Guidelines for Magic Defense

[Scalenex]

I’m working on a guide for prioritizing which enemy spells to dispel. I’m open to feedback on these ratings. I’m using a modified color scheme similar to the up and coming 8E handbook. I’m open to changing this if someone disagrees with my rating or assessment. If you believe this is suspiciously similar to the one I wrote for Lustria-Online you are correct. I don’t like to reinvent the wheel. I invented my own color coding system for ranking OTHER PEOPLE’S spells. Feel free to (politely) bring up disagreements with categorization or descriptions regarding spells. Of course if this gets posted to the Tactica Index here I'll feel warm and fuzzy.


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 probably save enough dispel dice (or a Dispel Scroll or something similar) 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.

Yellow is conditionally a threat. Unless individual circumstances dictate this spell as being extra important, you generally don’t want to try to dispel this spell unless there aren’t any greater threats.

Green the spell is so weak that you should almost 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 extra), Brettonians, and Demons (through special characters only). This is more popular to give to low level casters than high level casters. The lore attribute should not factor into your decisions to dispel something or not.


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. The relative lack of ranged attacks undead enjoy means this does next to nothing to things you aren’t fighting.

The Flock of Doom: The hits are so low strength the damage is negligible, especially to troops with access to lore of Vampires for healing.

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 Amber Spear: It all depends on how important the target is to you. If this pointed at the flank of Black Knights or Blood Knights, this is dangerous. Most units aren’t that threatened by this.

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

The Savage Beast of Horros: The threat of this depends in part on how dangerous the enemy character is to the first place. If you think your Quickblood Vampire can strike the enemy down before they get the attacks, let this slide. 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 Brettonians (Lord only), Vampire Counts (but it costs 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 half kill some Vargheists. Terrorgheists will barely notice the extra hits though.

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 and/or the target is a flyer, you can generally afford to let this one slide.

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

Uranon's Thunderbolt: A big block of Core won’t lose much, but it’s nasty on small expensive units, especially flyers or units that are vampiric or ethereal (hard to bounce back from the damage with magic).

Comet of Cassandora: A lot of damaging power here and most undead don’t have the requisite mobility to avoid Comet markers. It’s more dangerous when it’s likely to hit a lot of small units as opposed to a few big ones. 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: The ability to jump around makes this dangerous if you got a bunch of dire wolves, Vargheists, Spirit Hosts, and other small units in the advance of your troops. Hits on blocks of Core don’t matter much except as a stepping stone to hitting more valuable units. Fortunately the spell doesn’t always jump around.


Lore of Death


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

Usually, you don’t have to stop all the hero snipe spells, just MOST of them. Vampires have good statlines and your general should be packing a Ward save. It’s not fun to lose even support characters.

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 heavy units): Most important VC characters have enough leadership to stand a pretty good chance of weathering this attack. Terrogheists, Vargulfs, Black Coaches and the like have pretty weak Ld scores relative to their high points cost making this spell dangerous.

Aspect of the Dreadknight: All this does is makes one enemy unit immune to Fear. Not a huge problem unless you are setting up a Fear Bomb.

Caress of Laniph: 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.

Doom and Darkness: Apart from a few Frenzied units restraining themselves, VC rarely need to take leadership tests.

The Fate of Bjuna: This is the best character 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! Don’t let this through.


Lore of Fire


Available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Warriors of Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Counts (but it costs extra), Slann (Lord only), Ogres (Heroes only), and Daemons (through special characters only). It’s generally seen more with Hero level casters than Lord level casters.

Kindleflame rarely has any worthwhile effect and isn’t worth factoring into your dispel decisions.

Fireball: Is it likely to wipe out a near dead unit? Is it your enemy’s best or only anti-ethereal option? If yes, you should 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: The hits don’t apply to CR which softens the sting of this spell a bit. There aren’t enough hits to matter against most Core and the hits aren’t strong enough to matter against most of our tougher units. It’s nasty against regenerating troops or troops occupying buildings though.

Flaming Sword of Rhuin: Negating regeneration and upping the number of wounds inflicted? Not good.

The Burning Head: This spell is intended primarily to cause panic tests rather than cause direct casualties. Since undead are immune to psychology you can nearly always let this one go.

Piercing Bolts of Burning: Potentially a lot of hits or practically no hits. deep tarpit units hate this spell, but smaller units don’t care a whole lot about 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. Nasty spell.

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 (Lord only). 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 one or two spells is doable).

Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma: Nobody likes being on the receiving end of this spell, but undead rank and file are 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. It’s most dangerous on whatever units have your combat vampires in them since their stats DO matter.

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: This will probably be targeted on your main killing unit, so this is pretty bad.

The Withering: This will hit you twice. First by making your troops die more, than a second hit from crumble.

The Penumbral Pendulum: This spell requires perfect positioning to be a big threat.

Pit of Shades: No one likes being hit by this. This will take significant chunks out of skeletons or zombie blocks and it can potentially erase heavy hitters like Terrorgheists or Black coaches.

Okkam's Mindrazor: Too much power to let the other side have, especially when they are fighting your general.


Lore of Life


Available to Empire, Brettonains, all three Elf armies, Lizardmen (Lord only), 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 wolves and light flyers out of the woods and you should be in the clear. Units with a large model count or high Toughness can weather a lot of hits with this spell even in a forest.

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 beaten by a highly crumbling margin.

Throne of Vines: This makes everything else the Life casters do better. You can try to dispel it out the gate, or you dispel whatever spells follow this up.

Shield of Thorns: The hits are fairly light and they don’t contribute to CR.

Regrowth: This spell gets more annoying the more evenly matched the two sides are. If the enemy is relying on feeding your blender sacrificial unit champions then raising them, this spell becomes more problematic. You know you probably annoyed someone with that trick in the past with Invocation of Nehek.

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 Slann (Lord only). 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 your knights or Rare chariots 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: Our Core cares very little about fighting enemies with this spell, but most opponents will target this on whatever is fighting your best armored unit.

