Necrotique:
Well, I have the book in my hands and I have to say that, except for it’s terribly unwieldily design, it goes above and beyond my expectations, including rules for quite a few FW models, including both Spawn, which is great to see.
Interestingly, it contains rules for Plague Toads, which were meant to be in the Tamurkhan book, so I’m assuming Tamurkhan will have the full rules for the Plague Toad Riders and not the Toads themselves.
The “bonebreaker” giant is the FW giant, which clears that up.
The artwork is brilliant, and with revised rules for the Chaos Mammoth I’m fairly happy (although they did power down its thunderstomp a little, but that’s probably because the “Father of Mammoths” model is much more powerful than the average Mammoth. For those interested, they also have less initiative and wounds than Angkor.
All in all, I’m very pleased by the new rules, and the presentation of the book is amazing.
Oh, and Zoats are all level 3 wizards coming in at a lot of points. A bit sad as I was hoping to have whole units of them, but 3 would cost nearly 1000 points…
:cheers
Grimbold Blackhammer:
The Good
The new scenarios will be a nice break from the ones in the rule book and we can all finally blow the dust off a bunch of our old minis we thought had fallen by the wayside. Plus a bunch of new ones too. The carnage this book will bring will be massive and very epic. There are some new mysterious terrain ideas too. And I love the new fulcrum models. Expect these games to be random and whacky! And if you have a certain model you’d love to put into every army you own (everyone wants a Hydra or two, right??), you can bring them!!
The Bad
If you like tactical games, Storm of Magic isn’t for you. The power level thrust into players hands moves from a scalple to a broadsword where a magic phase can clear huge sections of the table at a time. There are a bunch of often bizzare new rules to follow and at first glance a few just don’t make sense. I think the Storm of Magic will boil down to whomever can cast their big spell first, wins. And if you thought Slanns were bad before, bend over baby!
The new system they’re implementing is creative but definitely odd. And the high-end spells are horrifically over the top for my tastes. I can definitely imagine some tweaking being done to make it a bit more manageable but it may be fun for a one-off game. I suppose I’ll have to wait until I’ve actually thrown down against someone to say with conviction one way or another. But when I read you actually CAN summon special characters to fight for you, I admit I started to lose interest.
Necrotique:
Agreed on all the above. Some of the spells are way too overpowering.
Also, they make it fairly clear on how to summon daemon allies, which is awesome as I recently purchased Epidemus and 10x Plaguebearers w/ command. The part about the origins of plague toads is very interesting to read though, but I won’t spoil that for those who haven’t read it yet.
Oh, and the Mammoth’s finally up to 8 movement - up from 4! 
Also, the monster gallery section is a little disappointing, with no FW models or conversions.
I also bought a Chimera yesterday and have to say it is rather massive. It stands as tall as a giant but much heftier.
I chuckled when the giants changed from having the fluff of being rare to having the special rule of they’re everywhere! though. A bit of a backflip there, but there you go.
:cheers
Thommy H:
Some of the spells are way too overpowering.
How can they be overpowered if everyone has access to similarly destructive magic? I think that's the idea: everyone gets access to loads of overwhelming magic, monsters and artefacts, so it changes how the game is played, but doesn't lead to an unbalanced game.
Nebuchandnezzar:
I havn’t got the book yet and was wondering how crazy are the mythic items???
:cheers
Thommy H:
Quite crazy, apparently. Teleporting swords and so on.
snowblizz:
Some of the spells are way too overpowering.
How can they be overpowered if everyone has access to similarly destructive magic? I think that's the idea: everyone gets access to loads of overwhelming magic, monsters and artefacts, so it changes how the game is played, but doesn't lead to an unbalanced game.
Thommy H
First guy to use their devastating magic wins... I've seen the same argument in use for Apocalypse and unfortunately there is a point to that. An Apocalyptic shooting phase had the means to make the other turns largely pointless.
That's why nuclear deterrent "worked", the enemy got to reply before being nuked. In WH you have to wait for your turn.
