8th Ed. How to use Life?

Most people on this and other forums would say that lore of life is the best choice for LM. This is due to the unkillable T8 saurus blocks, the miscast protection of throne of vines, the gameending dwellers below and some other usefull buffs and skills.

My question is in what order and what tactics people use in order to get full advantage of this lore.

In order for 5 of the spells to be great you need to get of throne of vines first. The most logical choice would therefor be to cast it first thing in the magic round (and probably every magic-round for I have yet to meet an opponent who doesnt dispel it in his own magic-phase). The problem with this is that your opponent is likely to have enough die to dispell it. So the three tactics I have used this far when using life is:

1. Cast ToV with 1+1 die first thing. He will then dispell it using at least 3 dice (4 if he doesnt have a mage or wants to be certain). This leaves me with enough dice to cast most other things without him being able to dipell alot. A problem is that dwellers at this point is likely to use upp the rest of my PD and is fairly likely to cause a miscast slaughtering half of my TG regiment. On top of that the other spells of the lore seems week without the aid of ToV.

2. Throw 3+1 die on ToV. This will cause your opponent to either waste all his dice on an uncertain dispell attempt or let it through. The pproblem with this is that you waste alot of PD to get a spell of which doesnt do anything if you cant get other spells off.

3. Start of with buffing a unit with +2 T and then throw regen on another unit. He will either dispell them with all his DD or let them through in order to save DD for the ToV and following buffs.

The problem with all this is that I never seem to get any good use of ToV. Please help me with suggestions on how to improve my magic phase,

Kind regards
Gustaf

 

I use lore of light usally although wehn i roll life I alway kick of with throne of vines, I know its the big one they want to dispell but if you get a slann with a free powerdice you can generally throw 3-4 dice on it and get a extra one. but if you get that one throne of they will always be behind in dispelling it. I will then buff in order. I havent played life much but when i play light i usally play the second most importand spell first with 2 power dice +1 and then the first most importand 2nd with 2 powerdice +1 dice by then they have run out of powerdice, hopefully one or both works and if not and they are out of scrolls you start getting your spells of! goodluck with your slann and I hope you can figure out a way to use that magic effectivley!

 

Start with a decent roll for throne, unless you get a very low number of PD. I haven't found my opponents dispel it in their turn, and if they do... Well, it wastes their PD so they get very few spells through, and next turn you can start again. At worst you have basically nullified their magic, except for really good rolls.

 

I dont understand why anyone would allow it to remain in play during their phase. Since there is no army out there (including VC in my opinion) that is as dependant on magic as LM with a life-slann I cant believe that an opponent would not use 2 PD to dispell it (another problem since no matter how many dice you roll to cast it they will only need 8+ to dispell it in their phase).

It is true that I might have nullified their magic but they have in turn nullified mine. And if I count the points spent in mages without fighting skill through most armies then I bet LM spends among the most. Seems like a lot of points down the drain.

 

In my experiance my opponents never dispel ToV in their own phase. They want all the pd they have to go towards their own spells. Given that I run my slann with the generic set up I always throw 2+1 pd at ToV and they either let it go in anticipation of DB or some of the other buffs, or they try and dispel it. If they do they generally through 3-4 dd which greatly reduces their dispel attempts further on.

Now with only 2 pd down I can concentrate on attack or buff depending on the situation and what my plans are for certain units. With the Slann's always +1 pd per spell I can almost always be assured that I'll get off a couple other spells that will ruin my opponent's effectiveness.

Now let's look at the up side to Life Lore. Even if my oppent dispels ToV I can immeditately throw Dwellers Below and if I miscast, as long as I don't roll snake eyes my slann will survive. Then all I have to do is cast some meak spell that my oppenent will be unconcerned about and guess what - I've regained the wound I lost in the miscast attempt.

Lore of Life is the shiz for more than just ToV and DB. While the spells aren't as effective without ToV being cast a T6 saurus or god forbid T7 OB/SV is still pretty darn hard to crack.

 

The biggest problem with miscasts however is not the risk for the slann, but the massive risk of small template/large template/all in base contact S10 hits that will take out 160 points worth of TG. I agree that the +2 T spell can be realy good and some of the other spells are fairly good as well. However I am not likely to throw 6 dice (which will probably be all of my remaining dice) on DB more than once in the game without ToV upp simply because the slann will be exposed when you only have 5 TG left to guard him. Maybe I am only complaining but it seems like if Life isnt all that good without ToV and against an opponent who has decided to dispell it.

 

i think i play considerably diffrent....

I make sure I get TOV off turn 1 as it rarely gets dispelled. I have no problem throwing 6 dice turn 1 an get my double 6's. Even if you get IR/Miscast when cast TOV you still are able to use it to save you. The rules read taht you resolvce the spell befroe the miscast so you are already protected by TOV.

If i have more then 6 dice then I try for get toughness and regen offs with 1 die each. The additional die and +4 should mean you pass. typically this will be Dispelled turn 1.

in the remainging turns I go for IR with 1 spell a turn with 6 dice. that spells changes with situations, typically I want +4 toughness first. Then I like to use 1 die for d6 S6 hits to help rengen wounds and do some nice damage.

then I repeat. My last games I tried doing 2 dice here, 2 dice there and found it very unsuccessfull.

 

not to derail this but I have a qucik rules question

the ignore miscasts on a 2+ does that include the miscast that comes from irresistable force?

 

Yes, check out Rulebook FAQ

 

There are few other sources of miscasts left nowadays.

 

Not a bad tactic, I do it pretty much exactly the same except I very rarely ever throw just one dice when casting unless it's the last spell of my magic phase. Being that you have to roll at least a three in order to cast ANY spell no matter the casting value, I can't forsee depending on a 50% chance of getting a spell off if I have three or four power dice left.

 

2 dice will work on jsut about everything in Life, you get an additioanl die and +4 so you should be comfotable.

again though I try to make sure I get the 1 spell I really need off evey turn.

has any one used a skink with channeling staff? Looks like it could be helpful for those turns when tou roll poorly.

 

From the few times I have faced an opponent using Life I can only say that I am thrilled if he uses a lot of dice on ToV the first round. I let it go and then dispell everything else that turn. In my magic phase I use 2 dice to dispell it and then go on to have a pretty sucessfull phase anyway with my rumination giving me loads of dice. I would say that anyone allowing ToV to stay upp is a fool. And remember it is allways dispelled on 8+ on your opponents magic phase no matter how many dice you rolled to get it off in the first place.

 

I did not mean you have to roll three dice. I meant you have to have rolled a 3 on your dice in order to cast. It's in the BRB (I don't have it with me at the moment) but it states that if you fail to get at least a combined total of 3 on your dice rolls your mage did not summon enough magic power to cast and it will end your phase for that caster since he/she failed to cast a spell.

 

Remember, with a Slann when you use 1 dice from a pool, you get a second dice free. So I think he is trying to say 2 dice would be used overall, which makes it a lot more viable. I agree 1 dice is pretty risky.