Tutorial Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phases

Due to technical difficulties this thread didn't transfer over very well with the new forum upgrade, I was working on rebooting it with a new thread, but Red Devil fixed the problem, so we can use the old thread. Nice for maintaining the contributions of all who helped the process and preserving the views.

New Color Coding System

Red means “stop this spell at all costs.” This is a choice that’s a no-brainer to dispel. If they even have this spell in reserve you should strongly consider saving enough dispel dice (or a dispel scroll or Cube of Darkness) to shut it down until you are sure they are not going to cast it.

Orange is bad. You usually should try to dispel this when you can.

Blue is conditionally a threat based on individual circumstances. You need to weigh your options very carefully before deciding whether to dispel this or not..

Green the spell is so weak that you should never bother dispelling it unless this spell is using the last of your enemy’s power dice and you still have dice left.


Part One: Big Red Book Lores


Lore of Beasts


This is available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Ogres, Vampire Counts (costs them extra), Brettonians, and Demons (through special characters only), Lizardmen and of course Beastmen. This is generally more popular to give to low level casters than high level casters. The lore attribute should not factor into your dispel decisions.

Wyssan's Wildform (Unit is in Close Combat)
Wyssan's Wildform (Unit is not in Close Combat): The close combat swinging ability here is obvious. Otherwise it’s just a temporary protection versus our shooting which won’t matter much for poisoned hits. If you aren't planning to charge said unit, you can probably let it go.

The Flock of Doom: Even Skinks will survive 2/3 of these hits.

Pann's Impenetrable Pelt: When it’s that important to kill the enemy character, said character is probably not using the Lore of Beasts as their main line of defense. The bubbled effect is nasty in most circumstances.

The Amber Spear: If this pointed at Saurus Warriors it’s annoying. If it’s a flank shot on Saurus cavalry or a shot at a cowboy at any angle, this spell is very dangerous. It all depends on how important the target is to you.

The Curse of Anraheir:: It hits our units in every stat that counts AND makes it hard to move.

The Savage Beast of Horros: Depends in part on how dangerous the enemy character is to the first place. Beware the augmented version of this.

Transformation of Kadon (wizard is in close combat right now)
Transformation of Kadon (wizard is currently unengaged in close combat): This turns a wizard in combat from being a vulnerable source of easy points for you into a deadly threat. If the transformed wizard in question is not in close combat, you have plenty of time to dispel this later if you feel the need to. Sometimes the other player may drop the spell themselves (especially if it’s tying the hands of a level 4 caster).


Lore of Heavens


This is available to Lizardmen Empire, all three Elf armies, Ogres, Lizardmen, Brettonians (Lord only), Vampire Counts (but it costs them extra), Demons (through special characters only). This is roughly equally popular between Hero level and Lord level casters. The lore attribute should be kept in mind whenever flyers are the target since even a lowly hex can severely damage a Terradon unit.


Iceshard Blizzard: Depends how important this unit’s fighting ability is to you.

Harmonic Convergence: Depends how important this unit’s fighting ability is to you.

Wind Blast: Unless your opponent has a one-in-thousand rare line up or the target is a flyer, you can generally afford to let this one slide.

Curse of the Midnight Wind: Depends how important the target unit’s fighting ability is to you.

Uranon's Thunderbolt: No one likes being hit by this. Okay a block of 30 Saurus won’t care, but everything else we have will feel this. Our flyers cannot survive this and are too expensive to sacrifice lightly.

Comet of Cassandora: There is a lot of damaging power. We are more mobile than most so we can run away from Comet counters if necessary, but you don’t want to let the other side dictate your movement phase for you. This is a great spell to use a Scroll of Shielding on since it will help every unit you that gets hit, no matter when the Comet strikes.

Chain Lightning: A typical LM army has a lot of roving skirmisher units. We don’t want half our units taking a Panic test at once. Fortunately the spell doesn’t always jump around. Our flyers cannot survive this and are too expensive to sacrifice lightly.


Lore of Death


This is available to Empire, Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, all three Elf armies, Ogres, Daemons, Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs, Lizardmen Slann, and Orcs and Goblins (with Azhag). Most players who run with Death prefer to run these Wizards as Lords rather than Heroes.

In general, you don’t have to stop all the hero snipe spells, just MOST of them. Life Leeching matters a lot with Purple Sun, but is not a serious concern for the other spells.

Spirit Leech (on our characters)
Spirit Leech (on our dinosaurs): Our characters, especially Slann can frequently survive a hit with this. For dinosaurs this is almost cannon-bad.

Aspect of the Dreadknight: Skinks are the only unit we have likely to fail a Fear test and they are WS 2, so being docked to WS1 isn’t that big of a deal. This spell can be used by the enemy to prevent the enemy from succumbing to our Fear and Terror monsters but most of the low Ld armies do not have access to the Lore of Death.

Caress of Laniph: I’ve seen this kill a Slann once, but that was freakishly good luck. You can’t ignore character snipes all the time, but you should be able to weather ONE if need be.

Soulblight (unit is in close combat)
Soulblight (unit is not in close combat): Basically as important as Wyssans, only operating in the opposite direction.

Doom and Darkness: This only hurts you if you aren’t winning, or if you are taking a lot of panic tests. On one hand the fact that it’s Remains in Play means that you don’t have to dispel it immediately. On the other hand it’s probably better to get rid of it sooner rather than later.

The Fate of Bjuna: This is the best Slann killer, but it’s hampered by its high casting cost. If you can only dispel one character-snipe spell, prioritize this one.

The Purple Sun of Xereus: This will obliterate our lines and THEN give the opponent extra power dice to hit us with something else! It's possible to use Hand of Glory or Speed of Light to proactively protect units from this spell.


Lore of Fire


Available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts (but it costs extra), Lizardmen Slann, Ogres (Heroes only), and Daemons (through special characters only). It’s generally seen more with Hero level casters than Lord level casters. Kindleflame should probably not factor into your dispel decisions.

Fireball: Is it likely to panic someone or wipe out a near dead unit? Probably should dispel it. Is it just there to nickel and dime a big unit down, you can probably let it go. Augmented Fireballs warrant additional consideration though, assuming they are cast without Irresistible Force at least.

Cascading Fire-Cloak: This is bad for us if our Skirmishers are chasing a wizard bunker. It’s also very bad if the wizard’s unit is assaulting a building we are defending. Otherwise this spell is more of an annoyance than a threat.

Flaming Sword of Rhuin: Things that make our Sauri easier to wound are bad!

The Burning Head: Not a serious problem unless the target of the spell is a Ld 5 or 6 unit outside of BSB range.

Piercing Bolts of Burning: Potentially a lot of hits, but the units we are most likely to have lots of ranks are Saurus and Temple Guard and they have the toughness and armor saves to weather these hits. Big Skink Cohorts do not like this spell.

Fulminating Flame Cage: You either open up a unit to A LOT of hits or you allow your opponent to dictate your movement phase.

Flame Storm: The hits are neither concentrated nor potent enough to do serious damage. This is probably the weakest template spell in the BRB.


Lore of Shadow


This is available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Empire, Warriors of Chaos, Daemons, Vampire Counts, and Lizardmen Slann. This lore is used frequently with both high and low level casters.

If your opponent is clearly planning to use Smoke and Mirrors lore attribute pulls an enemy wizard lord of danger, but it is very hard to prevent this unless you are dealing with a low level caster (since it’s hard to dispel four spells but stopping one or two spells is doable).

Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma: Nobody likes being on the receiving end of this spell, but our Saurus usually are usually outclassed in terms of WS and I by the other side anyway. It takes a very close matchup for this to matter much. Miasma is more to stop skinks hitting on 6's by dropping their BS but against WS5 even dropping one point can make saurus hit on 5's. An Initiative hex can be combined with Pit of Shades to drop our bigger monsters

Steed of Shadows: Every use of this spell is different, so I can’t make a broad ruling. Does the unit moving from A to B scare you a lot or not?

The Enfeebling Foe: I like having Strength 4 Core, thank you very much.

The Withering: I like having Toughness 4 Core even more.

The Penumbral Pendulum: This spell requires perfect positioning to be a big threat, but with our generally low Initiative scores we can't be totally complacent with this spell..

Pit of Shades: No one likes being hit by this, but it’s not the deadly killer to our slower dinosaurs it used to be since they now test on the Skink rider's Initiative 4. Carnosaurs risk more with this spell though. If you are really worried, you can use Hand of Glory of Speed of Light to proactively protect your most vulnerable units from this spell.

Okkam's Mindrazor: Too much power to let the other side have, especially when they are fighting our dinosaur units who don't want to see their high Toughness and Scaly Skin saves cancelled simultaneously.

Lore of Life

Avaiable to Empire, Brettonians, all three Elf armies, Lizardmen Slann, and Daemons (through special characters). This is usually given to wizard lords instead of heroes. Lifebloom is a concern especially if you are very slowly killing an enemy monster or character, but it’s very hard to prevent the healing altogether.

Earth Blood: Ask yourself, will this swing a critical combat away from you or does your opponent just want an easy Lifebloom?

Awakening of the Wood: If your opponent rolls this spell, keep your Skirmishers out of the woods and your opponent probably won't even bother casting this.

Flesh to Stone: It’s hard to win CR when the other side has this, but it usually won’t result in you yourself being broken unless the matchup would otherwise be very close.

Throne of Vines: This makes everything else the Life casters do better. You can dispel this backhanded style if your opponent plays this spell at the beginning of the round and you have the Cube of Darkness. In that case you usually want to dispel another spell with the Cube later to get two spells snuffed for one arcane item.

Shield of Thorns: This is only a real threat to our light Skirmisher units. and the spell requires the unit to be in close combat which our light Skirmishing units normally try to avoid anyway.

Regrowth: This spell gets more annoying the more evenly matched the two sides are. If the enemy is relying on feeding your Oldblood sacrificial unit champions, this spell becomes more problematic as they keep coming back.

The Dwellers Below: Hitting every model in the unit and no look out sir? Possibly the reddest spell ever published.


Lore of Metal


Available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Warriors of Chaos, Daemons, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts (but it costs extra), and Lizardmen Slann. Metalshifting is mostly irrelevant since it only applies to two spells so it’s basically lumped into the spell descriptions there.

Searing Doom If this isn’t your opponent’s first Warhammer game, they will be targeting a Bastiladon, Cold One unit, Carnosaur, or Stegadon with this. Other units have less to be concerned with.

Plague of Rust: It’s permanent, but one point rarely makes a huge difference. Also, because it’s permanent, a unit hit by Plague of Rust can weather Metal direct damage spells easier.

Enchanted Blades of Aiban: Sauri do not want to be on the receiving end of this.

Glittering Robe: This stacks with armor making soft skinned elves, humans or whatever much harder for us to wound.

Gehenna's Golden Hounds: Basically the same as Searing Doom. The range is smaller but if they are casting this it means they overcame that barrier. Normally this spell is dropped unless the Metal wizard in question is a flyer.

