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Looking around, I see quite a lot of disucssion regarding the various Lores of Magic, and the various uses thereof, but not a lot (i.e. I've seen not a trace) of discussing how to combine the various Learned Lores of Hurtyblastsneakydeath.

It seems to me we are overlooking some incredibly potent spells of squelching, and doing a disservice to some Lores.

And thus, I have thrown open the doors to the College of Magic, a place where we can discuss the various ins and outs of combining multiple Lores, from the 8 Colleges in the Rulebook, and all the race-specific Lores out there. And just because you might be limited to your race's Lore (hello Orcs and Goblins and Ogres!) thanks to the Wizarding Hat, we can look into this slightly ropier potential.

So over to you, whilst I go and dig out my Spell Deck!

Well, the one issue with coming up with "spell combos" is during most magic phases, you'll be lucky to get off more than one spell.
With the randomization of generating magic dice, and the really high cost for a lot of spells that could work in a "combo," the best combos involve magic, and another phase of the game. IE: Flaming sword on a unit of RXB, then shooting into a big nasty.

A couple combos that come to mind:

Enfeebling foe/dwellers below
Melkoth's mystifying miasma/pit of shades (or purple sun)
Enchanting blades (or whatever the lore of metal spell is) / flaming sword of rhuin
Comet of Cassandora / Melkoth's mystifying miasma (dropping movement to keep units closer to the comet)
The -3 LD spell from death / anything that can force a panic check (via 25% casualties, or other)
The Withering/Fate of Bjuna
Enfeebling Foe/the other death spell


That's all I can think of without grabbing the book itself. The problem with a lot of those spells, is they have casting values in the 10-13+ range. Needing an average of 3 dice to cast, and your opponent usually having enough dispel dice to stop one of them, makes planning for "combos" not really the best idea.

I should know, I went to Da Grand Waaagh! with 5 games under my belt with my dark elves, and went there expecting to abuse lore of shadow/dark spell synergy, didn't work once over a 5 game tournament.

You're better off aiming to get spells off that aren't reliant on needing another spell that turn cast to make it effective.

P.S. - of course, there are subjects to the rule, mainly slann and their free dice, Teclis/book of hoeth, power scrolls, etc...

Oh you need the right caster and the right opportunities for sure.

But that's hardly a limiting factor. The other alternative is to look at which Lores are best off on lower casters (the complimentary stuff).

Just having a shuffle through my cards, and I've noticed something which could work very well for High Elves. A bit of Glittering Robe (to give 5+ Scaly Skin, for a measly 9+ tp cast) then the ubiquitous Earthblood (8+ to cast), and suddenly even your normally pansy troops become incredibly tough to shift. Imagine bunging these two onto Swordmasters. 3+ Armour, and a 5+ Regen.... Hell, stick it on your basic Spears for added hilarity. You could even for for the triple combo, and use Enfeebling Foe or The Withering to really put your opponent up against it.

And if you are facing a particularly unpleasently large Horde, then Cascading Firecloak can be chucked in for lots of additional hits.

All cheapo spells to cast, no matter who is slinging them around. Best bit of this plan is that the Spells have a positive effect on their own, meaning a low power phase need not entirely derail your plans. Indeed, I wish to venture that it is depending entirely on the big bang spells that sees your plans ruined, rather than going for a series of cheaper ones, hoping for the synergy.

And it goes without saying, you also need the correct combination of spells rolled up!

Mr Mystery wrote:Oh you need the right caster and the right opportunities for sure.

But that's hardly a limiting factor. The other alternative is to look at which Lores are best off on lower casters (the complimentary stuff).

That is the main limiting factor imo.

Sure it's nice to have these spells planned out on paper but I have found that you can't rely on magic. You never know what spells you will roll and how many dice you will get. Are they good things to plan on? Yes, you should have a plan for your magic phase but getting it to work without lots of luck/help is a rare thing (in my experience at least).

I think the combos that are listed are solid game plans but you should not base your army around getting 1 spell or combination of spells to work.

As far as Mr. Mystery's spell combo getting off for high elves, all they need to do is have 1 lvl 2 mage take high magic and 1 lvl 2 take the lore of metal and the magic item that lets you choose your spells instead of rolling them. the lvl 2 with high magic can always trade for the 5+ ward spell no matter what he rolls. that combo is sound, i may have to try it

Casper wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:Oh you need the right caster and the right opportunities for sure.

