Magic Phase Defense Guidelines

Part Three: Specialist Lores

Vampire Count Magic

Pre-End Times, the general needs to at least be a level one caster with the Lore of Vampires. Post-End Times Vampire Counts and Undead Legions don't need to take the Lore of Vampires at all, but it synergizes so well with undead units so well that the majority of players will still choose to take it.

Normally, Vampires can take Shadows, Death, or Lore of Vampires. Necromancers can take Death or Lore of Vampires. Post End Times, any Vampire Counts spell caster can take Lore of Undeath or the Lore of Nehekhara though the Lore of Vampires will generally remain their bread and butter lore. Vampires can spend extra to pick up Metal, Heavens, Light, or Beasts. Metal is the most popular of the “forbidden lore” choices. Usually this is limited to a level two character unless it’s a grand army, or you are playing an unorthodox Undead Legions army.

Looking at how the Vampire player is setting up his spell casters, as a member of the Carpe Noctern forum, I see three primary strategies that predominate.

Lots of low level casters: This strategy has multiple casters with relatively low level. At least one of these casters will probably be an extremely potent blender Lord with Red Fury and ASF who is acting as general. The overall strategy depends on the killing power of monsters and characters, but the magical strategy is going to be based on Invocation of Nehek being casting multiple times by multiple people. There is often a level two caster with Shadow or Metal mainly for the signature spells. Since you are being spammed with low level spells, there is no clear obvious spell to dispel.

One high level caster: Sometimes the vampire general is a L4 caster, but usually you have a L1 or L2 general and a L4 Master Necromancer with Death or Lore of Vampires. If the L4 caster has Lore of Vampires, you need to watch out for Curse of Years above all else, otherwise Purple Sun and the hero snipes should be your top priority. Nowadays a Lore of Undeath caster may be used in place of either the high or low level caster.

All out magic Phase: There are at least two high level casters plus a couple lower level backups. All the nuke spells are dangerous, but Purple Sun is especially dangerous for the power dice it generates allowing your foe truly spectacular magic phases. It’s not uncommon for a canny Vampire player to send Purple Sun through their own zombie units in order to get cheap extra power dice.


Lore of Vampires

Curse of Undeath, Lore Attribute: Each spell cast works like Lifebloom but for undead. Annoying if you are trying to kill a tough character or monster by nickeling and diming it. Basically if you can't inflict lots of damage at a VC character or monster at once, you are probably not going to kill it at all. The casting cost of VC are too cheap on the whole to prevent the Lore Attribute healing altogether.

Invocation of Nehek (Signature): This is even more potent than Regrowth. The caster heals d6+ their Wizard level wounds for all friendly undead units within 6 inches, 12 inches, or 18 inches of the caster depending on the version of the spell cast. Fortunately the healing is capped at one wound for models that are Vampiric, Incorporeal or have the Large Target rule. Strategically placed Invocation casters can keep undead Core very strong round after round but their ability to rebuild heavy hitters is more limited. Zombies gain 2d6+wizard level new models with each casting and can be taken above their original starting level. There are upgrades that characters can take to let them take skeletons or dire wolves above their starting level too, but few players take them.

Remember one casting is not that big of a deal, but several consistent castings is.

Vanhel’s Danse Macabre: Augment spell gives a single friendly undead unit the ability to reroll To Hit rolls until the start of their next magic phase in close combat. Also allows a free eight inch out of sequence (non-charge) move. Can be boosted to target all friendly undead units within 12 inches.

Hellish Vigour: Augment spell lets a single friendly undead unit reroll To Wound rolls in close combat. May be augmented to target all friendly undead within 12 inches. This is bad because being hard to wound is all we have going for us against some undead units.

Gaze of Nagash: Most lores have one magic missile. This one inflicts 2d6 S4 hits at 24 inches. It has an augmented version with double the range. It’s conditional like most magical missiles depending on how vulnerable the target unit is.

Raise Dead: Creates a whole new unit of 2d6+3 zombies within 18 inches of the caster in his line of sight. An augmented version creates 2d6+3 skeletons instead, but very few players ever choose skeletons. Summoned units are never worth any victory points, so they make a good expendable speed bump. A speed bump delaying a critical charge is a serious problem, a small amount of reinforcements is almost no threat at all.

