforth, that spot counts as a Nexus of whatever Lore(s?) of magic the Wizard knows and of Chaos.

65 The Veil Rent Wide - A unit of 3d6 minor Daemons is placed by the opposing player somewhere within 3" of the Wizard. Roll a d6 to determine what kind: 1- Bloodletters, 2-Nurglings, 3-Plaguebearers, 4- (roll d3) 1 Pink/2 Blue/3 Brimstone Horrors, 5- Furies, 6- Daemonettes.
If the roll includes any doubles, another unit also appears within 3" of the first, consisting of: double-1- (roll d2) 1 d6 Beasts/2 d6 Plague Drones of Nurgle, 2- (roll d2) 1 2d6 Seekers/2 d6 Fiends of Slaanesh, 3- (roll d2) 1 d6 Bloodcrushers/2 2d6 Flesh Hounds of Khorne, 4 (roll d2) 1 2d6 Flamers/2 2d6 Screamers of Tzeentch, 5/6 - Another unit of 3d6 lesser demons, generating further special results on doubles or triples.
If the roll includes any triples, an unupgraded Daemonic character or monster appears. Roll a further d6: 1- Herald of Khorne, 2- Herald of Nurgle, 3- Herald of Tzeentch, 4- Herald of Slaanesh, 5- unmarked Daemon Prince, 6- Greater Daemon of (roll d6: 1 Khorne, 2 Nurgle, 3 Tzeentch, 4 Slaanesh, 5 re-roll or invent rules for a Daemon Prince of some of the lesser gods, 6 no greater daemon yet but place a marker on the Wizard's location as per Arcane Upsurge and roll again for further emergences at the start of each turn until a Greater Daemon does appear or the game ends.)
If any of the units cannot be placed due to space, or lack of models if you play WYSIWYG, place as many as possible and then roll again twice on the table, re-rolling results of 65, with the opposing player choosing which result is used.
If you have a neutral player around, they should control the Daemons, which get their own turn after both players have acted. If not, the two players should collaborate in controlling them. In general, the Daemons will attempt to kill as many models as possible in the most efficient manner possible, with no particular preference between the two sides.

66 Daemonic Possession - The Wizard makes a Leadership test. If they fail, a daemon takes immediate control of their body, bursting forth. Roll as for a daemonic character in result 65, except that it retains their wizard level (unless a Daemon of Khorne) and all magic items. The Daemon behaves as in result 65. If they succeed, the player makes a choice on their behalf: will they accept a subtle possession for power? If they do, keep the same model on the board, under its player's control. . However, the wizard rolls on the following table, gaining the following bonuses:
1 - Unaligned possessor: Fly, +1 Ws, +1 Str, +1 T, +1 I, +1 A, +1 Ld, 6+ Ward save, Fear.
2 - Nurglite possessor: +1 Str, +2 T, +1 W, +1 Ld, 6+ Ward save, regains a wound each Command Phase on a d6 roll of 4+. Fear. Tzeentchian daemons have Hatred against it and vice-versa.
3 - Khornate possessor: +2 Ws, +2 Str, +2 I, +3 A, +1 Ld, 6+ Ward save, Magic Resistance (2), Frenzied and loses access to all spellcasting but retains the ability to Steer the Winds in order to lower them, Fear. Slaaneshi daemons have Hatred against it and vice-versa.
4 - Tzeentchian possessor: Fly, +1 Ld, 4+ Ward save and counts caster level as 1 higher for all purposes including spells known - generate an additional spell from the Lore of Tzeentch or an already-known lore. Fear. Nurglite daemons have Hatred against it and vice-versa.

5 - Slaaneshi possessor: +4 M, +1 Ws, +1 T, +3 I, +1 A, +1 Ld, 6+ Ward save, Unbreakable. Khornate daemons have Hatred against it and vice-versa.
6 - Malalite/Necohian/Zuvassite possessor: +1 Ws, +1 S, +1 T, +1 I, +1 A, +3 Ld, 6+ Ward save, Hatred (Chaos). When rolling to wound Chaos units, including with spells, uses Leadership instead of Strength and ignores all saving throws.
If this dark bargain is accepted, however, at the end of the final game turn remove the model as a casualty.

