A long hiatus since the last posting of part of the tactica. Here are part 1, part 2, and part 3. Took a while to get this done. Here is the review of magic lores available for wood elves.

General Thoughts on Magic

• Augments are a trap for MSU WE. Augment spells are rarely great because they impact so little of your army. Additionally, some augments are good because you cast it on a unit the opponent is about to charge. MSU WE don’t allow themselves to get charged in most cases, so those spells become even more corner case. You cannot count on getting S, T, or Arm boosting spell on your charging unit since magic comes after movement.
• Any spell that hurts your opponent’s ability to move is amazing.
• RiP spells have an exceptional bonus of helping defend yourself against future magic. It makes the opponent waste magic dice on it. That, in turn, gives parity to your dispelling and can actually destroy an opponent’s magic phase.
• Lores that have a specific goal are best. You don’t want to have a bunch of spells that do varied stuff (other than heavens). You want a specific job for your magic. For me, that is taking out toughness (Shadows) and hurting movement (Shadows & Beasts). It could be damage dealing (Dark Magice) or keeping you alive (Life).

Lore of Fire

Lore Attribute: Kindleflame

• This attribute, at best, gets you an extra magic spell through an opponents defenses a turn. It is likely that it only comes into effect 1-2 times per game. Not a great attribute.

Signature Spell: Fireball-

• If you need to do a little burst of damage the spell is fine. The problem is that it overlaps with shooting. Do you really need the magic missile to take out chaff, etc. when you have as many bows as you do? Unlikely.

1: Cascading Fire-Cloak-

• You don’t want to be in base to base very much, so not helpful.

2: Flaming Sword of Rhuin-

• This is a good upgrade for WE. Wounding on a 4 instead of a 5 or wounding monsters on a 5 with your swiftshard bowmen is pretty good. If you take fire with WE you want this spell. HOWEVER, he problem is that since you are MSU, it likely will only effect 10-12 models. This limitation can be somewhat overcome by casting it on a unit about to get charged so that you also get it with the stand and shoot.

3: The Burning Head-

• Eh, not really helpful with what you want.

4: Piercing Bolts of Burning-

• Might be helpful in dealing with steadfast busses, but, again, too situational.

5: Fulminating Flame Cage-

• Hands down an amazing spell for MSU WE. You neutralize an enemy unit. You must get this if you take Lore of Fire. 6 dice every time and put it on the big unit that will wreck you if it gets to your lines.

6: Flame Storm-

• Just ok as a template direct damage spell anyway.

General Thoughts:

• Fire has one God-tier level spell for WE, one ok spell, and the rest are not useful. The lore is made for lots of small casters (due to the lore attribute), but WE need to get Flame Cage, which requires a lvl 4 to reliably get. Thus, the lore strengths move away from MSU WE.

Rating:

• 6th place of the 8 lores

Lore of Beasts

Lore Attribute: The Beasts lore attribute is weak enough that many people forget it. It does help that many of your targets will fit the bill (cavalry primarily), but it isn’t great.

Signature Spell: Wyssan’s Wildform-

• Wonderful spell and quite flexible. Hit some Wild Riders with it to make them more difficult to kill or on warhawk riders as they charge in to try to killing blow things. Wardancers can also benefit. Really anything you have that you want to (occasionally) get into combat. HOWEVER, it still suffers from the great MSU trap. Augments aren’t as good because they affect a lesser percentage of your force than when you have larger units.

1: Flock of Doom-

• Weak spell. Not that useful. Might occasionally use it to try to score wounds off a a war machine. Still, only a little over 1 wound per casting if wounding on 6s. Even going for T3 screeners leaves you with roughly 2 wounds. Not great spell. Best thing going for it is that the opponent may let it through.

2: Pann’s Impenetrable Pelt-

• This can be a pretty nice spell, especially when using the bubble, as this type of army tends to have characters that can get bunched toward the end of the game. Nevertheless, you don’t really want to be in combat with most of your characters, other than assassin eagle riders and the like.

3: The Amber Spear-

• This can do something that the WE struggle with. It can take out high armor in ranks or if on the flank. That said, this list struggles with armor less than the 7th ed. WE book. Overall, this is a good, not great spell for MSU WE.

4: The Curse of Anraheir-

• This is it. This is the spell. You must have this one if you take beasts. The -1 to hit for your opponent makes it very flexible since you can put it on a unit that you are about to strike with Wild Riders. However, it is the movement aspect of the spell that makes it so powerful. All terrain (FAQ says open terrain is terrain) leads to a dangerous terrain test with fails on 1 or 2. This means 1/3 of the unit dies if it moves. Most of the time the unit doesn’t move. Units that don’t move are a godsend for WE. You just bought an extra turn during which the opponent’s deathstar is negated.