Transmutation of Lead: Docking our WS isn’t nearly as bad as a straight penalty to hit, but this spell is bad in an otherwise close to even matchup.

Final Transmutation: The Stupidity effect can freeze our Skink units, but the damage is the real threat. This is almost as damaging in raw terms as Dwellers with a similar chance to kill characters with no look out sir.


Lore of Light


Available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Tomb Kings, Daemons (through special characters), Vampire Counts (but it costs extra), and Lizardmen Slann. It’s about equally popular for Hero and Lord level casters. Many armies will will go for a “Council of Light” approach which usually entails one level four caster and several level one casters. The Lore Attribute is irrelevant to non-zombie Lizardmen.

Shem's Burning Gaze: Is it likely to panic someone or wipe out a near dead unit? Probably should dispel it. Is it just there to nickel and dime a big unit down, you can probably let it go.

Pha's Protection: It depends how important the unit receiving the buff is to your plans. The bubble version should generally be treated as a higher priority threat.

Speed of Light: We are usually outclassed in terms of WS and I anyway, so this isn’t a huge deal for us most of the time.

Light of Battle: Annoying if a unit you are on the verge of breaking becomes unbreakable, but otherwise this spell is a non-issue.

Net of Amnytok: The damage isn’t that big a deal, but this essentially translates into a 50/50 chance for a Saurus unit to lose their action for a turn, and that’s generally unacceptable.

Banishment: This spell will brutalize most of our Skirmisher units in one hit. Our other units are less threatened by this spell but this should never be ignored. It becomes deadlier with a Council of Light since the spell is boosted by additional Light casters but not enough to boost it a color rating.

Birona's Timewarp: Extra attacks for the enemy are bad. Always Strikes First is worse because it usually translates into re-rolls against our Saurus units. It creates rerolls against EVERYONE when paired with Speed of Light.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

Part Two: Relatively Common Special Lores


The New Lore in Town: Undeath


Available to almost everyone but it seems to synergize better when the base army is actually undead. The bread and butter of the lore is the Summoning spells. Summoning spells summon Undead troops within 12 inches of the caster (or 24 inches if the caster is Mannfred). All the Summoning spells have variations that someone different levels or different types of troops. I was almost tempted to make the whole lore blue spells. There are actually three non-magical ways you can deal with summoned creatures.

1) Kill it, either by running it down with infantry or shoot it with Skinks. Some units fold really fast to CR. Other times your Skinks don't have any decent targets to shoot at and some armor-less undead are asking for it. If you can't kill it without hampering your offense against the enemies that actually yield victory points or you expect it to require you to cast your spells at the undead, that's when you break out the dispel dice.

Along the "kill it" equation. If you expect your list is likely to face against Undeath casters, magical weapons, even cheap ones become something you want to load up on your characters and Revered Guardians.

2) Ignore it or go around it. Undead are often slow, especially compared to our Skinks and dinosaurs. Even in the flank or rear of a big infantry block, some undead will just yield CR and then crumble. When it's too strong to ignore or too well positioned to ignore is when you break out the dispel dice.

3) The entire summoned unit must fit within a 12 inch radius of the caster so you can block the best spots to summon reinforcements. If the caster is mobile (ie a flyer) this becomes much harder.

Undeath players are either trying to augment an aggressive strategy, play a defensive redirection game, or they are simply trying out a new toy. If you can figure out which one applies, this will give you a better grasp on how to defend yourself.

Raise the Dead, Lore Attribute: The more successful Undeath spells your opponent casts, the more tokens he collects. Each token spent boosts the points allowance of a Summoning spell by ten points. Some units require a token or two to be Summoned at all. That’s not a huge threat. It’s when your opponent is sitting on a very large stack of tokens that you have to be extra careful. If your opponent is playing Undead Legions, fear Morghasts. They can do decent damage and make troops around them crumble more slowly.

Ryze, the Grave Call (Signature): This spell summons 50 or 100 points
of infantry or 150 points of Monstrous Infantry. The common troops here are blocks of skeletons, zombies, or Crypt Horrors for stalling units. Vargheists are the go-to general attack unit. Ushabti are the go-to anti-dinosaur unit. Archers are the go-to anti-Skink unit. The other options are an odd middle ground between attack and stalling unit that probably aren't that effective.

Morkharn, Breath of Darkness: The spell heals an undead unit of d3+1 wounds. In most cases that healing is insignificant. What makes this spell potentially dangerous is the free non-charge move it bestows on the target of the spell. Pretty minor if you are facing a living army with Undeath, but Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, and Undead Legions can get a lot of potent use out of this.

Morkharn, The Hand of Dust: The caster swaps all of its normal attacks in exchange for one attack that ignores armor saves and inflicts d6 wounds. It also bestows d6 counters if any wounds are unsaved. If the Undeath caster in question is a potent fighter normally, this spell is will usually make him a worse fighter. In most cases this will be cast on from a wizard who can’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag normally. The caster gets d6 bonus tokens if they slay an enemy in a challenge, so naturally this spell is more dangerous when said wizard is in a challenge or likely to be in one. This is especially dangerous if the challenge fighting caster in question has Always Strikes First.

Khizzar, the Soul Stealer: This functions like Spirit Leech does except without the sniping. If any wounds are inflicted, the caster gets d3 bonus tokens. It’s nasty against our big dinosaurs, but pretty harmless against our infantry. Also the wording of the spell lets the target use the general's Ld if within range so keep that in mind when gaging the threat of this.

Razkhar, the Abyssal Swarm: This spells summons 75 points of Warbeasts or Swarms or 150 points of Monstrous Beasts. The options are that much more dangerous than the Signature spell. More for a roadblock than a combat threat. Unless your opponent says “I’m summoning Spirit Hosts” in which case that’s a problem unless you have magical attacks nearby said unit.

Kandorak the Harbringer, basic spell: Summons a 65 point character standing by himself. Early game your opponent may try summoning an extra wizard for a signature spell and extra channel attempt. Mid to late game you are probably going to see Cairn Wraiths. With their tiny footprint, it should be relatively easy to fit them in somewhere inconvenient for you to face ethereal attackers.

Kandorak, the Harbringer, augmented version: This is the money spell, especially if your opponent has a couple counters saved up for it. This summons a souped up chariot, large monster, or war machine worth 200 points. Given that we don’t have cannons, a new Terrorgheist, Black Coach, Sphinx, Casket of Souls, etc is likely to ruin your day. If the player is sitting on three tokens or four tokens, beware. This opens up almost ANY monster. I did not make this red because it's 24+ to cast. That means roughly half the time this spell will fail or be cast with IF so hording dice against this is risky, or should I say dicey.

Akar’aran, the Dark Riders: This spell is another spell your opponent is probably saving his tokens for. It summons 150 points base of chariots or cavalry. While undead horsey units are hardly invincible, you should generally try to avoid having relatively fast moving enemy units poof into existence around you if you can help it, especially if they pop up on the flank of one of your engaged units.

The Undead Elephant in the Room: Nagash has a crazy price tag, but he fights very well and he has nine spells from the players choice of a combination Undeath, Nehekhara, Light, Death, and Vampires. Nagash’s Undeath spells have their points value tripled. That doesn't effect his monsters much but he can summon very large units of infantry, cavalry, and chariots or characters packing magic items. Unless Nagash is packing Purple Sun, I would advise ignoring all of his non-Summoning and focusing entirely on shutting down his Summoning spells. The best (probably only) way for Nagash to justify his huge points cost is raising an army of new units on the table. Don’t let him do this.

Arkhan is nearly as dangerous. His Summoning spells’ points values are doubled. He only has four spells, so shutting down his Summoning shouldn’t open you up to being slapped with direct damage like Nagash will.


High Magic: We can dish it out, but can we take it?


Available to three armies and very versatile, this is probably the most commonly seen AB lore. We may find ourselves facing High Magic if we play High Elves, Wood Elves or other Lizardmen. Apart from Hand of Glory, it generally makes little difference to us who is flinging High magic at you when gauging the threat levels of each spell.

High Elves can take High Magic for L1-L4 casters, so you might see things LM players can’t do like a low level Soul Quench spammer in a unit of archers. High Elves can’t Loremaster High Magic without Teclis.

Wood Elves can only take High Magic on Lords, and they naturally don't get loremaster. but they get +1 to cast when in a forest (that's all Lores by the way), so that's one thing slightly different.

Note that if you are playing against a Loremaster opponent, the color system practically goes out the window. It is a risky strategy to horde dispel dice against the possibility of red spells because with eight spells to choose from your opponent may not even bother with the red spells.

Contemplations, LM Attribute: It's not feasible to stop an enemy Slann from swapping spells unless you dispel all his weakest spells and let the powerful ones through (not recommended!). You need to be wary of any spells that get subbed in because chances are they are exactly what your opponent needs unless your opponent is either very inexperienced or very unlucky.

Shield of Saphery, HE Attribute: Each time a High Elf Wizard with High Magic casts a spell, the Ward Save of his unit improves by one point to a maximum of 3+. Since a lot of High Elf units (and many HE wizard bunkers) already have Ward saves, this can be irritating. You can prevent a low level wizard from Warding up but you can’t stop a wizard Lord from doing this. If you aren’t on the verge of attacking the unit with the wizard in it, you don’t have to worry about this lore attribute. If you are building a list to counter High Elves specifically, consider giving a Saurus character the Other Trickster’s Shard.

Ancient's Blessing, WE Attribute: The Wood Elf lore attribute gives them a token for every successfully cast High. These spells can negate wounds on the target's unit on a one for one basis. Not useless, but not worth worrying about as an Wood Elf opponent. The spell's main effect is what is important to us, not the tiny bonus that follows.

Drain Magic (signature): The threat of this depends on how important the spells in play are to your strategy. This is worse for expensive Remains in Play spells than others since other augments and hexes are already half spent by your opponent’s magic phase.

Soul Quench (other signature): This can put the hurting on our Skirmishing units, but it won’t do much to your Saurus or big dinosuars. The augmented version will obliterate our Skirmishers and seriously hurt everything else.

Apotheosis: The light healing of an enemy will not make a huge difference to you, and the Fear will matter even less, but this can stick in your craw if you have two characters fighting a challenge and the wounded enemy suddenly recovers.

Hand of Glory (vs. other LM)
Hand of Glory (vs. Elves in melee)
Hand of Glory (vs. shooting): Since in a LM vs. LM matchup you are literally equally matched, the Hand of Glory buff will really swing a combat on WS. Elves already outclass us in WS and I, so this spell is redundant for them in close combat., BS boosts aren't that big a deal on small HE archer blocks, but it can ruin your day if it boosts a large pack of Razordons or a big unit of WEs packing nasty enchanted arrows.

Walk Between Worlds: Positioning is vital to all Warhammer games.