[The model isn't literally dying. They presumably begin to turn against their allies in subtle ways, undoing any good they achieved. I wanted to include an option here for the Daemon instead possessing somebody nearby, but I couldn't find a way to that wasn't needlessly complex even by MY standards.]

LORES OF MAGIC

[I've probably balanced these wrong! I'll just have to rely on my nicey rules-nerd friends to tell me if they're too mixed in quality. The aim here has been primarily to fix ludonarrative issues. That said, the maths of the escalating spell levels is largely based on 'what would this be in ToW, +1 since channeling is now possible.' That should hopefully mean that there's a bit more incentive to focus on one or two spells, since casting everything without channeling points applied might just mean a lot of miscast risks for limited chance of success. The difference in difficulty that an increase/decrease in power makes is based on the probability change in casting for a level 2 wizard.

Battle Magic

(SIGNATURE) Blast: Aqshy, Hysh, Chamon, Ghur, Azyr, Shyish, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Magic Missile
Casting Values: 7+/9+/12+
Range: 7+/9+: 24"; 12+: 36".
Casting Value and Effect: 7+: The target enemy unit suffers D6 Strength 4 hits, each with an AP of -. 9+: 2D6 Strength 4 hits, each with an AP of -. 12+: 3D6 Strength 4 hits, each with an AP of -1.

Dispel Magic: Hysh, Ulgu, Shyish, Qhaysh
Type: Counterspell
Casting Values: 7+/8+/9+
Range: 7+: 18"; 8+: 24"; 9+: 48"
Casting Value and Effect: This spell is only effective against spells cast at the same or lower Level. The target wizard must re-roll their casting roll, taking the lower result.
[I deliberated about whether raising the Level should be a buff (i.e. re-roll at -2) or a gate (what it is now). I plumped for this option because it seemed more interesting from a lore perspective and somewhat protects powerful sorcerers from being trivially screwed over by novices, which generally doesn't happen in the fiction. Needs playtesting, though.]
Curse of Arrow Attraction: Azyr, Chamon, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Counterspell
Casting Values: 7+/9+/13+
Range: 7+: 18"; 9+: 24"; 10+: 30"
Casting Value and Effect: 7+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, you may re-roll any rolls To Hit of a natural 1 when shooting at the target enemy unit. 9+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, you may re-roll any failed rolls To Hit when shooting at the target enemy unit. Additionally, if the enemy unit shoots for any reason before your next Start of Turn sub-phase, each roll of a natural 1 to hit inflicts a hit using their weapon's profile on their own unit. 13+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, you may re-roll any failed rolls To Hit when shooting at the target enemy unit. Additionally, if the enemy unit shoots for any reason before your next Start of Turn sub-phase, each roll of a natural 1 to hit inflicts a hit using their weapon's profile on their own unit.
Destructive Barrier: Aqshy, Hysh, Azyr, Shyish, Ghyran, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Magical Formulation
Casting Values: 11+/12+/14+
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: Remains in Play. Place a template on the battlefield, consisting of a line up to 8" long and shaped in any fashion you so desire (a piece of string may be useful to represent this). Whilst in play, the template is treated as dangerous terrain. The template may be moved D6" in a direction of the caster's choosing during every Start of Turn sub-phase, or may change shape, but not both. Any unit (friend or foe) the moving template touches or moves over suffers one Strength 4 hit per file of models, to a maximum of 8, each with an AP of -2. 12+: As above, but the line is up to 16" long and the maximum number of hits is 16. 14+: As above, but the line is up to 24" long and the maximum number of hits is 24.
Arcane Urgency: Hysh, Ghur, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Conveyance
Casting values: 10+/11+/13+
Range: 15"
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: If the target friendly unit is not fleeing and has already moved during this Movement phase, it may immediately move again a distance up to its Movement value. 11+: If the target friendly unit is not fleeing and has already moved during this Movement phase, it may immediately move again. 13+: If the target friendly unit has already moved during this Movement phase, it may immediately take a second Charge, Flee or Remaining Moves phase. It must use this phase to move, and all other normal restrictions apply.
Arcane Shield: Chamon, Ulgu, Hysh, Ghyran, Ghur, Azyr, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Enchantment
Casting values: 8+/11+/13+
Range: Self/6"/12"
Casting Value and Effect: 8+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the caster and any unit they have joined gain a 5+ Ward save against any wounds suffered. 11+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the target unit gains a 5+ Ward save against any wounds suffered. 13+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the target unit gains a 5+ Ward save against any wounds suffered.
Curse of Cowardly Flight: Ulgu, Shyish, Ghur, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Hex
Casting values: 10+/11+/12+
Range: 15"
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: The target enemy unit must immediately make a Panic test. If the target unit automatically passes any Panic tests it is required to make for any reason, it must still make this test and, should it fail, it will Give Ground. 11+: As above, but the target unit makes the test at -1 to the Leadership used. 12+: As above, but the target unit makes the test at -3 to the Leadership used.

