Lore of Shadow

[Cerelil]

I've been thinking of some of the possibilities of lore of shadow, and I've been wondering, with the lore attribute, I havent thought about it fully, but could swapping wizards with assassins or something be quite useful? I've heard of people using Karos Fateweaver to charge someone then swap places with a Bloodthirster.

Also, other than the obvious reducing M and T for shooty Dark elf armies, using Okkam's Mindrazor with an assassin with with black lotus, and rune of khaine, and killing blow.

(Mind razor does work for armour saves, errata says "Change “[...]when rolling To Wound with[...]” to
“[...]for[...]”)

4 (5 if in corsairs with SSS) + D3 attacks, hitting on 3s, rerolling misses, wounding on 2s, effectively rerolling wounds as well, no armour save.

[Truant]

Lore of shadows has a LOT of usubility for elves.

However I wouldn't rely on it to 100% because there are a major difference to other lores (such as ranged damage from Dark etc.)

The big difference is that you have to commit units to combat before casting the spells, this is a major disatvantage since you don't wanna go into a fight where you won't win without magic, and if you buff fights where you already will win....well.

I've found shadow best to be used on the even fights, this is where it shines, cause those fights you can commit to without depending on the magic.


And now over to smoke'n'mirrors.

I was thinking about doing a really sick move:
take 9 shades, put a manbane rending star assassin in them.
deploy them in your own deployment zone (not skirmish) together with your shadow mage.
Turn 1, reveal an assasin in your warrior unit, cast miasma with your sorceress and viola!
double assasin, rending stars in your shade unit!

the "only" little detail here is that the shade unit will now be ~500pts, so probably not that good but fun

Other than that I've used smoke n mirrors earlier.
My BG with my lvl 4 got double charged by stegadons, and I cast Miasma on one steg.
My opponent was like "uh ok" and let it through since he has impact hits + stomp so he doesn't really care.
*poff*
now it's BG backed up by a full fitted melee dreadlord!

I found smoke n mirrors very situational and I've mostly used it to get out of situations with my lvl 4 (switching in my sacrfice lvl 2 ) and have had a real hard time using it to get into things, with the new TLOS you don't really need to move your sorceress much.

[Malekii]

Withering vs High elves then use something that forces them to take a toughness test

[Dalamar]

Druchii don't have anything that forces Toughness test.

[Malekii]

Druchii don't have anything that forces Toughness test.

Uh ... yeah they do. Chillblade.

[Burizan]

Unfortunately Malekii blade of ruin is more powerful than chillblade, except in the rare circumstances your opponent nerfs your strength.

@Truant: What model are you replacing with the assassin in the shades unit? Sounds like you've found nearly the only use for steed of shadows in this edition

[Truant]

Unfortunately Malekii blade of ruin is more powerful than chillblade, except in the rare circumstances your opponent nerfs your strength.

@Truant: What model are you replacing with the assassin in the shades unit? Sounds like you've found nearly the only use for steed of shadows in this edition

How do you mean?

You have a shade unit with 1 assassin
sorceress joins the unit
sorceress casts miasma, use smoke n mirrors on a 2n assasin (in any other unit, remember he has to be revelead) and switches places.

Now the sorceress is in the other unit and your shades gains an extra assassin.

[Dalamar]

Druchii don't have anything that forces Toughness test.

Uh ... yeah they do. Chillblade.

I stand by my statement, but I'll reword it. Druchii don't have anything worthwhile that forces Toughness Test.

[Meteor]

Indeed not, but still would be useful against the odd bloodthirster here and the 1+ AS general there whilst rendering them useless? I think.

Keep in mind smoke n mirrors is only 12" range. And you wouldn't really want to stick two assassins in a shade unit, because as you said, that unit is now a VERY squishy T3 unit.

[Truant]

Indeed not, but still would be useful against the odd bloodthirster here and the 1+ AS general there whilst rendering them useless? I think.

Keep in mind smoke n mirrors is only 12" range. And you wouldn't really want to stick two assassins in a shade unit, because as you said, that unit is now a VERY squishy T3 unit.

