8th Ed. Why Life doesnt work

[Irish_Lizard]

In one of the army list topics I suggested dropping life as it was a sub par lore, I was surprised to see the number of people defending it. As a result I decided to open a topic here to explain my thoughts. (Caveat: This is based on dwellers being comp'd to give characters a LOS in units, otherwise dwellers FTW works depressingly well)

First of the problem with life is the tendency for people to take temple guard with it. This leads to a very dangerous all the eggs in one basket problem as the slann cannot leave the unit and as the unit is worth over a 1000 points it has a massive target on its head. Certain spells such as D13 or purple sun/pit of shades will utterly ruin such a unit. (Yes I know you have regrowth but losing 4D6 and spending power dice to make it so you only lost 3D6 is still really bad).

The second problem with life is that it can only help one unit per turn really and is really easy to prioritize dispels against. For the first couple of turns all you need to stop is throne as the rest of the spells do nothing at range and if you tries for dwellers without throne up then 6 dice give you a 85% chance of success but 26% of that is IF so realistically you have a 59% chance to do damage without crippling your own unit, not a great investment for 6 dice is it? Then we get to the combat turns where life is allegedly at its best. The problem is flesh to stone only protects 1 unit and most armies have some way to counter regen(which can only affect the slann's unit anyway). So why would anyone charge the unit with flesh to stone on them? Your opponent will just either: A) charge something else(you do have more than one unit in your army right?)
B) Charge anyway if he's going to win(eg. playing shadow so can go miasma into withering into
enfeebling into razor or he's only fighting skinks with a unit that is strength 6 anyway)
C)Back off and wait for a turn until the spell goes away, then charge.
With life you can make ONE unit rock hard for the game but it is at the expense of everything else and while lizardmen have very good chaff, so do other armies and that unit should never see meaningful combat while buffed.

The third problem with life is the most overlooked and most important. Life will never help you get VP's and win games. Yes it will save VP's for you and help you when you're losing games but are you really going in to games planning to be losing? Dwellers will cut units in half but you dont get VP's for half units and if you cant snipe characters with it then what use is it? Awakening of the woods is the second worst Xd6 strength Y spell in the game after the beasts one due to range and strength. The shield of thorns will do 3 wounds when boosted to a t3 Sv5+ unit which is utterly irrelevant as it doesnt count for combat res and can't cause panic as you have to be in combat.

To sum up Life makes our tough troops tougher but doesn't help them kill, is easy to prioritize dispels against and can only help one unit per turn.

 

[Ezeckiel]

Hi

I have to disagree with some of your statements. There is a reason why so much LM players use Life.

Firstly, the Lore attribute helps refreshing our dinos, characters, and Krox. This gives the Slann the opportunity to use Forbidden rod and being fully healed in a turn. This attribute is very relevant for us.

Also Regrowth gives us an edge since we overall get more points than our opponent ressurecting units. (By experience at least 200 pts per game)

Miscast protection is points saving since I don't normally use Cupped Hand on my Life Slann.

Dwellers soften (understatement) ennemy units so our blocks can kill them more easily.

Pit and Sun kills our troops anyway so it's not an argument against Life

Magic doesn't win the game for you anyway ...

 

[Dreyer]

Of course it helps you win combats! me loosing less models because of flesh to stone or earthblood means a bigger chance of me breaking the opponents unit. The lore attribute is really good and yes awakening of the wood is not great but most lores have a meh spell or two.

 

[Irish_Lizard]

Firstly, the Lore attribute helps refreshing our dinos, characters, and Krox. This gives the Slann the opportunity to use Forbidden rod and being fully healed in a turn. This attribute is very relevant for us.

A slann can happily use the forbidden rod regardless of lore as he should only die to a dimensional cascade or being chopped up or run down in combat(where the extra wound wont matter). dinos are mainly threatened by cannons or other artillery pieces which are usually 2+ in armies that can field them and focus fire will remove units.

Also Regrowth gives us an edge since we overall get more points than our opponent ressurecting units. (By experience at least 200 pts per game)

Regrowth doesnt gain you points as points are only given for dead units which cant be regrown. Also most solid opponents will wipe units out(focus fire or run them down) to ensure that they cant be regrown and that they get full points. I have never been in situation where I'd rather have 3-4 extra models in a unit or a buff/debuff for a combat.

Miscast protection is not relevant as rumination means you want to cast lots of spells with low no. of dice and we can still take soul of stone/earthing rod. Most of the table is harmless with only 1/3 of the results being bad(2-4 and 10-12).

Light removes the threat of pit and sun. As for magic not winning games I'd agree but a strong lore definitely helps.

