Vampire Counts: 8th Edition Tactica

[Ratbeast]

Go 40 ghouls and horde it, these guys can dish out the hurt

[Frankly]

Although the general rule of 5 wide for zombies and skellies is a good one. In the context of a magic heavy list, I've become more flexible with the rank size of these units.

I'm actually enjoying playing buffed skellies with spears 10 wide against soft targets(T3 with little to no armour saves). My skellies are turning out to be a good counter against other horde units if I get vigor and/or vanhels off, which will pop off vigour mortis from my corpse cart if alls going to plan.

Running skellies in a M.Necro list is the funiest thing I've done all 8th edition.

A Question:

Is anyone else running their GG units with H.weapons instead of GWs?

I love str6 and my list really needs that high strength since I don't have a hitty lord to do the heavy lifting. But I've found that ASF on GG units with Vanhels on them is really impressive, especially in late game when target units are running out of models for step up.

[Morax]

Hw/S vs. great weapons, it comes down to the list you are using. A high magic list with other high strength hammers can go Hw/S and come out ahead. The magic buffs, vanhel's/vigor/ASF, can make them dish out some some hurt, even more then great weapons against small elite units with lower saves. The secondary high strength hammers, varghiests/black knights/wraiths/blood knights/combat lords and heroes, can go after those units with the higher saves and rip them down. Without those secondary high strength hammers, you will need some tool in the box to handle those hard to kill targets. Great weapon grave guard are usually the answer but don't have to be. Just make sure you plan accordingly or you may find yourself on the wrong end of a pointy stick.

[HunterSkunter]

In 2K-2400 should I be running Cairn Wraiths (heroes)? Going from a set list to so many moving parts is overwhelming me a bit and I can't seem to nail down a list outside of my Ghouls, GG, Lord and Crypt Horrors. I'm trying to get some ideas from watching Batreps, and I seem to see these guys used a bit, just not sure how to utilize them effectively. Are they worth it, and does anyone have any tips on using them?

[Spoonie]

They're sort of an alternative to spirit hosts, as I see it. Basically you can start off hidden in a unit if you're worried about magic missiles, then you can run off and tie something up. It also has the advantage of being able to actually hurt stuff thanks to str5 and chill touch. I don't think it would be worth it to just keep it in a unit, as even though he'll add a few decent strength attacks and be unlikely to die, he's more useful as a solo.

[SteelTitan]

Why wouldn't you run a banshee for the same purpose instead? 3 Str5 attack will not do a whole lot while the scream can cause quite a bit of damage. I'm already running wraiths in rare.

[Balerion]

Why wouldn't you run a banshee for the same purpose instead? 3 Str5 attack will not do a whole lot while the scream can cause quite a bit of damage. I'm already running wraiths in rare.

Banshee screams don't count towards combat resolution. If whatever you're trying to hold up has a second rank, a standard, a musician, gets the charge on you, etc. you're probably going to lose the combat and die right away to instability. Whereas a Wraith stands a good chance of chipping off a wound or two per round of combat, and balancing the CR divide. Banshees can hold up stuff that generates no static CR, but that is a far shorter list than the number of things a Cairn Wraith could effectively roadblock.

Plus the Banshee is significantly more expensive.

[Symrivven]

Cairn wraiths or banshees to tie up other units only seems to be a last resort tactic, and only something you can rely on against units with no (or if you are comfortable sacrificing them 1) static combat resolution. 2 wounds versus 4 wounds of the hosts makes a big difference as the extra wounds not only let them survive longer versus static combat res but also give you more opportunity to heal them. The wraiths active combat resolution isn't that great either and I wouldn't expect it to deal more than a wound each turn.

[Morax]

Either way the useage of an ethereal hero is to tie up monsters/chariots your don't want to fight. You can also use them as cheap redirectors and speed bumps to give your opponent pause. Lastly you can spam them to make the front rank of a unit ethereal. This last tactic can be rather risky if your opponent comes prepared, sword of anti-heroes I'm looking at you, but if he doesn't it can work wonders. A skeleton/zombie unit with a frontage of 5 hero wraiths can wreck somebody's day.

[Frankly]

Are etheral characters needed? I mean we have so many speed bumps, re-directors and tarpits. Do we need them to take up our characters points?

