I have made a lot of thoughts about the new universal lore that ET: Nagash introduced that I want to share. I can�?Tt share any actual rule due to copyright and forum rules, but I can give an overview, which I feel is lacking, probably due to the lack of available books. I also own ET: Khaine as well as the VC and TK armybooks so I believe I can answer questions and shed light for some of you guys, who don�?Tt have acces to all of this.
DISCLAIMER: This thread is not about fluff, GWs market value, sales policies, 9th edition rumours or anything aside from an objective look on the possibilities the Lore of Undead brings to the table. I�?Tm mad about many of these changes as well, but we have other threads to discuss these things.
Why even discuss Lore of Undead?
The Lore of Undead is useable by Chaos Dwarfs, therefore we should consider it.
Your opponents can use it. Know your enemy! Rumours from the latest ET tournaments reports the terrors that mushroom eating, undead summoning Night Goblin Shamans bring to the table, so we might as well get an understanding of the Lore.
What is Magic of the End Times?
This is a special rule from ET: Khaine, that any player can call in effect before the game. It reworks the magic phase in many ways, but I�?Tll list some snippets so you get the general idea.
1: A wizard always know any spell in his chosen lore (This makes level 1 wizards quite versatile)
2: Instead of rolling 2D6 for Winds of Magic, you roll 4D6 to get your Power Dice (The two highest results go to the dispel pool of the opponent)
3: A spell can be cast an unlimited amount of times per Magic phase, as long as it�?Ts Casting Value is below 15+ and it haven�?Tt been fail casted earlier in the same magic phase.
4: When attempting to cast a spell, you roll a D6 which determines how many dice you are allowed to use to cast the spell. The same applies when attempting to dispel. (This makes lores with multiple spells with low Casting Values significantly better)
What is the Pros and Cons of Lore of Undead?
Lore of Undead (LoU) is the first lore introducing Summoning Spells, which lets you conjure units onto the battle field, which doesn�?Tt grant the opponent any victory points and can�?Tt be dispelled after the unit is placed. To be able to summon unbreakable chaff is pretty strong, but the lore won�?Tt let you delete units like a Dwellers or Purple Sun. The Lore has 4 summoning spells, and 3 spells which doesn�?Tt do a lot, but gives you a chance to generate Raise Dead Counters for the Lore Attributes, which is counters that let you summon more points. Without Magic of the End Times, this makes taking the lore very chancy, since a bad roll let you get stuck with some downright bad spells. The summoning spells are limited to a range of 12�?o and are kind off limited in the points value (between 50 to 200 points). At the same time, the casting cost for the summoning spells range between 9 and 24. Magic of the End Times�?T limited power dice usage makes high casting cost neigh impossible to achieve without Irresistible Force, which hurts Chaos Dwarf extra hard due to Sorcerer�?Ts Curse.
My overall impression is, that the Lore isn�?Tt in any way �?othe best choice�?� but it certainly brings a lot of versatility and utility to the player who understands how to use it. In an all comers, tournament environment, many lores are kinda situational (Lore of Metal against low armor opponents fx), but with Lore of Undead you can raise a wizard on 10+, who now all the spells from lore of Light, Dead, Vampire or Nehekhara. This is pretty good with Magic of the End Times.
Overview:
I have made a PDF table to illustrate the limits of the summoning spells
When would this Lore help me as a Chaos Dwarf player?
Since the point values don�?Tt scale with the size of the game, this lore will be very bad in large games, and very overpowered in smaller games.
A local 500-1000 pts tournament? Bring LoU! A legendary 4000 pts battle? Don�?Tt bring LoU!
Playing with Magic of the Endtimes? Consider bringing it, but don�?Tt get blinded by its potential. Lore of Death and Metal are still very good and Fire is pretty strong with Magic of the End Times. If you aren�?Tt playing with Magic of the End Times I won�?Tt recommend it.