But that's hardly a limiting factor. The other alternative is to look at which Lores are best off on lower casters (the complimentary stuff).

That is the main limiting factor imo.

Sure it's nice to have these spells planned out on paper but I have found that you can't rely on magic. You never know what spells you will roll and how many dice you will get. Are they good things to plan on? Yes, you should have a plan for your magic phase but getting it to work without lots of luck/help is a rare thing (in my experience at least).

I think the combos that are listed are solid game plans but you should not base your army around getting 1 spell or combination of spells to work.

And yet this seems to be a popular thing to do. A lot of the time, I am told things like ' unit x is no good because of spell a ' like the casting of said spell, let alone it's appearance in a given list is an assured thing.

Indeed the College of Magic is about breaking this mold, of depending upon a single nasty spell, and instead looking at the tactical application of multiple Lores within an army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another quick example.

Vampire, Lore of Death, Vampire, Lore of Fire.

Smack an enemy unit with -3 Ld, then chuck Flaming Sword on your Skellingtons. Suddenly, you have a real crack at those otherwise 'a bit naff in a fight' Skellies hitting on 2+, something your opponent might not expect.

So come on, stop looking for obstacles and start searching for combos you can cast. If it helps, why not tot up the total casting cost (minus of course any Wizard Levels) and see how many dice, on average, you'd need to roll to cast it.

If I have some free time, I'll look at some spells.

As far as removing obstacles, that's a bad thing to do, as remembering those obstacles exist might help make *better* combos.

In a best case scenario for any given wizard, you're looking at 12 power dice to your opponent's 6. That +6 is essentially what you can reliably try to cast with. With the average on 6 dice being somewhere around 21...you can either try for one of the "big" spells (dwellers, pit, sun, razor, etc..) or try to do those wonky 2-3 spell combos, remembering they still need 9+ each (5+ if on a lvl 4) to cast. So possible, but the more dice you have to roll, sometimes can hurt.

In an average scenario, you have 7 dice and your opponent 4-6. Let's say 4. So now you have an effective 3 dice to cast with. Basically you can throw one "bait" spell, trying to get rid of his dice, and get one real cast attempt in.

That's where I'm coming from with it's hard to strategically come up with combos.

But if you're just theorizing here, I guess I can join in.

How about a 2fer from shadow:
Okkam's razor on a unit of corsairs with a master in the unit for S9. Follow it with the withering on a Steam Tank to drop it to T7. Bye Bye steam tank. (that combo, needing a wopping 34 on dice before modifiers)

The Lores seem to work pretty well with the WoC lores which have rather low costs to cast. I am looking forward to dropping Doom and Darkness (-3 Ld) on an enemy general and following up with the Slaaneshi spell that causes everyone within (I think 18") to take a panic check. Pretty cheap combo and forcing everyone to deal with the General's new -3 Ld will be fun.
Requires some lucky rolling though, and I don't know that I wouldn't rather just have purple sun

With lizardmen i often use pha's protection (light) and iceshard blizzard (heavens) to get protection from both shooting and CC, if i'm lucky enough i might even get curse of the midnight wind in (heavens again) to make a unit nigh unhittable in combat (hit on 6+ (5+ if WS allows) re-roll all 6's). And all that from low casting value spells – 23 to cast all 3.

Right, seeing as the thread is disappointingly quiet, I'm off to grab my Magic Deck, pick three Lores at relative random, and see what nice tricks I can come up with.

First up.....High Magic, Death and Heavens. High was on the top of the deck (not sure why. Not like I play High Elves!) and the others were picked at random from the stack. So, without further ado....

For a total of 30 to cast (and assuming a level 2, and a level 4, that drops to a relatively realistic 20) you kick out....Soulblight (9+) to drop the enemies toughness, then follow up with a little Hexy Goodness of Curse Of The Midnight Wind, to mess with his saves, then the coup de grace, Flames of the Phoenix for 11+ to wallop his unit back into place, and not just this turn! Cast successfully (I know I know, potentially wishful thinking) this will take the much feared unit of Skavenslaves down nicely...drops them to T2, they save very few, and you'll be wounding around 66% of the unit. Indeed this goes for *any* Horde unit of T3 standard. Even against T4, you're wounding half the unit. Then the fun really kicks in when Flames keeps on kicking in your opponents Magic Phase (at the start no less!).

