Total War: Warhammer/Tactics/Magic

This page goes into details about every single spell (Unique Spells and hero abilities not included) in the game, their uses, and so on. For the general gist of how magic works, head over to Total War: Warhammer/Tactics#Magic. lots of old and incorrect info online about spells refer to https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-_Swyh0Ifo8cTI4ZUxoVGtmVVk/view for actual spell numbers. credit to KamachoThunderbus

Generic Lores

Lore of Beasts

Passive - Wild Heart: Your power recharge rate and power reserves increase for 29 seconds upon casting a spell from this lore, a nice tool that helps maintain the overall combat effectiveness of your Beasts caster over the course of the battle, but it's not to such a degree that you'll likely notice.

• Flock of Doom: Recreate The Birds by siccing flocks of crows on all enemy units within the casting reticle. Has a low winds cost and a rather quick cooldown, but is virtually useless against single entities or smaller units. Save this for the enemy hordes that might try to tie down your forces. ignores armor but only good on large units.
• Pann's Impenetrable Pelt: Buff the physical resistance and movement speed of a fellow unit for a rather long 50 seconds. The physical resistance is great, especially on tough single entities or monstrous units. On units with already good physical resistance it's particularly great (most wood elf units especially, doomfire warlocks, sisters of slaughter etc), though shield of thorns is usually better. If you have access to both Beasts and Life casters, you can combine both to make some units (especially wood elf tree spirits with campaign buffs) hit the 90% cap on physical resistance.
• The Amber Spear: The only other damage dealing spell you have, this time as a single projectile geared towards character/monster sniping. It deals pretty hefty damage and is a great option against more heavily armored beasts that would otherwise shrug off other artillery or missile fire from more conventional units. It does have a powerful but short range explosion effect as well, so it can technically nuke an elite unit but aiming may be more trouble than its worth to get a good hit.
• The Curse of Anraheir: A hex that slows a target unit and impairs their accuracy and melee attack for 39 seconds. This is an excellent tool to help neuter a particularly dangerous unit so that you can either kite it or more easily surround it while taking less damage in the process.
• Transformation of Kadon: This is pretty much the reason most players bother taking the Lore of Beasts in multiplayer at all. After a brief windup period, the Beast Caster summons either a Feral Manticore (standard), Great Eagle (High/Wood Elves) or Varghulf (Von Carstein). As they can be summoned anywhere within 60m of the caster, this allows you to throw a relatively potent combat monster into an opponent's more vulnerable backline while they can do little more than scramble to address the sudden incursion. With a limit of two casts per battle and a moderately short timer on the monsters before they despawn, each cast should be considered wisely.
• Wyssan's Wildform: A nice combat supplement, this grants an allied unit additional armor and a 22% weapon damage buff for 14 seconds. This is a fantastic buff to toss on monsters or characters with particularly high offensive stats, as the buff is percentage based, they'll get much more out of it than the rank and file ever could. When you run out of Transformation of Kadon casts, this will probably be your default spell outside the occasional Amber Spear.

Lore of Death

Passive - Life Leeching: Whenever a spell is cast from this discipline, your power recharge rate improves for 25 seconds. Quite frankly, a very nice passive that acts like a built in Arcane Conduit.