Got a war machine gunline that needs protection? Consider it. Got a Tauras/Lammasu riding Sorc-prophet? Take Death instead!
Have a ton of undead models? Try it for fun! Considering going all in and buying a shitton of undead models? Don�?Tt do it. It won�?Tt be rewarding enough in the long run for the cost, even if you buy used Kings of War Undead models.
Anyone who have questions, experience with the lore or any good ideas of to utilize the Lore?
Best regards
- Malorn
PS: Sorry for the Wall of Text
PPS: If your opponent fields Nagash. You have to forget everything I just wrote. Shoot him with everything you got before turn 2 or you will probably loose.
My local Tournament group did set it so the summoned units DO give victory points so check the rules at whatever tournament or contest or whatever you go to or be in for a nasty surprise when you hemorrhage an extra 100-400 points :(.
This is a shameless bumb for self promotion, as I think my topic off new magic lores accesible via LoU is interesting, but it haven’t garnered any attention (Maybe due to christmas?). If I’m mistaken, just ignore this and move along
With the LoU we gain an easy access to 3 new lores: Vampire, Nehek and Light. Lore of Light is decent in the right match up, but right now I’ll talk about the Lore of Nehekhara.
The Lore of Nehekhara
Lore Attribute + Signature spell: Move and resurrect some undead units… ignore
7+: Augment, range 12, unit hets Killing Blows
9+: Augment, range 12, unit has 5+ ward
9+: Augment, range 12, unit gets +1A and (if armed with bows) Multiple Shots (2)
10+: Hex, range 18, target counts all terrain (even open) as dangerous terrain if they move in any way
11+: Hex, range 24, target gets -1S & -1T
15+: Useless Vortex… ignore
Cons:
Nearly all these spells have a boosted version, but the boosted versions only applies to undead units-
The Lore attribute will resurrect some skeletons, but it wont do you much good.
Pros:
LoU is decent until your main line engage in close combat (Typically turn 2-4 depending on your opponents list). LoU doesn’t allow you to buff your units in close combat, and as a Chaos Dwarf Player, this could surely help you a lot. This is where Lore of Nehekhara (Nehek) comes into play. Nehek is designed to give the weak TK a fighting chance in the close combat face.
A toughness 3 skeleton with a light armor needs his 5+ ward save to not crumble to dust. Well we don’t crumble, we have armor and we aren’t T3. A 5+ ward makes GW wielding Infernal Guards more viable, thus improving our kill potential.
If you have invested heavily in that unit of 31 Blunderbuss with Sorc-prophet and BSB in 11*3 formation, and find yourself engaged in combat, then 37 chances of Killing Blows might be exactly what your resilent S4 brick needs to swing combat.
We can also boost our units with an extra attack. This again makes GW wielding Infernal Guards more viable. It makes our “6 GW wielding Bull Centaurs” way better, going from 12 to 18 S6 attacks. Even our cheap Hobgoblin bowmen will get a lot out of this, since they get multiple shots along with the extra attack.
Removing 1S+1T from your opponent is pretty good. Being able to that many times a turn is pretty damn good.
Conclusion:
This is probably not the best or fail-safe method to get your Dawi Zharr to rule the Close Combat phase, but it is a possibility, and it isn’t as bad as one might think.
My local Tournament group did set it so the summoned units DO give victory points so check the rules at whatever tournament or contest or whatever you go to or be in for a nasty surprise when you hemorrhage an extra 100-400 points :(.
sam585
A rule of thumb: Please read the tournament pack thoroughly before attending and making your list. Especially as a chaos dwarf player ;)
I’ve read your post, this is only my second click (and it has 84 views).
Very nice lore rundown Malorn, good tactical thinking too. I haven’t commented on this one yet for two reasons:
~3000 points of CD still in bits: BCs, blunders, taurus, giant, lamassu, GWs, 60 hobgoblins, deathshrieker, dreadquake and misc.
~2000 points of WE: only sorted.
