Topic: The Colleges of Magic Rankings

[Ludwig von Blucher]

So, a few months after the new book and the dust is settling. I was wondering what people's thoughts on the Lores of Magic were?

I'm aware that it relies on the army taken, but I'm a assuming a general 2k(ish) build. If I were an Imperial general trawling around Altdorf for level 4 wizards to join my army, this is the order I'd hire them, most powerful first:

1. Lore of Life
2. Lore of Metal
3. Lore of Light
4. Lore of Shadow
5. Lore of Death
6. Lore of Beasts (swap with shadow in Cavalry heavy list)
7. Lore of Fire
8. Lore of Heavens

Life's got it all, killing deathstar unit spells, a spell to make that 50 man halberdier unit T7, and all the while putting wounds back on that STank and unit of chicken riders. Metal is for my money the best lore in the game, but for most Empire Armies I think Life is slightly ahead. (If you take Gelt then the top two switch places)

As for Fire, pfft, cannons and HVG are better artillery and the DD Spells? a unit of handgunners can't be dispelled! And Heavens? Has the worst spell in the game (wind blast) and why would you want your opponent to spread out? (comet)

Anyone rank them differently (and why)

[Harshey]

I almost exclusively play with heavens with empire, and am pretty successful. And every time I try a different lore I tend to lose. Wind blast isn't the greatest spell, but then again neither is aspect of the dread knight, or purple sun against an army of elves. Magic is situational, and I find that Heavens does something against all armies.

It lets you manipulate the dice for you and your opponent.
It has damage spells (something some other lores are light on)

[csjarrat]

Dont overlook fire and heavens. Both have excellent table usage for certain builds and opponents.
Re-rolling ones from heavens is pretty golden with knights, and "why would you want your opponent to spread out" is a pretty dumb question, because it forces him to open flanks and move into sub optimal positions to avaoid damage. Thats exactly the kind of thing you can take advantage of.

Fire is good against MSU armies, low casting cost can help mince throughh units, especially in conjunction with bound spell items and lvl2 support.

Life is sooo boring. Throne, dwellers, yawn. Id take light over life any day.

[finngoalie]

I tend to use Shadow the most because of my opponents, followed by Light, Metal, Life. Haven't used the other lores.

[Noght]

Life is great.  Just not for Empire IMO.   Depends on the Army.  Interesting ranks though.  Light used to be my "go to all comer" Lore.  Now I randomize and skip Shadow, not an Empire lore, great Elf Lore.

[Harshey]

Yeah, I used shadow in my last game against skaven and it wasn't very helpful.

[librisrouge]

The Golden College (Lore of Metal) is clearly the best college and anybody that disagrees is obviously some ignorant rube. At least that is what Lord Balthasar tells me  He seems legit.

Besides that, I'm fond of Fire, Light, and Life. In that order strangely. It isn't that I think Fire is very effective but he's my only fully painted wizard and Fire is just so iconic for the Empire. Plus, pew pew pew.

[Count]

Actually, one of my favorite wizards is a level one beast wizard with the signature spell and VHS...I use him to neutralize champions in enemy units...and hopefully to buff them the horde he is in...

[zifnab0]

Life is great.  Just not for Empire IMO.

I've loved rockin' Life lately.  Cast a low Throne to draw dispel dice then get off Flesh to Stone for +2T on my knights, healing my steam tank or a nearby character in the process.  T5 / 1+ doesn't lose very many combats.

The rest of the spells are decent enough, but I've found Flesh to be my favorite buff.

[Noght]

Life is great.  Just not for Empire IMO.

I've loved rockin' Life lately.  Cast a low Throne to draw dispel dice then get off Flesh to Stone for +2T on my knights, healing my steam tank or a nearby character in the process.  T5 / 1+ doesn't lose very many combats.

The rest of the spells are decent enough, but I've found Flesh to be my favorite buff.

Ok, I admit I'm biased.  It never made sense to Regrow and toughness buff stuff because Empire troops were cheap.  I love it for Elves because they are expensive.  I guess Empire is now a more moderately priced Army.  I'll have to revisit...

Dispelling a Life Mage is like a algorithm.  Less than 7 dice, let Throne through and dispel the Dwellers, flip if 8 or more....

[EmpiresArsenal]

I love metal, then probably life. However I always randomize every battle. Seems more fun and challenging. And it also takes advantage of playing as the empire, not many armies get to select any of the 8 lores.

[eriktheguy]

Heaven is great. Midnight wind is great against poisoned shooters (skaven, lizards) who can kill our war machines. Iceshard can mess with such shooting and helps in the artillery duel. Harmonic convergence is freaking amazing for all our knights that can only fail armor saves on a 1 against S3 or S4 attacks. Comet is great area denial, it can force enemies to move into range of your HBVGs (great, since HBVG heavy lists suffer against enemies with good shooting longer than 30'').