• Spirit Leech: The first spell in this Lore and it's one of the best, if we're being honest. A rather cheap, direct damage spell at 8 Winds of Magic. Preferably used against Characters and Monsters and probably the most cost-efficient Character sniping spell in the game (does 834 damage without any resistances on average, ignores armor). It also can serve as a nice counter against Ethereal Units. It actually works very well vs small monstrous cavalry and infantry units, think the 6-24 model range, also ok on smallish elite units also but anything over 20ish models really hurts its efficiency, bjuna is far better for that. one cast can nearly kill most artillery because it (usually) hits the machines, not the crew. Very versatile and mana efficient, the standard to which all direct damage spells are compared.
• Doom and Darkness: Basically the opposite of the Lore of Light's Light of Battle Spell. Sits in the 10 Winds niche of rather specific debuffs. It reduces the leadership of an enemy unit by a whopping 16, enough to send most standard troops into a rout once they have taken some losses and to mitigate any effects the presence of a Character in their vicinity might have. Notably less useful against Undead, who cannot rout, but can still cause them to begin crumbling more quickly if such a tactic is necessary. Of course, this spell is completely useless against Unbreakable units. Pretty useless in very hard or legendary campaign battle difficulty because of the crazy leadership buffs the AI gets, but nice on normal and hard difficulties as well as multiplayer.
• Soulblight: an only ok AOE debuff, for its relatively low cost of 8 Winds of Magic/ 14 overcast. Lowers the armor (-30) and weapon damage (-30%) of all units in an AOE for 25 seconds, 50 if overcast. The pairing of armor and weapon damage debuffs don't synergize that well with each other and the lowish base duration can be rough, maybe worth overcasting for double duration if you cast at all. still its a more efficient armor removing spell than plague of rust because of its AOE so that's something. it may only debuff two less important stats but it isn't bad since its an affordable AOE debuff. Doomfire warlocks get this free so never pay winds for it as the dark elves if you can help it. overcast is double duration for slightly cheaper than double so worth it in theory.
• Aspect of the Dreadknight: Same as deal with Soulblight. It might be extremely cheap at 4 Winds of Magic, but its effect of +8 Leadership and Causes Terror for friendly units is simply not good enough, especially when taken into consideration that many factions that can use the Lore of Death (especially the Undead factions) have no shortage of Units that cause fear and terror or are completely exempt from Leadership issues.
• The Purple Sun of Xereus: The good ol' "cast it successfully and the game is over" Vortex from the Tabletop doesn't disappoint here either. At 18 (24 when overcast) Winds of Magic, a fairly expensive Vortex that will completely demolish everything it touches, its only downside being that it is hard to predict where it will eventually go, but even the initial cast on a large moshpit of infantry is worth it. Particularly devastating on Bridge Battles, where Wizards with this spell will rack up a ludicrous amount of kills from one single cast alone.
• The Fate of Bjuna: This is an odd one. A direct damage spell that costs 22 Winds and serves mainly as a middle finger to monstrous infantry (ignore that, it needs a 45 or larger unit size to be efficient, use spirit leach on smaller units instead), cavalry and any thing with a medium model count. Deals large damage, but needs careful evaluation when to use best. It's considered op in multiplayer where elite units are expensive and rare. In campaign, where stacks of endgame units are common, it's too expensive where a bombardment, missile or even vortex does more for cheaper. its price is very inflated because of its power in multiplayer. You can just drop purple sun on a single unit for cheaper vs the AI most of the time. not very efficient vs anything with less than 45 models, best in the 45-60 range actually. think elite infantry and heavy cav.

Lore of Fire

Important to note: All spells from the Lore of Fire deal Fire Damage instead of Magic Damage. Duh. They deal magic AND fire damage. It counts as both and is resisted by both.

Passive - Kindleflame: Your lore attribute which activates as you cast. It imbues a map wide fire weakness to all enemy units as you cast. The benefits combined with this lore are obvious, and allows for great synergy when used with other units who deal fire damage. Combines nicely with flaming sword.

• Fireball: Inexpensive projectile that is found all over the goddamn place. High Elven Mages get 4 uses of them for free. It's... alright-ish. Like all projectiles, Fireballs strongly depend the casters positioning and its damage is kinda meh. Can still be reliably used to snipe big monsters and Lords out of the sky, and its considerable range makes it a very attractive and cheap source of Fire Damage to be used against Ethereal units or Wood Elven tree spirits. even overcast ap damage is poor, best vs lightly armored monsters, characters etc. overcast is mana inefficient
• Flaming Sword of Rhuin: Cheap buff for your troops that makes all of their attacks deal fire and magic damage, as well as increasing their damage output by 22% for 17 seconds. Don't forget that this can also be cast on ranged units, so have fun experimenting with that. Remember it’s useless vs dwarves or magic resistant units. Will actually reduce your damage if they’re magic but not physical resistant.
• Cascading Fire Cloak: Extremely cheap (only 5 winds of magic!) AoE buff that increases AP Damage of your melee troops by 36% and also gives them 36 Melee Defence for 25 seconds. Gives your frontline a bit more staying power and makes Greatswords, not to mention Har Garneth Executioners or Swordmasters of Hoeth downright terrifying. Important to keep in mind is that it won't do jack shit for units that bring no AP damage on their own, like Imperial Swordsmen. A 100% increase of 1 would still be 2.
• The Burning Head: Oh sweet baby, yes! A medium prized (10 Winds of Magic) Wind Spell that deals an intimidating amount of damage and also terrifies people. This is the prime spell of the Lore of Fire. Tons of Fire Damage, but can also deviate a bit, although not as much as Vortex Spells would. It's cheap size relative to its effectiveness make it a very attractive spell to use, and is available in the campaign very early on. keep in mind it does zero AP damage even overcast, so it sucks vs armor, you can use that to safely hit your own heavy armored troops though while killing enemy chaff, it will barely scratch your elite units with high armor.
• Piercing Bolts of Flame: An expensive and semi-unreliable spell, this is your most effective anti-Armor option outside of Flamestorm spam. It deals a high amount of projectile damage as well, so it can deal respectable damage to monstrous infantry or even regular infantry if they clump up. In general though, you'll probably be better off prioritizing other, more potent/cost efficient spells and leave the dedicated anti-armor to other units in your army.
• Flamestorm: If you really want to make big blobs disappear, although The Burning Head would still be a more efficient spell for that. Costs a whopping 15 winds but will utterly annihilate any models caught in its wake. At least it has good Ap.