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 spell has less range, but if your opponent is casting this at you, then it’s a safe bet they are in range.

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. This does not have a minimum WS1, so this can knock zombies or pre-hexed units to WS0.

Final Transmutation: This is almost as damaging in raw terms as Dwellers. To add insult to injury, most undead don’t have the Leadership scores to handle Stupidity tests, especially considering many VC players don’t take BSBs.


Lore of Light


Available to Empire, all three Elf armies, Tomb Kings, Daemons (through special characters), Vampire Counts (but it costs extra), and Lizardmen (Lord only). It’s about equally popular for Hero and Lord level casters. Sometimes Empire or Elves will go for a “Council of Light” and really load up on several Light casters making Banishment more deadly. The Lore Attribute is tailor designed to hurt undead.

Shem's Burning Gaze: Backed by Exorcism, this is quite a few nasty hits that negate Regeneration.

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 but it’s highly inconvenient when cast on units fighting your blenders and mini-blenders.

Light of Battle: Annoying if a unit you are on the verge of breaking becomes unbreakable. Also this is the bane of Fear bomb combos. 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 an infantry unit to lose their action for a turn and that’s generally unacceptable.

Banishment: This spell will brutalize almost anything it hits. Fortunately it doesn’t negate Regeneration though it’s anti-Ward save effect stings against Black Coaches and most unbunkered vampires.

Birona's Timewarp: Extra attacks for the enemy are bad. Always Strikes First is worse because it usually translates into re-rolls against most undead units and it negates Quickblood on vampires.

 

[Scalenex]

Part Two: Army Book Lores

Lore of Vampires, Mirror Matchups


Unless one of the players in a mirror matchup is a newbie, you should be evenly matched. A side with buffed undead beats a side without buffed undead all else equal. You can’t dispel everything so focus on the combats/units you believe is/are most important.

Curse of Undeath, Lore Attribute: Annoying if you are trying to kill a tough model 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 the lore of Vampires are generally too cheap on the whole to prevent the Lore Attribute healing altogether.

Invocation of Nehek (Signature): In most cases you can’t stop all of these from going through. Prioritize to stop Invocations of Nehek for the units you are closest to finishing off.

Vanhel’s Danse Macabre: Given that your troops are evenly matched without this spell will turn things against you. The movement boost is nasty because undead can’t generally out maneuver you without this.

Hellish Vigour: Like the Danse Macabre, this will turn an even matchup into one your opponent will have the edge. It doesn’t have a movement effect so it’s not prima facie bad.

Gaze of Nagash: This will take out a chaff unit like wolves or put the hurting on ethereals (not that ethereals are that hard for VC armies to kill).

Raise Dead: Are these new guys blocking the path of your mainline unit? Then it’s a problem. Otherwise you can probably let this slide since in most cases the new enemy unit is likely to help you get CR more than anything else.

Curse of Years: You don’t have to dispel this immediately, but it’s not a bad idea to nix this quickly. Do not 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 a great spell to use a Scroll of Shielding on since it will help you every turn giving you some breathing room if your dispel dice are tight.

Wind of Death: You need to make a judgment call to figure how threatening this is based on the units you have in the likely path of this spell.

Bound Spell: Staff of Damnation: You need to figure out how dangerous this based on what enemy units are fighting yours. Hordes get more attacks than regular formation troops. Elite troops make better use of extra attacks than Core.

Bound Spell: Rod of Flaming Death The damage is fairly mild, even to Regenerating troops and the Panic test means nothing. The kicker is it's ability to punish a unit for moving. The danger of this spell depends on how important moving the unit is to you (and the unit's size and Toughness since a single monster will barely notice this but a unit of 100 zombies will be cut in half). I set the Orange rating on the assumption that a fellow VC player will be familiar with your army enough to make intelligent targeting decisions.


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.

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 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 are more common than vanilla Goblin Shamans. This means that one in six Night Goblin spells will auto-fail, but the ones that succeed will have an extra power die so their spells will cost more to dispel. The ability is more or less a wash for O&G opponents.

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, so this is a low priority spell most of the time.

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 full saves is not that scary. It’s certainly not going to take out your general.

Fist of Gork: The Shaman gains +3 Attacks, +3 Strength, and a 6+ ward save (does not stack with existing ward saves). This spell puts a low cost shaman on par with a mini-Blender if not a full Blender.

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 setup of the battlefield by moving large units, it can also favorably reposition Night Goblin Fanatics. Positioning is vital to Warhammer games, so this spell is dangerous.

‘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 vampire but it can kill Necromancers fairly easily 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 to be facing Orcs without this buff, but it’s not too bad compared to the other spells.

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 VC opponent) an added incentive to front load your dispel attempts early to avoid having your dice taken 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 is NOT 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, but it’s still not a huge deal.

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. The spell is bad in a close matchup but it won’t matter a whole lot if the buffed unit is a tarpit you are chewing through or for any unit hopelessly outclassed by your Blender.

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 since undead units usually 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: The spell forces dangerous terrain tests on the buffed unit and bestows Soft cover. The cover is meaningless and the dangerous terrain test means very little.

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 (in most cases the enemy will probably select Initiative). Regardless of what test is chosen, and which units are hit, the effects are unpleasant.


Unique Spell: Wurrzag’s Revenge: The Special Character Wurrzag can cast this spell on all enemy wizards within 12 inches. It usually does nothing but 1/6 of the time it auto-kills a targeted wizard with no saves at all. That’s an ignominious way to lose your general, so it’s better not to take the chance. Against your L1 scroll caddies and the like, you can generally afford to take the gamble. A proactive approach would be to kill Wurrzag ASAP to prevent your mighty paragons of Necromantic might being turned into squiggly beasts.


The Twisted Ways of Chaos


Warriors and Daemons share the same 3 lores (Nurgle, Slannesh, Tzeentch) with only differing attributes.

The daemon ones 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 Warrior’s ones are different.

Tzeentch gets an extra dice for each 6 they roll to cast.