5: The Savage Beast of Horros-

• Wheras Pann’s is an ok spell to help protect characters, this one can be great, if situational. Again, since your characters tend to bunch toward the end, this one might do well for surprising your enemy with the bubble effect. However, most of the time you are using it to buff up a sniper waystalker with the bow of loren or making an assassin eagle noble truly frightening. Usually this spell is only useful a couple times a game, but the use with the bow of loren really makes it less corner case and more useful.

6: Transformation of Kadon-

• We all know the problem here. Your wizard becomes a monster and actually easier to kill. Not a great spell. Though in a fluff game, this is the bomb.

General Thoughts:

• This is a very solid lore for WE. There are four good to great spells to take and then the signature is also a good one. Not bad at all on a level 4 or to risk on a lvl one hoping for Curse or Savage but falling back to Wyssan’s.

Rating:

• 2nd place of the eight lores

Lore of Metal

Lore Attribute: Metalshifting really only affects the damage dealing spells, but it is a pretty cool attribute. It can really hit armored armies like chaos hard.

Signature Spell: Searing Doom-

• Searing doom is a great spell that takes out things that WE can struggle with. Melting a unit of knights is great. Particularly because high mobility units are quite the danger to us, so killing them is great. Use that mounted armor bonus against them.

1: Plague of Rust-

• Not bad, but it just works so slowly. That said, plinking off armor here and there is never bad. Likely a good spell to get your opponent to burn dispel dice since no one wants to lose armor for the rest of the game.

2: Enchanted Blades of Aiban-

• An augment (you know how I feel about most of these) that is at least flexible and useful throughout the game. If you need a unit to have magical attacks, it can help. The 1 is obviously nice. Not great though and certainly a target to switch to searing doom.

3: Glittering Robe-

• Scaly skin isn’t bad on Wild Riders or wardancers or warhawk riders on the turn you charge them in. However, since you are doing the charging, you cannot plan on having this when you charge. OK, but cornercase spell.

4: Gehenna’s Golden Hounds-

• If teamed up with an assassin waywatcher build this may be ok, but you are gonna do death if you want to do that. Unless playing chaos with disc riders or a Flying Doombull, switch for searing doom.

5: Transmutation of Lead-

• Any time you can lower an opponent’s stats, it is fairly decent. Make sure that you are using the spell to lower WS when it will make you go up on the die or them go down. Moving them from WS3 to WS2 when you have WS4 doesn’t move the needle. You can use this on pesky long range attacks they have. Let’s say some DE crossbowelves, Lothern Seaguard, or some pesky handgunners. It is usable, but not solid by any means.

6: Final Transmutation-

• It is a great spell to kill deathstars. 1/3 of the models just die no matter the stat, so more flexible than the dastardly Purple Sun. The stupidity aspect in a world of high leadership bubbles is just a bonus. Solid Spell.

General Thoughts:

• Metal is not a bad choice for WE. It has no must take spell, but almost all are ok to go. The only problem is that most are not always usable. This means you may find yourself only really having one spell that you can use effectively. If your opponent knows this, they just stop it. Might lead to a lot of six dicing Final Transmutation. Also, it is unfluffy as all get out…so your dice are likely to betray you.

Rating:

• 7th place of the eight lores

Lore of Light

Lore Attribute: Exorcism is nice when fighting three particular armies of 16(?). Unless you are building against your opponent, this is not great. If you are, then it buffs the lore a bit. I, personally, am not a fan of list tailoring so this attribute makes me angry.

Signature Spell: Shem’s Burning Gaze

• Cheap magic missile that is str. 4. Not bad at all, but I am not the biggest fan of magic missiles and this is your sig spell. Useful, sure, great spell, nope.

1: Pha’s Protection

• This falls into the augment trap. Very corner case for when you MUST protect one single unit (some wild riders) for a turn before they charge in, but usually not great.

2: The Speed of Light

• Against other elves might be ok, but not needed most of the time. The bubble does offset the augment trap some, but in an army that is less combat oriented, this might not get cast a lot.

3: Light of Battle

• Very corner case. You charge into a combat that you know you are going to lose so that you can keep opponent from charging something else. This is actually a really nice trick to pull with some things. It effectively halts your enemy for a turn with a throwaway unit (bonus, make sure it has KB so that it takes out a character or two). Still very corner case and you might not get it off.