Grimbold Blackhammer:
Fight a Slann mage-priest who’s turning all your magical 1’s into 6’s AND gets a free dice per spell AND ignores miscasts because he’s using the Lore of Life AND has up to 24 dice per turn to whale on you with and tell me how much you think you’re going to like Storm of Magic. High Elves and Dark Elves will be almost as bad. I can’t wait to have someone say “I throw all 24 of my dice at XXX spell” (a worthy sacrifice of a level 1 wizard!) or “Book of Hoeth - total power” four times per phase.
Thommy H:
Well, no one’s forcing you to play it, but from what I’ve read there are a lot of counter-balances to these powerful spells. And I’m pretty sure you can’t use the worst ones unless you have control over every Fulcrum on the table, which essentially makes SoM games objective based - but instead of each objective being worth x victory points or whatever when the game ends, there are tangible advantages to taking them as the game proceeds. In theory everyone has the same opportunity to grab the Fulcra, so if you don’t like half your army getting zapped, you should probably make it your business to go and wrest control of them off your opponent.
First guy to use their devastating magic wins… I’ve seen the same argument in use for Apocalypse and unfortunately there is a point to that. An Apocalyptic shooting phase had the means to make the other turns largely pointless.
But people play and enjoy Apocalypse, don’t they? Maybe not often, if only because of the logistics of arranging a game, but there’s no inherent flaw in the way it works.
wallacer:
Generally speaking i’m all in favour of GW giving people something new and interesting for Fantasy.
I’d rather have that than GW ignoring fantasy.
It’s not as if it’s a mandatory addition to the core rules. It’s more like the old Warhammer siege rules - you can play them if you want to.
I’ll give it a go if someone in my gaming group buys it. Not sure if i’d buy it myself (too many WF models on my want list).
Thommy H:
I think what’s exciting for me is the collecting possibilities this opens up. We don’t game very often, but we have access to a small “stable” of armies - my Chaos Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos, Bretonnians and Vampire Counts, along with Emma’s Wood Elves and her (embryonic) Beastmen. Any monster one of us buys for those armies is now a monster that can be used in every game we play. And there’s already a few units we can share - Ogres, Trolls, Chaos Hounds (which can really count as any War Beast unit we want…), Chaos Spawn, my whole Mousillon army (!), my Chaos Sorcerer (who can be a Dark Emissary - which actually fits his fluff better!), the Mumak I intend to convert into a Mammoth someday, Taurus and Lammasu (they have riders, but we can fudge that), Emma’s unpainted Forest Dragon… Then there’s the future possibilities: I want to get a Manticore and use one rider for another project, then keep it unridden to be used mainly by my WoC, but potentially by anyone. I’m definitely converting a Heroquest Fimir (too small for the actual rules, but again we’ll just fudge) and if Emma ever buys any monsters for her Beastmen, they’re also fair game for all now. And I haven’t even looked at all the random models in my collection and what they could be used as yet!
Depending on how workable the rules are, I can’t see us playing anything but Storm of Magic games given the above possibilities. And even if we don’t like the magic, we might just use the allies rules and not put any Fulcra on the table, or have a gentleman’s agreement not to claim them.
snowblizz:
First guy to use their devastating magic wins... I've seen the same argument in use for Apocalypse and unfortunately there is a point to that. An Apocalyptic shooting phase had the means to make the other turns largely pointless.
But people play and enjoy Apocalypse, don't they? Maybe not often, if only because of the logistics of arranging a game, but there's no inherent flaw in the way it works.
Thommy H
Whether someone or not enjoys it is rather beside the point. I'm saying it doesn't inherently make a balanced game just because everyone now has access to "I win buttons" or whatever. The problem comes if you can utilize them with impunity. That's an inherent weakness off the IGOUGO system.
I've found that playing Apocalypse the game really really *really* sucks if one side is heavily loaded with the "Apocalypse" stuff and the other isn't. I had a rather interesting discussion about that on a forum with a guy whose gaming group was finding much the same thing. Last time Apocalypse was played down at the club they restricted the amount of heavy stuff allowed. Piling on imbalances doesn't eventually make a game balanced.
It can be enjoyable for some, no contest there, but my experience of gamers is that they don't like massive random events.
Thommy H:
Whether someone or not enjoys it is rather beside the point.