Curse of Years: Remain in Play hex spell with an 18 inch range. Immediately every model has to test on a d6 and dies on a roll of 6. At the end of the next magic phase (any magic phase not just VC magic phase) this repeats with the roll worsening to 5+, then 4+ and so on to a minimum of 2+. Do not let them leave this spell on your units for more than the initial round unless you want to write off the unit in question as a casualty.

This is the Lore of Vampire’s real heavy hitter. You aren’t immediately screwed if you don’t dispel it immediately, but you will suffer greatly if you let it remain in play too long. This is a great spell to use a Scroll of Shielding on since it will help you every turn.

Wind of Death: Magical vortex using the small round template that inflicts S3 hits with no armor saves with the general hit or miss scatters and random distances rolled that vortexes tend to have. The augmented version hits at S4 and uses the large template.


Tomb King Magic (paraphrased from @irish_Lizard)


Pre-End Times the highest level Tomb Kings caster MUST take the the Lore of Nehekhara to fill the required roll of Heirophant. Nehekhara was/is viewed as a such a subpar lore that it was not uncommon for a player to take two level fours so they could take a level 4 Light (often with a "council" of L1 casters) or L4 Death caster. Undead Legion era TK don't have to take Lore of Nehkhara at all and may also take the Lore of Vampires or Undeath. I doubt the Lore of Nehkhara will go away in the End Times era as it synergizes fairly well with the TK army despite being somewhat subpar.

TK players could get away with taking lots of wizards because they have two ways to generate extra dice or bonuses to casting. The Casket of Souls generates d3 power dice and is T10 against ranged attacks. It has a bound spell called Light of Death with an impressive 48 range that forces targets to take a Ld test with an extra die (so LM roll four dice and drop the highest) and inflicts shooting distributed wounds equal to the points the test is lost by with no armor saves. Bad for pretty much any unit outside of the range of your general and/or BSB, especially dinosaurs.

Heirotitans can add d3 to the casting rolls of friendly undead wizards within 12 inches. They can cast Shem's Burning Gaze and Spirit Leech as bound spells on a 3 and 4 respectively.

Undead Legions armies tend to lean far more heavily on Vampire Counts troops than Tomb Kings troops but the Casket of Souls is almost standard issue for Undead Legions lists. Sometimes it's the ONLY unit from Tomb Kings that gets included.

Lore of Nehekara

Lore attribute: The restless dead: Any augments cast on friendly units heal 1+D3 wounds. This sounds good but characters can never be healed and healing is capped at one wound per model for units that have the Animated Construct, Vampiric, Large Target, or Ethereal special rules. Basically all the good units the undead have.

Desert wind(signature spell): All friendly units within 12" can move as in the remaining moves phase can be boosted to 24". Can only be moved once per turn and engaged units do not get the lore attribute.

Cursed Blades: This spell gives killing blow or if they have it boosts it to 5+. Not that scary unless they are fighting characters.

Incantation of Protection: Bestows a 5+ ward save to a single unit or all units within 12 inches of the caster.


Righteous smiting: Targets get +1A and any bows gain multishot (2). This the spell that makes the TK bowline work as they still hit on a 5+ and will enable them to delete units in a turn. This can be bubbled to all units in 24" which is the scariest thing this lore can do given how most TK armies or TK reliant Undead Legions tend to have lots of shooters.

Incantation of vengeance: Solid spell. combines -D3 movement with making all terrain (including open ground) counts as dangerous. Very good for slowing down deathstars but unimpressive against MSU armies.

Incantation of Desiccation: Soulblight effectively but can be boosted to-D3 strength and toughness which can be devastating in any combat. Even the basic version make Skinks get wounded on 2's by TK shooting which really stings since their Skirmisher and ability to draw cover from terrain features means nothing against TK shooting.

Skullstorm: Vortex that does a s4 hits with no additional special rules whatsoever. This will almost never be cast.


Defend-shielding yourself from rat wizards trying to kill-slay you

I took this more or less word for word from something airjamy wrote with some minor revisions and clarifications inspired by the Hoodling’s Hole.

Skaven magic has two lores, Plague and Ruin, and these are the only lores the wizards of this army can use (barring Undeath of course). They have a few magic items you should worry about. One wizard generates an extra PD on 5's. This wizard has the Warp Energy Condenser and channels Warp Lighting with D6+2 S5 hits with Warp Lighting instead of just D6. They also have Warpstone Tokens, giving them extra PD. Every Grey Seer has D3 of these, and they can buy a lot extra if they want (up to D3+6). So, be careful about depleting your DP pool if they still have money spells and PD left.

