Strongest non-BRB Lore

[NitrosOkay]

Infernal Gateway is pretty badly designed in my opinion. I like the Storm of Magic version of it, where if you roll an 11-12 for strength your hits wound automatically and ignore all saves.

[Jind_Singh]

While this is a hard choice Im gonna go with the Big Waaagh for previous mentioned reasons.

Being a most enthusiastic greenskin lover (apart from Snotlings!) here I would have to say the Little Waaagh out performs the Big Waaagh by quite a large factor - but even the little Waaagh isn't as powerful as say Dark Magic.

If it was strictly 8th ed lores I'd rank Little Waaagh as one of the top non-main rule book lores - But Vampires is scarey - it's a very effective lore that not only dishes out damage, but it also has great buffs!

[Doommasters]

Infernal Gateway is pretty badly designed in my opinion. I like the Storm of Magic version of it, where if you roll an 11-12 for strength your hits wound automatically and ignore all saves.

I like this also, regardless of how unlikely you are to remove a a whole unit outright that fact it can be done just does not sit well with me. Lore of Tzeentch as a total though is not even close to the most powerful without the scare factor of being able to wipe ot whole units.

[Maoriboy007]

I like this also, regardless of how unlikely you are to remove a a whole unit outright that fact it can be done just does not sit well with me. Lore of Tzeentch as a total though is not even close to the most powerful without the scare factor of being able to wipe ot whole units.

I pretty much agree, just the only spells I see from the Lore are Pandemoneum , Gateway and Flickering Fire, all great spells especially when used in combination, and the Treason of Tzeench isnt a bad anti Horde spell from what I can recall, as far as being balanced across the board in power llevel then yes Lores like Vampires fit more into that category, although I'd still Vampires is about subtlety in its aspect rather than raw power.

[Antipathy]

Hashut is a fairly awesome lore.

[the_picto]

GUO is a great value IMO. L4 with nurgling infestation is a solid threat on its own, and a great support piece for the army overall (infestation isn't needed, but as a support piece, I think it's well worth adding).

Herald of nurgle is an expensive wizard, but it is a survivable character that's a great choice for BSB, and with the upgrade to L1 and a palanquin, it becomes a real threat in combat for if it gets off miasma.

My point was that you need to be playing a 2280pts game to field a lvl 4 GUO with no extra upgrades. The herald may well be a solid hero choice, but he only gets 1 spell. So it seems like it is hard/expensive to really make use of the lore of nurgle, particularly at lower points games.

[Phazael]

The Fat man is easily the best GD out there, with or without the lore upgrade. I don't like making him level 4 in a mixed army, but if I am running Great wall of Nurgle, then I consider it mandatory.

[mbh1127]

I'm saying both skaven lores (mainly because I can't remember which spells belong to each lore, but I do remember both lores have certain aspects that make them IMO better than others). Lets take a couple of their spells:

Death frenzy: While not the best augment in the game, it's still a pretty damn good one (especially considering it was an augment before augments existed). The downside to the spell is pretty much inneffective. Dear god D6 rats die. Only another 50 to go... It also works pretty well with other spells in the lore e.g. blessed with filth, where if you can get both these off, it can be pretty devastating. There's also the unlikel event of getting 13 on the bell with death frenzy, which can cause oh so much damage, but that's pretty unlikely.

Wither: -1 toughness permenantly. Need I say more? Yes. It's basically there to compensate for the general low strength of the army, but it's just so damn devastating. It basically puts a unit on a crutch for the rest of the game for a pretty low casting value (if memory serves correctly)

Plague: Pretty much a psuedo dwellers, with a possible upside or downside. If you get the downside, then it will on averages take out half of one or more of your own units. If you get the upside, then on averages it will take out half or a third of one or more enemy units. High risk high reward pretty much.

Vermintide: Pretty good spell IMO. It ruins compact armies in the same way plague does, just no risk and lower reward.

Cloud of Corruption (I think that's the name): Pretty situaional but it works when it does. Fairly low risk, fairly high potential. Other horde armies don't really care about it, but elite armies (HE, WoC, DE etc.) will not like it.