How can it be beside the point when it's the only possible criteria by which the success of a
game can ever be judged? I don't play Warhammer to decide who the best tactician is - if I want that, I'll crack out the chess set.
secret apprentice:
As someone who has played in two storm of magic games so far, all the assumptions in the second post are completely false.
you need to actually play a game of it to understand.
And killing scores of troops really makes very little difference to who wins the game as control of the fulrums is the score keeper.
Some of the best fantasy games i have seen in 13 years.
wallacer:
Well now I really want to try it.
nilbog:
Depending on how workable the rules are, I can't see us playing anything but Storm of Magic games given the above possibilities. And even if we don't like the magic, we might just use the allies rules and not put any Fulcra on the table, or have a gentleman's agreement not to claim them.
Thommy H
I'm not particularly interested in the magic side of this, but the monsters and allies intrigues me. I've not got the book, but might do if it's workable just using these rules and ignoring the magic/fulcrum part.
Anybody got any experiences with this?
Also, how does the physical book seem? I'm a bit suspicious of covers that open from the right, as it seems that you're left with a softback cover that's actually page 1.
Necrotique:
Depending on how workable the rules are, I can't see us playing anything but Storm of Magic games given the above possibilities. And even if we don't like the magic, we might just use the allies rules and not put any Fulcra on the table, or have a gentleman's agreement not to claim them.
Thommy H
I'm not particularly interested in the magic side of this, but the monsters and allies intrigues me. I've not got the book, but might do if it's workable just using these rules and ignoring the magic/fulcrum part.
Anybody got any experiences with this?
Also, how does the physical book seem? I'm a bit suspicious of covers that open from the right, as it seems that you're left with a softback cover that's actually page 1.
nilbog
The actual book itself is rather annoying physically - it feels like the pages itself will fall out if it swings hard to the left. I do like the magnetised cover though - it's a nice touch, as well as the inclusion of the SoM wheel.
:cheers
Hashut’s Blessing:
Regarding the rules, they are nowhere near as imbalanced as is being suggested. Some spells are very powerful, but you need 20-35+ to cast them, as well as owning more Arcane Fulcra than your opponent (not easy when you both start with an equal number, assuming you both have enough casters). Regarding the magic items, you can only take one in an army (no matter the size) and they can have big effects, but aren’t game winning on their own - strategy, tactics and combined concerted efforts are wat will make them powerful: all things that can be mitigated if thought about properly and your opponent can have similar things. Lastly, excepting giants, you can only take two (four for grand armies) of each scroll of binding (monster choice).
For dragons, that means that you can have one emperor and one young dragon, then no more (non-Chaos) dragons… It has some new scenarios in it, which brings another change to what we’re used to and you can only take one sorcerous pact (with daemons, vampires or tomb kings) and they are quite limited: 25% of your agreed points game (2,000pt army plus 500pts monsters and magic) to spend, up to 1 hero, up to 1 lord, 1+ core, special and rare are dependant on how many core you have (undead must take certain characters), you have to decide between pacts, items and monsters as well…
If you don’t like the Fulcra, don’t use them. If you don’t like the magic, ignore it or edit it (such as Seven Sigils not allowing special Characters). If you don’t like the scenarios, use normal ones. If you don’t like pacts, don’t use them. If you don’t like monsters, either only use appropriate ones or don’t use them. If you don’t like the new terrain/scenery, ignore or change them. If you don’t like any of it, even for the odd game here and there, then you shouldn’t bother - however, it’s worth it for any of the above.
As said, the game is focused on owning the Fulcra for in-game power AND for winning. If you have the same number at the end, you revert to victory points.
Regarding the book design, I’d have preferred if the cover were a one piece item (whether opening conventionally or reverse to convention) because otherwise the pages end up bending over the little piece, which is unnecessary. Also have to try to flatten my magic circle because it catches a little on the death ascendency, but easily rectified and probably not a production wide issue anyway.
Lastly, I think that a lot of my games will now be SoM and those that aren’t, I’m likely to suggest adding the scrolls of binding (maybe a lesser points value if we find it unbalances things) for extra fun and carnage, as well as a tactical twist.
