Warhammer Army Project: Magic Items

With new armybooks having less magic items than 8e, better get used to the BRB ones.

General Guidelines

This information is mostly covered in BRB, but it may be still worth repeating.

• 1) You can have only one magic item of each type per hero. Special characters are an exception to this rule.
• 2) You can have only one copy of each item in your army.
• 3) A character can only use Magic armor if they can take the Mundane version of the armor.
• 4) A hero, who can become a wizard (such as Shadowdancer, Warlock Engineer, etc.) cannot purchase Arcane items until they gain at least 1 magic level.
• 5) Magic weapons and magic shields, whether paired together, or separately with mundane equipment DO GRANT A PARRY SAVE.
• 6) Magic helm/shield does NOT replace mundane body armor.

Item List

Magic Weapons

• Dragon Blade:' 60pts for hits to be multiplied by 2. This means that one hit into a unit can kill two people if they both end up wounding.
• Giant Blade: 45pts for +3 Stregth. With a 15pt reduction from 8e this can now be put on Heroes. Strong as always on a high attack high WS Elf Lord.
• Sword of Bloodshed: 45pts for +3 Attacks. Similar story for above but should be used on characters with a high base strength so they can murder even more chaff. Doombull's favorite.
• Obsidian Blade: 40pts for ignoring armor saves. 10 pts cheaper than 8e but still borderline useless. For 5 more points you can get a giant blade and be better off most of the time. Only reason to take would be if you are against some Knight fetish player playing High Elves, Bretonnia or Empire that fields an army exclusively made up of +1 or +2 barded t3 knights.
• Ogre Blade: 30pts for +2 Strength. 10pts less than 8e. With the changes to GW making them strike at -2i and losing 1str in subsequent rounds of combat this can be a hard sell (except they can still carry a shield WHICH NOW GRANTS A PARRY SAVE).
• Sword of Strife: 30pts for +2 Attacks. Similar story to the above. However, with additional handweapons allowed to be combined with magic weapons now it seems a little overpriced.
• Bone Blade 30pts for multiple wounds d3... 1/3 of the time this does nothing.
• Fencer's Blade: 25pts for WS10 and is a paired weapon. 10pts cheaper than 8e. May be good for low-WS combat lords/heroes, though prevents from using a shield. Really shines on mage characters, drastically improving their chance to survive in melee, and also allows them to occasionally kill something too, which is hilarious.
• Sword of Anti-Heroes: 30pts for +1S & +1A for each enemy character in base contact with the wearer or his unit. Ideal for Chaos Lords and Blood Dragon Vampires as they need to be issuing challenges and should be pursuing characters anyway. The rules as written increase the user's strength and attacks, so pair with an additional hand weapon for a free extra strength attack.
• Sword of Swift Slaying: 25pts for ASF. Considering how rare ASF is now this is more useful. If you could take this on a great weapon this would be the cats pajamas.
• Blade of Seagold: 25pts for Armor Piercing (3). Really should just fork over the 5 pts for an Ogre Blade.
• Relic Sword: 20pts to always wound on +3 (8e was 10pts to always wound on +5). Can be viable against a Dwarf Lord with the Master Rune of Adamant or Templeguard with a Throne of Vines buffed Flesh to Stone.
• Sword of Fortitude: 20pts for Immune to Psych for the bearer and unit.
• Parrying Blade: 20pts for +5 parry save. Combined with a mundane shield gives the wearer a +4 word in most close combat situations.
• Sword of Striking: 20pts for +1 to hit. Not a bad choice against some asshat rocking glittering scales.
• Sword of Battle: 15pts for +1A. Cheap and a little extra kill power, wouldn't bother with it on anything bigger than a hero.
• Sword of Might: 15pts for +1S. Nice, I guess, if you want to give your hero some extra punch and magic attacks, general out done by many other weapons but it is economical if you have plenty of attacks base or expect ethereals.
• Berserker Sword: 15pts 5pts cheaper than 8e. Frenzy which cannot be lost. +1A is not that great and downsides of berserker rage are not really worth the ItP (if the char has good Ld, he doesn't care for ItP that much, if the char has bad Ld, he will suffer from frenzy badly). Skip.
• Sword of Striking: 15pts for +1 to hit. Actually, very nice. Due to how WS works (WS10 and WS3 hit WS2 on same roll), independent "to hit" modifiers are very nice.
• Biting Blade: 5pts for Armor Penetration. If you really want that 1ArP, just scoop 10pts more and get Sword of Might. Skip. Alternate Take: Could be useful in small games or on a budget character, especially if you find yourself going against high armor opponents like dwarfs.
• Shrieking Blade: 10pts for causing Fear. Given how fear works in current edition it is actually it is playable and competitive on single heroes destined to hunt ethereals or vs moral manipulation armies. Those have fear themselves so with Blade you don't worry about Ld bubble even with low-Ld heroe.
• Tormentor Sword: 5pts for granting Stupidity to a character/monster wounded by this. Once again, would be neat as special rule, useless as an item. As above, playable only on Ethereal hunter.
• Warrior Bane: 5pts. A monster of character who takes wounds from this weapon loses 1A per wound taken. Last item in the trio of "would be a nice special rule but is a shitty item" weapons. It doesn't affect attacks from, say Sword of Strife ('cos those are granted and not a character's own stat). And third one to collection of cheap weapons for cheap chaff/ethereal hunter. Has a lot of potential as an anti vampire/chaos lord weapon on a tanked out lord or champion.

