1500 Empire vs. VC - how to defeat VC in 8th?

[draccan]

Fantasy Army: Empire

Hi

I am playing in a couple of days against VC with my Empire. I am out of touch with both 8th ed. and Warhammer in general. With little time to prepare or read rules.
Any thoughts on how to defeat VC? I am still stuck in the 6th ed. nightmare of defeating them.

List I have so far is:

Warrior Priest, HvyA, SH, Biting blade, General

Warrior Priest, HvyA, SH, Tormentor sword

Battle Wizard, lvl 1, warrior bane sword, Van Horstmans speculum, Warhorse

Battle Wizard, lvl 2, dispel scroll, relic sword

10 Knights of the IC, full cmd

38 halberdiers, full cmd
- detachment 1: 12 xbow
- detachment 2: 8 archers

38 halberdiers, full cmd
- detachment 1: 12 xbow
- detachment 2: 8 archers

Tactical thoughts:
I want to rule the magic phase with dice, dispel his stuff and hopefully get something through myself. Possible level 1 is Light and level 2 is Death or Shadow.
Horde formation and detachments take up a lot of space. Cavalry is far flank support and to take out a mean character. Level 1 wizard is pitted in the cav. unit and has Van Horstmans Speculum and hopefully can challenge an enemy character threat.
The two horde formation halberdiers should be large enough to survive long and get flank support from detachments. Also hatred from Warrior Priests should help some.
Archers and Crossbows are there to take out fliers and attack flanks.
Magic swords are just there to make sure I have a little extra against ethereals!

Weaknesses:
Characters are squishy. Low leadership due to no LD9 general.

What do you guys think? Viable? What do you do against Vampire Counts?

[Maoriboy007]

A BSB is almost mandatory, turns fear & break tests from a real problem into a minor annoyance.
Hatred will serve you well, so yes at least one WP
Character assassin see some of their best use against Undead armies.
You seem to have the right idea taking magical weapons to take on etherals
With no shooting to worry about its worth looking at mounting your heros for extra protection.
No war machines? again Undead are particularly vulnerable to them.
Multiple attacks are king against undead, maybe change a unit of halberdiers to freeswords?
A lot depends on what your opponant will take? Is he into magic heavy or a blender lord?
Remember fear no longer auto breaks, but you have to take a fear test every combat phase or be reduced to WS 1, which is why a BSB is so handy.
If you can find room for a flaming banner it might help if he brings a mortis engine or crypt horrors

[draccan]

A BSB is almost mandatory, turns fear & break tests from a real problem into a minor annoyance.
Hatred will serve you well, so yes at least one WP
Character assassin see some of their best use against Undead armies.
You seem to have the right idea taking magical weapons to take on etherals
With no shooting to worry about its worth looking at mounting your heros for extra protection.
No war machines? again Undead are particularly vulnerable to them.
Multiple attacks are king against undead, maybe change a unit of halberdiers to freeswords?
A lot depends on what your opponant will take? Is he into magic heavy or a blender lord?
Remember fear no longer auto breaks, but you have to take a fear test every combat phase or be reduced to WS 1, which is why a BSB is so handy.
If you can find room for a flaming banner it might help if he brings a mortis engine or crypt horrors

Ah good point. I can't do without a BSB for rerolls. That would be suicide.
Now the question comes how to fit him in. Should I sacrifice a Wizard or a WarriorPriest. Is hard as I already maxed out.

You mention warmachines. I was thinking to forego them to fit in more ground troops. Any suggestions as to what to do? Should I give up my one Halbardiers+detachments and go with a cannon, a mortar and a smaller unit of Great Swords?

My opponent will most like be into ground troops, blocks of infantry, some grave guards and possible a shock unit of black knights. I also heard him talk about ethereals. Not sure which or to what extent.

[m1acca1551]

I'd say no to the mortar, as it's only st2 now and he will simply raise the dead back. A vc strength is reliant on a good magic phase or pure outright violence, at 1500 points though you will find the blender lord far to expensive to fit in. Your fine against ethereal units with the amount of magic weapons being taken, but are you going to be able to shut down his magic phase...

