11 replies to this topic

[David L]

8th Edition Dwarf Spellbreaker Guide - Lore of Life
5 beers means big big trouble, use your spellbreakers here!

Life is one of the most popular lores because it can protect the caster from miscasts, protect his army very well, has an awesome nuke spell. It also has the best lore attribute in the game. Its disadvantages are consuming lots of power dice, needing spell synergy (with Throne of Vines), and a couple of poor spells. You pretty much never see Life except on a level 4, because of Throne of Vines, those two weaker spells, and the subpar default spell.

When going against the Lore of Life, the big debate is how much priority to put on stopping Throne of Vines. With the spell up, the enemy is much more likely to go for a 6-dice cast of whatever they want, because Throne ignores the miscast on a 2+. But if you let Throne go up, you have even more dice to oppose the rest of their spells and they have less to cast them. Obviously if you think you can stop everything, which we sometimes can, you should dispel Throne. But in high dice phases, personally I am of the opinion Dwarfs should usually let Throne go and stop whatever follows. I'd love to see someone post a detailed explanation of the other perspective (always dispel Throne) in this thread.


Lore Attribute - Lifebloom
Heal a wound on a friendly model with 12" of the caster. Very very good.

Earthblood (Default Spell) - 1 or 3 Beers
The casters unit gains 5+ regeneration (4+ with Throne of Vines). Note that it has no range - only the caster and his unit. Sometimes the caster and his unit are really important and coming after you (Slann in Temple Guard), and stopping this is more important. But often the caster's unit is not currently important, and you can largely ignore this spell.

Awakening - 1 Beer
Simple direct damage for D6 Strength 4 (S 6 with Throne of Vines), and at only 18" range. Increases to 2D6 if the target is in a forest. A slight threat to our war machines, at least with Throne up, but really doesn't do enough damage for us to care. This is a spell your opponent usually hopes they don't roll.

Flesh to Stone - 3 or 4 Beers
An awesome augment spell, it provides +2 Toughness (+4 with Throne of Vines) to any unit within 24". With Throne up this basically makes all attacks at that unit wound on 6s, so I give it 4 Beers, but without Throne the affect is not quite so bad and I only give it 3 Beers.
This is a spell you may save a spellbreaker to stop when the enemy is in combat, but you probably use them earlier on Dwellers; see below.

Throne of Vines - 1 or 4 Beers (see perspective at the top)
remains in play
The spell buffing augment spell. While it is in play, any of the other Life spells that are cast are better. While in play, the caster also ignores miscasts on a 2+.
Always remember to dispel this in your own magic phase!
If you are using spelleater runes, a potentially good strategy is to immediately try to eat this spell. Success means the enemy knows they always risk miscasts to cast Dwellers, and you don't need to worry about the more powerful affects of the other spells.

Shield of Thorns - 1 Beer
remains in play
Augment spell that inflicts 2D3 hits at Strength 3 (S4 with Throne of Vines) on units in base contact with the target unit. The second spell your opponent usually hopes they don't roll.

Regrowth - 3 beers
This heals wounds and regrows MODELS in a target unit. But even with Throne up it only provides D6+1 wounds (less for cavalry), so the impact is not huge. The danger is that combined with Flesh to Stone reducing damage taken, this spell can keep a unit at perfect health to grind out any combat. Or it can keep a nearly dead unit alive to preserve victory points. This is not worth using a spellbreaker on unless you have one left near the end of the game.

Dwellers Below - 5 beers
All models in target unit must pass a Strength test or DIE, no saves of any kind. Since it is not a template, no "look out sir" applies (although allowing "look out sir" is a common house rule). Because the casting value is so high (21+ to get 24" range), this spell is almost always cast with 6 dice, giving it about a 25% chance of IF. When it goes off without IF, you almost always want to spellbreaker it.

[Lanceocletian]

David- Thanks for your two magic reviews.

[Kervin]

Thanks for the great magic reviews, David. Could it be a good idea to make these reviews a part of the 8th edition dwarfs handbook??

[David L]

They already are; just follow logical links and you'll get to them.

[Ælfric of Kazad Thørn]

I liked this, and look forward to reading the other reviews.

Personally, LoL (ironic much) is the lore of choice at my local gaming club. Even the Demons player uses it!!! I had the whole, ToV to dispel or not to dispel debate with the the resident wood elf player the other week.

