This decision is reducing me to a quivering wreck. I just can't decide on the one hand, shadow magic will make my seaguard a whole lot more killy and works great against low initiative armies if you get pit of shades. On the other hand however, high magic is a great lore tactically speaking as it gives you a lot more maneuverability, and has two great signatures, making it really hard to ever get a bad set of spells. Gonna be running whatever lore I end up choosing in 1000 point doubles tomorrow with another high elf player using the following army lists:
Him:
Level 4 Archmage (life) + some undecided magic gear = Around about 245
3 White Lion Chariots = 360
24 Seaguard + command = 318
So the list is fairly shooty, which is why I'm facing a problem with lore choice. Because normally I take high without question, but shadow gives the potential to make our core useful.
I would go with Shadow, for the reasons mentioned. It's a great all comers lore with offensive application at range and in close combat.
High is great, but I think you have to maximize the Lore Attribute for it to be at its most effective. Honestly, while all the High Magic spells are good, they lack redundancy and significant threat which are the hallmarks of a good low-dice magic phase. High can be good, and is fine in a take-all-comers environment, but Shadows can solve problems that the whole army can't easily cope with. I don't see High Magic doing that.
That is a good point. The main reason I was considering high magic was that using walk between worlds to plonk a lion chariot behind an enemy army on the first turn is just brutally harsh. But thank you for the help
2 lvl 4's will prolly leave you fighting for dice. If you want to stick with both I might go High to increase the chances of you being able to 1 dice some spells
Dartanelo wrote:2 lvl 4's will prolly leave you fighting for dice. If you want to stick with both I might go High to increase the chances of you being able to 1 dice some spells
I agree, I don't think you'll want two Level 4s.
Perhaps a Shadow Level 4, High Level 2. High does well on a support caster, and it means you won't have a ton of points invested in characters who will be fighting over dice.
Yeah I did raise that point with my partner, but we came to the conclusion that the idea was more to have more options open to us than to be able to cast lots of spells all at once. In the event that one of us dropped down to a level 2, what would you recommend filling in the saved points with?
Wrathbaby wrote:Yeah I did raise that point with my partner, but we came to the conclusion that the idea was more to have more options open to us than to be able to cast lots of spells all at once. In the event that one of us dropped down to a level 2, what would you recommend filling in the saved points with?
I'd be tempted to give flaming banner to the dragon princes to give you something to deal with regen. I'm also a big fan of pheonix guard. Even a small unit is essentially twice as big in terms of being hard to shift.
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I honestly prefer High Magic over Shadow with the new book. Shadow is nice and i used it in our previous book. This is more just IMO, Shadow has too many junk spells for me, Pendulum is only useful in rare situations, same with Steeds of Shadow, Pit of Shades is nice but it looses a lot of effectiveness vs High Initiative armies, Elves, Skaven, Warriors of Chaos, plus a bad scatter can make it pretty ineffective to useless. So out of the 7 spells i only like 4 of them and now without a 5 spell wizard it is even more rare to get those four.
High Magic on the other hand, Both Signatures are amazing, I've had drain magic piss off plenty of Ogre and WoC players heh, Soul Quench is a nice harrass or or Warmachine snipe. Out of all the spells the only one i have not had much success with is Apotheosis, just rare situations i only need 1 pt healed and besides my monsters d3 isen't that helpful either. Tempest has also not been a great success, but it has done some damage. our new Vauls is incredible, Destroying a magic item vs just removing magic, those unkillable Dwarf lords are not nearly as scary without any armour, or a Vampire lord without his weapons. and our new Flames of the Phoenix i feel is more useful then Pit of Shades. It does not scatter, so no reduced effectiveness if that goes bad, it remains in play so it is in itself is a nice magic defense spell ( Do i dispel it and waste 5 / 6 dice trying to hit a 19? do i let it stay and burn my unit? ) It does not deal with Machines or Monsters as well but any T3 unit just burns, T4 takes a hefty amount of damage also, T5 it loses a bit but i find it is rarer to find T5 units then it is to find entire Initiative 5 armies that Pit has ill effects against. Yes it does not ignore armour but with its -1 at Str 4, anything with a 3+ save is still in danger with this going, i've had it destroy Warriors of Chaos taking over a rank a turn ( + it hits characters where Pit allows a LoS ). Honestly the only situation i find Pit of Shades more useful is vs Ogres with Multi Wound Low I units that are large so even a bad scatter is not so bad, but the unit you would want to hit with it will 99% of the time have the bounce banner so it almost never works. Using Drain Magic to just remove all those buffs they just casted removes a lot of the threat those units pose, no regen, + T, stubborn and any of our specials will just blend them + if you bubble Drain Magic it negates the bounce banner so far more likely to get off. just my 2 cents though, hope it helps, maybe you all have had more success with Shadows then i have.