As a vc player people (particulary people new to 8th and vc) fear ethereal and really try and combat it with magic weapons, simple fireballs (magic missiles) are enough to ruin an ethereal units day. I'd advise taking items that boost your magic defense to negate what can end up being a war of attrition that you will lose. At this point level a master necro with a invoc spammer will be enough to create super zombie hordes and you will out numbered and find that the dead come back quicker than you can kill them.

My tw o cents hope it helps

[draccan]

I'd say no to the mortar, as it's only st2 now and he will simply raise the dead back. A vc strength is reliant on a good magic phase or pure outright violence, at 1500 points though you will find the blender lord far to expensive to fit in. Your fine against ethereal units with the amount of magic weapons being taken, but are you going to be able to shut down his magic phase...

As a vc player people (particulary people new to 8th and vc) fear ethereal and really try and combat it with magic weapons, simple fireballs (magic missiles) are enough to ruin an ethereal units day. I'd advise taking items that boost your magic defense to negate what can end up being a war of attrition that you will lose. At this point level a master necro with a invoc spammer will be enough to create super zombie hordes and you will out numbered and find that the dead come back quicker than you can kill them.

My tw o cents hope it helps

Also valuable input. I agree with the no mortar approach.
But any ideas what to lose to fit in more magic?

I was thinking yesterday that LIGHT actually had a pretty good starter spell that could hurt ethereals. So I was thinking LIGHT for both mages.

[draccan]

The challenge as I see it is that these characters cost 363 points (and for a 1500 pts game only 375 may be used for characters):

1 level 2 Wizard
1 level 1 Wizard, Van Horstman's Speculum
1 Warrior Priest, heavy armour, shield
1 Captain, BSB, heavy armour, shield

And that is without a dispel scroll or magic weapons as cited above. So if I am to bring a Captain with BSB it means I need to take something out.

Thoughts??

[whatever]

Im a V.c. player and at that points level I would be putting a couple of units of ethereal in! Without magic weapons you may struggle. Also you may well be facing a level 4 necro so trying to out magic a V.c army may cause you to become unstuck. A unit of hexwraiths against that list you might find them hard to track down.

[draccan]

How about this list? It has two cheap magic attacks for the Captain/BSB and the Priest... And now Great Swords with magic banner that gives the unit Flaming attacks. I assume this makes all their attacks magic, right?

Warrior Priest (1#, 74 pts)
1 Warrior Priest, 74 pts (Battle Prayers; General; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield)
1 Tormentor Sword

Captain of the Empire (1#, 94 pts)
1 ~[(^One or more selected options present a potential usage conflict]×~[(#]Captain of the Empire (Battle Standard Bearer), 94 pts (Hold the Line; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Battle Standard Bearer)
1 Warrior Bane

Battle Wizard (1#, 105 pts)
1 Battle Wizard, 105 pts (Hand Weapon)
1 Van Horstman's Speculum
1 The Lore of Light

Battle Wizard (1#, 100 pts)
1 Battle Wizard, 100 pts (Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 The Lore of Light

Knightly Orders (12#, 330 pts)
11 Knights of the Inner Circle, 330 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield; Full Plate Armor)
1 Preceptor (Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield; Full Plate Armor)
12 Warhorse

State Troops (59#, 424 pts)
38 Halberdiers, 424 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
1 Sergeant (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
10 [Det] Archers (Hand Weapon; Bow; Skirmishers)
10 [Det] Crossbowmen (Hand Weapon; Crossbow)

Greatswords (30#, 370 pts)
29 Greatswords, 370 pts (Always Strikes Last; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armor; Stubborn)
1 Count's Champion (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armor)
1 Banner of Eternal Flame

Validation Report:
Edition: 8th Edition; Army Subtype: Empire Army; Game Type: Normal Game; Special Rules: Forbid Special Characters, Forbid Regiments of Renown
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Composition Report:
Points of Lords: 0 (0 - 375)
Points of Heroes: 373 (0 - 375)
Points of Core: 754 (375 - Unlimited)
Points of Special: 370 (0 - 750)
Points of Rare: 0 (0 - 375)

Total Roster Cost: 1497

[D'Haran]

At 1500 knowing I was against VC I'd take a lvl 4, WP and a BSB for characters. lvl 4 should get death and you just snipe his necro and vampire and the rest of the game is a walk if you take them out. Also without a lvl 4 you're going to be at a bigger disadvantage when trying to cast or dispel since his lvl 4 against your lvl 2 would act as an extra die every spell which he already didn't need.

