2400 Vampire Counts

[Flying_Flaming_Moose]

Fantasy Army: Vampires

Hello Folks,

I'm a long-time player of the last edition - who had a break of around eighteen months. However, after accidentally entering a warhammer tournie, I've found myself quite firmly bitten with the bug again. However, my experience with the new book and edition is, erm... slight: my first actual real game of it being at the aforementioned tournament.

Despite this lack of experience and a comical grasp of the rules - I managed to do quite well, winning three games out of five with perhaps the worst list ever conceived by man. Just for reference, here is a quick outline:

Ghoul King: Ogre Blade, Red Fury, Book of Arkham, something else
necromancer: dispel scroll
banshee
70 ghouls: ghast (one unit)
2 units of 3 crypt horrors
2 terrorgheists

The list was written (and a good portion of the army was built as well) in the two days before the tournie, which shall and will be my excuse for it's awfulness.

I managed to win against: master necromancer led vampires, skaven, demons
I got utterly crushed by: slann-led skink horde, bow-line wood elves

The things that I learned:

1) Terrorgheists are good: I won't lie, these babies did most of the work - pretty much everyone underestimated them... and indeed, so did I - at first I thought 'woo, dragon - raaaaaar!!!' then I discovered that they are really fragile so I spent most of my time keeping them out of combat - and they were quite beautiful.
2) 70 ghouls is not: or, to be correct - 70 ghouls as my sole unit is not. It was as unwieldy as a caber in a cottage; and hardly saw any combats. When it did though it was good, but I found myself gagging for it to be split into two units.
3) Shooting = urk: I lost to two shooting armies that managed to deal with the terrorgeists and basically dance around my army and never seeing combat, movement was an issue.
4) Magic: Ok, I totally missed the ball on this one. I thought the magic system with its random dice would allow two lvl 1's to cast a few spells: I was wrong, massively wrong. I got one spell off all weekend, which was a deeply unimpressive invocation.
5) Banners: that stupid mission that I didn't read! Makes the all ghoul army almost completely unworkable.

But, three wins out of five wasn't bad - so I immediately revamped the list and started to go to my local gaming club: trying out blender lords, master necromancers, etc.

But, the tournie bug still itched, so I decided to enter another one: which is next month; and this time, I will actually know the rules (like not noticing that vanhel's doesn't allow me to charge until the last game... not that I ever cast it). The points value is 2400, and the comp is: no more then 4 flying units, no more then 4 ethereal, no more then 50 zombies to a unit.

So here, after some thought, is a new list:

Vampire Lord: Lvl 4, nightmare, heavy armour, red fury, quick blood, ogre blade, talisman of preservation, enchanted shield.
Necromancer: Lvl 2, dispel scroll
Necromancer: Lvl 2, book of arkham
Banshee
Banshee

49 Zombies: Standard Bearer
49 Zombies: Standard Bearer
49 Zombies: Standard Bearer
49 Zombies: Standard Bearer
6 Dire Wolves

6 Crypt Horrors
11 Black Knights: full command, flaming banner, barding, lances

Terrorgheist

Ok, as you can see, it's about as original as a brown cow - but then it is a competitive list. After viewing tactic articles and asking much more informed people then myself, I decided that a black knight bus solves most of the issues I identified with the previous list.

The ghoul king, whilst good, has been replaced with a much more flexible vampire lord - magic has received a gigantic boost all round to aid in my problems of not ever actually casting a spell and maybe actually dispelling one!

Ghouls have been replaced by zombies; as ghouls are sooooo expensive in the new rules and without serious magic support just don't live that long. Plus, zombies carry banners!

The dire wolves screen and redirect, fairly standard.

I have combined the two crypt horrors into one unit, as in my casual games this turns them for just annoying into a real threat - and with all the magic I might just be able to cast invocation once or twice a game.

Black knight bus is a black knight bus... do I need to say more?

Finally, one terrorgheist, I like these guys, but something had to go to free up points and in most games one seemed plenty, two merely awesome..