[I firmly feel that Battle Magic should feel somewhat generic and 'boring but reliable', much like the universal spells of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. As such, any references to specific elements or themes disappear in favour of standardized terminology. Most spells have been given an easy-to-cast bad option if they didn't have one. I needed to switch one of the spells out for a counterspell, because if any lore should have one it's this one, and I decided that Hammerhand doesn't actually fit all that well with the Lore of MilHist Nerds, whereas a simple and generic generic dispel option feels a lot better. That said, counterspelling feels more complicated a form of war magic than just blowing somebody up, so Fireball goes to signature and becomes Blast. Also Pillar of Fire changes shape as Destructive Barrier, because the only way I can justify Elementalism getting Earthen Ramparts whilst the more disciplined militaristic school gets the big roiling mass of power is if that mass of power also feels like a wall. Curse of Arrow Attraction gets a bit more interesting and brings in some classic Warhammer humour with the possibility that your foe's own arrows will be attracted to them, because there's 'the boring lore' and then there's 'boring to play' and the two need not meet.]

Elementalism

(SIGNATURE) Storm Call: Azyr, Ghyran, Ulgu, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Hex
Casting values: 8+/11+/15+
Range: 8+/11+: 12"; 15+: Entire board
Casting Value and Effect: 8+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the target enemy unit suffers a -1 modifier to its Movement and Initiative characteristics (to a minimum of 1). If this spell is cast, the effects of any other Hex previously cast on the target unit immediately expire. 11+/15+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, all units within range of the Wizard, friend or foe, suffer a -1 modifier to their Movement and Initiative characteristics (to a minimum of 1). Additionally, all missile attacks of S4 or lower passing within this range suffer -1 to hit, and any unit that makes a Fly move must make a Dangerous Terrain test. If this spell is cast, the effects of any other Hex previously cast on the target unit immediately expire.
[Normally, spells from previous editions that summon a storm only affect your enemies. To this, I say: COWARDS! 15+ may therefore be too high for the high end, but I figure it's so crippling for certain foes that I'll keep it. I genuinely don't know why the making-other-hexes-expire clause is on the spell, so I'm adopting an 'if it ain't broke' approach and claiming it's because the swirling winds disrupt other enchantments.]