Nurgle casters can get +1T and +1W on a 6 (only really good on the Daemon Prince)

Slannesh can get +1WS,A,I per wound. Problem is most spells aren’t great in combat.


Lore of Tzeentch


Most Tzeentch spells have variable damage ranging from Strength 1 to Strength 6. That’s means your dispel decisions well be less clear cut since the spells are so variable.

Warpflame: Most Tzeentch spells have a special rule that means any unit that takes a wound from a spell with this rule must pass a toughness test at the end of the phase or suffer D3 wounds. If they pass they get regen (6+) or +1 to their regen. On average, this SHOULD be a net positive for VC units.

Blue Fire of Tzeentch: The signature spell is a magic missile that causes D6 hits at strength D6. Potentially nasty on lone models or small units but not very threatening to big blocks of infantry.

Treason of Tzeentch: Hex, you must use the lowest LD in the unit and cant use Inspiring presence and Hold Your Ground. Obviously this is crippling to the living and less dangerous to the undead. Don’t write this off as a completely worthless spell. If your opponent knows what he’s doing he will follow this up with something else that uses leadership tests.

Pink Fire of Tzeentch: Tear drop template that shoots forward an artillery die in inches hitting at Strength D6. It needs a flyer to get off good hits, most bulk troops can weather the damage without a fuss and most stronger troops will walk away with a free Regeneration save boost.

Bolt of change: Strength D6+4 bolt thrower, warpflame inflicting D3 wounds. It’ll pick off knights or damage monsters but d3 wounds isn’t that scary to most undead heavy hitters.

Glean Magic: Steals a spell from a target wizard and makes them lose a wizard level as well as inflicting an underwhelming Strength 3 warpflame hit on the wizard. Losing a spell and a caster level is bad, but at least the thief is likely to have little to show for his efforts. A Chaos player cannot use Invocation of Nehek, Vanhel’s Danse, or Hellish Vigour, but your Death casters are fair game.

Tzeentch’s Firestorm: Small template Strength D6 with Warpflame, scatters. Between the randomness of the scatter and the randomness of the damage strength and the small template you can usually let this one slide.

Infernal Gateway: Direct Damage, Strength 2D6, hits 2D6, if Strength 11 or 12 is rolled its 3D6 s10. It’s random yes but it tends to average in a lot of damage. This can easily kill expensive undead units.


Lore of Nurgle


Stream of corruption: Direct damage in the form of a breath weapon template. Targets take a toughness test or wound with no armor. The lack of mobility with Nurgle troops makes this somewhat hard to use. Most undead units have decent Toughness scores so this isn’t a huge problem, but it is a serious threat to ethereals.

Miasma of Pestilence: Augment that causes enemies in base contact with unit to take a one point hit in Initiative minimum 1. Not a big deal on low end troops (zombies and skeletons already have rubbish stats) and not a big deal on vampires (their WS and I is too good to worry about a one point penalty) but this can seriously impair most midlevel units. Nurgle troops are already hard enough to hit without a WS penalty.

Blades of Putrefaction: Gives a unit within 12 inches poisoned attacks or boosts existing poison to take effect on 5+. This is dangerous for units fighting high Toughness units with poor saves but not a huge deal most other times.

Curse of the Leper: This spell either boosts a Chaos unit’s toughness by D3 or docks a VC unit’s toughness by D3. Assuming this is cast in conjunction with the Chaos player’s main push, this is a nasty spell that could cause some crumbling come combat resolution time.

Rancid Visitations: Magic missile that causes D6 Strength 5 hits and toughness test or more hits until you pass. Very dangerous to chaff units, especially expensive ethereals. Most regular cavalry and infantry units can weather this pretty easily.

Fleshy Abundance: 5+ regeneration or +1 to existing Regeneration. Great for Warriors and beasts of Nurgle but meh for most demons units due to them having a 5+ Ward or better.

Plague wind: Vortex that moves an artillery die multiple by the caster’s level. Targets take a Toughness test or suffer one wound with no armor saves. Most lone models don’t mind this since they have good Toughness scores and the spell inflicts a max of one wound, but a lot of VC units have mediocre Toughness scores. Grave Guard and Black Knights HATE this spell since it bypasses their armor and they are too expensive to be expendable. The other VC units fall in between. The threat level of this spell depends on what it’s likely to hit.


Lore of Slaanesh


Lash of Slaanesh: Strength 3 in a 24" line with armor piercing. This means very little to Vampire Counts minions even with an ideal line up.

Acquiescence: Hex bestows ASL and random movement D6. The ASL doesn't do much to characters without Quickblood (since Slaanesh troops tend to be faster anyway), but the random move D6 can be crippling.

Pavane of Slaanesh: Long range sniping that targets a single model which needs to pass a Ld test with 3d6 or take a wound. Even though non-vampiric undead models are not known for their Ld scores (and VC rarely take BSBs) one wound isn’t that big a deal. The catch is that with a relatively cheap boosted spell giving this 48 inch range, it’s not too hard for a character to hit the same monster or character with this in successive rounds.

Hysterical Frenzy: Can be cast on a friendly or unfriendly unit. The spell bestows Frenzy or if already Frenzied +2A instead of +1A. It’s a Remains in Play spell, as long as the spell is in play, so is the Frenzy regardless if the unit was beaten or not. This spell inflicts d6 Strength 3 hits every magic phase. Not a big deal for most Chaos troops but it can put the hurting on VC chaff. Since non vampiric undead units generally have poor Ld scores this spell can also be used to goad one of our units into an unfavorable charge. There are a lot of variables meaning you need to assess the threat of this spell on a case by case basis.

Slicing shards: Causes D6 Strength 4 armor piercing hits that persist until the unit passes an Ld test. Given the poor Ld scores most undead units have, this can easily take a huge toll on VC units outside the general’s command radius.

Phantasmorgia: Hexed units have to roll an extra die when making Ld tests discarding the lowest die. Usually not a big deal to Unbreakable undead, but this can stack with Slicing Shards and other Chaos shenanigans, so it’s far from useless.