Wind blast has uses. Push a unit peeking over a hill and suddenly it can't charge next turn. Wind blast one unit in front of another and mess up your opponent's next music phase. Be creative.

[rothgar13]

In terms of overall utility for Empire, here's my list and rationale:

1. Lore of Light - Fixes Empire troops' mediocre stats, and it features some nice direct damage spells to counter chaff and Ethereals. My personal favorite among the Lores.
2. Lore of Life - Dwellers is obviously great, and the buffs help Empire troopers as well as cavalry. And let's not forget Regrowth.
3. Lore of Fire - While the usefulness of some of the spells is matchup-dependent, Flaming Sword of Rhuin (especially on artillery) and Fulminating Flame Cage are both great on this army.
4. Lore of Shadows - Arguably the best Lore in the game when you look at it in a vacuum, but Empire doesn't really exploit it the way some armies (notably Elves) do.
5. Lore of Metal - The buffs help out the shooting troops as well as the CC boys, and it also counters armored troops well. Empire uses it better than most, but I'm still not sold on the Lore because of its conditional nature.
6. Lore of Heavens - Harmonic Convergence is great, and a well-stocked Comet can nuke things off the board, but the rest of the Lore is rather "meh".
7. Lore of Beasts - Empire can benefit from it if it character-spams (which is something you can definitely do), but otherwise it's rather so-so.
8. Lore of Death - A good Lore... just not for Empire. Battle Wizards don't want to hover that close to the foe, and the higher casting values mean that this Lore needs extra power dice to truly be effective (something Empire doesn't have).

[Krokz]

I tried life and didn't like it. Its good on the defensive but my core needs offence to be competitive.

Light works best for me. Its got very good buffs and direct damage and the most important part: its low casting cost. Most of stuff gets through with 3 dices or less so I can avoid miscast and leave some dices to priest.

I found heavens and beast good to. Haven't tried metal yet. Shadow is to expensive on the dice.

[Joelatron]

lvl4 with metal for me and lvl2 with light.

Metal provides all the tools to deal with the really hard to deal with stuff (high armour saves), a nuke spell that can be cast on 4 dice, and a few really, really, really useful buffs/hexes. Unless vs High Elves, OnG or Demons, the double "nuke spell" threat of searing doom and final transmutation means you will get the hexes/buffs through + the occasional nuke spell. This lore has the most "TAKE IT OFF!" potential of any of the lores.

I pair it with a lvl2 with light. Burning Gaze gives a way to deal with big scaries that have no armour save (HPA), and also provides a counter to DoC and OnG nerfing of searing doom. the 2nd spell will be either another MM, or a very useful hex/buff-so win all round.

And the best part, is that all these spells have decent range (so lvl4 and 2 can sit back in archer bunker out of trouble) while knights and demigriffs benefit from the magic with Arch LEctor prayers in ICKS to keep my opponent guessing.

Fire is good in small games when dont want to spend points on shooting.
Shadow is too situational for me and is too obvous as to what you intend to do each magic phase (so easy to stop).
Heavens is interesting, but never used it.
Beasts is the BEST (woodie player at heart-and experimenting with Highelf character heavy beasts lists)
Life is the most boring lore of them all, so I avoid it like the plague.
Death is awesome, but I dont like the range implications (need to get lvl4 too close to the front line).
 

[Ludwig von Blucher]

"why would you want your opponent to spread out" is a pretty dumb question, because it forces him to open flanks

Life is sooo boring. Throne, dwellers, yawn. Id take light over life any day.

It might just be the way I play but I prefer my opponents bunched up, multiple units hit by cannons, units tripping over each other, the chance to overrun into existing combats, and if the opponents battle line covers the width of the board it's far more difficult to outflank. Could be why I love messing up Ogres!

As for Life, I completely agree. It is super boring and so I never use it (my lvl 4 is a gold wizard) I do think it's the best though...

[Hieronymus]

Hmm - if you are only looking at Level 4s. Before I start, I would say that some armies are just inimicably linked to certain lores, but that is something that Empire has never really had to worry about - pretty much all of them are good, it just depends on your playstyle.

I wish there were some way we were able to get Loremaster on our non-special character wizards, or at least able to pick spells. I thought the Hurricanum/Luminark would be a good call here, but alas, it was not to be.

