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Well, it's happened again... I went with VC for a few reasons:
-Always interested in undead
-Sweet new models
-Stigma of being "that wood elf guy". Usually happens along the line of "Well, the wood elf guy is here, who's stuck losing to him this week?"

Anyway, I'm 3-0 against 2 dwarf players and an Empire army. The empire guy was already a little tired before the game, but after the game began the group discussion of codex creep and *gasp* the idea of switching over to Warhammer Historical.....

I am already planning on toning down my army against people I have already played(I'll give everyone one shot at defeating the VC at their full hotness), but what advice can I give to those who play me after a rough loss to the shambling undead? I already mentioned our weakness to regiments that are immune to psych and cause large numbers of wounds. What else can be said?

As a side note we are playing in a 1500 pt league/campaign, with a lot of restrictions, from( I am assuming) an old WD. Each player generates three random territories from a list. Each territory gives the army special abilities such as allowing an extra monster, or an extra magic item, an additional war machine, more points etc. Each player then anties up a card each game and then generates a new one; winner takes two from the pot, loser gets one. I generated a land at the start of the league that gave me the ability to field a level 4 wizard Let's just say 9 PD at 1500 pts is a little unbalanced. I am thinking of toning that guy down a lot. Here's my list for the league:

Level 3 Vamp Lord
+1 level, +2 PD, Master of the Dead(raise extra skellies)
Skullstaff(+1 casting/Dispell) *edit* 2+ armor

Level 1 Vamp Hero
Avatar of Death(Heavy Armor, HW+SH)
Book of Arkhan (bound 3 Danse Macabre)

13 Skells Standard and Musician
13 Skells Standard and Musician
20 Zombies
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves

20 Grave Guard Full Cmd, GWs and Banner of the Barrows(+1 to hit)

Varghulf

Any comments?

9 PD and one bound spell with only 1 nasty combat block? Doesn't seem all that mean to me...dwarfs should use rune of courage on everything, cannon snipe your general who has no defense and shoot everything else at the graveguard to force you to resurrect them rather than boost the skeletons up to meaningful sizes. The anvil should also make quick work of the fast moving elements.

The empire player should also have an easy time as there's two or three slow moving elements which can threaten the steam tank, and you have basically no magic defense, so a cannon/warrior priest/steam tank heavy force should rip you a new one. Namely, avoid the garveguard, cannonsnipe the general, kill the fast stuff with shooting and get flank charges on everything except that big block of GG which is easily slowed by marchblockers or redirectors.

I can draw a couple of conclusions from this: your opponents do not have a firm grasp on rudimentary warhammer strategy, they are playing with absurdly fluffy lists or they do not take advantage of your copious weaknesses.

There's a Wood Elf army stigma?

Gak. I had no idea :(

Etherdude wrote:9 PD and one bound spell with only 1 nasty combat block? Doesn't seem all that mean to me...dwarfs should use rune of courage on everything, cannon snipe your general who has no defense and shoot everything else at the graveguard to force you to resurrect them rather than boost the skeletons up to meaningful sizes. The anvil should also make quick work of the fast moving elements.

The empire player should also have an easy time as there's two or three slow moving elements which can threaten the steam tank, and you have basically no magic defense, so a cannon/warrior priest/steam tank heavy force should rip you a new one. Namely, avoid the garveguard, cannonsnipe the general, kill the fast stuff with shooting and get flank charges on everything except that big block of GG which is easily slowed by marchblockers or redirectors.

I can draw a couple of conclusions from this: your opponents do not have a firm grasp on rudimentary warhammer strategy, they are playing with absurdly fluffy lists or they do not take advantage of your copious weaknesses.

Well, a couple of things I ought to have mentioned. All of these are true unless the player has won a territory that changes it:
-The armies are limited to a general and a level 1 mage
-1 50 pt magic item
-1 war machine
-1 Monster
-No unit champs
-1500 pts limit

My cards give me the level 4 mage, 3 50 pts magic items, 1 75 pt magic item and 1 unit champion.

The big problem is that aat 1500 pts and with these restrictions a lot of the more powerful options are not available, so no Popemobile and no Thorek. Also with the limited magic my 5 DD is enough, but my 9 PD are very hard to deal with.

Also I do not doubt the ability of my opponents, who are quite competent, just unused to dealing with VC(Before I and another guy bought the new rulebook there were no others in the group playing VC).

Thanks for the thoughts, any other suggestions?

malfred wrote:There's a Wood Elf army stigma?

Gak. I had no idea :(

The extreme mobility is apparently pretty annoying. Maybe it's just my gang.

