Mantic/Vampire Counts Army - Any suggestions?

[Trogdor]

Morning all,

After a brief flirtation with the Empire at the start of 8th, I'm thinking about getting back into Warhammer with my perennial faves, the Vampire Counts. Being a resourceful fellow (not to mention a touch skint) I'm going to use Mantic's Undead range to build the core, with a few token GW purchases for elements not yet covered elsewhere as and when I want them.

After a quick search on the web I found a Mantic boxed set that would provide me with 40 Skeletons, 30 Zombies, 20 Revenants (Grave Guard) and 20 Ghouls. A rummage around various bits boxes revealed a wraith, a banshee, a (very old) Vampire and a Wight King conversion based on the old Krell model, alongside 6 metal Chaos Hounds to be proxied as Direwolves and 5 Black Knights that I cobbled together using Empire and Zombie parts years ago. At a push, I can proxy my Amethyst wizard as a Necromancer.

I'll be buying the army book at the weekend, but does this seem like a reasonable start to an army or am I buying a lot of models that would be useless in game terms? I'm thinking of expanding the cavalry side of the army once the core is painted by getting 20 or so of Mantic's Revenant Knights and would probably include another unit of Ghouls if that helps to give a picture of where I can see this army going, but any other suggestions would be welcome.

Apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong section - feel free to move it as necessary.

[snottlebocket]

Buy the book first. It's a reasonable assumption that you won't be using grave guard, skeletons, ghouls and zombies in the same list and whichever one you do choose probably wants a much bigger unit. You'll get more mileage out of your money if you choose which units you want and only by models for those.

Ghouls for instance got so expensive this edition that they're approaching grave guard in cost. I don't think there's a lot of situations where I'd still pick ghouls over grave guard. Zombies on the other hand went back to toughness 3 and are so cheap now that I usually bring a unit. Especially considering how fast I can raise more.

Warhammer in general is moving towards very large units. Out of the vampire counts infantry units I don't run any of them at less than 40 models if they're a main unit. That mantic box holds 110 infantry spread around four different units, you'll probably end up wishing it was just two unit types of 55 each.

[Askari]

I have a mostly-Mantic Vampire Counts army. The box set you mention is fantastic, though I mixed up the Zombie and Ghoul models to make 50 Ghouls instead, and bought an extra 10 Revenants for Grave Guard until I bought 'true' GW Great Weapon ones. For Revenant Knights, I'd use them as Black Knights not Blood Knights, they're just not large and dangerous looking enough to be the latter.

As to what's useful I've made a summary (and there's plenty of input from others) on the Vampire Counts tactica here.

[Tayrod]

Remember; You'll need alot of extra zombies (if you chose to go that way) for raising. If your group is RAW, you can't even bring proxies, so if you plan to field 50 zombies, you should bring 120.

[Askari]

Remember; You'll need alot of extra zombies (if you chose to go that way) for raising. If your group is RAW, you can't even bring proxies, so if you plan to field 50 zombies, you should bring 120.

How would proxies not be RAW? I'm sure there are dead Empire Halberdiers all across the Old World begging to be resurrected :P

[Athlan na Dyr]

Ghouls for instance got so expensive this edition that they're approaching grave guard in cost. I don't think there's a lot of situations where I'd still pick ghouls over grave guard.

I can. Its when Ghouls count for core and Grave Guard don't.
To be honest, the core selection with the new book is generally down to personal preference, so long as its close to minimum core. Personally I prefer Zombies and Ghouls to skellies.
As for special, some people seem to be getting along great with a Black Knight + Blender Lord (haven't used it myself). Other popular choices on the internet include a Grave Guard horde with Great Weapons (with the obligatory banner of the barrows), Crypt Horrors (man those things are tough) and single spirit hosts.

As such, what you're planning to buy can certainly be made into an effective list, as can most units in the new book (woo good internal balance!). If you are focussing on competitiveness, bumping the unit sizes of your killier units (grave guard and ghouls) as mentioned above would be a good idea. The only real obstacle is the fat chunk of core you'll have (though that depends on the point limit), which will mean your army isn't particularly killy though it will be both numerous and tarpitty.

If your group is a bunch of rules-lawyering arses, you can't even bring proxies, so if you plan to field 50 zombies, you should bring 120.

fixed that for you

[Tayrod]

How would proxies not be RAW? I'm sure there are dead Empire Halberdiers all across the Old World begging to be resurrected :P

Yeah I know, it's silly they even put it there, but still, there it is.

[Renka]

What's RAW? I see it posted all the time, but it's pretty hard unneating all the abbreviations people roll with.

[Ville]

RAW=Rules As Written

Yeah I know, it's silly they even put it there, but still, there it is.

In the VC book it says that you need models of "appropriate type". Now, is there any mention anywhere what is exactly an "appropriate" model? I don't think so. From this, I assume that every player can decide this (aside from playing with GW figures in a GW store) and use whatever they fancy. Thus, you can freely use Halberdiers or Clanrats as your Zombies or Skeletons. If someone doesn't want to play with you, they are just as free to decide so as you are to find other people to play with.

[Tayrod]

RAW=Rules As Written

In the VC book it says that you need models of "appropriate type". Now, is there any mention anywhere what is exactly an "appropriate" model? I don't think so. From this, I assume that every player can decide this (aside from playing with GW figures in a GW store) and use whatever they fancy. Thus, you can freely use Halberdiers or Clanrats as your Zombies or Skeletons. If someone doesn't want to play with you, they are just as free to decide so as you are to find other people to play with.