Of course it helps you win combats! me loosing less models because of flesh to stone or earthblood means a bigger chance of me breaking the opponents unit. The lore attribute is really good and yes awakening of the wood is not great but most lores have a meh spell or two.

Yes any buff will help but unless your opponent is a fool they can stop any one spell in a phase so unless its your slanns unit that's in combat, that's flesh to stone which not going off and is at best giving +2T as you will only get both it and throne off against a poor player(or IF twice which is 1/16). Personally I'd rather have enfeebling as it allows me to get a better AS as well as being remains in play. The problem with life is that you have flesh to stone for combat and that's it, while light has 3 combat buffs, shadow has 5 buffs/debuffs, death has 2(I'm not counting the fear one), even heavens has more with Iceshard, Curse and Convergence. Also due to steadfast winning combats by killing is better than winning by not dying as our combat units(bar skrox) rarely break steadfast.

 

[Ezeckiel]

Since you seem so sure that Life is a sub lore, you can't expect me not to ask you what Lore do you use and why it's soooooo much better than Life.

(Don't want to spoil but ..... Light or Death ???)

 

[Qupakoco]

There are plenty of LM players here that swear by Life. That should be evidence enough that it does indeed work.

First of the problem with life is the tendency for people to take temple guard with it. This leads to a very dangerous all the eggs in one basket problem as the slann cannot leave the unit and as the unit is worth over a 1000 points it has a massive target on its head.

That's pretty standard. I do it all the time. Don't forget that it also houses your General and (usually) BSB. Maybe even a Scar-Vet too!

I have never been in situation where I'd rather have 3-4 extra models in a unit or a buff/debuff for a combat.

I have.

Yes any buff will help but unless your opponent is a fool they can stop any one spell in a phase so unless its your slanns unit that's in combat, that's flesh to stone which not going off and is at best giving +2T as you will only get both it and throne off against a poor player(or IF twice which is 1/16).

You've got to draw out those Dispel Dice somehow. If he blocks both of those I can still regrow some more TG and give them Regen and Shield of Thorns. And hey, T6 is better than T4.

The shield of thorns will do 3 wounds when boosted to a t3 Sv5+ unit which is utterly irrelevant as it doesnt count for combat res and can't cause panic as you have to be in combat.

Fighting someone with Shield of Thorns (or a similar spell) is just one situation where I would rather have 3-4 more models in a unit. Potentially removing Steadfast and an extra rank do indeed count towards combat resolution.

 

[Eladimir]

I think life is excellent especially with a Slann TG unit.
Most of the "harmless" miscast table also involved killing all models in base contact with the slann or small templates. That can be 100 points with of TG which you don't usually run a ton of to begin with (20-25) so the miscast protection is excellent. The TG unit is also a target of alot of focus fire so when you finally get into combat you might not have enough bodies to last.

You say alot about how this lore only really protect one unit. Well in a Slann TG you have a 1000 points there thats really the only unit your focused on keeping alive and any extra spells on other units.

Just my two cents.

 

[strewart]

Life is a great lore in general - one of the best in the game. What you need to consider with a lore is not how powerful it is perceived to be, but how well it will mesh with and support your army. If you have a large unit of TG and a Slann, life could work well to keep them protected and impossible to break through. Points denial alone (~1000vp) is usually enough to at least draw a game if not win.

Overall though, I see a lot of merit in Irish_Lizard's points. Its true that the one buff just makes our very tough unit even tougher and life very much relies on getting dwellers off, which pretty much everyone knows about now.

For LM, I really think light is the most powerful lore. The ability to buff a large chunk of your army at once is simply amazing and can turn your army into an absolute killing machine. Death is also really really good, and I even like the look of shadow though it is probably at about the same level as life.

Magic doesn't win the game for you anyway ...

In 8th edition I think magic is as powerful as it has ever been and in many ways overpowered. I've tried running armies without a lvl4 wizard and it is almost impossible - all your spells get blocked and you can usually only stop 1 maybe 2 opponents spells per turn. Magic has an absolutely massive influence on the game and can easily swing it one way or another with just one good magic phase. Some armies definitely need it more than others, and LM are probably a bit more forgiving to a weak magic phase due to the high toughness and decent damage output of our main units, but certainly several armies (VC, TK, Beastmen to name a few) really can't survive without magic. Its one of the things I am disliking more and more about 8th edition.

 

[Kharn The Betrayer]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it is bad, but certainly it is not the best. I think that light, and shadow are better and death is about even with light. It's pretty hard to nuke someone with a purple sun when your whole battle line is i10 for light, or if they're dead in the case of death (it really is easy to kill characters when you can spam death snipes on the high ld slann)

 

[Ezeckiel]

I agree with latest posts. But every Lore has their weaknesses. Life is not a no-brainer neither. I play against lot of different armies. Almost all of them. I use Life in tourneys because it's all-around but almost never when I know who I'm gonna face. I choose my Lore in function of who I'm facing. For example Metal vs WoC or Bretts, Heavens (IF comets) vs Gun Lines (Dwarves or Empire), Light vs HE or DE, even Fire vs TK or Skaven.