[Wesser]

At 1500 knowing I was against VC I'd take a lvl 4, WP and a BSB for characters. lvl 4 should get death and you just snipe his necro and vampire and the rest of the game is a walk if you take them out. Also without a lvl 4 you're going to be at a bigger disadvantage when trying to cast or dispel since his lvl 4 against your lvl 2 would act as an extra die every spell which he already didn't need.

Death against Vampires is simply beardy. I'd advice against it as it will escalate

[m1acca1551]

Agreed with the above statement... unless rolling a tourny setting you may find your game over and future games tense and cold.

1 thing to add for the things to look out for... terrorgheist without a cannon of any sort a t6 6w creature than can be healed will simply target your mages wp's. something to consider

[draccan]

I am always vary about putting all my eggs in one basket. If I succeed with death magic it means I win the game and if I don't there is a big chance I lose. I need to be a bit broader than that.
The idea of the Level 4 is under consideration though.

Wondering where the points for a cannon should come from..?!

[m1acca1551]

Id lose both sets of archers and have the one set of 10x crossbows, the ranged damage you will infict on vc with tgese units is not going to worry us as we raise them back next turn, a cannon will however make vargulfs, terrorgheists, corspecarts and master necros want to hide...

[whatever]

Best advice I was ever given is this. Play to your army strengths don't try to counter your opponent just be aware of there strengths. I think against v.c that is so important we have so many builds avaliable in the new book its difficult to judge what army you will be facing.

Build a list that you feel comfortable with and use it for a few games against all opponents and you will be surprised at how effective you become at using it. Im sure better gamers than myself will tell you the basics to a good build.

magic though I would say you need a level 4 and a level 2, at 1500. and then cannon and range support is one of your strengths so worth bearing in mind.

[draccan]

Best advice I was ever given is this. Play to your army strengths don't try to counter your opponent just be aware of there strengths. I think against v.c that is so important we have so many builds avaliable in the new book its difficult to judge what army you will be facing.

Build a list that you feel comfortable with and use it for a few games against all opponents and you will be surprised at how effective you become at using it. Im sure better gamers than myself will tell you the basics to a good build.

magic though I would say you need a level 4 and a level 2, at 1500. and then cannon and range support is one of your strengths so worth bearing in mind.

I did play 40K since Rogue Trader and WHFB since 3 ed. - last many years on and off. Not much of 7th ed. og only 2 games (with Lizardmen) in 8th. So I am out of touch.

However, a Wizard level 4 and level 2 and a Captain/BSB is 385 points without any equipment. So that's 10 points of character allotment too much. And includes no protection of any kind nor any magic weapons. So did you mean no BSB? That sounds very risky.

Also I am not convinced that trying to shoot skeletons and zombies will avail anything. Aren't most battles in 8th won in close combat? I am thinking Priest powers, Light magic and good Ld combined with limiting his magic is the way to go... Thoughts?

Btw. just read in the new Empire rulebook that WPs only channel and not add to dispel dices. Still their buffs are quite powerful.

[Maoriboy007]

People always overestimate the raising capability of undead, this is not 7th edition people! Don't get me wrong, it doesn't pay to underestimate it either, but the days of continual single dice IoN are long gone and there arevery real restrictions on IoN.
First each casting will only raise a certain amount of models in any given unit dependant on the level of the caster, if you are worried about raising then focus on dispelling the higher level casters raising. The limited focus on units also means focusing on one unit at a tim thkes the value away from the radius of the spell.
It has a very short range, boosting it makes it significantlymore difficult to cast and likely to fail/miscast, and they have less dice to cast on other spells it also means casters have to be farly close to the action and vulnerable.
Only zombies tend to gain significant numbers anyway, and while they are marginally better they are still fairly awful troops, as long as you dont let your opponant run away with raising, you can tarpit them as well with a cheap unit as thay can with you.
People tend to forget that undead are just as good at falling down as they are at getting up, this is why mass casualties are important, and why a mortar is still viable.
Also CR superiority gains you free wounds and casualties.
The Vampires power is still in thier characters and thier magic, this is mitigated somewhat in the new edition by some better variation in specialty units, but they are still vulnerable in this area.
Agree that its better to play to your armies strengths, but you'll still need cheap magic weapons to handle etherals.
The other way to kill ethereals is CR. They tend to be poor in combat, ranks and standards are the key.
It'lll probably take a couple of tries to get familiar with them, and don't let any losses get you down, once you have a handle on how they work , you'll wonder why they ever worried you so much.

