| Fireball | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Realm |
 Chaos | |
| Spell Rarity | Uncommon | |
| Spell Type | Combat Instant | |
| Casting Cost |
 15-75 | |
| Research Cost |
 560 | |
| ||
The target is hit by an Area Damage attack with a strength of  5-25 (delivering Immolation Damage). | ||
Fireball is an Uncommon Combat Instant belonging to the Chaos Magic realm. It may only be cast during combat, and must be targeted at an enemy unit. For 15 the spell will strike a target unit with an Area Damage attack of a basic strength of 5 (delivering Immolation Damage). As per the rules of Area Damage, the potential harm to the target is increased proportionally to the number of 
figures it contains.
Up to 60 additional Mana points may be spent increasing the strength of this bolt, with every 3 adding +1.
Effects[]
Fireball launches a powerful bolt that delivers Immolation Damage to its target. As this is a type of Area Damage, the total 
Damage done to the target, on average, increases proportionally to the number of live Figures in that target.
Furthermore, the strength of the Fireball's attack can be increased by investing more Mana into it at the time of the casting.
Immolation Damage[]
- Main article: Immolation Damage
When a unit is targeted by a Fireball, it is instantly struck by an Immolation Damage attack, the strength of which is determined by the amount of Mana invested into casting the spell (see below). The result of this damage also depends greatly on the number of live Figures in the target unit.
When the target is a 
Single-Figure unit, Immolation Damage behaves almost the same as Fire Damage: the attack makes a certain number of 
To Hit rolls to determine how accurate it is, and the target may make 
Defense rolls as appropriate to see how much damage it can block or avert. All unblocked hits are translated into Damage points, and applied to the target unit, as in Physical Damage, with the exception that the damage done is limited to the current 
Health of the unit.
However, as this is a form of Area Damage, targets containing 
Multiple Figures are struck separately for every figure instead. In essence, the more Figures the target contains, the more Immolation Damage is inflicted upon it.
The Fireball makes a number of To Hit rolls against each Figure equal to its Attack Strength, and each Figure may make its own set of Defense rolls to avert that incoming damage. At the end of this process, all unblocked hits to each Figure are tallied together, and applied as Damage Points to the unit as a whole. However, no figure can have more unblocked hits registered at it than it has Hit Points, which is somewhat of a limiting factor for final damage.
The end result is still that Multi-Figure units stand to suffer much more Damage on average when struck by a Fireball, than a Single-Figure unit would suffer from the same cast - and the more Figures there are, the more Damage is inflicted overall. In fact, there are many offensive spells that will inflict much more Damage on Single-Figure units for a much lower Casting Cost, making the Fireball spell a dedicated anti- Multi-Figure unit spell. It can easily obliterate a unit of 8-figure Spearmen even when cast without any extra Mana, but would require a very hefty amount of extra Mana to seriously hurt, for instance, a single 
Stone Giant.
Immunities[]
Fireball delivers Immolation Damage, the Area version of Fire Damage. This makes targets possessing either the 
Magic Immunity or 
Righteousness effects completely immune to it. They will never suffer any damage from this attack.
Units with 
Fire Immunity are actually not completely immune. Instead, their Defense is temporarily raised to 
50 for the purpose of blocking this damage. This, of course, applies to each figure in the unit. To put this into perspective, a maxed out Fireball ( 25) has roughly 2% chance of damaging such a figure.
The following conditional effects also offer extra protection against Fireball: the protective Unit Enchantments Bless, Resist Elements, and Elemental Armor; and the 
Large Shield ability.
Usage[]
Fireball may only be cast during combat, for a basic Casting Cost of 15. It must be targeted at an enemy unit. Unfortunately the game will not complain about targeting units with the above immunities that will fail to be affected.
The casting Wizard may add up to +60 to the spell's Casting Cost in order to increase its potency. Every 3 beyond the spell's base cost of 15 will add a +1 bonus to the strength of the attack. The casting Wizard may not spend more Mana than he has in his Mana pool, nor spend more Mana than his current remaining Spell Skill allows.
Bear in mind that the Attack Strength will only increase with every full 3 spent, fractions of this are effectively wasted!
Fireball is shown on screen as a massive ball of flames flying down from the sky and impacting with the targeted unit. Damage is dealt immediately on impact.
Acquisition[]
As an Uncommon Chaos spell, Fireball may become available to any Wizard who possesses at least one Chaos Spellbook. However, its availability during the game is almost never guaranteed.
Customized Wizards possessing 11 Spellbooks at creation time may choose this spell as one of their default spells before starting the game, in which case the spell will already be researched and available for casting immediately on the first turn.
Wizards who possess at least 8 Spellbooks, or Wizards with 11 Spellbooks who did not select Fireball as a guaranteed spell, will be able to Research this spell at some point during their campaign. Wizards with fewer than 8 Spellbooks have a random chance of being able to Research it. The chance for this spell to appear increases with the number of Chaos Spellbooks the Wizard possesses or obtains during gameplay.
Fireball has a base Research Cost of 560.
With at least 1 Spellbook, the Fireball spell may be acquired as a reward for winning encounters in creature Lairs, Towers, et cetera, or when conquering the Fortress of a rival wizard who has already researched this spell.
Strategy[]
Among the various Chaos Magic direct-damage spells, Fireball is by far the best spell to cast at a single Multi-Figure unit. The more figures there are in the unit, the more attacks are made by the Fireball, and thus more overall damage is dealt. A Fireball spell fully invested with extra Mana can easily destroy most Normal Units in one go. Even a base-level Fireball (with no extra Mana invested) can still cause a lot of damage to a low-tier Normal Unit.
This is easy to calculate: Imagine an 8 figure unit being struck by a full-power Fireball. 8 attacks are made against the unit (1 against each figure), with each attack delivering 25, giving a total of 200 for an average damage output of 60! No unit is anywhere near likely enough to block that much damage (even with each figure rolling for Defense, as explained above) or be able to absorb it without being destroyed.
On the other hand, when attacking units with only a few figures in them, it might be better to cast a more straight-forward spell such as Lightning Bolt or even Fire Bolt - the Chaos Magic realm has many such spells. Most importantly, they are much more efficient with their extra Mana investment than Fireball is.