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All life is made up of highly organized matter, governed by the laws of nature. Consequently, all life is a struggle against Chaos, a struggle destined to be finally lost.
– Albrecht di Nuln
Ability
Skills are the putting into shape of all the rules, innate or acquired, always active or activable, with which each unit is equipped with the exception of the normal application of its Statistics and game physics. If a unit has any particular trait or use, it will be summarized into an ability.
All abilities of a unit are summarized in its profile; Known Spells are also included among them.
Passive skills
Virtually all units have passive abilities, which are the default active attributes, effects, vulnerabilities, and immunities for the unit. Some of the most common passive skills are "Vanguard", "Cause Fear / Terror" and "Regeneration".
A passive ability doesn't necessarily work all the time. This wording simply refers to the fact that the use or non-use of the Skill is not under the player's direct control, but related to the rules and conditions of the Skill itself. It is also good to note that some passive skills are applied as special rules on the campaign map, rather than during battles (this is the case for example of "Siege Striker", which allows you to assault fortified cities even without building equipment. siege).
Active skills
Active Skills, unlike passive ones, only work on direct input from the player. Some examples of Active Skills are “Don't Give Up!”, “Deadly Strike”, “Anemic Seeker” and “Slippery”. No active Ability has any effect or can be used on the campaign map.
All active abilities of a unit are gathered in a circle around the portrait of the unit itself when it is selected, and can be activated simply by clicking on their icon. Each active Skill has a duration (represented by a timer on the icon, which runs simultaneously with the filling of the outline of the icon itself with a colored ring) and a recharge time (which is triggered as soon as the effect of the Skill ends, and is indicated by a single timer on the icon); some Skills also have a cooldown at the start of each battle.
Basically, each active Skill can be used an infinite number of times. However, there are exceptions - for example some Skills due to possessing magical items - which have a limited number of uses for each battle, indicated next to their icon.
The usage icons of the unit's active skills.
Spells
Spells are a particular type of active Skill, which only Wizards know and can use. Even if, in fact, they function in all respects as active Skills, the Spells follow additional rules regarding their use.
Knowledge of magic
All the Spells in the game are grouped into Lore of Magic, each of which is made up of 6 distinct Spells (plus possibly some other "Special Spells" that can, for some Wizards, replace some of the common ones). The knowledge of magic is only a method to group in a more intuitive way all the spells of the game, and the belonging as such to one knowledge rather than another does not alter the effects of the spell; however there are some passive abilities that are activated every time a spell of a certain knowledge is cast.
Ultimately, however, each type of Wizard has a pool of pre-established Spells that he can learn, belonging to one or more distinct Lore of Magic.
Winds of Magic
The Winds of Magic are the "magic points" needed to cast all spells, and are shared by all the wizards of a single army. The Winds of Magic are divided into Power and Reserve; the Power is spent on casting Spells, while the Reserve slowly recharges the Power.
The Power is capped at 30 at any given time, and it fills up as the Reserve is consumed. The Reserve is also not infinite, and moreover the transfer to the Power is faster the more the Reserve itself is full. When the Reserve reaches 0, unless some particular Skills are used, the recharge of the Power definitively ceases for the rest of the battle.
The full prospectus of the Winds of Magic.
Enhanced Launches
Some Spells (distinguished by a small symbol with two darts on their icon) can be cast with two variations of power. If you select the Spell the casting will take place in the basic version, while clicking a second time on the icon before placing it on the battlefield will perform an Enhanced cast.
A spell cast in Empowered mode has additional and sometimes different effects, which will be noted - with blue text - in the description of the Spell itself as soon as you set it up for the Empowered cast. Generally, one or more of the range, area of ​​effect, effectiveness and duration of the base spell is increased. The Power cost, and sometimes the reload time, also increases.
Launch accidents
Whenever an empowered spell is cast, the wizard who uses it has a 50% chance of suffering a casting accident. The Launch Incident results in an instant loss of a portion of health for the Mage, which can potentially kill him; the casting of the spell itself, the Winds of magic, etc. they are not affected in any way by the Incident.
Types of spells
Although each spell has its own particular rules, all of them fall into one of 9 predefined types. A more or less detailed description of each individual Spell, with even a video example opposite, is available within the game itself, in a menu that can be reached by pressing the right mouse button on the icon of any Spell.