Marshal Torrick wrote:

Etherdude wrote:9 PD and one bound spell with only 1 nasty combat block? Doesn't seem all that mean to me...dwarfs should use rune of courage on everything, cannon snipe your general who has no defense and shoot everything else at the graveguard to force you to resurrect them rather than boost the skeletons up to meaningful sizes. The anvil should also make quick work of the fast moving elements.

The empire player should also have an easy time as there's two or three slow moving elements which can threaten the steam tank, and you have basically no magic defense, so a cannon/warrior priest/steam tank heavy force should rip you a new one. Namely, avoid the garveguard, cannonsnipe the general, kill the fast stuff with shooting and get flank charges on everything except that big block of GG which is easily slowed by marchblockers or redirectors.

I can draw a couple of conclusions from this: your opponents do not have a firm grasp on rudimentary warhammer strategy, they are playing with absurdly fluffy lists or they do not take advantage of your copious weaknesses.

Well, a couple of things I ought to have mentioned. All of these are true unless the player has won a territory that changes it:
-The armies are limited to a general and a level 1 mage
-1 50 pt magic item
-1 war machine
-1 Monster
-No unit champs
-1500 pts limit

My cards give me the level 4 mage, 3 50 pts magic items, 1 75 pt magic item and 1 unit champion. I also forgot to mention the 2+ armor on the Lord.

The big problem is that aat 1500 pts and with these restrictions a lot of the more powerful options are not available, so no Popemobile and no Thorek. Also with the limited magic my 5 DD is enough, but my 9 PD are very hard to deal with.

Also I do not doubt the ability of my opponents, who are quite competent, just unused to dealing with VC(Before I and another guy bought the new rulebook there were no others in the group playing VC).

Thanks for the thoughts, any other suggestions?

Running a lord caster/combat monster in 1500 pts is really really hard to deal with.
Take him out and you will give them a fair shot (there is a balance difference from running a lvl 4 caster who can be assassinated and a vamp)

malfred wrote:There's a Wood Elf army stigma?

Gak. I had no idea :(

There is, but it's not the stigma you are thinking of...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Marshal Torrick wrote:
Well, a couple of things I ought to have mentioned. All of these are true unless the player has won a territory that changes it:
-The armies are limited to a general and a level 1 mage
-1 50 pt magic item
-1 war machine
-1 Monster
-No unit champs
-1500 pts limit

My cards give me the level 4 mage, 3 50 pts magic items, 1 75 pt magic item and 1 unit champion.

The big problem is that aat 1500 pts and with these restrictions a lot of the more powerful options are not available, so no Popemobile and no Thorek. Also with the limited magic my 5 DD is enough, but my 9 PD are very hard to deal with.

Also I do not doubt the ability of my opponents, who are quite competent, just unused to dealing with VC(Before I and another guy bought the new rulebook there were no others in the group playing VC).

Thanks for the thoughts, any other suggestions?

Can the 'army general' and 'lvl 1 mage' limits potentially be applied to the same model? If not, then it seems like the VC are already stepping outside the rules as their general has to be a mage and thus could allow you to open the campaign with 2 casters to start; with one of them being of unlimited level since it does not appear as though the general's casting ability has been taken into account in your restrictions. Not to mention the problems inherent in bloodline powers that are essentially magic items, but might not be treated as such within the campaign.

I can recomend 2 seperate courses of action. One, reconsider your restrictions for future campaigns so that you allow for more magic. I understand the appeal of low fantasy type games, but you're already leading a hoard of the walking dead; hardly a force which is representative of that kind of environment. Another reason for revision is that, had you not rolled the capacity for a level 4 wizard, it seems likely that VC would have a very tough time winning. Sure, you have unbreakable fear-causing troops, but they pretty much suck in combat and lack almost all mobility. Without Invocation and Vanhel's due to the extreme parity of caster options you would essentially have to fight a traditional battle where your troops will simply not be as good as their's. Second, if you want to fix this campaign, simply allow everyone access to some more magical capability. Say every army can have 1 lvl 2 and 1 lvl 1 caster. Also, if you haven't already, I would exempt dispell scolls from the restrictions on magic items.

Marshal Torrick wrote:The extreme mobility is pretty annoying. It's not just my gang.

Fixed that for ya

My ogres are getting pretty irritated by tree spirit armies that spend 4 turns backing up before I let them smack into my toothcracked fatties

- Salvage

Yeah the campaign rules really seem to skew things. And they seem really arbitrary- no unit champs? Why not just play a few straight up games?

Also, under these rules could they take Karl Franz on a dragon? It's 1 character and 1 monster :-)

Also, lots of dwarf handgunners with 2 cannons and maybe a runed BT would be fun. So would a skink army!