1) Light - makes up for our state troops having rather inadequate statlines. With Shem's and Banishment there is good shooting potential as well. The ability to make a coven of light, which Empire can do rather easily, should not be underestimated.
2) Heavens - because the two re-roll spells are really good. Curse is great versus poison and killing blow, the latter our Knights are very uncomfortable with. Harmonic Convergence is just an all-round great spell - everyone fears a roll of '1' and this spell allows you to re-roll them for a whole bunch of different tests. Iceshard Blizzard is actually pretty good if you take the time to use it propely - because -1 LD  can really start to tip odds against people. Comet is just so useful for controlling the board, if your opponent hides his army behind a hill, make him pay for it. If he wants to come at you, make a minefield of comets between the two of you. The Lore attribute is great for dealing with flying chaff, as let's face it, our BS shooting doesn't like dealing with skirmishers! Also, if you don't understand the majesty of double helblaster harmonic convergence then try it out.
3) Shadow - It's not just the awesome power of Mindrazor, but Withering, Enfeebling and Miasma are also just great spells to have at your disposal. It gets number three because the casting values need a Level 4 really. Miasma has a nice low casting value, and if you use it intelligently, you can draw out dice very handily.

It's all a bit of a blur after that:

Death/Metal/Fire
Life/Beasts

Surprised at how much people are liking Life - I really don't care for it. It is a boring Lore, I personally feel it's pretty much hedging your bets as much as possible, which just doesn't appeal to me at all. For other armies it is acceptable, it's just not that interesting. Doesn't help you bloodily dismember/burn/explode your enemies in a suitably visceral way - therefore, not for me.

[Hieronymus]

Whoops, double post. Sorry.

[humanityunited]

Some people may find it unfair, but I don't mind tailoring my magic against specific opponents to make my list more effective, so this is what I would get for my L4 Wizard.

Death against low initiative armies: Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Ogres, Orcs and Goblins. My Death Wizard is mounted on a horse.
Light against Daemons and Undead. Also, it would be my choice for an all-comers list.
Metal against Warriors of Chaos and Bretonnia, to turn their high armour saves against them.
Fire against Skaven.
Life is good for an all-comers list. I also like Flesh to Stone a lot, especially after casting Throne. Everyone hates T7 knights. That said, I enjoy aggressive magic more and haven't used Life for a long time. Dwellers is aggressive enough against Elves though.
Shadow is also good against low initiative armies, I just prefer Death against them because it can be more catastrophic imo.
I've never tried Heavens and Beasts.

[Cecil]

This is a from an Empire point of view taking my own playstyle into consideration (where prayers, bound items etc need to share the PD with the wizards).

1. Shadow - Several game winning spells and a very powerful signature spell. Boring/Cheesy imho so not using except on level 1/2 sometimes.
2. Life - Although spells are expensive it can be devastating. Boring imho so not using. Requires a level 4 imho.
3. Heavens - My top pick. Powerful buffs and debuffs and work perfectly for a mounted list.
4. Beasts - Powerful signature spell, powerful anti-movement-spell. Using on a level 1/2 if I'm using.
5. Light - One of my favourites. Work great on bigger blocks but short range spells make it hard to use. Great in synergy with prayers, heavens
6. Death - Can be absolutely amazing but in a defensive playstyle (win dice, spam purple sun) or in a kamikaze playstyle since snipe spells have short range. Not a favourite - except fluff wise.
7. Fire - Should be higher cause of one of the best anti movement spells, and buffs, and a great signature but rarely works for me.
8. Metal - Too situational spells.

[Ludwig von Blucher]

8. Metal - Too situational spells.

A LOT of people say Metal's only good against Chaos and Dwarves. While it is great against them, when is +1 to hit (magically and flaming!) or +2 armour save, or take off a third of your best unit ever bad?

[Eighty]

straight up heavens is my go to lore for tournaments   

comets can force him to move if hes bunkered up, they can make him hesitant to move forward if hes being too aggresive (no one likes running INTO comet markers)

ice shard blizzard has straight up won me more combats than i can count.

Its true that windblast and the lightening spells arent that great, but man. the rest of the lore more than makes up for it.

Having said that i have played with all the lores except death (its a great lore, but i just dont like it or its range)

my ranking would be

1) heavens
2) light
3) shadow

tertiary tier
Metal
Beasts
Life
Fire

hiss Boo, get off my lawn tier
Death

[librisrouge]

It funny to me that most players seem to have a determined goto Lore and that we're so varied with it. Light, Beasts, Life, Shadows, Metal, and Heavens all see very common usage but a few players even like the others.

Reflects on why I love this forum. We're a startlingly accurate reflection of the Empire.

Also, metal is best.

[Siberius]

I think it's also a case of good job GW on that front. I often struggle to choose which lore I want to take, even with my 2or3 choice only armies like beasts. Great balance all round. The lores I never seem to use are fire and light and that's not because they are bad at all. Just not my go to's .

The only sad thing is that some of the army book lores don't balance so well. I never take dark magic or lore of the wild any more. They just don't have the range of options and bonuses that the 8 lores do.

[Keith Rowland]

For level 4 wizards I personally like Metal the best. It's always worked very well for me.

After that I would us Heavens and Light.

Below that would be Fire, Life and Shadow.

For level 1 or 2 wizards Beasts works nicely as does Fire.

I wouldn't consider Death at all.