Tutorial Lore of Life Review, Party Slann 2012!

Excellent spell review, as usual. I wish to add to the Tactica.

With regard to the Slann Party review link, it all holds true in the new book except that extra power dice are slightly harder to come by now and Lore Mastery of Life is no longer available so it's possible you can miss out on either (or if you are unlucky both) of the best two spells, Dwellers and Throne of Vines
Throne of Vines and List Building:[Throne of Vines as two (EDIT: three) consequences for list building.

First, Throne is such a good spell that for most, even a small chance of not getting the spell is unbearable, so Lore Mastery is more of a given for Life than Lores.

Second because it provides powerful miscast protection, this is now our only option to get reliable Miscast Protection in the new book. You can save some points by dropping Soul of Stone and you can afford to throw more dice at your big spells.

While many items are useful, I’d like to put forth the Forbidden Rod as Scalenex’s Official Recommendation. Due to the Lore Attribute and the Slann’s large number of wounds, a Slann is guaranteed to survive the Rod and highly likely to heal the damage after a single round unless that Slann was already wounded from something else.

EDIT: Third, having Cube of Darkness in your army is risky because while ending an enemies magic phase early is always great, erasing Throne of Vines and (to a lesser extant) Shield of Thorns is not.

Lone Slann or Temple Guard Bunker?
Life is powerful enough that it could work with both. A lone Slann is powerful because unless the Slann is engaged in CC or killed with a single shot, you can pretty much heal the Slann up to full with the Lore Attribute every time it gets damaged. You can have the Slann float in the back and follow whichever unit needs buffs and heals the most.

I think the lore of Life lends itself to bunkered Slann slightly more than solo Slann though. Dweller’s has a 12 inch range. Awakening of the Wood has an 18 inch range. That means you need to have the Slann somewhat closer to the fray than Slann wielding other Lores making the bunker more necessary. Also Earthblood only works on the Slann and his unit (presumably Temple Guard).

Unit Synergy: As mentioned in Espace’s blog, we have lots of multi-wound models which can benefit from Lifebloom. Temple Guard gain a lot from the Lore of Life. Stubborn with Ld 9 (or 10) and a BSB with periodic Regrowths means the Temple Guard/Slann bunker is extremely difficult to take down, like fighting the undead without Unstable rule. Every unit likes Flesh to Stone.
One that I would like to put forward that wasn’t in Espace’s blog is Chamo Skinks and Terradons. Espace mentioned using Shield of Thrones defensively to discourage enemy charges. I see Shield of Thorns as an offensive spell, at least with Chamo Skinks and Terradons. Shield of Thorns has a 24 inch range and Chamo Skinks and Terradons are usually the units we have that reach the enemy first ahead of the main force. This lets you start throwing spells at the enemy BEFORE you get in range of Dwellers. If you charge a small unit like a war machine, it’s quite possible the war machine will be dead before you even get to the Close Combat phase.


Double Slann


Life is so popular for Slann that it is kind of our vanilla choice (at least before we got High Magic). To continue the ice cream metaphor, vanilla goes well with everything. Life has Miscast Protection so you can get lots of use out of it. Cast it with your Life Slann, and then assuming it's still up next magic phase, use Telepathic Confabulation to give it to the other Slann! Life has relatively low casting values meaning there are usually enough power dice to go around, particularly if you give a Forbidden Rod to your Life Slann. If the point size allows it, a Life Slann with a Forbidden Rod plus another Slann with the Channeling Staff/Harmonic Convergence and you should have enough dice to keep both toads happy most of the time.

Light is particularly good because it has low casting costs and has complimentary Buffs. Shadow is good because the buffs and hexes mix well with the Life buffs and Enfeebling Foe can help soften up a unit for Dwellers. Life and Death also have buffs and hexes that work well together, Death provides extra power dice, and there is just a thematic appeal to having Life and Death in one list (I feel the same way about Light and Shadow). You can’t really go wrong with any Lore though (unless you don’t like double Slann lists in general). In game with enough points it may be more appealing to go Life Slann and Carnosaur instead, and use Lifebloom to keep the big dino healthy. Life doesn't really need to be partnered with High Slann who can take a fair amount of Life's healing if they dabble in some spells.


WD Slann and High Magic Slann


If your WD Slann is bunkered in a fighting unit, you'll find Earthblood useful when your unit closes with the enemy. The lore attribute will probably help you a bit if you have any dinosaurs or fighty characters near your Slann.

For the same reasons above, Earthblood is a never a bad spell to swap in for a High magic spell if your Slann has a bunker. Throne of Vines is worth hanging onto if you roll it and you are fond of throwing lots of dice at spells (especially Fiery Convocation). If you do get Throne of Vines, you might want to pick up more Life spells in play to get more mileage out of it. Dwellers is a nice spell. Regrowth and Flesh to Stone have good general utility too.

 

Thought I'd put Daneish post here. It covers a useful non-obvious application of the Lore of of Life. Available here: http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/life-saver.9550/

or here:

 

Storm of Magic Addendum


Lore of Life is good in Storm of Magic for defense especially. Whether you are healing wounds, bestowing Regeneration, or raising Toughness you can make your units hard to kill which can tie up enemy units just barely out of reach of your starting fulcrums thus frustrating yoru foes. You probably have plenty of big units to use Lifebloom on but it’s a challenge to get Slann within range of all your monsters all the time in that sort of game. A small number of very powerful Scroll of Binding Monsters means you bring the awesomeness of Life into your list and still give your Slann something else if you think a Life Slann is a little too vanilla for the epic-ness that is Storm of Magic.

Gardener’s Warcry: The Life Presence spell is probably the most useful and certainly the easiest to cast. If an enemy unit absolutely must die and you have lots of spells to throw at it. Start out with this one to summon a blood forest around the target. That means every spell you cast at the unit can also trigger damage from the forest. Just be careful you aren’t putting this in a place your units are likely to want to go later (or already is at), unless you expect to neutralize most of your enemy casters before they get there.

Storm of Renewal: Life’s I avoid Vortex spells as a superstitious habit, but I’ve seen this used against me (sort of). The Storm washed over a combat between two of our units and basically set our combat back two CC rounds. I was very slowly winning that war of attrition and one Storm later, it was a tie. If there is an obvious set up that lets you heal lots of your troops with minimum risk of healing the enemy go for it. The norm is to hit both sides in equal measure, so use Storm of Renewal in places where your elites are fighting hordes of weak troops so you get more benefit, or simply use the Storm on close combats you want to keep going most/all of the game as a stall.

Storm of Apotheosis: The high casting level pretty much requires you to have the wheel pointed at Life and it’s a Dominance spell to boot making it harder to be able to cast. The hefty requirements mean you won’t be seeing this spell every game even if you gung ho on Life every time. Bringing units back units back from the brink of death is handy. I haven’t got to run across this is a Storm of Magic game yet, but often my Temple Guard get whittled down to very small numbers by the last round, suddenly resurging back from three to twenty-six is always nice.

The idea of bringing back units that were completely destroyed also has great appeal, but I’m not sure how useful that would be. Given how many heals Life has available in Storm of Magic, it seems like if an important unit gets wiped out altogether you may have already lost the game (and probably don’t have Dominance). If the unit is not one of your more important units, it’s probably not worth a 30+ casting spell to bring them back especially when units rarely count for victory points and characters cannot be restored with the Apotheosis. Maybe I’m wrong. This commentary is all Theoryhammer.