Most wizards, especially the wizards you should care about, can have Plague and Ruin spells at the same time. As holdovers from seventh edition, the two Skaven lores have no lore attribute and they lack a 7th signature spell, they instead swap out spells for the number 1 spell (so Skitterleap and Pestilent Breath respectively) and they can swap any spell for the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell because--well why should the Skaven ever have to worry about not rolling their über-spell?

The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell is completely true to its name. It simply kills 4D6 models, no questions asked, at a reasonable range. This spell is red squared if your TG Slann unit is under 15 models as your opponent just might insta-kill your Slann with this horrible piece of work. Some Skaven players roll with Power Scrolls or Power Stones simply to be able to cast this spell as early and often as possible.

The models that know this spell are often Grey Seers, as their 4+ is good enough to make it somewhat possible to cast this spell without double 6s. If they do roll IF, they aren’t as expensive to a miscast lose as Verminlords.

Even if you do not have a Slann TG unit, any other elite infantry (even our basic Sauri) are prime targets. That the spell spawns a unit of Clanrats (even with full command allowed..). The extra clan rats are more kicking about kicking the target when it’s already down then an actual consideration

This spell WILL dominate the Skaven magic phase and you WILL have to save dice or scrolls for this spell (Scroll of Shielding. I have rated the other spells in this lore accordingly due to the fact that your opponent wil have the Dreaded Thirteenth. Another strong point of this spell is that it is a signature spell of sorts, the enemy can always have this spell if they want to, and they will. Keep in mind that the enemy will use Power Scrolls, Warpstone Tokens and Power Stones to cast this spell. I feel that a Scroll is better against this army then most, simply because you will want to dispell this spell. In most tournaments casting is capped to 5 dice, making this spell a lot harder to cast, as you will basically need double 6es on 5 dice to ever make it work.

The Dreaded Thirteenth does not allow saves of any kind so stocking up on MR bestowing or items will not help you.

Apart from the Dreaded Thirteenth and it’s 25+ casting cost, pretty much every Skaven spell is shockingly cheap to cast.

Lore of Ruin

Spells can be swapped for Skitterleap or the Dreaded Thirteen.

Skitterleap: Spell that can save the lives of wizards or that can bring Verminlords in flanking positions. Models can't charge after this movement however, in very large games (Like 4K+) this spell is more dangerous, as your enemy has even more options to line up other dangerous spells like Plague and Cracks Call. It also synergizes nicely with the short range End Times Plague spell Red Pox. More often than not, it’s used to get a caster away from you for points denial.

Warp Lightning: General stock but very cheap magic missile. It inflicts d6 Strength 5 hits for a relatively cheap casting cost. Our flyers can't handle this and our too important and expensive to be thrown away lightly. Often used to suck DP from you from Warlock Engineers, keep this in mind.

Howling Warpgale: One of the most situational spells in this army of situational greatness. This spell temporary grounds all flyers and makes theme use their land move. Obviously it’s threat ranges from harmless to nasty depending on how many flyers you possess. If you don’t have flyers, opponents will almost certainly swap this spell out for something.

Death Frenzy: This seems a lot worse than it actually is. This spell causes a super frenzy that bestows two extra attacks until the unit is beaten. It has a backlash that causes d6 hits on the unit (but most Skaven have extra bodies to spare). It's pretty rare for Skaven to be fielded more than five wide, and relatively few have the statline to make +2 Attacks a model very scary. This can swing close combats, but it is not really a problem for most battles.

Scorch: This acts like the Fire spell, Flamestorm except its better in every respect. It inflicts Strength 4 hits with a non-scattering template and it causes an auto-panic test on any unit that loses a model and it’s cast on a mere 10+. This is a bad Skink killer, especially large Skink units. Especially Skink units outside of general and BSB range. That’s better than a 50/50 chance of panicking. Ouch. If your opponent has this spell and you have a large Cohort, keep them near your BSB.