4: Net of Amyntok

• Yea! A spell messing with your opponent’s movement. Oh, you can’t count on it? Yikes…that is less fun. But wait! They cannot count on it either! Cool idea, but against many armies the thing you don’t want to move has high strength. Still just 50% even against elves. The low casting is nice and using it to stop a unit from fleeing is tricky. Still not a reliable spell. Just ok.

5: Banishment

• Made for light councils. A magic missile to kill high tough stuff IF you have multiple wizards. WE are not a light council kinda army, so I am not a huge fan.

6: Birona’s Timewarp

• Awesome to have high movement MSU elves. Can be used in a pinch to really get your army out of trouble if you use the bubble to just get everyone out of dodge? Set up long range charges for next turn? Think again. All of this depends on putting your units into position for these moves THEN getting the spell off THEN your opponent moving how you expected. Yeah…not great. At least you get ASF…oh wait. Basically, it is an extra attack for casting on a 12. Certainly can be useful, but still not what you want.

General Thoughts:

• Not a lore I like for WE. The timing of the spells just doesn’t fit and makes things too reliant on the spells going off when you need them. In an army that demands perfect movement and planning, you don’t want the randomness of magic to mess with that. Not a single must take spell. Not a great signature. A number of spells you really don’t need. Avoid.

Rating:

• 8th place of the eight lores

Lore of Life

Lore Atribute: Lifebloom is pretty nice for healing miscasts, but those are more rare with the lore of life due to Throne of Vines. Nevertheless, not bad at healing your characters if they get sniped.

Signature Spell: Earthblood

• Regen 4/5 is really nice when you have a solid anvil or horde unit. Augment trap here. Only nice if there is a unit you really need to save.

1: Awakening of the Wood

• Magic Missile that is ok. If you are bringing lots of trees (you should), then it is a pretty strong magic missile for casting on a 6.

2: Flesh to Stone

• A great spell, just not with this army. Again, it is situational. You will certainly use it if you have it, but it won’t be as game changing as getting it off on a big unit of halberdiers or spear elves.

3: Throne of Vines

• This is a must keep when you run life. Really protects you when casting that 6 dice spell. Since all the spells that are useful for this type of army are higher casting and “must cast” spells, this is a really nice one to have. You either cast it with low dice to draw out dispel dice (allows you to cast regrowth and dwellers on fewer dice) or they allow it and you six dice in this or future turns. RiP means it really messes with opponent’s magic phase.

4: Shield of Thorns

• Eh…you don’t want in combat more than one turn. Change this to Sig spell.

5: Regrowth

• Yes! You want this spell. It saves your Wild Riders, keeps your wardancers holding up the enemy, rejuvenates your 20point waywatchers. Because our models are so expensive, this is an amazing spell for us.

6: The Dwellers Below

• Not the greatest of the “test or die” spells, but not bad at all. Especially good against the Str. 3 hordes of rats, elves, or humans. As with all such spells, this one can really break your opponent.

General Thoughts:

• 2 really good spells (5 & 6), an annoying RIP spell, and two not bad spells, one of which is the signature. Overall, a pretty nice lore, but mainly because of regrowth, so you better get it. Better spread of spells than beasts, but lacks a spell that kills movement like Curse.

Rating:

• 3rd place of the eight lores

Lore of Heavens

Lore Atribute: Roiling Skies is quite niche. You might occasionally face fliers, but not tons and even then, you are often not casting spells on them. Thus, this isn’t the greatest.

Signature Spell: Iceshard Blizzard

• This is why hexes are better than augments (in general and especially for this army). You target their biggest shooting unit or a particularly annoying war machine and nerf it. Bonus that it also works if you find yourself in close combat. Use on units fighting Wild Riders and War Dancers just to give them more survivability.

1: Harmonic Convergence

• An augment, so not great, but ok. Put it on waywatchers to make their shooting almost perfect (especially if you have a sniping way stalker in there.) Can also make the Wild Riders into blenders even if facing other ASF.

2: Wind Blast

• This is one of the few armies where wind blast isn’t so bad. Use it to keep your enemies at bay. Movement oriented spells are usually quite nice with WE MSU.

3: Curse of the Midnight Wind

• Nice little hex, but the range is limited and can’t be increased. Not bad, but not great.

4: Urannon’s Thunderbolt

• Pretty powerful magic missile. This one is helpful for WE because of the high strength. That allows it to take out high T models that we can struggle with. Not usually a magic missile guy, but this one is ok.

