SFR, Inc.

[DialFforFunky]

I thougt it would be interesting to have another 'Rate the ...'-topic, so I came up with this one. This is still WIP, but for now I'll be rating the races based upon my analysis of the individual racial spells. I want to add a global analysis of the racial spells and a quantity-factor as well. (Even though it is not entirely on topic, I just might even add in the analysis of the basic schools of magic.)
But for now, just the basic spell-per-spell account.

This is a rough list, so some of the judgments are a bit crude and don't stand up too well to good analysis. Still, it should give a decent impression.

Undead 6.91
Evil Eye (8/10): Strong spell. Almost every force needs saves, so this spell can be considered a sort of +1 damage when attacking with another force. This becomes even more impressive when the opponent has a multiplier, as this modifier is applied first. Another nice thing about this spell is that it stays untill the end of your next turn, allowing another round of casting and attacking to add up.
Fade (6.5/10): Immunity to 'physical' attacks can be a nice way to force tricks. The fact that it's not health-bound is nice as well. Still, being targettable is a drawback.
Restless Dead (8/10): A stackable movement-boost is bound to be useful in almost any game. Being undead-bound makes it slightly restricitve.
Exhume (5/10): This spell could provide a 15-magic cost swing for 6. The fact that it could as well produce a 0-cost swing for 6 makes more reliable means of burying more interesting in most circumstances.
Haunt (5/10): Could be nice panic-button when everything has gone wrong and you find half of your force wiped out. Then again, a) this won't happen with undead too often (stepped damange, lots of saves) and b) you don't want things to go wrong in the first place.
Night Moves (9/10): Expensive, but very strong. Roughly the opposite of Mire, but has the drawback that you opponent is able to stop you if present at the terrain. Restless dead helps to circumvent this.

Lava Elf 6.83
Necromantic Wave (7/10): This spell requires a bit of set-up, but could be quite a devastating surprise.
Fearful Flames (7.5/10): Possibly the best direct-damage spell in the game. Too bad it doesn't allow over-casting for auto-kills. The fact that disrupts your opponents army-consistency is a nice bonus.
Flaming Armor (6/10): The least impressive 'sticky' spell available, but a 'sticky' spell none the less. Combines nicely with scalders, but otherwise the lack of any pro-active force makes this spell a bit boring.

Feral 6.7
Scent of Fear (7/10): Unstoppable disruption of your opposing forces is not something to underestimate, as it allows you to destroy your opponent piecemeal. Putting an opposing leopard rider out of the game for two rounds of melee will make any melee-oriented soldier happy.
Call of the Wild (5/10): Movement-effects are strong, but usually you want to send units in the other direction. Nice for cantrips and combined with magic items though.
Wilding (7/10): Doubling an unspecified unit's melee or save results is great, and exactly the kind of thing you want in a brawl. It makes your force a fair deal more consistent and allows for some explosive results when combined with the right dice (I'm looking at you, mr. Searer)
Hide (8/10): Feral love this spell. Not only does it allow them to get and stay in a position to feralize easier, it also works wonders for TRtM-Wind Walk set-ups. An excellently tricky spell.
Backlash (6.5/10): Perhaps I like this spell better than I should, as giving your opponent a choice is always a bad thing. Then again, it could easily shut down opposing casters for a turn, as a lot of casters lack decent saves.

Scalder 6.5
Water Walking (5/10): A stackable maneuver-adding spell is good, but the restrictions are pretty limiting.
Tidal Wave / Volcanic Eruption (7.5/10): These spells are very cost efficient. For 6 magic you get 17 in return (flash flood + 4x firestorm). What limits this spell is the fact that this spell is not stackable, making it usefull in a limited array of situations. Add to that the colour-limitation, and you've got a fair balance between power and resticiveness.
Firestorm (7/10/): Good for blowing a single common off a terrain, but for blowing up entire armies it's probably still a bit too expensive. Still, 2 damage for 3 magic is pretty decent.