Crack’s Call: This inflicts a line of forced Initiative tests that cause death on a failure without armor saves. That’s bad for our various PF units, but the hits are limited by the fact that the fact that the attack uses a line. Try not to line up Kroxigor or Temple Guard around wizards with this spell. It’s hard for a wizard tied to the back blocks to get a good line up to use this, beware Skitterleap in tandem with this. Crack’s Call has a chance of killing our dinosaurs, but remember they can test on the rider’s Initiative if it’s higher so it’s only especially bad against Carnosaurs. It also auto-kills chariots and war machines on a 5+ which you need to watch out for if you are playing with a teammate who has these things.

It also has a 5+ chance to destroy a building and force Initiative test to escape. Bad if you have a large Skink unit in a building or any low Initiative PF unit in a building. It can theoretically auto-draw a scenario dependent on a building such as Watch Tower but more and more and metas are house ruling that buildings that serve as objectives are indestructible. Officially, Siege scenario buildings cannot be destroyed by this spell, only breached, but that’s plenty bad if you are defending.

Lore of Plague

Spells can be swapped for Pestilent Breath or Dreaded Thirteenth, in other words the Dreaded Thirteenth.

Pestilent breath: This is quite a poor S2 breath weapon that ignores armour saves in CC. Skinks in CC are dead skinks anyway against Skaven and our Sauri are only wounded on 6's. Might do damage on our already damaged monsters as it might kill them with a godlike throw, but this should never be a top priority to dispel. Skaven generally lack the mobility to even try this spell unless it’s combined with Skitterleap.

Bless with Filth: This bestows poison on a Skaven unit or lets an already poisonous unit auto-wound on 5s. It is pretty good against our units in general, as we have high toughness and this mitigates that. When you are fighting a Plaguemonk deathstar this spell quickly becomes a large problem, as their high volume of attacks makes 5+ poison a real bother.

Wither: This makes a mockery of a lot of our units. This spell docks a point of Toughness from a target permanently. There is still a running debate on whether Drain Magic stops the effects of this spell, but the consensus is that Drain Magic does not as the lowering in T is a result of the spell, not an effect. It has not been FAQed yet. It can even kill units by lowering their toughness continually, but also the initial effect in especially the early game is very painful. For those interested in lengthy inconclusive debates, check this out.

Vermintide: This is a scattering large template that inflicts 3d6 Strength 2 hits. This might be a strong spell when your opponent can hit clusters of multiple Skinks, else it can be quite easily ignored. Most of the time. This can be cast in CC, so keep this in mind, but this will not swing many combats since Skinks in close combat are already on borrowed time anyway.

Cloud of Corruption: Thiis is a fart bomb that hits all units within 12 inches of the caster. Skaven are affected on a 4+ (or 5+ if clan Pestilens troops). Non-Skaven units are hurt on a 2+. Affected units take d6 Strength 5 hits that ignore armor saves. Bad for any of our infantry but really nasty for Saurus Cavalry who have both a low model count and high armor saves. It can inflict modest damage on our Monsters which is a problem if they are softened up by artillery first. You are more likely to see this fairly late game to minimize damage inflicted on Skaven units, but most true Skaven generals have few compunctions about winning battles over piles of their own dead.

Plague: Plague is bad. Often hind sighted because of the Dreaded Thirteenth, but this is really cheap to cast (only 13+!) spell can kill units, yet it cannot snipe characters (the wording is different than Dwellers). It forces a target to take a Toughness test or die with no armor saves. It can bounce like Chain Lightning. If it bounces you can choose a Skaven unit to bounce into. If it bounces again the Skaven player gets to direct it, etc. The chance of it spreading to enemy units is not large enough to mitigate the strength of this spell against our more expensive units. The short range of only 18'' does save us quite a bit, Grey Seers are often in bunkers behind their lines. It is however a spell that should always be considered as a strong one, and worth dispelling.

It should also be noted that this spell can be cast into close combat. This will hit the engaged Skaven unit too, but most Skaven generals don’t mind sacrificing their minions to kill the enemy, especially if it’s a throwaway tarpit unit.


The Greenskin Menace


I have played Orcs and Goblins a lot and most armies tend to take both Orc and Goblin shamans with anything between four and twelve combined wizard levels. If the O&G player is really spamming you with a lot of wizards, rest assured that they are probably NOT packing defensive magical items so allocating close combat attacks to them is well worth it.

