Light of Valar Question/Opinions

In the game I played yesterday vs Mike and Bill(?), Radagast used the magic spell Light of Valar to kill my epic hero Khamul the Easterling.

Reading through the Magic rules tonight, I don't think that Light of Valar can be used to target a hero. It is an extremely easy spell to cast (only has a focus of 2) and the wording doesn't state that you can target a hero, as it does with a spell like black dart (which has a focus of 6 and short range of 6")

p72. The rules state "Choose one enemy formation within 24" of the caster ... if the target enemy are Spirits, they suffer D3 automatic hits."

This to me seems to imply that the target formation must be spirits for the effect to take place. If you have Khamul in a formation of humans (easterlings) then the hit effect should not go off.

If we use common sense, it would seem that this spell was put in place to deal with the Undead/Ghostly legions/riders formations.

Light of Valar however, should work against a Spirit Formation, such as the "Nine Abroad." or "Necromancer of Dol Guldur" p161 etc.. anything that is a formation of spirit(s).

By the way, Radagast is also a spirit, so this mean he too could be "insta-killed" by such a cheap focus spell as Light of Valar (which wouldn't make sense, would it?).

Also,

For Radagast to use Epic Tranquility p150. You must call it "at the start of the Charge phase." This means that you have to call it before I declare my charges. You cannot call it after I call a charge to Radagast's formation. The whole idea is that you anticipate a charge so you call it beforehand, not after the fact.


So... Agree/Disagree? and why.

- Ricky

For the first part, that makes sense to me, particularly if there are other spells in the book specifically say "hero" for targeting purposes.

after reading it over I agree also.

This is how I read it:
Light targets the formation, not the hero.
The hero is part of the formation.
The spell effect courage to the whole formation.
In addition..... if the formation has spirits, part or whole - they take automatic hits.

I'm pretty sure you were expected to get Khamul's Terror benefits (as you should). In the same way, placing the ringwraith in a formation does not take away his Spirit attribute.

Another one for the FAQ pile I suppose.

Never-the-less, I think if you two rethink the strategy it doesn't see so odd he went down so fast. You basicly placed you mage right in front of our mage and walked into range. You survived nuke #1 with a rare resist. Seemingly undaunted by the threat, you guys followed that up by running him right at us for nuke number 2.

As Mike said - we were fortunate to nuke you first before you did the same. It could have gone differently.

In the end our 160 point mage nuked down your 125 point mage in 2 turns. Not really a surprise under those circumstances. I think what you should take from this is that there is serious risk in having mages (including ringwraiths) lead the front line charge in a 1500 point battle.

PS - We did call Epic Tranquity at the start of the Charge phase on both turns.

I know, I know, it kinda sucks as much as that "Leach of Life" Khamul has.

We all want only the good stuff and none of the bad, but then the game would not be balanced.

JerryB

I posted a thread like this on the One Ring forum and everyone agreed that light of the valar cannot be used to snipe ringwraiths within a formation of non spirits since the spell targets the formation and not the hero.Also since Heroic charges and Epic tranquility are called at the same time you're supposed to roll to see which one goes first!

Here is a link to the thread JC is talking about:

Click Here

But the spell is not being use to "snipe" the Hero. It is directed at the formation. To bad Khamul is a spirit and he may be the only one effected.

Is the One Ring GW supported. Is this the official response from GW?

JerryB

Solmyr wrote:Here is a link to the thread JC is talking about:

Click Here

Who said they know more or have it right?
It effect Spirits and he is a spirit. No argument there.
The idea that it does not count because the formation is "not all spirits" is a bit of a rule stretch IMO.

Nobody will know for sure unitl the FAQ is out.

Well, the formation might not be spirit, but there IS a spirit with them, so the spell would affect the one spirit in the formation. Kinda like throwing a bucket of water at fire sorrounded by water, the water aint gonna be affected , but that fire is going out !

It targets formations not heroes. 2 seperate things! Khamul is a Hero not a formation! I don't see how you guys think it affects heroes.If it were to affect heroes Radagast would be broken beyond belief easily killing a 125pt ringrwaith every turn.

And why not? Lurtz can theoretically down a dragon once a turn.

Saj wrote:And why not? Lurtz can theoretically down a dragon once a turn.

I don't think that's correct either.I'd think they intend for each hit to cause a roll on the extremely Hard to kill table not to actually kill a dragon,balrog,etc..This game would be pure and utter bullshit if it were so.

Warlord Solskritt wrote:

Saj wrote:And why not? Lurtz can theoretically down a dragon once a turn.

I don't think that's correct either.I'd think they intend for each hit to cause a roll on the extremely Hard to kill table not to actually kill a dragon,balrog,etc..This game would be pure and utter bullshit if it were so.

Ahhhh JC, that IS how Lurtz can kill anything in one turn. With increased rolls on the table and the right results, anything can go down.

