The spell Pha's Protection (Lore of Light) forces enemy units attempting to shoot at or hit your units which are under the effects of this spell to suffer a -1 To Hit penalty and if a shooting attack does not use BS, then the unit must roll a 4+ or the shot is lost. Magic missiles hit automatically and do not use BS, but they are magical attacks. If an enemy wizard successfully casts a magic missile on a unit under the effects of Pha's Protection, will he need to roll a 4+ in order to damage the unit? It can said that he does need to roll a 4+ because the shot does not use BS but conversely, is it reasonable to consider a magic missile to be a shooting attack?
Unfortunately, Pha's protection only works against attacks that occur during the shooting or close combat phase as per the wording in the spell in parenthesis. It's too bad, it would be really nice to have a spell that could protect against other spells.
Damn. I was hoping that Pha's Protection would be one of the most effective ways of protecting a unit from ranged damage (in this case, that unit being Swordmasters). I may advise my friend to use Lore of Life instead - Throne of Vines + Flesh to Stone = hard-to-kill Swordmasters.
One option to reduce the damage is to park a character with MR3 in the unit or, if magic is really an issue, to put the HE BSB with the Banner of World Dragon in the unit so they are completely immune to all magic.
The best source of magic defense from the lore of light is the net of amyntok, against lots of armies it gives you a 50:50 chance of stopping the wizard casting a spell and in turn hurting his own unit, granted it isn't as effective against ogres or deamon princes but it can be great against more human sized armies
I'm playing 800 points... along with my friend, we are part of a team. So, fingers crossed, we won't be meeting Daemon Princes. Also, HE mages that are Level 2 get +3 to dispel, overall -1 to enemy level 2 casting. Lore of Life or Light sound good.