Welcome to Warhammer. Sound the trumpets and beat loud the drums of war, for the weighty tome you hold in your hands is your key to entering a dark and bloody land. It is a world of Daemons and sorcery, a brutal era of warfare and conquest. Warhammer, the game of fantasy battles, brings all the action onto your tabletop. You command armies of miniatures in a game that promises bold manoeuvre, daring riposte and untold slaughter.  The game of Warhammer makes you the general of an army of fantasy miniatures. Regiments of resplendent High Elves, the ragged hordes of ravenous ratmen known as Skaven, the Undead legions of the Vampire Counts or any of the other dozen army types, march, manoeuvre and charge into the fray on your orders. At your command, hails of arrows and eldritch bolts of magic are unleashed upon the foe. But it is in the brutal close quarters of combat that most battles must be won, by stalwart troops and legendary heroes.

Post 1.2 hotfixes, and added shooting in rear and front

Warhammer - The Game of Fantasy Battles - 9th Edition v.2.1

Main Rulebook

The Lore of Life Lore

The Lore of Life unleashes the power of the natural world. It is primarily a defensive lore, with an array of spells that heal your troops and augment their resilience. 

The Lore of Life

The Lores of Magic are lists from which Wizards choose their spells. Different Wizards have access to different Lores of Magic. The eight most common lores are presented here. As has already been hinted at, the possible applications of magic are many and varied, leading to a potentially vast array of spells to choose from. Fortunately for our gaming convenience (to say nothing of our already tenuous sanity) very few Wizards in the Warhammer world have the gumption to harness the full spectrum of magic, and instead concentrate on mastering one or more magical disciplines, or lores. There are many magical lores. Most represent fragments of 'pure' magic as practiced by the High Elves. Each lore has a particular character, which is reflected by each spell within it. The Lore of Metal, for example, is grounded in alchemy, and its spells therefore act through the transmutation of one substance into another. The eight most common lores, echoing the eight disciplines that the High Elves once taught to men, are collated at the back of this book. Almost all races can use one or more of these lores, depending on the character of said race, and its magical methods. Many races also have access to their own, unique spell lores, such as the fearsomely destructive Waaagh! magic of the Orcs and Goblins. Where this is the case, the relevant Warhammer Armies book will contain the necessary spell list(s). Each lore presented on the following pages is but a splinter of the pure magic practiced by the High Elves; one focused shard of magical energy, with a particular trait all of its own. The Lore of Fire, for example, is chiefly a repository of raging and destructive spells, whilst the Lore of Life specialises in spells of protection and healing. Each of the eight lores harnesses energy from one of the divisions in the Winds of Magic. Some kinds of energy are denser than others and sink low to permeate the ground, others are more rarefied, billowing like high clouds through the upper atmosphere. Your choice of lores will depend on how you want to use your Wizards, and also upon how many you plan to field. Presented on the following pages are eight magical lores, the eight sorcerous traditions as taught by the High Elves to the Wizards of the Empire. Although many of the Warhammer world's races practise their own magical traditions and thus have their own spell lores (as detailed in the relevant Warhammer Armies book), most also have some understanding of at least one of the eight lores described in this section.