Flaming sword: Aqshy, Hysh, Chamon, Chaos
Type: Hex
Casting values: 8+/9+/11+
Range: Combat
Casting Value and Effect: 8+: A single enemy unit the caster is engaged in combat with suffers D6+1 Strength 3 hits, each with an AP of -. These hits have the Flaming Attacks special rule. 9+: As above, but the hits are Strength 4 with an AP of -1. 11+: As above, but 2D6 hits are inflicted.
[Old World spell damage is so sad. I couldn't find it in my heart to raise the casting value for d6+1 Strength 3 AP - Flaming hits to reflect channeling. Call it my 8th-ed bias. No rules for preventing postlapsarian re-entry to Eden.]
Plague of Rust: Chamon, Shyish, Ghyran, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Hex
Casting values: 10+/11+/14+
Range: 10+: 15"/11+: 21"/
Casting Value and Effect: 8+/10+: The target enemy unit suffers a -1 modifier to its armour value. This is cumulative with other penalties to its armour value, including from further castings of Plague of Rust. 14+: Remains in Play. The target enemy unit suffers a -1 modifier to its armour value. This is cumulative with other penalties to its armour value, including from further castings of Plague of Rust. Additionally, at the beginning of each of your Start of Turn sub-phases, the modifier increases by -1. When the spell ends, the accumulated modifier remains but no longer increases.
[I'm sorry, I know -1 for the whole game (as per 8th) is really strong, but you see -2 for one turn is immersion-breakingly stupid and that's worse. What does the armour do, regrow? On average the -1 is likely to affect about three turns, so I'm treating it as 1.5x the value of the -2 and lowering base range to compensate somewhat]
Conjure Elemental Spirit: Aqshy, Hysh, Chaos (Fire); Ulgu, Ghyran, Chaos (Water); Chamon, Shyish, Chaos (Earth); Azyr, Ghur, Chaos (Air)
Type: Magical Formulation
Casting values: 11+/13+/15+
Range: 15"
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: Remains in Play. Place a small (3") blast template so that its central hole is within 15" of the caster. Whilst in play, the template is treated as dangerous terrain over which no line of sight can be drawn. The template moves D6" in a random direction or towards the nearest element-appropriate Nexus (your choice which) during every Start of Turn subphase. Any unit the moving template touches or moves over suffers D3+3 Strength 4 hits, each with an AP of -1. In addition, choose one of the Elemental Effects from the below chart. 13+: As above, but use the large (5") blast template, the template moves 2D6", and the template inflicts D6+3 Strength 5 hits, each with an AP of -1. 15+: As 13+, but the template inflicts 3D6 Strength 6 hits, each with an AP of -2. Additionally, at the end of each of its moves and when removed from play it releases a pulse of power, inflicting an additional effect dependent on the Elemental Effects chosen.
Fire: All hits from the Elemental have the Flaming Attacks special rule and an additional AP. Pulse of power: The firestorm roars, and every model completely under the template suffers a Strength 8 hit with AP -4 and Multiple Wounds (2).
Water: Rather than having a Strength value, hits from the Elemental wound on a value equal to the unit's armour save, and ignore armour. Pulse of Power: Caught in a swirling maelstrom, each unit under the template must make a Strength check, using the lowest value in the unit. On a failure, the unit may not move until no longer under the template.
Earth: All hits from the Elemental have +1 Strength and an additional AP. Pulse of Power: the ground shakes, and all terrain within 12" of the template becomes Dangerous Terrain until your next Start of Turn sub-phase.
Air: The Elemental doubles the value rolled when determining movement. Additionally, units touched by it must make a Strength Check or be pushed D3" in the direction of its movement, as for the spell Wind Blast. Pulse of Power: The model with the largest base within 12" (if a tie, casting player chooses) suffers D3 Strength 6 hits with an AP of -3 and Multiple Wounds (D3) as they are struck by a bolt of lightning.
[Debated making this some kind of summoning, but decided against it: I think elemental spirit as big nebulous cloud of power that isn't fighting the battle so much as wading through it actually works quite well as a ludonarrative thing. Also it can hit your people now, but you control the movement a tiny bit more. It's probably a bit complex, so may change dramatically after playtesting.]
Earthen Ramparts: Hysh, Ghyran, Chamon, Shyish, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Enchantment
Casting values: 10+/11+/13+
Range: 15"/15"/12"
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the target friendly unit gains a 5+ Ward save against any wounds suffered and counts as being behind a defended low linear obstacle if charged. However, whilst this spell is in play the target unit cannot march or charge./11+: As above, but the target unit also counts as being behind partial cover at all times./13+: As above, but all friendly units within range are targeted.
Wind Blast: Azyr, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Magic Missile
Casting values: 7+/10+/12+
Range: 15"/15"/15"
Casting Value and Effect: 7+: The target unit must Give Ground. If this would bring it into contact with another unit, or a terrain feature, or within 1" of an enemy unit, the unit and any unit it would come into contact with/within 1" of if an enemy unit both suffer D3+3 Strength 4 hits at AP -1. 10+: As above, but the target unit must Give Ground, suffering any damage after each instance. 12+: As 10+, but the target unit must Give Ground three times.
[I don't think there was a balance case for changing this from the way it was in 8th, ToW just likes spells to be more generally useful - fair! I don't, so I changed it back and lowered the cast value a bit.]
Flow Like Water: Ghyran, Chamon, Hysh, Chaos
Type: Conveyance
Casting values: 11+/12+/13+
Range: 9"/9"/9"
Casting Value and Effect:
11+: If the target friendly unit is not fleeing and has not already moved during this Movement phase, you may immediately remove it from the battlefield and replace it anywhere within 12" of its original location, but not within 6" of any enemy models. The target friendly unit cannot move again during this Movement phase. Any distance which can be traced along water terrain features does not count towards the 12" limitation of this spell (that is, for example, a Wizard could target a unit in a river and have them reappear anywhere within 12" of that river and more than 6" from any enemy models.) 12+: As above, but the unit also has the Etherealness rule until your next Start of Turn phase. 13+: As 12+, but the unit may reappear within 6" of any enemy models.
[This is just Travel Mystical Pathway but a bit less narratively open with the Geomantic Web. Purely a personal bugbear - mortal hedge wizards shouldn't get to waltz about down there! Instead, I fill in the water spell this lore otherwise doesn't have]

[No counterspell here; if any lore isn't about magical defence, it's elementalism.]

