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I've played a little with Beasts of Chaos, and I usually have my butt handed to me most of the time.

Here's what I've come up with for a Vampire Counts army. I'm a little over (80 points).

Lord/Heroes
Vampire Lord (level 3 upgrade, Master of the Black Arts, Lord of the Dead, Walach's Bloody Hauberk, Book of Arkhan, Sword of Battle, Wristbands of Black Gold)

Necromancer (Dispel scroll, Sceptre de Noirot)

Vampire (Lord of the Dead, Battle Standard Bearer, Avatar of Death)

Core
15 Skeletons (Standard, Musician) (the Vampire goes with them)

20 Skeletons (Standard, Musician)

20 Skeletons (Standard, Musician)

20 Crypt Ghouls

6 Dire Wolves

Corpse Cart (Unholy Lodestone)

Special
19 Grave Guard (the Vampire Lord goes with them)

4 Fell Bats

Rare
8 Blood Knights (full command)


TOTAL: 2310 points

I'm looking at raising zombies to bolster the number of units and for flank charges. I love the look of the ethereal models, but I don't see them standing up to CR.

What do you think? Where can I trim 80 points?

Turn the blood knights into black knights. Blood knights are not worth their points. Black knights will fill the same role but won't be easily baited because of frenzy. Get balefire on the corpsecart and take that book thats a bound danse macabre (can't remember the name).

You're way over on your Vamp Lord's item allowance.

Easiest way to trim points would be to make all the skellies 15. Any reason you don't have any champs?

Mnemoch wrote:You're way over on your Vamp Lord's item allowance.

I'll have to double-check that. I thought that the level 3 upgrade is separate. The MotBA, LotD, and WBH count together as vampire powers. The BoA, SoB, and WoBG are items. But like I said, I'll double-check that.

Mnemoch wrote:Easiest way to trim points would be to make all the skellies 15. Any reason you don't have any champs?

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't see the benefit in paying more points to get 1 more attack out of someone who is not likely to cause a wound. What's the CW on this?

Walach's bloody Hauberk is 45 points, Book of Arkhan is 35 points, Wristbands are 30 and sword is 15. That's 125 points on Magic items. Drop the Wristbands, your Vamp will be in a unit.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Sir_FleesALot wrote:

Mnemoch wrote:Easiest way to trim points would be to make all the skellies 15. Any reason you don't have any champs?

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I don't see the benefit in paying more points to get 1 more attack out of someone who is not likely to cause a wound. What's the CW on this?

The champ is there to issue/take challenges from things (read: scary Chaos Lords) that you don't want your Vampire to have to fight. And as the champ is the first model raised by IoN, he can do it over and over again (while your Vampire eats basic troops).

And the unit champions are not only useful for keeping your general safe from enemy characters, also make units more durable.

When a unit is chaged, you can challenge the enemy, so the champion will take more than one attack. If the attacker manages to make more than one wound, you will gain.

Example:

a unit of 15 skellies are charged by a unit of 5 empire knights with champion. The knight champion makes 2 unsaved wounds, and the other knights makes another 3 wounds. So you loose the combat by 1. In that combat you loose 6 skeletons.
But if a skellie champion makes a challenge, the knight champion must take it. The champion will suffer the 2 wounds, and you will loose the combat by 1, just like before, but you only loose 5 skeletons (4 rank and file and the champion)

This could be a little advantage, but if instead a unit champion, the challenged character was a fighting lord, you will save many models.