Lizardmen: Why Play Anything but a High Magic Slann?

This is a serious question.

I've been looking over the lores of battle magic, and the fact remains that all of them are awesome. However, not all of them are equally awesome in all situations. You've got lores that are no good against armored infantry and lores that are no good against swarms and hordes. There are lores that are really great against one foe or another, but lack that special benefit against other opponents. There are lores with tons of spells that are great in every circumstance and lores with many corner-case spells.

And then there's High Magic... practically every spell is a winner. There isn't a single spell in the lore that I wouldn't consider casting at least once. And every time you cast a spell, you can toss it out and replace it with a spell from the lore of your choice. Fighting daemons? Get some light magic! Need more magical attacks to deal with an ethereal cavalry deathstar? Go Lore of Metal, and enjoy either The Searing Doom or Enchanted Blades of Aiban. Need to spam magical attacks to whittle down an approaching horde? Go with Lore of Fire. Then, when you're finally in combat, swap it out for Lore of Beasts.

I'm not saying that other lores aren't good... I'm saying that they're all good, so why not go with High Magic?

Am I missing something here?

High Magic with Lizardmen is very flexible. However, in order to swap you have to successfully cast a spell and sometimes, by the time that happens you may find that the spell/lore you swapped for is of no use. Also, I'd say that not all spells in High Magic are super useful. Most of them are pretty good but a couple are incredible situational.

Personally, and I've stated this before, I'm a huge fan of Lore of Shadow on Lizardmen. Pit of Shades is great against low-moderate Initiative deathstar units (or just large horde units like skaven slaves). Okkam's MIndrazor is great for letting your troops dish out some serious hurt. Withering and Enfeebling Foe make foes less able to hurt your units or your units more able to hurt theirs. Miasma is hands down one of the best signature spells in the game. the ability to lower an enemy units stats by d3 for a measly casting cost is fantastic and ultimately, if you work the math, this spell helps more than the opposite boost spell in the high magic lore. The only two spells that are less than stellar are the steed of shadows, which isn't terrible, but generally flying characters around isn't something that most people want to do (except Skaven). Pendulum is a mini-cannon and while also not as great as other spells, it offers up something that you may not have in your army... a way to reliably wound high toughness models like War Sphinxes or Stonehorns when you see them.

Lore of Light is another great Lore, albeit similar in nature to High Magic so for lizardmen I wouldn't recommend it unless you were trying to run a light council-esque build (which other armies, such as TK and High Elves, do better).

Lore of Death can be useful for Lizardmen since the Slann can hang back and cast the rather short ranged sniper spells through a skink priest. Nothing better than sniping a character or warmachine with Spirit Leech, Fate of Bjuna, or Caress of Laniph. While everyone makes a big deal of Purple Sun, I prefer the sniping spells more. Throw in one of the best lore attributes that allows you to keep casting long after your opponent has used all his dispel dice and you have a pretty frightening lore.

So overall, I'd say Lizardmen have two options for "all-comer" type of lists... High magic for versatility and Shadow Magic for pure harmonic support.

What about Lore of Life...? I didn't see that mentioned at all.

I have a 1500pt tournament coming up and I was planning to use Lore of Life for my Slann.

I do think in way a bit different with others. The problem of High Magic & Lizardmen is the lore attribute itself.
Just look closer to High Magic & you will find it is perfect for the Lizardmen, so why swap anyway ??
Spells vary quite a lot in each lore, in case the spell you want is not the same type with the signature spell, is it a bit too risky ??
Though you may get another useful spell from other lores, you lose the original one you have, which is probably not worthy.
So this means you don't actually have a lore attribute at all if you wouldn't use it.
Unless you're in such a desperate situation that you need to go with your luck and attempt to get that specific spell from the 8 lores.
Even so, well, do you actually still have enough power dice after casting a High Magic spell successfully without being dispelled ??

I would say High Magic is the lore for Lizardmen, if you don't mind geting nothing from the lore attribute.
The spells make it worthy already.
But if you want a more aggressive army, Heaven would be even better.
Other lores are good but don't fit Lizardmen as much as these two.

I'm still mixed on High magic. I look at it on paper and think this is great and hand of glory and walk between works are very nice. However I find that I only end up getting a couple of spells off a turn and so do not want to swap them. At the end of each game I keep saying to myself I will give the signature spells a go or even swap back to life or light for a couple of games. So far I haven't managed this as every time I prepare my list for a game I head straight back to high magic.... so I seem to be saying that I play a High Magic Slann exclusively after all....hmmm

I'm a fan of light personally. The obviously good spells are obviously good for Lizards; both fixing one of their biggest weaknesses which is low WS and I. WS and I 10 are amazing; as is ASF. God help if you get them both off on the same units. Re-rolls! Also Net is just a great annoyance spell. Yes they will only occasionally fail it but man when that happens does it ever ruin them. Great fun! Give it a try.

There are reasons. Like I'm currently in a Fantasy campaign, so when I had a battle against a WoC player, using Lore of Metal absolutely tore him up. If you're going against an army that uses larger, but softer regiments (Skaven) the stacking lore attribute of Fire could be nice.

If you know before hand what you're playing, High magic won't always be the best.

I liked your batreps EP.

I haven't played WFB in a while but played lizards when I did and reading updated information is interesting to me.