Starting spell for Orc Warband

In our group we have the houserule that the spellcasters of every warband may pick their first spell.

I'm playing Orcs and I'm wondering which spell I should choose. I'm torn between "Clubba" and "Fire of Gork" (maybe also Zzap!)

What would you suggest to start with? and why?

I've had good luck with Clubba. And I like the idea of the shaman running up and beating the snot out of someone.

My favorite is Ledz Go!

Stays active, that way you can cast it from the start and not bank anything on difficulty rolls!

And orcs that strike first are scary scary things.

Let's face it: the orc shaman has a lot of really nice spells - it may be my favorite overall spell list.

All of the Orc Spells are good except for the Fooled Ya! spell. It is a funny spell and can drive people crazy when your shaman bounces around the table.

I think that it depends on your play style, and what other people are playing. If you need another beater I would go Clubba, if you need some ranged fire power I would go Fire of Gork or Zzap!

Clubba is really good if you plan to have your shaman in melee combat. The extra attack and the strength bonus turns your shaman into a pretty good fighter.

I have always found more success with the ranged magic attacks. I would look at who else you are playing against and their toughness. If more people are playing characters with 3 toughness then go with Fire of Gork because the d3 attacks can be really good at lower toughness models. If there are a lot of 4+ tounghness characters then go with Zzap!

Rudeboy wrote:

I would look at who else you are playing against and their toughness. If more people are playing characters with 3 toughness then go with Fire of Gork because the d3 attacks can be really good at lower toughness models. If there are a lot of 4+ tounghness characters then go with Zzap!

my rival warbands are Undead, Dark Elves and Beastmen. The last player will choose either Skaven or Undead i guess.

So its mostly toughness 3. How much armour will be used is yet to be seen. As the group "initiatior" i hope they do, but as an Orc player i hope they don't use any armour at all... muahaha

In some way Zzap! and Fire of Gork can also be seen as "cc-spells". If you cast them at a model in btb with the Shaman and manage to wound them, you can ooA-wound or auto-ooA them in the CC-phase. That's a reason why I prefer them slightly to the Clubba spell...

but so far I can only talk about it theoretically hence my initial question

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btw: I did some number crunching in order to get a hint from there, thus I made a comparison between Zzap! and Fire of Gork.



1) So I calculated the probabilities of the different difficulties to cast (in case you are interested):

Difficulty 6: 0.722

Difficulty 7: 0.583

Difficulty 8: 0.416

Difficulty 9: 0.277

So Fire of Gork goes off on a 41.6% chance whereas for Zzap its 27.7%.




2) Then I calculated the number of wounds the spell would make per turn against T3, the casting difficulty also taken into consideration. I assumed that the 2D3 and the D3 roll the most average result possible: 4 and 2, respectively.


Barring of any armour (because it is ignored) Zzap statistically should make 0.37 wounds per turn.

So roughly every third turn a wound can statistically be expected.


With Fire of Gork the case is a bit more complicated, as armour must be taken into consideration:

4+ AS: 0.416 wounds per turn

5+ AS: 0.555 wounds per turn

6+ AS: 0.694 wounds per turn

no AS: 0.833 wounds per turn

So compared to the 0.37 wounds of Zzap! I came to the conclusion that Fire of Gork makes more wounds if the target has an armour save of 4+ or worse. On a AS of 3+ or better, Zzap should be favoured.



I hope I made no mistakes in my calculations

Personally, for the first spell I would favour the Fires of Gork. It is easier to get off, and being able to attack the *two* closest targets is very handy for shooting past the meatshields.