The New Vampire Counts 8th Edition Tactica

[meowser]

Try multiple L2 Shadow wizards, or L2+cursed book, and hope for a well-timed hex to get off.

[Vipoid]

RE: 50 Bloodletters

Against a horde like this you are going to have to rely more on tactics and flanking. The bloodlettes have a superb statline, A WS5, S5, I5, T3 (Taken from the GW public site). They have one weakness, T3. I believe the best option with the bloodletters would be a grind of low cost zombie hordes. You need to get him to expend his high cost killing power on something cheap. I would try two units of 75+ zombie hordes with no characters. One unit would take the bloodletters in the front and the second unit would hit him in the flank. A third small unit of zombies with a necromancer or two casting VH would give them a chance to reroll misses and ION to bolster the size. The idea is to get as many attacks as possible on his T3 with rerolling misses. I would also add the VH book to a necromancer so you have a second chance to cast.

Hmm, I might have to buy some zombies then - all i have at the moment is skeletons.

[hazmiter]

Problem with multiple combat w undead is, ie 2 units of zombies fighting blood letters, is its 2 for 1 with crumble.

[Danny76]

Hey guys, so I'm building my Vampires as I model, I haven't built too much in the way of giant blocks because of this.
So I'm wondering what kind of characters are best for this kind of lower model count army.
I've got a few big block of units, 40 Skeletons, 30 Zombies (in list or for raising, unknown yet), 30-40 Ghouls, andf 30 GG.
Because of these smaller units, I'm guessing that a magic heavy list for raising etc probably isn't as good.
I have thought about a really combat orientated one instead, what do you guys think?

To add to the list, I have a coven throne, 3 vargheists, varghulf, black coach, corpse cart, 9 or so Black knights and up to 8 Blood Knights. So I can have some heavy hitting units in there, but how useful are they without blocks, or would a combat vampire or two work pretty well.
I'm thinking around 2000-2400 points..

Any help will be appreciated, characters really have me stumped with this army..

[Frankly]

I believe the best option with the bloodletters would be a grind of low cost zombie hordes. You need to get him to expend his high cost killing power on something cheap. I would try two units of 75+ zombie hordes

75+ zombies is starting to add up; points wise. Bleeding out more points through losing big units of chaff seems abit dangerous too me. Since one of the major concerns I have when playing DoC is trying to get points back, the problem with DoC is that its so hard to take big chunks of points off the board and you could run into problems if he's eating up all your list's chaff; which DoC support can do pretty well at times.

I prefer to feed units like bloodletters units low cost chaff like D.Wolves. Speed bump him and not give him a combat phase in my turn to crumble down any of my units.

I've not done the maths on the Bloodletters crumbling down 75+ zombies, how many phases would it take on average? A 75+ zombie bus .. thats a massive flank.

I've got a few big block of units, 40 Skeletons, 30 Zombies (in list or for raising, unknown yet), 30-40 Ghouls, andf 30 GG.

I've seen alot of player mix up their core units and make them into a units of zombies or call them ghouls.

3 vargheists, varghulf, black coach, 9 or so Black knights and up to 8 Blood Knights.

I personally love all of these options. I'm a big fan of the VC movement phase so I'd focus of these units and getting into combat quickly with some character support.

[NitrosOkay]

To be honest trying to get a flank with a second zombie unit is a bad idea. They'll crumble at double volume and brutally expose their flank.

As I said before, you're looking at slightly over 30 dead Zombies a close combat phase on average. You can expect to reliably get back about 10 Zombies every two close combat phases.

Expect the unit to hold up three or four close combat rounds.

Bloodthirster w/ Spellbreaker and Armour of Khorne
Herald of Khorne w/ Soul hunger, Armour of Khorne and BSB (goes with bloodletters)
Herald of Khorne w/ Soul hunger, Armour of Khorne on a Juggernaut (goes with bloodcrushers)
6 Bloodcrushers w/ Full Command
50 Bloodletters w/ Full Command, Banner of Eternal War

That list is illegal, you need three units in addition to any lords and heroes.

[hazmiter]

Best off using magic to debuff the blood letters, miasma, withering... Those 2 spells are a zombies best friend.
50 zombies in a train is a good starting point, 2 master necros will give back 2d6+4 apiece, average of 20 per turn.
Normal vampire w lore shadow lv2 should give at least one debuff...

[winslm]

Hmm, I might have to buy some zombies then - all i have at the moment is skeletons.

When I made my zombies I add filler bases. If you do make some zombies try this technique to stretch the number of models. Each spruce comes with a head stone and an extra zombie in a noose that has no legs. I took the headstones and placed them on 40 mm bases and added some of the extra heads hands and weapons in a position like they were coming out of the ground. The extra zombie with no legs I added arms and a weapon and glued the hands to the base. There is a zombie weapon that is a foot and another that is a femur. I try and save those for him as I believe it looks funny having a zombie beating someone with their own foot. Each box of 20 can be made into 40 models.

[rocdocta]

yep VC are made for filler bases! i have a large 8x2 base one of zombies dragging a horse and knight down. cost me 4 zombies models, 1 empire knight.

