In playing with both RH and Indy GT, I found that the variety of unit in the Indy GT compared to the old school RH list provides for a much more interesting composition in the Indy GT army. However, one thing I found particularly lacking in the Indy GT list is the fact there are no hero level mages, something that RH does include.
Since PD are generated at 2D6 whether it is 1,000 or 10,000 points, I am finding that in the Indy GT, you always have to talk a Lord level mage to have access to the winds of magic. Meaning the options for a regular fighter Lord, and even more so if he is mounted on a Taurus, becomes largely a non-choice in a competative environment game that is less than say, 3,000 points. If you take a Taurus Lord you get little in the way of magic defence, and nothing in the way of offence (unless you take an overpriced Daemonsmith, then it is only really defence.) and in 8th ed. not having magic is often truely devastating.
This is something not found in the RH list, and I feel in Lord choices there is more flexability, despite the fact that the ‘regular’ army has more limited features. Furthermore it seems the Indy GT list is unique in the fact it gives an option for mage lords but none for mage heros.
Do you think this was the intent of the Indy GT designers? Or an over looked flaw? Or me complaining about nothing and that every army should have some sort of trade off and I should really just shut up?
They intended it, to give a different flavour to the army. I don’t know what actions they are taking to resolve this problem or if they even consider it to be one.
I reckon they intended it to be that way also, but it is a pain cause magic can be really powerful and taking a regular lord without the option for a wizard in many games is a death sentance. Just too much nasty magic out there. Shame, I reckon the Taurus would be a lot of fun.
From what I remember of the very early discussions around the first version of the Indy GT list, the Daemonsmith/High Priest dynamic was intended to be a feature, not a bug. It was highlighted right from the beginning as a problem though, because it made High Priests essentially indispensable. Prior to 8th Edition, most armies in average games would only have access to one Lord, and invariably that would have to be a High Priest if you were using the Indy GT list and even then, you’d only have average magic. There was no way to do magic heavy in a normal game. Initially, I don’t even think Daemonsmiths generated dispel dice - that was one of the first things that player feedback got fixed.
The idea of Daemonsmiths is a good one - it’s interesting to have wizards that work in a unique way if their style of magic is different, like Tomb Kings and Ogres - but it suffers from having to compete against regular wizards in the High Priests, so the resulting army is neither one thing nor the other. If the concept of Daemon-binding as magic had been taken to its extreme, and all Chaos Dwarf casters used bound items or whatever, then it could potentially work (as long as they had access to lots of anti-magic tools anyway), but the current situation isn’t really viable.
I am a bit biased though, and have been a harsh critic of the Indy GT list since it first showed up.
Maybe im missing something, but according to the GT list entry for the demonsmith it states that they “treated as a level 1 wizard in all respects except that it does not generate power dice”. Okay big deal, there is a common magic pool now. THe way I read it he is a level one wizard with a bound item in his weapon. So he casts one spell and the weapon casts a bound spell.
if thats the case that would be good but the errata i read it says no longer a mage but have been made cheeper also they have the option to hold archine items (was on a different site got a link froma fellow player)
where did you see that they are level one as thats heaps better
Either way the errata says he is not a wizard anymore, but can take 75pts of items including arcane, which can be useful as he can take lord level items with only using a hero slot. That said he is 95 points and a slavemaster is 65 and has better stats. I reckon if a hero level wizard was ever introduced, the Daemonsmith would have to change or it would never see the light of day.
Thommy H- I agree with your statement and much respect there to admit your bias. I have talked to you about the Indy GT before and I dig that your are honest, so I do consider your opinion valid. it seems that Kevin really wanted people to use a Daemonsmith instead of a hero wizard, the problem is the DS is really not great value for money, nor does it fill the same gap as a hero wizard. The reason I say this is I have read the feedback from others and his replies do imply that this is the case. But as you once said, this book is his and Matt’s baby, so they can really do what they like with it, and if we dont like it, then dont use it.
Thommy H- I agree with your statement and much respect there to admit your bias. I have talked to you about the Indy GT before and I dig that your are honest, so I do consider your opinion valid. it seems that Kevin really wanted people to use a Daemonsmith instead of a hero wizard, the problem is the DS is really not great value for money, nor does it fill the same gap as a hero wizard. The reason I say this is I have read the feedback from others and his replies do imply that this is the case. But as you once said, this book is his and Matt's baby, so they can really do what they like with it, and if we dont like it, then dont use it.
saurus
Well absolutely. They want people to use them, and that's fine. I've just never bought the implementation - and the Errata seems to scrap the whole concept pretty much anyway. I think it's a shame to lose it, because the idea of just casting Bound spells had a lot of potential (I even stole it for a special character in my own book), but it should have gelled better with some of the other choices in the list. I've always felt that the Indy GT book tried a bit too hard to be all things to all people - like, do you really need a generic Hobgoblin Lord or three different kinds of slave unit that essentially fulfil the same function?
As someone who plays the Indy List yes, yes you do.
I agree on the Daemonsmith. The All Bound spell magic army was beastly even if you didn’t take a true wizard, unfortunantly that is one of the things that has fallen by the wayside.
I’m actually very fond of the way the High Priest only magic phase works. With a dispell scroll and a hexacon you can ride out that bad magic phase with ease, waiting for your own lucky phase to come along.
It just seems how dwarfs would do magic, slowly wearing the enemy down till you go for the king hit.
Its no were near as good as it once was and it wasn’t exactly a power list to begin with but the errata goes a long way to fixing it. Since it came out I’ve managed some good wins, were as after 7th I was getting brutalized.
On listening to the Garagehammer podcast, the blokes on that have said a similar thing. They would never consider the Taurus in the Indy GT book because not having access to magic is too brutal in 8th ed. Although they say the Lammasu is definately worth a try.