Tempest: This spell is pretty underwhelming even when targeted on our flyers.

Arcane Unforging: You should know better than your opponent which magical items are important to you and which are not. To be extra safe, use your one-use magical items as quickly as possible when facing off against this spell.

Fiery Convocation: If you don’t dispel this by this by your magic phase at least, the unit hit by this spell will die. Fortunately since this is a 19+ your enemy might whiff the casting. Unfortunately, if they DO cast it, the spell will probably go off with Irresistible Force. For that reason, this is a good spell to use the Scroll of Shielding on. The 4+ Ward save will apply to your unit every turn you decide to leave this spell in play which will reduce the burn.

Dark Magic and the Elves Who Use it

Dark Magic is naturally associated with Dark Elves. Sorceresses of any level can take the lore and get +1 to cast Dark Magic. They have full access to the BRB lores so you might not see this too often. Wood Elf Lords can take Dark Magic too, so it’s not just for Dark Elves. Time will tell if Dark Magic becomes popular when weight against all eight BRB and High Magic. I think it synergizes pretty well with Wood Elf gunlines, so it's worth looking out for.

Like High Magic, it has two signature spells, but Dark Magic is a little less versatile than High Magic. Like the Dark Elves themselves the lore is focused primarily on inflicting large amounts of relatively light hits.

Spiteful Conjuration (Dark Elf lore attribute): If a direct damage spells or hexes is cast with any doubles on the roll, it’s followed up with 2d6 Strength 1 AP hits. If it’s cast with any triple, the spell is instead followed up by 3d6 Strength 1 AP hits. If the target is a Skink unit, Strength 1 AP hits can really sting. If it’s not a Skink it won’t do much.

Forest’s Vengeance or some similar name (Wood Elf lore attribute): Whenever a target is hexed it gets a counter. When a Dark Magic damaging spell hits something with counters, the target takes d3 additional hits per counter. The extra hits are at a higher strength than with Spiteful Conjuration, but it's weaker on the whole since this attribute because it requires specific one-two set ups rather than taking effect immediately. I would suggest not worrying about counters when making your dispel decisions unless they are using Doombolt.

Power of Darkness (Signature): The spell adds d3 power dice with a casting level of 5. Sometimes Dark Elf players try one dicing this, often with their very last die (meaning you will have spent your dispel dice by this time anyway). A sort of double or nothing bet. This spell has a secondary effect of giving +1 Strength to the caster’s unit. This spell is only a problem when the caster’s unit is right in your face with a potent enemy unit is right in your face. Especially potent if the wizard has joined a cavalry unit since the Strength bonus to the riders and mounts.

Doombolt (Other Signature): This is an unusually potent magic missile with a fairly high casting cost. The range is only 18 inches which isn’t great for a magic missile but Elves are mobile enough to make up for this range. The regular version of this spell causes 2d6 S5 hits which is pretty potent for a magic missile. That will wipe out most smaller units and put a big dent in large Saurus blocks or large dinosaurs. The augmented version causes double the hits, but it is almost impossible to cast without Irresistible Force. Good to keep a Scroll of Shielding in reserve if you have Arcane Item slot open.

It's worth noting that the Doomfire Warlocks can cast this spell as a bound spell with a relatively small slap on the wrist if they miscast.

Chillwind: Chillwind is the opposite of Doombolt, it’s a weak magic missile with a low casting cost, but it is very good at slapping Skinks around. It inflicts 2d6 Strength 2 hits. When you follow up with either lore attribute, this will kill quite a few Skinks indeed. To add insult to injury, this docks the BS of units it wounds by one point. BS usually a trait that Skinks cannot afford to lose. Note, this spell is almost worthless against non-Skinks.

Word of Pain: Hex spell docks d3 from WS and BS. An augmented version also docks Initiative and Strength. Against elves the WS and I docks won’t matter much. The BS hex will nerf a Chameleon Skink unit or Razordon pack temporarily, but the rest of our units won’t care much about having their WS docked versus Elves. We outclass most Elf units in our Strength versus their Toughness, but we can’t afford to lose what little edge we have. The Strength hex will bug almost any of our units locked in close combat with elves.

Blade Wind: Every model in the target unit takes a WS test (that’s right, a WS test!) or take a Strength 4 armor piercing hit. This won’t do much against most dinosaurs, but I’m assuming a canny opponent will cast this spell on your largest infantry blocks since it affects every model in the unit. Since LM WS isn’t great, this spell is dangerous. Depending on the lore you take, you don’t have to dispel this if you can proactively preempt it by boosting your important units’ WS with Light or High Magic.

Shroud of Despair: Hex bars enemy units within 12 inches of the caster from using the General’s inspiring presence or BSB’s Stand Your Ground benefit. We like our Generals and BSB, but a canny Elf player needs to set up a combo to make this work since this spell has a fairly weak radius. This spell is only a problem when your opponent is clearly setting up a follow up attack to cause a massive chain reaction panic of Skinks.

Soul Stealer: Soul Stealer is a direct damage spell with a template that inflicts Strength 2 hits that ignore armor saves. Okay, that will kill Skinks, but why is it orange? Because wounds inflicted are added to the profile of the sorceress who cast it, potentially taking them well above their original starting wounds. That means an enemy caster with a good Ward Save can cheat death indefinitely as long as there are Skinks to vampirize, and most LM armies have plenty of Skinks.

Arnzipal’s Black Horror: This spell is like a slightly less potent version of Purple Sun. The template forces a Strength test rather than an Initiative test. That means it’s not the Lizardmen killer that Purple Sun is. Black Horror also allows Ward saves, so MR bestowing items will mitigate this unlike Purple Sun (though many local metas give Purple Sun a Ward Save). It’s still something none of our troops like being hit with.

The twisted ways of Chaos (paraphrased from the writings of @Irish_Lizard )

Warriors of Chaos and Daemons of Chaos can take the same lores with slightly different lore attributes. Unless I missed some fine print in the Glottkin book, Beastmen can take Marks of Chaos in an Legions of Chaos army, but they cannot take the Chaos lores.

The Demon lore attributes are all identical across the gods they add a model to a nearby unit for each wound they cause. either a core model or a special one. Both require a roll usually 4 or 5+ for the core model and the special on a 6+.

The warriors lore attributes vary a bit more.
Tzeentch gets an extra power die for each 6 they roll to cast.
Nurgle casters can get +1T and +1W on a 6 (only really good on the DP)
Slannesh can get +1WS,A,I per wound. Problem is most spells are not great in combat.


The Reign of Chaos

On a Daemon player or Chaos Legion players turn there is a chart that does varied effects based on the effects of the Wind of Magic roll. Sometimes bad things happens to the Chaos forces, sometimes good things happen to them. Unfortunately we don't have any control over what our opponents roll for Winds of Magic dice.

Lore of Tzeentch

Tzeentch has a lot of attack spells that do highly variable damage. Most spells could either be very strong or very weak making dispel decisions less obvious than many of us would prefer. Many, though by no means all, Tzeentch casters will be flying on discs. Since Tzeentch provides Ward save bonuses whichever book you are using, lone solo wizards flying around are surprisingly hard for us to kill. Tzeentch casters can also take the Lore of Metal, another excellent lore to have for a wizard who flies.

Tzeentch magic relies heavily on direct damage and magic missiles. If you can charge said wizards, you can reduce their ability to hurt you though catching them is never easy.

Warpflame affects nearly all Lore of Tzeentch spells. After suffering a woud from a Tzeentch attack spell a unit must take a Toughness test. Success means they gain a 6+ Regeneration save (or a 1 point bonus to an existing Regeneration save. Failure means they take d3 additional wounds. Bad for Skinks, a non-issue for most other players. If you are playing with a lore that has a Toughness boosting spell, use it like crazy on units you expect your opponent to want to kill most.

Blue fire: Magic missile inflicts D6 Strength D6 hits with Warpflame.

Treason of Tzeentch: Hex that forces targets to use the lowest Ld model in their group and prohibits them from using the General or BSB's leadership bubble., Works better with warriors due to hitting the slanns unit with this and a hell cannon. Be careful of putting skink priests in saurus blocks.

Pink fire of Tzeentch: Flame template from the wizard inflicts Strength D6 hits with Warpflame. This spell requires a flying wizard to work, but flying Tzeentch wizards are pretty common.

Bolt of change: Bolt thrower inflicts hits that start at D6+4 Strength inflicting D3 multiple wounds with Warpflame.. Like regular bolt throwers, this ignores armor saves. This can kill cowboys or moderately wound dinosaurs. Never expose the flank of a unit of Cold One Riders to a caster with this spell.

Glean magic: Steals a spell from a target wizard and makes them lose a wizard level as well as inflicting a Strength 3 warpflame hit on the wizard. Not bad on a Slann (though losing spells sucks) but devastating on skink priest as the Strength 3 hit followed by a Warpflame Toughness test can easily kill him.

Firestorm: Small template inflicts Strength D6 hits with Warpflame. It's so random it's usually a non-issue. The Tzeentch caster might flub the strength of the hits or he the template may simple scatter away. Worth considering dispelling if your forces are tightly packed together.

Infernal Gateway: Direct damage spell that causes 2d6 Strength 2D6 hits 2D6. If strength 11 or 12 is rolled it is treated as 3D6 Strength 10 hits instead. Even a below average roll will inflict serious damage on any unit we have (though it's overkill on Skinks).

Lore of Nurgle

The Lore of Nurgle relies heavily on hexes on augments so you don't really impede the enemy caster by engaging it if you can't kill it outright. Nurgle Casters can also take Death, but relatively few will do so since the short range of Death is not a good mix with the slow grinding advance Nurgle troops are associated with.

Stream of Corruption (signature): Direct Damage spell with flame template extending from caster. All models hit must pass a Toughness test or take wound with no armor save. This kills Skinks in droves, but barely phases the rest of our units. Most Nurgle characters do not have the maneuverability to make efficient use of this spell.

Miasma of Pestilence: Augment with 18 inch range. Causes enemies in contact with the augment recipient to take a -1 or -D3 WS and I penalty (minimum 1). Normally this is would not be a huge deal, but Nurgle troops are all +1 difficulty to hit in close combat, so this means will be hitting on 6s. The Initiative penalty matters relatively little, especially against Warriors who already outclass every LM unit in Intiative.

Blades of Puterfication: Augment with 12 inch range. Bestows Poisoned Attacks on a unit or boosts existing poison to auto-wound on 5. Somewhat threatening when used against our Saurus characters or dinosaurs, but this has no effect on armor.

Curse of the Leper: 18 inch augment that boosts a target's Toughness by +D3 or an 18 inch hex that reduces a target's Toughness by D3. Either way your opponent will cast this on the biggest unit on the board and watch combat slide in his favor drastically. Since synergizes well with the rest of the lore because so many spells force Toughness tests. Also good in tandem with Tzeentch casters.