Cacophonic choir: Hex smacks a target with 2d6 hits that wound on a 4+ regardless of the target’s Toughness and ignoring armor saves. Targets that take a casualty gain ASL and Random Movement D6. The Bubbled version can swing a whole game by itself.

Bond Spell, Giver of Glory: Chaos Warshrines have a bound spell that gives d3 friendly units nearby a free roll on the Eye of the Gods Roll. The Eye of the Gods chart results are usually pretty minor, but sometimes they aren’t. Thus I can’t write this off as a let it go spell.

Bound Spell, Aura of Mutation: Mutalith Vortex Beasts cast as a bound spell that force a units to take Toughness tests to avoid wounds and then get mutated. Being mutated is usually bad. Some of the possible mutations are pretty mild and occasionally beneficial, but the bad ones are REALLY bad involving multiple units being hit and sometimes the other side getting a free Chaos Spawn. I’d advise taking the proactive approach and killing Mutaliths right out the gate with scream attacks or Death snipes. You can also charge it to keep it from casting it's spell. By Chaos standards, Mutaliths are weak in close combat.


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 haven’t read the new Wood Elf book, but I doubt they’ll take Dark magic too often since the spells seem to fill the same general niche as massed volleys of magic arrows.

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 it’s followed up with 2d6 Strength 1 AP hits. If it’s cast with any triple 3d6 Strength 1 AP (quadruples don’t mean anything so yahtzee buffs are out of luck.) If the target is a small T3 unit without armor this can sting. Otherwise it’s really a curiosity more than anything. Fortunately elves are similar enough in their basic play style that your response should be about the same.

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. This is slightly weaker than the Dark Elf lore attribute because it requires specific one-two set ups which limits its utility. I would suggest not worrying about counters when making your dispel decisions.

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. Cold One riders are especially nasty since this boosts mounts and rider’s strength. Presumably this will help the Wood Elf elite cavalry units about the same.

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 chaff units and both Var- units (gulfs and gheists). This will at least put a big dent in elite units like Grave Guard or very tough units like Black Coaches or Terrorgheists. The augmented version causes double the hits, but it is almost impossible to cast without Irresistible Force. Especially considering that Doomfire Warlocks can cast this as a bound spell. An expendable unit with a minor slap on the wrist for miscasting! Yikes. Good to keep a Scroll of Shielding in reserve if you have Arcane Item slot open.

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 is truly a lot of weak hits. This can take out Spirit Hosts, Fell Bats and the like but this is a nonissue most of the time, especially if the target in question is well positioned for some Invocation of Nehek healing.

Word of Pain: Hex spell docks d3 from WS and BS. An augmented version also docks Initiative and Strength. Obviously the BS hit means nothing to an undead army completely lacking the conventional shooting of the living. The WS and I penalties usually doesn’t matter since elves outclass most undead in WS already, but this is a pain if it’s hindering your Blender, mini-Blender or if you decided to take Blood Knights. If it's being used on an especially low WS unit like zombies or skeletons, this can drop one of our units to WS0 meaning they can be auto-hit. In fact on a 3 on the D3, most VC units can be sent to WS0. Against elves the WS and I docks won’t matter much. The Strength hex will bug almost any of our units locked in close combat with elves, so that’s the main threat from this spell.

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 Monsters or chariots, but I’m assuming a canny opponent will cast this spell on your Core infantry. Statistically speaking this will hit one half of a ghoul horde, two thirds of a skeleton block, or five sixths of a zombie block! About half of these hits will wound. Grave Guard and Black Knights can also be dinged by this spell.

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. VC don’t really need to make Ld tests unless they are restraining Frenzy or making a Swift Reform. Unlike Chaos players, Dark Elves do not the tools to set up combos with this spell that can actually harm the undead.

Soul Stealer: Soul Stealer is a direct damage spell with a template that inflicts Strength 2 hits that ignore armor saves. Okay, that will wound a lot of VC units on a 5, but why is it orange? It’s orange because this turns sorceresses into psychic vampires. Wounds inflicted are added to the profile of the sorceress who cast it. That means an enemy caster with a good Ward Save can cheat death pretty much indefinitely as long as there are large units of T3 troops to throw this template at.

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. Most undead are stronger than they are fast, so this is not the killer that Purple Sun is. Black Horror 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.

Magic Used by Arrogant Beings Trying to Save the World

High Magic

You could be facing High Magic if we play High Elves, Wood Elves or other Lizardmen. Apart from Hand of Glory, it generally makes little different to us who is flinging High magic at you. Note that if you are playing against a Loremaster opponent, the color system practically goes out the window. If your opponent has Lore master, you need to treat all Red spells as Orange, since hoarding dice won't work if since there are no reasonable guarantee that they will try to cast the spell in question.

In most cases Slann with it will be Lore Masters since that's what most Lizardmen players prefer to do with the Lore. 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. Note, they get +1 to cast when in a forest (that's all Lores by the way), so that's one thing slightly different.

Contemplations, LM Attribute: At the end of a magic phase, a LM player can “unlearn” a High Magic spell they successfully cast and randomly generate a spell from one of the eight BRB of the player’s choice (with the option to take the signature spell). You can’t 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. In most cases a LM player fighting VC will be dabbling in Light spells.

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 Blender lord 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.

Drain Magic (signature): This spells removes all active buff and/or hexe spells from a unit whether they are a Remains in Play spell or not. The threat of this depends on how important the spells in play are to your strategy. This is bubbled too. It’s worse for Remains in Play spells than others since other augments and hexes are already half spent by your opponent’s magic phase. Drain Magic’s casting level is nearly always way below the cost of snuffing out RIP spells the old fashion way.

Soul Quench (other signature): This can put the hurting on our wolves, bats, ethereals and other chaff, but it won’t do much more than mildly annoy large infantry blocks, monsters or chariots. The augmented version will obliterate any small unit and seriously hurt everything else.

Apotheosis: The spell heals one wound on a model. It has a boosted version which heals d3 wounds and bestows Fear. Pretty underwhelming especially against an army with Fear across the board and the best healing spell in the game.