So pretty naughty overall, no?

Righty..I'll give this a try...
A few tricks with High Elves
Here its worth noting certain Magic Items that High Elves got that will help these ideas : Banner of Sorcery and Jewel of Dusk will generate an average of 3 more dices each magic phase, Silver Wand and Seerstaff of Saphery, Silver Wand will allow you to roll another spell giving you a greater chance of getting the spells you want and Seerstaff on Saphery will allow the wizard to choose his spells eliminating the rolling as an issue. I will not work around the Book of Hoeth or Teclis since those are mainly to get of a single big spell of each turn(opinions may vary)
Quick info about the High Magic spells I will use for those who don't have the cards or the High Elves rulebook.
Curse of Arrow Attraction, re-roll all missed shooting attacks against a unit, 6+
Flames of the Phoenix, remains in play that hits an entire unit with an increesing strength each magic phase its up with a "cheap" casting of 11+
Vaul's Unmaking, Turns a magic item into a mundane version, 12+ casting

First off High Magic and Lore of Fire, Curse of Arrow Attraction and Flaming Sword of Rhuin, to make rather bad shooting into better shooting, also worth noting that a flaming Repeater Boltthrower has its uses against certain types of regenerating critters.

High Magic and Lore of Metal, Curse of Arrow Attraction and Enchanted Blades of Aiban, like Flaming Sword of Rhuin a attempt to improve shooting. Flames of the Phoenix and Plague of Rust, decreesing the targets armour save will make even Chaos Warriors, Dwarves, Knights fear the flames after a few casts, also possible to add Transmutation of Lead for a faster effect. Flames of the Phoenic and Final Transmutation, two "unit killer" spells with rather low cast so its quite possible to get both off even with rather low winds of magic roll.

High Magic and Lore of Shadow, The Withering and Flames of the Phoenix, reducing the toughnes by an average of 2 means that Flames of the Phoenix will hurt toughness 3 on 2+ and toughness 4 on 3+ the first turn. Also they are both remains in play wich will force the opponent to use up their own power dices if they fail to stop you from casting them.
You can also add more remains in play to this, both Lore of Shadows and High Magic got a fair number of them compared to some lores. Also this is not as much magic combos but its worth noting that High Elves Armies taking Banner of Sorcery and Jewel of Dusk will get an average if 3 more dices each magic phase so its fairly possible to get alot of dice against a rather low amount.

High Magic and Lore of Life, Flames of the Phoenix and Dweller's Bellow, cast Flames of the Phoenix first and give the opponent the choice to save dispel dices for Dweller's Bellow or dispel Flames of the Phoenix, or cast Dweller's Bellow first and force them to save a few dispel dices against Flames of the Phoenix instead of using enough to overkill your casting value to be sure.
Also in the spirit of more than one Remains in Play spell, Flames of the Phoenix and Throne of Thorns

High Magic and Lore of Death, Vaul's Unmaking and Spirit Leech/The Caress of Laniph/The Fate of Bjuna, Hero with 2+ Ward save against spells giving you trouble? Chaos Badguy laughing because he is immune to lore of death? Then this might work for you! Use Vaul's Unmaking first to see what magic items their is in the intended target unit( your opponent have to reveal them all), then choose the one that will protect the target the most and turn it to a cheap trinket.

Hmm...thats alot about High Elves..I'll add something that more armies can use

Lore of Fire and Lore of Heavens, Fulminating Flame Cage and Wind Blast, cast Fulminating Flame Cage first and then "push" them(I am in this case asuming that this counts as moving, issues may arise) and make them feel the pain. Fulminating Flame Cage and Comet of Casandora, if the comet does not land in your turn the oppenent will have to try and move out and take the Fulminating Flame Cage hits or certainly get hit in the head by the comet. If they move away and the comet still don't land you can Wind Blast them back to the tokens and cast Fulminating Flame Cage again.

Thats all I can think of at the moment...feel free to point out any errors I've made and/or improve the ideas.