Rancid visitations: 18 inch magic missile that inflicts d6 Strength 5 hits. The target has to pass a Toughness test or suffer d6 more Strength 5 hits, taking the test over and again until they pass a test or are destroyed. This will delete most Skink units pretty easily.

Fleshy abundance: Augment Bestows 5+ Regeneration on a target or boosts existing Regeneration by one point. Near worthless against Daemons apart from Beasts of Nurgle but very potent on Warriors of Chaos or Beastmen if you aren't packing flaming attacks (take the Banner of Eternal Flame on your Temple Guard just in case).

Plague Wind: Toughness test vortex or take a wound with no armor saves. Like most of the lore, it's good against Skinks and because its a vortex it can hit a lot of Skinks, but nothing else is scared unless the target was hexed first.

Lore of Slaanesh

The Lore of Slaanesh is very hex oriented so most Slaanesh casters will be tooled for combat and run right in your face slashing you apart while casting spells. Slaanesh casters also can take the Lore of Shadows, another hex oriented lore.

Lash of Slaanesh (signature spell): Strength 3 hits in a 24" line with armor piercing. Will have trouble wounding non-Skinks. As long as your Skinks aren't in a conga line I would prefer a Slaanesh character cast this spell over and over again in lieu of charging me.

Acquiescence: 24" hex bestows a target unit with Always Strikes last and Random Movement d6. Lizardmen don't care much about ASL, but the random movement d6 can be crippling to your battle line if it's cast on your main combat unit.

Pavane of Slaanesh: Weak hero sniping spell. A LM model needs to pass a Ld test on 4d6 dice (remove the highest) or take a single wound with no armor save. Unless the target character already took a wound or two from something else earlier for some reason, this spell can't EVER kill our characters.

Hysterical Frenzy: This is an Augment with drawbacks or a Hex with beneficial side effects. It bestows the tareget unit with Frenzy or gives them a second additional attack if they already had Frenzy gives frenzy or if already frenzied +2A instead of +1A. The target unit takes d6 Strength 3 hits at the end of every magic phase. Since most Chaos units can handle Strength 3 hits all day long, this will usually be used to give the Chaos player extra attack. The Strength 3 hits will threaten your Skinks AND this can be used to bait Ld 5 Skinks outside your general's and BSB's leadership bubble into unwanted charges.

Slicing shards: Inflicts d6 strength 4 Armor Piercing hits. Target needs to pass an Ld test or the spell repeats, potentially indefinitely. Like many Chaos spells, this is a serious danger to Skinks outside the General's and BSB's bubbles but is a non-issue to the rest of our army.

Phantasmorgia: Hex forces the target to roll and extra die on all leadership tests discarding the lowest. That means we LM roll 4 dice and discard the lowest AND the highest. Can be bubbled 24 inches. Really hurts Skinks and Skink ridden dinosaurs, but Saurus units and any unit within range of a Slann's leadership are probably okay..

Cacophonic Choir: Acquiescence with bite. 12 inch hex inflicts 2d6 armor save bypassing hits that wound on a 4+ regardless of the target's Toughness. If any wounds are inflict the unit receives Always Strikes Last and Random Movement d6. This can be cast in a 12 inch bubble severely wounding your army and your removing your ability to direct your own movement phase. It's nicknamed the Caco Bomb and is sometimes the only reason people take this lore. The Chaos player takes a flying Slaanesh Daemon Prince (or fast moving Keeper of Secrets), makes him a Level 4 caster for a near certain chance of rolling this spell then flies it into the enemy's army center right out the gate.

If you have access to a tough mobile unit, or a spell that makes a unit mobile (like Walk Between Worlds or Steed of Shadows), you can proactively prevent a major Caco Bomb by intercepting the caster with this spell before it can reach your center line. While less reliable, you can try to hex the wizard's movement or pin it down with spells like Flame Cage or Net of Amytok.

Part Three: Specialist Lores

Vampire Count Magic

Pre-End Times, the general needs to at least be a level one caster with the Lore of Vampires. Post-End Times Vampire Counts and Undead Legions don't need to take the Lore of Vampires at all, but it synergizes so well with undead units so well that the majority of players will still choose to take it.

Normally, Vampires can take Shadows, Death, or Lore of Vampires. Necromancers can take Death or Lore of Vampires. Post End Times, any Vampire Counts spell caster can take Lore of Undeath or the Lore of Nehekhara though the Lore of Vampires will generally remain their bread and butter lore. Vampires can spend extra to pick up Metal, Heavens, Light, or Beasts. Metal is the most popular of the “forbidden lore” choices. Usually this is limited to a level two character unless it’s a grand army, or you are playing an unorthodox Undead Legions army.

Looking at how the Vampire player is setting up his spell casters, as a member of the Carpe Noctern forum, I see three primary strategies that predominate.

Lots of low level casters: This strategy has multiple casters with relatively low level. At least one of these casters will probably be an extremely potent blender Lord with Red Fury and ASF who is acting as general. The overall strategy depends on the killing power of monsters and characters, but the magical strategy is going to be based on Invocation of Nehek being casting multiple times by multiple people. There is often a level two caster with Shadow or Metal mainly for the signature spells. Since you are being spammed with low level spells, there is no clear obvious spell to dispel.

One high level caster: Sometimes the vampire general is a L4 caster, but usually you have a L1 or L2 general and a L4 Master Necromancer with Death or Lore of Vampires. If the L4 caster has Lore of Vampires, you need to watch out for Curse of Years above all else, otherwise Purple Sun and the hero snipes should be your top priority. Nowadays a Lore of Undeath caster may be used in place of either the high or low level caster.

All out magic Phase: There are at least two high level casters plus a couple lower level backups. All the nuke spells are dangerous, but Purple Sun is especially dangerous for the power dice it generates allowing your foe truly spectacular magic phases. It’s not uncommon for a canny Vampire player to send Purple Sun through their own zombie units in order to get cheap extra power dice.


Lore of Vampires

Curse of Undeath, Lore Attribute: Each spell cast works like Lifebloom but for undead. Annoying if you are trying to kill a tough character or monster by nickeling and diming it. Basically if you can't inflict lots of damage at a VC character or monster at once, you are probably not going to kill it at all. The casting cost of VC are too cheap on the whole to prevent the Lore Attribute healing altogether.

Invocation of Nehek (Signature): This is even more potent than Regrowth. The caster heals d6+ their Wizard level wounds for all friendly undead units within 6 inches, 12 inches, or 18 inches of the caster depending on the version of the spell cast. Fortunately the healing is capped at one wound for models that are Vampiric, Incorporeal or have the Large Target rule. Strategically placed Invocation casters can keep undead Core very strong round after round but their ability to rebuild heavy hitters is more limited. Zombies gain 2d6+wizard level new models with each casting and can be taken above their original starting level. There are upgrades that characters can take to let them take skeletons or dire wolves above their starting level too, but few players take them.

Remember one casting is not that big of a deal, but several consistent castings is.

Vanhel’s Danse Macabre: Augment spell gives a single friendly undead unit the ability to reroll To Hit rolls until the start of their next magic phase in close combat. Also allows a free eight inch out of sequence (non-charge) move. Can be boosted to target all friendly undead units within 12 inches.

Hellish Vigour: Augment spell lets a single friendly undead unit reroll To Wound rolls in close combat. May be augmented to target all friendly undead within 12 inches. This is bad because being hard to wound is all we have going for us against some undead units.

Gaze of Nagash: Most lores have one magic missile. This one inflicts 2d6 S4 hits at 24 inches. It has an augmented version with double the range. It’s conditional like most magical missiles depending on how vulnerable the target unit is.

Raise Dead: Creates a whole new unit of 2d6+3 zombies within 18 inches of the caster in his line of sight. An augmented version creates 2d6+3 skeletons instead, but very few players ever choose skeletons. Summoned units are never worth any victory points, so they make a good expendable speed bump. A speed bump delaying a critical charge is a serious problem, a small amount of reinforcements is almost no threat at all.

Curse of Years: Remain in Play hex spell with an 18 inch range. Immediately every model has to test on a d6 and dies on a roll of 6. At the end of the next magic phase (any magic phase not just VC magic phase) this repeats with the roll worsening to 5+, then 4+ and so on to a minimum of 2+. Do not let them leave this spell on your units for more than the initial round unless you want to write off the unit in question as a casualty.

This is the Lore of Vampire’s real heavy hitter. You aren’t immediately screwed if you don’t dispel it immediately, but you will suffer greatly if you let it remain in play too long. This is a great spell to use a Scroll of Shielding on since it will help you every turn.

Wind of Death: Magical vortex using the small round template that inflicts S3 hits with no armor saves with the general hit or miss scatters and random distances rolled that vortexes tend to have. The augmented version hits at S4 and uses the large template.


Tomb King Magic (paraphrased from @Irish_Lizard)


Pre-End Times the highest level Tomb Kings caster MUST take the the Lore of Nehekhara to fill the required roll of Heirophant. Nehekhara was/is viewed as a such a subpar lore that it was not uncommon for a player to take two level fours so they could take a level 4 Light (often with a "council" of L1 casters) or L4 Death caster. Undead Legion era TK don't have to take Lore of Nehkhara at all and may also take the Lore of Vampires or Undeath. I doubt the Lore of Nehkhara will go away in the End Times era as it synergizes fairly well with the TK army despite being somewhat subpar.

TK players could get away with taking lots of wizards because they have two ways to generate extra dice or bonuses to casting. The Casket of Souls generates d3 power dice and is T10 against ranged attacks. It has a bound spell called Light of Death with an impressive 48 range that forces targets to take a Ld test with an extra die (so LM roll four dice and drop the highest) and inflicts shooting distributed wounds equal to the points the test is lost by with no armor saves. Bad for pretty much any unit outside of the range of your general and/or BSB, especially dinosaurs.

Heirotitans can add d3 to the casting rolls of friendly undead wizards within 12 inches. They can cast Shem's Burning Gaze and Spirit Leech as bound spells on a 3 and 4 respectively.

Undead Legions armies tend to lean far more heavily on Vampire Counts troops than Tomb Kings troops but the Casket of Souls is almost standard issue for Undead Legions lists. Sometimes it's the ONLY unit from Tomb Kings that gets included.

Lore of Nehekara

Lore attribute: The restless dead: Any augments cast on friendly units heal 1+D3 wounds. This sounds good but characters can never be healed and healing is capped at one wound per model for units that have the Animated Construct, Vampiric, Large Target, or Ethereal special rules. Basically all the good units the undead have.

Desert wind(signature spell): All friendly units within 12" can move as in the remaining moves phase can be boosted to 24". Can only be moved once per turn and engaged units do not get the lore attribute.

Cursed Blades: This spell gives killing blow or if they have it boosts it to 5+. Not that scary unless they are fighting characters.

Incantation of Protection: Bestows a 5+ ward save to a single unit or all units within 12 inches of the caster.