Magic Armour

WARNING It cannot be stressed enough, but you cannot take everything on this list on every character. If your character cannot wear heavy armour, any magical heavy armour will be out of your reach. Likewise, you cannot select any shields if your character cannot use them.

• Armour of Destiny: 50pts for Heavy Armour with a +4 Ward. For some characters can be cheaper than a Talisman of Preservation and upgrading to heavy armour. For most it will be more expensive. Since heavy armour gives a +4 save now, it is marginally better than 8e. However, with the new rules alot of armybooks cannot take it.
• Armour of Fortune: 35pts for medium armour with a +5 ward. Cant even take this on Oldbloods....
• Trickster's Helm:35pts for 6+ and rerolling wounding hits. Can only be recommended on Lord with a high toughness. Put this on a Chaos Lord with Mark of Nurgle and the Dawnstone and laugh as strength 4 attacks reroll 6's to wound and +2 armor save.
• Armour of Resilience:30pts for Heavy Armour and +1T??? Pass.
• Armour of Silvered Steel: 25pts for a +2 save that cannot be improved. 20pts cheaper than 8th. Can be justified for someone w/o barding or shield. Alot of characters have Heavy Armour or fullplate armour included in their cost. This is only a point of two better for 25 pts... Hard to justify when an enchanted shield and talisman of endurance is equal in price, which would provide the same armour and a +6 ward/ +5 parry.
• Glittering Scales: 25pts for the same old cheese, now one of the only armors Lizardmen and Wood Elves can bring to the field.
• Shield of Ptolos: 20pts for a shield, which grants 1+ armor save against shooting. Dogshit item in 8e and the 5pt discount doesnt change the consensus.
• Helm of Discord: 20pts for a helm which makes a single character in a unit in base contact with wearer's unit to check Ld each turn. If a character fails his Ld test, he cannot attack and is hit (not wounded) automatically that turn. Not reliable, not cheap, but can be funny in friendly games. 10pts cheaper than 8e makes the meme more worth it.
• Gambler's Armor: 20pts for medium armor with 6+ ward. Really cheap, grants a tiny bit of protection. Could be nice if you need 3rd char with 6++ save.

Tips

It is totally not necessary to have a magic item in each slot, it is not D&D. Heavy or Light armour with shield do their work just fine, unless you are aiming for 1+, Halberd or even Great Weapon are good and cheap either if you can surive without a shield. Don't be afraid to take a naked Annointed of Asuryan or an extra Skaven Chieftain, if you have a use for them, but can't afford to get them full magic gear - the default is perfectly fine. You are not obliged to max out the magic item allowance on each of your characters either. Almost-naked Vampire Lord is still formidable enough.