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Afternoon,

I'm attempting to build a list that has the potential to be competitive at my local tournaments. I've come up with the following that follows some of the normal Black Knight Bus rules but with a few tweaks.

2500 Pts - Vampire Counts Roster

Vampire Lord (1#, 538 pts)
Level 4
1 Ogre Blade
1 Talisman of Preservation
1 The Other Trickster's Shard
1 Quickblood
1 Red Fury

Vampire (1#, 130 pts)
Level 1
1 Enchanted Shield

Necromancer (1#, 125 pts)
Level 2
1 Dispel Scroll

Wight King (1#, 184 pts)
BSB
1 Nightshroud
1 Ironcurse Icon

Crypt Ghouls (40#, 400 pts)

Zombie Horde (25#, 80 pts)

Zombie Horde (20#, 65 pts)

Dire Wolves (5#, 40 pts)

Dire Wolves (5#, 40 pts)

Fell Bats (2#, 32 pts)

Fell Bats (2#, 32 pts)

Spirit Host (1#, 45 pts)

Spirit Host (1#, 45 pts)

Varghulf (1#, 175 pts)

Terrorgheist (1#, 225 pts)

Corpse Cart (2#, 90 pts)

Black Knights (8#, 253 pts)
7 Black Knights, 253 pts
1 Hell Knight
1 Lichebone Pennant

--

My primary concerns are :

Having my lord as a level 4: A miscast and a lord into the warp will likely cost me any game that I'm playing. I'm not sure I like having that many points as a caster without an Earthern Rod. Dropping the OTS will let me bring a Master Necromancer as a level 4, but I end up spending almost 30 more points to have this setup.

Not having enough Black Knights or Zombies : I'm bringing in very few zombies under the hopes that my level 2 Necromancer will be adding more during the slow turns of getting into combat while the Black KNight bus and Varghulf get positioned. I'm concerned that shooting heavy armies like Wood Elves or Dwarves might eat through the rank and file models a little too quickly. There are a decent amount of points I could pull from my filler drops (Felbats and Spirit Host), but being able to counter deploy most armies and having some Ethereal seems pretty crucial.

Only 1 Terrorgheist : Although double terrorgheists might be cheesy, it almost seems necessary if you want one to be alive throughout the game as cannons will almost definitely drop 1 in a turn or 2 before they are taken out by the Varghulf and screams. I have absolutely no idea where I would get the points though.

Slow Corpse Cart : I really feel like a Corpse Cart is necessary to make the Ghouls (or any troop) work against Elves. Removing rerolls against Dark Elves is huge, and there are a lot of Dark Elven armies to deal with.


Thanks much for any critique on this!

List looks really solid. I can't really critique any of your choices, but I'll try to address a few of your concerns.

1. You can't really help having your vamp lord be a level 4. Other alternative is to take a master necromancer and just leave your lord as a low-level caster. If you don't want to shell out the points for that and are still worried, I'd recommend grabbing an earthing rod. Also, use him mostly to churn out the lower-level spells of the LoV and let your cheaper guys 6-dice the bigger ones, when it's possible, of course.

2. You can also bring them back with invocation. A solid option would be to roll the zombies into one bigger block and to trim a few points for a couple more black knights. 12 would be a really good number to have. Could maybe axe a fell bat or wolf unit and take out a few zombies to balance it out. You'll still have enough to chaff to outdeploy most armies that aren't also VC.

3. I hate terrorgheists (playing against them as a WoC and Empire player). Good on you for only taking one. Also gives him more room to maneuver.

4. Can't really be helped. Just keep them in range of your units and buff away! You don't really want to get it into combat, anyway.

Lastly, where are you putting your vampires? I think mounting them in the black knights in the best way to go, but I could understanding wanting to stick them with ghouls are something if you had only the models on foot. Just be wary of people tying up that unit with chaff and redirectors and avoiding fighting your combat lord. Again, this is only if they're not on ponies already.