Firewalker 6.3
Blue/Red Elemental Blast (4.5/10): A tad bit expensive for the fact that it only negates things that other players have to create with less magic first. Still, disrupting your opponents plans could prove to be devestating. Getting units out of hiding, for example.
Dust Devil (5/10): Cheap for what it does. Just not useful in a good number of situation either.
Mirage (7/10): You'll need to remember this spell when constructing armies. That's how annoying it can be. Removing half of an opposing force from the action is devastating. That is, if the opponent is playing 1 health units. Otherwise, this spell does nothing. I reckon this spell could be quite useful in sealed play as well.
Firebolt (6/10): A fairly basic direct damage spell, good for removing specific targets or auto-killing 1-healths, as this spell stacks. Good because it is consistent, bad because it is fairly expensive.
Flashfire (9/10): In a game based on randomness, anything that makes force more reliable is a big bonus. Flashfire does just that. It loves big units and it loves units with nice SAI's. And it just so happens that a lot of players do so as well. And SAI's happen to love consistency. Though it's probably not the best spell in the game (I'm probably overrating it), it is certainly my favorite.

Swamp Stalker 6.25
Decay (4/10): Useful if you don't want your army to get hit too hard in melee when coming out of reserves (as the target is already there), something watery double and wall of ice have difficulties with. Otherwise not that impressive
Foul Water (6/10): An offensive green spell! As far as I can think of at the moment it's the only one in this color. And it's pretty cost-effective as well! 2 for 1 damage is pretty decent. Too bad people love to play multi-healths (though this can be an advantage as well).
Mire (9/10): Excellent spell. Making your opponent's path twice as long is very strong, especially when you can keep him dangling without an opponent on a melee face.
Black Rain (6/10): Halving saves is strong, and it combines very well with your racial ability, as it converts after halving. Also quite if you want your missile troops to take shot at you opponents. Then again, it's quite expensive and can put yourself at risk as well.

Treefolk 5.7
Camouflage (6.5/10): Probably the least powerfull of the hide-effects, as it won't help you survive against anything that melees. Still, it's a hide-effect, and this trick-value is enough to give this spell value.
Leaving (3.5/10): A bad version of open grave. Sure enough, the dice don't leave the field. If you meet the requirements, that is. And after stuff has left, it takes twice as long to get it back into it's proper place. Yuk.
Water of Life (5.5/10): I don't actually consider this to be a real treefolk-spell, but rater a remedial spell. The treefolk are the only race with no basic acces to resurrectional spells. Hence they were given a spell everyone else already had.
Call Water (5/10): Green is not the most powefull school of magic. Hence call water is not a very powefull spell. The fact that it sticks around is nice though.
Wall of Thorns (8/10): This thing is nasty. It puts your opponent is a position where either choice is wrong. The amounts of damage this wall does is massive, esppecially against anything not very much dedicated to melee. Just don't expect it to stop your opponent from getting a second 8th (as it doesn't).

Frostwing 5.33
Magic Drain (6/10): Good for putting a significant damper on your opponent's magical endgame. Then again, You'll most likely be casting this spell if you are already magically superior, in which case other options are usually more attractive to stop opposing casters(dragons, fingers of death, lightning strike).
Wind Wall (5/10): A non-stackable magical save. Good for cantrips, yet never actually exciting, especially when considering that Frostwings are already pretty good at saving.
Fields of Ice (5/10): Nice because you'll most likely have lots of flying units. Sadly, it lacks path and stackability.

Coral Elf 5.25
Blizzard (5/10): Halving melee results is pretty strong. Too bad it applies to all present at the terrain. This spell has specific uses (dragon support, combo with wall of thorns, maneuver-based strategies that want to survive) but those are too few to warrant this spell too much value.
Degenerate Dragonkin (7/10): Anothr very specific spell, but much stronger than the previous one. It's expensive, but it can really punish an opponent for going overboard with his dragonkin. The burial part is nice as well.
Bloat Corpses (7/10): Buring stuff is very good, as it allows you to take controle in the long run.
Part Water (2/10): Green magic, the bane of your forces. That's why you wish as little of your opponents Id's to double on green terrains as possible. Not really, though.