I only play with painted miniatures, and the thought a building and painting 100 zombies and skeletons for magic is too daunting. If this summon undead stays in 9th editions I’ll surely get around to it. But as long as there’s a chance I’ll wind up with some useless core - I wont start using Lore of Undead.
I think a lot of people have the same idea. An no need in me taking part of the discussion then. I’ following it though.
Yeah I expected as much. The biggest drawback with this lore is the miniature requirement, which is also one of the primary concerns from my first post. Feel free to speculate with me theory about the possibilities though
Did you know:
Nowhere in the rule book or Nagash 2 does any rule disallow an unstable character joining a normal unit. I want my hobgoblin horde to have Hatred due to the Necrotect I just summoned <3
My idea, Lammasu Shadow and SP Hashut, fly up cast shadow for the extra movement and then summon a Fulcrum behind enemy lines?
Wolf
Ahahaha thats so mean xD
One of the funniest things about Magic of the End Times and Lore of Shadows is just spamming Miasma against a units Movement until it's straight up stuck in place.
Hashut is good, but mostly because Ashstorm shits an the big models like Nagash, Malekith and Glottkin.
If you use the same strategy, but opt for Lore of Death, you can combo Miasma to lower the opponents Initiativ and the blast a Pit of Shades or Purple Sun of 'OMG' for maximum efficiency.
Lore attribute: Succesful cast heal 1 wound (even on a character) within 12"
6+: Augment, all undead within 6 gains D6+Level models (cant break starting size limit cept for zombies).
Other trooptypes (than infantry) gets less wounds back.
With the Master of the Dead upgrade (20 pts/2 RDC), 1 necromancer can break starting size for skeletons.
6+: Augment range 12, but undead target. Moves re-rolls failed to hit until casters next magic phase.
8+: Augment range 12, but undead target. Re-rolls failed to wound until casters next magic phase.
9+: Magic Missile, range 24, 2D6 S4.
The rest: Crappy zombie summoning, Crappy killy hex and a crappy Vortex
Chaos Dwarf Perspective
This lore is very good on a VC player, but very underwhelming from a Chaos Dwarf LoU perspective. A magic missile can be usefull, and while the buffs are actually pretty good, they only hits your summoned undead units. The only reason to ever use this would be for the Lore Attribute and the Signature Spell: Invocation of Nehek. You can heal your wounded Daemonsmiths or other characters with the Lore Attribute, while spamming Invocation. Spamming invocation is usefull in 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1: You have painted 100 zombies. Your summoned 3-4 units of 15 in your first magic phase. In your second magic phase you summon a Necromancer who immediatly begins to bolster the zombie units ranks, so they are able to chaff and protect your gunline by turn 2-3.
Scenario 2: Same as scenario 1, but with skeletons instead of zombies. You use 2 RCD on the necromancer to get Master of the Dead which let you get you skeletons above starting size, so their spears and better stats can actually do something.
Using one of above scenarios can be really useful in the right situation, but it’s a lot of confidence to put into the first 2 magic phases, and some games will be lost by turn 2 which is never fun for any of the players involved. By Turn 3 you’ll need your Liche Priest with Nehek to win combats in most cases.
Tl;Dr: Really good lore for VC, but pretty bad for us. Can heal characters and bulk up your summoned units, but it will rarely be worth it. Summon Necromancers with Lore of Death instead, will usually yield you better results.
Playtesting of LoU combined with Magic of the End Times (MET)
Played some 500 pts games today at the local shop. I will not go into details, but just recite the sheer terror that LoU is, combined with MET. Most games was decided by turn 3-5.
Game 1
Turn 1: Summon 16 zombies and 2 Spirit Hosts
Turn 2: Summon a Vargulf
WON
Game 2 (vs Undead)
Turn 1: Summon Light Priest and begin 2 dicing Shems (2D6 S4 Magic Missile on 5+)
Turn 2: Shems all day. Killed 8 Ghouls, 5 Grave Guards, 1 Necromancer and took 7 wounds on the Vargheists.
