Ever wondered what Endless Spells, now called Manifestations, are and how they work? Or did you use them earlier and want to know how they work in Age of Sigmar 4.0?
Then this is the guide for you!
A note on rules in Age of Sigmar 4.0: In this and other articles, we take an in-depth look at how Age of Sigmar 4.0 is played. In doing this, we often refer to the Core Rules of the game. Those rules are available as a free download from the Age of Sigmar website ici.
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What are the Manifestations?
First of all, Manifestations are models that represent magical or divine entities that can be summoned on the battlefield. They were first introduced at the beginning of Age of Sigmar 2.0 as a consequence of the Necroquake (a powerful spell cast by Nagash, the undying God of Death, that went terribly wrong and affected magic energies across all realms).
There are two types of Manifestations: the Endless Spells are cast by the wizards of your army, and Invocations which are summoned by priests. Each manifestation has its own warscroll and either a spell or a prayer that allows to be summoned.
Spells and prayers can be found in the appropriate Manifestation Lore, that has been newly introduced in Age of Sigmar 4.0. Indeed, endless spells and invocations don’t have anymore a cost in points, and each faction can choose a single Manifestation Lore during army composition.
All manifestations have been divided in several lores, with the faction manifestations belonging to a single lore. This way you have to decide if to choose an universal lore or the faction one.
You can find all rules to handle manifestations in the section 7.0 of the Advanced Rules under the Magic section.
Let’s see in detail exactly how the endless spells work.
How do I gain access to Endless Spells models and rules?
In order to summon an Endless Spell or Invocation you need to have chosen the appropriate Manifestation Lore. Even the Kronsdpine Incarnate now has its own lore. While you can buy expansion boxes like Malign Sorcery ou Forbidden Power which contain a good number of manifestations, those have now been divided in different lores that will see in detail later. The faction spells are instead sold in specific boxes for that army and they are usually in group of 3. Some armies do not have faction-specific endless spells.
You can find the rules of the universal manifestations for free in the Warhammer Community download section or on the Age of Sigmar app, while the faction ones are either in the index or the battletome for that faction, whichever has been published later.
Malign Sorcery is a set of 13 Endless Spells (some have more than one model), usable by any wizard. It has been recently re-boxed and is now available only from Games Workshop website for £50. The usefulness of these spells depends from edition, updated rules, and army you play with, but some spells are evergreen and have been consistently a valid option.
Forbidden Power instead is the re-boxed set with only the Endless Spells at a much cheaper price but available only from Games Workshop website for £31.5. There are 4 spells which can be an interesting option for some armies, although rule changes from year to year can really change their usage.
How to summon a Manifestation?
Endless Spells are cast the same way as ordinary spells: you roll 2 dice and the sum has to be equal or greater than the casting value of the spell. If you succeed, any enemy wizard or other model allowed to, within 30″ can attempt to unbind the spell by beating the value you just cast (called casting roll). You can attempt to cast each spell only once per turn.
If you succeed, you can the follow the rules for positioning the spell, usually within a certain distance from the casting wizard. Each warscroll has abilities that trigger in specific moments, for example some spells can move, some can detonate at the end of the turn and so on.
For example the Chronomantic Cogs have a casting value of 6 and a range of 12 “. This means with 2 dice you have to score at least 6 to cast it successfully (including all buffs and debuffs to casting). If it is not unbound, i.e. an opponent wizard beats your casting roll, you can set it up within 12” of the caster.
Once per turn, during your hero phase, any friendly wizard within 3″ of the spell can decide to increase or decrease the flow of time, giving a bonus to charge to friendly units or a malus to hit to enemies attacking wizards within range of the Cogs.
Invocations are summoned the same way any other prayer is chanted: you roll a single dice and if you roll 1, you lose D3 ritual points. In all other situations, you gain that many ritual points. If you have enough ritual points as mentioned in the prayer requirement, you can summon the manifestation and reset the ritual points. Being prayers, the invocations cannot be unbound.
How to remove a Manifestation?
