So, as our Liche Priests can be dirt cheap and somewhat maneuverable with Steeds, I had an idea. Lords would be filled with HLP Heirophant and a King (or maybe more magic, whatever) but completely fill your Heroes with lvl1 Liche Priests of Light. They'd each be able to, at the least, get Shem's (and possibly Banishment if you roll it, which would be awesome), which has a 24" range (or higher if you boost).

But, in any event, the point is you'd be able to basically spam 24" d6 Strength 4 Burning attacks that would each be castable on a 3+ with a Heirotitan nearby. You could practically have Light Priests be the entire first row of a block of Archers, or Horsemen, and just spray Eye Lazors at the enemy as you advance, while also having so many spells out there that your opponent is forced to either waste his dispel dice or suffer upwards of 5d6 Str4 burning hits on any of his units that are too close.

Not Enough Power wouldn't be a factor, since you're failing on a 1 or 2 anyways, and the Wizards only know the one spell, and if you have 6 or more, odds are you'll get Banishment for one of them, giving you something that can slaughter monsters or blocks of infantry (with Strength 8 or 9 from all the Light wizards nearby).

So how do you think?

This made me giggle so much that now I have a want to try it.

Just remember to default down your spell with each wizard in turn before rolling for the next wizard. Yes, you still have a good chance for Banishment with 6 chances at it, but it's not like it gets better with each wizard.

This is a popular strategy that I see used every now and then. I posted a list back in July or so about a TK player who won a no holds barred tourney with this very concept. He ran his 5 hero casters on foot and also had 2 level 4's, one with Death and the other the heiro. He fielded many units of 10 archers and 5 scouts to autdeploy the enemy and slow them down. He used a heirotitan, casket, 2 catapults and 2 sphinxes as well.
He would deploy an archer unit on the left...then one of the right...then the left and so on until his opponent's army was completely on the table. He was then able to choose where to place the rest of his army while making the most of his speedbumps and long range damage potentional.

I run 3 lv 2's and love it. I think 6 lv1's are a bit much, though st 9 huts from banishment would be a real threat

This sounds like fun. What do folks think about bunkering the LPs in Archers or Horse Archers? Archers would give more (cheaper) ablative wounds but Horse Archers provide more mobility to get in range of choice targets. I'd lean toward the cavalry myself but would like to know what others think.

Definitely bunker your casters in an archer unit. They have more wounds and are great for protecting catapults or a casket. You can also deploy them wider if need be so templates won't be as devastating.

Though putting them on steeds gives them better armour (a little) and allows you to break one or two off to attempt to charge or swing up beside enemy formations for Irrisistible Force bombing (as most Miscasts result in blast templates) if you absolutely want or have to. It also lets you get them to that 24" range quicker...

i use something similar very often, 3 lvl 2 or 1 lvl 3 and 3/2 lvl 2 in higher point games

Used that recently, and used a lvl 3 as my hierophant. and three level 1, backed up with the Casket and Hierotitan.

I must say that I found that it was bordeline too much on the magic front, because while spaming some lazors is cool, the Casket and some of our own lore's spells are also good and usefull. With all that in my list I was still tight on magic dice, even when I was getting 8+ dices. I think it's a cool thing to try out once in a while, but not something I'd try regularily, and not with even more magic level.

If anything, doing that gave me inspiration for some cool (hopefully) modelling ideas for my light mages, so at least I might bring them back, but with some moderation :P

The question, though, is were you single-dicing your Lazors? The point of taking Lvl 1 Light Priests is that there's no penalty to using 1 die, and no chance of miscast- while still giving a fairly decent ranged attack. For the price of 10 Archers, you're getting a model with fewer wounds, and fewer 'shots', but the same amount of Wounds on average, at a higher strength, with the same range, that 'hits' on a 3+. And even if you have 6 of them, that's only 6 dice, which is as much as most people use on a single Lvl 2 per phase- 6 times where the opponent needs to ask themselves whether they want to Dispel, and would have to use 2 of their Dice to do it with any reasonable chance of success (unless using a higher level Wizard, but they're still using one of their DD, and they have, by default, fewer than you have PD) If you cast your gazes all first (or maybe sprinkle a Desert Wind in there to get into range) they're probably going to be left with no Dispel dice when you have 3-4 PD left for your Heirophant to cast Smiting or Dessication or something (assuming they want to dispel all those d6 Strength 4 hits)

=> Good way to look at it. But...

=> While this all is true, the drain of the 6 dice is not something to sneeze at.
I take your point about calling the 3+ "to hit" with these spells as you have, but remember that power dice are both finite and random. When you have 30 bowmen, all of them can shoot every turn. Nothing stops that other than damage. On the other hand, if you get anything less than a 6 on the winds roll, you simply cannot try to use all your resources, even though they are standing right there with targets in range.

So, you are counting on at least an average roll every turn just to get to the point where you can use those 6 guys - and this is before you try to cast any actual important spells (remember, good players will let you cast magic missiles all day long and then stop the one or two spells per turn that actually change the course of the game). I would hate to have 6 light wizards + my hierophant + the casket + the Titan and roll, say, 4 dice for the winds. It happens to me now with just 2 wizards total + the casket and titan.

Also, on that 3+ thing, even though there is no miscast, and no lost opportunity for the wizards that roll a 1 or 2, each time you do toss only a single die you have a 33% chance of completely throwing away one of your (maximum) 12 dice for the phase. Back in the old VC days, I would for for IoN 6+ times per turn on 1 die, and would _often_ only succeed once or twice. That's 6 dice to get 2 spells off. Then I'd see one or both dispelled, for a total waste of all 6 dice. I'd muuuuch rather 2-dice all attempts, at which point you might as well go with 3 light wizards.

Sure, sometimes you get lucky and you roll 12 dice for power, 3+ on all castings, and life is excellent. How often does that happen? Not often enough to count on it, which is what the BRB is warning us about when it says that a good general never makes a plan built around spells.

How funny would the hellheart miscast chain be? 6 wizards all blowing up would probably result in at least 2 of them htting the S6 hit on each of your mages so pretty much guaranteeing they all killed each other! Obviously won't come up all that often but very much the rock to this army's scissors.

Of coure I was, that was the whole point of why I used 3 of them :P But like Sleb said, you have a random, limited access to power dices, and having half of you pool "reserved" to cast some S4 magic missible take a toll on the rest of your phase.

One time I got 11 power dice and I could breath a bit better, but I had only 2 light wizard that could throw lazors. With 6 of them it will still be too few dices for a good phase, and that's a problem with the point invested when you add the Casket and Titan.

That's why I think 3 light mage is probably the maximum I would take if I was to try again. Idealy 2 should be enough, and if needed the Titan himself can shoot too, albeit on a 4+. Sometime getting smithing or another spells from the Hierophant, or using the Casket will be more important, so having to dedicate 3-6 dices on those occasion will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the light spam if taken in too great number.

nope, that's spirit leech, Shem's is cast on 3+

Even better then, for some reason I though it was 4+ and 5+ for his bounds, should have checked! So 2 light priests and the Titan should be good enough for some lazors spamming, more than that and is stretching the power pool a bit too much for my taste.