Hand of Glory (vs. LM)
Hand of Glory (vs. High Elves)
Hand of Glory (vs. Wood Elves): Hand of Glory is the opposite of Melkoth’s Miasma boosting I, WS, BS, or M by D3 with augmented version that hits all three. This is a high priority spell versus LM because LM are fairly evenly matched with most undead troops in the WS and I departments so even a little boost will shift CR significantly in a critical matchup. Elves already outclass us in all four of those categories, so this spell is redundant for them, UNLESS they happen to be Wood Elf archers. With all the badass special rules their shooting can have, boosting BS is potent. Anything else, no biggie.

Walk Between Worlds: This spell gives a unit a free 10 or 20 inch move. Positioning is vital to all Warhammer games. This spell lets your opponent take the strategic initiative and decide who fights what.

Tempest: A scattering template inflicts Strength 3 hits, Strength 4 versus flyers. This spell is pretty underwhelming even when targeted on our bats or Vargheists. The spell has an after effect that bestows a -1 to hit penalty on the target temporarily but it’s hard to set up since you have to cast this spell BEFORE close combat is engaged.

Arcane Unforging: Arcane Unforging is a combustion spell. First it acts as a Metalshifting Death snipe spell inflicting a hit on a single model with a difficulty to wound based on their armor save. Second it destroys a randomly selected magic item from that character (regardless of whether the first attack wounded or not). Note one-use items can only be destroyed by this spell if they weren’t used yet.

Are you the type of player that relies on low point magical items or high point magical items? The danger of this spell depends on how important the magical items of your characters are. 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: Remains in Play spell inflicts Strength 4 flaming hits on every model in a unit every magic phase. If you don’t dispel this by this by your magic phase at least, this will rapidly turn any infantry block into a smoldering husk. 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.


Other Cold Blooded Tricks


Ancient Stegadons with Engine of the Gods: The EOTG upgrade is kind of like an inferior Mortis Engine. It provides a minor casting boosting to BRB lores (one at a time), creates a small radius of a 6+ Ward save and has a radius affecting bound spell. Burning Alignment inflicts d6 Strength 4 flaming hits on all enemy units within 4d6 inches. It does NOT inflict additional damage on undead (that was the old book). If you have a lot of small units like dire wolves, Spirit Hosts, Vargheists, and the like in an EOTG’s perimeter this spell can hurt a lot. If the Ancient Stegadon in question is battling infantry, monsters, and/or knights the magic hits are generally a nonissue.

Bastiladons with the Solar Engine can take either a Solar Engine or Ark of Sotek. The Solar Engine is more popular by far. It’s boost nearby units Initiative score by 1 and allows casting of the Beam of Chotec:, one of the best bound spells in the game. Hits range from d3 Strength 3 hits to 2d6 Strength 6 hits along with a minor hex. The chart is biased towards the higher strength hits. Unless your opponent is using WAY more power dice than necessary you should generally dispel this unless he’s shooting at a tarpit unit. Nothing likes being hit by this, and you can’t count on a poor Beam roll when you need it.

Plaque of Dominion: This is an army book arcane item rarely taken by LM players. It bestows Stupidity on all enemy wizards within 18 inches. Against the living (whose wizards tend to have high Ld scores and hang out near BSBs) this is used primarily to bestow Immune to Pyschology on a squishy wizard bunker robbing them of the option to flee when charged. Against the undead, this can be used as a gamble to shut down an enemy’s magic phase preemptively. Sure a vampire lord’s Ld 9 or 10 will probably pass the Stupidity test, but most undead armies don’t bother with BSBs. That’s roughly a 10-20% to lose your ability to charge or cast spells. Do you feel lucky enough to let this spell go?


Lord Kroak: I am very angry that the Vampire Counts demigod has a cool name like Nagash and the Lizardmen’s froglike demigod has a dumbass name like Kroak. Shame on you fluff writers!

Anyway the Slann mummy only has one spell but he cast it over and over again with only a slap on the wrist if he miscasts. It’s a safe bet your opponent that if your opponent is taking Kroak he isn’t planning on relying much on conventional spells.

The Deliverance of Itza hits every enemy unit within 12, 18, or 24 inches of his position or that of a Skink Priest. The spell inflicts 3d6 Strength 4 hits on undead (2d6 hits on the living). This spell can be cast over and over again, so you can’t stop them all. At least try to stop the wider radius spells.

Note that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Kroak is very resilient and bestows bonuses on Temple Guard units above and beyond what Slann normally bestow so he’s tough to kill. Since Skink Priests are much mobile than Slann, most players will try to sneak a Skink priest deep into the enemy lines and use them as the focal point to spam the spell (on Lustria-Online we call this the "Kroak Bomb"). Skink Priests bruise very easily. If you can wipe out the Skink Priests early in the game you can severely reduce Kroak’s killing power without using as single scroll or dispel die.


Jack of All Trades Casters: Slann can take a discipline called Wandering Deliberations. Instead of rolling their spells, they get all eight BRB signature spells. High Elf Lore masters are similar only they are hampered by only being a L2 caster rather than a mighty level 4. If you are facing WD Slann or a paltry elf imitator, you are likely going to get spammed by many weak spells, so there will no obvious spells to shut down. The signature spells are roughly half direct damage and half battlefield control. To help make your dispel decisions easier ask yourself, what is scarier at this point in the battle? Stat adjustments or casualties?

Magic of Our Inferior Predecessors

Tomb Kings got the short end of the stick with AB lores. Not only are they required to take it, but they are required to take it on their highest level caster making their ability to take Light and Death casters much less useful.

Since neither side in a TK vs. VC matchup are going to run away, pretty much every battle is one of attribution. TK has a lot of buff spells, so you need to figure out which close combats are most critical to your strategy and prioritize dispels accordingly.

Lore of Nehekara

The Restless Dead lore attribute: The Nehekharan lore attribute heals target’s of augment spells 1d3+1 wounds, unless they are Constructs in which case they only get one wound. Pretty diffuse and weak compared to Invocation of Nehek.

