Ulthuan

I know this has been covered partially by other threads but was wondering the popular Lores to use vs. each Army?

Obviously adjustments need to be made as to which Lore is taken depending on the High Elf Mage set up. Also variations depending on your opponents list. however I feel that some Lores prioritized and some eliminated as choices vs. certain Armies.

If we assume an Achmage of some sort, with Silver Wand? and supporting Lvl 2?

Against most Armies (not Dwarves) having High Magic is good for Magic Defence (+1 dispel + Drain Magic) usually on the HE Lvl 2 caster.

Army vs. Magic Lore
Beastmen: Fire, High Magic,Death
Bretonnians: Metal, Beasts?
Chaos Dwarves: Metal, High
DE's: High Magic, Heavens (vs. gun-line), Fire
Demons: Fire? Light (on Lvl 2?) High Magic(if they are magic heavy - especially screws lvl1 horror blocks with drain)
Dwarves: Metal, Shadow
Empire:Metal, High Magic
Greenskins:High Magic, Fire,
High Elves: High Magic, Beasts (if Star Dragon)?
Lizardmen: Shadows (vs. Slaan), Beasts(Carnosaur)?
Ogres:High Magic (vs. 1 die Gut Magic rolls),Fire, Shadows
Skaven: High Magic, Fire,Death, Heavens
Tomb Kings: Fire. Death, Heavens
Vampires: High Magic, Metal (if Knight heavy), Light (on Lvl 2 caster?)
WoC: Lore of Metal, High Magic (if Magic Heavy)
WE's: Lore of Fire, Metal

Are there any Lores to never take due to them being poor?

*I have added some suggestions from other posters.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

I don't think this is a question you can ask based upon army book. You have to look at the actual army. For example, while High Magic is generally good against VC, if you face 2x10 Black Knights and 5 Blood Knights, you damn well better have Metal.



Life. Not enough hits for anything to care, not much other affect.
I would almost never take Beasts on a Mage without Seer. Not enough in the lore beyond Beast Cowers, if you don't roll that spell.
I never ever take Heavens, largely because comet is ALWAYS terrible for me.

Ive had good success with heavens against hotek. Potent of far and second sign make for a strong shooting phase.

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For the dwarfs, there was only this. Hammerson met Grombrindal’s gaze, and the White Dwarf nodded slowly. If it must be done, let it be done well. Whether they were dead or alive, that was the only way dwarfs knew how to do anything.

And Grombrindal said "10 from the back, yeah?"

I find Beasts to be excellent all around, but only if you're able to grab Wolf Hunts and Beast Cowers. The default spell on Beasts is very specific, but great if you have characters on foot, and a couple decent magic missiles help to add some diversity to the lore as a whole.

Well my Lvl 2 has Seer Staff so Lore of Beasts would be a possible back up Lore for the Achmage vs. certain army builds.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Yep a good shout on a Mage against magically protected monsters. DE Dragon, 'thirster or Stank for example.

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A New Blog (Orcs and Goblins)
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Cavalry Prince Reloaded
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Good Call Lord Anathur

I think heavens will be useful vs. Dark Elves as it fits in with staying out of Crossbow range. Some long range spells and useful shooty support spells.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

I seem to find Death magic realyl good against DEs. A good combo is to doom and darkness the hydra and steal soul one of the handlers, make it panic on a 5. The fear protection is nice against cold ones and such and the drain life is quite nice if you can judge where a unit of cold one knights are who are in hotek range only slightly.

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Hey, does this cloth smell like chloroform?

Army vs. Magic Lore
haha i patented that death hydra combo, i still remember the look on ches face when i pulled it off at the GT final and he spent 10 minutes as a ref leafing through the rulebook before declaring i was a cunning bastard and my opponents hydra had to flee into my newly raised zombies an die mwahaha

i'm lazy so i used added my views to the first list

Beastmen: Fire, Death,
Bretonnians: Metal, Beasts,
Chaos Dwarves: ?
DE's: High Magic(if they are magic heavy), Heavens, Life
Demons: Fire, Light, Death (especially doom) High Magic(if they are magic heavy - especialy screws lvl1 horror blocks with drain)
Dwarves: Metal, Shadow, Heavens
Empire: Metal, Heavens, Fire
Greenskins: Fire, Death
High Elves: High Magic(if they are magic heavy) Beasts (if Star Dragon) Fire, Heavens
Lizardmen: Shadows, Beasts, High Magic, Heavens, Fire, Death
Ogres:, Fire, High Magic
Skaven: Fire, Death, Heavens
Tomb Kings: Fire, Metal
Vampires: High Magic, Fire, Heavens
WoC: Metal, High Magic(if they are magic heavy)
WE's: Fire, Life, Heavens, Metal (contraversal but burning iron, spirit the treeman, 2d6 s4, -1hitwoundarmoursave all good)

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Personally I would consider Doom useless against daemons seeing as the spell doesnt effect Immune to Psych units ;p

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Hey, does this cloth smell like chloroform?

really? balls thats that plan out of the window then. tho to be fair, the other 5 spells aint to bad...

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Death Magic sounds quite good if you can get your Mage close enough for some of the spells.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Let them come to you.

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Surprise is an event that takes place in the mind of the enemy commander
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But this did not surprise them, for as it is written in the Great Elven Book of Knowing: Isn't life just one bloody thing after another.

Well I tried Lore of Heavens vs. Ogres and it wasn't that effective.

The d6 wounds caused by Thunder & Lightning spells didn't do that much damage, the main bonus of them was there unlimited range. So I would maybe use them as support vs DE's if you were keeping at range, might be able to snipe their RBTs.

_________________
2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Thunderbolt is good against heavily armoured stuff but I'd be looking at the re-rolls to get the most out of Heavens.

