8th Ed. Guide to Lore of Death

[Liquidwulfe]

I may be a bit of a pariah when it comes to the lore I prefer to take with my slaan, but the Lore of Life actually takes a back seat to the Lore of Death when it comes to running my Lizardmen. I didn't see a guide to the Lore, so I figured I would go ahead and make one for it.

The Lore of Death

Gear/Discipline Choices: I prefer to run my Slaan with a Cupped Hand as well as a Bane Head. The Bane Head is just nasty when it comes to this lore, and the Cupped Hand is more for miscast prevention than anything. I also like to run Focus of Mystery, Soul of Stone, The Focused Rumination, and The Becalming Cognition.

Attribute: The Lore of Death attribute is what makes the lore really scary. For every wound we deal with the lore, we have a 1/3 chance of getting an additional power die. This adds up quick, and against most armies means you can frequently cast almost every spell in the lore every phase. Remember, with the Focused Rumination we generate extra power dice, and together you can get some truly incredible power dice generation.

Spells:

Spirit Leech/Caress of Laniph/Fate of Bjunta: These three spells work pretty much the same, and that is to outright kill an enemy model. Paired up with the Bane Head, there is not a character in the game that has a chance of surviving (I recommend saving the Bane Head for their Lord, mages are ususally easy to kill with this lore). What most people don't realize right away is that you can also use these spells to kill war machines, monsters, magic banner carriers in units, ect. The fact that we have three of these spells means we can throw one or two dice at a spell, and either force the opponent to dispel it (burning up his own dice), or let it go off and lose a valuable piece of his army. These also make great filler spells to cast at Monstrous Infantry/Cavalry/Beasts for potential dice generation. (Throw one die at it, watch Rumination kick in, and potentially get a few dice back)

Soulblight: One of the best debuff spells in the game, being able to make ALL enemy units within 24" -1 T and -1 S can be absolutely nasty. It makes most S3 T3 infantry wounded on 2's against our saurus blocks, and needing 6's to wound back. It buffs Salamanders ability to bake entire blocks of infantry, and severely hampers most elite troops.

Doom and Darkness: I consider this one of the best spells in the game when paired up with Salamanders. Most units will make panic tests on a 9, and being able to bring that down to a 6 is just nasty. When combined with your direct damage spells, you can pretty much guarantee that they will not have a BSB by the time this comes rolling around, meaning they will most likely be packing their bags and heading off the table.

The Purple Sun of Xereus: This spell is awesome against any infantry blocks I4 and below. Not only will it outright devastate most infantry blocks, it also generates ridiculous amounts of power dice. Used properly this spell can fill your entire spell pool back up to full. If you can manage to send this spell sideways down the front of your opponents army, even better.


Final Note: Remember, this Lore is not about laying waste to your opponents army. It is about generating ridiculous amounts of power dice, and assassinating every key part of their army while weakening the rest. Used properly, you can easily destroy armies several times your size.

 

[Ilnar3]

And yet not one mention of the range,,,,,
They are all, cept for the sun, very short ranged,
If your casting death spells, your in charge range.

 

[Liquidwulfe]

Every spell in the lore can be upgraded to cast up to 24" away range (save one), and it doesn't break the casting bank to do it.

 

[Ilnar3]

Which is half that of all the other lores,
It's 12-24 as opposed to 24-48

It's the difference between 1-2 dice and 2-3 dice,
It's an awesome lore, but id rarer keep my slan further away.

 

[Caneghem]

I don't think you can snipe unit standard bearers.. it is still assumed someone else from the unit steps up to grab the banner. Though you might have been talking about the BSB. If you can snipe the BSB you are doing very well!

I think the signature spell is awesome, and the Slann at Ld9 is in position to take full advantage of it. Lots of large monsters have low unmodified leadership.

One problem I can see popping up with the Death spells is not only the range problems, but the fact that most of the spells can't be cast into combat. So you'd really only get one round in which to try to snipe characters before they got stuck into combat. Granted the -1 Str and Toughness and -3 Leadership are awesome (and even dreadknight combined with -3 Ld could swing some combats your way).

For this reason I think Lore of Death begs for the Solo Slann with the +1 movement banner. He'll always be marching, might as well boost his movement up to 10 inches. Unless you're a magic carpet believer, but I don't think that works!