Lore of Heavens

Passive - Roiling Skies: A mapwide debuff that slows down flying units and debuffs their melee defense for 25 seconds upon casting a spell. Frankly a mediocre and situational perk, but it can be handy if your opponent's playing a faction with a lot of flying cavalry.

• Wind Blast: A cost effective breath spell that does wonders against unarmored chaff infantry like skavenslaves or peasant mobs. Overcasting the spell gives it a touch more bite against armored units (4 AP damage), but the difference is so marginal that it's not really worth it. Never overcast. it also throws infantry disrupting formations, which is a significant part of why its so good.
• Urannon's Thunderbolt: A bolt of lightning that strikes a small area for extremely large AP damage. Has impressive range, so it has moderate use against the near-stationary artillery pieces your opponent may have. It's pure AP damage and overcasting does more than 1300 damage (much more than doombolts 1000ish AP or amber spears 700 AP), if you hit a lord or monster they will FEEEEEL it. Best cost to damage ratio of any single target blast. Cheaper and better than any other of its type. it has no tracking and a small radius though so may be hard to hit with.
• Harmonic Convergence: A supporting spell that improves the melee defense/attack of a friendly unit by a rather respectable margin for 24 seconds, including their armor value if overcasted. A very potent spell that can help turn the tide of an engagement on the front lines at a rather minor cost of 6 winds. its the buff equivalent of the enfeebling foe from shadows, lack of AOE limits its effectiveness.
• Curse of the Midnight Wind: An aoe Hex that debuffs all enemies within it's casting radius with lowered melee attack and armor values for 25 seconds, 50 if overcasted. Combined with Harmonic Convergence, this is best served when you need to turn a frontline engagement around. In general though, at 11 WoM per cast, you may rather opt to simply put that power towards one of the damage dealing spells instead.
• Chain Lightning: Now we're getting to the good stuff. One of the strongest vortex spells in the game, Chain Lightning randomly crawls across the battle field for 21 seconds dealing heavy damage to everything caught up in it, armored or not. It deals pure ap damage, highest of any other vortex spell. High elf archmages get this as a bound spell, and can get Urannons thunderbolt from a lord trait, making this lore perhaps a waste to use on them, since they could get so much of it free.
• Comet of Cassandora: When you want to call down the celestial thunder, there's no better choice than the Comet of Cassandora. With a relatively large area of effect and massive damage output, the CoC can wipe out entire units with a well-placed blast, even more so if overcasted... if anything is still willfully under the targeting cursor while the comet takes its sweet time to actually arrive. Between the rather lengthy delay before the comet itself actually descends onto the battlefield and the rather intense winds of magic cost (especially if overcast), finding a situation to use the CoC in lieu of either Chain Lightning or even Wind Blast will be quite difficult. All in all, it's terribly inefficient. Thunderbolt does much more damage to a single target and chain lighting is usually cheaper and more efficient for hordes/blobs.

Lore of Life

Passive - Life Bloom: Whenever a life spell is cast, all your units heal up to 40 hitpoints over the course of 5 seconds. It's not much, but it's free healing that applies to your entire army whenever you cast a spell. Every little bit helps.