But anyway, enough of my ramblings. As i say, I'm very new to 8th ed, so any comments would be grand.

Thanks in advance!

Moose.

[dms505]

Seems like you really only have one unit that can kill anything bigger than a swarm base. But if your going for points denial I would still drop a little from one of the zombie units and grab at least one more unit of Wolves, possibly a full unit of zombies and grab some more wolves and some kind of small/medium monster that's fast / flying that can take out things like salamanders or stone throwers that will demolish your army. As you mentioned before you needed more magic boosts but even then you won't get nearly as many models back as you'd like. I battled a guy last weekend with VC and he had 2 level 2s and 2 level 1s and maybe got 1-2 spells off all game that made any kind of difference. Basically while I know VC is dependent on on magic, don't count on it. The amount of magic that you have IS what you'll need, but you still need to take out or block anything that can tear into your units. Believe me I watched a unit of bloodletters win a combat against the same guy I played, the bloodletters won the combat by 33. . . yes 33.

[Morax]

I've yet to be convinced by zombies in this eddition. Sure they can hold this up for a few turns, they can even out last the enemy if you have a strong enough magic phase. But, 8th edition is all about killing the enemy, not outlasting them. As such you have 2 real threats for doing that in the form of the bus with blender lord and the terrorghiest. A smart opponent will dedicate everything at killing those two things and you will see the rest of your list struggle to kill anything completely. It's the completely that is important as half points for half dead doesn't exist anymore. You need atleast one more heavy lifter to carry all the zombies holding things up and to give your opponents something else to worry about. A unit of varghiests, a vargulf, a unit of hexwraiths, maybe even a black coach would help achive this. To that end I'd drop the two banshees, a unit of zombies, and maybe the crypt horrors in favor of another unit of dire wolves to refill-up on core, 2 single spirit host bases to tie up monsters, and another hammer unit/monster or two. You may even be able to finagle 2 Vargulfs out of the deal. I think this will give your army a few more threats while maintaining your ability to tie things up when and where you want to.

[winslm]

RE: no more than 50 zombies to a unit

I hate it when someone decides to make a tournament COMP hammer. Unit size limits unfairly favors armies with high initiative. My prediction: If any of your zombie units get into combat, they will lose the first round of any combat and in the second round your opponent will go first and kill everything before you can fight back.

The list throws away 600 points at ineffective units. Zombies only work well if you can grind your enemy for 4 rounds, so you need 80 to 100 per unit before any IoNs. The main problem, COMP hammer.

[Flying_Flaming_Moose]

Thanks for the comments.

The reason for zombies is unfortunately... a case of lesser of three evils. Ghouls are expensive, die in droves and don't have the combat punch to make them worthwhile in my opinion, plus they don't hold a banner, and that damnable mission is rearing it's ugly head. Skeletons are much the same, zombies just seem cheap enough (and are better with invocation) and can carry a banner so I don't just lose 1/6 of my games.

Morax: thanks for the advice, although it seems misleading: you say the army lacks punch... yet you immediately suggest I take out 3 of my offensive units? I've filled the special choices to the max, and the crypt horrors have been consistently powerful on the offensive and defensive side. The banshees have also been excellent against all non-elf armies, where admittedly they are not at their best. I had to remove a terrorgheist for points reasons. Removing a unit for zombies for a dire wolf unit is a decent suggestion and one that I will consider, but I don't see what else I can take out to add an offensive unit in. Two banshees equals a varghulf it is true, but the banshees can also work as speed bumps and provide me with some real anti-knight tech.

[dms505]

If you like zombies but maybe want a little more use out of them you could try splitting one or two of the groups up and making more smaller groups just as road blocks. NOW this tactic will only work depending on the rulings of the tournament your in or the group you play with and whether said group allow overruns on "unstable pop" or not. But even then you could make them even smaller and they can only fight one combat per round so you could seriously screw with people with like 8 units of 10 zombies. I'm not VC player but correct me if they must be in larger units.

[txscotcg12]

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