5: Comet of Casandora

• This one can be useful, but boy can it come back to bite ya. Because we have so many units running around, a forbidden zone in the middle of the field or even opponents backfield can hurt our best ability…movement. So be careful. That said, if you place the comet between your more static units and the opponent, you may cause them to delay…which is a disaster for them. Worth the risk?

6: Chain Lightening

• This spell is, imo, too variable. You may only hit one unit with a 15 cast. Further, you are just doing little bits of damage everywhere rather than really hurting a single unit. I prefer thunderbolt. Now, if an opponent has Chain Lightning, beware and spread out over 6” from other units.

General Thoughts:

• Nice signature some ok augments, hexes, and magic missiles, but nothing that is outstanding. Curse is nice to knock units back and Comet can really mess with your opponents movement. Thus, a good overall lore, but with no “amazing” spells. That the signature spell is good moves it up some.

Rating:

• 4th place of the eight lores

Lore of Shadow

Lore Atribute: Smoke and Mirrors is pretty good for getting characters our of trouble, though it does get another character into trouble. You can use it to get your weaver into a nice surprise pit of shade position if farther than 24” from the unit you want to hit. But that is pretty corner case.

Signature Spell: Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma

• Oh yes…OH YES! Hit an opponent’s movement? Please let me have this. Not only movement, but I can be really flexible with it if I need to hit BS or want to knock the initiative of an elf unit I am hitting with my WR. But the movement is key. You can knock between 2-6 inches off the march of your opponent. That is fantastic!

1: Steed of Shadows

• Not great. Very corner case. If you need to get a character out of trouble it is ok.

2: The Enfeebling Foe

• RiP is always nice as you can just drop it on a unit to force the opponent to deal with it in their turn. Thus, unlike most hex/augment that effect combat, you can use it in any turn and leave it. If they dispel later, fine, fewer spells coming at you. If they don’t, then you have a nice target to hit with wardancers or wild riders.

3: The Withering

• Hands down best spell for MSU WE. Just try to put this on an annoying horde every turn. Whenever it goes off, hit that unit with everything you have. Wounding on 2s or 3s is amazing! Particularly nice if you take swiftshiver arrows so that almost all your shots hit. This can totally destroy an opponent and take ½ their horde unit out.

4: The Penumbral Pendulum

• Not great. A cannon that opponents can avoid by passing initiative. Certainly ok against some monsters, but not wonderful. Also, d3 rather than d6 like a great cannon. Also remember that 6d6 sounds great, but is 21” average, so you likely need the big version at 18 for the possibility to get a single str.10 d3 wound hit. Eh.

5: Pit of Shades

• Just cruel. Why do you hate your opponent? Particularly dwarves? Sure to get you into the book of grudges. Though against some armies much less useful. Actually pretty match up dependent.

6: Okkam’s Mindrazor

• High casting cost is rough. There are uses for it, but not too many in this army. Your Wild Riders are likely to not need it, though they might be a target. Your wardancers could use it for sure. Glade guard shouldn’t be charging without it and since you won’t know if they have it until magic phase, you won’t have them in combat. Ok, but very cornercasee.

General Thoughts:

• You take this lore for 2 spells. They are just utterly crushing to your opponent. Enfeebling foe and pit of shades are also spells to grab with the others being unlikely that you will cast them. But the Withering and Melkoths are just too good and you are guaranteed Melkoths. Further, two RiP is a form of magic resistance.

Rating:

• 1st place of the eight lores

Lore of Death

Lore Atribute: Life leeching is great. Getting more dice is always nice and can really create an avalanche of trouble for your opponents.

Signature Spell: Spirit Leech

• Nice little sniping spell with a low range. Can really cause problems for low leadership armies as 1) it means more wounds, and 2) you can take out their general and really leave them in trouble. If you go for a sniping list build, this is useful.

1: Aspect of the Dreadknight

• AHHHHHH…wait, fear is bad. Trade this spell out.

2: The Caress of Laniph

• This one is high variable. Average is 3-4 hits and, thus, ~2 wounds. Not great if opponent has a ward save, so useful mainly against wardless BSBs. Also, the range is short.

3: Soulblight

• The range is only 24”, but taking down toughness is always good when you are shooting massive numbers of arrows. This can be very helpful in taking down large units or T5 monsters.

4: Doom and Darkness

• Shooting comes after magic. Shooting comes after magic. Target a unit outside the general’s leadership bubble and shoot down 25%. Profit. That said, not a perfect spell, but a very nice all around useful spell in combat or combined with your shooting.