It's just that saying that Life doesn't work is just wrong since you just have to look in your opponent's eyes to understand that it does ...

When his Scroll is gone, your enemy usually keeps his dices against dwellers. Then, you cast everything but dwellers ... The fact that your opponent is usually scared of dwellers is an advantage. (Until he realizes that you didn't try to cast it and his dispel dices are wasted.)

Life is great to put doubts in your opponent's head. That's the big advantage of having Loremaster with Life. Without Loremaster, I admit, I wouldn't use it as much.

Low casting values, Miscast protection, Great buffing, Awesome Attribute (at least for us), and Dwellers (most players agree that there is no LOS against dwellers).

Life is just beautifullll

 

[Irish_Lizard]

Since you seem so sure that Life is a sub lore, you can't expect me not to ask you what Lore do you use and why it's soooooo much better than Life.

(Don't want to spoil but ..... Light or Death ???)

Both! . Or at least that's what I've been running for the last 6 months ish and being doing rather well out of it. My lore rating would be: Light/Death/Shadow/Metal are the top 4 for dual slann builds and can be mixed and matched reasonably well (maybe not double metal) for all-comers lists.

For solo Slann I'm still testing but Heavens is looking strong as are Death,Metal and Fire. Shadow might work but I'm rarely allowed have 2 units of Salamanders and for combat builds I prefer 2 slann. Light doesn't offer enough on its own to a shooty list(mine) and cant deal with armor well enough in a combat build. Beasts is meh as Slann cant cast the 6th spell and the lore only has 2 non character combat buffs and does nothing for shooting lists. Life brings nothing to a shooty list and can only buff one unit in a combat list, which tends to then be ignored while the enemy cleans up the rest of your army.

T6 is better than T4

True but -2S to the enemy is even better than +2T as you then get +2AS as well, added to the fact that it's remains in play means enfeebling is just better.

Slann TG you have a 1000 points there thats really the only unit your focused on keeping alive and any extra spells on other units.

I really dislike this style of play as it is very inflexible and high risk, our units are so cheap, why make deathstars. They have a tendency to die to things like pit,sun and D13 along with their most common counter which is bigger and better deathstars. Knightstars, chosenstars, gutstars and dark elf coldone buses will trash a TG unit. Yes you'll keep your 1000pt deathstar against some, hell maybe even most armies but you'll lose the other 1500 for not much gain which is the problem with life. When 1500-0 is a maxed out win life simply isnt offensive enough.

@strewart see above as for why point denial doesnt work but I will agree that light is probably one of our best lores and that magic will handily win games single handed some times. For an interesting list with temple guard and light, have a look at the Czech etc list for 2012. I would never rely on it to win(even with 625 points of slann), but it can (and most of the time will) change the game drastically(even by threating to go off).

When his Scroll is gone, your enemy usually keeps his dices against dwellers.

Why would he scroll dwellers, flesh to stone is much more threatening? Dwellers is only a threat to big units of low strength troops that are expensive(nobody is going to scroll a dwellers at slaves, skeletons or goblins). The correct way to beat Life is stop throne every turn unless it's IF'd(so then stop everything else and dispel it in your turn for 2 dice) then scroll flesh to stone on the one important combat turn. Dwellers is 21+ to cast(if you're within 12" you want flesh to stone) so it needs 6 dice which makes it pretty obvious when you're not casting it.

(most players agree that there is no LOS against dwellers).

That completely changes the whole lore, but not enough to make it the top build for all-comers in a tournament. I havent seen a life slann win a tournament(Ireland or England) in about a year(even uncomped). Anybody have any records of winning life builds recently?

 

[Chunk]

Well, in my local area, Life is by far the most popular lore for any army that can take it. Unfortunately the players who use it see it as a crutch, something to mediate their mistakes on the battlefield. It also means they can be more reckless with their moving/close combat matchups, since they know they'll probably be able to buff the toughness/regen of their troops, and bring some back as well.

It also means they can be far more indiscriminate in the magic phase, once Throne of Vines has been cast. Of course, I always dispel Throne whenever it appears, which vexes them since their assumption is that as Throne isn't a directly offensive spell, the opposite player won't see it as a threat. Of course, we here know different, and dispelling that Throne means the player can no longer go all-out on spells they really want to get through, like Flesh to Stone or Dwellers.

