The New Vampire Counts 8th Edition Tactica

[Askari]

Nah, the spell does suck. I always switch that one for Invocation, every other spell, including Raise Dead, is a better use of dice.

[Flying_Flaming_Moose]

Including raise dead makes it sound like you disapprove of raise dead....

But, I think I have cast winds of death once - and that was to snipe out a lone bretonnian knight in my deployment zone - but apart from that one spell our lore is pretty awesome.

[Askari]

I find Raise Dead used less than the other spells is all, and I've seen others swap Raise out for Invocation instead of Wind. I was just making it clear that I find Wind the inferior spell.

[Vipoid]

Can you all explain something to me please.... I played a game recently against a friends VC with my Skaven. He rolled the level 6 spell with his Vamp lord. No idea what it's called. Wind of Death maybe? Anyway he got it off twice, late in the game. Both times he rolled a misfire and the thing went hit the GG his lord was in and just decimated them. It hit a unit of clanrats 1 turn and killed me too, but there is no way the damage was equal. The way we did it is he picked his target, cast the spell and then rolled the scatter. When he misfired he placed the small template centered on the caster and then we moved it. As far as i know we did everything right. Now, it was a hell of a lot of fun and since the GG were never destroyed never cost him vp's but still... competitively speaking what is the point? The spell hardly seems worth the risk.

It's an interesting spell, and I might try it at some point, but I usually consider the risk too great for a few reasons:

1) Magic is unreliable enough without the added danger presented by this spell. The last thing i want is to finally get a spell off, only for it to blow up in my face (quite literally in this case).

2) It has a high cast value, meaning I have to throw quite a few power dice at it, in order to have a decent chance of getting it off. This is something I dislike, since it increases the chances of a miscast on my precious Vampire Lord.

[Flying_Flaming_Moose]

Odd, I consider raise dead to be one of the better spells of the list... But then I use it mainly for redirections

[Frankly]

@Frankly: Indeed I am . I like the comp system a lot. If people are intrested in seeing what kind of lists one can do with the comp I can post some of my lists here. In Sweden most comped tournies has comp score 10 as minimum. Still, one can do pretty nasty lists even with those limitations .

http://forum.sverok.se/download/file.php?id=2959 ... interesting VC restrictions. CavBus gets hit pretty hard

This is an awesome general comp package, much like their 40k system which is also really good.

[NitrosOkay]

Seems like they grossly overrate Count Mannfred.

And Vlad for that matter.

A tooled up Red Fury Lord will outperform both of them most of the time.

[Doommasters]

Seems like they grossly overrate Count Mannfred.

And Vlad for that matter.

A tooled up Red Fury Lord will outperform both of them most of the time.

I have played against Mannfred a couple of times and have had some serious trouble against him. The fact he has both Lore of the Vampires and Death makes for some great options in the magic phase, his biggest weakness from what I could tell is that he does not have a ward save. However combined with two mortis engines mounted and with five wounds he is pretty good. Not to mention you can park him with some black knights and get them into combat with some chaff to generate a pretty decent magic phase.

The list I played against had mannfred two Mortis engines a couple oif other chracters can't remember the setups and a large block of Crypt horrors that just simply would not die. I was a shame Mannfred did not miscast as the mortis engines could have won the game fore me.

Sure he is not 'cheap' for his points rather he seems like a good balance? Can't comment about Vlad as I have not played against him since the new book but from memory he is pretty hard to kill and results in decent points denial.

[Soundwave]

Seems like they grossly overrate Count Mannfred.

And Vlad for that matter.

A tooled up Red Fury Lord will outperform both of them most of the time.

I have never lost a game with Manfred,used right he is the best of the best 5 wound Necrearch build available!
Oh sorry for edit but @ Doommasters point for point he is so cheap compared to other builds of the same type,he has 1 more wound and 10 more spells and a sword that generates dice per kill for an average 10 points more...

[NitrosOkay]

Oh Mannfred is a good character, but he really relies on his magic phase but doesn't have anything really overpowering to push his magic through like Teclis.

He can't walk through an army like a Red Fury lord can and is terrified of killing blow, combat characters or large numbers of high strength attacks (great weapons).

I don't see anything about him that would make his comp score vastly worse than a combat Vampire Lord.

[Soundwave]

Deployed near,or opposite an opposing wizard then used to snipe them off with death magic to free up his 3rd turn of magic(hopefully in combat with easy kills) Manfred is a monster and a game winner.I have only used him three times all with great success,but i do not want to play strictly Manfred Counts.

[Frankly]

Seems like they grossly overrate Count Mannfred.

I haven't actually played any special characters from the armybook, but most likely for this reason ...

... you can park him with some black knights and get them into combat with some chaff to generate a pretty decent magic phase.

... I think they comped him harshly because of magic. I think all casters get a heavy comp score, look at the Slann's comp for example.

[hazmiter]

What's a comp score..........

[Mikael.K]

I think they comped special characters generally a lot harder than regular characters because they are often a bit over the top. Still it´s great that they included them so that people can actually use them in a comped environment.