[logan054]

I'm still not convinced Death Mages can use the LD of other characters for unmodified LD. And if they can, then it needs to end. At once

FAQ sorts it out, it does seem very silly to me and hope they change it, until then enjoy Ld9 death snipes, another thing is its giving your charcaters cheap protection against it.

Does anyone have any advice for killing a horde of approximately 55 bloodletters with attached BSB herald (who gives the squad hatred)?

How about a death sorcerer to snipe the herald ad then send in the big guns, without the hartred they should be a lot easier to deal with, something that could also be interesting is flaming rod, even with a 4+ wardsave your going to a lot of damage to that unit if it tries and moves.

[Soundwave]

50 bloodletters? Maybe 60 grave guard banner of barrows shield hand weapon,both units hitting on 3 wounding on the same, try killing the herald. Saves, you have double 6 they have 5+ward almost comparable..... there instability is much better but hey you can always get back up!

[BUB]

So played my first 2400pts VC game the other night against... a Goblin army!!! Due to stupid postioning of a Spirit Host a Manger managed to bounce through to my Terrorghiest and took 5 wounds off it, artillery fire finished it off. My Knight bus was at one point down to only a couple of models but luckily I raised it back up and my choppy Vamp Lord and Hero won the day for me. I'm wondering what people are running for their Knight buses?

I have a Vamp Lord with the usual Ogre Blade/Quickblood/Red Fury combo and my Hero was rocking a Potion Of Strength/ASF Sword/Red Fury combo. My Lord was lvl 4 Vamps and Hero was a lvl 2 Death. They were in ten Black Knights with Fear Banner. Whilst I've only had one game my initial reaction is I need a few more bodies in there as it was dangerously close to dying from artillery fire. Also is 2 choppy characters enough? Should I really overload it and turn it into a crazy deathstar?

Many thanks

Oh and my 40 Ghoul block was reduced to about 3 models in the space of a couple of turns as Curse Of The Bad Moon just kept going back and forth through the poor undead buggers!

[SteelTitan]

So played my first 2400pts VC game the other night against... a Goblin army!!! Due to stupid postioning of a Spirit Host a Manger managed to bounce through to my Terrorghiest and took 5 wounds off it, artillery fire finished it off. My Knight bus was at one point down to only a couple of models but luckily I raised it back up and my choppy Vamp Lord and Hero won the day for me. I'm wondering what people are running for their Knight buses?

I have a Vamp Lord with the usual Ogre Blade/Quickblood/Red Fury combo and my Hero was rocking a Potion Of Strength/ASF Sword/Red Fury combo. My Lord was lvl 4 Vamps and Hero was a lvl 2 Death. They were in ten Black Knights with Fear Banner. Whilst I've only had one game my initial reaction is I need a few more bodies in there as it was dangerously close to dying from artillery fire. Also is 2 choppy characters enough? Should I really overload it and turn it into a crazy deathstar?

Many thanks

Oh and my 40 Ghoul block was reduced to about 3 models in the space of a couple of turns as Curse Of The Bad Moon just kept going back and forth through the poor undead buggers!

I advise you to search this thread for knight bus discussion as we've talked about this quite extensively about 5 pages back (very rough estimate).

[Askari]

Also is 2 choppy characters enough? Should I really overload it and turn it into a crazy deathstar?

Yes, 2 is plenty. Thanks to the awesome incarnate that is Red Fury, 2 of our Lords and Heroes are equivalent to 4 Lords and Heroes from other races in terms of damage output. Against Goblins especially, you almost always hit on 3s with re-roll, wound on 2s, no save.

[tehhelios]

Trying to decide on what to use my last 50 points on..

Is reroll to wound with ogre blade(have quickblood) worth it over a simple 2handed weapon on the lord? else i can put banner of barrows on the knights.

[Vipoid]

Trying to decide on what to use my last 50 points on..

Is reroll to wound with ogre blade(have quickblood) worth it over a simple 2handed weapon on the lord? else i can put banner of barrows on the knights.

I'd always go for ogre blade.

[Mikael.K]

Ogre blade really shines with red fury yes. If you can, the other tricksters shard is awesome too.

As for the bus, 2 vampries is more than enough. 10 knights is sufficent, but I agree, a few more would be nice. Will be trying my bus with some terrorgheist/vargheist support. Should be intresting .

[Frankly]

Thats how I'm running mine. But my characters are all on hellsteeds so the can break from the bus if needs be and support my VGs and TGs better.

Its the most fun I have with VC for sure.

[winslm]

Trying to decide on what to use my last 50 points on..

Is reroll to wound with ogre blade(have quickblood) worth it over a simple 2handed weapon on the lord? else i can put banner of barrows on the knights.

I use sword of anti-heroes and other trickster shard. I like the extra attacks the sword provides and the forced reroll on ward saves. They are a cheaper combination.

[logan054]

I'd always go for ogre blade.

I tend to think sword of anti-Heroes is a better choice, generally S6 is enough to kill units and you can seriously punish a deathstar with 2 or more characters in.