There are hero and lord variants for Goblin, Night Goblin, Orc, and Savage Orc shamans, but most lists tend to favor Night Goblins over vanilla Goblin Shamans and Savage Orcs over vanilla Orc Shaman.

The majority of competitive lists rely on Savage Orcs for Core, so it’s pretty common for Savage Orc Shamans with the Lucky Shrunken head to join the units (boost the Ward save of the unit from 6+ to 5+). That means it’s extra important to take out Savage Orc Shamans both to weaken their magic phase and make their main block easier to kill.

Night Goblin shamans eat a mushroom each time they try casting a spell. After determining whether or not they have IF, they roll an additional die. If they roll a "1" the spell auto-fails (unless they got IF), if they roll anything else that number is added to the casting total making successful casts more likely and dispels more expensive (but not contributing to IF). Rolls of "1" have a 50% chance of wounding the Goblin.

Neither of the two greenskin lores are particularly deadly compared to BRB lores, but most of the spells are fairly cheap to cast, so you will usually get spammed with a lot of weak spells rather than be facing a few “dispel or die” spells.

Big Waaagh! (the Orc Lore)

Lore Attribute: Strength bonuses from buffs or Strength based damage on direct damage spells go up an additional +1 if more friendly units are in combat than are fleeing. It doesn’t apply to enough spells to be a serious concern.

Gaze of Mork: Signature Spell, direct damage spell that inflicts S4 hits in a straight line (4d6 or 8d6 inches). It’s really hard to line up a good shot with an Orc, so this is a low priority spell.

Brain Bursta: Direct damage spell that targets a single model and hits at S5 at 18 or 36 inch range. Dealing a single wound to a single model with normal saves is not normally very scary.

Fist of Gork: The Shaman gains +3 Attacks, +3 Strength, and a 6+ ward save (does not stack with existing ward saves). Without this spell a block of Saurus Warriors will beat a similar number of Orcs, with the spell the Saurus will need their BSB nearby to not break. Trust me.

Hand of Gork: Moves a single friendly unengaged unit 3d6 inches into a new legal position (cannot bring a unit into close combat). It has an extended version to move a unit 5d6 inches. Not only this useful for changing the set up of the battlefield by moving large units, it can also favorably reposition Night Goblin Fanatics. This spell is basically an Orc version of Walk Between Worlds.

‘Eadbutt: Direct damage with 4d6 or 8d6 inch range that only targets wizards,inflicting d3 wounds at S4. This spell does not hit hard enough to threaten a Slann but it can kill Skink characters with relative ease if they aren’t packing Ward Saves.

‘Here We Go: Orc units and characters of all kinds within 2d6 inches of the caster re-roll failed to hit rolls till the start of the casters next magic phase. This does NOT help non-orcs. I prefer not to be facing Orcs with this buff but it’s not too bad.

Foot of Gork: A foot template with a d6 inch scatter inflicts targets hit with S6 d3 wound hits. Then the player rolls a d6. On a 4-6 they can apply the foot again (and CAN target the original target again if they so desire). On a roll of 1 the O&G player’s opponent gets to decide where the foot lands. It wouldn’t be Orc magic if there wasn’t a chance for it to go horribly awry. Not as bad as other nuke spells but this is still a spell you don’t want to go off.


Little Waaagh! (the Goblin Lore)


Lore Attribute, Sneaky Stealin’: Whenever a spell is successfully cast, the goblin player rolls a d6; on a 5 or 6 they can steal a die from the opponents' Dispel dice pool and convert it to a Power die giving you (a LM opponent) an added incentive to front load your dispel attempts early to avoid having your dice stolen before you can even use them.

Sneaky Stabbin’: Signature Spell, Augment with 12 inch range that bestows armor piercing on a friendly unit until the start of the caster’s next magic phase. If said friendly unit is engaging a foe in the flank or rear, they also get to reroll failed To-hit and To-wound rolls. If the unit in question isn’t flanking you, this spell is not a big deal.

Vindictive Glare: 24 inch magic missile that inflicts 2d6 S3 hits. The hits are too weak to matter much, even against our lighter units. Quantity beats quantity for 3d6 S3 when the spell is augmented.

Gift of the Spider-god: Augment that bestows poisoned attacks on a unit within 12 inches until the start of the caster’s next turn. If the unit already has poisoned attacks, it’s now poisonous on a 5 or 6. Our Scaly Skin will help a bit, but LM should try to be on the distributor end of the poison trade whenever possible.