Illusionism

Glittering Robe: Hysh, Aqshy, Chamon, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Enchantment
Casting values: 9+/11+/14+
Range: Self
Casting Value and Effect: 9+: Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, enemy units suffer a -1 modifier to any rolls To Hit made against the caster and any unit they have joined. If this spell is cast, the effects of any other Enchantment previously cast on any of the affected models immediately expire. 11+: As above. Additionally, until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, Line of Sight may not be traced to or through the caster or any unit they have currently joined by any units. 13+: As 11+, but Remains in Play.

Mindrazor: Ulgu, Shyish, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Magic Missile
Casting values: 7+/8+/10+
Range: 15"
Casting Value and Effect: 7+: The target enemy unit must immediately make a Leadership test. If this test is passed, nothing happens. If, however, this test is failed, the unit suffers D3+3 Strength 3 hits, each with an AP of -3. 8+: As above, but if the test is passed the unit suffers D3 Strength 3 hits, each with an AP of -1, and if the test is failed the hits are Strength 4. 10+: Remains in Play. Immediately and at the beginning of each subsequent enemy Start of Turn sub-phase, the target enemy unit must make a Leadership test. Resolve the effects as for 8+.
[I really liked Okkam's Mindrazor, which let you use a unit's Ld as your Strength, so this spell mimicking its name feels a bit sad by comparison but I do think a Phantasmal Killer type spell makes sense in the lore so I'm keeping it similar. Unlike most, the ToW version ends up as the middle Level.]
Shimmering Dragon: Aqshy, Azyr, Ghur, Hysh, Ulgu, Qhaysh, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Magical Formulation
Casting values: 13+/14+/15+
Range: 6"
Casting Value and Effect: 13+: Place a marker on the board within range, then move it up to 16" in a straight line. All units passed over by the template, friend or foe, except those with the Fear or Terror rules, must make a Panic test. At the end of the move, remove the marker. Rally tests for units which Flee as a result of this spell are passed automatically. 14+: As above, but the spell Remains in Play. The marker is not removed at the end of the initial move. In each of your Charge sub-phases, you may resolve a 'charge' with the marker as if it were a model with the Fly, Swiftstride, and Terror special rules. If the marker would succeed in the 'charge' or catch a fleeing enemy, it instead vanishes as described above and the spell ends. Rally tests for units Fleeing as a result of the 'dragon' are only automatic once the spell ends. 15+: As 13+, but any units passed over during a 'charge' by the marker must make a Panic test as for its initial move.
[OK this one changed quite a lot. A: if there's one thing Illusionism shouldn't do it's produce a tangible thing. B: this feels like a lazy copy-over of the Lore of Shadow's Steed of Shadows, but Ulgu is a Lore of both transportation and illusion. Illusion should stick to the latter if it's going to be its own thing. C: this. Is it too powerful? Yeah, pretty sure it is in situations where it's applicable, despite my best efforts to tone it down. But fuck it, even a Level 4 channeling a point is going to fail it a quarter of the time on the lowest level, and it's fun. If I have to scrap it on a rewrite, so be it. I'm at least playtesting it.]
Column of Crystal: Chamon, Hysh, Ulgu, Shyish, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Magical Formulation
Casting values: 10+/11+/13+
Range: 9"/9"/24"
Casting Value and Effect: 10+: Remains in Play. Place a small (3") blast template so that its central hole is within 9" of the caster. Whilst in play, the template does not move and is treated as impassable terrain over which no line of sight can be drawn. 11+: As above, but use a large (5") blast template. 13+: As 11+, but place the template so that its central hole is within 24" of the caster.
Mystifying Misdirection: Aqshy, Ulgu, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Counterspell
Casting values: 7+/9+/13+
Range: 9"/15"/21"
Casting Value and Effect: 7+: The target Wizard must, if possible, choose a different valid target within the range of both this spell and their spell. If they cannot, the spell effects the original target. 9+: As above, but you choose the new target as if you were playing the casting player's army. 13+: As 9+, but you may if you wish choose to treat friendly units as enemy units and enemy units as friendly units for the purposes of targeting.
Spectral Doppelganger: Shyish, Ulgu, Chamon, Dhar, Qhaysh, Chaos
Type: Assailment
Casting value: 9+/10+/11+
Range: Combat
Casting Value and Effect: 9+: A single enemy unit the caster is engaged in combat with suffers 2D6 hits, resolved at half the caster's Strength and using any special rules of the caster and of any weapon they carry. 10+: As above, but roll a D6 for each hit which fails to Wound. On a 5+, the caster increases their current and total Wounds by 1 until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, at which point they return to their prior Wounds value unless they have been reduced to less than it. 11+: As above, but the hits are resolved at the caster's full Strength.
Confounding Miasma: Ghyran, Chamon, Ulgu, Shyish, Ghur, Azyr, Aqshy, Qhaysh, Dhar, Chaos
Type: Hex
Casting value: 8+/10+/12+
Range: 9"/15"/21"
Casting Value and Effect: 8+: The target unit gains the Stupidity rule until your next Start of Turn sub-phase. 10+: As above, but the spell Remains in Play. 12+: As above, but whilst under the spell's effects the target unit may not March or Charge, even when it has passed its Stupidity test.

