The greatest of the 8 Lores of Magic

[Dont-Be-Haten]

So I've heard that the rule of thumb is to go with the lores that strengthen the biggest chinks in your builds.

I know for High Elves, one of the biggest combos with magic is a lvl 4 with Life, and a level 2 with Shadow. But at low point games people swear by fire, fire is very strong and offensive, where something like life is a huge defensive based lore. Each gives you the ability that you would rather not have, like ranged attacks with fire, or more staying power through attrition.

All lores are balanced (for the most part) and have their pros and cons (being relatively cheap or expensive to cast). I'm just curious what some of your thoughts are with the winds of magic and what do you look at when going for them in your lists? (unless you're a dwarf player)

And of course, we can't forget the all important question! "What's your favorite lore?!"

[wittdooley]

I think you really have to pick the one that best synergizes with your army. Metal can be really effective with Empire, so I use that one a fair amount. Messing aroudn with Ogres, I can't help buy love the new Gut Magic. Really fun stuff. You can hardly go wrong with the Lore of Heavens though.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I completely agree. You should definitely take lores that will compliment your army and that will strengthen your weakneses. I always seem to take the Lore of Life for Throne of Vines for its 2+ save against miscasts. The fact that it beefs up T3 units to T5 or T7 is wonderful. Not to mention when Dwellers goes off.

I also really like the Lore of Fire. It is amazing for lower point games, and the fireball is always an amazing alternative to a lvl 1 wizard. The Sword of Rhuin giving +1 to wound really helps S3 archers so instead of rolling 4s and 5s it helps to wound about 20% more in a solid unit of 10-12, against medium armoured infantry.

And I agree with the lore of Metal; it really helps for all range and CC to have armour piercing, an extra buff to armour saves, and of course permanent armour removal; The only problem is when you're facing big numbers of light armour armies it can't really be very offensive when it needs to be.

Chain lighting and Urrann's thunderbolt is so awesome. I've caused two different units to take a panic test from one Chain Lightining; but the other spells that fall into its category are really blah to me.

I've been eyeing lore of beasts for the strength bonuses but the cost to cast them are kinda high for my tastes.

[helvexis]

light or life probably for my lizards .... BUT there is something really fun with taking teto-eko and a slann with heavans and putting down 2 comets of cassandora a turn 3 turns in a row... ok so not actually likely but oh for the time it works lol

[Wildeybeast]

For all round effectiveness and general use, Life is the best. There is no army that would not benefit from life. Some lores are very dependent on who you are facing. For example if I am playing Chaos Warriors, I definitely go for metal, against high elves its pretty much useless. My personal preference for my empire army is for light, given the relatively low I of humans. You can't beat a big unit of flagellants that always strike first and get +1 attack.

[w7west]

Who needs magic when you can have dwarven artillery?

That said every lore other than fire seems to have it's place in serious games. Life is great but doesn't put out the kind of pressure that offensive lores like death, skaven magic, and tzeench can.WoC Tzeench is by far the scariest set of spell I have come across.

[Blackthorne]

I'm a little surprised that nobody has mentioned shadow magic since I think it is far above almost all the other lores. It has great hexes which can easily swing a combat your way and help against any army instead of just a few, an incredible buff which makes any unit lethal and one of the uber spells which is particularly strong against monsters, stanks, war machines and other hard to deal with threats. And to top it off, the sig spell is very cheap, very useful, can be combined with the uber spell to make it effective against any army (as opposed to dwellers), and casting it multiple times can still be beneficial. I can't really see a situation where shadows wouldn't be as useful or more than any other lore.

My big problem with life is that to really make it awesome, you have to get two spells off. With magic being so fickle, that can very easily not happen in a crucial phase and then prove useless. If the only spell you get off in a given phase is throne of vines, then that doesn't really do much of anything. I prefer lores with more immediate threats.