Itchy Nuisance: Hex with a 24 inch range that reduces a target’s Movement rate and Initiative by d6 (minimum 1). Early game it makes it hard to get the charge. Late game, this spell doesn’t matter as our main fighting units have poor Initiative anyway.

Gork’ll Fix it: Hex forces enemy unit in 24 inches to reroll to hit, To Wound, and Armor Saves of 6 until the start of the caster’s next magic phase, much like Curse of the Midnight Wind only cheaper to cast and with no augmented spell option. Whether or not this spell is a threat depends on how close the fight would have otherwise been.

Night Shroud: This augment gives the shaman’s unit soft cover until the start of the caster’s next magic phase. Normally a highly situational spell, but more useful against LM than most armies given the comparatively high number of shooters our army has. There is an augmented version to affect all friendly units within 12 inches of the shaman. This is only a problem if you are relying on Skink shooting. Once most of your units are within charging distance, this is a weak spell indeed.

Curse of da Bad Moon: An unusually fast moving template forces affected units to make a characteristic test or take a wound. The test is either Strength, Toughness, or Initiative and is randomly rolled for each round. The augmented version uses the larger template and lets the caster choose the characteristic test rather than rolling for it. Naturally the most dangerous tests are Initiative for Saurus and Toughness for Skinks. Regardless of what test is chosen, and which units are hit, the effects are unpleasant.

Fat Sweaty Mages and the Lore of the Great Maw

All Ogre mages have 4 or 5 wounds and T 5 (and most can take magic armor too), so the usual strategy of charging a wizard’s unit and allocating extra attacks on the wizard is less effective than against other armies. To make matters worse, Ogre magic tends to lean heavily on augments and hexes so it’s hard to prevent them from casting many spells by engaging the wizard’s unit. If the wizard is paired up next to a tooled up combat lord, it’s even tougher to assassinate him. In my few battles with Ogres I mostly try to rack up combat resolution against the wizard’s unit and then break and run him down rather than trying to kill the wizard(s) individually.

The Butchers (heroes) and Slaughtermasters (lords) can take the Lore of the Great Maw, Death, Beasts, or Heavens. If there are Butchers or Slaughtermasters, at least one is required to take the Ogre’s army book lore, though he need only be a level one.

Note that Butcher’s and Slaughtermasters are immune to poisoned attacks auto wounds so an Ogre player fielding an anti-LM army could theoretically taunt us by fielding a lone wizard and laughing at the Skirmishers trying to wound him, though most such wizards are embedded in deathstar units.

Firebellies are a fluffy hero wizard choice limited to the lore of Fire. They have a 4+ Ward save versus flaming attacks, and more importantly, a breath weapon making them the toughest Ogre wizards in close combat, or they would be if they weren't the only Ogre wizards that can't take magic armor.

The Lore Itself

Bloodgruel, Lore Attribute: While there is a slim chance the lore attribute will actually wound an Ogre wizard, most of the time the lore attribute will heal wounds per each successfully cast spell and give +1 to the next spell cast (not cumulative though). While the lore attribute is underwhelming on the whole, if your plan was to nickel and dime the wizard to death, you should probably come up with a new plan.

Spinemarrow: The signature spell makes an Ogre unit Stubborn. Stubborn is good for Ogres since they rarely have Steadfast. You only really need to dispel this spell when you are pretty sure you are going to win the round of close combat you are going to fight with that unit this round.

Bonecrusher: A fairly underwhelming magic missle, 2d6 S2 hits with no armor saves. A Skink killer but that’s about it.

Bullgorger: Friendly unit gains +1 Strength. It’s no Wyssans but not bad since Ogres tend to have high Strength scores to begin with. It will usually give regular Ogres the ability to wound Sauri on 3s. If the Ogres are packing great weapons this spell, then this spell is mostly redundant since they already wound Sauri on 2s, (but the Stomps and Impact Hits get the boost). The augmented version is still blue. The odds of multiple units of unbuffed Ogres needing 3s or worse to wound us all clumped in a 12 inch radius are pretty low since most Ogre lists rely on great weapons over other gear options.

