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Lvl 4 casters seem to be an automatic include in armies, even as low as 1500 points people will try to squeeze them in because they are very useful. But I would honestly like to spend my points elsewhere...
Some info about what I mean though is, I play as vampire counts, the only spells I 'really' want to get off is raise dead, invocation and vanhels and thats about it. I can even make do without vanhels or raise dead if need be and
to me it even seems as though I would benefit MORE from lower level wizards casting multiple invocations and raise deads then I would 1 level 4. I know there is the +4 to casting and dispel? Though with dice now primarily determined by a 2d6 roll do I really need that +4? Would I be able to survive a 2500pt game without falling apart over a +2 difference on my casters?

At the moment I'm currently looking at running 3x Lvl1's and 1x lvl 2, however the level 2 is on a corpse cart. However to have a level 4 as well would require me to lose the cart and or a level 1 and a level 2.

I'm just curious at if anyone knows how viable it is to not run a level 4, or if it really is a must have and a risk of my entire force falling apart for not taking one. Because ontop of the default points additional points need to be spent making sure said level 4 survives and before I know whats going on I could by over 100 zombies for that guy.

Well, here is my 2 pennies.


When you are at a negative to cast, your opponent can get away with using less dice to dispel. If you have something giving you +1, and your opponent has a +4, he has a three point advantage over you. The average roll on a die is 3.5, so you can use a whole less die per spell.

Now lets go completely average. It's your magic phase and you roll a three and a four. You have seven dice and your opponent has four. Leave channelling out of it for now, I've just finished work and maths rots the brain.

Say that you have a spell that needs six to pass. Such as Invocation. You have a wizard with level two and need four to pass. Four is just over average so you'd better use two dice. You can cast this spell three times as you have seven dice.

Now, your opponent only has four dice. In order to reach six, he only has to roll one dice to dispel it, provided you got exactly six. Now he can dispel four spells, and you can only get three off. So he has the advantage in your own magic phase, when the roll is reversed he will have an even bigger advantage.

I have never run a single lvl 4 in my Goblin army. The highest I have is 1 lvl 2 and then fill up the rest with lvl 1 shamans. 64% win rate.

You can also just accept that your opponent will have magic dominance until you kill his wizard. Some armies this is easier to do than others (especially with things like vargheists and varghulfs at your disposal) but once you kill the enemy's level 4 you no longer have to worry about the disadvantage! You usually won't need to regrow any troops until turn 3 anyways (unless it's a really shooty army you're playing against). That gives you two turns for your vargheists to find him.

As a Tomb King player, I ALWAYS have a lvl 4 in my armies, even as low as 1000 points. Even if I'm required to bring my generic Lore, the buffs are simply too useful, as well as the ease of casting/dispelling.

As a VC player it's lvl 4 all the time no exceptions.

I've toyed with doing a level 2 & using blasphemous tome on the mortis engine to get me casting at 4, combined with balefire to give my opponent -1 but the extra spells are just too much to give up.

Now with undead legions I may toy with lower wizard level as I can have a hierotitan for +d3 to cast anything and a mortis engine for +2 to LoV but even then I could be casting LoV at a +7 or +9 and that's just rediculous dominance.

I recently won an event with my sole wizard being a Warlord with the Hat of wizardry (and no dispell scroll, of course)
Often played with 2 lvl 1-2 with my Bretonnians
It definitely works

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
As a VC player it's lvl 4 all the time no exceptions.

I've toyed with doing a level 2 & using blasphemous tome on the mortis engine to get me casting at 4, combined with balefire to give my opponent -1 but the extra spells are just too much to give up.

Now with undead legions I may toy with lower wizard level as I can have a hierotitan for +d3 to cast anything and a mortis engine for +2 to LoV but even then I could be casting LoV at a +7 or +9 and that's just rediculous dominance.

Heirotitan won't work on Necromancers, so you wouldn't be able to use LoV with it.

Yes it will.

"While a friendly Nehekaran Undead Wizard is within 12"..."

Undead legions says if you are fielding units from tomb kings you replace EVERY instance of Nehekharan Undead with Undead.