Khar’s Incantation of the Desert Wind (signature): This gives a unit a free move. Unlike VC, TK cannot march under any circumstances, so this negates a small advantage VC has rather than bestows one on the TK. There is a bubbled version too which can pretty much let the whole enemy march. You need to make a judgment call when deciding to dispel this. Is the spell letting your opponent take the initiative on your or is it merely robbing your foe of a round of shooting?

Djaf’s Incantation of Cursed Blades: Augment bestows Killing Blow on a unit or improves an existing Killing Blow to take effect on a roll of 5. Okay but not terrifying. This becomes scarier when said unit is fighting your vampires.

Neru’s Incantation of Protection: Bestows a unit with a 5+ Ward Save. This won’t help a unit fighting a Blender much, but it can make a significant difference for who Crumbles who if you have two big blocks of Core having at it.

Ptra’s Incantation of Righteous Smiting: Easily the best spell the TK’s have. It bestows the unit with the extra attack special rule and lets missile units (most of the army) gain Multiple Shots 2. Since Nehekaran archers never suffer penalties to hit for multiple shots (or anything else), this is potent indeed, especially since the 24 inch bubble effect can usually encompass most if not all of the army.

Usirian’s Incantation of Vengeance: Hex bestows –D3 Movement on an enemy and forces them to treat even open ground as dangerous terrain tests. This is unpleasant on expensive cavalry units but only a mild nuisance for most infantry. Ethereals are bothered even less.

Usekhp’s Incantation of Dessication: Basically this is a slightly more expensive Soulblight bestowing -1 Strength and Toughness. Bad in an otherwise close to even matchup. The augmented version bestows –D3, but it’s cost to cast is so high you will probably not see it very often.

Sakhmet’s Incantation of the Skullstorm: This is the weakest template spell ever devised. A small template inflicts Strength 4 hits on models passed over by it. There are no multiple wounds, afflicted penalties or anything to add icing on the cake.

Bound Spell, Enkhil’s Kanopi: This arcane item snuffs out Remains in play spells on a 2+ and bestows D3 power dice to the Tomb Kings for every extinguished spell. Obviously the threat of this spell depends mostly on who important your running RIP spells are to you.

Bound Spell, Standard of the Undying Legion: This very expensive magic banner has a bound spell that bestows 1d6+2 wounds worth of healing on the unit.

Casket of Souls: This is probably the MVP unit of Tomb Kings army. An army with one or more of these things gets an extra D3 power their pool every round. It also comes with a very potent bound spell, Light of Death which forces a unit to pass a leadership test with 3d6 or take wounds equal to what they lose the test by. Given that VC have a number of units with high points costs and low Ld scores, this is dangerous.

Killing the Casket early is a good idea, but it’s easier said than done. T10, three wounds, and a Ld8 makes it hard to kill with ranged attacks or spells and half the time it’s killed in close combat it explodes inflicting D6 Strength 6 hits on all units in base contact.

Heirotitans: Wizards within 12 inches of these moderately tough monsters get +D3 to the casting of every spell. Heirotitans can cast Spirit Leech and Shem’s Burning Gaze at significantly lower casting levels than wizards. Fortunately these guys are mediocore fighters with only three wounds each.

High Queen Khalida: High Queen Khalida bestows +1 BS and Poisoned Attacks on units of archers she joins. She also Hates Vampires and has ASF making her a threat to mini-Blenders if not regular Blenders. Her magic item, the Venom Staff inflicts 2d6 Strength 4 hits at a 24 inch range made all the nastier by the possibility of it being followed up with a massive hail of poisoned arrows next phase.


Big…Fat…Sweaty…Casters

All Ogre mages have 4 or 5 wounds and T 5 (and most can take magic armor too), so the tried and true strategies of charging a wizard’s unit and allocating extra attacks on the wizard or using Lore of Death snipes are 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. Since they are immune to Poison and can take magic armor they can also beat down a horde of Ghouls by themselves

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.

Lore of the Great Maw

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 (signature): The signature spell makes an Ogre unit Stubborn. Stubborn is good for Ogres since they rarely have Steadfast. Stubborn only helps troosp who are losing. If you don’t expect to win the next round of combat by a wide margin, you can probably let this one go.

Bonecrusher: A fairly underwhelming magic missle, 2d6 S2 hits with no armor saves. If they aren’t shooting at ethereal troops I’d let this one go.

Bullgorger: Friendly unit gains +1 Strength. It’s no Wyssans but not bad. It will usually give regular Ogres the ability to wound the tougher undead things on a 3+ and let great weapon packing Ogres tear through Terrorgheists and other heavies. The augmented version is still situational. The odds of multiple units of unbuffed Ogres needing 3s or worse to wound all being clumped in a 12 inch radius are pretty low.

Toothcracker: Same as above but with +1 Toughness. This is slightly more problematic for us because the relatively few units other vampires themselves are have capable of dishing out high strength attacks. The augment version is more dangerous since mass numbers of undead wounding on 5 or 6 likely equals lots crumbling.

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. While I applaud GW writers for thinking outside the box on this one, undead are Immune to Psychology.

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 which is quite bad as the VC aren’t exactly swimming in Flaming Attacks.

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 S3 wound. If they fail they take a S7, d6 wounds hit. This is wasted magic on Core, but it can seriously deplete knights or Grave Guard and take our monsters and chariots to the brink of final death or worse.


Lore of Going to be Replaced Soon by a New Book

Lore of the Wild

Unlike most army book lore, Beastmen do NOT have their arms twisted to make them take it. The Lore of the Wild is not a weak lore by any means but Beastmen have access to the Lore of Beasts, Death and Shadow. Given that Shadow and Death are nasty against the undead and every Beastmen is eligible for the Wildheart lore attribute I don’t see yourself facing a lot of Wild casters. As a pre-eighth edition lore this has no Lore attribute and only six spells.

Bestial Surge: Units within six inches of the caster get a free non-charge move D6+1 inches towards the nearest enemy. Movement spells are generally potent but this is a pretty puny move that only boosts a small number of units at once.