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A New Blog (Orcs and Goblins)
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Ye I used the re roll 1's a few times but with only blocks of 10 archers and RBTs not that good. Probably good on SM's or DP's however.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Against ogres no magic lore is amazingly good. However Death is nice, it gives you a measure of fear protection if you cast shades of death on the right units and Doom and darkness can make whole flanks panic. Steal soul is also nice if you doom the unit first and kill a single ogre that was on 1 wound.

Lore of fire isnt too bad either, some nice magic missiles and an auto panic spell. But my personal favourite is probably shadow since most of the ogres have low initiative and because of their base sizes you can fully cover at least 2 ogre bases and still get a partial on the last one. Pretty much killing 6 wounds with a single spell is always nice. Unseen lurker can save your battle line from impact hits, ogres can outcharge us unless we play correclty (IE marching upto their face and letting them get the charge), but it also means we can take the angles of those charges on our terms. As always crown of taidron is worthless but creeping death is very nice, i love using creeping death on T4 models, makes me laugh because its just as hard to hurt them as it is to hurt a T3 model. Either way against gores death is always nice.

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Hey, does this cloth smell like chloroform?

It makes a difference with single bolts.

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A New Blog (Orcs and Goblins)
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Cavalry Prince Reloaded
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Lore of Fire works pretty well on an Achmage vs. Dark Elves if you combine it with Lore of Beasts on Lvl 2 Mage.

Wall of Fire is nasty vs Crossbow single lines as well as infantry blocks.

The Fire spells also bi-pass the hydras Regen Saves which is also nice.

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Here's how i come down on the whole lore of magic vs certain armies thing.

Low leadership/low armour: fire or death. fire causes panic tests, and death has the -3 leadership spell, if you use death and get rid of the general, you win
high armour: metal.. nuff said
high leadership/low armour: death: -3 leadership means you actually can panic a unit off.
Vc: high: drain magic is a necessity
big beasties: beasts
Warmachine heavy: shadow or metal (if there is loads of magic defence, go for shadow and start removing warmachines with pit of shades)
daemons: er.... high maybe, for the horror blocks, maybe beeasts since we neeed the flank charges and it bypasses the magic resistance.
Woodelves: if there is a tree then metal (spirit = 1 dead tree) if not then death or fire will suffice (probably fire)

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DAMN THE VENOM SWORD
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=44127

Key to Magic Lores

vs. Horde armies: Skaven, Green Skins, BoC would be the big 3 with large blocks of troops, also infantry heavy elves, empire and Demons.

In order to hurt these big blocks sufficiently you need a minimum 2d6 type spell or better in my opinion possibly the Comet if there are enough units close together.
So Flames of Phoenix a Str3 hit on each model is nice.
Also Wall of Fire can deter the enemy from advancing as each model will take a hit. Also good vs long lines of Bowmen/Crossbowmen.

vs. Heavy Armour
Dwarves, Bretonnians, Empire knights, WoC, VC (Cav heavy), Cold Ones etc...
Lore of Metal Seems one of the best ones here to slice through the big Armour saves.

vs. Monsters
Beast Cowers is a nice spell vs Dragons , Hydras , etc....

vs. large numbers of bows/crossbows
Howler Wind is good

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

My two favorite lores lately have been High Magic and Shadows. My most common opponents are Lizards, Demons, VC and Orcs and Goblins. I take Shadows against the Lizards because Pit of Shades is so good against them and Unseen Lurker can be a gamewinner too. I also took Shadows against Demons today (I was using Teclis in a 3k game because he was using two Greater Demons) which was pretty good, but ultimately irrelevant (I bolted both Demons to death ). I've run High against VC for Drain Magic and also against Goblins because Flames of the Phoenix is amazing against their blocks. I'd imagine High Magic is really good against Skaven as well which will be one of my next up-and-coming opponents.

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My army

Okies I got smashed by Demons and didn't seem to have an answer for the Blood Thirster.

I looked at Lore of Light as a possible set of spells for my Lvl 2.
The primary spell Burning Gaze is easy to cast (5+) and St6 hits on a Thirster will actually hurt it. The secondary spell the mage could take could be either Healing Energy, Dazzling Brightness or Guardian Light (all can be ok depending on circumstances).

As for the Achmage there doesn't seem to be any Lore of Magic particularly great vs Demons.
Lore of Fire seems ok (overcomes regen saves)
High Magic (good vs Magic heavy demons)

Lore of Light actually seems pretty good
Cleansing Flare: can be excellent as it is an area effect spell so MR cannot stop it
Burning Gaze: Mentioned above is also good (2 dice to cast)
Dazzling Brightness also useful (Bloodthirster with WS1 will hit on 5's)

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2008-2013 Wins:Draws:Losses
7th Ed High Elves 18 : 9 : 4 Bargle Con I, Best General, 3rd Overall
New High Elf Book 16 : 1 : 5 Bargle Con II, 2nd Overall, Conviction 2nd Overall & Best Sportsman

MSU List: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=48650

Heavens to buff the RBT's I suggest.

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A New Blog (Orcs and Goblins)
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Cavalry Prince Reloaded
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Light should work pretty well against Daemons, but be wary if your opponent is the type to bring the Standard of Sundering. The increased difficulty on a chosen lore is bad enough, but it also makes the lore of light miscast on double 1, 2 or 3, regardless of the choice made.

Casting on a Bloodthirster usually won't end up too well for you. I do like the idea of taking Heavens to buff your RBT's though. Possibly take Fire or High to try and thin out the Demon player's troops. Flames of the Phoenix isn't too shabby against Plaguebearers and it can devastate a Horror block.

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My army