Editing Warhammer Army Project/Empire (section)

===Magic===
The Empire is one of the few armies to get access to all eight Lores of Magic. Almost all are of at least solid use because pretty much all buffs and hexes are valuable to army that's mostly made up of mediocre infantry and all damage spells are welcome too even if you'll never blast the opponent off the table. Still some lores are definitely better.

Good choices are:

* '''Life:''' This Lore [[Zero Punctuation|could only be more awesome if it had tits and was on fire]]. If you want to win and be boring you'll do the same thing you've been doing in since vanilla 8th. Stick a level 4 in that horde of Halberdiers, sit on your Throne of Vines, be within 12 inches of your Steam Tank and whore the hell out of Earth Blood, Flesh to Stone and Regrowth until the game ends.

* '''Metal:''' A good choice, but only comes into its own against enemies with high armor values (Warriors of Chaos, Bretonnians, other Empire armies, and so on). Casting Plague of Rust on Skinks or Clanrats is a waste of fucking time, as you won't be getting as much mileage out of it compared to using it on Dwarfs or WoC; considering how nearly every unit in the book has at least light armor and all melee cav have fullplate this just got a whole lot better/ A horde of Halberdiers with +3 armor save, +1 to hit and armored piercing, YES PLEASE (calm down, that unit of Halberdiers would do better with T7 and 4+ regen from a life wizard). Metal also has better offense spells than life with Searing Doom ignoring armor and Gehenna's Golden Hounds being a sniping attack.

* '''Light:''' Gives you a lot of very nice buffs (Speed of Light is a godsend should your opponent get into your artillery) and debuffs (particularly Net of Amyntok). A particularly nasty combo (if you can get it off) is Speed of Light and Birona's Timewarp, which together will make your Greatswords/knights with greatweapons hit like Frenzied High Elf Swordmasters. Very good lore, especially considering the fact that it's statistically the easiest lore to cast.

* '''Death:''' Four words: Purple Sun of Xereus. It also has very good buffs and debuffs, though you've got to be close to an enemy for the latter (you have horses and Pegasus for that).

* '''Shadow:''' Has a lot of very good debuffs and grants additional mobility to self and another character. But you really want this Lore for Okkam's Mindrazor, which replaces a unit's Strength score with its Leadership when rolling to wound, which means that the unit you cast it on will essentially have at least 7 Strength(!) in close combat. Cast it on your Knights, Greatswords, or Flagellants and swing for the bleachers. This is statistically the hardest lore to cast, so make sure to give it to a level 4 Wizard Lord.

* '''Heaven:''' One of the best lores for an all cavalry Empire Army. Harmonic let you reroll 1s for to hit, to wound and armour saves which is really useful when you will find yourself with 2+ to wound and 2+ as a lot of times. Use a lvl4 and a lvl1 wizard for that double iceshard which gives -2 hit which goes a long way when charging high strength units and -2 to ld which is really useful when charging steadfast units. Thunderbolt and Chain lightning is decent for taking out MSU armies and Comet can help you against corner armies as well as controlling the movement of MSU armies. All the spells are cast at a decent cost which allows you to attempt several spells compared to life, which gives your opponent a dilemma when he has to prioritize which spells to let through. Also, heaven spells have a good range so you can keep your wizard in the back protected by f.ex. archers. This lore is highly underrated. The downside is that it requires some practice to use.  

If you take direct damage spells (especially magic missiles) with the notion of blasting your enemy to kingdom come, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Buffs and debuffs are where it's at, and you'll notice that what all of the Lores recommended above have in common are good buffs, good debuffs and one Spell of Horde Buggery.

If you want to just murder shit, though, there is always...

* '''Fire:''' Literally just spam fireballs and shit everywhere. Just spam the fuck out of level one fire wizards, and I can guarantee you, point for point, you'll do far more damage than a fully kitted out gunline of Handgunners and crossbowmen.