First time poster here, im getting back into Chaos Dwarves with the return of the Old World (they were my very first Warhammer Army, and who doesnt love the FW kits!?)
I was just wondering what everyone is thinking of as far as Magic with The Old World?
I like Storm of Ash from Lore of Hashut, but I am struggling with which Lore to major my lvl.4 in, I am a fan of;
Word of Pain it greatly increases the durability of our units (particularily where i want my Bull Centaurs Charging) and gets you more kills with Artillery.
Battlelust to bump up the killing power of my Sorcerer Prophet I think the re-roll hits and extra attacks for he and his mount can be clutch when he is bumbling around at a units flank, it also really ups the killing power of any unit its used on.
Phantasmagoria to help spread Panic amongst the Enemy Lines and disrupt formations or drag someone forward from their Battleline (great for ranged units or exposing the flanks of block if they wind up being Impetuous), it couples well with a few blasts from the Death Shrieker, the more tests people take-more likely to fail.
Infernal Gateway is an excellent spell to get Ash where you need it, when you need it, also excellent for dictating your opponents deployment, if you can fit your Sorcerer Prophet in a corner, it can make him immune to Cannons for a turn as they will have to wheel to face you.
Soul Eater is kind of a bust, certainly one I would swap for Ash.
Anyhow just looking to see where peoples heads are at.
It’s a good question. We also need to think about Sorcerer-Prophets on the one side and Daemonsmiths on the other.
I’m not sure I would have my Sorc on foot and move him alone over the battlefield with Infernal Gateway tbh. Might be better if he’s mounted on a Taurus or Lamassu? edit ah, Infernal Gateway doesn’t need a character on foot, that’s good.
I would say there is no auto-include lore, they all seem fairly useful. I feel Daemonology is really strong. Gathering Darkness is great, so is Daemonic Vessel and Daemonic Vigour. I think these three are really strong.
Dark Magic has Word of Pain as a plus, as well as Phantasmagoria and Battle Lust, that’s quite good to.
Elementalism i really like plague of rust and earthen ramparts, but overall I think it’s a little weaker than the other two.
Bottom line, I think I’ll go for Daemonology with a Sorcerer-Prophet.
My thoughts: Seeing as how spell selection is more random now, I rank the lores according to which has the most helpful spells.
A sorcerer prophet is generally known as a tanky wizard, not a fighting one, so they want to stay out of combat which to my mind means no assailment spells and no self-buffs to combat. All available lores have at least 1 assailment spell, dark magic has 2, and daemonology has daemonic vessel that boosts combat prowess.
With that in mind, elementalism comes out as the winner in terms of getting reliably useful spells on your prophet. Daemonology comes in second, as I believe daemonic vessel could be useful in a clutch situation to scale combat in your favor.
On daemonsmiths I would go with dark magic for the long range signature spell, so they can hang back with the warmachines and occasionally toss another pie plate on the enemy.
I am yet to play a single game of TOld World, so this is all speculation. I’ve put myself in the category of “that guy who always has all his models painted”, and since my chorf army is fresh off the printing press, I have some work to do before I’m comfortable getting games in with them
Oh, and following the thought of a prophet not being a fighter: I feel like people sleep on the potential of the lamassu The magic res and breath weapon are super nice for a character who’s best kept out of CC (you won’t need breath of Hashut, then, which is also just single-use), flying is ace too, obviously. Essentially it’s a flying carpet, three lodestones, now unlimited breath attacks and a bunch of wounds in a neat little 100pts or so package. And it’s adorable!
Yeah, i want to play with a Lammasu, just waiting for mine in the mail, then its painting time…
I think Battlelust will edge out Daemonic Vessel for the utility of putting it on other units and the ability to re-roll your hits, I love Vessel but think its better in an infantry block, but i like where you are coming at this.