Iratus Custodis wrote:I am in this case asuming that this counts as moving, issues may arise.

Sadly not, but they still take damage from wind blast as explained in the spell's description of what happens to units, that cannot move, hit with it.
As for your other suggestions, i hope none of my local HE players get wind of this thread

Hmm...Fulminating Flame Cage does not prevent a unit from moving(so they will not suffer any damage from Wind Blast unless they hit something) so the only problem I see is whatever being "pushed" by Wind Blast counts as moving in this case. I might be missing something though, I do that from time to time.

LOL i thought you meant net of amyok for some reason
After checking the flamecage rules i realised you where indeed correct as it says that if the target moves for any reason it gets burned again, nice find

Ah, I see.
That reminds me of another possible combo, Net of Amyntok and Comet of Casandora, only reliable against low strength units though(rather evil against Teclis actually) and okay against strength 3 I guess..you could add a strength reducing spell like Soulblight or The Enfeebling Foe also. Or just use Net of Amyntok and Soulblight/The Enfeebling Foe to prevent a unit to to more or less anything, worth noting you have to pass a strength test EACH time you cast spell a while affected by the Net of Amyntok so its a rather good anti-wizard combo.

Depends on the bunker the wizard is in, since the str test is taken on a per unit basis the highest str in the unit is used, still combined with enfeebling it turns into brutal way to neuter an enemy death star.

This is confusing...last time I checked the rulebook I was 110% sure I read it uses the lowest strength value in the unit...now when I check that line is nowhere to be found.
My bad, but I blame global warming(because everything seems to be caused by that nowadays).

See the last paragraph of the characteristic tests rule in the BRB (page 10).

I got another idea of another possible combination that only requires Lore of Metal spells, so a bit limited in its uses against certain armies.
Plague of Rust/Transmutation of Lead and Searing Doom, this works best when you got more than one high armour save unit you want to kill in range,
first cast Plague of RustTransmutation of Lead on one of the targets, now the opponent could fall into your trap that you are after to lower his saves and try and dispel this, either way he uses up dices, then if he dispels it cast Searing Doom(boosted version if needed).
Its quite possible that the opponent won't think you want to cast this spell on a unit you lower the save on since who would decreese his own chance to kill stuff? so might feel safe enough in using up dices to stop the hex(es) leaving you in a better chance of getting Searing Doom off.
If he/she won't dispel it or fail, you can throw the Searing Doom on the other unit.
Might be worth noting that this could work more or less just as good or possible better against a single unit since then the opponent won't be sure what your intent on that unit is instead of seeing two possible targets for the wizard and decides to save some more dices.

Iratus Custodis wrote:Its quite possible that the opponent won't think you want to cast this spell on a unit you lower the save on since who would decreese his own chance to kill stuff? so might feel safe enough in using up dices to stop the hex(es) leaving you in a better chance of getting Searing Doom off.

Not quite. Read the lore attribute.

It says unmodified armour saves.

My new favorite combo, is two lore of metal spells:

Enchanted blades + glittering robes.

My lvl 2 (with tome so knows 3 spells) has used this combo to turn my corsairs into a killy, resilient unit. The low casting values (both needing 9+) makes it not too difficult to get off, actually. My main caster usually sucks up the opponent's dispel dice, then with a nice little power of darkness, I go to town with them.

Do you have a cauldron as well? Because that would be really tasty, tacking on a killing blow...

Nah, I have to draw the line somewhere. I already take 2 hydras, I think adding a cauldron would be a bit much...

greenbay924 wrote:Nah, I have to draw the line somewhere. I already take 2 hydras, I think adding a cauldron would be a bit much...

Cauldrons aren't cheesy, though. It's 200 points for a Cauldron; it darn well better do something useful or else I should've taken another unit of 20 Witches/Corsairs instead.

Yeah, but spend the extra 25, and you have a 4 wound, T10 4+ ward BSB, that can't be taken out by war machine hunting crews easily.

Oh, believe me, I do every game. I still don't really consider it cheesy considering it's now 225 points and can only attack things that go out of their way to attack it and only moves 5" a turn. A Master BSB could at least assist a block of infantry in killing or even better a Pegasus Master can fly about applying BSB and melee assistance where necessary.

In any case, I didn't mean to contribute to derailing this thread.