Does Lore of Fire have a use?

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Does Lore of Fire have a use?

Post by Accersitus »

I have been seeing a lot about lore of death, lore of shadow, (and lore of life for those who can use it), and lore of beast/metal on support mages.

What I started thinking about, is how the relatively low casting values, kindleflame, and long range might make it viable for a level 4 mage
against armies focusing on getting extra dispell dice as magic defense. (Orcs, Empire, dwarves all seem to have this capability, not sure if there are more).
The thought is to use the bonus from the lvl 4, and kindleflame to use less dice/spell, maybe salvaging a spell or two from a bad winds of magic roll.

If we assume they have +2 to dispel, dwarves or lvl 2 scroll caddie, a lvl 4 fire mage (with kindleflame active) gets an average +4 more to the roll,
2 from magic levels, 2 from average on D3. This would force them to use 1 more dice than me when trying to dispell on average.

HE seems to use Teclis/BoH to IF lore of shadow and death spells past this kind of defense, but if you don't have/like that it quickly becomes harder.

I have seen people claiming fire lacks the ability to kill monsters, but the
way I see it, block have become much more important, and a 3D6 fireball
should be able to put a dent in a few monsters
(trolls, varghulf, Hydra, Giant, and so on) who often use regen for
survivability, and doing 3-4 wounds on average against T5 monsters isn't
too bad even if it's sub optimal.

Also, lore of fire seems to have it's uses against big blocks, Piercing Bolts and Flame cage, burning head has it's uses when used together with flame cage,
flaming sword is a nice buff to your troops, flame storm could be nice to start kindle flame (not really dangerous enough on it's own to use dispel dice), and
fire cloak is decent enough if you have 1 power dice left.

And finally, since you can cast most of the spells on 2-3 dice with good probability, it reduces the chance of miscasting.

Just my thoughts on a lore that seems to fade in to the background a bit.
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Post by Red... »

Fire has been made into a bit of an all rounder lore. It's spells are decent, but not game changing. The higher end spells, in particular, just don't add up to the power of the lores of death, shadow, metal and life.

It's main use, as you mention, is to hurt creatures with regen and/or flammable. But otherwise its not worth it imo.

For us dark elves, it is quite a threat, as it spells death to our hydras. Wood elves and tomb kings will fear it too. For other armies, it's not very scary.
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Post by Accersitus »

Any big T3 block could take a lot of damage from Piercing bolts, and Flame cage +
burning head can really mess up human/skaven/(elven) blocks.

The flaming is a bonus, but I think the lore has potential against most enemies.
Most armies have blocks with T3 or T4 that are vulnerable
to the lore.

While it may be extra bad for TK, WE, DE, Drakenhof Banner, and the Life
signature spell, I don't think the other armies can ignore it.
HE infantry, Empire Infantry, Skaven blocks, O&G, can all take lots of damage
from the lore, and many of them could be vulnerable to Flame cage +
burning head
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Post by Meteor »

Lore of Fire indeed is an all rounder lore, but has many attractive spells that makes it worthwhile. Flame Cage and Piercing Bolts is the biggest seller for me, being able to put the hurt on hordes whilst dissuading a vulnerable unit from moving is powerful. Flaming Sword will really put the hurt on whatever we're fighting, even dragons and such don't look so tough when you can wound it on a mere 5+ compared to 6+. The level six spell is quite boring though, nothing about it makes me want it.
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Post by Rork »

I still hate Burning Hate and Piercing Bolts can be rather situational, but overall I like Fire.

The signature spell is excellent - it can be nicely tailored to how many power dice you have to spare, flaming sword is handy, flame cloak a potential combat winner and flame cage great against many units (I saw it pin down 40 bloodletters for multiple turns).

Where there are lores with more overtly destructive spells (Purple Sun), I find many of their spells equally underwhelming compared to the general utility of Fire Magic.
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Post by Tethlis »

I made use of fire for my first few games in 8th edition, and was quite pleased with it. I easily think that Flaming Sword is one of the most useful and underrated spells available from any lore; Black Guard, Witch Elves or Crossbowmen with +1 to Wound is utterly criminal in its effectiveness.

Otherwise, it has good basic direct-damage utility, which will be excellent against some armies and less effective against others. Just like in past editions though, S4 hits are ALWAYS useful, and that's something that the Lore of Fire can provide in easy abundance.
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Post by Caemdare »

Lore of Fire gets a bad rap because it doesn't have the 'OMG AWESOME' flashy-spell such as Purple Sun, Dwellers or Pit of Shades. It does mostly what it says on the tin: throw large ammounts of flaming death at the enemy. Often with a sustained magical barrage of multiple spells that feed into each other due to kindleflame.

