Vampire Counts

[ben1028]

Due to the fact that I have some old vampire counts miniatures lying around and haven't spent more then $50 on my bretonnia army, I have decided to collect vampire counts instead of bretonnia. I already have a black coach, zombie dragon, and a handful of zombies (literally) from back in high school, and I have been giving all my tomb king skeletons spears and getting rid of the overly tomb king looking heads. I plan on converting the box of bretonnia knights I purchased into blood knights, as $90 is way too much to spend on 5 miniatures.

Does anyone have any tips for building a vampire counts army? The first observation I made is that blood knights are outrageously expensive (money and points), and have surmised that they might not be worth taking in any games less than 3000. Seems pretty foolhardy to spend all of my rare points in a 2000 list on 5-7 knights that only have one wound each, even if they are really nasty: a couple good cannon shots and that unit is toast.

[Sterling Archer]

Blood knights are always worth taking. Give them a vlord with the blood drinker and they are almost unstoppable. You need alot more zombies and skellies though for vcounts.

[ben1028]

Yeah, I was planning on a bunch of skellies and zombies. The list I came up with is:

1 vampire lord w/ powers oriented onvampire magic/summoning and gear for close combat
2 vampires 1 geared for death magic, 1 for close combat
1 wight king
40 zombies
20 skeletons
20 ghouls
19 wights
2 corpse carts 1 with lodestone, 1 with balefire

[Sterling Archer]

You might want to instead have to vlords. One to stand back and cast and survive. The other to kill stuff. Especially at 2500-3000pts. You really don't want your general to die.

[kobahl]

For your core choice I would go with Ghouls. Skeletons just don't have the combat or staying power you need now days. Zombies disapear in a mild breeze too. And if you go with just one core choice your Lord can have just the one summoning power to raise the units back. GG are an excellent choice as is the Varg. Black coach is kinda a two edged sword if you counting on magic to help. And our core need the magic help. BloodKnights are awesome and hits like a ton of bricks...

[ben1028]

Poofy- Hmm, yeah I see your point.

Kobahl- I had thought about making an all(or mostly) ghoul army, but then decided that it might be a bit expensive and wouldn't give me much wiggle room if I wanted to switch things up...

I am thinking about dropping the zombies and spending the points elsewhere, and if I decide that I want zombies in a game it seems like it is reasonably quick and easy to create a unit of them and get it to fighting size via my magic phase. Skeletons will probably stay, though maybe be bumped up to a horde, probably ghouls as well.

Should I take two corpse carts, or will one be enough? Mind you this is a 2000 point army list (for now).

[Sterling Archer]

2 carts. With vanhels and that piece of equipment that let's a unit use the vamps ws, skellies can be brutal.

[kobahl]

Yeah, I hear yah about cost....In the process of changing over to ghouls instead of skellies. Still need about 50 or so.... . As for the corpse cart I really don't use any. They are easy targets by themselves and if you use them as mounts for any necros they come out of the hero points %. And the Miasma bound spell still takes dice out of the general pool. If you looking for more VHD just use necros, they are cheaper.

And the piece of equipment poofy is alking about in the Helm of commandment. It's a staple item in almost all list. Giving a unit WS 6 or 7, depending on who has it is golden. And depending on how your group plays okkams razer it can turn any unit in to absolute killers. With the Generals IP giving the unit his LD, the unit will have S10, WS 6-7 and if you get a VHD off your getting ASF and re-rolls to hit. Kills most anything. You cast this on a unit of zombies in horde..around 50-60 and they just mow thru anything...... ;D But some groups say you use the units LD and not the LD from the General from IP.....Big debate on the forums about it.

[droofus]

That is a crazy combo!

I think you're right about Okkam's. IP says you can use the general's leadership. It doesn't qualify that at all. Though I suspect they weren't thinking about the mindrazor when they wrote the IP rule.

[ben1028]

Hmm, didn't even think about Okkam's... Thanks for the tips. Even if it is the unit's leadership it could definitely be used to great effect on my ghouls or grave guard. Or if one of my corpse carts is in combat- 2d6 re-rollable asf ws 7 s 7 attacks, then d6 s 7 thunderstomp...

[ben1028]

Also, I have a question that came up in a game I played against vtbear...

During the course of the game, my unit of ghouls (which had my V lord and BS in it) became squished between some greatswords, their detachment of halberds, and some knights. Greatswords were in the front, halberds on the side, and the knights were behind. I had the drakonhoff banner in there so they actually did surprisingly well...

Anyhow, the question I had is can I still summon more ghouls into that unit, even though there isn't any place to put them without moving his knights back? I was leaning towards yes, because invocation of Nehek can be cast on units in combat, and the VC FAQ says that new models can be placed within 1" of enemy models as long as they are in combat with them. In our game we allowed it, but I was just wondering if any of you had come across that scenario before or have found something somewhere in regards to this type of situation...

[hardihar]

generally no, if there isnt room for them you cant place them. to raise into combat you need to have the space on the back of the unit( or in the front rank if enough died. remember the champ if there is one in the unit is the first model raised back.

[ben1028]

Hmm... ok, do you know where that can be found in the rules or somewhere else? It doesn't specify anywhere in the VC army book or in the FAQ, and I am just trying to find a definite ruling on it somewhere...

[hardihar]

Because there is nothing in the rule that allows you to move units out of the way. and there is nothing that allows you to contact new enemy units.

combined with the basic rules that you have to stay an inch away from all other units, unless your in combat, and no part of the rule allows you to engage a new unit in combat.

Ive always wished i could keep raising to push opponents back, but it just isnt so.

[ben1028]

In this instance the unit that rear charged was in combat with the unit being reinforced through summoning, so the inch away thing wouldn't apply(as per the GW faq for vc). I know it wouldn't make sense to push a unit forward summoning, but multiple combats are different. In the rule book they talk about shrinking units in multiple combat, and moving the attacker or if need be the defender in order to keep base to base contact. They basically reference the fact that realistically the combatants would keep fighting, and would move in to close the gaps. I was reasoning that if all of a sudden a bunch of ghouls appeared they might just make room through fighting, falling back, etc.The front of the combat wouldn't change, you would basically undo the move made by the rear charger to close the gap and replace the rank they killed the previous turn.

That being said, I did find one reference in a similar type of situation that supports the fact that you can't summon if surrounded on all sides (and thus having no room without moving someone). For Transformation of Kadon it says if the monster can't fit in the unit, the spell has no effect.

I will go with not being able to do it, because later on if I do any tournaments or anything like that I won't have to waste time on getting a judgement from a GM... Not too worried either way, it was just kind of a weird scenario that we couldn't figure out...