WON
Game 3
Turn 1: Summon 5 Black Knights
Turn 2: Summon 1 Vargulf
Turn 3: Summon 2 Spirit Hosts
WON
Game 4
Turn 1: Everything wiffed
Turn 2: Everything wiffed…
Turn 3: 16 zombies…
Turn 4: 2 Spirit Hosts and a Light Priest.
LOST (Atrocious dice rolling)
Game 5
Turn 1: 10 Archers and 10 Spear Skeletons
Turn 2: 2 Spirit Hosts and 2*10 Spear Skeletons
Turn 3: 15 Spearskeletons with Banner+Musiciant, 1 Necromancer with Master of Death who got of 1 Invocation raising 14 Skeletons througout the existing units.
WON
Conclusion
Holy Hashut… I have to playtest some more. If this is the realistic amount of models you get from 3 Magic phases with LoU using the MET, I will propably reevaluate my initial statement, that the lore is only good on Nagash or below 2000 points. The amount of models on my table was downright dirty to behold. More playtesting will follow, as well as a run through on Lore of Light, which has some great buffs for CDs, as well as some nasty Magic Missiles, especially vs Daemons and Undead
Not that I don’t appreciate you taking the time to play test things, but 500 point games are not the best way to tell if a lore is good. For example at 500 points fireball is the unit deleting spell with or without MET but in 2k-2.5k it is delegated to mainly dealing with scouts/chaff/warmachine hunters. Play test at 2k-2.5k and then let us know how it went, and weather or not it is reliable enough to be competitive.
I would appreciate a none ETM try out as well. We still use that system
Bloodbeard
LoU is pretty bad without MET for these purposes: 1: The Lore consists of 3 vital summonings, a vital signature and 3 utterly useless, piece of BS spells. Without MET you aren't given access to the whole array of spells, which could let your Lv 4 get stuck with only 2 summoning spells.
2: If you get the right spells, and starts summoning characters, when you new Necromancer og Liche Priest will know only 1 spell, which makes them far less versatile.
3: MET allows you to spam spells and cast more on average every turn. LoUs Lore Attribute gives you Raise Dead Counters (RCD) on every succesfully cast spell. More spells = more RCD = Bigger, cooler and more insane summonings.
Due to this, my initial statement stands. Without MET, LoU is a bad lore, even in smaller point games. You can still get lucky and roll a #5 or #6 or simply 6 dice the boosted signature spell for 3 Vargheists, but as CD we don't really like them miscasts. A 6 diced #5 could be a Vargulf, while a #6 could be 5 Hexwraiths. It could still work, but I wouldn't but my money, time and strategy into it.
Not that I don't appreciate you taking the time to play test things, but 500 point games are not the best way to tell if a lore is good. For example at 500 points fireball is the unit deleting spell with or without MET but in 2k-2.5k it is delegated to mainly dealing with scouts/chaff/warmachine hunters. Play test at 2k-2.5k and then let us know how it went, and weather or not it is reliable enough to be competitive.
sam585
I completely agree with your view on spell roles, but I'm not at all skilled or knowledgeable enough to actually discuss competitiveness, since I'm a horrible fantasy player, that rarely gets enough game time as it is. Right now I have the opportunity to playtest LoU in the most supreme environment (Small points and with MET) so thats what I'll do. At larger points it will be significantly more worse due to fixed points on the summonings, that much is easy to say. And without MET I would think it suck (see above reply to Bloodbeard) Though it does allow us to dice some cool units
If I’ve understood correctly Tomb Kings won the US Masters in non ETM due to casket of souls and skull catapults hidden behind etheral spirit-host swarms. I’m thinking this dirty tactic might be quite effective for us aswell.
I didn’t find casket of souls in your .pdf (Otherwise a most awesome job sir!) it should definately be there as it’s a warmachine. The casket would be what I’d bring a power scroll to get through.