Goblin 4.33
Spirit Furnace (4/10): Another nice panic-button. The one moment your force is being stomped into the ground, the next moment your opponent is being chewed upon by two black dragons while fighting all sorts of palsies and other nastiness. Then again, burying your own units is a hefty price to pay, and you don't want your units dead in the first place.
Soiled Ground (7/10): Pretty scary if you get to attack first. Be sure not to be too much on the receiving end though, as it also works against you. The fact that the opponent does not get a chance to resurrect is pretty powerful. Apart from that, you'll need to kill at least 3 health to be better of than a simple 3x ashes to ashes.
Reform Land (1/10): Ugh. Just ugh.

Amazon 4.1
Honor the Dead (1/10): I can't think of any likely scenario in which you'd want to cast this spell (or be able to, for that matter).
Airy Acquisition (5/10): Interesting, as magic items dislike being in reserves. I suppose this could be pretty good with cantrips and bronze medallions. Still, this spell requires quite a bit of compositional preparation to actually do something. Ending up on the wrong terrain and you're still out of luck
Higher Ground (4/10): like Decay: more cost-effective, but also more expensive, and not stackable. Not that impressive as far as I can see.
Deluge (3/10): Though it's reasonably cost-effective in theory, your army likes maneuvers and it likes missiles, and is highly likely to be superior in the last category. And again it's not even stackable. Bleh.
Flaming Spears (7.5/10): The only spell that makes me happy. I like effects that stick until used, as it enables you to produce huge bursts of damage. Seeing that Amazons are already fond of ranged combat, this spell could do quite well.

Dwarves 3.75
Earthen Armor (7/10): Nice sticky spell that allows your forces to emerge from the reserves in relative safety. And if you roll an excess in saves, you can always elect not to use them.
Explode Stone (2/10): 1-health items aren't popular. If they were, this spell would be better, gettin it a higher rating, making 1-health items unpopular quite quickly again.
Create Mountain (4/10): Even though it's too expensive and a bit restricive, the fact that it actually counts as a highland (thus enababling your racial modifiers) is strong when playing dwarves or lava elves. too bad it doesn't remove the old type.
Reforge Item (2/10): If you get your magic items in the BUA, you are doing something wrong.


Final scores:

Undead: 6.91
Lava elves: 6.83
Feral: 6.7
Scalder: 6.5
Firewalkers: 6.3
Swamp stalker: 6.25
Treefolk: 5.7
Frostwing: 5.33
Coral elves: 5.25
Goblins: 4.33
Amazon: 4.1
Dwarves: 3.75


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[piMaster]

You forgot the Eldarim.

[DialFforFunky]

I wasn't expecting fully developed analyses, but doesn't anyone have opinions on the racial spell lists?

@ PiMaster: I still dislike the Eldarimg too much
As for the example; it possible to cast the spell, but it's still very unlikely that you'll ever want to do so. I bet this spell is even more unpopular than create mountain of reform land.


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[DialFforFunky]

I found this in my DragonDice folder, I thought I'd share it with the rest of the world.

Rate the Elemental Spells:

Gold (Earth) Spells (7.8 )
Stoneskin (5/10): Boring. Occasionally practical, yet hardly ever crucially so.
Dust to Dust (7.5/10): Burial is powerfull, and allows for devestating long-term strategies. The cost makes this spell slighly more unwieldy than its black counterpart.
Path (9/10): More rolls from your dice, big power shifts, quick escapes, unexpected oppositions and simply grabbing the 8th face your opponents worked so hard for. This spell does all that, and more. Stuff doesn't get much better than this.
Transmute Rock to Mud (9.5/10): Oh wait it does. This spell is like wind-walk, this spell helps in out-maneuvering your opponent for the win. Unlike wind walk, this spell also shuts down certain racial ablities, interferes with maneuver doubling and assists armies coming from reserves (or other terrains). And its more cost effective at that as well. Wow.