• Earth Blood: This is the bread and butter for most life wizards. A nice AoE heal for up to four allied units within its radius that lasts for 14 seconds, with double the length and healing if overcast. The main value of this spell is the relatively inconsequential winds of magic cost, allowing life wizards to support a rather sizeable chunk of your army for a rather extended period of time.
• Awakening of the Wood: A large damage dealing explosion that dramatically slows down everyone caught up in the blast, but deals squat for damage against anything with an armor value.
• Shield of Thorns: A nice offensive/defensive buff that grants percentage based physical resist and weapon damage bonuses to several of your units within the spell's radius. A great supporting power for key units that goes quite nicely with Earth Blood to keep them in peak physical form. Use on units who already resist physical for best results, overcasting can be good if you need extra weapon damage. Can be cast combined with pelt if you have a beast caster to give 50% physical resist on top of any the unit already has.
• Flesh to Stone: A massive boost to an allied unit's armor value for 44 seconds (88 if overcast), this can turn even a squishy unit like Wood Elf Wardancers into surprisingly tanky beat-sticks, especially if stacked with Shield of Thorns. better than shield of thorns vs non armor piercing by far but falls off later game when armor piercing becomes common and the lack of AOE sucks. not worth the cost usually.
• Regrowth: An expensive single target heal that replenishes a substantial amount of HP and vigour to the target unit, especially if overcast. Frankly best reserved for emergencies and/or single entity units as no amount of healing will bring back slain models in a unit. Minor exceptions extend to the very few factions who can revive slain models, like the Lizardmen when utilizing a Revivification Crystal Bastilodon.
• The Dwellers Below: A shockingly powerful AoE damaging spell for a lore so dedicated to supporting your own units, The Dwellers Below snares all units who travel within the spell's zone with a speed debuff while chipping away at them in the process. While it's good in certain situations, you've likely taken your life wizard for dedicated healing support and will likely have alternative options for offensive spellcasters more suited to the task. Wood elf spellweaver lords get this as a bound spell, which is awesome.

Lore of Light

Passive - Exorcism: Whenever you cast a Lore of Light spell, all your units gain 4 leadership and become immune to psychology (fear/terror) for 11 seconds. Useful, if you are facing armies with lots of scary monsters, but largely useless outside of that.

• Shen's Burning Gaze: Inexpensive Projectile, costs the same as fireball (5 winds), but fires three Projectiles at once (this is incorrect, see below). Has the advantage of higher base damage than said Fireball, and the disadvantage that all three projectiles need to land for the spell to deal full damage. Given that most entites except the largest ones aren't even big enough for all three projectiles to land, it's kinda mediocre. For what it's worth, it has much better AP damage than fire ball for similar cost. If cast at close range, it can be used like a shotgun to get all of the projectiles to hit. It's best vs a monster sized unit obviously, but it's also good vs flying to due decent air tracking. It fires 5 projectiles base not 3, goes up to 10 if overcast. Basically just like gaze of nagash from lore of vampires. Also it has bonus vs large.
• Net of Amyontok: This is why you pick the Lore of Light. A medium-prized (10 winds) AoE debuff that locks an enemy in place, right where they stand. The incredible utility of this spell cannot be understated. A must pick against factions with a lot of mobility, although it only affects units on the ground. Despite that limitation, it will trap any flying cavalry/monsters/characters who are on the ground (from a charge, for example), so if you can catch them with this before they can retreat into the skies, you can severely punish them. Obviously favored by those with good archers and artillery, Sisters of Avelorn and Salamander Hunting Packs being notable beneficiaries.
• Pha's Protection: A cheap defense buff. Grants 30 armour and 24 Melee Defense at the prize of 5 winds of magic for 22 seconds. overcast adds AOE for 10 winds. unexceptional but nice, short duration is unfortunate, but good AOE buffs are rare. maybe worth it if you can hit enough of your units.
• Light of Battle: AoE buff for 7 Winds of Magic that makes all units unbreakable for 22 seconds. Not to be underestimated, but needs a creative mind to use right. very situational, probably not worth it often.
• Bironas Timewarp: Pretty nifty AOE buff spell that costs 11 Winds of Magic and gives units a whopping 24% increase to their movement speed and 24 melee attack. Perfect for Cavalry and other fast units.
• Banishment: May as well be the most cost-efficient vortex spell that's currently in the game. For a meager 12 Winds of Magic( information out of date, costs 17 as of twisted and the twilight), you get a small zone of bright death that deals bonus damage against undead. The game advertises this spell as dealing "medium damage", which is bewildering, to say the least. Banishment definitely doesn't need to hide behind its bigger brethren from other Lores. Banishment now costs 17 winds of magic, it might have been raised by a patch, so keep in mind it’s no longer cheap. It’s actually incredibly similar to purple sun now, in fact purple sun is probably better now. Still good though.Overcasting increases the base damage by 7, though the AP values are untouched. Generally not worth overcasting in most scenarios. Also it doesn’t do bonus damage vs undead. This isn’t table top. It just does good ap damage, same damage as pit of shades but moves. Slann get this as a free bound spell, as always this is awesome.