 

[Bibamus]

uhhm... one problem with this. once you fail to cast a spell it doesn't matter how many dices are in your pool. add hat to the amount of spells that can't be cast into combat and the short range, you will be throwing a lot of dice, and barring a miscast, you jsut have to fluff one with 2-3 1's and bye, bye magic phase.

magic carpet is indeed nice if it works, it should according to RAW but thats for another topic. for a lone slann you do need 2+ ward and MR 3 so thats an extra 80 points just for protection, make him a BSB with a benner he gets quite expnesive not to mention he's worth 200 extra VP's and if by any chance something harmless charges him and his 1 attack doesn't beat the enemy static he will probably run and be killed instantly.

it sounds fun, i will try it out, but i doubt it beats life or light

 

[Ilnar3]

Why 2+ ward and mr3?
You already have a 2+ ward

 

[Elmquasmash]

Let me just point something out to you all.. EVERY LORE HAS ITS USE IF YOU BUILD YOUR ARMY FOR IT.. You are worried about your Slann and his 26 temple guards getting charged? Well, put a unit of Kroxigors on one side and a unit of Cold One Knights on the other. Or put some salamanders next to him? Now you are causing panic tests on all units trying to charge your slann. Or maybe a stegadon with engine of the god's? All of a sudden your temple guard's have 5+ ward until combat then you burning allignment them to death with your impact hits + stegadon hits + the OTHER flank charging units hits + your temple guard units hits. Or how's about two large units of Saurus both with tricked out Scar Vets in them? Anywhere you go you should be smart enough to place units where they can keep your Slann's unit alive.

Lore of Life and Lore of Light are great but they will only work if you make a plan on how you are going to use it. Its the same with any Lore.

This thread was meant to discuss how you can viably use the Lore in a battle, not why you personally don't want to use the Lore yourself. I think he made a great point about what spells are useful for, the only point of improvement would be how to counter the weaknesses in the spells (i.e. the range on the spells) and if you are going to use a Lore you should learn to exploit its strengths and minimize its weaknesses.

Failing to cast ends the entire magic phase and happy go lucky power trip. You throw two dice, you get a third 'free' dice. Unless you don't roll high enough you are ALWAYS going to succeed because you have to naturally roll a 1 or 2 and three dice will always give a result of 3 or higher. The nice thing about the Lore is you don't have to worry about using up your power dice as all it takes is two damage spells to go off and you are getting close to the limit again. Then, once your Slann has used all of his spells and the enemy has successfully used all of his dispell dice to stop that nasty sun or keep you from sniping his nasty general, your Skink has 8 power dice and a +1 to cast for EoTG and +2 to cast for his level with his spells from Lore of Heavens. The Lore can be pretty scary for an opponent who doesn't want his generals to die (I can just see Skaven, Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings, and Vampire Counts doing everything in their power to keep away from your Slann while their characters run for the high hills [or the nearest forest] )

Now the Sun with a unit of Camo Skinks can pick off a whole Gunline on their own! ALL armies with war machines have initiative 2 or 3 EXCEPT High Elves and Dark Elves. Make a small dun and run it down the line and watch two or three crewman per machine go POOF! Then have the Camo Skinks clean anyone that is left of the board. And lets face it everyone, the Purple Sun has to be the MOST tempting spell to use in the whole game!.. Cast the more powerful version with an irresistible force (and pray to god it doesn't misfire ) and watch as 1,000 points of your opponents army are put at stake and run screaming for their lives from a giant purple sun wearing sunglasses

 

[Ilnar3]

If anyone is stupid enough to let a slaan get round their flanks so you can cast a purple dsun down their ranks then awesome,
The problem I have with the lore, asides from the range, is the situationality
If that's a word
Two of the spells are only good against characters and monsters,
Purple sun is situational, even a problem if you roll low for distance or it starts coming back towards you,
And you can't use it while in a TG unit so you have to run him solo, at which point he's alone, less than 24 inches from the enemy if you want to use the higher value casting levels, at which point you are averaging 3 spells a turn
It's a great lore, but I think it's wasted on a slaan,
On a chaos scorceror lord it's fantastic because the range doesn't matter and you want to be in combat

Slaan are bette further away from combat with at least 4 spells they can use every turn
Or 2 big spells, that will always do damage,
Deathis just too unpredictable, when it works, it will win the game,
When there's no targets.....