5: The Fate of Bjuna

• Range is only 12”, but boy does it pack a punch. Average 3-4 wounds with no armor. Can definitely kill a lord level in a turn. Yikes!

6: The Purple Sun of Xereus

• Seriously…seriously? Everything passed over? Just get your wizard to a flank and destroy your enemy. Spell is so ridiculous.

General Thoughts:

• Lore of Death has two spells that are good for WE MSU in a standard list (Purple sun is always good and D&D is nice to panic units.) If you decide to go all in on sniping and using fear, then it can be worked that way as well. Nevertheless, you are giving up a lot in other magic to tune your list that way.

Rating:

• 5th place of the eight lores

Lore of High Magic

Lore Attribute: Ancient’s protection offers a great benefit in one way, it stores up. So you are effectively adding wounds to your unit in early phases before your unit really gets hit. Also, they can transfer from unit to unit with your weaver. Not bad for a wound or two back every turn.

Signature Spell 1: Drain Magic

• Not a bad spell, but most of the time that you really need to minimize spells with this army is magic missiles. Hexes don’t hurt you much for the same reason that augments don’t help. Not often that I find myself wanting to remove the effects of someone else’s augment.

Signature Spell 2: Soul Quench

• Solid magic missile. They are what they are, but this one does it well.

1: Apotheosis

• Most of your characters lose wounds and die, so you don’t get the opportunity to heal them. Not my favorite here.

2: Hand of Glory

• Augment problem here. Can help stuff, but a lower % of your army.

3: Walk Between Worlds

• This one can definitely get you out of trouble when needed. Just get the static unit of glade guard out of dodge at the last minute. However, you can’t plan on getting it off. The enemy may dispel and then the unit is toast.

4: Tempest

• Eh, you can hurt some stuff and take its BS down. Ok if they have a big unit of shooters, but not really a helpful spell.

5: Arcane Unforging

• Super helpful and flexible. If an opponent has BotWD or whatever and you just need it gone, this helps. The wound is just a bonus. I love the idea of taking off ward saves before sniping with a waystalker.

6: Fiery Convocation

• Str 4 against big hordes aint no slouch. This is a very good spell and RiP means you are defending yourself in future phases.

General Thoughts: Unfortunately, due to GW taking something from every other lore for this one, it doesn’t have any cohesion. Really only three relatively useful spells and a good magic missile. I wouldn’t take this lore.

Rating: 7.5th compared to the eight lores

Lore of Dark Magic

Lore Attribute: Wrath of the Wood gives extra damage if you keep casting versus the same unit. If the opponent has a deathstar, this can be nice, but not my cup-o-tea.

Signature Spell 1: Power of Darkness

• The strength is just bonus, but it isn’t cornercase because of the rest of the spell. You one dice this as your last spell and cast on a 4 . This gives you a chance for an extra die to use on another spell. Not bad safety.

Signature Spell 2: Doombolt

• 2d6 strength 5 is great! Take out the high toughness stuff we struggle with. Castign value is high, but not absurd.

1: Chillwind

• Helpful to take out BS stuff, but not great due to Str. 2. Against T3, it does an average of 2.3 wounds before armor saves.

2: Word of Pain

• Taking out WS and BS, especially the latter, is nice, but people usually don’t have their ranged attacks in large groups. Not a great spell, IMO The strength and ini nerf only needed occasionally and then just to try to save your bacon.

3: Bladewind

• If an opponent has a horde, this can help, but usually those have high WS. It is great against core busses of cheap troops (slaves, state troops, rats, etc.). That this is a cheap spell means it can even be used against better troops since, though it will kill less, it is still worth it.

4: Shroud of Despair

• Less reliable than Doom and Darkness. Taking out leadership buffs is very nice when you can shoot 25% off of them AND can use the lores magic missiles to take 25% out in magic as well. Double up.

5: Soul Stealer

• Way too much going on here. Can try to hit high armor save stuff with this (knights) or low T stuff in hordes/steadfast busses. Definitely nice to buff your wizard up, but the scatter makes it less reliable too. Lots of random here.

6: Arnzipal’s Black Horror

• A magical vortex that fixes the “no saves allowed” problem by allowing ward saves. A nice spell though as strength tests are gonna net you 1/2 to 1/3 of the unit in most cases.

General Thoughts: If you wanna go all spiteful and just hit the opponent with shooting like crazy and magic missiles like crazy, then go this route. You can really mess someone up that way. None of these spells overjoy me, but together they can just make your opponent take damage ALL THE TIME

Rating: 2.5th compared to the eight lores