Lore of Metal

Passive - Metalshifting: Your lore attribute that gives your units +10% AP and Weapon Strength for 13 second. Used best on elite units who already have high AP and damage as something like an Empire Swordsman probably won't be noticing the effects too much.

• Searing Doom: A fairly cost effective bombardment ability against low armor. At only 6 winds of magic it can help destroy early game blobs of crappy infantry. It's biggest disadvantage is the wind up time so any opponent who's paying attention should be able to get out of the way. Fortunately the AI doesn't bother with dodging these most of the time. Low projectile damage means wont do shit to higher health models, kroxikors, dragon ogres etc.
• Plague of Rust: One of the most cost effective armor debuffs in the game, especially if you don't have a lot of affordable AP. Being able to get rid of 30 armor for 4 winds (Or 60 for 6 if you overcast) is situationally good. Plus it lasts 44 seconds so you have plenty of time to deal with them before their defensive stats return to normal. It's certainly better against some factions (this can be a god send against Dwarfs and Bretonnia) than others (Beastmen and Wood Elves will laugh if you bring this). In the campaign almost every unit worth using should have AP anyway, really only good situationally/early game. single target is the biggest problem, at least its cheap with good duration. kind of mediocre. I would rather use soul blight with shorter duration, at least's its AOE. a single armored unit is only ever going to matter enough in multiplayer.
• Glittering Robes: Eh.... 9 winds of magic for a small leadership buff and 15 armor for one unit isn't really that worth it. I mean, it can be ok but either the unit is too weak to be worth using this on or they're too strong to really notice the effects. -all incorrect, it got buffed. now 60 armor for 44 seconds, overcast for AOE, actually pretty good if fighting non AP.
• Gehenna's Golden Hounds: You can spend an extra 3 winds of magic for a mediocre vortex that only hurts low armor units and might even kill some of your own troops. Doesn't that sound fun? Use Searing Doom, you'll get better bang for your buck. It actually has the same AP damage per tick as Purple Sun, its mostly just small and hard to aim. Cheap though.
• Transmutation of Lead: A fairly solid -24 melee attack and -30% weapon damage can really put enemy momentum to a halt (if you overcast, -60% weapon damage). costs 11 base, 16 overcast. unfortunately debuffing melee attack and weapon strength while good is somewhat counter synergistic, becasue if they dont hit the strength doesn't matter, but its just doubling down rather than redundant. Probably dont overcast unless you really think you need it.
• Final Transmutation: Ok so take spirit leach, make it a massive AOE and you have a pretty good idea of how Final Transmutation works. This can win you games if you get a big blob in it but at 18 (28 overcast) Winds of Magic it'll probably be all you're casting in multiplayer. In campaign, build up those reserves and you can win battles with this alone. Even if you only hit 2 targets, it has higher damager per winds ratio than spirit leach. The overcast version does 2300 damage on average vs spirit leech's 834 average. If you can weaken a lord to the 2000 health range this will quickly destroy them. Assuming they have no significant magic resist/healing/wards of course, but still incredibly potent none-the-less. (all direct damage spells bypass armor FYI, so bejuna, flock of doom, miasma etc, they all do).

Lore of Shadows

Passive - Smoke & Mirrors: A mapwide movement speed buff for 24 seconds whenever you cast a shadows spell is a nice perk that can give you a slight edge in maneuverability over your opponent, though this is very largely dependent on the factions at play. Remember the mediocre speed boosts of pelt or timewarp? This is better, map wide, and free. Still not that great.

• Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma: A Single target direct damage spell that deals damage to one unit while also slowing them down in the process. At 5 winds of magic for a quick cast, it's a great precursor to an engagement or to help prevent your opponent from fleeing. Averages around 1764 direct damage, quite good but only on a large unit, ideally with about 100 or more models. Ok to speed debuff a lord or monster if you really need to as well, other wise dont overcast. best spammed to wear down large units, compare to flock of doom for example.
• The Enfeebling Foe: A 22 second melee defense/attack debuff that cripples a single enemy unit of your choice. Ideally used against characters or monsters who might be trying to wreak havoc in your lines or to give your own lord a step up in a duel against them. Probably worth overcasting for the double duration. One of the best debuffs in the game for a single target. Hit a lord with it then buff your duelist monster, hero, or lord with Mindrazor and you get a nasty killing combo.
• The Withering: Yet another hex that targets a single unit and reduces their armor and leadership for 40 seconds. It only has a prominent niche if you stack lots of leadership debuffs to force opposing units to route, but Doom and Darkness from death does that twice as well (if that discipline is available). all races that can leadership bomb (beastmen, dark elves, norsca, warriors of chaos, and vampires) have access to death, except lizardmen which cant use shadow or death.
• The Penumbral Pendulum: A potent wind spell that is perfect for slicing through frontline units while they're tied up in combat. It's not quite as powerful as the Burning Head or the Winds of Death against unarmored foes, but anything wearing a tin can will get cracked open. This does 36 AP damage base or a whopping 72 if overcast. It actually does more AP damage than wind of death, but usually gets fewer kills due to shorter duration, travel distance, and AOE. Wrecks elite infantry and cavalry.
• Pit of Shades: The only stationary vortex in the game with a 13 second duration, the Pit of Shades is a fantastic tool in maps that have natural choke points or if you manage to box in a particularly large clump of units. It deals quite heavy damage to all infantry types. 7 points of pure AP, same as Purple Sun's or Banishment's AP damage, no base damage. Overcasting doubles the ap to 14, but this is generally unnecessary, it traps enemies inside of it so normally does tons of damage as long as you get a direct hit. Very reliable.
• Okkam's Mindrazor: A very nasty buff that grants magical attacks to an allied unit as well as a very substantial 40% buff to weapon and armor piercing damage. Overcast for an expensive but powerful AOE buff. Use on monsters, heroes and lords for best results because it's percentage based; you're gonna get a lot more mileage out of it that way. Good for a goon squad to kill monsters/lords, not worth it for killing infantry usually. Remember weapon strength doesn’t matter if you can’t hit, try to combine it with an a melee attack boost or melee defense debuff for best results. Enfeebling foe for example.

Faction-specific Lores

Lore of the Deep (Vampire Coast)

Passive - Kiss of the Deep:

• Tidecall:
• Spiteful Shot:
• Denizens of the Deep:
• Fog of the Damned:
• Vangheist's Revenge:
• Kraken's Pull:

Lore of High Magic (High Elves, Lizardmen, Wood Elves)

Passive - Shield of Saphery: A 11% Ward Save graces all your units whenever you cast spells from this discipline.

Passive (Wood Elves) - Ancients' Protection: A slightly worse version of the Shield of Saphery, this only grants a 10% Physical Resistance buff, meaning it'll do nothing against magic damage or missiles (physical DOES work on missiles, most missiles are not magical inherently) . Still, it works well enough for Wood Elves since they have a reasonable amount of innate physical resist already and can be further supplemented by physical resistance spells from other disciplines.