 

[Peukon]

Very nice with a take on a lore different form Life. I have used life in a few games now and I can see how powerful it is. But I wont go that way... I hate to be predictable

Also a army of ghost lizardmen (from Tlax) can't use a lore like life... Death or Shadow is the way for me

 

[Elmquasmash]

Well, you don't always have to run your Slann in the middle of your army.. Put it on a flank and see what happens? If it's the last model you place in deployment your opponent might be like WTF?! And it would change his whole game plan. Keeping your Slann on the flank with negative leadership spells, negative strength and toughness spells, wounding high models spells (and flanks are where monsters are usually kept), and then you would only be facing a character at a time. And lets say you cast the sun while still in a unit of Temple guard.. You gain a power dice for each of them that's killed jajajajajaja I'm sorry, but taking Lore of Death would be one of the most unexpected things you could do and it really can work if you put your mind to it and try to make it work with your army list jajajaja I'm still laughing at killing my own Temple Guard

 

[Scarecrow]

Read through this thread when it was first posted and so tried Death this evening. It turned out to be very effective. Killed my friends general on turn 2 (he plays O&G) and subsequently demolished hi army by turn 3. It's a great lore to play with.

 

[Sotek]

I'll withhold judgement on this until I take Death for a spin, I'm just really skeptical about the Lore in general. While I like the writeup Liquidwulfe, I think you failed to touch on some of the Lore's drawbacks. Specifically, Purple Sun is HUGELY risky for a slann to cast at any time, with or without TG. Every time you cast it successfully there is a 1/9 chance that you will immediately suck your slann into a hole...that's not a typo, 1/6(the chances of rolling a misfire on the die) * 2/3(the chances of failing the I test) is every 9th cast insta-killing your slann. It'll also pretty much flatten a TG unit if you took one as well, but I'm quite lukewarm to them as it is.

Also, as was mentioned previously the upgraded cost for 24" range on those spells is the difference between casting on 2-3d6(with only 1 or 2 out of the power pool) to having to cast on 3-4d6 to be sure you reach the casting amount and don't kill your phase.

Despite my reservations, I'm going to give it a shot in my next game(shadow and death are the only two I haven't tested out yet). I'll post back with my results and thoughts.

All in all, though, I liked the review. I may have to write up my own for Fire or Light, as I think people are too eagerly jumping on the Life bandwagon.

 

[vaalnn]

I read this post a week or so ago, and thought I'd give Death a go in a few fights. So, yesterday I fought 3 battles against WoC, 2250, 2250 and 3000pts (the last battle was the scenario where you need to capture the tower). I learnt some important lessons whilst using lore of death which hopefully might be useful to a few of you. In all three battles I used a Slann with becalming cognition, focused rumination, soul of stone and all spells (can't remember what this ine is called). He was also equipped with cupped hands, a power stone and a dispel scroll.

In my first battle I learnt the most important lesson of all. I'll never ever use purple sun again, and heres my reasoning. Firstly I'll explain what happened . . . First turn of the game, after doing a few wounds to his characters with life leach and the strength based spell I found myself with a few dice left over and hurled them at a purple sun. It cast and I carefully decided which direction would cripple my enemy most. Heres the first reason for disliking the spell; I didn't feel any satisfaction in basically destroying my opponents line on the first turn of the game without even a morsel of skill or cunning. Unfortunately this didn't happen. Instead a rolled a misfire, killed my Slann and most of his 21 TG. I was out of the game on turn 1. So, in summary, if you get a purple sun off and it destroys 1000pts of your opponents force, wel done, you're an ass hole. If it goes wrong you probably loose the game. But don't worry, in my opinion purple sun isn't even nearly the best spell in the death list. Enter soulblight.

The more powerful version of this spell requires an 18 to cast, and is incredibly brilliant. My main problem with the lore of life was that my opponent would just dispell all my lovely remains in play buffs on his own turn, leaving my carefully planned combats scewed dangerously in his favour. Soulblight reduces strength and toughness of all enemy units within 24", until the start of your next magic phase, and it can't be dispelled. By ignoring purple sun, and using soulblight makes the death spells synergise far more effectively.

In my 2nd and 3rd games I spent the turns up until combat casting the character killing spells on anyone in range, your opponents will quickly learn to keep their characters away from the slann, which is often a good thing. People complain about the limited range of the spells, but the upgraded versions don't have rediculously high casting values, particularly for a slann whos getting an extra dice on every spell. On top of this these spells are REALLY nasty, and your opponent will certainly be throwing dispell dice at them. From about turn 2 onwards I would spam soulblight with as many dice as I could. In the two games preceding my purple sun failure I don't think there was a single combat phase in which I didnt have soulblight up, in magic phases with low numbers of dice the powerstone was very useful. If I had a few extra power dice doom and darkness used carefully WILL see an emey unit fleeing by the end of the combat phase.