Therefore the Hierotitan becomes "While a friendly Undead Wizard is within 12"..." so it does apply.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
Yes it will.

"While a friendly Nehekaran Undead Wizard is within 12"..."

Undead legions says if you are fielding units from tomb kings you replace EVERY instance of Nehekharan Undead with Undead.

Therefore the Hierotitan becomes "While a friendly Undead Wizard is within 12"..." so it does apply.

Huh, yeah, I thought it said Liche Priest, since some of the characters have "Liche Priest" in their unit type. Oh well, my bad. I guess Nagash is even more stupid powerful.

It says "Hierotitants act as a magical loci for the army's Liche Priests" But the actual rule about the bonus to cast only states Nehekharan undead. We may see an FaQ about it.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
It says "Hierotitants act as a magical loci for the army's Liche Priests" But the actual rule about the bonus to cast only states Nehekharan undead. We may see an FaQ about it.

I don't see why. It's works with Undead Wizards, not much to FAQ about it.

Wouldn't that mean that Nagash himself would benefit from being stat between those two as well?


Thats kinda powerful @.@ Hard to turn away from a Lvl 4 with the ability to gain that much of a boost

 Sasa0mg wrote:
Wouldn't that mean that Nagash himself would benefit from being stat between those two as well?


Thats kinda powerful @.@ Hard to turn away from a Lvl 4 with the ability to gain that much of a boost

Oh, Nagash? He's a lvl 5, not 4.

 Sasa0mg wrote:
Wouldn't that mean that Nagash himself would benefit from being stat between those two as well?


Thats kinda powerful @.@ Hard to turn away from a Lvl 4 with the ability to gain that much of a boost

Nagash is a lvl 5. So from lore of vampires he could get a potential +10.

I run mono Khorne WoC without any casters and I win 9 in 10 games. The last tournament I placed 3rd overall, but I managed to kill the most points overall with just over 12k points in six games. The average player did 1/2 that.

Thats not too suprising with chaos really or well, khorne xD I dunno. Nagash is a massive points sink, though with the legions 50% can be characters thats not so bad to fit in a lvl4 though I would love to use Nagash I don't see how you do it in under 3000pts.

Another pain with getting those big pluses is were does your hitting power come from, because rare points are all but taken up @.@

If you went up against me in the Magic phase, and my wondrous rolls of double 1's(not once--but TWICE IN ONE GAME!) for Winds of Magic?

Yeah, you'd be fine.

 Sasa0mg wrote:
Thats not too suprising with chaos really or well, khorne xD I dunno. Nagash is a massive points sink, though with the legions 50% can be characters thats not so bad to fit in a lvl4 though I would love to use Nagash I don't see how you do it in under 3000pts.

Another pain with getting those big pluses is were does your hitting power come from, because rare points are all but taken up @.@

Umm, Nagash can summon everything you need. =P Hitting power? Summon a SSC or a Necrosphinx. Need Chaff? Summon 50+ skeletons.

 Kanluwen wrote:
If you went up against me in the Magic phase, and my wondrous rolls of double 1's(not once--but TWICE IN ONE GAME!) for Winds of Magic?

Yeah, you'd be fine.

I've tried a LoreMaster a couple times, wiuth the reroll it seems like he'd be able to spam some spells on the cheap without an autofail on 1/,2. It's enormously inferior to an L4 even if the L4 doesn't take a buff. That +4 to cast on every spell means that if all you have is a +2, you need to be throwing more die to cast than they do to dispel. Given that they don't need to burn dice dispel until you have already passed, and they can skip a weaker spell if you roll 2d6 and get an 11, that's just too high a hill to climb IMO.

Purple Sun and such make the magic phase broken for me. I know they need to exist to combat deathstars and such, but I don't like it when a game is essentially over top of turn 1 because someone managed to IF a spell on six dice and it scattered the right way. The solution to a broken mechanic shouldn't be another broken mechanic, especially when some armies (Dwarfs) don't even get access to them while being the worst at dodging that thing (tied with Ogres and just barely ahead of the zombie battery.)