The Warhammer Army books describe exactly which kinds of Lore are used by the different Warhammer races and provide further race specific spells in most cases. Those given here are used primarily by the Wizards of the Empire and by Elves, but form the basis for the magic of other races too.

All Wizards follow one particular kind of magical Lore. Where permitted, an army can include Wizards who follow different Lores or several of the same - this is up to the player.

Wizards have one spell for each Magic Level. Wizards of the First Level have one spell, Wizards of the Second Level have two spells, Third Level Wizards have three spells and Wizards of the Fourth Level have four spells.

The standard procedure for selecting spells is for each player to randomly generate a spell or spells for each of his Wizards before both sides deploy their troops. This is normally done openly and opponents will therefore be aware of which spells their opponent has generated. A Wizard can always substitute one of his spells with the first spell that is on the list. For example, a Level 1 Wizard who chooses to use Fire magic and rolls a 5 (getting the Conflagration of Doom spell) could substitute this spell with the Fire Ball spell.

Players who wish to adopt some other method of selecting their spells, such as choosing spells or secretly generating random spells, are perfectly welcome to come to an arrangement between themselves. The spell lists include random generation charts and players declare before the battle which Lore of Magic each of their Wizards is using before generating any spells.

If both sides are using Wizards, roll a dice to see who generates his spells first. Start generating spells with the highest Level Wizards. If two Wizards in the same army are using the same Lore of Magic, they may gain duplicates of spells, but no single Wizard can have the same spell twice.

Two Wizards on opposing sides may use the same spell lists, thus both sides may have the same spells.