Total War: WARHAMMER Wiki

The Lore of Metal is a lore of magic introduced in Total War: Warhammer.

Lore Attribute[]

Metalshifting[]

Armour is little defence against a skilled alchemist, under his command metal turns into an arcane lightning rod, attracting hostile magic.
Passive AbilityThis ability targets allies or self
Lore of Metal
Type Augment (Area)
Target Self, Allies
Base Weapon Damage +12%
Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage +12%
Effect range Map-wide
Duration 13 seconds
Affected units Affects allies in range(all)
Enabled if Casting
Triggers when casting

Spells[]

Searing Doom[]

A spray of sizzling silver slivers rain from the sky to impale the caster's enemy.
SpellThis ability targets enemies
Lore of Metal
Cost 6 Winds
10 Winds (Overcast)
Type Bombardment
Target Ground, Enemies
Ranged Damage 36 (33%)
Explosive Damage 30 (100%)
Range 200 metres
Duration 9 seconds
Cooldown 30 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Increased number of missiles
Wider strike area
Causes moderate magical damage
Large strike area
Strong vs a single unit

Weak vs a single combatant

Plague of Rust[]

The enemy target's armour begins to rust, disappearing in clouds of tiny flakes and weakening his defensive abilities.
SpellThis ability targets enemies
Lore of Metal
Cost 4 Winds
6 Winds (Overcast)
Type Hex
Target Enemy
Armour -30
-60 (Overcast)
Range 200 metres
Duration 44 seconds
Cooldown 28 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Affected units Affects enemies in range(max: 1)
Greater effect on armour

Gehenna's Golden Hounds[]

Blowing on a glimmering golden whistle, the Wizard summons the spirit of Gehenna’s metal hounds to hunt down his prey.
Spell
Lore of Metal
Cost 8 Winds
12 Winds (Overcast)
Type Vortex
Target Ground, All
Damage Per Second 15 (33%)
Duration 13 seconds
26 seconds (Overcast)
Radius 7 metres
10 metres (Overcast)
Movement Speed 3m/s
2m/s (Overcast)
Range 150 metres
Duration 13 seconds
26 seconds (Overcast)
Cooldown 45 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Affects units if Grounded
Extended effect duration
Large, randomly-moving area of effect
Strong vs multiple units

Weak vs a single combatant

Glittering Robe[]

The Alchemist conjures a gaudy cloak of shimmering scale to improve his allies’ defensive stance.
SpellThis ability targets allies or self
Lore of Metal
Cost 6 Winds
12 Winds (Overcast)
Type Augment
Augment (Area) (Overcast)
Target Self, Ally
Allies (Overcast)
Armour +60
Range 200 metres
Effect range (Overcast) 35 metres (Overcast)
Duration 44 seconds
Cooldown 42 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Affected units Affects allies in range(max: 1)
Affects allies in range(all) (Overcast)
Added effect area

Transmutation of Lead[]

The enemies’ weapons become heavy, cumbersome, and almost impossible to wield in battle.
SpellThis ability targets enemies
Lore of Metal
Cost 11 Winds
16 Winds (Overcast)
Type Hex (Area)
Target Enemies
Base Weapon Damage -30%
-60% (Overcast)
Melee Attack -24
Range 200 metres
Duration 50 seconds
Cooldown 28 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Affected units Affects enemies in range(all)
Greater effect on melee damage

Final Transmutation[]

The Wizard unleashes a hail of magical energy, transmuting his foes into Unliving golden statues.
SpellThis ability targets enemies
Lore of Metal
Cost 17 Winds
26 Winds (Overcast)
Type Direct Damage (Area)
Target Enemies
Damage Per Second 66-133
Range 100 metres
Effect range 35 metres
Duration 8 seconds
16 seconds (Overcast)
Cooldown 54 seconds
Miscast chance 50% (Overcast)
Affected units Affects enemies in range(all)
Extended effect duration
Causes damage to combatants
Strong vs character
Strong vs a single combatant

Weak vs a single unit

Units[]

Chaos Dwarfs[]

Unit

Daemons of Chaos[]

Unit
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Grand Cathay[]

Unit
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High Elves[]

Unit
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Lizardmen[]

Unit

Norsca[]

Unit

(WH1 & WH2 only)
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The Empire[]

Unit

Tzeentch[]

Unit
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(Formless Horror: Archaon the Everchosen)
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(Formless Horror: Balthasar Gelt)

(Formless Horror: The Blue Scribes)
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(Formless Horror: Zhao Ming, the Iron Dragon)
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Warriors of Chaos[]

Unit
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Strategy[]

Click here to add a strategy!

The Lore of Metal is a pretty strong lore that focuses on a variety of damage spells and some decent augments and debuffs.

  • Metalshifting is actually one of the better ones, +12% weapon damage map wide is quite good.
  • Searing Doom is a good bombardment spell for blobs of enemies.
  • Plague of Rust is good if you run into an enemy with way too much armour for your units and can help level the playing field.
  • Gehenna's Golden Hounds is an efficient vortex spell that moves randomly, but does high damage.
  • Glittering Robe is a decent defensive spell, but if your opponent has large amounts of armour piercing damage, it is a bit wasted.
  • Transmutation of Lead actually destroys an enemies damage output for its duration. Very little damage will go through to your units.
  • Final Transmutation is essentially a Fate of Bjuna and equally effective.

Some of the above info is a bit misleading, Final Transmutation is the strongest and most expensive direct damage spell. its acts like Spirit Leech hitting one model in each unit at time doing on average about 2100 damage total across multiple hits if overcasted. every unit or single entity is hit with a more than double strength sprit leach effectively, all are effected separately. If you hit a few valuable targets its damage and efficiency can be much higher than spirit leach even if you only hit 3 or more models. spirit leach does about 116 points of damage per WOM spent, overcast final transmutation does 75 damage per winds of magic per unit affected. So its actually better vs single targets/ elite units even if you only hit two, 3 or more targets and its greatly overtakes it in terms of damage done per winds of magic spent only flensing ruin is nearly as effective overall. Still it is extremely expensive with a longer cooldown.

Trivia[]

  • Ignoring Lores of Magic from DLCs and faction exclusive one (Skaven Spells of Stealth, Lore of Nehekhara, Lore of the Wild) this is probably the least available Lore of magic. Only being available to four factions and only seven real units that can use it.
    • With the release of Total War: Warhammer III, this is no longer the case. The addition of four new factions with access to the Lore of Metal makes it more common than Light, Life, or Heavens.
  • Balthasar Gelt was the only Gold Wizard of the game up until Update 5.0.
Magic