Righteous smiting: Targets get +1A and any bows gain multishot (2). This the spell that makes the TK bowline work as they still hit on a 5+ and will enable them to delete units in a turn. This can be bubbled to all units in 24" which is the scariest thing this lore can do given how most TK armies or TK reliant Undead Legions tend to have lots of shooters.

Incantation of vengeance: Solid spell. combines -D3 movement with making all terrain (including open ground) counts as dangerous. Very good for slowing down deathstars but unimpressive against MSU armies.

Incantation of Desiccation: Soulblight effectively but can be boosted to-D3 strength and toughness which can be devastating in any combat. Even the basic version make Skinks get wounded on 2's by TK shooting which really stings since their Skirmisher and ability to draw cover from terrain features means nothing against TK shooting.

Skullstorm: Vortex that does a s4 hits with no additional special rules whatsoever. This will almost never be cast.


Defend-shielding yourself from rat wizards trying to kill-slay you

I took this more or less word for word from something @airjamy wrote with some minor revisions and clarifications inspired by the Hoodling’s Hole.

Skaven magic has two lores, Plague and Ruin, and these are the only lores the wizards of this army can use (barring Undeath of course). They have a few magic items you should worry about. One wizard generates an extra PD on 5's. This wizard has the Warp Energy Condenser and channels Warp Lighting with D6+2 S5 hits with Warp Lighting instead of just D6. They also have Warpstone Tokens, giving them extra PD. Every Grey Seer has D3 of these, and they can buy a lot extra if they want (up to D3+6). So, be careful about depleting your DP pool if they still have money spells and PD left.

Most wizards, especially the wizards you should care about, can have Plague and Ruin spells at the same time. As holdovers from seventh edition, the two Skaven lores have no lore attribute and they lack a 7th signature spell, they instead swap out spells for the number 1 spell (so Skitterleap and Pestilent Breath respectively) and they can swap any spell for the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell because--well why should the Skaven ever have to worry about not rolling their über-spell?

The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell is completely true to its name. It simply kills 4D6 models, no questions asked, at a reasonable range. This spell is red squared if your TG Slann unit is under 15 models as your opponent just might insta-kill your Slann with this horrible piece of work. Some Skaven players roll with Power Scrolls or Power Stones simply to be able to cast this spell as early and often as possible.

The models that know this spell are often Grey Seers, as their 4+ is good enough to make it somewhat possible to cast this spell without double 6s. If they do roll IF, they aren’t as expensive to a miscast lose as Verminlords.

Even if you do not have a Slann TG unit, any other elite infantry (even our basic Sauri) are prime targets. That the spell spawns a unit of Clanrats (even with full command allowed..). The extra clan rats are more kicking about kicking the target when it’s already down then an actual consideration

This spell WILL dominate the Skaven magic phase and you WILL have to save dice or scrolls for this spell (Scroll of Shielding. I have rated the other spells in this lore accordingly due to the fact that your opponent wil have the Dreaded Thirteenth. Another strong point of this spell is that it is a signature spell of sorts, the enemy can always have this spell if they want to, and they will. Keep in mind that the enemy will use Power Scrolls, Warpstone Tokens and Power Stones to cast this spell. I feel that a Scroll is better against this army then most, simply because you will want to dispell this spell. In most tournaments casting is capped to 5 dice, making this spell a lot harder to cast, as you will basically need double 6es on 5 dice to ever make it work.

The Dreaded Thirteenth does not allow saves of any kind so stocking up on MR bestowing or items will not help you.

Apart from the Dreaded Thirteenth and it’s 25+ casting cost, pretty much every Skaven spell is shockingly cheap to cast.

Lore of Ruin

Spells can be swapped for Skitterleap or the Dreaded Thirteen.

Skitterleap: Spell that can save the lives of wizards or that can bring Verminlords in flanking positions. Models can't charge after this movement however, in very large games (Like 4K+) this spell is more dangerous, as your enemy has even more options to line up other dangerous spells like Plague and Cracks Call. It also synergizes nicely with the short range End Times Plague spell Red Pox. More often than not, it’s used to get a caster away from you for points denial.

Warp Lightning: General stock but very cheap magic missile. It inflicts d6 Strength 5 hits for a relatively cheap casting cost. Our flyers can't handle this and our too important and expensive to be thrown away lightly. Often used to suck DP from you from Warlock Engineers, keep this in mind.

Howling Warpgale: One of the most situational spells in this army of situational greatness. This spell temporary grounds all flyers and makes theme use their land move. Obviously it’s threat ranges from harmless to nasty depending on how many flyers you possess. If you don’t have flyers, opponents will almost certainly swap this spell out for something.

Death Frenzy: This seems a lot worse than it actually is. This spell causes a super frenzy that bestows two extra attacks until the unit is beaten. It has a backlash that causes d6 hits on the unit (but most Skaven have extra bodies to spare). It's pretty rare for Skaven to be fielded more than five wide, and relatively few have the statline to make +2 Attacks a model very scary. This can swing close combats, but it is not really a problem for most battles.

Scorch: This acts like the Fire spell, Flamestorm except its better in every respect. It inflicts Strength 4 hits with a non-scattering template and it causes an auto-panic test on any unit that loses a model and it’s cast on a mere 10+. This is a bad Skink killer, especially large Skink units. Especially Skink units outside of general and BSB range. That’s better than a 50/50 chance of panicking. Ouch. If your opponent has this spell and you have a large Cohort, keep them near your BSB.

Crack’s Call: This inflicts a line of forced Initiative tests that cause death on a failure without armor saves. That’s bad for our various PF units, but the hits are limited by the fact that the fact that the attack uses a line. Try not to line up Kroxigor or Temple Guard around wizards with this spell. It’s hard for a wizard tied to the back blocks to get a good line up to use this, beware Skitterleap in tandem with this. Crack’s Call has a chance of killing our dinosaurs, but remember they can test on the rider’s Initiative if it’s higher so it’s only especially bad against Carnosaurs. It also auto-kills chariots and war machines on a 5+ which you need to watch out for if you are playing with a teammate who has these things.

It also has a 5+ chance to destroy a building and force Initiative test to escape. Bad if you have a large Skink unit in a building or any low Initiative PF unit in a building. It can theoretically auto-draw a scenario dependent on a building such as Watch Tower but more and more and metas are house ruling that buildings that serve as objectives are indestructible. Officially, Siege scenario buildings cannot be destroyed by this spell, only breached, but that’s plenty bad if you are defending.

Lore of Plague

Spells can be swapped for Pestilent Breath or Dreaded Thirteenth, in other words the Dreaded Thirteenth.

Pestilent breath: This is quite a poor S2 breath weapon that ignores armour saves in CC. Skinks in CC are dead skinks anyway against Skaven and our Sauri are only wounded on 6's. Might do damage on our already damaged monsters as it might kill them with a godlike throw, but this should never be a top priority to dispel. Skaven generally lack the mobility to even try this spell unless it’s combined with Skitterleap.

Bless with Filth: This bestows poison on a Skaven unit or lets an already poisonous unit auto-wound on 5s. It is pretty good against our units in general, as we have high toughness and this mitigates that. When you are fighting a Plaguemonk deathstar this spell quickly becomes a large problem, as their high volume of attacks makes 5+ poison a real bother.

Wither: This makes a mockery of a lot of our units. This spell docks a point of Toughness from a target permanently. There is still a running debate on whether Drain Magic stops the effects of this spell, but the consensus is that Drain Magic does not as the lowering in T is a result of the spell, not an effect. It has not been FAQed yet. It can even kill units by lowering their toughness continually, but also the initial effect in especially the early game is very painful. For those interested in lengthy inconclusive debates, check this out.

Vermintide: This is a scattering large template that inflicts 3d6 Strength 2 hits. This might be a strong spell when your opponent can hit clusters of multiple Skinks, else it can be quite easily ignored. Most of the time. This can be cast in CC, so keep this in mind, but this will not swing many combats since Skinks in close combat are already on borrowed time anyway.

Cloud of Corruption: Thiis is a fart bomb that hits all units within 12 inches of the caster. Skaven are affected on a 4+ (or 5+ if clan Pestilens troops). Non-Skaven units are hurt on a 2+. Affected units take d6 Strength 5 hits that ignore armor saves. Bad for any of our infantry but really nasty for Saurus Cavalry who have both a low model count and high armor saves. It can inflict modest damage on our Monsters which is a problem if they are softened up by artillery first. You are more likely to see this fairly late game to minimize damage inflicted on Skaven units, but most true Skaven generals have few compunctions about winning battles over piles of their own dead.

Plague: Plague is bad. Often hind sighted because of the Dreaded Thirteenth, but this is really cheap to cast (only 13+!) spell can kill units, yet it cannot snipe characters (the wording is different than Dwellers). It forces a target to take a Toughness test or die with no armor saves. It can bounce like Chain Lightning. If it bounces you can choose a Skaven unit to bounce into. If it bounces again the Skaven player gets to direct it, etc. The chance of it spreading to enemy units is not large enough to mitigate the strength of this spell against our more expensive units. The short range of only 18'' does save us quite a bit, Grey Seers are often in bunkers behind their lines. It is however a spell that should always be considered as a strong one, and worth dispelling.

It should also be noted that this spell can be cast into close combat. This will hit the engaged Skaven unit too, but most Skaven generals don’t mind sacrificing their minions to kill the enemy, especially if it’s a throwaway tarpit unit.


The Greenskin Menace


I have played Orcs and Goblins a lot and most armies tend to take both Orc and Goblin shamans with anything between four and twelve combined wizard levels. If the O&G player is really spamming you with a lot of wizards, rest assured that they are probably NOT packing defensive magical items so allocating close combat attacks to them is well worth it.

There are hero and lord variants for Goblin, Night Goblin, Orc, and Savage Orc shamans, but most lists tend to favor Night Goblins over vanilla Goblin Shamans and Savage Orcs over vanilla Orc Shaman.

The majority of competitive lists rely on Savage Orcs for Core, so it’s pretty common for Savage Orc Shamans with the Lucky Shrunken head to join the units (boost the Ward save of the unit from 6+ to 5+). That means it’s extra important to take out Savage Orc Shamans both to weaken their magic phase and make their main block easier to kill.

Night Goblin shamans eat a mushroom each time they try casting a spell. After determining whether or not they have IF, they roll an additional die. If they roll a "1" the spell auto-fails (unless they got IF), if they roll anything else that number is added to the casting total making successful casts more likely and dispels more expensive (but not contributing to IF). Rolls of "1" have a 50% chance of wounding the Goblin.

Neither of the two greenskin lores are particularly deadly compared to BRB lores, but most of the spells are fairly cheap to cast, so you will usually get spammed with a lot of weak spells rather than be facing a few “dispel or die” spells.

Big Waaagh! (the Orc Lore)

Lore Attribute: Strength bonuses from buffs or Strength based damage on direct damage spells go up an additional +1 if more friendly units are in combat than are fleeing. It doesn’t apply to enough spells to be a serious concern.

