Your Experiences from using Dark Magic?

[Setomidor]

Hi all,

with the book having been around for a few months, what are your impressions on Dark Magic?

[Gerner]

It is strong.
Very good synergy with our units and our magical items.
Many of the spells are superb against horde/bus armies, but it doesn't really bring anything that can handle MI, MC or Monsters sadly.
The lore isn't optimal against elite type of armies (WoC, DoC, HE & OK) in my opinion.

[Askador]

Im not a big fan of it. I dont need horde killers. My units can kill them with ease.

I prefer Life and Shadow. T7 Witches are nice to have.

[Searinox Nagharha]

Its a great lore with lots of sinergy with our units. Sadly tho since alot have short ranges its best used on a mobile SS.
Word of Pain is a briliant skill with many uses and for only 12+ you debuff WS, BS, S & I. the most fun part is that the
Chillwind is pale compaired to its old self but if your running your SS mobile can still be usefull.
WS has no minimum so using it on something with a WS if 3 or less means that the whole unit cant attack and gets Auto-Hit.
Bladewind myst be my faverite spell, especially with all the hordes you see. uf used on the right target it will cut through the unit.
Shroud is another nice skill if combod right with Ld checks.
Soul Stealer is nice for the Sorc on the go as beeing able to heal oneself is ncr a bad thing.
I havent used Bkack horror yet but its a insta kill spell so cant be that bad
The +1 to casting is also golden, has saved me lots of times.

Tho as Gerner said it doesnt fair to well vs Elite units without some luck and preplanning

Personally i prefer Shadow tho, bit more utility that i like (like a toughness debuff)

[Gastronauticon]

I like it particularly because it is really useful throughout the game, perhaps even more so than the 8 standard lores.

Early, the opponent is forced to choose between dispelling black horror (sideways through the deployment zone if possible) or a couple of doombolts to the face. The extra 2D S1 AP is actually rather consistent, sometimes even compelling the opponent to dispel the "wrong" spell. Lore of death does this as well but I sometimes find character sniping less of a pressing matter than clearing chaff/causing panic tests.

Midgame, either word of pain, shroud or soulblight (from Warlocks, I admit) will get through. All are good. Lore of shadow is nice in this regard as well though.

Then, revert back to damage spells for late game point grabbing.

[Setomidor]

I'm actually running Shadow at the moment, as I have found that the access to Doombolt from Warlocks complements Shadow very nicely. However, I was up against High Elves yesterday and only brought one unit of Warlocks to support my Lvl4 Shadow. He brought an avoidance/shooty/magic army and quickly got rid of my Warlocks, after which my Shadow mage couldn't really do anything. Against an army that refuses to engage in CC, Shadow is very weak. I was also impressed by his +5 to-cast on High Magic, and look keenly at getting the same benefits from Dark.

[Omnichron]

Dark Magic is a decent lore... maybe more so when we get +1 to our cast on it.

Whether you should use it or not depends on what kind of list you have. Do you have enough elite killers in your army (Super characters, Cold one Knights, Executioners, RBT and such), Dark Magic might work really well. If not, you might struggle.

I still think that Death and Shadow is more beneficial for most of our lists in general though.

[Cold73]

Quite different from Askador the only thing i usually struggle with is big blocks of infantry. And that has nothing to do with not being able to kill the unit in due time...it always comes down to the enemy being stead fast for a long long time. (2-3 rnds)

Dark Magic for me is the Great Equalizer.
Is allows me to almost neutralize large units in my magic phase. So much so that i can break them when melee does happen.
huge blocks of 50+ Storm Vermin or Clan Rats a pain? ...they are a lot less scary when they are halved by just 2 spells.
Even Empire Knights with 1+ AS will fear Black Horror

[Dalamar]

I love dark magic, it's extremely universal and awesome against both hordes and elite armies.

Elites will fear word of pain, black horror and shroud of despair as well asbdoombolt if they're the elven kind of elites.
Hordes will fear soul stealer, bladewind, black horror and shroud of despair.
Gunlines can be nicely silences with a well placed word of pain and/or chillwind.

No spell is useless, some are just more situational than others.

[Clockwork]

I find this really interesting. I'm really attracted to Dark Magic for the utility and low casting values, making it easy for Level 4s to make multiple spells extremely threatening. I'm going to be using it for most of my games and, if I go to SCGT this year, will probably take it then too.