I use it as one of my go-to, default lores, simply because it'l never be 'wasted' vs anyone, (As has been mentioned, since when were strength-4 hits bad against anybody?), Has some good range to it, and it's buff spells are...well, scary. Especially scary when you realise it works on missle troops aswell as plain-old close combat guys; a storm of bow or repeater cross-bow fire that suddenly needs 5's to wound a dragon is quite scary...

Added to that, you have nice range to a lot of the spells, so you don't have to do so much maneouvering to get your magic artillery into place. It's not a subtle lore, and maybe that is why people look down at it, ('Look at all the amazing combos I can do with life lore!'), but if you have nothing specific in mind for your mage, (I'm looking at you, pegasus-riding Death Mage carrying a power scroll and Purple Sun...), you will often get good mileage out of fire.

That, and who can not say they don't enjoy throwing fireballs at their enemy's troops? :)
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Post by Danceman »

Let's say you got a unit or witch elves, cosairs or indeed anything with S3. You'll wound big nasty monsters on 6s normally but not with Flaming Sword of Rhuin, then the T5+ units will be just as easy to wound as T4 units and if you're up against a flammable target such as a Treeman or Tomb King then double ouch.
edit; Just saw Tethlis made the same observation.

Granted there are better augment spells out there but since the lore has a relatively low casting value across the board means you'll have an easy time casting multiple spells
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Post by Red... »

Lore of Fire gets a bad rap because it doesn't have the 'OMG AWESOME' flashy-spell such as Purple Sun, Dwellers or Pit of Shades.


Exactly, it doesn't have an OMG AWESOME flashy spell, and that isa problem. Other lores have the potential to be game changing, whereas lore of fire has the potential to be, well, okay. So yeah, its an okay lore, but its not got the power of some of the other lores available.

And before someone says again "S4 isn't bad", actually it is. It's wounding on 3s vs T3 creatures or 4s vs T4 creatures, with a -1 armour save. That's not going to do anyone much hurt really. Yes, you may kill quite a few horde models, but then they're horde models. You won't kill many heavily armoured opponents (average of 7 S4 hits from a 2d6 fireball vs a block of chaos warriors = 3.5 wounds, 1.75 unsaved wounds, not exactly brilliant.)

Lore of fire is an all round lore, sure, there's no one it won't be useful against. But it pays for that versatility in being comparatively weak. Don't fool yourself otherwise. Take it if you want, but you're missing out.

Perhaps a good way to look at it is to say "which lore(s) would I be afraid of my opponent taking against me?" I'd definitely say life and death. Fire? Meh, its annoying, but its not going to destroy me. Can you honestly say you'd be concerned if your opponent turned up with fire as their chosen lore? More so than life or death?
Last edited by Red... on Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Danceman »

Red..; The lore is more a "the sum is larger than it's parts"-lore. Rather than being a weapon itself it makes your army a more potent one. You may not cast the OMG AWESOME-spells but you will be able to cast several spells of which effects will pile on. In addition, you won't have your wizards blowing themselves up left and right.
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Post by Caemdare »

Red... wrote:
Exactly, it doesn't have an OMG AWESOME flashy spell, and that's the problem. Other lores have the potential to be game changing, whereas lore of fire has the potential to be, well, okay.


I prefer to think of it as, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Putting all your hopes on purple sun to take out people can severly backfire if it doesn't, and it can not do so for many reasons. Fire lore, as is even more hinted from the lore attribute, is not about dropping a single spell at a unit and hoping it dies, but for barraging an enemy with a sustained magical assault. Is that what you are looking for in a caster? Perhaps. Given you must pick your lore in advance these days, it really does behoove you to take a lore that is a nice compliment to what you already have, or fills in gaps that needs filling.

If your army is going to suffer vs heavily-armoured troops, then no, lore of fire is not for you; call on the lore of metal. If you already have ways to deal with chaos warriors, (or don't think you'l face any, etc), and want to keep hitting, lore of fire is good to support archer-volleys, or mass crossbowing, or those mortars you are putting into the enemy's night goblin horde.
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Post by Blackbone »

I haven't played around with the Fire lore much yet, but it seems like it has potential for thinning out infantry blocks. I can imagine the opponent having some tough choices about what to dispel due to the fact that subsequent fire spells on the target will be easier to cast.

Also, I keep seeing more and more mention of fire effects in the rulebook.