* The +D3 free powerdice it provides combined with Chalice of Blood and Darkness is a mean, mean combo. * More power means more summons, more summons means more tokens and chaff. * The friggin casket is T10 and the guards have killing blow, if it dies it explodes in a 12" radius. Pure evil to raise it behind enemy lines. * Light of Death bound spell (5)
Model-wise for going Lore of Undeath with ethereals I think one would need about:
I’m thinking a lvl 4 Undeath Sorcerer-Prophet with Talisman of Preservation, Enchanted Shield and Earthing Rod on a lvl 2 Undeath Lammasu (Accessing the magic resist which goes well with the ToP against miscasts), a hellbound iron daemon to shield the beast from cannonfire and 2 Daemonsmiths guarding magmacannon/deathshrieker, one with forbidden rod + opal amulet and one with chalice, both death for sniping characters that might ruin the etheral lockdown with their magic weapons.
I just cant see how this lore synergizes with our army, besides just adding more to what we already have a decent amount of… chaff.
Summoning a Terrorgeist would be nice, and is no doubt a powerful asset. But is it worth more than hitting someone with a Flames of Azgorh/ purple sun/ final transmutation?
Likely, without a power scroll, we are throwing out 5-6 dice for a harbinger going for a miscast in the best scenario. Worst case is we get the first one dispelled, and we summon it during our second turn. IF we are fighting a true W.O.C win list, we are stuck in combat at that point, flying lords don’t give a shit about our blockers since they can fly.
The lore however, will be good at redirecting things to hell, such as Ogres, Skaven, Knight Busses, which is great but we have hobgoblins for that. Now we could just get rid of hobgoblins all together and just summon in our redirectors, but a bad magic phase can really cause us alot of grief so we are always going to need hobgoblins.
For tomb kings/ Orcs and Goblins/vampires taking lore of undeath should be a priority due to the huge amount of flexibility it provides and all of the casting bonuses those armies receive to get the right spells off at the right times, tombkings with herotitans and casket, orcs and goblins with mushrooms and spammable cheap casters.
The lores points allowance isn’t adjusted to game size, which makes it insane in smaller games, mediocre in normal games, and straight out bad in larger games.
So assuming we are talking games around 2500 pts, I will generally agree with sam585. The normal use of the lore (chaff) isn’t needed. If we have some genius master plan that requires Lore of Light to cast Bionas Timewarp on our 8 Bullcentaurs, then we can of course consider it, but its a big gamble, and not a reliable way to make strategies.
Depending on 9th (blablabla), we might get stuck on 8th. So in the long run it’s about finding fun ways to play.
In my group we love to play with army concepts and crazy scenarios. Had I the miniatures - this would be really fun to try out! Effective? Properly not as good as what you can achieve with other lists. Fun? Hell yes! And for me that’s what the game is about.
I never go lore of death, because I find Purple Sun really sucky for a friendly nice game.
Right now I’m working towards fielding 3*30 hobgoblins - because a hobgoblin army is cool.
I say go for it MadHatter! When you want to win again for certain, bring back the Dual BaleBomb.
I do admit, for cool/thematic/and fun games lore of undeath gives us so many possibilities and perhaps I soon (maybe after I win another best overall at my local scene :P) will put down the hat of min maxing and go for fun and good times.
I would model my undead army as follows:
Skeletons/ zombies/ risen infantry hero all depicted by zombified hobgoblin/ goblins/ orcs/ barbarians
Vargulfs/monsterous infantry= perhaps demonic minotaurs with molten weapons? Servants of Hashut.
Etherals= Conjured flame spirits
Terrorgeists/large monsters= unbound K’daii
Just the idea of a sorcerer prophet raising slaves from beyond the grave to serve! Just when they thought their cruel suffering was over! Or raising and bending fire deamons to his/her will in the midst of a battle. Truly terrifying and cool.