Blue (Air) Spells (7.5)
Hailstorm (7/10): Cheap but only moderatly powefull damaging spell that works wonders on those 'single-die' armies. Don't forget that this spell can target the reserves, which can be a great deal if your opponent thought he was safe from harm. I lost two medallions in learning this the hard way.
Breath of Life (8.5/10): Reanimating your dice is a core element of the game, and as such, this spell forms a crucial backbone of a lot of strategies.
Wind Walk (7.5/10): Out-maneuvering the opponent is one of the two main ways to victory, and this spell makes traveling along that path a good bit easier. A small downside to this spell is that it's not possible to use this spell to aid armies coming from reserves. Stackability more than makes up for it though.
Lightning Strike (7/10): Monster killer #1, as it can kill a lot of monsters with a 70% reliability. Killing 4 health for 6 magic with such reliability is very strong. This spell gets lest interesting on lower health targets though.

Red (Fire) Spells (7.4)
Ash Storm (7.5/10): Very solid army debuff. Great for supporting your dragons or for making sure your opponent doen't get any magic, though it has plenty other applications as well. The fact that it costs 2 means that you'll hardly ever not cast it throughout a game.
Spark of Life (8.5/10): Once again one of those backbone spells. Without ways of brining your dead back, you'll simply lose the game. As the Dice-Commander Manual said: "Its no fun without dice.".
Burning Hands (6.5/10): Though there aren't that many dice that can truely abuse this spell, the fact that it gives you increased offensive power and sticks around untill used makes this a very solid spell for just about any melee-oriented army.
Dancing Lights (7/10): Excellent spell when facing other mages or missile troops. Even better because it can also terget reserves. Ash Storm and Dancing Lights make red magic users feared by all other magic users.

Black (Death) Spells (7.1)
Ashes to Ashes (8/10): Burial for cheap! Even cheaper than bringing them back to life! In a game revolving around keeping dice on the table, burial is brutal. Therfore this spell is brutal.
Palsy (6/10): Expensive debuff, but without any real downsides. Probably too expensive to properly suppot a dragon attack, though it does help stopping small armies from casting ugly spells.
Reanimate Dead (8.5/10): Reanimating your dice is a core element of the game, and as such, this spell forms a crucial backbone of a lot of strategies.
Deadlands (6.0/10): Adding black to the terrain may occasionally come in handy, especially if you like burying. Most of the time, you should be doing fine with what your opponent has hanging around in his DUA, though it will help if you've got an 8th and want to go the attrition-route.
Finger of Death (7/10): Very expensive direct damage spell, but it doesn't get more reliable than this.
Open Grave (7/10): To prevent is better than to cure, and this spell does just that. Though it doesn't catch the occasional SAI or spell-target, it does get more efficient than healing very quick. The only downside is that units saved on your opponents turn will have to spend a turn in reserves before they get to do anything. Still, better then having them in your DUA.

Green (Water) Spells (5.9)
Watery Double (6/10): Once again, pretty boring. The fact that this spell sticks around untill the end of your turn makes it slightly more interesting, for example in prolonged melee assualts or against dragons.
Wall of Ice (6/10): Very cost effective save-generating spell. Too bad the good stuff comes in small packages, as the spell isn't stackable, making this another rather dull save-generating spell
Flash Flood (7/10):Remote terrain-manipulation is nice. Flash flood could be used to remotely create a new safe patch for your moges to cast from, or it could (if properly supported) wash an opponent from his beloved 8th-face. All on it's own, the 8-maneuver requirement is quite easy to achieve though, making this spell significantly less powerfull if it isn't properly supported by other spells.
Wall of Fog (4.5/10): I suppose this spell is pretty cost-effective. Too bad good targets for this spell are often few and far between, as the spell works both ways. The fact that it only affects incoming missile fire, and missiles fired while at the terrain makes this a spell a good deal less interesting.


Note that the rating given to the individual schools of magic is an average of the spells that make up the school. To get something more proportionate to my evaluation the rating of the best spell should be added multiple times when calculating the average, as the best spells usually get cast more often.


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