We'd had an interesting couple of games and he was bemoaning my ability to shut down his magic phase with just a Runesmith. I was saying that whilst the RS did boost my dispelling abilities, he wasn't why I had "won" the magic phase in our game. My position was that i'd shut him down because i ignored ToV each time.

He put forward the usual argument: "with ToV off I was happy to throw as many dice as I could at dwellers and Flesh to stone" And that my strategy was dangerous.

My retort was and is: "well yes you got ToV off every phase, but what else did you get off?"

I guess what I'm saying is, that I agree with DavidL, usually (not always) letting ToV go is the best option.

[MarkusAurelias]

I was just thinking about this depending on the number of dice he uses for it an what he has left unless he IFs you should be able to shut down his remaining magic easily. The you can use your power dice to dispel his throne of vines... Using PD as dispel dice is still a tactic I haven't gotten used to as I'm a fresh Beardling...

Edited by MarkusAurelias, 22 November 2012 - 07:33 AM.

[Wendersnaven]

Am I the only one who fights Slann?

There are certain casters in the game that can be engineered to have tons of leftover dice after ToV goes off. Slann can have a special ability that allows them a free dice every time they cast, in addition to the equipment and powers that add dice to the pool. They are next to unstoppable, hate all good natured children, and enjoy kicking puppies in the jaw.

Once they IF ToV, it can be wardsaved via the errata, on the 2+. Then they can safely ward save the other two spells they IF through, or just spread them out to eat up your dice. Vampire, TK, and Lizardmen magic is hard to ride out in my opinion, so letting ToV through sounds like crazy talk to me. <Insert clip of Jane Cobb.> I can see the strategy if a little Empire wizard hiding behind a speculum is casting it, but there are some pretty insane casters out there without resorting to special characters. Looking at you DEs, even if i've never played against them.

If I let ToV through with my regular opponents, they can kill me with their brain. <End clip.>

[Ryric]

If you see any TK or DE players with Lore of Life or with any other lore but casting Throne of Vines, let me know, Wendersnaven. I'd like to get a look at their army books.

[David L]

My point Wendersnaven is that they are going to cast those other spells if ToV is up or not. If you ignore ToV, you have the dice and spell breakers to stop the other spells. If you stop ToV, what do you let go instead ... Flesh to Stone, Regrowth, or Dwellers?

[Wendersnaven]

If you see any TK or DE players with Lore of Life or with any other lore but casting Throne of Vines, let me know, Wendersnaven. I'd like to get a look at their army books.

Har har. Lingustic ambiguity. Harve a beer .... <grumble>

My point Wendersnaven is that they are going to cast those other spells if ToV is up or not. If you ignore ToV, you have the dice and spell breakers to stop the other spells. If you stop ToV, what do you let go instead ... Flesh to Stone, Regrowth, or Dwellers?

The guys I play will throw all remaining dice at Dwellers if they get ToV off, as they won't have to worry about the consequences of the imminent six dice IF-Dwellers that follows ToV. I can't dispel something that is IForced through.

At that point I loose 50% of my unit on average, or the Anvil/Warmachines. My regular opponents will go for the IF ToV so I can't scroll or roll, and they can press the auto-win button. So the best strategy I've been able to work out is to obliterate ToV from their mind with Spelleater at the first chance I get- it may not remove the spell, but it stops the spell and leaves me plenty of dice to dispel the rest with. They then have to decide whether the consequences of the IF are worth it as there will be consequences without ToV.

To reiterate, ToV means they can throw six dice safely at the other spells and it's almost always Dwellers in my neighborhood. So given your well written scale/perspective above ToV=4 Beers to me. I have dealt with the results of letting it through too often.

[David L]

I think they should be 6-dicing Dwellers whether ToV is up or not. Also remember, 6 dice is only about 25% chance of IF (and probably over 30% chance of outright spell failure on boosted Dwellers, but I'm not doing the math at the moment)

[Andy06r]

Sounds like Wendersnaven plays a lot of lizardmen. If ToV isn't up, IF'ing with the slann is a very scary proposition. He's much more likely to try to attempt to 2 and 3 dice everything. The wounds on the Slann aren't so bad (he does have a 4+ ward afterall), but S10 nuking 160 points of temple guard or rolling the big template in the unit that likely cost him 500 points not including the slann is an easy way to lose the game.