Viletide: Inflicts 5d6 Strength 1 hits. 6s wound everyone so this will inflict about 3 wounds per casting. More if combined with Shadow or Death hexes.

Devolve: Target takes a Ld test or suffers wounds based on how many points they failed said test. Given that VC has lots of low Ld monsters that are not always within range of the general, this is potentially a very dangerous spell.

Bray-Scream: Friendly character within 12 inches of the caster (or the caster himself) gains a Strength 3 Breath Weapon that ignores armor saves. This is obviously more dangerous in close combat than as a shooting attack. Also this is far more dangerous to knights and relatively well armored undead than everyone else.

Traitor-Kin: This spell causes your cavalry mounts or chariot steeds to temporarily turn on their masters, obviously armor save bonuses for steeds or barding do not apply. Black/Blood Knights do not like being hit by this spell, but it’s not crippling. This spell is substantially nastier when deployed against Hexwraiths, Corpse Carts, or Mortis Engines.

Mantle of Ghorok: Friendly character within six inches of the shaman (or the Shaman) gains +D6 to Strength and +D6 attacks. They take an wound with no saves if one of these D6s rolls a 6 (or two wounds if both do). Given that Beastmen characters are already pretty potent, this spell is very dangerous.

Savage Dominion: This spell summons the caster a free big-ass Monster from the Beastmen army book (Giant, Jabbersythe or Ghorgon). Note the spell is permanent as long as the Shaman but is not a Remains in Play spell. That means if you don’t dispel this right out of the gate, the only way to “dispel” the monster in subsequent turns is to kill it or its master. Note that wounds inflicted on the monster force its master to take a Toughness test or suffer a wound. Shamans have good Toughness scores, but you it’s still nice to attach strings to this spell.


The Magic of Forge World

Both Hero and Lord level Chaos Dwarf wizards can cast spells, enjoy a look out sir, and assist war machines while still firing their missile weapon every round, so the majority of Chaos Dwarf casters will be with war machine crews. This means Fell Bats and other war machine hunting chaff will probably not be adequate to smack down war machine crews.

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.

When playing versus Chaos Dwarfs, know that three of the four lores they have access to rely on Flaming Attacks and many of their support units have Flaming Attacks so magic items that provide a bonus ward save versus flaming attacks are a good idea to equip to as many vampires as possible with anti-flaming items, not just the Strigoi.

Killing Fire, lore attribute: The Lore of Hashut gets +D3 to casting rolls against targets that are Flammable. Fortunately non-Nehekaran undead are generally not Flammable. There is a Hashut spell that makes an enemy Flammable, but that spell is perfectly nasty even without 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. It’s pretty easy to make a charge from greater than eight inches, so you can usually protect yourself from this spell without dispelling it. Also Chaos Dwarf sorcerers rarely have the mobility to pull this off unless they are riding a Bale Taurus, in which case they will probably be charging you instead.

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. This is nasty against the living but almost meaningless against the undead unless someone else is packing Spirit Leech, but you are generally better off dispelling the Spirit Leech.

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 any character without a ward save and the paranoid or unlucky may not want to risk this on generals with a Ward Save. It’s cast at a mere 10+

Ash Storm: The mother of all hexes is 24 inch range cast on a 12+. It is extra brutal to Deathstars and Buses carrying your primary spellcaster(s).

1) Target is Flammable
2) Target gets -1 to hit in close combat, and -2 to hit with ranged attacks.
3) Target can’t march, charge, or fly
4) All ground is treated a Dangerous Terrain (not that this matters much since you can barely move anyway)
5)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 is the bane of Crypt Horrors.


Miscellaneous Magical Methods of Mannish Mortals

Empire bound spells and passive buffs: Faith, Steel and Gunpowder: The Empire needs all three to succeed. Faith is represented by passive buffs and Bound Spells. On the whole, Bound Spells are less threatening than BRB spells (which the Empire has full access to) and the passive buffs (almost every Empire character bestows some kind of buff and the wagons bestow stronger buffs). Kill the enemy characters/wagons and the buffs go away.

Arch Lectors and Warrior Priests are the main source of Empire bound spells. 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.

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 for a mere 4+. Armies taking the War Altar often take multiple Light casters to boost the damage of this spell.

Righteous Fury 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 in close combat. A handy power, but it won’t usually swing combats by itself.

Soulfire bestows a unit with Flaming Attacks and deals an automatic S5 hit to enemies in base combat (S4 for non-undead troops) hit to enemies ins base contact with the Warrior Priest. The hit is rarely a big deal since we are talking about three hits tops, but the flaming attacks can be big since VC have a lot of Regenerating troops. Also, this is nasty when the Priest is assaulting a building.

Unbending Righteous is only available on the SC Luthor Huss, but Huss barely costs more than a regular Priest, so you may see this guy 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. If you are not wining or your foe is already steadfast, this is obviously a nothing spell.

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 bound spells and Hatred on multiple nearby units rather than just a unit they are joined.

Storm of Shemtek (Hurricanum) 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 fairly 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 negligibly without interference. It does have the Heavens Lore attribute with regard to most flyers (though a Terrorgheist can take the heat).

Solheim’s Bolt of Illumination (Luminark): Hits at Strength 8 with D3 wounds and penetrates ranks like a Bolt Thrower ignoring armor saves. Against undead, the spell re-rolls failed attempts to wound. Ergo this can do a LOT of damage.

Dwarfs and the Anvil of Doom: The Anvil of Doom climbed up to the top of the nerf tree and fell down hitting every branch. While the Anvil of Doom no longer risks exploding, its effects are weaker and easier to counter than before. Unless the Dwarfs are playing as a part of a team game (and the Anvil is being used side-by-side with a conventional wizard from another army), you should be able to dispel everything the Anvil throws at you that isn’t cast with Irresistible Force. You will generally be dispelling with +4 to every roll and Dwarfs get +0 to their bound spells, unless they take an overpriced SC that bestows +1. I doubt you will see the Anvil of Doom much outside of very large grand armies.