Gaze of Mork: Signature Spell, direct damage spell that inflicts S4 hits in a straight line (4d6 or 8d6 inches). It’s really hard to line up a good shot with an Orc, so this is a low priority spell.

Brain Bursta: Direct damage spell that targets a single model and hits at S5 at 18 or 36 inch range. Dealing a single wound to a single model with normal saves is not normally very scary.

Fist of Gork: The Shaman gains +3 Attacks, +3 Strength, and a 6+ ward save (does not stack with existing ward saves). Without this spell a block of Saurus Warriors will beat a similar number of Orcs, with the spell the Saurus will need their BSB nearby to not break. Trust me.

Hand of Gork: Moves a single friendly unengaged unit 3d6 inches into a new legal position (cannot bring a unit into close combat). It has an extended version to move a unit 5d6 inches. Not only this useful for changing the set up of the battlefield by moving large units, it can also favorably reposition Night Goblin Fanatics. This spell is basically an Orc version of Walk Between Worlds.

‘Eadbutt: Direct damage with 4d6 or 8d6 inch range that only targets wizards,inflicting d3 wounds at S4. This spell does not hit hard enough to threaten a Slann but it can kill Skink characters with relative ease if they aren’t packing Ward Saves.

‘Here We Go: Orc units and characters of all kinds within 2d6 inches of the caster re-roll failed to hit rolls till the start of the casters next magic phase. This does NOT help non-orcs. I prefer not to be facing Orcs with this buff but it’s not too bad.

Foot of Gork: A foot template with a d6 inch scatter inflicts targets hit with S6 d3 wound hits. Then the player rolls a d6. On a 4-6 they can apply the foot again (and CAN target the original target again if they so desire). On a roll of 1 the O&G player’s opponent gets to decide where the foot lands. It wouldn’t be Orc magic if there wasn’t a chance for it to go horribly awry. Not as bad as other nuke spells but this is still a spell you don’t want to go off.


Little Waaagh! (the Goblin Lore)


Lore Attribute, Sneaky Stealin’: Whenever a spell is successfully cast, the goblin player rolls a d6; on a 5 or 6 they can steal a die from the opponents' Dispel dice pool and convert it to a Power die giving you (a LM opponent) an added incentive to front load your dispel attempts early to avoid having your dice stolen before you can even use them.

Sneaky Stabbin’: Signature Spell, Augment with 12 inch range that bestows armor piercing on a friendly unit until the start of the caster’s next magic phase. If said friendly unit is engaging a foe in the flank or rear, they also get to reroll failed To-hit and To-wound rolls. If the unit in question isn’t flanking you, this spell is not a big deal.

Vindictive Glare: 24 inch magic missile that inflicts 2d6 S3 hits. The hits are too weak to matter much, even against our lighter units. Quantity beats quantity for 3d6 S3 when the spell is augmented.

Gift of the Spider-god: Augment that bestows poisoned attacks on a unit within 12 inches until the start of the caster’s next turn. If the unit already has poisoned attacks, it’s now poisonous on a 5 or 6. Our Scaly Skin will help a bit, but LM should try to be on the distributor end of the poison trade whenever possible.

Itchy Nuisance: Hex with a 24 inch range that reduces a target’s Movement rate and Initiative by d6 (minimum 1). Early game it makes it hard to get the charge. Late game, this spell doesn’t matter as our main fighting units have poor Initiative anyway.

Gork’ll Fix it: Hex forces enemy unit in 24 inches to reroll to hit, To Wound, and Armor Saves of 6 until the start of the caster’s next magic phase, much like Curse of the Midnight Wind only cheaper to cast and with no augmented spell option. Whether or not this spell is a threat depends on how close the fight would have otherwise been.

Night Shroud: This augment gives the shaman’s unit soft cover until the start of the caster’s next magic phase. Normally a highly situational spell, but more useful against LM than most armies given the comparatively high number of shooters our army has. There is an augmented version to affect all friendly units within 12 inches of the shaman. This is only a problem if you are relying on Skink shooting. Once most of your units are within charging distance, this is a weak spell indeed.

Curse of da Bad Moon: An unusually fast moving template forces affected units to make a characteristic test or take a wound. The test is either Strength, Toughness, or Initiative and is randomly rolled for each round. The augmented version uses the larger template and lets the caster choose the characteristic test rather than rolling for it. Naturally the most dangerous tests are Initiative for Saurus and Toughness for Skinks. Regardless of what test is chosen, and which units are hit, the effects are unpleasant.

Fat Sweaty Mages and the Lore of the Great Maw

All Ogre mages have 4 or 5 wounds and T 5 (and most can take magic armor too), so the usual strategy of charging a wizard’s unit and allocating extra attacks on the wizard is less effective than against other armies. To make matters worse, Ogre magic tends to lean heavily on augments and hexes so it’s hard to prevent them from casting many spells by engaging the wizard’s unit. If the wizard is paired up next to a tooled up combat lord, it’s even tougher to assassinate him. In my few battles with Ogres I mostly try to rack up combat resolution against the wizard’s unit and then break and run him down rather than trying to kill the wizard(s) individually.

The Butchers (heroes) and Slaughtermasters (lords) can take the Lore of the Great Maw, Death, Beasts, or Heavens. If there are Butchers or Slaughtermasters, at least one is required to take the Ogre’s army book lore, though he need only be a level one.

Note that Butcher’s and Slaughtermasters are immune to poisoned attacks auto wounds so an Ogre player fielding an anti-LM army could theoretically taunt us by fielding a lone wizard and laughing at the Skirmishers trying to wound him, though most such wizards are embedded in deathstar units.

Firebellies are a fluffy hero wizard choice limited to the lore of Fire. They have a 4+ Ward save versus flaming attacks, and more importantly, a breath weapon making them the toughest Ogre wizards in close combat, or they would be if they weren't the only Ogre wizards that can't take magic armor.

The Lore Itself

Bloodgruel, Lore Attribute: While there is a slim chance the lore attribute will actually wound an Ogre wizard, most of the time the lore attribute will heal wounds per each successfully cast spell and give +1 to the next spell cast (not cumulative though). While the lore attribute is underwhelming on the whole, if your plan was to nickel and dime the wizard to death, you should probably come up with a new plan.

Spinemarrow: The signature spell makes an Ogre unit Stubborn. Stubborn is good for Ogres since they rarely have Steadfast. You only really need to dispel this spell when you are pretty sure you are going to win the round of close combat you are going to fight with that unit this round.

Bonecrusher: A fairly underwhelming magic missle, 2d6 S2 hits with no armor saves. A Skink killer but that’s about it.

Bullgorger: Friendly unit gains +1 Strength. It’s no Wyssans but not bad since Ogres tend to have high Strength scores to begin with. It will usually give regular Ogres the ability to wound Sauri on 3s. If the Ogres are packing great weapons this spell, then this spell is mostly redundant since they already wound Sauri on 2s, (but the Stomps and Impact Hits get the boost). The augmented version is still blue. The odds of multiple units of unbuffed Ogres needing 3s or worse to wound us all clumped in a 12 inch radius are pretty low since most Ogre lists rely on great weapons over other gear options.

Toothcracker: Same as above but with +1 Toughness. This is slightly more problematic for us because the few units we have capable of dishing out high strength attacks are very vulnerable to the Ogre Ironblaster which nearly every Ogre list I’ve seen includes. The augmented version of the spell is more dangerous. We don’t want to need a 5 or 6 to wound the entire enemy army if we can help it.

Braingobbler: This is a fairly creative spell, it inflicts no damage but forces a panic test on a target assuming it’s not Immune to Psychology. Our Skinks don’t like taking Ld tests outside the radius of the general and BSB, but even that is not a big deal for us since the Bonecrusher will cause a panic test in Skink blocks most of the time and is cheaper to cast. I'd rather panic WITHOUT losing any models thank you very much. Unless you have a Bastiladon outside of general and BSB range (generally a bad idea even without this spell), you can usually afford to let this one pass.

Trollguts: bestowing Regeneration 4+ is pretty potent, considering that Ogres are not that easy to take down in the first place. It can also be expanded to cover multiple units. Now if you aren’t in close combat yet and you have Salamanders, this spell is pretty weak.

The Maw: Naturally a spell named for the Ogre’s god would be pretty potent. It uses a small scattering template (with an augmented casting for a bigger template naturally). Each model hit takes an initiative test. If they succeed they take a Strength 3 hit so even a Skinks Intiative score of 4 will not help them much. If they fail they take a S7, d6 wounds hit. Naturally this spell is devastating to Saurus based units of all kinds as well, including characters. It’s not the monster kill it used to be before our new book since our big beasties get to use a Skinks Initiative score to take the test. That’s still only a 67% pass rate to let this spell go through if you can help it.

Lore of the Wild (mostly paraphrased from @cryocube with a bit from @Khornefed)

Beastmen get this only for themselves. At first glance it appears fairly weak. The trouble is that Beastmen tend to have a higher than average number of attacks. Quantity over Quality. Their magic can give them a super-offensive character or turn our Carnosaurs, Stegadons, etc against us. Apply your dominance in the dispel phase, and let them get closer so you can get into melee on your own terms.

Unlike most army book lore, Beastmen do NOT have their arms twisted to make them take it. They can take Death, Shadow, and of course Beasts. Like the other AB lores dating from seventh edition, there are only six spells (the “1” spell and signature spell are the same. While it's not a weak lore by any means, I doubt many optimized Chaos Legions will use it in lieu of the three Chaos lores or the many BRB lores they have access to.

Bestial Surge (signature spell): This Spell is a mini-old-school Vanhel's Danse Macabre. Unengaged, non-fleeing units within six inches of the caster move d6+1 inches towards the nearest enemy. Movement and positioning is key to winning Warhammer, but this probably the weakest movement spell in the game because the caster does not pick the direction moved in, and this occurs after a charge can be declared, this will normally only be cast in the first turn or in the late game when the battle has waged far apart.

Viletide: This is the Magic Missile spell for the lore firing a high volume of low Strength hits (5d6 Strength 1 hits, wounding Skinks on 5+ and pretty much everything else on a 6. Its un-boostable and will average 17 shots wounding normal infantry on 6+ so 3 wounds a shot average. This spell is pretty vile indeed. However...important safety tip. A unit marked by the Hagtree Fetish allows rerolls of failed to-wound rolls making this spell deadlier.

Devolve: Target takes a leadership test or takes automatic wounds equal to amount they fail the leadership test from. Not particularly dangerous. Dangerous to Bastiladons outside your general and BSB bubbles but an annoyance at best for most of our cold-blooded troops.

