With such a fantastical setting, magic and faith have always been important in Warhammer Age of Sigmar. If you’ve been reading Warhammer Community over the last week, you’ve seen a whole load of sneak peeks of what’s on the way in the new edition, including powerful new Stormcast Eternals units, changes to the rules and layout in the Core Book, and the increased presence of Heroes and Monsters. Today we’re taking a look at the updates for predatory endless spells and Priests – two of the biggest changes to magic.
Predatory Endless Spells
All mobile endless spells are now moved at the end of each and every hero phase. That’s twice as often as before, which means they’re twice as lethal.
Since they move in your opponent’s turn, you can set up problems they have to deal with right away, upsetting your foe’s plans and making them think on their feet. But you have to be careful – if any predatory endless spell moves too far away, or you summon too many, you might lose control of them. And you need to keep those wizards alive. You can’t control an endless spell if you’re dead!
Players alternate picking wild spells to move, so if you have too many spells to control there’s a chance your opponent will use one of them against you. That might be a touch embarrassing if they, say, order a spare purple sun of Shyish to do an about turn and start tearing into your units.
Being able to control predatory endless spells sets up some exciting new tactics to try out, and makes your Wizards a lot more powerful.
Invocations
These are similar to endless spells, but they’re summoned by Priests. Since they’re under the control of a specific Priest, in cases where they can move, their rules are similar to before.
Invocations work much as they did previously, with one important exception. Your opponent’s Priests can now attempt to banish them.
This gives priests a really interesting place in your army as they can counter both invocations AND Endless spells, where Wizards can only counter spells. That also means magic-hating armies like the Disciples of Khorne are more capable at fending off sorcery.
If you read about the heroic actions in the article last Thursday, you might recall that your Heroes have limited ability to unbind spells and dispel endless spells, again adding yet more options against magic-heavy armies.
Priests
Faith is also a powerful force in the Mortal Realms. In addition to being able to cast and banish invocations as well as endless spells, all Priests get two new prayers.
These prayers give the sense that the gods are much closer to the action than before and the war of faith is happening at the same time as the physical battle. Plus, they’re great for buffing your army when your Priest’s other abilities are out of range, and they offer a brilliant bonus for armies that don’t have Wizards too.
If you don’t currently include a Priest in your army, you might want to think about adding one to check your enemy’s invocations and give your key units a little more durability.
The changes to both endless spells and Priests make the game feel wilder and more intense. Check back here tomorrow for even more magic, as we give you the scoop on the showdown between the Wizards in Dominion. If you haven’t already, sign up for the email newsletter to stay up to date with the latest news.