He is the Skulltaker of WoTR

Hey Bill why did you edit my own post?!!!

ShadowMaster wrote:

Warlord Solskritt wrote:

Saj wrote:And why not? Lurtz can theoretically down a dragon once a turn.

I don't think that's correct either.I'd think they intend for each hit to cause a roll on the extremely Hard to kill table not to actually kill a dragon,balrog,etc..This game would be pure and utter bullshit if it were so.

Ahhhh JC, that IS how Lurtz can kill anything in one turn. With increased rolls on the table and the right results, anything can go down.

He is the Skulltaker of WoTR

This.

instead of every 2 or 3 hits giving you the opportunity to roll on the table, every hit gets you a roll. so yes. you can THEORETICALLY kill a balrog, dragon or mumak in one pass.

Warlord Solskritt wrote:Hey Bill why did you edit my own post?!!!

That was an error. Sometimes I go too fast when posting at work. I hit edit instead of quote.

I cut my section out and put it here for reference -
L3 Mage vs. Ringwraith kill is not automatic. You need:

LoS (not radagast, but usually)
Range
You need to succesfully cast the spell
You need to roll enough auto hits (d3) to beat his Resilance

For the record, it took 2 turns to get Khamul and you helped by putting him right in sight and range.

You just hit a situation where you brough a rock, but we had the paper for an easy counter.

Range
You need to succesfully cast the spell
You need to roll enough auto hits (d3) to beat his Resilance

1. The range on LoV is 24" ... compared to 6" for Black Dart. That is a huge range.

2. You can choose LoV as your first spell... so you get to cast it automatically... and then all you need is a 2-6 to get an effect. To kill any ringwraith all you need is to roll a 4-6 (50% chance) if you rolled 2-5 on LoV, and if you rolled a 6 on LoV, all you need is a 2-6 (83.3% chance) to kill any ringwraith. Not to mention you could just burn a might point or two to kill him anyways.

Then you could proceed to cast 2 other spells quite easily since the Focus on LoV is only 2.

Read the rules for Black Dart and then read the rules for LoV. It doesn't make sense that one would explicitly state you can target a hero, while the other one speaks about (plural) spirits. LoV seems to talk about spirit formations.

Since no one knows when GW might put out an faq with every single question about the game we might have, I plan on calling GW to find out what they have to say about this.

Solmyr, its best to call two or three times and make sure you get different GW reps each time.


As for Lurtz, it's important to remember a couple of things:

1. It does cost a point of might, and it still goes last.

2. It's only the company he's in, not the whole formation. Your looking at around 12 dice MAX (though I haven't read all the rules and this number is a shot in dark) and against almost anything out there thats a good tough monster, he's still gonna need 6s to wound it. Against anybody else (unless they are weaklings) were talking 5s, not great odds.

3. He does cost 175 pts.

He's nasty, thats for sure and yeah, with some lucky rolls you can kill a big critter in 1 turn, but thats his advantage. He doesn't have any real ranged attacks and he's in just 1 company.

AAAAhhh.... how naive of us to think that GW actually put out a balanced game....

Now a bunch of " guys" are gonna sit down somewhere and figure out what the FAQ is gonna say.

Then they're going to tell you that YES, Light of Valar can be used to snipe single models, since that's the ruling that would make the least amount of sense.

GO GW !!

Page 72
Epic Heros and Spell Interation

"A magical power that is targeted against a formation will also affect any Epic Heros that have joined that formation."

Irronically, this is printed right next to the Light of the Valar spell. Not sure how we miss some of these things.

ShadowMaster wrote:Page 72
Epic Heros and Spell Interation

"A magical power that is targeted against a formation will also affect any Epic Heros that have joined that formation."

Irronically, this is printed right next to the Light of the Valar spell. Not sure how we miss some of these things.

And thats the way the cookie crumbles !

Ovich wrote:AAAAhhh.... how naive of us to think that GW actually put out a balanced game....

Now a bunch of " guys" are gonna sit down somewhere and figure out what the FAQ is gonna say.

Then they're going to tell you that YES, Light of Valar can be used to snipe single models, since that's the ruling that would make the least amount of sense.

GO GW !!

It is balanced because both sides and all armies have access to Command mastery mages.
The elite casters on both sides are labeled as spirits and could be effected.

I called GW today but when you select that you have a question about the rules, they give you a recording saying to email your questions to:

askyourquestion@games-workshop.com

Guess i'll send them an email and hope for a response.

Although yes, on p72 it does say that "A magical power that is targeted against a formation will also affect any Epic Heroes that have joined that formation" It is still not clear whether this means that you can apply the effect of the spell you want when the formation's race is human but the hero's race is spirit. LoV says if the target enemy are Spirits, they suffer D3 hits. But in this case, the target enemy are human, and their leader is a spirit. Seems like a gray area to me.