[Jack of Blades]

It's not 25% of your army that can be characters, it's 25% for lords and 25% for heroes. For characters I'd say a level 4 and BSB are to be included - you can then add your preferences after that. A witch hunter to go after characters (I don't know how good they are at doing so though because I haven't memorised their rules yet but it's what they're supposedly there for), a warrior priest to boost a combat block (especially in conjunction with buffing/debuffing in combat - hatred gets better when your halberdiers are S5 or the enemy grave guard are T2). Destroy his heavy-hitters before they get into combat and then let your blocks grind his down - winning combat decisively will be more vital (say, by combo charging) if facing a ghoul-based rather than skeleton-based army because they can actually fight back at or beyond your level and you want to minimize casualties.

A level 4 wizard, BSB, halberdier core, a cannon, a hellblaster and some relatively fast heavy-hitters to crush his blocks. If you've got points over then take another hellblaster or helstorm battery. If you take three artillery pieces I'd put 5 core knights to guard them, they'll be fast enough to catch up from the rear when the action starts if they're not needed at the back and they'll take out what chaff he tries to take out your war machines with.

If he has a blender lord I'd personally deal with him by buffs or debuffs to him, the lore I'd recommend for that is Shadows because it contains three spells you can debuff him with so even if he manages to stop two you'll have a reserve and they don't need to work in conjunction with each other. If he's got a caster lord but no blender lord then be thankful - he's sank a lot of points into combat stats that'll sit in a weak bunker at the back until something too strong to defeat gets there.

[whatever]

1500 point lists there isn't going to be a real big nasty vamp lord around there running at 400 points+ But if there is shoot them and its game over!

[draccan]

This is what I have so far (totally missed the 25% max heroes/lords weren't combined):

1500 Pts - Empire Roster

General of the Empire (1#, 141 pts)
1 General of the Empire, 141 pts (General; Hold the Line; Barding; Hand Weapon; Full Plate Armor; Shield)
1 Warhorse
1 Biting Blade

Warrior Priest (1#, 104 pts)
1 Warrior Priest, 104 pts (Battle Prayers; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield)
1 Warrior Bane
1 Talisman of Endurance

Captain of the Empire (1#, 149 pts)
1 ~[(^One or more selected options present a potential usage conflict]×~[(#]Captain of the Empire (Battle Standard Bearer), 149 pts (Hold the Line; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Battle Standard Bearer)
1 Griffon Banner

Wizard Lord (1#, 230 pts)
1 Battle Wizard Lord, 230 pts (Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 Tormentor Sword
1 Dispel Scroll

Knightly Orders (8#, 275 pts)
7 Knights of the Inner Circle, 275 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield; Full Plate Armor)
1 Preceptor (Hand Weapon; Lance & Shield; Full Plate Armor)
1 Razor Standard
8 Warhorse

Greatswords (21#, 271 pts)
20 Greatswords, 271 pts (Always Strikes Last; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armor; Stubborn)
1 Count's Champion (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armor)
1 Banner of Eternal Flame

State Troops (45#, 330 pts)
34 Halberdiers, 330 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
1 Sergeant (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
10 [Det] Crossbowmen (Hand Weapon; Crossbow)

Validation Report:
Edition: 8th Edition; Army Subtype: Empire Army; Game Type: Normal Game; Special Rules: Forbid Special Characters, Forbid Regiments of Renown
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Composition Report:
Points of Lords: 371 (0 - 375)
Points of Heroes: 253 (0 - 375)
Points of Core: 605 (375 - Unlimited)
Points of Special: 271 (0 - 750)
Points of Rare: 0 (0 - 375)

___

I realize I am missing war machines... just can't seem to find the points needed..

I gave up a level 2 Wizard on horse with Horstman's speculum to fit in more stuff.

[Maoriboy007]

Try and find the points to mount your BSB & give him plate armour, hes one of the most valuable models in your army and vampires have no cannons to pick him out of units.