[Dragons aside, a lot of minor changes here, because I generally really like Illusionism. Miasmic Mirage and Confounding Convocation were too similar in terms of meaningful effects; one turn of definitely being slow versus maybe several turns of maybe being slow would be a meaningful trade-off on a TTRPG illusionist spell list with a score of options at each level[16] but isn't enough to justify them being their own things in a wargame with 7 options total, so they get rolled together as Confounding Miasma and option #4 becomes a counterspell option, which I think is rather a fun one. Probably the hardest part of this lore was making the spells scalable when a lot of them have pretty cut-and-dried effects. The second hardest part, which I think you can see the original designers struggling with in some of the choices but which I've made worse for myself by making Winds matter, was making it not just feel like the Lore of Shadow. I was surprised how many Aqshy made sense for, though, as the Wind that deals with heat haze and also the one that generates light but isn't fundamentally tied to the concept of truth!]

Befuddlement: redirect target counterspell.

Next Steps

For this project, playtesting is a big one, and filling out the other lores (both those of the Winds, for end-times-era fans, and those in ToW) and species-specific spells and magic items. My main concern at the moment is that I might not have solved the low-level-wizards-being-a-bit-useless problem, but frankly I'm OK with literally just implementing points tweaks to shift that if need be. Then maybe I'll make some daemons of the apocryphal chaos gods...

I'll be honest, I'm very tempted to repeat the wildness of the Miscast Table with quite a few of the little fun silly things that progressively vanished through the later years of the game - Chaos blessings, chariot crashes, monsters going wild and so forth. I'm a slowish writer, though, and this isn't just a Warhammer blog, so those might be a while coming. I'd also like to expand on the spell lores to include more stuff; between WFRP and the various editions of the game, it feels like there's a lot of scope there.

Meanwhile, please do let me know if you use this! Note that whilst I'll gladly accept people pointing out ambiguities or spots where it straight up doesn't work mechanically on-sight, in more general terms I'm most interested in reports of experiences from actual play. You're welcome to tell me if you think it'll be awful/broken/etc. for XYZ reason on-sight, but I am unlikely to implement anything based on that alone.

[1] "Mysterious arcane tablets" here meaning "anything requiring you to understand how code works." As you might be able to tell by the fact that this footnote is a subscript rather than a superscript, I am essentially tech-illiterate to a degree which is frankly comical given I was born after the year 2000. Computers have been known to stop functioning in my presence.. I'll write a post in the future about fictional framings of coding-as-magic and magic-as-coding, because they're definitely something I resonate strongly with talking to computer-scientist friends.

[2] It's technically a new game. However, since it uses the same setting (just a few hundred years earlier in the timeline) and changes the rules less than the jump from 5th to 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles did, I feel pretty comfortable in calling it a new edition.