Toothcracker: Same as above but with +1 Toughness. This is slightly more problematic for us because the few units we have capable of dishing out high strength attacks are very vulnerable to the Ogre Ironblaster which nearly every Ogre list I’ve seen includes. The augmented version of the spell is more dangerous. We don’t want to need a 5 or 6 to wound the entire enemy army if we can help it.

Braingobbler: This is a fairly creative spell, it inflicts no damage but forces a panic test on a target assuming it’s not Immune to Psychology. Our Skinks don’t like taking Ld tests outside the radius of the general and BSB, but even that is not a big deal for us since the Bonecrusher will cause a panic test in Skink blocks most of the time and is cheaper to cast. I'd rather panic WITHOUT losing any models thank you very much. Unless you have a Bastiladon outside of general and BSB range (generally a bad idea even without this spell), you can usually afford to let this one pass.

Trollguts: bestowing Regeneration 4+ is pretty potent, considering that Ogres are not that easy to take down in the first place. It can also be expanded to cover multiple units. Now if you aren’t in close combat yet and you have Salamanders, this spell is pretty weak.

The Maw: Naturally a spell named for the Ogre’s god would be pretty potent. It uses a small scattering template (with an augmented casting for a bigger template naturally). Each model hit takes an initiative test. If they succeed they take a Strength 3 hit so even a Skinks Intiative score of 4 will not help them much. If they fail they take a S7, d6 wounds hit. Naturally this spell is devastating to Saurus based units of all kinds as well, including characters. It’s not the monster kill it used to be before our new book since our big beasties get to use a Skinks Initiative score to take the test. That’s still only a 67% pass rate to let this spell go through if you can help it.

Lore of the Wild (mostly paraphrased from @cryocube with a bit from @khornefed)

Beastmen get this only for themselves. At first glance it appears fairly weak. The trouble is that Beastmen tend to have a higher than average number of attacks. Quantity over Quality. Their magic can give them a super-offensive character or turn our Carnosaurs, Stegadons, etc against us. Apply your dominance in the dispel phase, and let them get closer so you can get into melee on your own terms.

Unlike most army book lore, Beastmen do NOT have their arms twisted to make them take it. They can take Death, Shadow, and of course Beasts. Like the other AB lores dating from seventh edition, there are only six spells (the “1” spell and signature spell are the same. While it's not a weak lore by any means, I doubt many optimized Chaos Legions will use it in lieu of the three Chaos lores or the many BRB lores they have access to.

Bestial Surge (signature spell): This Spell is a mini-old-school Vanhel's Danse Macabre. Unengaged, non-fleeing units within six inches of the caster move d6+1 inches towards the nearest enemy. Movement and positioning is key to winning Warhammer, but this probably the weakest movement spell in the game because the caster does not pick the direction moved in, and this occurs after a charge can be declared, this will normally only be cast in the first turn or in the late game when the battle has waged far apart.

Viletide: This is the Magic Missile spell for the lore firing a high volume of low Strength hits (5d6 Strength 1 hits, wounding Skinks on 5+ and pretty much everything else on a 6. Its un-boostable and will average 17 shots wounding normal infantry on 6+ so 3 wounds a shot average. This spell is pretty vile indeed. However...important safety tip. A unit marked by the Hagtree Fetish allows rerolls of failed to-wound rolls making this spell deadlier.

Devolve: Target takes a leadership test or takes automatic wounds equal to amount they fail the leadership test from. Not particularly dangerous. Dangerous to Bastiladons outside your general and BSB bubbles but an annoyance at best for most of our cold-blooded troops.

Bray-Scream: A Strength 3 breath weapon that ignores armor. We like our Scaly Skin, so this is bad but the relatively low strength of the hits dials down the threat factor here.
Traitor-Kin: This spell causes cavalry, chariots, ridden monsters and the like to rebel against their riders and attack themselves. This can cause serious damage to you if you have Terradons, Stegadons, Cold Ones, Carnosaurs, etc. Our mounts are tough and can kick out some real damage. Most of our mounts wound themselves on 4+ and will get at least a -1 to their own armor saves. Pretty nasty on a Salamander or Razordon pack that already lost a few handlers, but it won’t do anything significant on a warbeast with a full allotment of snacks.

Mantle of Ghorok: One of the strengths of the Beastmen is that they have a higher than average number of attacks at slightly higher than normal strength. The bestows a lot more of both. On average a character will get +3 Attacks and +3 strength taking them to an area where they can wound Stegadons on 2 or 3s. Do not let this get off.