Magic bullets
Magic Bullets are fired in the form of one or more darts that fly autonomously to the target, causing damage to the units they impact (potentially even friendly ones). Bullets are not absolutely certain of hitting the target - or even just any target - and their damage yield is generally very variable.
Bombardment
A Bombardment is placed in a point of the map, where one or more projectiles will fall in the seconds following the launch, producing explosive impacts. A Bombardment is effective on a large mass of enemies compressed in a small space, especially when they are engaged in close combat.
The icon with the two arrows indicates that a Spell can be cast in Enhanced mode. Above, the Power cost and cooldown time for the currently selected launch variant.
Explosion
An Explosion produces, as the name suggests, an explosion at the chosen location, which damages and potentially lifts any unit that is hit. Often the Explosions do not cause very high damage, but can cause an entire regiment to lose its position and ranks, which can thus more easily suffer the full effects of a charge without being able to oppose it.
Vortex
A Vortex is an area of ​​movable damage, which always originates at the chosen point and (as the case may be) remains stationary or moves in random directions until its termination; usually any unit the Vortex passes through, whether friendly or enemy, is damaged. Due to how the game's physics system works, Vortexes tend to lose position but cause little damage to light units, while on the contrary causing more considerable damage to units too heavy to be lifted off the ground.
Breath
A Breath produces a kind of conical "wave", originating in the chosen point, which advances in the opposite direction to the Magician and damages anything it passes through. Breaths are particularly effective on large groups of enemies, and particularly when used from the flank of a long linear array.
Wind
A Wind is a Vortex that always moves in a straight line at a constant speed, from the point of origin in the opposite direction to where the Magician was at the time of launch. Its use is similar to that of an Alito, but with a generally greater area of ​​effect and range.
Direct damage
Direct Damage is a broad definition to describe all spells aimed at damaging the enemy but without a "physical" counterpart that materially hits the target. Most of them hit either a single target or an area, causing damage over time to all affected units until the spell ends. Some rare Direct Damage causes targets to temporarily reduce some Stats in parallel with the damage, just like Curses.
Upgrades
Boosts are temporary enhancements to some Stats, and can target a single friendly unit or all of them within a certain area. The effect is instant on cast, and ends immediately when the Spell ends. Some Upgrades also allow chosen units to regain Health, and potentially items previously lost in battle.
By right-clicking on the icon of any Spell you can access a complete list of all the spells in the game, their statistics and their effects.
A very small group of Spells, always improperly defined as "Upgrades", allow you to Summon a new unit on the field, in all respects under the control of the player who cast the Spell like any other unit of his, but destined to lose slowly health over time. This new unit cannot simply be de-summoned, and its permanence has no further effect on the Wizard or the Winds of Magic; however, there must be at least one free unit slot in the army before the Spell can be cast. At the end of the battle, any summoned creatures automatically disappear.
These Upgrades are capped on usage in addition to their normal Power cost; sometimes this ceiling is global (that is, the entire army can use that given maximum spell tot. times per battle), other times it is tied to each single wizard (that is, each wizard can cast it maximum tot. times per battle).
Curse
A Curse works like a Boost, but in reverse: it temporarily worsens some stats of one or more chosen enemy units. Just like Augments, both the application and the end of the effect are instantaneous.
In TWW2, new Lore of Magic have been added belonging to factions not present in the first chapter. The Knowledge that was already present has been re-proposed substantially identical, although undergoing minor changes; below are the most important.
Adjustable breaths and winds
In the first chapter it was not possible to change the angle at which to cast these two types of spells. This was fixed and identified by the line passing through the spell caster and the point where the spell or ability was cast.
In TWW2, by keeping pressed on the point where you intend to cast the spell, you can instead direct it as you wish to maximize its effect.
New types of spells
While in the first chapter the developers have chosen to merge many spells into the generic category of "upgrades", in the second they have opted for the establishment of new spell classes. Below is the list:
Hide
Spells of this type increase the stealth of your troops by making them less visible than enemies. A spell from the Lore of Little Waaagh !, "Cloak of the Night", already present in TWW1 as a curse that obscured the sight of enemy units in a given area, has been revived in TWW2 as a spell of the hide class able to make visible the friendly units only at close range (thus maintaining essentially the same effect).
Regeneration
Some spells that had the effect of regenerating health points for your troops were included in the first chapter among the upgrades. They now fall into the regeneration class.
Strengthening the winds
Spells that regenerate wind power or replenish reserve now fall into the wind enhancement category, and no longer into upgrades.
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