[Balerion]

I agree with that. A Spirit Host is cheaper and will hold longer. The biggest reason to go with a Cairn Wraith is if you're playing an unknown armylist and would like some flexibility (ie. deciding during deployment whether it will be more beneficial to deploy the Wraith within a squad that needs some active CR, or to deploy it as a redirector).

If you want to include something as a de facto, dedicated director then a Spirit Host is more efficient.

Edit: But then again, I seldom find myself coming anywhere near my Hero maximum. Most of the time the challenge is trying to fit a capable combat lord in with a master necromancer.

[Jesper]

I like to run two Cairn Wraiths, one on each side of my center units.

They are usually used for charging out into things I dont like to fight, chariots, monsters etc. Against a steamtank, they do one auto wound each turn with chill grasp.

One other use is keeping them in a unit, using their terror to cause fear to enemy fear causers. This works well against low-ld troops (ogres, trolls) outside the generals ld-bubble. WS1 chaos knights are not that scary.

[Frankly]

.

They are usually used for charging out into things I dont like to fight, chariots, monsters etc. Against a steamtank, they do one auto wound each turn with chill grasp.

One other use is keeping them in a unit, using their terror to cause fear to enemy fear causers. This works well against low-ld troops (ogres, trolls) outside the generals ld-bubble. WS1 chaos knights are not that scary.

I'll try this soon.

Balerions right that our character hero points don't really get used up, but still I'm fining my list goes top heavy pretty quickly.

Even so I'm starting to see the value(atleast on paper)of having a speed dump with a very some foot print to maybe stagnate combat support. i.e. single chariot support charging my GG unit in a heavy combat after a lack luster magic phase of IoNs can really swing things.

[Goldenwolf]

Anyone else find it difficult to use the new book? I just played the Warriors of Chaos, and got destroyed in 1 round of combat. I got the reroll to hit, to wound and ASF, and still got slaughtered. I had 2 blocks of 40 Grave Guard reduced to 3 models each, and a 55 unit block of Ghouls reduced to 12 in 1 round of combat. I admit that the WOC are brutal, but I had EVERYTHING in our arsenal to boost the VC and got slaughtered. Anyone having better luck facing hordes? I am at a loss at the moment to see what we can do. Please any ideas that aren't insulting would be great.

[Askari]

That sounds... very unlikely... losing 37 GG each in two units in one round of combat. Did the Warriors hit and wound with every single attack or something? I guess Khorne Warriors with AHW can get what... 61 attacks in horde. But that's a horde of min, 30 Chaos Warriors of Khorne, that's an expensive unit, and even then that's only 40 hits, 20 wounds, ~17 dead. Even if you killed none in return that only doubles to 34. Sounds like the dice gods hate you or something, as the 23 living GG with those buffs should kill off something like 17 Warriors in return... (A24, ~18 hits, ~17 wounds).

Without more info about what happened, I really can't see the problem without just blaming the dice.

[Spoonie]

Agreed. You could have spent way too many points on support and got everything triple charged in a big game and we'd have no idea.

[Goldenwolf]

It was 36 WOC of Khorne in one horde, and 37 of Nurgle with Banner of Rage in another. He had 55+ attacks in each, and got about 20 kills in each. I then got about 12 kills in one and 8 in another and crumbled from rank, and combat res. But just doing the Mathhammer, he will win every time, just not as badly.

[Ratbeast]

Mega units like this should be tied up with chaff, while you focus on the rest of his army, with 2 units like that, he army wouldnt of been very big. Also curse of years would of wreak these types of units face, love cursing big units, going toe to toe with woc units is not a good idea

[Spoonie]

Aside from those two units being 1400+ points, let's see here...

Assuming '55+' attacks, they would have had xhw unless they were wider than 10, I suppose. Against grave guard with great weapons and the banner of the barrows...
60 attacks coming in, 40 hits, 20 wounds, a few saves for about 17 kills.
30 attacks heading their way, 20 hits, and around 17 kills as well.

Now normally you're only going to bring 40 or so grave guard, so you're going to lose off the bat just because the warriors go first and deny attacks from the get-go, but with even just ASF the GG should mop up. If you wanted to match points with his units you could bring 60 grave guard and just attrition him by making him lose attacks first. Otherwise yes, sticking a unit of zombies in their face might be the better option.

Edit: Nurgle unit would be tougher, admittedly, forgot GG are WS3.

[Brotheroracle]

Yeah it would seem that WoC is still a tough match up.