If you look at the comp scores for a red fury lord, he usually gets around -40 to -45, make him a level 4 caster and he´s up there with old manny around -60.

As for the cavbus, you can still make one, just not the one with 14 black knights and 3 characters. Try 10 black knights and 2 vampires and you´ll see its still possible. Mine does just fine .

@hazmiter: a comp score usually determines how hard a particular army build is. Still, some builds can be quite soft and still get a bad score. The developers of this comp system comps good choices, not crazy ones . So, a comp score of 0 would equal an ETC army. The tournaments here in Sweden usually has a lower limit of 10 and upper limit ranging from 15-20. But belive me, comp 10 armies are hard ones. Here is an example of my cavbus list:

Lords
Vampire Lord, Level 4, Heavy Armour, Shield, Barded Steed, Red Fury, -65
Quickblood, Talisman of Preservation, Sword of Might,
Earthing Rod, Lore of Vampires,
528

Heroes
Vampire, Level 1, Battle Standard -15
Bearer, Heavy Armour, Barded Steed, Fear Incarnate, Aura of Dark Majesty
Shield, Sword of Striking,
Terrefying mask of EEE, Lore of Vampires,
237

Necromancer: Level 2, Lore of the Vampires, Book of Arkhan, MotD 145 -10

Core:
25 Zombies, Standard, Musican 85 -4
22 Skeleton Warriors, Full Command, 140 -2
37 Crypt Ghouls, Crypt Ghast, 380 -20
5 Dire Wolves, 40 -2
5 Dire Wolves, 40 -4

Special:
10 Black Knights: Full Command, Barding, Lances, Screaming Banner 315 -36
Spirit Host: 45 -5
2 Fell Bats: 32 -5

Rare:
Terrorgheist 225 -20
Varghulf 175 -12

Total: 2390pts

Komp 10,0

I have a ton of variations on this list, some including a level 4 necro and having the lord beeing a level 1, lists with 2 level 2 necros with lord etc. Also been fiddling around with lists that include vargheists and others with double engines .

Comp restrictions are great, you just have to think outside the box and not go for the usual "auto-includes" one normally picks.

[SteelTitan]

I always switch out wind of death. I dont need a damage dealing spell in my list perse and definitely not one that can lose me the game.

I find it to be a rather weak 6th spell and i wish they had made it something else...but hey...

My priority spell list is:
1. Invocation
2. Vanhels
3./4. Gaze or Raise Dead
5. Curse
6. Wind

Honestly, its all about Invocation in my list. In my infantry list, vanhels was a lot more important than in my cavlist. I like Gaze a lot but dont get much use out of it in my cav list as the lord is in cc all the time. Thats why i think raise dead will work better. However, i have hardly played with itbc i didnt have enough zombie models. Now i do and im keen on using the spell more often.

[Vipoid]

Comp restrictions are great, you just have to think outside the box and not go for the usual "auto-includes" one normally picks.

Well quite.

We certainly wouldn't want any skilled players turning up with strong, well-thought-out lists and ruining it for everyone else.

I always switch out wind of death. I dont need a damage dealing spell in my list perse and definitely not one that can lose me the game.

I find it to be a rather weak 6th spell and i wish they had made it something else...but hey...

My priority spell list is:
1. Invocation
2. Vanhels
3./4. Gaze or Raise Dead
5. Curse
6. Wind

Honestly, its all about Invocation in my list. In my infantry list, vanhels was a lot more important than in my cavlist. I like Gaze a lot but dont get much use out of it in my cav list as the lord is in cc all the time. Thats why i think raise dead will work better. However, i have hardly played with itbc i didnt have enough zombie models. Now i do and im keen on using the spell more often.

Interesting - your spell priority list is almost identical to mine (I'd put Hellish Vigour at #3, but otherwise it's identical).

[SteelTitan]

Ow, i forgot to include hellish vigour. That would then be on 5.5, after curse but before wind :-)

In an infantry list with skeletons, ghouls or grave guard without great weapon it would definitely finish higher.

[hazmiter]

I prefer invo spam, raise dead (use before invo spam for free zoms) then dance macabre, then hellish.

[Frankly]

My priority spell list is:
1. Invocation
2. Vanhels
3./4. Gaze or Raise Dead
5. Curse
6. Wind

I'm looks like:

1:IoN
2:
3:
4:
5:vanhels
6:stuff

I really like all our spells, each one of them worth while in the right situations and those situations come up alot. gaze, curse, wind will always have targets first or second turn, while vanhels and vigor are brilliant mid-games, but over 70% of my dice will generally go towards IoNs. Which is abit boring TBH, but IoN wins games in a magic heavy list like nothing else.

[BUB]

Personally the most important ones are sig,1 and 2 the other spells are just there to cast for the first couple of turns before you see combat or take too much damage. We are a combat army with pretty meh fighters so the re-rolls plus bringing stuff back is what helps us grind off the opponent.

Quick tip; Accepting a challenge with a Ghoul King Vs Throgg the Troll King is a bad idea. #pukedtodeath