I won the latter 2 battles by a country mile, strength 3, toughness 3 chaos knights/warriors fall like small children to the lizzies.

To clear up a few points that have been raised about death: Don't use purple sun, unless your a tacticless noob. Use the direct damage "character hunter" spells with increased range to purge enemy characters, or scare them away, during the first turn or 2 of the game. When charges are starting swith to phase 2 of the lore of Death - doom and darkness and soulblight, it doesn't matter what army your opponent fields, -1S/T hurts a lot.

 

[Bibamus]

He was also equipped with cupped hands, a power stone and a dispel scroll.

thats an ilegal combo right there. 3 arcane items on a character.

basically destroying my opponents line on the first turn of the game

purple sun is a) a template weapon b) traveles a random number of " c) avoidable d) prone to fail any time due to misfire, not only on your slann in the 1st turn, but also stopping before it hits anything e) an initiative test on I5 WOC wich means they fail on 6's

just dispell all my lovely remains in play buffs on his own turn

that means throne of vines and shield of thorns? do you really need throne of vies on his turn? and shield of thorns is good enough if it works only 1 turn and takes a few of his dices away

now you're left with soulblight and doom and darkness. soulblight only affects one unit but i agree, its a usefull spell and doom and darkness is great with sallies

 

[Elmquasmash]

Thanks for the input Glad to see someone trying it out instead of speculating! It seems that by making everyone affraid to take characters close to our Slann's it could make for some interesting 'Temple' setups for our armies.. Just make a tough Core where its hard to get into our actual ranks and the opponent being to affraid to send anything valuable at it because of the Slann.

@Bibamus
I believe he was saying that he didn't like the spell..

Destroying an entire line? You don't need to destroy every single unit to ruin an entire line. One important piece goes out of place on a battle line and everything can fall apart as I'm sure all of us have seen from experience. In his first game he lost his Slann and unit of TG on the first turn; if that happens to anyone else I believe they would feel the hurt as much as we would, no matter what initiative you have.

And on the C. avoidable.. Its not very avoidable! It has a random movement You can't exactly avoid something that is moving in a random direction.. And if you move too far away for it to come near you, your opponent has effectively created a randomly moving piece of terrain that you don't wish to approach with a ten foot pole throwing off your movement in a way that you didn't plan while you were deploying your army..

In essence, I can see exactly why it would not be worth it to use the Sun Your only time ever trying it cost you pretty much lost 850 points! But that -1 Str and Tgh is pretty sweet..

 

[Bibamus]

well it keeps direction if i read magical vortexts right, otherwise its even riskier because it can turn back on your units. and i also agree its not a very usefull spell, i was just commenting on the "destroying a lot of things with 1 spell thing". also, as long as it maintains direction units can jus move out of the way and let the template slide between them. its a usefull delay tactic, but still not that devastating

 

[Caneghem]

I think I'll be taking Death and just not using the Purple Head spell. Death actually has some synergy with Heavens magic... the signature spell of heavens is -1 Ld, combined with doom and darkness can stack for a nice -4 penalty, which most units will have a tough time resisting. Great for getting those Salamanders to panic off big pesky units who are counting on their BSB rerolls for panic. Also helps get past that annoying steadfast block of 100 skaven slaves.. stubborn on Ld6 isn't nearly as solid as 10.

I'd probably trade chain lightning and uranon's bolt for the signature, but the rest of heavens is really good. Instead of casting the purple head of xereus a comet from a skink priest should cause some nasty damage at 2d6 str5 to start out with. A flying skink priest could push a character containing unit into range of a Slann character sniping spell. The buff and debuff spells of heavens are not bad either, and stack well with the debuffs from death.

 

[vaalnn]

I must have missed this rule Bib, where in the rule book does it state that a character can only take 1 Arcane item? I thought it just prevented you from taking multiple of the same magic item?

And also - soulblight does only affect 1 unit if you cast the vanilla version, but upgraded it affects all units within 24" of the caster, which for a casting value of 18 is pretty fantastic imo.

As with any spell set, different players will prefer different schools of magic depending on the way they play, I've tried lore of life a few times and havn't had nearly as much fun as death (minus purple sun), so i'll stick with it for now. I've got a game against the same chaos player this afternoon, probably 2250 pts, I think that he may try one of the new lores now though rather than sticking with tzeentch, so it might be interesting. Bah, atleast that'll mean no bloody pandemonium/infernal gate.

 

[Wolf]

BRB pg 500 under 'Balance of Power' basically says that you can only have of each magic item type.