[Order_from_Chaos]

Well I am originally a dwarf player so I come from a different perspective than most. So first the easiest lore to deal with in my experience is life. Unless your opponent has loremaster he runs the chance of not getting throne which neuters the whole lore and makes it a lot less effective. If he does get throne I just make just I dispel that and flesh to stone and im not worried. One of the hardest lores I find to deal with is light. Not only does it give protection from warmachines which owns my army but it also makes them move faster which means less turns to shoot at your opponent.

Now that I have played beastmen who can use magic my new favorite for them is beasts. Just the sheer amount of synergy that it has with beastmen make it the clear choice.

And finally my favorite lore in theory has to be death! I love the ability to extended your magic phase by killing your enemies.

Cheers!

[Stepfan]

Well with my Dark Elves I run a lvl 4 on Metal. The two buffs in the lore are brilliant for DE(although Lore of Metal has become my favorite lore period). The one hex(not plague of rust), is nice as well. Final Transmutation doesn't care what your armour is. And since with DE I have such a hard time murdering the higher armour components of my enemies armies, but can shred the lighter armoured troops, so even the spells that are more situational are worth it for my builds. If I had to pick a go-to Lore it would be Metal for me.

With Wood Elves I run Life more often then not, I don't run Forest Spirit concentrated enough or character heavy enough to warrant beasts. Although lately magic has been stabbing me in the back with my Wood Elves.

[Ceramic Teapot]

Sonce I use brets most of the time I am a bit restricted in what lores I can choose. In 2k I run a lvl4 with heavens and a lvl2 with beasts. I love the sig spell in heavens because of the -1ld and -1 to hit. In one combat I made my opponent reroll 6s with -1 to hit, and I got to reroll all 1s. That combat turned out extremely well for me. ^_^

I use beasts on my lvl 2 bc the sig spell for beasts is better for my army then the sig spell of life. Plus, nothing is better then when you get to transform into a mountain chimaera in combat.

[Kaiserdean]

I've found that Life and Death are the most powerful and the lores I hate facing the most, and like using the most. Fire and Shadow are a close second and also have 1-2 punches with their spells.

[Mysterioso]

Hmmm... I think that different lores work with different armies, and in those armies, I think different lores work for different levels.
I think that a lot of fire magic is generally taken on lvl 1's or 2's. I also think beasts is not worth taking on a lvl 4, except maybe beastmen.
Shadow and life are generally solid choices, but if your lvl 4 isn't a loremaster I'd definitely take Shadow, just because you need most of the Lore of life spells for it to function properly.

[Gorfang]

Life is safest, Light is probably most fun, Shadow has some interesting bits. That's coming from a Slann's perspective.

[Blackthorne]

Hmmm... I think that different lores work with different armies, and in those armies, I think different lores work for different levels.
I think that a lot of fire magic is generally taken on lvl 1's or 2's. I also think beasts is not worth taking on a lvl 4, except maybe beastmen.
Shadow and life are generally solid choices, but if your lvl 4 isn't a loremaster I'd definitely take Shadow, just because you need most of the Lore of life spells for it to function properly.

I think this is well said. I agree that life really needs all the spells to function fully while other lores can do with only 4 out of 7 spells.

I do think that a lvl 4 with beasts can work, but only if you have your army actively geared that way, and by that I mean you take a lot of characters. Since two of the spells only work on characters, but can work on multiple ones at a time, a list with only a BSB and lvl 4 as the general would suffer as opposed to my friends list which has 4 combat heroes, a combat lord, and the lvl 4.

@Ceramic Teapot:
I hope you are casting transformation on a mounted wizard since it can only be cast if you are on foot.

[Ceramic Teapot]

@Blackthorne:
Nope, it's my damsel that slumming it with the peasants. I use her with the prayer icon in order to give my men at arms the same blessing as my knights. The men at arms need all the help that they can get in combat, and what better way then having a mountain chimera on your side.

