The Warhammer Armies books army lists indicate which characters can carry magic items and how many they may have. Each magic item has a fixed points value shown on its card. This points value is added to that of the model which carries the item. When players choose an army they also choose which magic items they wish to include and note these down on the army's roster sheet.

Magic Standards

Magic items are normally carried by character models, except for magic standards which must be carried by a regiment's standard bearer or by a chariot or army battle standard bearer as indicated in the army lists. Remember, the points value of a regiment's standard bearer model is normally double the value of an ordinary trooper. The cost of a magical standard is added on top of this. The points value of the magical standard itself is not doubled. In the case of a chariot or army battle standard bearer the points cost of the magical standard is simply added to the points cost of the model.

Number of Magic Items

Characters can carry a maximum number of magic items as shown on the chart below. We have used the common descriptive phrases for heroes and wizards, but the chart holds good for races which use different terminology such as Orc Bosses, Shamans, etc.

Choosing Types of Item

A character can be given as many magic items as shown on the chart above, but no character can carry more than one magic weapon, magic armour, ward, bound spell or magic standard.

There is no restriction on the number of wizard arcana or enchanted items a character can have.

Note that some special characters described in the Warhammer Armies books sometimes have combinations of items that would ordinarily be disallowed. They might also have more (or fewer) items than an ordinary character of their equivalent level. In addition, some special characters have magic items which are unique to themselves. Special characters are exceptional in many ways! See Special Characters and Magic Items.

Duplicates

When a player chooses magic items for his army he can choose from the entire set of magic item cards. This means that two players might choose the same item. This doesn't matter, although if only one set of Warhammer Magic is available for the game the players will have to 'share' the card for purposes of reference. Generally speaking, a player cannot include the same item in his army more than once. However there are three general exceptions in the forms of Dispel scrolls, Chaos Armour and Familiars, as noted below.

Dispel Scrolls

Dispel Scrolls are part of the Wizard Arcana card deck which consists of magical devices used by wizards. A wizard can have several Dispel Scrolls, and different wizards can each carry Dispel Scrolls. However, this only applies to Dispel Scrolls, not to other types of scroll such as Power Scrolls or Destroy Magic Scrolls.

Chaos Armour

Chaos Armour can be worn by different characters in the same army. It can also be worn by Chaos Sorcerers without affecting their spell casting abilities. Chaos Armour is unusual in that it is available to Chaos characters as a magic item, but is also available to some Chaos troops as an equipment option (See Warhammer Armies Chaos). It is also unusual in that it can be combined with a Chaos Runeshield and is then considered to be one magic item. Odd stuff Chaos Armour.

Familiars

There are several different kinds of Familiar in the Wizard Arcana deck. As with Dispel Scrolls, a player can include duplicates of these Familiars, for example two different wizards might both have a Power Familiar. However, a wizard cannot have more than one Familiar of any type.

Secrecy

Players will normally wish to keep their magic items secret until it is time to use them. However, if both armies include the same item this may be difficult if both players want to consult the same card. Think of these items as having a sense of magical awareness that betrays their presence to each other, so that both players know the other has the item.