• Hand of Glory: A relatively cheap buff for a single allied unit that grants them increased reload skill and melee attack for 29 seconds. Reload skill and melee attack don't exactly go hand in hand as far as complimentary buffs go, but it does give it a bit more potential application across your entire army compared to other more specialized buffs. Despite this, and despite it's lower cost, it will not usually do enough to justify the winds cost since one unit can only do so much. A single fireball would usually do more even, depending on your targets.
• Apotheosis: A very cheap single unit heal that also imbues the allied target with Fear for its 22 second duration. This is, all things considered, a pretty nice spell for a tanky frontline unit and does provide more healing to a single target than Earth Blood (granted, Earth Blood heals multiple targets). The addition of Fear does help push through the squishier, meeker chaff units that might simply be trying to tie you down. Unfortunately, the lore of life exists and all factions with high magic have access to life magic. Never overcast it unless you really need the range.
• Soul Quench: A magic missile with artillery levels of range that explodes for quite reasonable damage against groups of infantry. While it's reasonably effective and cost efficient, you'll likely want to reserve your Winds of Magic for more utilitarian purposes and leave the job of long-range bombardment to your actual artillery units. Keep in mind it has bad armor piercing, use it like fireball pretty much. If you use it at all.
• Tempest: A snare that deals damage and traps a flying unit in a slow moving vortex. This is a very useful tool for dealing with (Legendary) Lords on flying mounts or flying Monsters like Dragons. While they take impressive damage from the Tempest itself, you should always have a unit or two of missile units or artillery on hand to take advantage of their immobility. In general though, this is worse than the Net of Amyntok if your goal is to snare enemy units in place. Great in multiplayer, crap in single player.
• Fiery Convocation: A relatively potent wind spell that deals reasonable damage to enemies it passes through. Even among directional wind spells, there's a lot of room for variance on the path it takes, so try not to use it too close to your own front line. Does the highest AP damage of any wind spell but lower total damage than pendulum, for example. Not really worth the extra cost for the higher AP, its only ok. Very slow cast time means it's hard to hit savvy opponents with it too.
• Arcane Unforging: A very powerful single-entity spell that deals substantial damage to the target while increasing their ability cooldowns by a considerable amount. This is a very valuable spell against enemy Heroes and Lords due to their ability to completely shut them down. Overcharging the spell can add a whopping 45 seconds to their ability cooldowns which, if used at just the right moment, can utterly ruin an opponent's strategy and potentially cost them the field. Obviously less useful against battering ram-type characters who just charge into battle, but hey. Can't have everything. Higher damage but less efficient than other spells of its kind. Spirit leech, final transmutation and soul stealer are honestly better because their AoE capabilities (or higher efficiency in spirit leaches case) make up for their high cost. Still, not a bad spell though, considering Lizardmen and Wood Elves lack access to the aforementioned alternatives (wood elves do get lore of dark magic for soul stealer as well as high actually). Overcasting only makes cooldowns 15 seconds longer without helping damage. Never overcast probably.

Lore of Dark Magic (Dark Elves, Wood Elves)

Passive - Spiteful Conjuration: Reduces armor map wide, it’s ok, works out to 11% less damage resistance for 18 seconds. Almost the same as the lore of metal attribute effectively but almost always better. It affects missile and spell damage not just melee with a longer duration than metal does. Doesn’t actually affect any of the spells from this lore except bladewind however since the rest do pure AP damage.

Passive (Wood Elves) - Wrath of the Woods: 12% more missile damage map wide for 8 seconds, it’s nice. Like a free half strength flaming sword and stacks with all other boosts.

• Power of Darkness: basically a 4 times as strong arcane conduit that causes 500ish damage to a unit over time. Which unit is chosen doesn’t matter. 3 use limit per battle. Very underrated, easily the strongest winds recharge skill in the game. Cast on a hydra and it will just regen through most of the damage or on a bolt thrower out of the way. Don’t ever put the damage on your wizard. in campaign you can consider running dark plus a second lore to have the dark act as a winds battery, recomend to combine with other winds boost like knowledgeable sorceressess
• Chillwind: Cheap wind spell that does 24 points of PURE Ap damage. That’s 2/3rds of a pendulum’s AP component. Also slows and lowers reload speed so multi use. Honestly a bargain, it’s pure AP would be worth the cost alone. Plus triggers lore attribute cheaply. Overcast isn’t worth it.
• Word of Pain: a single target only debuff isn’t ideal but it can claim to be probably the best lord or hero off switch in the game. -44 melee attack is massive. Overcast adds a melee defense hit as well. Sometimes worth overcasting. Situational but nice to have.
• Blade Wind: pretty cheap, pretty damaging vortex. Lowish ap damage but helped by the lore attribute, short duration but that rarely matters. It does it’s job well for its cost. Won’t win any awards but its cheap enough to justify just dropping it on only 1 or 2 units. same cost as base Doombolt so use this on bigger units or blobs usually but Doombolt vs single entities or monstrous units. Overcast doubles duration but unlikely to hit anything long enough for that to matter, not worth overcasting really.
• Doombolt: does just over 800 pure ap on a direct hit with an decent AOE detonation as well. Plus it’s a bombardment with pretty good tracking. it is like a cheaper comet of casadora with the tradeoff of less AOE range but Better single target damage. Comparable damage/efficiency to amber spear overcast. its ideal situation is hitting a lord or monster while surround by troops to take advantage of both damage portions. Overcast is proportionate, it only boosts the single target damage though. Against units just use the base version.
• Soul Stealer: AOE spirit leach combined with a caster only heal identical to high Magic’s but with about 50 more healing. Damage is the exact same as spirit leach, but because it hits every target with their own version it’s more efficient than spirit leach with just 2-3 good targets. Plus only healing dark elves get. Great spell. Better on morathi, malekith, and a black dragon sorceress to make the self healing more valuable.

