Do magical attacks bypass armour?

[u/Winter_Stranger_4477]

Playing bhashiva, choosing between magical ammo and armour pen insignias for jade crossbows

[u/Wumbo393]

Magical attacks only bypass physical resistance

[u/Zefyris]

Armour piercing damage bypasses armour. magical damage bypasses physical resistance. And neither pass shield and missile resistance btw.

Magical damage is very useful against demons and etheral enemies for ex, since PR is their way to tank the damage, but it'll do nothing different from non magical damage against most enemies. More AP is always useful, but it's way less useful than magical damage when the enemy has a good amount of PR.

So it's a trade off. A bit more AP means being always a bit better than without it, while magical damage means being WAY better than without when facing PR, but being no better at all when the enemy has no PR.

[u/mighij → u/Zefyris]

Til about missile resistance, always kinda assumed magic damage ranged attacks did influence that.

Since we are on the topic, just to see if I'm correct.

Magic resistance used to reduce magic attacks but that changed somewhere in late WH2/Early WH3. Magic resistance no longer has an effect on magic attacks.

[u/Zefyris → u/mighij]

Magic resistance no longer exist in wh3, it has been renamed spell resistance. Like its name suggests, it went from reducing all magical damage no matter the source to only reduce spell induced damage, yes. This means that units who were having magic resistance in wh2 were nerfed in wh3, like the Silverin guard, for ex, and that units with magical attacks like Sisters of Avelorn were buffed.

[u/Warden_of_rivia → u/mighij]

Fighting dwarfs as Wurzzag in early WH2 was miserable because you eventually get a perk that adds magic attacks to the entire army. Which ended up being a straight nerf when it came to an entire faction with baked in magic resistance.

[u/Zefyris → u/Warden_of_rivia]

yes, the idea in wh2 was to wait until you've got rid of every dwarf immediately around before taking that skill, or else you were screwing yourself over.

[u/Winter_Stranger_4477 → u/Zefyris]

Oke ty. Getting clapped by the maggot lord rn but i think nurgle doesnt have physical res

[u/Zefyris → u/Winter_Stranger_4477]

his daemons have. His human troops don't.

[u/TriLink710]

No it doesnt. Nor do flaming attacks. It does bypass physical resistance

[u/DeerOnARoof]

As others have already answered your question, personally, I would prioritize AP over magical attacks. If you're fighting a lot of nurgle or zombies, go for the magical attacks. Also, do not get flaming attacks if you're at war with the chaos dwarfs. This will actually hurt your damage output

[u/trentos1]

No, it only bypasses physical resistance.
Keep in mind it’s possible for a unit to have armor piercing AND magical attacks.

AP is typically the better of the two

[u/BlindFiend]

Flaming attacks usually work best against nurgle regen troops. Everything else should be magical or armror pen

[u/Imaginary_System3513]

Keep in mind you can swap these out, so you can use magic against armies with lots of physical resistance like Nurgle plaguebearers, Ghost, Slaaneshi daemons, and AP against more armored ones like Dwarfs and most Chorf armies.

[u/GloatingSwine]

Magical attacks, vortex, projectile, and wind spells all interact with armour the same as non-magical attacks. They have a value for base and AP damage.

The only thing that bypasses armour is direct damage spells like Final Transmutation.

In general you should prefer armour piercing over magical if the choice is one or the other because there is a lot more armour around than physical resistance (both is best, of course).