The dreaded thirteenth: Pretty overrated. Not as overrated as something like gateway, but it's high casting value lets it down. Again, horde armies don't care to much about it, but elite armies will not want 4D6 insta kills coming their way. Then we have things like ogres, who literally ignore it. That's why it's an optional spell. It's not a spell you can rely on or base your army around, like some people may do by taking 2 level four grey seers, having the one that's not general 6 dice it until he dies at which point the general takes over, but since t's optional, the rest of the lore hold up for you in these match ups where it won't work.

Overall they're both really good lores with spells for each situation.

hmmm

I'm not sure I rate these spells as high as you do.

Death Frenzy seems like a devastating spell but you have to use on a strong combat unit to get any real damage and that's not easy with skaven. Also, the D6 deaths actually do matter if if you cast it on monks or stormvermin. Still a decent spell though.

Plague is amazing, no argument.

Wither is also amazing but the range is really a big downside. I usually try to keep my seer out of combat, which makes pulling this spell off a bit rough but if you can get it against a strong unit it can be a game changer.

Vermintide = garbage to me. Having to roll for the range is what kills this. I hate this spell.

Cloud of corruption is another spell I don't really love. In all my games I have never been able to use this really effectively. I run into the problem of range once again. Ideally it would be nice to get this on a plague priest and run it into the enemy's lines. It's too bad my priests usually die quickly. The other problem I run into is that I play with a lot of little units and there have been times when this spell would do much more damage to me.


I agree with your take on the 13th spell. It's still a good spell and the fear factor alone counts for something, but 25 is tough to pull off if you really need it.




I guess I agree that the skaven plague spells are strong except for Vermintide and the crappy breath weapon one. Therest combined with the 13th spell make a strong lore. The skaven spells of ruin are not nearly as good though. Good hingnyou can mix.

[GenerationTerrorist]

I love Little Waaagh!
Just such a funky lore that complements an all-Goblin army perfectly :-)

[Blademeister]

I voted for the skaven lores, they have some powerful spells with cheap casting values. Wither is a great spell! I do like the lore of High magic though. Drain magic can be pretty useful, vauls unmaking isn't bad either. (although it is nowhere near the strongest lore)

[Harwammer]

Which is why I said if we were talking about the BRB lores that life would certainly rate higher on my list, although an 11-12 Gateway is far more likely to wipe out, say, a 10,000 point unit (to state an extreme example) than dweller could was the point I was trying to make. If you are trying to prove the outright brokeness of Dwellers (and to an extent the other big spells), then I don't nesessarily disagree with you, but does that mean gateways destroy unit with no regard isn't equally redunkulous? Not really. I see this spell in action a lot and its not hard for the player to cast compared to dwellers and unlike Dwellers, doesn't rely on casting a separate spell to neuter miscasts. Being able to push the spell through every phase with impunity means those otherwise seemingly long odds actually start shorten quite a bit (and yes taking into account Throne of Vines and Dice availability , this goes for Dwellers as well). Even an average strength Gateway will on odds still take off 5-6 standard models (give or take) with virtually no armour save, still pretty decent.
Trying to brush Gateway off as being particularly mild or unit removal as next to impossible just tends to get my hackles up, I've seen it in action far too often (both as an observer and a victim) to take it mildly.

Don't worry; I wasn't trying to brush off or over hype either lore. Just looking at some stats and leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.

In response to your note that "Even an average strength Gateway will on odds still take off 5-6 standard models (give or take) with virtually no armour save", I feel I had to explain the difference between our maths (me: "in the remaining 11/12 times dwellers will likely be taking off far more than the 4 (vs T4) or 5 (vs T3) wounds (assuming no saves) that gateway will be doing").

You've taken strength seven hits as the most common case and did the maths for that, which fairly reasonable. My maths looked at strength 2 to 10 separately then used these results to work out the overall expected number of wounds caused (before saves) for a non-auto-destroy dwellers.

In other words your maths worked out the most common wounds caused (or rather the least rare result), whereas mine looked at the average number of wounds caused. Hence your 5-6 wounds against T3-5 versus my 4ish wounds Vs T4 or my 5ish wounds vs T3.

I can show the maths later if any one is interested.