Lore of Nehekhara (Tomb Kings)

Passive - The Restless Dead:

• Djaf's Incantation of Cursed Blades:
• Neru's Incantation of Protection:
• Ptra's Incantation of Righteous Smiting:
• Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance:
• Usekph's Incantation of Desiccation:
• Sakhmet's Incantation of the Skullstorm:

Lore of the Wild (Beastmen)

Passive - Bestial Surge: When ever you cast you gain an extra 18% Charge Bonus and 5% vigour. Needless to say in a speedy hit and run faction like the Beastmen you will need as much of both as you can get.

• Viletide: For 7 winds of magic you get an AOE kaboom that deals decent damage to unarmoured troops. Great for when you are in a grind and need to get the chaff out of the way so that you can fight better stuff but won't do dick against armour.
• Bray-Scream A cone shaped wind spell that can do decent damage with decent AP. It has very short range but for 5 Winds of Magic it can actually get you some very good damage against infantry with a ton of armor.
• Devolve: For 11 winds this thing is essentially a mini Final Transmutation, and can do some serious damage to lightly armoured troops. Plus the leadership debuff can help with getting the enemy into a rout so you can chase them off. This is your best blob destroying spell and it's decent for what it is. All direct damage spells ignore armor. It’s probably just less effective on smaller units like miasma or flock of doom.
• Traitor-Kin: Essentially an AOE Spirit Leech in that instead of doing a ton of damage to several models at once it will drain one model at a time til it dies and move to the next one. This means that it doesn't do as much damage as Devolve but will kill models. It also supplies a speed debuff for lord sniping, which is great for a faction that relies on outrunning their enemies. It's expensive at 12 winds though
• Mantle of Ghorok: The only buffing spell this list has. It provides a meaty 50 Base Weapon Damage, 40% Melee Attack and 50% AP. Needless to say this is amazing for such an aggressive faction and will turn Minotaurs and Bestigors into killing machines. There is the downside of the -30 armour but.. come on man, you're playing the Beastmen. Unless you use this thing on Bestigors you wont even notice. You'll be more turned off by the 11 winds cost. Probably better against armoured opponents.
• Savage Dominion: Ok let's be real. If you're one of the 3 people in this game who play the Beastmen and you're taking this Lore of Magic into an online match, this is why you're bringing it. I don't really need to tell you why getting 2 Cygors for free is really, really good. Not only do you have a solid monster but you also have an artillery piece to rain death rocks from afar. I don't care if it's 18 Winds of Magic, it's easily the best spell in the lore. You can only use it twice though, so use it wisely.

Lore of Vampires (Vampire Coast, Vampire Counts)

Passive - The Curse of Undeath:

• Curse of Years:
• Gaze of Nagash:
• Invocation of Nehek:
• Raise Dead:
• Vanhel's Danse Macabre:
• Wind of Death:

Lore of the Big Waaagh! (Greenskins)

Passive - Power of da Waaagh!:

• Brain Bursta:
• 'Eadbutt:
• 'Ere We Go:
• Fists of Gork:
• Foot of Gork:
• Gaze of Mork:

Lore of the Little Waaagh! (Greenskins)

Passive - Sneaky Stealin':

• Curse of Da Bad Moon:
• Gork'll Fix It:
• Itchy Nuisance:
• Nightshroud:
• Sneaky Stabbin':
• Vindictive Glare:

Skaven Spells of Ruin (Skaven)

Passive - Musk of Fear:

• Warp Lightning:
• Howling Warpgale:
• Death Frenzy:
• Scorch:
• Flensing Ruin:
• Crack's Call:

Skaven Spells of Plague (Skaven)

Passive - Plague Rash:

• Bless with Filth:
• Pestilent Breath:
• Vermintide:
• Wither:
• Plague:
• Pestilent Birth:

Skaven Spells of Stealth (Skaven)

Passive - Looming Dread:

• Skitterleap:
• Warp Stars:
• Veil of Shadows:
• Armour of Darkness:
• Black Whirlwind:
• Brittle Bone:

Placeholders for Warhammer 3 Lores (will get integrated into the main article once the game is out)

Lore of Slaanesh (Daemons of Slaanesh)

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