On the other hand, it doesn't really answer the major threats at the moment (although arguably there's enough in the list that does), there's some spells which are clearly high priority for the enemy, and I think Light will work better for my MSU list. Nonetheless, this feedback is encouraging.

[Cold73]

One thing did notice in a game last night.... Doombolt is a damn good spell to use for killing warmachines...especially with the Lore Atttribute.
Normally 2D S? hits is not enough to kill a single warmachine...but compaired with the threat of rolling an extra 2D6 S1 hits...seems to make all the difference.

Use that early on...and your opponent will fear Doombolt even more...... Forcing him to have another spell to deal with.

[N.I.C.K]

One thing did notice in a game last night.... Doombolt is a damn good spell to use for killing warmachines...especially with the Lore Atttribute.
Normally 2D S? hits is not enough to kill a single warmachine...but compaired with the threat of rolling an extra 2D6 S1 hits...seems to make all the difference.

Use that early on...and your opponent will fear Doombolt even more...... Forcing him to have another spell to deal with.

100% I've found this as well and makes chillwind a nice spell given you can boost the rnage for it relatively cheaply.

[van Awful]

I used dark magic for the first time yesterday, against Ogres.
It worked great. i had a level 4 on dark steed in a unit of darkriders, backed up by 5 warlocks.
Word of pain is awesome, especially if you can throw a black horror after it.

Okay, I had some luck, Scragg lost 2 levels in his first turn due to a miscast and i managed to kill him with shooting and a doombolt in my 2nd turn. My mate didnt have him in a unit!!! After that he had no more spellcasters.
I had no use for shroud of despair this game, and obviously i forget the attribute completely, but i was really pleased with our new lore!
I think i will be using it again in my next game

[Dalamar]

That's ok. I still keep forgetting about the attribute...

[Askador]

Quite different from Askador the only thing i usually struggle with is big blocks of infantry. And that has nothing to do with not being able to kill the unit in due time...it always comes down to the enemy being stead fast for a long long time. (2-3 rnds)

Dark Magic for me is the Great Equalizer.
Is allows me to almost neutralize large units in my magic phase. So much so that i can break them when melee does happen.
huge blocks of 50+ Storm Vermin or Clan Rats a pain? ...they are a lot less scary when they are halved by just 2 spells.
Even Empire Knights with 1+ AS will fear Black Horror

Never had such problems. I usualy overrun in the first turn of attack. Did that with 30 Chaos Warriors as well as 80 Skaven slaves.

[Harkonnen]

Very interesting discussion.

I think against some armies new Dark is really strong. The ones that use lots of big units (or actually a single big unit makes Dark worth it alrdy;p).
And low LD armies are verrrry prone to one well placed SoD.

My problem is, i often play against WoC, and in the whole damn lore, there is no single spell useful against an army consisting of: prince, 2x 1+3++ save heroes, 4-5 chariots, chimera, and 4 crushers or something along those lines. She would simply only be there for dispelling honestly, and maybe just maybe doombolting a chariot but thats it, the rest will not take fuckall damage from Dark lore... And the combat debuffs are well.. Debuffing a demon prince to weapon skill 8 from 9 isnt gonna do much now is it...

[Dalamar]

Really?

Power of Darkness - make your combat troops more likely to wound and crack through chaos' heavy armor
Doombolt - can actually worry DP with the amount of wounds it can put (remember DP has only 4 wounds, each one counts) can also rip through Warrior units.
Chillwind - this one is not that fantastic and there are better options, good thing we have two good signatures to switch to.
Word of Pain - Chaos will HATE this spell, especially boosted. HATE HATE HATE.
Soul Stealer - useful if you see large blocks of infantry since it's not very accurate. Sure you will have problems wounding but it ignores armor which chaos is so proud of
Bladewind - S4 AP cuts through Warriors infantry very nicely
Shroud of Despair - chaos depends on its just above average Ld, taking away BSB re-rolls alone can win you the game, but this spell is difficult to use correctly (I haven't quite figured it out myself yet)
Black Horror - Knights hate it, warriors hate it, drop it on a unit of skullcrushers after a nice word of pain and they go poof.