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Post by Red... »

Putting all your hopes on purple sun to take out people can severly backfire if it doesn't,


You're assuming that the other lores don't have decent spells, but they do. Death is an awesome character killer, shadow is a fantastic support lore, dark is great for hurting missile armies and doing good damage, metal is great for messing up heavily armoured armies. But generally they also have an awesome top end spell, which fire does not.

Fire is good for, mostly chucking fireballs at people. It's not clever, its not subtle, and its not desperately effective. Flaming sword of rhuin is probably the exception, as its a fairly useful spell, but even then its only really handy for when your units are in combat (making it irrelevant for the first couple of turns of the game) or if you have a shooty heavy army (which I seldom do).
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Post by Caemdare »

Red... wrote:
You're assuming that the other lores don't have decent spells, but they do. Death is an awesome character killer, shadow is a fantastic support lore, dark is great for hurting missile armies and doing good damage, metal is great for messing up heavily armoured armies. But generally they also have an awesome top end spell, which fire does not.


You are assuming that I said they do not have decent spells :) It is more like... your goal with purple sun, for instance, is to blow up a lot of enemy models with a single spell. If that is your goal, you have the one spell to do it with, and you need to do a certain ammount of finger-crossing that it is the right uber-unit-remover to drop on the target. I love Dark Lore; it also has a nice element of multiple lash-out-at-the-enemy-unit spells that fire does, (Bladewind + Chill Wind + (Arnizipal's) Black Horror), Beasts lore is very effective with it's buffage alongside a sudden appearance of a big gribbly. But fire is still single-minded in it's, "I'm going to strip models off of those units", attitude: if you dispel Fireball, there is Piercing Bolts of Burning still to come. Or Flamestorm. Or Fulimating Flame Cage. If they dispel Purple Sun, you don't have much of a comeback to keep hitting the unit with.

Also... why so down on the fire number 6? You're still dropping a template on people, just not forcing a characteristic test...
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Post by Danceman »

Never start an argument with "you're assuming..." because then you're assuming that he is assuming something. Something which quickly can devolve into an argument of of strawmen and derails the discussion.

Though I see your point it is a very direct lore. Death got a good amount of solid spells, as do metal and shadow. I am also fond of Heavens and light. I don't see where he assumes they do not(assuming something the poster haven't said is generally rude).

Flaming Sword Irrelevant in the first turns? No, if you have shooting it will cause a ton of wounds compared to what it would do otherwise, it will negate regeneration(and there are quite a few units who rely on this). Most models with this special rule are monsters which are T5+ so, in effect, a shooting unit who's S3 will wound on 5s and allow no save bar armour/wards. This clearly does not make it irrelevant the first turns.

You also have the damage-spells which aren't weak and, once more, are very easy to cast and it continues to get easier if you focus spells on a particular unit. This can also fill the gap between you reaching combat.
Spells like fire Cage and Fire-cloak is nothing to laugh at either.

The lore lack of the OMG AWESOME-spell is not a disadvantage.
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Post by Red... »

Never start an argument with "you're assuming..."


Unless their argument is founded on a point that relies on an assumption, even if only implicitly indicated. It's then appropriate to identify that assumption and tackle it.

At no point have I said that fire is a bad lore. It's decent. It's just not of the same calibre as the others. If you think so, fair enough. I'm going to stop posting in this thread now as I think I've made my basic points. I can't believe that I'm the only person who thinks fire lore is mediocre out there, but looking at the discourse in this thread you'd think I was in the minority. Who knows, perhaps I am.
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Post by Danceman »

Red... wrote:
Never start an argument with "you're assuming..."


Unless their argument is founded on a point that relies on an assumption, even if only implicitly indicated. It's then appropriate to identify that assumption and tackle it..


In that case the assumption would have been made by him and there would have been no need to tell us what his assumption was. It is probably worth saying "I assume you mean..." instead of "You assume..." as the latter can easily become a misrepresentation of the opposing argument(this is what I meant about strawmen). You essentially end up refuting a point your opponent isn't making! I've seen plenty of discussions where a simple rhetorical mistake like this starting massive flamewars where neither side seemed to remember the original arguement. Indeed, the discussion was more about "you said this", "No, I am saying that" and so on.

I do understand your point, and to an extent agree, I just rather called it a well-rounded lore. The spells building up to something different than just a singular massive armageddon spell. Lore of Fire is more reliable in the sense of casting values and therefore by-passing the scary prospect of a 6 dice spell and the chance for miscasts.
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Post by Caemdare »

danceman wrote:I do understand your point, and to an extent agree, I just rather called it a well-rounded lore. The spells building up to something different than just a singular massive armageddon spell. Lore of Fire is more reliable in the sense of casting values and therefore by-passing the scary prospect of a 6 dice spell and the chance for miscasts.