The 2 Assailment Spells are indeed an issue, but i also like Infernal Gateway as a Gate out of Jail Free Card when you get trapped in a combat (assuming you are still alive to make it to your Magic Phase of course), I am really excited for some table time in the near future to try the new Lores and Tactics out!
Mystical Pathway has amazing potential though, in a game where movement can wind or lose you games this is a great spell.
On the Note of the Lammasu, i would love tp drop him on the table alongside a BSB with the Lammasu’s Beard, another Character with Armour of Bhazerak to see if i cant leave my enemies starved for offensive magics.
Sorc Prophet on Bale Taurus skipping Baby Taurus entirely. This is midboard and threat presence. T7 automatically. T8 is 2x Mantles and then you’re only 1 miscast away from T9… Use Daemonology for Familars and Vigour. Swapping something useless for Storm of Ash is probably good. This guy needs to cast in combat hence Familiars which leads me to Daemonsmiths…
Daemonsmiths on Dark Magic & Elementalism. Throw vortexs up midrange out of enemy dispel ranges and start clogging up the board. The Dark Magic caster needs the Lore item so he can choose Infernal Gateway. This is to drag that Bale Taurus Sorc Prophet out of combat and setup for another charge or vessel of destruction somewhere else.
Sorc - Prophet on Lammasu. Tricky because this is your real combat Lord imo. It’s all about negating that magic weapon. You’re setting this guy to take the hit from some nasty hero riding a throw away monster like a pegasus or daemonic mount. Trick out to take that hit. Wards, +T, Heal Pot, whatever. Just take the hit, cancel them and start dumping Blood Of Hashut on them. I imagine whatever hits you is going to have a beefy save. Dribble Hashut’s love all over their chinny chin chins, Lammasu slaps and again dip out with Infernal Gateway, Or Streed of Shadows or however you’re fetching this back to behind the line for safety.
That’s my take on our casters and 1 Sorc Prophet, 2 Daemonsmiths and 1 BSB is probably going to be goto always.
Why is everyone so afraid of having the Sorcerer-Prophet in a close combat unit? Yes, he’ll probably not win combat for you on his own, but he’s definitely able to hold his own, especially with a few magic items.
And just consider a unit of Infernal Ironsworn with
-1 to hit for the enemy (ash storm)
3 attacks at S5 (plus halberd and great weapon) and AP-1 (daemonic vessel)
T5 and I3 (daemonic vigour)
while your opponent has -2 to LD and Initiative (gathering darkness) or your Sorc does 2D6 S2 hits no armour on those pesky knights (daemonic familiar). That’s a very powerful unit!
I’m not so much afraid of him being in combat, just aknowledging he won’t be doing too much heavy lifting when he is there.
I think he makes an excellent flanker or back line bully. He’s just not dick punching a Daemon Prince any time soon.
I do like the idea of trying him out on a Lammasu to knock out smaller characters.
I think Daemonology is a Lore for hyper aggressive armies, Daemonic Vigor and Vessel only last until the end of your turn so while good for Offense they are not going to provide you with any defensive benefit (no buffing yourself up to recieve a charge is a serious limitation for me, particularily with our lack luster movement).
A Sorcerer Prophet on foot, with Daemonology, leading a block of Infernal Ironsworn flanked by two Iron Demons sounds like the core of one hell of a death star.
Elementalism has the benefit of being a very Defensive Lore and if you are running a gun line, i believe it will be great.
Plague of Rust is an amazing spell, reaching out 21" means its usable turn 1 to really amp up our shooting on a key target, its benefits in combat with Ensorcelled Weapons is amazing, leaving most units saveless.
Being able to force your opponent to give ground is an amazing little feature, i just wish Wind Blast (15") and Storm Call (12") had longer ranges, but they could award you one more round of shooting, which is amazing.
I absolutely love Earthen Rampart, 5++ is amazing i would love to try it on a unit of Blunderbuss’ or to slap that on a unit of Infernal Ironsworn would be hilarious.