Now for the army you mentioned:
Doombolt Chariots until they're dead
Word of Pain whatever you want to drop Black Horror on and then Black Horror through (even if only one spell works, it will still hurt) If you have any dice for more spells you can shroud a large area.

You're saying demon prince won't care about having his WS dropped from 9 to 8. But he will care about having his S dropped from 5 to 2!

[Harkonnen]

Hm hm, you raise valid points as always dala;p

I guess i was being abit pestimistic. Guess ill have to try it more. Mostly when im going up against woc im just like.. yeah Dark will suck enough, lets go <insert lore> (death, life, beasts) ...

Although your point about power of darkness, don't know, there's 2 issues imo;
1. you want your dark SS to be mobile for numerous reasons (hitting all the other spells and keeping her safe), and that makes the str portion of the spell kind of useless? That leaves an unreliable way at best to gain a powerdice..
2. with "only" 4 spells, i dont think i would trade any of the lore's other spells for PoD, except chillwind, which will certainly be swapped for doombolt...

Nevertheless, i can see your point, and i will try it and report back

[Dalamar]

for your 1.

If she's riding with warlocks, they are a formidable force at dealing with chariots of any kind, from a tiranoc chariot to an ironblaster. at S5 they are stronger than Dragon Princes (though a bit less resilient) and far more maneuverable, even S5 Dark Riders can put a scare into a chariot. If cast as a last spell on a single die, you either succeed or you lose concentration so it's not a bad use for that last die considering you can get three back. Additionally if your sorceress is equipped with cloak of twilight and obsidian trinket, she'll have 2++ against the wound caused by Power of Darkness so not much to worry about.

2. You have "only" 4 spells on a supreme sorceress. I do hope you have at least a single unit of warlocks or another sorceress? Warlocks by themselves can put plenty of pressure on chaos with Doombolt and Soulblight.

You have to pick your spells to the situation (why Tome of Furion is so good). Shroud of Despair might be great against one chaos army (one with many small units that don't have slaanesh or khorne mark), so can be soul stealer (if you see a marauder horde or a larger warrior block) but neither is a guaranteed pick (that would be Word of Pain) so there's always something you can swap for both signatures. Sometimes you will have no use for Power of Darkness (if S bonus has little effect, your opponent is likely to let it through, and with how easy to cast our spells are... it's often just as good to cast the intended spell in the first place)

[marcopollo]

I am starting to 2nd guess the tome of furion on a level 4. You have a pretty good chance of rolling a double something when you generate your spells. So you can pick what you want anyway, if you didn't get it from the initial roll to begin with. Say, that you want word of pain. On the 1/3 chance you don't roll it at the start, you can pick it if you roll a double, which is not that uncommon. Haven't done the math, but at first glance you should be able to get it thus freeing up those 25 pts and an arcane spot. The tome is better on a lv 2 for this reason.

[Dalamar]

Sure, if you have two wizards, I would probably put a tome on a level 2 dark, supporting a level 4 death or some such.

But I run a solo Level 4 and having a specific spell is absolutely PARAMOUNT. The ability to pick and choose as I need when I see my opponent's it as oppose to during army creation is amazing.

But as far as experiences go... I keep forgetting about the attribute.

[Dangerous Beans]

Word of pain also has great synergy with soul stealer (when it hits properly!).

I agree with Dal's thoughts on countering WoC with it too, though sadly I *still* haven't had a game with the new book! *curses his slave drive job in the quarries of Hag Graef...*

[Kheel]

imho the best lore in the game for dark elves. Many synergies with rest of the units and it combines hexes, buffs and damage spells so well. I love Dark.

[cyberhawk94]

Im having a very hard time choosing between this and my Shadow boosted Corsairs. In the old book I always ran a level 4 Shadow + dagger with a level 2 dark/fire/metal (depending on the rest of the army) for direct offense. Now Dark is much better on a level 4 than a level 2, and has alot of the same benefits as shadow. Plus Warlocks were thrown into the mix! What to do what to do...

[Dalamar]

Dark is just as good on a level 2 wizard, but if you do that you need to pick a specific purpose and Tome of Furion!
I like the universal combination of Doombolt and Word of Pain, but both spells require 3-4 dice to be cast effectively.
Power of Darkness + Word of Pain makes for a very potent combat sorceress (with opal amulet for protection) and Power of Darkness is an effectively free spell.