In a large game (say 6000+ points per side), getting just 2D6 per side for magic seems a little restrictive. Has anyone played a big game using the 8th ed rules and if so did you house rule anything to compensate for this?

I thought maybe rolling 3D6, capping the pool at 15 or 18 and taking the highest and lowest dice as the dispell total.

What are your thoughts?

Seems like a fair approach. However, I might be more inclined to 4D6 with the 2 lowest being the dispell pool. Still, that may result in some overpowering dice-counts for the active player. It may only really work if it is rolled in sets of 2D6.

Culven wrote:4D6 with the 2 lowest being the dispell pool.

Don't you mean highest 2?

I'm going to have a large doubles game of Fantasy with my club in the next two weeks ~5000pts per side.
We are going to stick with 2d6 and see how it goes.
I would prefer the game to be about large scale hand-to-hand than see who can get the biggest spells off.

Agreed but having not enough magic in a game of that size seems inappropriate somehow. I'll be interested in hearing how it went.

I was also considering (on my way to work this morning) of restricting the range of spells to a maximum of 72" (standard table size). We'll be playing the full length of a 12x4 table and havnig a spell caster at one end able to cast a spell on a unit at the other seems wrong. What do you think?

How about 2D6 for each 'Army' - as in most cases we would be using at least 2 armies a side

So in a Ork + Goblin / Skaven alliance vs a Lizardman / High Elf alliance each army rolls 2D6 gifting the highest dice to 1 or the other opponent with the 2nd army giving the highest dice to the other opponent for displels

So in my example above the O & G player rolls 2D6 getting a 5 and a 3 - that army can use 8 Magic dice with 5 Dispell dice going to the High Elves while the Skaven rolls a 3 and a 3 giving 3 dispel dice to the Lizardman army and having 6 Magic dice for its own magic users.

In their next turn the O & G army would give the dispel dice to the other opponent and so on and so forth.....

This would stop 1 high powered magic user from dominating a magic phase and also stop a defensively equipped mage from dispelling everything.

I trust that makes sense?

If we do that I'd suggest that the dispell pool was a combined one otherwise who is to say exactly which army is opposing the other? That could change during the game or be all of them at the same time.

Had our game of 6000pts Skaven vs combined Warriors of Chaos and Dark Elves

The Skaven had 1 Grey Seer on Screaming Bell, 2 x Plague Priests Lvl2 on Plague Furnaces, 2 x Warlock Engineers Lvl1

Warriors of Chaos had 1 x Sorcerer Lord Lvl4, 2 x Sorcerers Lvl2 and Festus Lvl2
Dark Elves took no wiazrds

So Magic Levels are even. We used standard 2d6

Except for the Skaven 1st turn, we rolled an average of 7 magic dice, which allowed about 3 spells cast of which about 2 got dispelled.

The big event was on turn 1 for the Skaven, I rolled scorch and failed, the Chaos player pulled out 'The Black Tongue' making it a Miscast, rolled 5 small detonation not so bad, he then used 'Infernal Puppet' to drop it down to 3; one roll later and off goes my Grey Seer to the Realm of Chaos...

To be honest, magic did not really have a big impact on the game, it was more the Horde units that ruled.
The Skaven had 5 Horder units, Clanrats (50) around Screaming Bell, 2 x Plague Monks (40) around the Plague Furnaces, Queek Headtaker and 40 Stormvermin and finally my Slaves (50)
Chaos had 4 blocks of 40 strong Marauders of Khorne with Flails.

What won us the game was the numbers, we had ~460 models to their ~260 models.

We just ground them down.

So in my opinon 2d6 Magic is the correct amount even when going upto 6000pts.

OK cool. Thanks for the reoprt Phil. We shall stick with 2D6 using your advice!