Bray-Scream: A Strength 3 breath weapon that ignores armor. We like our Scaly Skin, so this is bad but the relatively low strength of the hits dials down the threat factor here.
Traitor-Kin: This spell causes cavalry, chariots, ridden monsters and the like to rebel against their riders and attack themselves. This can cause serious damage to you if you have Terradons, Stegadons, Cold Ones, Carnosaurs, etc. Our mounts are tough and can kick out some real damage. Most of our mounts wound themselves on 4+ and will get at least a -1 to their own armor saves. Pretty nasty on a Salamander or Razordon pack that already lost a few handlers, but it won’t do anything significant on a warbeast with a full allotment of snacks.

Mantle of Ghorok: One of the strengths of the Beastmen is that they have a higher than average number of attacks at slightly higher than normal strength. The bestows a lot more of both. On average a character will get +3 Attacks and +3 strength taking them to an area where they can wound Stegadons on 2 or 3s. Do not let this get off.

Savage Dominion: Similar to Transformation of Khadon, but it uses monsters from the Beastmen book instead of the generic list and the Beastmen shaman controls the monster rather than becomes the monster. This spell is somewhat more dispel-worthy than Transformation of Kadon because it is not a remains in play spell. Much like End Times Summoning spells, after the initial dispel attempt, you can’t dispel the monster, you have to kill it.

There are three built-in weaknesses. If you can exploit these weaknesses, you have less incentive to dispel this. First, the shaman that summoned the monster can’t cast any spell while the monster it summoned remains on the table and it cannot be voluntarily dismissed by the Beastmen player (no biggie if the Shaman is level one or two, but in many cases I’d rather face a monster than a level 4 caster). Second, every time the monster takes a wound, the controlling shaman has to pass a Toughness test or take an automatic wound with no saves of any kind. Third, if the Shaman dies, the monster goes away.

Lore of Hashut

The Lore of Hashut is only available to Chaos Dwarfs. and it’s only available to the Lord level caster. THe Chaos Dwarfs have full access to three perfectly good BRB lores: Fire, Metal, and Death. This means some players might not even bother with it though the Lore of Hashut is almost a perfect amalgam of Fire, Metal and Death and Chaos Dwarfs only have one Lord option available to them so the Lore of Hashut will remain a fairly popular choice amongst the small Chaos Dwarf community.

If you are tailoring a list against Chaos Dwarves specifically, your list should probalby have both the Dragon Bane Gem AND Dragonhelm in it somewhere. Chaos Dwarves like Flaming Attacks as much as Skaven like Warpstone seasoned grilled cheese sandwiches.

Killing Fire, lore attribute: The Lore of Hashut gets +D3 to casting rolls against targets that are Flammable. Fortunately Lizardmen are not Flammable. There is a Hashut spell that makes an enemy Flammable, but that spell is perfectly nasty even without the Lore Attribute, so don't worry about the lore attribute.

Breath of Hatred: The signature spell temporarily gives Hatred to one unit or gives Hatred to all units within 12 inches when augmented. It’s generally only important on the first round of close combat then it stops mattering altogether.

Burning Wrath: This spell inflicts 1d6 or 2d6 Strength 6 hits. That sounds bad, but the spell is limited to an eight inch range. Most Chaos Dwarf wizards will be hanging out with their artillery since they double as engineers so you can avoid this spell by simply staying out of range. Occasionally you may see Chaos Dwarf Lords riding giant monsters, but a Chaos Dwarf riding casting this spell at you from the back of a Taurus means the Taurus isn't fighting you in close combat. I'll take that trade-off.

Dark Subjugation: A hex spell that forces the opponent to pass an Ld test at a -3 penalty or suffer a -1 Ld penalty for the rest of the game. We are Cold Blooded so this isn’t a huge issue—once. It becomes more problematic when your main unit gets hit by this spell a second or even a third time.

Curse of Hashut: A fairly potent character snipe. 18 inch range inflicting 2d6 – Toughness dice in hits on a 4+ with no armor saves. This has a good chance of killing a Saurus or Skink character and a small chance of killing a Slann. It’s cast at a mere 10+ making it outshine all the Death snipes.

Ash Storm: The mother of all hexes is 24 inch range cast a 12+. It is extra brutal to Slann bunkers. If you are running without a Slann, this spell is a slightly less scary..
-Target is Flammable
-Target gets -1 to hit in close combat, and -2 to hit with ranged attacks.
-Target can’t march, charge, or fly
-All ground is treated a Dangerous Terrain (not that this matters much since you can barely move)
-Spell casters in the unit cannot target units other than itself

Hell Hammer: This is the most dangerous line template attack spell I have ever seen published, but Chaos Dwarfs don’t usually have the mobility to line up ideal shots so this spell is wasted on them. If they DO get a good shot it will hurt a lot, but otherwise this spell is not a big deal. It’s a 3d6 inch or 6d6 inch line that inflicts a Strength 6 D3 wound hit on every model in the way. This needs a flying Dwarf to pull off well and in most cases I'd rather the Dwarf player be trying to set this spell up rather than charging me, unless I have a line of Kroxigors.


Part Four: The Weird Stuff

Faith, Steel and Gunpowder

The Empire needs all three to succeed. Faith is represented by passive buffs and Bound Spells. The Empire has the best selection of bound spells of all the WHF armies. On the whole, Bound Spells are less threatening the BRB spells (which the Empire has full access to), but the bound spells are threatening in that they are generally very easy to cast.

Arch Lectors and Warrior Priests: These guys have the same three bound spells and bestow Hatred to non-character models in units they are joined (and the units’ detachments). Unfortunately you usually can’t negate the Hatred by killing the Priest because the Hatred wears off after the first round and it’s hard to kill a warrior priest before close combat. Unless the Empire army is fielding lots of Warrior Priests, expect the ones you see to be packing defensive magical items.

All the bound spells buff the unit they are with (not the detachments). Priests channel dispel and power dice as wizards do.

The Arch Lector can’t do anything the Warrior Priest isn’t able to do except ride the War Altar or serve as an inexpensive Ld9 general on foot. The War Altar can cast Banishment as a Bound Spell on a mere 4+.

Righteous Fury: This lets the Priest’s unit re-roll failed to wound rolls. Combined with Hatred this is a lot of killing power the Empire usually doesn’t enjoy. Unless your opponent is overkilling the amount of power dice required on this spell, you should probably try to dispel it.

Shield of Faith: This gives the Priest’s unit a 5+ Ward Save. A handy power, but it won’t swing combats by itself.

Soulfire: This bestows a unit with Flaming Attacks and deals an automatic S4 (S5 for daemons and undead) hit to enemies ins base contact with the Warrior Priest. This spell is nigh pointless against LM unless we are defending a building.

Unbending Righteous: This is only available on the SC Luthor Huss, but Huss barely costs more than a regular Priest, so you may see this a lot. It bestows Stubborn. Assuming your opponent casts this spell when you are likely to be winning against a non-Steadfast foe, you should thus dispel it when you can.

Magemobiles/Buffwagons: The Hurricanum gives a passive buff of +1 to hit to nearby units and an extra power die each phase. The Luminark gives a 6+ Ward Save and an extra dispel die each phase. The War Altar allows an Arch Lector to bestow their priestly buffs on multiple nearby units rather than just a unit they are joined. Generally speaking the Hurricanum is considered the best all-around magemobile, the War Altar is the best in tailored lists built around it, and the Luminark has the best bound spell, so you could easily see any of these show up in competitive Empire armies.

Storm of Shemtek (Hurricanum): The spell works roughly like a Stone Thrower with all the potential to scatter. The spell also uses a d6 to determine the effect ranging from absolutely nothing to very nasty. Due to the random nature of this spell it’s not a must-dispel since there’s about a 50/50 chance the spell will come out weak anyway. It does have the Heavens Lore attribute with regard to flyers.

Solheim’s Bolt of Illumination (Luminark): The spell hits at S8 (D3 wounds) and penetrates ranks like a Bolt Thrower so you need to judge how bad a bolt thrower hit is. Basically treat it like a less powerful cannon shot that can’t misfire.


Obscure Cold-blooded Mirror Match-ups

Solardons: Sure your opponent might roll a "1", but this is generally a spell you generally can't afford to let Beam of Chotec through unless your opponent used lots of extra dice to cast this. It'll destroy our chaff pretty easily and has a good chance of wounding our stronger stuff.

EOTG Steggies: If you are running a Predatory army, you can ignore the threat posed by the Burning Alignment, but most of our armies have at least a few chaff units. You should either keep your smaller units away from the enemy EOTG Steggies or be prepared to dispel the shots they are throwing at you. Unless I was running an MSU army, I'd normally be far more concerned with the Steggies, Impact Hits, and Ward Saves.

Plaque of Dominion: Few LM players choose to take this since it takes a valuable Arcane Item slot. Slann generally do not care if they have to take a Stupidity test. Skink Priests will pass at least half of the time, and even if they don't you aren't out many spells that phase. The real danger is that Stupidity means Immune to Psychology and ItP means a unit cannot choose to flee. Maybe, this spell is being used to set up a charge on a fragile Skink Priest bunker.

Lord Kroak: If Lord Kroak is participating in a Lizardmen civil war, things have really gotten out of hand haven't they? Most of the time, players using Kroak plan to use Kroak to the exclusion of most if not all other spells. This means you will probably not be able to stop every casting of Deliverance of Itza no matter how hard you try. Since Kroak makes Temple Guard units very hard to break down, I suggest you bog down his bunker with a tarpit as soon as possible and concentrate all your early fire to take out Kroak's arcane vassals. If you can stall Kroak's bunker and keep your chaff away from him, Deliverance of Itza spamming becomes less deadly.

Obscure Undead Tricks

Queen Khaida's Secret Weapon: The Tomb Queen has an arcane item called the Venom Staff that allows her to cast a cheap bound spell to inflict 2d6 Strength. Better than any damaging spell the Lore of Nehekara can boast and synergizes well with the archer bunkers Khalida usually hangs out (she bestows BS3 and poisoned attacks on skeleton archer units she joins).

The Cube of Darkness/Drain Magic Knock-off: The Tomb Kings have an arcane item called Enkhil's Kanopi with a bound spell that knocks out all Remains in Play spells on a roll of 2+ (roll separately for each spell) and then bestows d3 bonus power dice to the Tomb Kings for every spell snuffed out. Obviously the threat of this depends on how many RIP you want to keep on the board.

Invocation of Nehek Knock-off: The Tomb Kings have a VERY expensive magic banner called Standard of the Undying Legion with a bound spell that let's the bearer's unit (and only the non-characters in said unit) to recover d6+2 wounds.

Vampire Counts Arcane Secrets: The Vampire Counts can cast Vanhel's Danse Macabre or a random BRB hex via magic items, but they also have two bound spells with no mundane magic equivalent.

The Staff of Damnation bestows an Extra Attack on all friendly units within 6 inches. Most undead units do not have the statline to make much of a single extra attack, but the Staff costs so many points you are pretty much only going to ever see this item when carried by potent Lords leading elite units made up of the very strongest troops the Vampire Counts army has to offer: Grave Guard, Black Knights, or Blood Knights.