I dont have the book infront of me, but Im pretty sure they are refering to the actual unit entries. Remember that the same spell can raise several types of models (skeletons, zombies, dire wolves etc), and as I read it, you need to have zombies to raise zombies, and skeletons to raise skeletons. Sure if you want to kit-bash zombies and halberdiers to make a cool looking undead horde, that's fine, as is appropriate unit fillers - but Clanrats in another paintscheme, with another basing? - That's not my definition of an "appropriate type".

For the record. I let my opponent use bases. But I would argue that by RAW, you need the zombies to raise zombies.

[Cuchulain84]

I have the same army box you mentioned. It's ridiculously good value and the models are great so I'd definiely recommend it.

[Trogdor]

Thanks Askari, I'll give the Tactica a once over. One of the biggest selling points of the boxset for me is that it only costs £37.50 on one website I browsed - bargain! How easy is it to kitbash Mantic stuff?

Snottlebocket - thanks for the advice, rest assured I'll be reading through the army book in depth. It does sound like there are ways to kitbash the Mantic set in order to get larger units, so I'll possibly give that a go. I may even try to resurrect some of the slightly knackered skeletons and zombies from my old VC army to boost unit numbers or provide extra bodies to raise. Originally, I wanted to build a Strigoi themed army made up of large units of Ghouls and Direwolves with packs of Crypt Horrors, Terrorgeists and possibly Varghulfs as the real killers, but it was going to be a touch too expensive to justify to my other half (and would have probably been horribly unbalanced in various ways)

[Ville]

I dont have the book infront of me, but Im pretty sure they are refering to the actual unit entries. Remember that the same spell can raise several types of models (skeletons, zombies, dire wolves etc), and as I read it, you need to have zombies to raise zombies, and skeletons to raise skeletons. Sure if you want to kit-bash zombies and halberdiers to make a cool looking undead horde, that's fine, as is appropriate unit fillers - but Clanrats in another paintscheme, with another basing? - That's not my definition of an "appropriate type".

For the record. I let my opponent use bases. But I would argue that by RAW, you need the zombies to raise zombies.

Nothing in the rules prevents me from using Skellies as Zombies and vice versa, if I want. If I decide that a Night Goblin Warboss is much cooler than any Vampire model, and want to have it as my general, I can do so and not break any rules, by RAW.

The only thing that might be a problem are the people you play with. If your army doesn't please them, they can choose to play with someone else. If two people ask me for a game and one of them has an unpainted army, I'd rather play the other person.

Personally, I always avoid proxies, but I haven't seen a rule yet that would prevent someone from using them.

[Ville]

How easy is it to kitbash Mantic stuff?

From my experience, it has been delightfully easy. To make my Zombies, I have combined some Mantic Zombies and Ghouls to great effect. I have also made a bit more monstrous looking models using GW Ghoul parts with Mantics, and even GW Zombies. The latter parts look a bit weird as they're so big, but I picture them as Frankenstein's monsters, made from not so matching parts.

[Tayrod]

Nothing in the rules prevents me from using Skellies as Zombies and vice versa, if I want. If I decide that a Night Goblin Warboss is much cooler than any Vampire model, and want to have it as my general, I can do so and not break any rules, by RAW.

Well I guess it all comes down to how you define "models of the appropriate type".

[Tayrod]

Sorry for going off topic though. I've used the mantic ghouls myself, but I think they look off, compared to other GW armies, so I prefer to use GW undead. All his own though, and Mantic is alot cheaper, so if you're in it purely for the gaming, go mantic. As others have said, I think you'd do best to focus on one or two large units- have you looked at how much multiple boxes of zombies costs in comparison to the battalion?

[Askari]

I actually think the Mantic Ghouls are superior, as they look like scavenger degenerate humans rather than... whatever the GW Ghouls are. Sadly my army is Warcraft-based and so I'll eventually need to shell out on the GW versions which are very similar.

As to the kits, they kitbash with each other well, but the limbs are too small, IMO, to hold GW weapons so if you want them you'll need GW arms for them as well.

[Tayrod]

my army is Warcraft-based .

I would love to see that army! Have you got any pics up?

[Askari]

My sig is clickable :P

[Balerion]

Nothing in the rules prevents me from using Skellies as Zombies and vice versa, if I want. If I decide that a Night Goblin Warboss is much cooler than any Vampire model, and want to have it as my general, I can do so and not break any rules, by RAW.

The only thing that might be a problem are the people you play with. If your army doesn't please them, they can choose to play with someone else. If two people ask me for a game and one of them has an unpainted army, I'd rather play the other person.

Personally, I always avoid proxies, but I haven't seen a rule yet that would prevent someone from using them.

I would venture that unless the models are painted or converted to visually represent that they are Undead, they're not strictly legal. Note that I do not obey this mandate myself, and would not want to play with anybody who argued it... but I do think that's about the most iron-clad position you can take if you're planning to play with strangers who bring their own finicky sets of preferences to the table. Like, I think the appropriate response to somebody who tried to ban your Clanrats (Zombie paintjob) would be "Screw you then, find another game!" whereas somebody who took issue with Clanrats (Clanrat paintjob) would have firmer ground to stand upon.