Basically, players in my area use Life as a crutch-lore, whereas I use Light or Fire since in my opinion they're far less likely to fail me when I need them.

 

[venom_x51]

For me, it's the lore attribute that pulls me to Life more often than not. Being able to heal 1 wound every time a spell is cast is just too huge to pass up. It;s great having a Stegadon take a cannon ball to the face then getting healed back to full wounds next turn.

 

[Lord Tsunami]

I do understand that the title is "gentle" flaming to get attention for the topic, but i still have to protest a bit. It is simple nonsense to say that life does not work. it clearly DOES work for thousands of players around the world (me included). A more interesting thread would be one that says "lore XXX is better than lore of life because: YYY". You have correctly listed the flaws with lore of life, but all lores have flaws. you can take any lore and list its flaws, but that does not mean that particular lore "does not work".

I experimented a lot before i settled on life for my army. Light still looks better on paper to me, but i simply can not make it work properly in game. however, i know that thousands of other people play light and win games.

I know it sounds boring and a bit too close to your middle school teacher, but would it not be more fulfilling to go back, make a new post where you explain why you prefer your lore before life?



BTW, to say that dwellers will never get you VPs because it only removes half a unit is just silly. the same could be said about pit of shades and any other template spell. they only hit each model once, and since the chance of killing said model is less than 100% you will statistically never remove the last model (in 6 rounds that is). However, i would much rather fight 10 chaos warriors than 20. With your logic, only the Xd6-hits spells are worth their salt, since they can remove the last few models in a unit, but how often do you see posts complaining about fireball being overpowered? quite rarely i dare say.

 

[Irish_Lizard]

I do understand that the title is "gentle" flaming to get attention

Ok, you got me .

In fact I'll even confess that if I run temple guard then I will indeed take life as one miscast will ruin a temple guard unit and life is the only thing that can prevent that. On the flip side I just never run temple guard .

On the dwellers versus pit of shades argument pit is more used to deal with big low I monsters such as hydras, stanks and sphinxes or against low initiative multi wound models like ogres or trolls. With the monster you will get full points when the test is failed and if your opponent has poor positioning you can even get 2 with one spell. While these targets have high strength and are dwellers-proof unless a 6 is rolled(better off with the 3+ roll).

The problem with life is that dwellers kills stuff saurus can kill anyway(low strength hordes) and deals with armor and tough enemy characters(our main weakness) by simply hoping to make them bounce and break them on static. Other lores give you either an option to kill armor(metal/shadow) or enemy characters(death) while light does play similar to life(hit on 6's versus wound on 6's) it can be bubbled, protects against I based spells and increases the damage output along with providing solid magic missiles. I dont actually have a preferred lore, I've run with every lore except beasts in several combos and had success. I just find life is a lore that while it has a low learning curve(think log graph), it doesnt have the potential of other lores which are better but have a harder learning curve( more like an e^x graph).

The point of the thread was more to get other players thinking about using lores other than life rather than be a tactica for the one "true" lore.

 

[Scalenex]

I do understand that the title is "gentle" flaming to get attention

Ok, you got me .


The point of the thread was more to get other players thinking about using lores other than life rather than be a tactica for the one "true" lore.

I figured that was the motive. I approve. Anything that stimulates. I would say Life is the most used lore seen in the army list forum, but it doesn't hold a monopoly on magic by any means.

I used a Life Slann during a doubles tournament and if I get to team up with my Dwarf friend again. Team Short and Scaly will take a Life Slann the next time. Life is powerful but it is vanilla.

I would have a minor victory with an unorthodox list than an overwhelming victory with a vanilla list. I've had enough complicated battle plans go awry to convince me that sometimes simple is good. In friendly games, I rarely take the same lore twice. In my opinion in games where everyone is trying to optimize their list: the Slann have of Life or Death decision to make (pun intended).

 

[The Hunted]

I seem to be a tad late to the party , so I'm going to keep it short.

Life is a solid lore, rocksolid as one might say. But the reason I prefer the Lore of Light over Life is quite simple;
The lore of life is a REactive lore, and the lore of light is a more PROactive lore.

As I like to set the pace of the game, I don't like being reactive. In fact, I don't like to react at all on the battlefield, because if everything goes to plan; I don't have to react to anything! Now, unfortunately, not every game goes according to plan, but even then the Lore of Light has good tools to deal with any situation.

As one of my old teachers used to say: Position, Position, Position!..I'm referring to timewarp and net of amyntok. You can get out of the way, and they can't, though the latter is situational.


I feel that if things start going downhill with Life, you just keep being on the defense and reacting to your opponent. And, IMHO, the best defence is a good offence.


Hmm, not thát short...but I'll take it!

The Hunted