[Jerseyboy381]

Lore of Vampires of course. Well that's all I run on my VC. I like playing a war of attrition so I use most of my magic to replace losses. On my Empire, I like Life and Beasts. For my WoC I run Death because it's an army not afraid to get close and drop a purple sun and I take a lvl 2 Tzeentch Sorc because honestly it has some nice spells and being a 7th ed book, they're a bit cheaper to cast. Plus it fits my all Tzeentch army.

[Mospaeda]

Shadow seems to have the best selection that works in almost every army. That said, I like Light for my Empire - both for theme and that it melds well with the Warrior Priests.

Heavens' Harmonic Convergence is an underrated spell. The re-roll ones for wounding is fantastic for a Great Cannon (being Str 10) and re-rolling ones for Knight's armor saves is amazing!

[metalloveman]

Metal, shadow, and death are always pretty great. Life is good but only for armies that aren't already tough like empire or wood elves. Light is good for low I armies beasts is good for armies that depend on their characters like brets and beasts. Fire is a good lore to but on a lvl 1 or 2 but never on a lvl 4, and Heavens I was never really fond of. Probably my least favorite lore after fire.

[Jerseyboy381]

When you are building an all-comers list, Shadow can be a good decision. I've been toying with using Shadow on my Lvl 4 in my WoC army.

[Chronowraith]

General consensus is that Life, Death, Shadow, and Light are the best "generalist" lores. If you are playing in a tournament setting they are usually the go-to lores. I disagree with the sentiment that Life is only good for weaker armies. Lizardmen are best with Lore of Life and they are hardly weaklings.

Metal is a great lore as well but if you are playing against low armor armies then it is less useful. Heaven is useful but less so than the previous ones.

Beasts and Fire are the least popular. Fire you might see on low level casters and most people are unwilling to take beasts on anyone since they are largely combat buffs for a single model.

Lately I've been running Empire with Level 4 Lore of Life, Level 1 Shadow with Ring of Volans for a Lore of Light spell. Works brilliantly. My guys get +1 to hit from the hurricanium, enemy gets -d3 to WS from the shadow signature spell (meaning I hit on 2's many times) and, with any luck, I get the Lore of Light spell that makes my guys WS10 I10 (of course I will settle for autorally and autopass leadership for a turn too).Then I have life to make my guys tougher or wrap them in thorns for added effect. It's all about synergy.

[Wildeybeast]

Metal is really useful against the likes of WoC and Brets who have high armour saves, against the likes of WE and HE it is worse than useless. I wouldn't take it in all-comers list, only when you know who you are facing.

[Nightstalker]

depends on which of my armies im playing. I know its common sense in the new edition to play a level 4 mage, but i still play with 2 level 2 mages.
My vampire counts stick to vampire lore, my tomb kings use tomb king lore, my Nightgoblinarmy uses the little waaagh (they have a savage orc shaman with the big waagh too), my dark elves mostly use their dark magic lore. My empire army so far has a shadow mage, fire mage, death mage and metal mage, and normally when i play that army i use a combination of 2 of those.

[Annum]

Just a quick comment about metal, although I agree that the offensive spells are useless against low AS armies like elves, it should be said that 5 of the 7 spells are not damage spells but buffs and de buffs, these are really really nice spells.....I'm thinking enchanted blades of aiban, transmutation of lead and primarily glittering robe(5+ scaly skin save on a unit or all units within 12, which as far as I'm aware stacks with normal AS). Add to this list final transmutation which in my opinion is one of the most amazing spells in all lores, 5+ to kill for every model in unit, with no saves of any kind allowed....admittedly it is only 18" range or 36" if you cast on 18+...still its AWESOME!
So all in all awesome lore.

[Alex the Everchosen]

Life. All the way. There is nothing on earth more horrible than having your prize unit all have to take a strength test or die, and then crash into toughness 7 Sword masters of Hoeth or even worse...*shudders* A unit of 40 toughness 7 Bloodletters.....And believe me, I know this from experience