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.