2000pt VC (Hexwraith List)

[Reiko321]

Fantasy Army: BoC

Tomorrow will be a great social experiment. A tournament at the LGS will have me bringing a list that I think will be feast or famine. We shall see!

Vampire Lord w/ Lvl 4 (Vamps) Hvy/Sh/Hellsteed, Dragonhelm, Potion of Foolhardiness, Talisman of Pres., Sword of Might, Aura of Dark Majesty, Quickblood ---- 499pts

Zombies x32 w/ Mu & Std
Zombies x32 w/ Mu & Std
Ghouls x29
Core total: 502pts

Hexwraiths x10 w/ Champ
Hexwraiths x10 w/ Champ
Vargheist x4
Special total: 804pts

Black Coach
Rare total: 195pts

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We shall see how it works but the idea is to be super manuverable with the zombies and ghouls hanging about while the hexwraiths + general do the heavy lifting. Vargheists are opportunistic Wizard hunters, gladly trading their cost for that of the opponent's wizard..... 14 str 5 atks at init 4 should get the job done most of the time.

The black coach should power up to three dice stored within a turn or two, then the race to five dice stored should be completed by the middle turns of the game. It can anchor a unit in place while the fast cav position for flank charges. I am not too concerned with opponents being steadfast. If need be a zombie unit can clip a corner of the combat for static res.

The general will have his 4+ look out sir versus warmachines and a 4+ ward if that fails. I love the idea of a hexwraith pushing the Lord out of the way saying "I got this boss." *whoosh goes the cannonball*

I will post a battle report of my three rounds when I get home tomorrow.

[Arctaeus]

A very interesting army list. I look forward to hearing the results

[Morax]

Hex wraiths are super susceptible to magic missles and magical cc attacks. The mounted general helps keep them out of combat by allowing them to march, I would have taken greater protection from magic missles in the form of a dispel scroll or other defensive magical kit. With so much riding on them the need to be the focus of your defensive capabilities.

[Reiko321]

Hello Gang,

Well the social experiment gave some mixed results. My record for the tournament was 1-2 and the pickup game following it was a loss and every loss was due to my General's death (and subsequent crumble.)

My win oddly enough came from the list that I thought I would be beaten by for sure. My losses were against lists that I thought I had a good shot to beat. So, even though this isn't in the battle report thread here is a quick summary of how things went down:

The tournament only had seven people mostly due to conflicting tournaments across town. The armies were: Orcs and Goblins, Warriors of Chaos, Ogres, High Elves, Lizardmen, Empire, and my Vampire Counts.

Round One had me matched up against the Ogre list with two ironblasters but no mournfang calvary. The strength of its lists was a "mini star" of 9 Ironguts, a Slaughtermaster, BSB, and Firebelly. The game went great in my favor with my hexwraiths moving thru his trappers on turn one and setting up for a flank/rear to his gutstar following that. My vargheists made a 20" frenzy charge into the flank of his leadbelchers and my general and the other unit of hexwraiths setup to combo on the gutstar. My black coach became locked in combat with one of his ironblasters and ground it down while taking a few wounds before becoming etheral. A flank/rear combo charge on the gutstar allowed my lord to cut down the slaughtermaster and the hexwraiths were forced to strike the firebelly and BSB who made way without too much effect (both had 4+ wards to my attacks). The champion who replaced the slaughtermaster took his attacks on my lord and with its supporting attack, killed my lord on the 2nd round of combat. This began a chain of crumbling that I couldn't do anything about. Ld 5 on the hexwraiths caused them to crumble quickly, as did the ghouls and zombies. The Black Coach tried to save the combat before the rest of the army died, but whiffed and crumbled due to the combat resolution. The game ended in a loss for me even though the only models left on the table for my opponent was his BSB, Firebelly, and unit standard for the ironguts (giving him full points for that unit.)

Round two saw me up against a High Elf Teclis list which managed an earlier loss against the Orcs and Goblins. My opponent went first and marched Teclis up in his 40man unit of white lions, which was a tactical mistake in my opinion. Casting purple sun at one of my hexwraith units, my opponent rolled '24' with doubles, coming up one shy on six dice. Those same hexwraiths charged the white lions and allocated every attack possible on Teclis, killing him and locking up the horde for the rest of the game. Turn two had my ghouls + general combo charging the High Elf Spears and the other unit of hexwraiths charging the white lions. Those two units managed about 12-15 kills per turn on the elves. As a note: since the hexwraiths have the no armor save rule "as a model" then their steeds get it too, right? Well, that's how we played it and my opponent conceded by turn three.

Tournament round three placed me up against a WoC player who was throwing "GATEWAY!?!!!!?!!!!" every turn. In his earlier rounds, he gateway'd the ancient stegadon off the board, the gutstar that beat me in round 1 and he had his eyes on my hexwraiths in our matchup. I made a big tactical blunder during my vanguard allowing his chaos lord of Tzeentch on disc to fly into my hexwraiths on turn 1. The chaos lord had the aether blade so he began chopping up the hexwraiths. My vampire lord fly in to challenge the Chaos Lord (another mistake) in order to save the rest of the hexwraiths. Damn chaos lords.... 3+ ward saves and 2+ rerollable armor saves are hard to chop thru even with 5 ASF str 6 attacks. And mistake number three was the scenario -- It had all generals and their attending units as unbreakable. DoC got stubborn, and VC/TK generals didn't suffer futher wounds from combat resolution. -- That rule allowed the WoC general to hang tight until the chosen and other warrior units could arrive. Although I did manage some zombies in his flank (to keep me winning the combat rounds) my Vampire Lord died on turn four and my army quickly crumbled. My second unit of hexwraiths ran thru the Chaos Knights but died to the double whammy of slaanesh seizures and gateway. It took him the rest of the game to mop of my crumbling army, but the unbreakableness of his general won him the game.

So I ended up 1-2 in the tournament with the OnG player taking first and the WoC guy in 2nd place. I still like the hexwraiths but I don't know if two units of ten are necessary. A single unit could run thru a unit or two, and hit the flank/rear of a critical combat and most likely turn that battle. One thing I did notice is that noone was taking magic weapons except for my round three opponent. I was even checking the other players in the tournament and they didn't have any either. I would probably sacrifice my fourth casting level and the potion of foolardiness to make room for the dispel scroll in the next list. Also, I played a dwarf player after the tournament and my general died from a cannon shot after failing his 4+ lookout sir! and his 4+ ward.

What I learned from the experiment is that my general needs to be in a unit. Whether that is a calvary unit on his flying steed, or slogging with the foot troops. Alternatively, my general needs to not be my only wizard in the list. If I had a 2nd caster to stop the crumble, I would have won my first game, and I would have stood a chance round three (as well as my bonus dwarf game.) Overall I still *really* like a big unit of hexwraiths, and I think that I would run a unit of blank knights with the points from the 2nd unit next time around.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about any of this, speak up and I shall answer. Thanks again!