12"? smoke n mirrors sais 18" in my rulebook atleast
And everything is not about good, it's about fun!

And I also agrre that we don't have anything useful that demands a toughness test. if you go up with your lord with that blade against BT and others you expect your opponent to allow you to cast the withering on him?

Back on lore of shadows:

Damn I really need to try out a assasin with cloak and put him in a shade unit, cast steed (and not moving) and swap him with my lvl 4, Lifetaker, PoK dark magic sorceress!
Would be damn fun to see the face of my opponent

[Burizan]

Truant the problem with that is twofold,
1) You have stuck your shades in your own deployment, limiting the usefulness of one, let alone two assassins.
2) Anything with a range will blast the crap out of such a small unit with a sorceress, taking an assassin with it. Even with two assassins it is a ridiculous number of VPs for ~13 T3 wounds without any save.

[Valkyre]

as for steed of shadows, it is NOT anymore a US 1 model that can fly, so chariots, dragons with double move, even a cob with flying, makes it very nice to have.

smoke and mirrors can definetly chance a battle, just tailor the list to use it thou, since ye need to have likewise types of units to swap, but if ye plan on it, it can be great.

I personally just do not like shadow lore, I prefer buffs over hexes, so i go for metal instead, buffs are always good to cast, and hexes are situational, i just wished we had beasts lore as well, but well, we cannot have it all.

[Jbtheslipperking]

Iv seen one use of smoke an mirrors that might be usefull, but very situational ofc.
Lv2 on Peg far out on the side of the enemies units ( ogre kingdom in this ex. ) has just cast Miasma on the big block of ogres and sviches place with the lv 2 with tome and death who then casts Purple Sun with remaining dice. Very deadly but very situational and very .... and yeah but...

[Truant]

jbth: The only way that is legal is if the Lvl 2 is riding a pegasus aswell.

However that is a viable use since death has low range aswell.

don't underestimate things like:
"move your shadow sorceress to within 12 inch from the enemy char"
cast shadow magic
swap places

Bjuna that character which the opponent didn't expect you too (and hopefully lack dispel dice for).

[Meteor]

Once again, it all comes down to tailoring your list to utilise these specific things. As a general use it'll be useful for when you didn't plan for your wizard's unit to enter combat before she popped out. So you would swap places with a master or something to get her out of there.

[Truant]

Meteor: of course it's situational.

I'm just trying to get ideas for smoke'n'mirrors (which I rarely use).
but range for a 2nd sorceress is something I will try to use more.
(Death is the only lore that has low range imo, never have problem with fire/metal/dark)

Notice that both sorceress units should be outside any combat, my point is trying to utilize the movement for other puropses than to get out of combat. (and to suprise your opponent for something he isn't ready for).

LoS is rarely a problem nowadays with TLoS (for example so the 2nd mage can get LoS to warmachines etc for Magic Missiles).

[Darklady]

The most useful thing I've come up with is to move my Level 4 outside a unit when I know I'm trying for IF, then swap places with the level 2 after the miscast is resolved so only my Level 2 is exposed. Also, if my level 2 is Death, it helps with ranges.

[A18no]

as for steed of shadows, it is NOT anymore a US 1 model that can fly, so chariots, dragons with double move, even a cob with flying, makes it very nice to have.

Don't forget that cauldron and chariot can't march. So when flying they can only fly at 10". Improvement for cauldron, but not that much for the chariot.

[L1qw1d]

also: dreadlord. don't forget you can just swap a sorc for a nice dragonbane gem, aoes, crimson death'ed d lord for around the same amount of points (read: EXPENSIVE, but often higher armour esp. if it's your back up caster!)
oooh wait- someone thinks they'll get a free 10 VP from a lowly Sorceress they've cut off, but you have a big nasty on the other side of the woods (no LOS rules)...

[Lepaca]

Can Steed of Shadows even be used on the CoB?
I thought it was treated like a war machine...

[Dark reaper]

Yes it is. You cannot use Steed of Shadows on it.