I like his ability to reliably tack four dice onto your d6 roll once every turn after the first, but yeah, his vulnerability to targeted removal or silencing is somewhat crippling given his points value.
Najo's Review of End Times Magic
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Yeah, that's another issue. Especially since we still don't have any clarification as to how it interacts with the books of Nagash.
I used to give Matt Ward a pass on some of his bolder designs. I appreciate his fearlessness when it comes to rules outside of the box. But he created a nightmare with the handiwork that is Khaine. This might be the biggest screw up in Warhammer history rules wise.
Can't be, because it isn't in a core rulebook or faction book. Like it or not, End Times is a supplemental campaign thing. Now, if these changes get folded into 9th edition, then we'd have a contender for greatest screw up ever....
Emicrania
Wight King
It's not soul quench you should fear, it's arcane unforging. In one good magic phase Nagash can be down to 5 randomly determined spells from your original 9, no armor, no ward save, no storing power dice. At which point anything that has poison can bring him down quickly. If I played an army with access to High magic I would always field it expecially in khaine to deal with these massive 750+ point characters. Karl franz without ghal maraz isn't as scary.
Actually, unless there's been an faq I don't know about, it's still unclear how the books interact with unforging. An equally valid interpretation is that Nagash loses all of his spells if the books are unmade.
Similarly, it's not exactly clear how the books of nagash interact with the end times magic rules about knowing all spells from lores you choose. Does he generate his spells as normal for the books, and then know every spell from every lore for which he has any spells (ie, does he know all of vamps, nehek, undeath, death, and light), or do the books rules trump all other spell generation rules entirely, leaving nagash still stuck with just the spells he rolls?
Based on the existing Nagash faq, I do not expect either of these questions to ever get an official resolution.
Similarly, it's not exactly clear how the books of nagash interact with the end times magic rules about knowing all spells from lores you choose. Does he generate his spells as normal for the books, and then know every spell from every lore for which he has any spells (ie, does he know all of vamps, nehek, undeath, death, and light), or do the books rules trump all other spell generation rules entirely, leaving nagash still stuck with just the spells he rolls?
Based on the existing Nagash faq, I do not expect either of these questions to ever get an official resolution.
That's my default interpretation as well, but I've seen it argued the other way enough that I really think an FAQ would be... wait a minute. Nope, no, we don't need to go down that road again. 
The deal with unforging the books though is certainly an issue that absolutely needs clarification.
The deal with unforging the books though is certainly an issue that absolutely needs clarification.
PureSphinx
Ghoul
It seems to me that you would RAW lose the spells that you chose beyond Nagash's five wizard levels. So in effect you forget four spells like normal if your books are destroyed, and then look at what lores you still know spells from. Since Nagash is level five with five lores, I assume he still knows one spell from each lore he can choose from if you're playing end times. Therefore in my mind he would know all of the spells still unless you also lowered his wizard level, in which case he would forget a random spell and by extension a random lore entirely.
I guess the only question is do you have to randomly forget spells like in a miscast? or can you pick which spells he forgets? Because if you don't have a choice is when you could lose access to lores.
PureSphinx
Ghoul
It's most often random, so I think using End Times magic you would have to designate which 5 spells belong to his wizard levels and which 4 belong to his books. Roll a d10 (rerolling 10s) to decide which spell he forgets. If he took, say, the signature from light and no other spells, and he lost a wizard level and rolled that spell, he would lose access to light. However if he chose 4 death spells and rolled one of them, he loses that spell, but still knows other spells from the lore so technically is still a loremaster. In that situation I believe it's an "all or nothing" where unless he loses all of the spells from a lore he loses none.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
Doesn't the fact that End Times makes all wizards loremasters, and if the wizard is allowed to choose spells from multiple lores that wizard effectively becomes a loremaster for each lore mean the books are a redundant magic item? Destroying the magic item does not take away the loremaster rule, so he still knows all spells from each lore. The same for Morathi, Arkhan, loremasters of hoeth, slaan, etc.?
It's my understanding that as a loremaster, you know all the spells from said lore. You don't "choose spells" and then magically know the rest. That entire section of wizard setup is voided because you are a loremaster. You show up to the table, with all the spell cards from the lore at your disposal. How is the loremaster treated if he miscasts and rolls a 12? Its my understanding he loses d3 levels and an equal number of randomly selected spells, one of which must be the spell he miscast on. you don't just randomly lose access to an entire lore.
I think destruction of that particular magic item in a game where End Times Magic is in effect, would have zero effect in game, aside from allowing you to ignore one "destroyed magic item" effect placed on Nagash.
PureSphinx
Ghoul
You may well be right, @Archamedius . The rules do say that you choose your lore but no spells, so any wizards that can choose multiple lores are loremasters of those, and characters like necromancers and vampires are only loremasters of the lore they choose out of their 2/3/however many options. That would make them pointless items. Hmm...
Wait, what about Vlad or Neferata?
They can choose from 4 lores, but only have 3 wizard levels. Since wizard levels are no longer used to generate spells as normal (and they have a specific rule allowing them to take more than one Lore in any combination) do they get to use 3 Lores or all 4, regardless of previous rules?
D:
They can choose from 4 lores, but only have 3 wizard levels. Since wizard levels are no longer used to generate spells as normal (and they have a specific rule allowing them to take more than one Lore in any combination) do they get to use 3 Lores or all 4, regardless of previous rules?
D:
PureSphinx
Ghoul
Three. The rule says "The rules for spell generation on page 490 of the Warhammer rulebook are no longer used. You must still select the Lore(s) of Magic each of your Wizards is going to use when you choose your army, but do not have to generate the spells that each Wizard knows. Instead, all of your Wizards know all of the spells from the Lores that you choose for them."
Meaning if they are level three and have access to four Lores, you choose three because of their level and they know those three. Kairos Fateweaver is gonna be a fun guy to use once I grab him for my Tzeentch Daemon army. Loremaster of the eight Lores of Battle Magic AND Loremaster (the reroll casting attempts kind) of the Lore of Tzeentch.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
When strictly looking at leveraging her staff of pain, I would use the following order:
Lore of Death first, as the only spells not affected by the staff in that list are Aspect of the dreadknight (generally considered a terrible spell) and Purple Sun, which doesn't need the staff anyways. Second I would think would be Shadow, as the only spells from Shadow not affected by the staff are Steed of Shadows and Mind Razor. Steed of Shadows is useful for getting Neferata into position for death spells and out of charge/LOS. Mind Razor I would think is largely a waste on low leadership units that Undead have available to them. (Although mind razor on a unit of Morghast Harbingers would be pretty sweet. Str 10 attacks and stomps!)