Ranking the top ten legendary casters in Warhammer III

So as a huge fan of magic in the Warhammer games, I wanted to make a thread to discuss and rank the top casters in Warhammer III. Honestly there’s nothing I enjoy more in this series than melting enemy armies in their thousands with an insanely overpowered wizard, and many of the legendary casters in this have provided hours of fun.

First off, it’s probably worth stressing that this list is inherently subjective. Ultimately how highly we rate units in this game reflects what we personally value, and these rankings are pretty heavily influenced by what I think works well with magic and what doesn’t. Also, I’m not Legend of Total War. I’m not basing these rankings on what is technically possible if you gear everything towards maximum cheese. Fair enough if that’s your bag, but these rankings are based on a fairly casual playthrough as part of a balanced army etc. Also I am just ranking them based on their casting ability. Many of the legendary casters missing have amazing support abilities (particularly broken vampires with Mortis Engines), but I’m not taking them into account here.

In order to rank the top legendary casters, it’s worth taking the space to talk about what actually makes a powerful caster. Obviously with the debate about the most powerful melee fighter it’s relatively simple. Melee attack, melee defence, weapon strength, resistances etc. With casting I think it’s more complex. In my view there are four areas that are essential to making a powerful caster. These are:

1 – Spell selection. Obviously, the better the spells a caster has, the more powerful they are. There are two elements to this. First, many casters have a standard lore, for example Fire, Heavens, Light etc. Certain lores are better than others. I’ll just lay my cards on the table and say that in my view the three best lores are Life, Vampire, and Shadows. All three lores are represented in this list. Second, a lot of legendary casters have custom spell selections, with a mix of spells from different lores. Again, the value of these spells is pretty subjective. Being open about what I think is best, I think healing and battlefield control spells (nets/slowdowns) are very good, but massive damage spells are what it’s all about. Ultimately, there’s no better value use of magic than massacring hundreds of models in a matter of seconds. In particular, I think controlled damage spells – stationary vortexes and wind spells – are the best, as I really, really don’t like randomly moving vortexes. Honestly, the number of times I’ve been blue-balled by casting a Banishment or Chain Lightning on a massive blob, only to see it veer off and end up halfway across the battlefield, or worse, slaughtering my own troops…

2 – Spell cost reductions. So this is the primary skill that separates one caster from another. Obviously the spells that a legendary caster has access to can also be cast by an ordinary caster, so their ability to cast spells for cheaper really sets certain casters apart. Many of the best casters either have flat spell cost reductions, or cost reductions for certain spells. Then some have both.

3 – Bound spells. So the new magic system brought in a de facto nerf to magic, as the total amount of winds available was severely reduced. The ability to cast spells for free, then, became even more important. To take an example, the Wood Elf Spellweaver lord has two bound uses of The Dwellers Below, a spell that usually costs 17 WoM. That’s essentially 34 free WoM!

4 – Spell intensity. This is a new system in Warhammer III, and one that I think CA can really expand on. Being able to cast spells with greater power is obviously an important way to distinguish between casters. There are several aspects to this. First, certain races/lords can boost their spell mastery through Mastery of the Elementary Winds. At the moment this is only available to the two Cathay lords, and Kairos. However, with the latest update CA have introduced skills/items that give casters a temporary boost to spell mastery, which I think is a really neat addition. Also Greater Arcane Conduit inherently gives a 10% boost to spell mastery.

As well as all this, there are a number of less important, but nonetheless helpful, boosts a caster can have:

\* Increased WoM capacity

\* Increased WoM recharge

\* Passives

\* Mobility

\* Synergy with the army

\* +% increase when WoM is increasing (lol jk this is complete shit)

So anyway, here’s my list of the top ten legendary casters in the game.

10 – Malagor

So I’m starting off with something controversial here. Honestly, I expected Malagor to be top five easily. I have fond memories of the Crowfather being insanely OP in Warhammer II, soloing armies with basically free Flocks of Doom and the occasional juicy Pendulum. I don’t know if CA nerfed him because checking back over his skill-tree he looks toned down. Certainly still very powerful. FoD is boring AF but incredibly cost-effective, and no matter how many times they nerf Pendulum it still rocks. He has Greater Arcane Conduit, a nice collection of passives, and a 10% spell cost reduction which is all very good, but not as insane as I remembered. However, he does still have the FoD Mortis Engine ability, which can be incredibly powerful if you keep him in a low-risk melee fight.

9 – Fey Enchantress

The Lore of Life is one of the top lores in the game, and the Fey Enchantress is the best caster of it. Obviously the heals are exceptionally good, but The Dwellers Below is an absolute nuke of a spell. The Fey Enchantress gets some very nice spell cost reductions: -15% for all spells, and a small reduction to certain overcast spells. She also gets two bound uses of Comet of Casandora, which is another great damage spell.

8 – Wurrzag

So while ascertaining why casters are good can sometimes be very difficult, this dancing chad is very simple: Foot of Gork go brrrrrr. Wurrzag is a fairly unexceptional caster of a pretty mediocre lore, \*except\* he gets an insane WoM cost reduction for Foot of Gork, which is an incredibly powerful explosion spell. Ordinarily the spell costs 18 WoM; Wurrzag can cast it for 6. That essentially means that any time the AI remotely starts blobbing up, you can crush them like a bug.