[3] In the sense of 'loose formations', not necessarily 'small forces' or 'individual model movement', though it certainly does make more use of small units than Warhammer Fantasy Battles did.

[4] Much to my screaming giddy delight at the time, and the mild irritation of anybody who'd been listening to me rage at Age of Sigmar for the previous four years. (I'm pleased to say I'm in a happier place now. The tactical, gritty fantasy of the game I've loved since childhood can coexist with the wonderfully imaginative settings and factions of Age of Sigmar, and indeed any number of other brilliant fantasy games on the market; this gives me more emotional energy to direct at criticizing the often astoundingly anti-consumer business practices and increasingly dubious fiction quality of GW itself.)

[5] Is that operations or tactics? I kind of feel like tactics is play at the specific table, but now I'm doubting myself. Is this a bad metaphor? Is it relatable? If not, here's a helpful link.

[6] There is no note 6. There was one, but I deleted the chunk of text it was in. Did I mention I cannot work out how to add endnotes properly to this? So this note is here in case you're looking for that.

[7] How good this was was variable, but it was extensive!

[8] I have my issues with Mr. Eliasson's creations - another post! - but he and his 9th edition undoubtedly played a pivotal role in keeping the flame of WHFB fandom alive through the Dark Years, and players of his variant will likely keep contributing to GW's sales. It's a strange decision, but that isn't entirely surprising given their history of fan relations.

[9] Being more specific, a look at Goonhammer's Player Types, which I generally feel are a pretty solid model, suggests that I lean towards the Chase type, specifically the Off-Meta tendency within it, with strong elements of the Innovator, Combo, Lorebound, Social Gamer and Malcador (lore-reader) tendencies and at least a bit of every motivation. If there's one thing lacking from that survey, incidentally, it's a player type who enjoys hacking and reworking the rules of the game itself, which fact I think helps to underline some of the points I've been making regarding the current Warhammer culture.

[10] https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Winds_of_Magic

[11] Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition core rulebook, pg. 238.

[12] Deleted a rant here about EXACTLY HOW CRITICAL this is to maintaining the feel of the Warhammer fiction, because I wasn't being constructive and I doubt many people seriously disagree with the idea. If the tone suddenly shifts here, that's why.

[13] Which to be clear isn't a dig at that designation! I know some people aren't happy with it; doesn't bother me. That everyone was living in the end times was a longstanding idea in old Warhammer, and at any rate I quite liked a lot of the ideas of the End Times release series which ended the setting back in 2015. The 'present day' of the setting was pretty firmly within the 2521-2525 range, which nicely lines up with the earlier part of the End Times books' narrative, running ~2523-2528 with their immediate setup and preludes in The End Times: Nagash running 2521-2. Just so long as we're clear that the rough setting of WFRP and other earlier materials in ~2510 are not part of the End Times series. Or maybe, if one believes some of the designers that the birth of AoS was planned from as early as the launch of 8th, they are? But if so it's only implicit.

[14] I've read 2nd, 3rd, and bits of 4th, but not played any so I don't have an informed opinion.

[15] It's really frustrating that we're one short of eight, the number of chaos and thereby of magic. I have some ideas for an eighth spell type called 'Foresight' spells which you cast before the game begins, but that might have to wait until I write up my pre-game terrain generation and scouting rules ideas. Another post!

[16] Incidentally, Skerples recent thoughts on this here were in my head as I wrote this section, which may or may not be visible?

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The Ash, the Elder, and the Hen Elm

Making a Magic System for Warhammer: the Old World that doesn't Feel like Being Repeatedly and Clinically Kicked In The Teeth by the Auditors of Reality (Part 1/several)

Let's Get This Show... Further On The Road, I Guess?

"It sucks ... it's terrible, it's really really bad ... [the game] could have been a straight upgrade and instead it's a fairly close sidegrade"

Prelude: A Call to Arms

Setting a Higher Standard

Narrative: It needs to feel like the magic of Warhammer fiction

Narrative/player fun: It needs to create the kind of gameplay that makes a good story

Tactical/player fun: It needs to be interesting to play with

Diagnosing the Complaint

Potential Solutions

The Current Solution, Written out for use in play

Wizards

Levels of Wizardry

Lores of Magic

Spells and Spell Generation

Next Steps

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