If you are running multiple casters then go with light. Amazing buffs and banishment gets better with each additional mage. The sig is also perfect for those big regen critters that are about at the moment.
Well, as expected, having 2 mages was a stupid idea and one that i berated my partner for severely. But all in all taking shadow wasn't too bad. It worked wonders against chariots with the decreased strength, although in most armies with a wizard it proved to be quite ineffective as they just dispelled all of my hexes in their phase (and then ran through my entire army using a block of 15 dragon princes and a tooled up prince.) Still undecided, but I definitely regret the double level 4.
I think I'll try high magic next time round and convince my partner to drop his level 4 so I can hog the magic dice.
i think the +1 to cast high magic spells is the kicker for me, my only beef is the lack of range on soul quench, if i want to hit with it turn one i have to put my mage a little closer to harms way. All in all though its a solid choice.
im also a fan of metal, its buffs are surprisingly good, and its rarely taken so you often catch enemies off guard.
[color=#FF0000][b]FOR SIGMAR[/b][/color] wait.....who do we fight for again?
cptcosmic wrote:You can take a lvl 4 with shadow and lvl 2 with high
The lvl2 will always get a usefull spell while the lvl 4 gets the big gamechanging spells.
This is a good idea.
However I would never call this list shooty. Would you call a 2000 points list with 40 S3 bow shots shooty?
As a 2000 points list its a pretty poor list.
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iamchrisatkin wrote:i think the +1 to cast high magic spells is the kicker for me, my only beef is the lack of range on soul quench, if i want to hit with it turn one i have to put my mage a little closer to harms way. All in all though its a solid choice.
im also a fan of metal, its buffs are surprisingly good, and its rarely taken so you often catch enemies off guard.
I love the +1 to cast we get for High Magic, +5 is just nuts, and if you wanted to get silly you could take a Book of Ashur for a +6, but i still feel BoHoeth is better. throwing two dice to get off a 13+ spell is just fun, makes it easier to get off more spells + getting that pesky Flames at a 19 not so bad on 5 dice instead of risky a 6 dice boom.
i've never actually tried metal, it seems most of the spells are not worth it unless your fighting something like Brets/Heavy Dwarves/ Chaos. I do like Enchanted Blade and Glittering Scales though, but not being to ensure getting those 2 each time makes me avoid taking it =/ Lore of Fire has always been my "you took what lore?!?" moment, in my area no one uses fire, i find it to be just crazy ( although not being able to wound on 1s anymore with Flaming Sword is sad ) but the lore it still really solid.
I found Metal and Fire to be very dependent on the type of list you field.
If you list has a crapload of low to mid strength attacks and likely won't have issues with hordes, but the attacks will mostly bounce off 1+ save opponents, Metal is indispensible.
If on the other hand your army is loaded with high Strength attacks (say, all cav + white lions), you may have issues with horde enemies fire is your friend. Boosted Fireball or Flame Cage are great at killing a lot of models in one go, piercing bolts are great for deep formations and fire cloak gives you that little extra boost in combat. Flame Storm is largely useless though due to its scattering.
Beleanoon, when I said shooty, I just meant it by my standards. I dislike shooting because it never seems to do a great deal of damage and I don't have a great deal of shooty models, so I don't tend to use shooting at all really. And I appreciate the list wasn't that great, but it had to be made using the models we had available to us, and it was thrown together in about 15 minutes the night before the tournament. We ended up winning 2/3 games though, so it can't have been too bad (40 s3 shots can work wonders against giants with reduced toughness).
Dalamar, I have never ever thought of that. I always just pinned lore of fire as an utterly useless lore and disregarded it, but what you say makes a lot of sense, thank you!
No lore is useless. Some depend on your list (I'd say life, beasts, shadow, death, light and heavens fit this bill)
The other two depend on your opponent's list, making them far more circumstantial but capable of filling gaps in your army.
If it's an all comer list you may have games where you won't cast a single fire or metal spell. you may have games where they will be taking all of your power dice though!
on the one hand, shadow magic will make my seaguard a whole lot more killy and works great against low initiative armies if you get pit of shades. On the other hand however, high magic is a great lore tactically speaking as it gives you a lot more maneuverability, and has two great signatures, making it really hard to ever get a bad set of spells. Gonna be running whatever lore I end up choosing in 1000 point doubles tomorrow with another high elf player using the following army lists:
