I plan to use Slann once I reach competitive high points. And here is my question. What lore is best to used against individual armies. Beasts of Chaos Bretonnians Chaos Dwarves Dark Elves Dogs of War Daemons of Chaos Dwarfs Empire High Elves Lizardmen Ogre Kingdoms Orcs & Goblins Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Counts Warriors of Chaos Wood Elves
To start i am just starting lizardmen but i can respond from a high elf perspective (minus high magic of course) Ok that is my list against opponents i have played against, in general always take beast if there are lords on monsters or if there are multiple monsters. Shadows can be useful for shades and unseen lurker, as well as throwing a character to assassinate a particularly troubling mage or some such thing. Metal is useful against almost everyone except high elves (dragon armor). When metal is not as good take death for damage spells. Fire is good for two spells, burning head against low ld armies and wall of fire. Wall of fire is particularly useful against O&G because 1/6 of the time they decide to kill themselves, i mean move. Hope that helps
against wood elves use life. all the magic missles get rid of their ward saves, and it makes them afraid of the woods. ah, the irony.
I am going to refer you to a series of articles written by a very intelligent member, namely Caneghem. The articles are located in the FAQ and Tactica section http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/the-lustria-online-lizardmen-faq-and-tactica-index.1830/ These articles go over every spell that we lizards have access to and evaluates there effectiveness.
Shadow prolly is the best choice. Pit of shades very nasty (since they have low In like we do ) , Unseen Lurker allways useful but here specially since they dont flee and you can get first charge , 3 d6 s1 no armor save - very good specialy for cavalry , d6 s4 - classic , Friendly unit cause fear if already cause Teror instead -this is also very good against Fear causing/outnumbered enemies such as VC/TK specially if u get outnumbered with warriors ,
Fire is good for armies like VC, especially if they have regeneration. Flamming attacks negate those.
Don't forget Lore of Metals can literally rip apart a Bretonnian or Warriors of Chaos army. The no armor save magic missiles and the character sniping spells that hit harder the higher their armor save will be the death of that army.
Beasts of Chaos - I usually pick fire for MM, but as they have trouble with LD Death can be great (-3 LD + terror on krox / CoR) Bretonnians - Metal. Tons of armor which is great for the metal lore, and Burning Iron one-shot snipe BSBs or other heroes with bane head. Chaos Dwarves - Lots of armor and war machines so I guess metal would do well here. Fire is good all-around but iirc the CDs has some immune to fire items (which i guess would punish the metal lore just as much). Dark Elves - Sort of depends on what style of army he plays. If he uses Ring of Hotek I usually pick lore of metal, then drain his DDs on stuff out of the rings range then bane head one-shit him, using 2 dice. Fire works too but you cant wall of fire snipe the RoH guy since the casting value is too high. Dogs of War - War machines and knights are pretty common here, metal or fire would be my pcik but Im yet to meat a DoW player. Daemons of Chaos - Lore of Light is pretty decent here, but if you play closed lists I wouldnt take the chance in case he has the banner. Metal & Banehead is again an awesome combo for sniping those pesky 0+ Jugger heralds, but as spirit of the forge and Law of Gold is fairly useless you are left with only a few decent spells. Fire is great aswell, lots of damage spells. Shadows offer some good mobility and Pit is VERY useful against greater deamons (even against KoS and BT 1/6 chance to 1-shot them isnt bad). Dwarfs - Metal, same motivation as CD. Empire - Low LD armys so Death and Fire are good. Metal is decent, especially if he has a inner circle unit with characters. High Elves - Fire and Metal isnt the best choice for once, as some units are immune to fire. Heavens do alright if you want to keep characters at a distance (comet wrecks them). Also has some useful spells to boost your shooting and combat, like Portent or Second Sign. Lizardmen - Probably depends on the army again, one-shotting the 0+ mounted BSB is pretty neat, and saurus, temple guard and CoR gets destroyed by SoTF. Shadow is pretty nice too, sending your scar veterans flying into annoying skink units or dropping the slann/carnosaur/anything down a pit of shades. Ogre Kingdoms - I have no idea tbh, havn't played them with a magic build. I guess fire? They dont have a lot of armor and are vurnarable to any form of ranged S4+ attacks. Orcs & Goblins - Pretty bad LD but not terrible, Death, Fire and Metal is against solid choices. The lack of good cav or extreme fighting characters makes Fire my first choice ahead of metal. If you face the wyvern build you can take shadow for Pit or beast for Beast Cowers, but personally the wyvern is managable without those spells and I the rest of both lores are pretty suboptimal. Skaven - Haven't met the new skaven so can't really say. Burning head could probably cause some mass panic as it should hit multiple units, and they dont have enought armor to make metal a good choice. The biggest threat in any skaven list is probably gonna be the abomination, so Pit of Shades and Beast Cowers are good choices. Mass poison from skinks should be able to handle it tho so I wouldn't pick a lore just to take out the abomb. 6 T5 wounds with regen is a pain, but Fire got some pretty good spells against it, a simple fiery blast should do around 2 wounds. Heaven could be decent to kill hiding mortar weapon teams with comet. Tomb Kings - Fire. Some characters are flaming which makes Bane Head + Fire wall sooo much fun. The magic missles are also great against chariots and regular infantry. Rune of burning iron is also great with bane head (4 wounds in one go, one-shotting any Kings) but usually they dont have more than a 4+ save anyway and the other metal spells are pretty weak against tk. Vampire Counts - Metal or Fire. Most VC players take a big unit of Black Knights with several characters in it and sometimes a regen banner. With SoTF you one-shot this pesky death-star unless he spends 6 turns hiding it. Vampire Lord sniping with Burning Rule and bane head is great aswell. If you dont face a BK bus (or blood knights) then Fire is a good choice, lots of good magic missles to kill wraiths, spirit hosts and infantry. Warriors of Chaos - Lots of armor so Metal is awesome. The powerful WoC lists have level 4 generals, and with Chaos armor and mount they have 2+ save, Bane Head + Burning Iron = dead gate way spammer. Wood Elves - Fire is what I usuall pick. Wood elves are glass cannons, with only a single unit with good save, but metal is still an ok choice, especially against treeman lists. IIRC treemen have horrible Initative so Shadow for Pit could be useful. Summary: Armies with bad LD and no/little ITP: Death or Fire Armies with war machine and lots of armor: Metal Armies with devestating monsters: Beasts or Shadows Rest: Fire or Metal.
Shadow is absolute killer lore against Dwarfs! Combine it with The Charm of the Jaguar warrior and you can eliminate 3 war machines in one turn! Steed of Shadows on the Scar-Vet, Unseen Lurker on the Terradons, and Pit of Shades on a War Machine
I'd actually go with Lore of Death against Skaven. Doom and darkness can wreak havoc, and drain life lets you get around the MR of the bell and furnace.
My personal Arrangement is: Rank and File armies: Fire Armor/elte: Metal Gunline (dwarfs): Life Low LD: Death I feel as though using those catagories you can counter almost any army build. The trcky part is trying to decide if (for example) the skaven lined up against you should be played as a R&F army or a low LD army.
I'm just a newbie at this game, could you please explain to me how Drain Life gets around the MR of the Bell and Furnace. Because all though it is an area effect spell couldn't your opponent still claim you're targeting his unit and claim the MR
The rules for magic resistance state that they specifically have be the "target" of a spell (and not simply affected by it), for them to get to use their MR. GW has this in the errata of the Warhammer rules on their website (look under "gaming" on their site for faq's and errata). For example, dark hand of death says the spell "hits its target", meaning a unit specifically targeted by the spell. Doom and darkness is cast on a single unit, meaning it too specifically targets a unit. In both these cases, the unit would get it's magic resistance (assuming it has any) since it is targeted by the spell when it is cast; however, drain life hits units within X distance of the caster. The spell doesn't specifically target a unit, so there's no magic resistance. A lot of other spells, like comet of casandora (keep that in mind for your skink priests ) also do not TARGET a unit, so there's not magic resistance for those spells either. Basically, if a spell requires a unit to be the target of its effects, then the TARGETED unit gets to use its magic resistance. Otherwise, they don't get to use it against that spell, even if they're still affected by it. Also, as an FYI for later, Skaven have a spell (plague) that targets a specific unit, then its effects (potentially) jump to another unit. In the case of spells like that, you only consider the unit(s) targeted when the spell is first cast. For example, I cast on a unit that has no resistance (meaning they are the target unit when the spell is initially cast), and then (after being successfully cast), the spell's effects jump to a unit that does have spell resistance. In THAT situation, the spell has already been successfully cast, so their magic resistance doesn't come into play. Had the unit with magic resistance been the target when the spell was initially cast (meaning before any dispel attempts), they would have been able to add their magic resistance to any dispel attempts. Hope that helps!
Master of the Woods doesnt work of forest spirits so a very large part of the WE army is immune to "their own trees". WE got a lot of flammable stuff so the lores with flaming spells (Metal & Fire) are usually best against treekin & Treeman heavy armies, and Fire is always good as it has a ton of damage spells which is the bane of skirmishers.
Depends a lot on what army you are using and what army you are playing against. For a lvl 2 that doesn't get to choose its spells/know all spells I like- light/fire/metal/death depending on what I am playing against. For a lvl 2 that can choose/know all spells, all of the above+ beasts For a lvl 4, I like beasts/metal/shadow/fire Overall I would probably say top 3 are 1. Shadow 2. Light 3.Metal