Savage Dominion: Similar to Transformation of Khadon, but it uses monsters from the Beastmen book instead of the generic list and the Beastmen shaman controls the monster rather than becomes the monster. This spell is somewhat more dispel-worthy than Transformation of Kadon because it is not a remains in play spell. Much like End Times Summoning spells, after the initial dispel attempt, you can’t dispel the monster, you have to kill it.

There are three built-in weaknesses. If you can exploit these weaknesses, you have less incentive to dispel this. First, the shaman that summoned the monster can’t cast any spell while the monster it summoned remains on the table and it cannot be voluntarily dismissed by the Beastmen player (no biggie if the Shaman is level one or two, but in many cases I’d rather face a monster than a level 4 caster). Second, every time the monster takes a wound, the controlling shaman has to pass a Toughness test or take an automatic wound with no saves of any kind. Third, if the Shaman dies, the monster goes away.

Lore of Hashut

The Lore of Hashut is only available to Chaos Dwarfs. and it’s only available to the Lord level caster. THe Chaos Dwarfs have full access to three perfectly good BRB lores: Fire, Metal, and Death. This means some players might not even bother with it though the Lore of Hashut is almost a perfect amalgam of Fire, Metal and Death and Chaos Dwarfs only have one Lord option available to them so the Lore of Hashut will remain a fairly popular choice amongst the small Chaos Dwarf community.

If you are tailoring a list against Chaos Dwarves specifically, your list should probalby have both the Dragon Bane Gem AND Dragonhelm in it somewhere. Chaos Dwarves like Flaming Attacks as much as Skaven like Warpstone seasoned grilled cheese sandwiches.

Killing Fire, lore attribute: The Lore of Hashut gets +D3 to casting rolls against targets that are Flammable. Fortunately Lizardmen are not Flammable. There is a Hashut spell that makes an enemy Flammable, but that spell is perfectly nasty even without the Lore Attribute, so don't worry about the lore attribute.

Breath of Hatred: The signature spell temporarily gives Hatred to one unit or gives Hatred to all units within 12 inches when augmented. It’s generally only important on the first round of close combat then it stops mattering altogether.

Burning Wrath: This spell inflicts 1d6 or 2d6 Strength 6 hits. That sounds bad, but the spell is limited to an eight inch range. Most Chaos Dwarf wizards will be hanging out with their artillery since they double as engineers so you can avoid this spell by simply staying out of range. Occasionally you may see Chaos Dwarf Lords riding giant monsters, but a Chaos Dwarf riding casting this spell at you from the back of a Taurus means the Taurus isn't fighting you in close combat. I'll take that trade-off.

Dark Subjugation: A hex spell that forces the opponent to pass an Ld test at a -3 penalty or suffer a -1 Ld penalty for the rest of the game. We are Cold Blooded so this isn’t a huge issue—once. It becomes more problematic when your main unit gets hit by this spell a second or even a third time.

Curse of Hashut: A fairly potent character snipe. 18 inch range inflicting 2d6 – Toughness dice in hits on a 4+ with no armor saves. This has a good chance of killing a Saurus or Skink character and a small chance of killing a Slann. It’s cast at a mere 10+ making it outshine all the Death snipes.

Ash Storm: The mother of all hexes is 24 inch range cast a 12+. It is extra brutal to Slann bunkers. If you are running without a Slann, this spell is a slightly less scary..
-Target is Flammable
-Target gets -1 to hit in close combat, and -2 to hit with ranged attacks.
-Target can’t march, charge, or fly
-All ground is treated a Dangerous Terrain (not that this matters much since you can barely move)
-Spell casters in the unit cannot target units other than itself

Hell Hammer: This is the most dangerous line template attack spell I have ever seen published, but Chaos Dwarfs don’t usually have the mobility to line up ideal shots so this spell is wasted on them. If they DO get a good shot it will hurt a lot, but otherwise this spell is not a big deal. It’s a 3d6 inch or 6d6 inch line that inflicts a Strength 6 D3 wound hit on every model in the way. This needs a flying Dwarf to pull off well and in most cases I'd rather the Dwarf player be trying to set this spell up rather than charging me, unless I have a line of Kroxigors.