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Far and away my favorite things in the new VC book are graveguard and the varghulf. Combine that with my unhealthy love of deathstar tactics and you get a pretty ridiculous list, based around an insanely tough, very killy gravestar and the power to spam danse to make it go where I want it to.

H: Vampire - helm, talisman of the fast movement, gw
H: Vampire - BSB, regen banner
C: 10 Ghouls
C: 10 Ghouls
S: 25 Grave Guard - full command, banner of barrows
R: Varghulf

I don't own the book as of now, but I'm interested in thoughts on what vamp loadout would be best to support the gravestar. The BSB deploys in the star and the general runs around to be where he needs to be, supporting with magic and increased WS. I also get the feeling all this might not fit, in which case I'd consider dropping the regen banner for something smaller - hatred perhaps, in which case the helm may be less needed.

EDIT -- I'll have access to the book tomorrow, so can flesh this out later with my thoughts.

- Salvage

noob question - what are deathstar tactics and how do they work?

Helm and talisman are both enchanted items. Vamps cannot take a GW unless they take Avatar of Death or Dread Knight.

Drakenhof (regen) banner is gonna knock you over 1000 even with a naked Helm vamp general and a wight BSB.

Banner of Strigois (hatred), dread knight helm lord and wight BSB leaves about 45 to buy powers. Adding inf hatred and mounting the wight bsb makes an even 1000. Although summon ghouls would also be fun :-O

Graveguard with a wight king BSB is more resilient. Keep a corpse cart nearby for ASF and helm general can run nearby ;-)

@ Regwon -- Deathstar is when a huge amount of points is invested into a single unit (often with attached characters) that is ideally both very tough and very killy. To win the enemy must engage the deathstar unit or wipe it out somehow, due to the high amount of points tied up in it. For the deathstar's part, it kills what it hits, so making it to combat is the hardest part. I usually build deathstar lists around "large infantry" on 40mm bases, as they are tough, fast and killy in pretty much every form.

@ jmurph -- Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for. The wight BSB does seem the way to go. When I get access to the VC book I'll check out the builds you suggested.

- Salvage

Here's a try at a list:

H: Vampire - flying horror, avatar of death (gw + ha), enchanted shield, book of arkhan
H: Wight King - BSB
C: 10 Ghouls
C: 10 Ghouls
S: 25 Grave Guard - full command, strigois banner
R: Varghulf

1000 spot on. I thought long about the benefits of helm - makes the ghouls hit, the varghulf hit, the gravestar hit - but with such a weak magic phase I think the ability to pull a dispel die or get a unit to danse around is better. Flying gets him where he's needed, which might be into a chariot or war machine, and 3+ save vs shooting isn't too bad.

- Salvage

QUICK EDIT -- Holy hell, just realized the vamp could danse himself, for 40" of move. Wow.