7 – Mannfred

This is when things start to get more difficult. Mannfred has always been high-rated as a caster as he has access to more spells than any other caster in the game, with the full lores of Death and Vampires. I’m not that convinced this is advantageous. The ultimate restriction on your spellcasting is your Winds of Magic pool, and realistically you don’t need 12 spells to choose from. Still, aside from that he has access to the lore of Vampires, which is amazing, and a number of neat skills. GAC is always useful, and Master of the Black Arts gives him a temporary 25% boost to spell mastery, allowing you to cast at +35% potency for a brief period. Finally his legendary item gives him the \*awesome\* Sword of Unholy Power ability which grants both power recharge and a boost to reserves per second. What counts (ahem) against him is the lack of any meaningful spell cost reductions or any bound spells. Still, an incredibly powerful caster who is a step above the previous three.

6 – Belakor

So this is very simple: Be’lakor gets a whopping 30% spell reduction cost to the Lore of Shadows; one of the best lores in the game. I’m not entirely sure how the maths works here, but he was casting Pit of Shades for 5 WoM in my campaign, and Pendulum for six. He has literally nothing else going for him as a caster, but frankly who cares.

5 – Morathi

One of the best hybrid melee-casters in the game, Morathi has a selection of spells that really just bottle down to two: Pit of Shades, and Soulstealer. Morathi can cast PoS overcast for slightly cheaper than usual, but it’s her cost reductions to Soulstealer that make her so powerful. Ordinarily it costs 16 WoM; Morathi casts it for 7. Alongside PoS this gives her incredible damage potential: Pit is one of the best blob removal spells, Soulstealer is superb at killing single entities. Between them the two spells give Morathi the ability to kill just about anything, as well as a huge amount of healing. On top of that she gets GAC, and two bound uses of Doombolt, for extra character-killing power.

4 – Balthasar Gelt

Do you like Searing Doom? Because this man-lad with a metal mask fucking loves Searing Doom. He loves it so much he casts it all battle long at the cost of 1 WoM. Gelt gets arguably the best spell reduction costs in the game: -20% plus a flat -2 WoM cost for all Metal spells. This makes casting very, very cheap, and Searing Doom is one of the best cheap spammable spells in the game. He doesn’t have GAC or any spell mastery, but his items give him +20 WoM reserve and the Staff of Volans is one of the best power recharge items in the game, with 240% recharge for 30 seconds. In other words you can cast Searing Doom 120 times. Welcome to Estalia gentlemen.

3 – Ariel

The only legendary hero on this list, Ariel has a great custom selection of spells, as well as multiple bound spells/items, GAC, and massive spell cost reductions. Like Morathi she has a great combination of a character-killer in Soulstealer along with arguably the best stationary vortex in The Dwellers Below. The latter in particular she can cast ridiculously cheaply. Access to these makes most of her other spells fairly redundant, but the ability to heal as well as dish out damage means that she is extremely versatile, and two bound Regrowth spells is just the cherry on top.

2 – Kairos Fateweaver

Kairos’ implementation has been fairly controversial. He starts off with access to the lore of Tzeentch, a decent offensive lore, but can choose a number of spells from the eight main lores. The selection of spells is good, including OGs like Comet, Net, Regrowth, and Pendulum. Also keeping the passives synergises very well with his army; particularly Kindleflame. However, the fact that you lose spells can be quite annoying, particularly when you can’t choose which one you miss out on. I massively prefer Infernal Gateway to Tzeentch’s Firestorm, but the spells I like from the shards usually replace the former. Nonetheless, aside from this minor quibble Kairos is extremely powerful. He gets solid spell cost reductions, GAC, and is the only character outside Cathay who gets access to Mastery of the Elemental Winds. With a bit of effort, this means you can get Kairos’ spell intensity to 200%, which by itself arguably makes him the most powerful caster in the game. Forget about the big spells, you can just spam Blue Fire and kill characters in seconds. However, even if you don’t do that, Kairos’ faction mechanics will push you to having several other casters in your army, meaning that you’ll naturally get his spell master up pretty high without even trying. As good as he is, though, Kairos has limitations. His unique mechanic means that he cannot equip Arcane items. His Staff of Tomorrow item is a bit shit, and he doesn’t get his Scroll of Destiny in single-player for some reason. Also he has no bound spells.

1 – Teclis

Without question the most well-rounded caster in the game, Teclis is an absurdly powerful mage, easily capable of wiping out entire armies single-handedly. In many ways Teclis’ greatest strength is that he benefits from every area that can be used to make a powerful caster. He has the best selection of spells in the game. Net, a heal, a buff, a debuff, and two damage spells. All you could ever want. He has massive spell cost reduction: both flat, and to specific spells. He has multiple bound spells, including Fiery Invocation which is class. His Sword of Teclis ability gives him a temporary 30% boost to spell mastery, on top of GAC. He has 9 different passives, the highest WoM reserve capacity in the game with +40. Inexplicably he also has superb mobility with a phoenix mount (why, why, why?). In short, he can do everything. He can synergise with his army through netting the enemy and buffing his archers. He can spam Flock of Doom to constantly push damage output and maintain all 9 passives. He can slaughter units en masse with Chain Lighting and Fiery Invocation. Just an all-round magical powerhouse.

Again, I understand that this list is very subjective, and I’ll go through a few casters that I missed out in the comments. Probably going to get a load of angry replies in my notifications but oh well!