Rune of Hearth and Home bestows Immune to Psychology on friendly Dwarf units in a wide radius. Who cares? Dwarfs test on a minimum of Ld9, so they aren’t likely to fail a psychology test anyway.

Rune of Oath and Steel temporarily bestows +1 Armor Save. Not good for you if you are fighting or about to fight said unit. You can ignore the spell if you aren’t planning on engaging said unit soon.

Rune of Wrath and Ruin is the money spell. It inflicts 2d6 Strength 4 hits on a single unit within 24 inches. This functionally makes the anvil another artillery piece, but one that cannot misfire and rarely hits (due to you dispelling this every time).


Skaven lore defense overview needs to be written by a volunteer.

 

[Scalenex]

This space Reserved for AB overflow since I'm not sure what the character limit per post is.

 

[John Rainbow]

I think this is an interesting idea for a thread but I question the way you've gone about this. I tend to think the big spells in each lore are fairly obvious and the threats are easy to identify i.e. Purple Sun is going to be horrific. I don't really think this needs to be explained. I also think that a more tactical approach is a better idea for a thread i.e. talking more situationally about this. What I mean is, yes it is all well and good saying 'stop this spell every time' but Warhammer, especially at the tournament level is just not that simple.

If we take the Lore of Death as an example, your scheme would have the player stop Purple Sun every time. Lets say you do this to save some part of your army but that your opponent is in combat with another unit elsewhere. Stopping him getting Purple Sun is all well and good but then you may allow him to cast Soulblight and Aspect which both allow him to better hurt you and deny both your ability to hurt him back and cause fear. Depending on the situation this could be much more dangerous than a single big spell. A good player would use the Purple Sun as a big carrot waved in your face if he knew that your priority was to remove it every time as it would then give him control of the phase (assuming you would use almost all your dice to ensure you dispel it).

As such, magic defense is much, much more than simply saying 'stop this spell' as so much of the phase depends on context i.e. who you are playing, the PD/DD differential and what you/your opponent want to get out of the phase and at what stage of the battle you are in. Couple this with items like the staff that can store dice for you or other items which affect the phase and this leads to a part of the game that is for me much more than simply ranking spells in order of potential damage (and still this depends on context).

I think that these kind of issues should be brought up here. Other things like dice percentages are important, as are more general things like when to use certain items, what PD/DD differentials are preferential for different casting strategies i.e. trickle or all-in on single spells, etc. If you want to make the most of an article such as this, I don't think you can ignore these additional aspects.

 

[Skittelz1981]

I gotta agree with John Rainbow here.
It most often turns to be so situational as to what you need to dispel.
Depending on the winds of magic roll+channels for both sides, not to forget the result of the dice on a succesful spell.
The entire situation on the table dictates the importance of a spell. Also, what combination of spells does your enemy have available.
These 4 main factors influence the dispelchoice so heavily that its hard to create such a pretty straigthforward and simplistic list of priority dispels.


I can feel where you coming from and i agree with you on pretty much every description/rating given on a basic level when you look at it on paper.
I also encourage this type of approach to every aspect of the game.
But i dont believe its truly possible to adequately categorize all these spells in in this way. Once again, each magic phase in every game is totally unique and influenced by a few factors that easily alter the entire priority.
Sure there are no-brainer dispels all the time, spells that almost always need to be dispelled, but even a red spell can be completely green in a different situation.

 

[Scalenex]

I added the Chaos Lores today. To Skittlez and Mr. Rainbow, you are absolutely right. Individual table top conditions always take precedent. Note I titled this thread "Guidelines for Magical Defense" not "Infallible Rules for Magical Defense"

 

[The Sun King]

Awesome work Scaly!

 

[Skittelz1981]

Just need Lore of Darkness from the Darkelf menace

 

[Scalenex]

Just need Lore of Darkness from the Darkelf menace

@Skittelz1981

I have fulfilled your request, and I have covered High Magic too. Note that while I'm very familiar with High Magic my knowledge of Dark Magic is Theoryhammer. Hopefully my friend will get his Dark Elf army assembled and ready to go by October like he said!

I'll try to throw up some more color coded goodness in about a week.

 

[Skittelz1981]

Blade wind is idd a very dangerous spell for us.

But failing a strengthtest is gonna be half the unit. then another s4 ap hit to be resolved, which will be half on ghouls.
So in the end, its not half the unit vanishing, its a quarter.
On skeletons and zombies thats gonna be alot more.
Truth be told, its an absolutely terrifying spell

 

[Scalenex]

Blade wind is idd a very dangerous spell for us.

But failing a strengthtest is gonna be half the unit. then another s4 ap hit to be resolved, which will be half on ghouls.
So in the end, its not half the unit vanishing, its a quarter.
On skeletons and zombies thats gonna be alot more.
Truth be told, its an absolutely terrifying spell

Good catch, I fixed the erring Mathhammer on my part

 

[Dark Lord Sariel]

I really enjoyed this magical defense thread! Keep up the good work.

 

[Scalenex]

I put up Dwarfs, Empire, Chaos Dwarfs, Beastmen, Tomb Kings and Ogres. I am beholden to volunteers for Skaven since 1) I do not own a Skaven army book and 2) none of my main gaming circle play Skaven.

 

[Skittelz1981]

I wouldve done it coz i own every single book except 8th woodelf but im leaving on holiday so i dont have access to my computer.

 

[Archamedius]

This is an excellent reference, thank you so much for putting it together! I would make one small suggestion on something to add:

For Dark Magic Word of Pain, the WS and BS penalty CAN reduce your stat to 0, which can swing a combat tremendously in favor of the dark elf player. In my opinion this makes that spell the most important to dispel, since units with WS 0 are hit automatically and cannot fight back. You may find this worth mentioning.

 

[Scalenex]

Good call. I added the notation and upped the color rating of Word of Pain. I also notation to Transmutation of Lead since it can do the same thing (with a mere -1 instead of -D3).