Sackree
07 Jul 2015
The lore of death is one of the most potent lores in the game and we are one of the races lucky enough to have access to it. Though I never seem to hear much about ogres using the lore of death.
From the top of my head I can think of a few reasons I would avoid it, namely being the thought of a misfiring purple sun and the fact that our ld is not the best to make the most out of spirit leech. It also means we have to pay the Butcher tax which is never ideal.
Regardless of this though our slaughtmasters are often close enough for those short range snipes, soul blight is amazing both in combat and against leadbelcher targets, -3ld is a fantastic addition to a fear causing army which often fights steadfast units. Not to mention we can get +6 to cast if using the sickle.
So I would like to know your thoughts on ogres using the lore of death, what does and doesn't work, and what type of list it works best with.
demonwalker
07 Jul 2015
I have personally used Death before. Now, I have an odd meta where we have no comp, no balance, and games of 6000+ points per side is normal. So my experience is likely going to be different from most. That said, my experience with the spells is thus:
Sig: Everyone in my meta is running armies with leadership better than Ogre. Occasionally, I will go against someone using leadership 7-8, but norm is 9-10. So using this, I'm already down by 1-2 if I want to hurt anything that is worth using this on beyond Monsters. I think I have at most gotten 5 wounds overall with this spell.
1: With this spell, I'm already having to boost it to have any sort of affect. Again, I'm still in a meta of high leadership armies, so Fear and Terror rarely take affect. To top it off, everyone I go against LOVES ITP and Unbreakable type armies. When they don't have ITP or Unbreakable, they cause Fear or terror. So this is absolutely useless for me. To top it off, fear and terror don't really do much anyway, making this a terrible spell.
2: This spell isn't terrible. On average, 7-Strength hits is pretty good. Some people will see tons of mileage out of this against Elves and Empire. For me, it doesn't do as much. S5-6 is so common here, that I don't like relying on this spell. That said, I can still get those high rolls, so this was one of the better spells for me.
3: I don't think I rolled this spell often. -1S -1T is always good. If you end up with Toothcracker on your Butcher tax, this could be a really good spell. I don't have an opinion on this one.
4: I didn't realize how powerful this spell could be until it was used against me. Making my LD 10 Elf on a Dragon go to 7, coupled with a few other things caused him to die turn 1. However, that was a case of Lore of Slaanesh and Lore of Death working together. Without Slaanesh, I don't think that spell would have hurt near as much. If your about to go into combat, sure. Otherwise, it feels weak.
5: Like the 2nd spell, I always saw high toughness enemies. No one runs elves here except me. If I was lucky, I got to hit someone T4. Still, this was a good spell.
6: The bane of Ogres. This caused a few arguments in my group because of how I used it. Even then, it has always done more damage to me than any other player. Even when I used it against Dwarves. It is definately use at your own risk, as a single misfire could cost you 500+ points instantly. For me, it was more like 2000+ points, but that's due to the higher points games coupled with a little bit of unlucky rolling.
If I were to go back to using Lore of Death, I would want my SM with a small unit of bulls that hides away. The rest of the list would be built around doing tons of quick damage to rank and file models while using the lore to characters. So probably 3 units of Leadbelchers, a couple units of 6-8 IG, a unit of Sniping poison Maneaters to aid in character killing. The butcher tax of course going with one of the IG units to give them the buffs.