Every wizard and priest knows the Banish Manifestation ability that can be used only in your hero phase. Each endless spell and manifestation has a banish value that the wizard or priest has to equal or exceed by rolling 2D6. If successful, the manifestation is immediately removed. Each manifestation can be picked only once per turn by this ability.
How many times a wizard or priest can banish depends on their power level, but each attempt will use one of their slots available to cast or chant.
Some manifestations have also other ways to remove them on their warscroll, for example the Malevolent Maelstrom can detonate and spread mortal wounds within a considerable range.
If the summoning wizard or priest is removed from the battlefield, all linked manifestations are removed.
The last way to remove manifestations, completely new in Age of Sigmar 4.0, is to attack them and reduce their Health to 0. This is part of the changes to their warscroll we are going to analyse in the next section.
What did change in Age of Sigmar 4.0 with regards to Invocations?
The first change is that now manifestations are free, but you need to choose a Manifestation Lore during army composition and all wizards or priests in your army know the related summoning ability.
There are the universal manifestations lore available to all armies. Their rules are available for free on the download section of Age of Sigmar in the Warhammer Community website.
- Krondspine Incarnate: includes only the Krondspine Incarnate
- Forbidden Power: includes Shards of Valagharr, Lauchon the Soulseeker, Horrorghast, Soulscreamer Bridge
- Morbid Conjuration: includes Purple Sun of Shyish, Suffocating Gravetide, Malevolent Maelstrom, Soulsnare Shackles
- Aetherwrought Machineries: includes Chronomantic Cogs, Quicksilver Swords, Aethervoid Pendulum
- Primal Energy: includes Burning Head, Emerald Lifeswarm, Ravenak’s Gnashing Jaws
- Twilit Sorceries: includes Umbral Spellportal, Geminids of Uhl-Gysh, Primastic Palisade
All manifestations have now a warscroll that resembles that of a unit, with Health, Save characteristic and so on, but they are not treated as units except in the following situations:
- They are treated as units for the purpose of movement, combat range, being in combat and setting up other units. They can be charged by other units.
- If they have the appropriate weapon, they can use the Fight and/or Shoot core ability.
- If they have a Move characteristic, they can use the Move core ability.
- If they don’t have a Move characteristic, they cannot move. In addition they are treated as units only in the combat phase.
- They can be picked by enemy abilities that require a target.
- They receive damage exactly as other units do, and if their Health goes to 0, they are removed.
- Other models can move through them but cannot end a move on them.
In summary, endless spells and invocations can now be charged and removed from the battlefield after hacking them to death (same is valid for faction terrain). They have a save characteristic and usually a ward. They can be picked as a target of a charge and use the pile in move to get in range of another unit behind them, or used to screen an area if there’s no other way around them.
Their abilities have been converted, so many of those “mortal wounds only” spells have now attacks, while those with effects triggered when the manifestations move work a similar way.
Attention when summoning a manifestation with a Move value, you now have to respect the 9″ distance from all enemy models and cannot move in the same phase it has been set up (but it can charge), while if the manifestation does not have a Move value, then you just need to follow the distance from the caster as per warscroll.
Are Endless Spells/Invocations mandatory?
If you are starting playing Age of Sigmar in this new version, you can absolutely ignore Endless Spells and Invocations even if your army has access to some faction specific ones.
Once you get accustomed to the core rules, then you can start exploring which options are available to you. As they are free, it is worth considering them for more competitive games as otherwise you would be at a disadvantage against other opponents. But if you are playing casual friendly games, you can agree to remove that specific module from your game.
At the moment there are two expansions available to all armies (if they have at least a wizard, sorry Khorne) with great models for painting projects and some useful spells: Malign Sorcery and Forbidden Power.
See our army overview to check if your army has access to Endless Spells or Invocations!
Are the Endless Spells worth it? That depends on your army. They add a new strategic component that can shift the balance of the fight, but not all of them are equally good. Some, like the Purple Sun of Shyish, are extremely useful and are often played in competitive games.