I didnt think you could take two of these on the same model… consider my mind blown, I wasnt even thinking about it, too trapped in 8th edition i suppose…
Well it’s a common item and we’re allowed to take multiples of common items so there’s nothing stopping us. It might be a gross exploitation of RAI but I don’t think so. I think this is intended in RAW. Take 3. Go T9 from the drop and if you miscast… Immune to Str 4 attacks entirely. I think that’s completely 1 dimensional but talk about a brick. Short of Poison or Monster Slayer that model will survive everything. Casting in combat, tanking everything, probably an absolute nightmare for a WE player lol. 3x Mantle of Stone & Darkforged Weapon IS a Sorc someone is going to try at some point. Results may vary.
Got to thinking further on Elementalism, with a Double Dreadquake and the ability to force your enemy to Slow Down (Storm Call), Move Back (Wind Blast) and Plague of Rust, it may be the best Lore we have as far as Gunlines go, not to mention Earthen Ramparts once they manage to finally claw their way across the field.
Got me eyeballing a Lvl.4 for Elementalism and then use a Lvl.2 with Lore Familiar to grab Word of Pain to crank the hurt up to 11…
My favourite tool when I was playing the old ravening hordes list was slowing down my enemy. Drove my buddies nuts that they couldn’t pull off all their fast-action moves The mechanic really works well for our armies
I am of the opinion we need all 3 all the time. There’s too much in each too ignore. Daemonology on paper is the most robust for us and Dark Magic “might” be the best value roll for roll but Elementalism is always utility. We need a dash of each of these. You give a good roast a pinch of salt, pepper and garlic. We’re gonna season this recipe exactly the same. I think you need your Lvl 4 tooled out depending on you want to run your list and there’s a lot of different options here.
Personally I’m doubling down on Hellcannons, literally 2 a game. Max casters and BSB. Flooding the field with Vortexes, ported units/Bale Taurus Lord, relentless missle fire and turtle up behind a Iron Daemon ready too shoot and charge anything that gets through the tornado alley of vortexes I’m going to make of every battlefield. 3 up, all the time, every time and Elementalism is exactly 33.33% of that equation.
MInd you my group of players is all on the undeads, dwarves (who can F’ing bring it too), and Lizards. My never ending rain of panic means literal nothing to my friends. I think it’s just abusive to everyone else. I may be wrong. It’s happened before.
One thing to consider here is how slow the unit is. You don’t choose when or if you are in combat if you are stuck in 3" slow dwarfs, which means you are wasting your magic potential most of the time. If you gear up for combat with all the assailment spells and self buffs of the world, you’d still need to convince the enemy into charging, and charging this and no other unit.
If, on the other hand, you don’t take the CC spells, you don’t want to end up in CC after all.
Another thing to consider, this time at least as much for the Bale Taurus combat sorcerers, is that while in CC you can’t dispel while the opponent (assuming some usual backline magician) will try dispelling all your mighty assailment spells, succeeding expectedly half of the time.
Well, if your level 4 sorcerer-prophet army general is sitting in your most expensive elite infantry, your opponent will have little choice but to react to this. It’s our job to use screening units and magic and war machines to direct when and what will engage with the unit.
Now that is a valid point! Ans as you said, that applies to both monster-riding Sorcs (who usually want to bring their monster into combat) as well as Sorcs in infantry units, which are usually all our units. Similarly, with the new casting rules (i.e. everything has to be in the front arc) and monsters having to wheel and getting only one 90° turn after movement, positioning of the caster is very important. That only leaves lone characters, either on foot or with flying carpet, and while those enjoy greater levels of freedom, it’s also quite risky.
The magic res and breath weapon are super nice for a character who’s best kept out of CC (you won’t need breath of Hashut, then, which is also just single-use), flying is ace too, obviously. Essentially it’s a flying carpet, three lodestones, now unlimited breath attacks and a bunch of wounds in a neat little 100pts or so package. And it’s adorable! 
The mechanic really works well for our armies