This, in a nut-shell. It is well rounded, not really outstanding in any area, reliable, work-horsey. It gets the job done and goes home, not neccessarily in a flashy way, but in a more relentless, less-risky way, (Which is ironic enough for the Bright lore...).

I do not believe that other spells in other lores are weaker, I really do not, and appologise if that was a given impression. My belief is that all the lores are atleast 'good enough', certainly to select for many and varied reasons. I would say that some spells are more situational than others, or that do not mesh too well with certain armies, (A certain Timewarp from the Light lore is not as potent for, say, High Elves as it might be for others), and that in general, this is not often the case for the comparitive fire-spells.
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Post by Dalamar »

Even firestorm is S4... that kinda killed Lore of Fire for me.
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Post by Mikumiku »

You must think in another way. Lore of Fire hasn't got powerful damage spells, but they're easy to cast. 1 Fireball kills at least 3-4 Goblins, for example. But you don't only do that. You still cast more and more fireballs.

If you have good luck on winds of magic, a lvl4 Sorceress can unleash a firestorm and destroy any poor-armoured horde.
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Post by Fleshcollector »

My experiences with Fire produced the most enjoyable magic phase for myself and my opponent of all the other Lore's with the mega spells. Spells like Purple Sun and Dwellers are just ridiculous in my opinion. They are not fun, are not tactical, take no brain power and are just throwing luck to the wind by risking the miscast for high casting values in a risk/reward gamble. Those type of spells represent the biggest Fail of 8th.

The Lore of Fire, however, offers an interesting versatility and synergy that is accessible for casters of all levels and even rewards the use of multiple casters of variable levels. The Lore of Fire offers you options, combination's and reliability. I don't mind luck in a dice game. But blind luck catastrophically determining a game is weak. When two turns of two throws of the dice ends a game, the game is fundamentally flawed. Now matter your list, no matter your skill, no matter your placement, Purple Sun and Dwellers will end the game with zero skill required for use, just needing a bit of luck. Lame.

Choosing Lore of Fire is certainly not a WAAC Lore to choose, its more sophisticated, challenging and entertaining for you and your opponent. At least in my experience.
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Post by Dalamar »

I'd rather buy 10 crossbowmen than a level 1 fire sorceress...

They actually do more damage and are less prone to exploding.
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Post by Caemdare »

Dalamar wrote:I'd rather buy 10 crossbowmen than a level 1 fire sorceress...

They actually do more damage and are less prone to exploding.


This I wholeheartedly agree with.

Much of the 'advantage' you can gain from choosing Fire, is through throwing lots of fire spells at a target. Having 1 fire spell isn't going to help you like having, say, one Life spell.
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Post by Fleshcollector »

Who likes using level 1's in this edition? Not me. I prefer 4-6 levels of magic.

But one fireball may eliminate a threat to say your war machines, or a flank threat, or squig hoppers, wardancers, etc. I can think of almost countless scenarios, both real and imagined, where a fireball could swing a critical moment. Don't want those scouting gutter runners flogging your flank? Fireball. Harpies in your way? Fireball. Giant Eagle pissing you off? Fireball. Is the difference in Steadfast 1 rank? Fireball. Want to flamecage a unit of chosen? Soften them up with a low version lonely fireball and greatly increase your casting roll or use one less power dice.

The point is that one lonely fireball is waaaaaaaay more versatile than many other signature spells, namely because it then sets you up for greater success on a bigger spell that can help to control your enemy or just do more damage, perhaps swinging steadfast in your favor. Due to its relatively low individual damage potential, it is not like "Me smash Dwellers on you. Me destroy you best unit. Me kill your Supreme Sorceress, no save. Me win." Rather is is "Where do I need synergy?
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Post by Meteor »

Fire and Metal lores to me, are best used in conjunction with a shooting army since they've got heaps of spells that are missiles or direct damage. Augment spells even compliment shooting, +1 to wound for RxB, or +1 to hit for them, it's not only promoting CC by restricting the bonus to that field.

Shadow is definitely a lore designed for CC, since nearly all its spells can be cast into CC.

I prefer spells that has a lasting effect on my opponent. It's something that lore of fire lacks, since everything is instant damage, save for Flame Cage, which is a lasting effect spell, and so is Flame Sword. And coincidentally, they're the only two spells in the Lore of Fire that I like and want, aside from the almighty Fireball. Except I stick with Shadow and Dark Magic for that same reason, and soul steal works just as well as Fireball when played right :)
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