Why don't wizards have ranged attacks?

[jahjeremy]

It seems to me that at least some of the wizards should have a ranged base attack from a wand. Is this not following the lore? It would make them more effective. (I'm not sure if these kinds of weapons are in the WH game, but I know they are common in other high fantasy settings for magic users.)

Most of them don't make very good melee combatants.

[Harkness]

I think you answered your own question there, Warhammer is not a high fantasy setting and magic use has its perils. In game this is modeled by a miscast chance which increases when you overcast a spell. So magic users cannot machine gun magic bolts, as spells lore wise often have a risk attached to their use.

[jahjeremy]

I think you answered your own question there, Warhammer is not a high fantasy setting and magic use has its perils. In game this is modeled by a miscast chance which increases when you overcast a spell. So magic users cannot machine gun magic bolts, as spells lore wise often have a risk attached to their use.

I was more wondering if there were magic items like wands or staves that had ranged attacks in the lore. I'm not aware of them from the WH novels or sourcebooks that I've read. Tactically speaking, it seems like you would want these to keep your casters out of melee. Maybe there's some technical excuse for not having them (certainly it would be useful to have your wizard out of melee and using a wand for ranged attacks if it were possible!).

As a side point, the WH world certainly is high fantasy in that magic and monsters are common, prevalent and powerful, though the mechanics are different from other settings. If you read source material like the End Times compilations, there are massive battles/duels between wizards like Manfred Von Carstein and Nagash.

Something like Game of Thrones would be more of a low fantasy setting, where magic is relatively weak and fantastical creatures like dragons or zombies are uncommon and mysterious.

Those are sort of following the standard definition of "high" and "low" fantasy anyways.

[Harkness]

We probably disagree on the subject, as I personally detest the Gauntlet 'esque arcade style magic missile auto attack, harking back to the days of Warcraft etc. People like Teclis or Mazdamundi probably have the power to point fingers at each other blasting out pure winds of magic from the comfort of their arm chairs hours on end, but maybe a lowly hedgewizard or whatever cannot? Would probably need immense and prolonged training to get high level spells of safely and successfully. Anyway this is my opinion on the matter.

Its semantics really when regarding what genre Warhammer might fill, as it is really a combination of many. Sisters of Sigmar in high fantasy breastplate battle eldritch Lovecraftian horrors of the empyrium, while Gothic horror vampires fight against steam driven gyrocopters reminiscent of the steampunk genre.

[Chlodwig I.]

Warhammer Lore.
Mages can cast Spells but there are no Magic Wands... Well there are one time scrolls/wands Magic Items that work like Spells in Warhammer but not those Multi Use Magic Bolt Wands like in D&D and other Fantasy Games