Which magic lore?

[Theerteen]

Hi, I wonder what lores I shall use with 3 mages, 2 of them should have the vampire lore, but I want one vampire to get something else. Which lore would you recommend? Death or shadows? And how should the model be equipped (mounted/unmounted, items..)?

 

[Larro]

I love running a Level 2 Death if I take nothing else but Vamps. Assuming the Death Vamp is with the big guy, he's got a LD10 Death snipe to help kill off individual models and monsters and to suck out a Dispel Scroll early, and you have a decent shot of rolling a Double or Soulblight / Purple Sun.

- Larry

 

[midean]

Shadow is also a great lore. Works real well with VC. Both lores are good. Just depends on what kind of synergy you are looking for in your list. Death has some great sniping and a couple debuff spells. Shadow has a lot of nice debuff spells and a couple useful spells.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

If your deathmage is with your general then death is amazing. If he is kicking it alone Beasts Heavens and Shadow are better.

 

[Seneschal]

I've done well with all LoV casters so its doable. Having a miasma vamp hero is also useful though I don't rely on our magic phase so much so any chance I get to heal or cast Van Hel's is actually preferable.

 

[Theerteen]

I think I would use him alone, so death sounds nice (even if I dunno what "snipe casts" are.. [casts that use single models as targests?]).
I'd like to bring a little more destruction spells on the field, so death seems to be the lore to choose thanks guys & ghouls!

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

Yeah Lore of Death specializes in character targeting. So you would want to pair your death caster with your vampire lord because the signature Death spell goes against leadership. baby vamp casters and necros only have LD 9 or 8 so they can't throw death around as effectively. If you wanna run your casters all in different groups. Then I would say 2 with vamp lore would be nice and the third could use one of the ones Johnny stated for solo lvl 2's.

If you were going to run a group of black knights, then I would include a lord with LoV and a lvl 2 vamp with death. But the lore of beasts would be good too for all of the nice buffs it has. Kinda depends on what your army is going to be geared towards.

 

[Velmates]

Vampires and Necromancers just have a LD of 7, a Master Necromancer has LD 8. I wouldn't run a sniper death caster alone in a unit since you need a lot of luck to beat the LD of the most Lord level characters.

I've used a lone level 4 death MN a few times and it worked fairly well. Of course he could have done better with someone giving him LD 10 but since his purpose isn't just casting Spirit Leech he will be fine.

That said I love my level 2 Shadow Vampire. No matter which spells I've got, they are (nearly) all extremely useful. And he can be on his own in a unit of ghouls or something like that while my general wrecks havoc in his black knight bus with a Wight King BSB.

Maybe I will try a level 2 death vampire and add him to the bus. But as I've said, I like the punch that the lone shadow vamp adds to the ghouls...

 

[midean]

I'm with Velmates. I run a L2 shadow in my bus and if you get another debuff or pits along with miasma your doing good. Got enfeebling foe one time when I was fighting a dwarf GW horde. The look on my friends face when most of his dwarves were hitting on S2 and supporting attacks were at S4. I also had the nightsround in the front row......:tongue:

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

Oops, Velmates, you're right. That means lone Death casters are even less useful without a lord or wight king for LD support. Definitely an uphill battle for LD 7 to beat mostly LDs 8,9 and 10...But shadow Those debuffs could be nasty no matter what unit you stick him in. Except maybe zombies or skellies...

 

[bigbadbat]

Lord level characters aren't the only viable targets for SL. Unit champs, monsters, mournfang... Ld 10 is a nice boost to the effectiveness, but definitely not necessary.

 

[eggsPR]

If you're sitting back waiting for your opponent, I like death. Because you can chaff him up while taking out all his big threat pieces. Death Slanns with the Bane Head do this nicely. Soul blight of courae is the CC exception, as well as PSun bc u can place the template in front of you, on the unit your facing and fling it down your opponents flank.

If you're running ahead trying to get into combat, I like shadow. Though miasma can be used in a multitude of ways (reduce movement to his Death Star while picking apart the rest of his army, or the classic reduce Initiative then Pit of Shades).

I'm considering the best of both worlds and running 2 lvl 2s, one on shadow, one on death... Though you're not gaurenteed the spells you want... But, u may not get Pit of Shades against your Ogre opponent, but you could get PSun from the other guy! But 2 lvl 2s on either death or shadow can almost ensure you get the spells you want.

I know I know, lvl 4 on death, and lvl 2 on shadow... But i like my lvl 4 on vamps... Bubble vanhels and ION 1 + 4 wounds on CHs are wayyyy underrated

 

[Darbagal]

As others have said I like running lore of death in unit with a vamp lord and casting low cast value spells such as the snipe spells and potentially basic purple sun. If I go for upgraded purple sun it usually means that I blow myself to pieces and then I prefer to have him a bit further away from big unit of black knights.....

 

[fjhamming]

I think lore of beasts is great on a baby vamp, except that you have to 25 precious points that could have been spend on quickblood or a nice magic item, and instead take lore of shadows. For 10 points less i would take it any day of the week.

 

[Velmates]

I agree with eggspr. If you're running a knight bus or CH (or something that is equally expensive and can be healed easily), a level 4 vampire caster ist a must have. Those knights are very hard to kill and to get back 5 of them in each of your magic phases is simply awesome. The most players know this and will try to dispell your IoN. They are, simply spoken, scared that their precious kills are undone. If your victory doesn't depend on this one IoN you can be fine with this because it often leaves you with enough PD to get one or two other spells (hopefully more/equally important) through. I know this tactic of casting your spells is as old as magic itself but IoN is that cheap but can be that fearsome to some players that it works better than most other spells.

I like death magic. I've used it a couple of times, mostly on a level 4 MN (supporting my ghoul king) and I can see the benefits of having a death casting vampire in the general's unit. But then you have got a death star of some kind and I don't like the concept of a death star. If it hits, everything will be smashed to dust but if not (and many many players know how to avoid it) or if it is debuffed/shot at/feed chaff heavily, its main purpose is lost. That's why I use a shadow vampire in a ghoul horde. The sig-spell has a range of 48'' and therefore can support my knight bus even from afar and the vampire himself upgrades the ghouls to a considerably fighting force.

@eggspr: Do you think a level 2 death and a level 2 shadow could work? I would put the death in the general's unit (maybe even replacing the wight king) and leave the shadow with the ghouls. But then again, you won't probably have enough PD to cast with both lores and the chance that you get the favoured spells is small. I was considering taking another shadow vamp. The chances of getting doubles are much bigger and choosing your spell(s) is never bad. Even if the list is not designed for mindrazor (and I think I wouldn't take the spell at all), two shadow casters could be very good. But maybe it's just me loving the debuffs of this lore too much.

 

[fjhamming]

two lvl 1 casters with healing in a knight bus also contribute to a powerful threat for your bus. The casting value might be lower, but the chance you get one of the two of is big enough. And healing 2x2 knights is almost the same.

Of course a lvl 4 is much better, but also much more expensive. If this costs you a second vampire in the bus, i'd go for the second vampire instead.

 

[Velmates]

I think a level 4 (and a D-Scroll) is a "must have" for magic defense alone. I only take a Level 4 MN when I'm using a Ghoul King and then I don't use a knight bus. So, for me, a knight bus means a level 4 Lord. I've never thought if this costs me another vampire but I think I would stick with the extra levels all the time...

But in my newest list I replaced the wight king with a level 2 mounted death vampire with the Cursed Book and gave the vampire on foot the vampire lore. Let's see how this will work...