The Rod of Flaming Death is basically a miniaturized version of Flame Cage. Initially it's a magic missle inflicts d6 Strength 4 flaming hits and forces an immediate panic test if the target suffers even a single unsaved wound. Skinks don't like that kind of hit. If the target moves next round, every model in the unit takes a Strength 4 hit. Our dinosaurs don't mind, but mone of of our infantry likes the followup effect.

Anvil of Dumb, I mean Doom

On the whole, the Dwarf army got stronger with their newest book, but the Anvil of Doom climbed all the way to top of the nerf tree, fell and hit every branch on the way down. The Dwarfs have no reliable means to generate extra power dice and they get no pluses to cast their bound spells to compare the +2 or +4 to dispel most foes will have. With only three spells, it's feasible for the enemy dispelling wizards to shut down every effect every round, or at least two out of three (since only two really count). There is literally no penalty for miscasting with the Anvil so pretty much the only way they can cast any of their three spells

The Rune of Hearth and Home bestows Immune to Psychology on an army with minimum Ld9 and a wide variety of potent runic banners. The odds of getting a Dwarf to panic or fail a Terror test are so low, you can probably let this one go every time.

Rune of Oath and Steel bestows +1 armor save to a single friendly Dwarf unit. Potentially bad for us in an otherwise close matchup. You should try dispelling this if doing so will not impact your ability to dispel the last rune.

Rune of Wrath and Ruin is the money rune. It inflicts 2d6 Strength 4 hits. Granted this is an army with fantastic artillery and superb BS shooters so 2d6 more hits ins'that that scary, but every hit adds up. This is your top priority. Everytime it's not struck with Irresistible Force, you should throw max dice at it or break out the Dispel Scroll (if you are stuck with it versus Dwarfs via your all-comer's list.

In theory, the Anvil of Doom should do great in a team game, because then the Dwarf's opponent have to split their dispels between the Anvil's spells AND the Dwarf ally's wizards, but the first two Anvil spells specify friendly Dwarf unit, so the Anvil doesn't play well with others.

Wurrzag's Ace in the Hole

Wurrzag is an Orc SC wizard of moderate usefulness. In addition to being a level 4 caster of the Spells of the Big Waaagh! and having a random grab bag of half-way decent magic items, he has a unique spell called Wurrzag's Revenge. Five out of six castings it does nothing at all. The rest of the time it auto-kills an enemy wizard along with his mount with no saves of any kind allowed. I'd rather take my chances with Wurrzag's revenge versus Gork's Foot, but even a one-in-six chance of losing a fully kitted out Slann is generally unacceptable, so I can't write it off as a green spell even though it usually does nothing..

Lesser Known Chaos Magics

By Chaos standards, Chaos Warshrines don't hit very hard, but they are very defensively oriented making them more closely resemble immovable objects than irresistible forces. Their bound spell, Favour of the Ruinous Powers, operates like a slot machine. The Chaos player puts a few power dice in the machine and then rolls on the Eyes of the Gods chart for a designated model nearby. They roll on the chart with three dice, dropping one of their choice. They might get something really great or they might get something near worthless like +1 BS.

Mutalith Vortex Beasts are pretty weak monsters (by Chaos standards), but they come with a pretty potent bound spell called Aura of Mutation. The spell uses a d6 chart to determine what the precise effects are. 1-3 are pretty weak and may be indirectly beneficial. 4 to 5 can potentially bounce around damaging multiple units and 6 can produce a free Chaos spawn. All six effects force a Toughness tests so try to keep your Skinks away from Mutaliths. Aura of Mutation is a Direct Damage spell so you can shut the spells off at the source by charging them.

Storm of Magic Defense

There are too many different spells and unusual circumstances in a typical Storm of Magic game to make it worth the effort to color code every Cataclysm spell. The existence of Cataclysm spells pretty much voids the color classifications on the normal spells. I'll I can do is suggest broad guidelines.

Cataclysm spells can trigger a miscast with a double 6, but they are never actually cast with Irresistible Force. Dispel Scrolls and double 6s on dispels will not stop Cataclysm spells. You have to meet or beat the casting total to shut down the spell. Whether you want to try to dispel a Cataclysm spell depends as least as much on the casting roll as what the spell does. A Cataclysm spell that barely was cast successively is usually worth trying to dispel and a Cataclysm spell cast way over the minimum needed is usually not worth trying to dispel.

All else equal, a spell that is likely to help generate more power dice for your opponent (such as Purple Sun or Fantastic Foresight) should be a higher priority to shut down than vanilla spells.

Even a temporary denial of your opponent's ability to cast Equilibirum spells is worth pursuing. This makes both the Magical Duel and Transagar's Transportation potentially game swinging spells despite being decidedly unflashy cantrips.

Dominance is not worth worrying about in the short term. Sure, if your opponent ends the game with more fulcrums than you, he or she wins, but in the short term it doesn't matter. Dominance spells are very difficult to cast and just as difficult to dispel. It's generally not worth worrying about the possibility of one being cast when rationing out your dispel dice.

To benefit from an arcane fulcrum, your side needs to control them, not your casting wizard. It's safer to garrison your fulcrums with lower level wizards versus your Slann so your Slann doesn't risk a double miscast by casting spells from a fulcrum until you have no other free wizards to claim fulcrums with. Besides, the Slann's points cost factors in his 4+ Ward save and Fulcrums bestow a free 3+ Ward save. More efficient to give the 3+ to someone with no Ward save at all.

Scroll of Shielding, Scroll of Leeching, Power Stone, Feedback Scroll, and the Wand of Jet become noticeably more useful in a SOM game than in a regular game.


End Times Magic Defense

The color coding system becomes less helpful with End Times magic. Both the caster and the would-be dispeller have a randomly determined ceiling of possible dice to use every spell. It doesn't matter if a spell is red or not. If your opponent cast it with five dice and you have a ceiling of two dice to use to shut it down, only the craziest or most desperate gambler would dare throw two dice at the spell in hope of double 6s. You pretty much need to dispel every spell you can when you can, unless it's green I guess.

The real kicker of course is that you can't dispel the special End Times spells at all. Granted all things considered, ET are hard to cast, so your opponent you can count on the dice gods from keeping your opponent from casting the really nasty spells most of the time, but there is nothing you can do as the defender to stop him....at least at first glance.

If you read my army lists and battle reports you may notice that while I don't actively dislike High Magic, but I don't really like it much either. Also know that I rarely speak in absolutes. I gave you this context, so you will understand the full force of my next sentence.

Always take a Focus of Mystery Slann when playing with End Times magic.

Offensively you can use the re-rolls on failed casting bestowed by lore master to effectively cast spells with one fewer die on average.

Offensively you can use Contemplations to pick up entire lores at literally no cost to you. In fact, by the time you cast your ninth High magic spell you will have full access to the spells from the eight BRB lores and Undeath in addition to your 9 High Magic spells. That's 81 spells in your pocket.

This is a defensive Tactica though, so let's talk defense.

Drain Magic can remove an ET spell from play even if the spell in question was un-dispellable when it first came out. Since Drain Magic is only 8+, a single caster can easily cast Drain Magic multiple times a magic phase if need be. With the re-rolls you have a 75% to cast this spell with ONE die, so you can't even be screwed over by a bad d6 roll for your power dice ceiling.

The ET spell for High Magic is Deadlock. With the re-roll bestowed by having Lore Mastery you have a reasonable chance of casting it with three dice and a near certainty of casting it on 4 or 5 dice. Go for Deadlock every magic phase, and you have a roughly a 50% of proactively muzzling your enemy's deadliest wizard every round before they can even TRY to cast a spell and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop you unless he puts a voodoo curse on your dice.

If Deadlock didn't work, you have a solid plan B. By Turn Two, you should have at least two or three BRB lores at your fingertips via Contemplations. Any spell that requires an Initiative test you can thwart with multiple castings of Speed of Light or a single bubbled casting. Any nasty spells that require a Toughness test or do regular damage you can thwart with Flesh to Stone. Any unit not totally destroyed you can rebuild with Regrowth. Any unit fleeing you can rally with Light of Battle. While not as effective as the aforementioned spells you can shore yourself up versus strength tests with Wyssans. Undeath caster spamming you with ethereal troops? Toss a few castings of Enchanted Blades of Aiban around. There is almost nothing you can't indirectly counter with the right augment or hex.

If the above section makes little sense to you, read this tactica and you will see why I wrote what I did.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

Thanks Irish Lizard, I added your posts to Part Two and did some mild proofreading on it (Slaanesh is spelled with one "n" and two "a"s. We must not confuse Slann and Slaanesh.

You also inspired me to mention the lore attributes in the Part One.

I added Empire bound spells to part two as well. I'll do High Magic fairly soon.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

I added Lore of Hashut and High Magic. Now I just need to wait for volunteers to cover the other Lores I left out.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

This is a rules question that probably needs it's own thread, I’ve heard it both ways. Obviously a unit with transmutation of lead modification wouldn’t reduce the ease of damaging something but Transmutation of Lead is permanent. The last time I used this, my opponent argued that because it was permanent the model gained a new unmodified save. I didn’t want to press the point at the time because we didn’t get along well to begin with.

Added, thank you.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

Thanks Cryocube, I added your stuff to part two. I added a few comments because I can't resist. I also changed Traitor Kin to Orange. I believe if a lore has three reds the system breaks down because you can't save dispel dice for that many spells. Traitor Kin will not kill most of our dinosaurs, only wound them so I don't want to put in the same league with Purple Sun and Dwellers. It doesn't confer a Ripper's Armor piercing or Frenzy, a Carnosaurs multi-wounds or Frency, a Stegadon's impact hits, and Salamanders still have to wound their own Toughness and not the Skink's. The spell is bad but not devastating.

I thought Mantle of Ghorok should be orange because it seems a lot like Fist of Gork at first glance. A second look confirmed your initial rating since d6 is on average more than 3 and the spell is not limited to pumping up a wizard so the spell is thus nastier. Boosting a blender lord is nastier than boosting a wizard

I also thought about demoting Savage Dominion a color since it ties the hands of the casting wizard (softening the blow of this spell for us), but if an opponent was really worried about tying down their wizard to a monster, they wouldn't cast the spell at all.

All that's left is Dark Magic, Ogre Magic, and Skaven magic and this will be fully comprehensive!

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

I added Ogre Magic to this Tactica. I haven't played them a whole lot, so if anyone has any constructive criticism, I'm open to it.

All that's left now is Skaven and Dark Elves.

 

Re: Professor Lupin and Scalenex's Guide to Enemy Magic Phas

With the help of a borrowed Dark Elves book and Hoodling Hole's lore review, I have added Dark Magic to this Tactica. Only Skaven magic and Dwarf Anvil spells remain though my understanding is Dwarf players loathe their new anvil so that isn't likely to come up.