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Here is my first go at a vampire list for 2250. I have no experience playing vamps, so all help is welcome, or even directions to a decent vampire count tactica.
To the list. I am worried that it is too character heavy, with not enough troops and/or hard hitting units. I went with 4 characters total to ensure I can raise up a good force, is this thinking wrong?
Also, I love the grave guard and wish to keep them. The models i have already are:
Varghulf, 3 vamps, 10 skelys, about 60 zombies, 20 grave guard, corpse cart, 10 ghouls, 10 dire wolves. I think thats it at present. So trying to keep that in mind, what changes should I make in your opinions?

Lord
Vampire Lord 430
.+1 magic level, Master of The Black Arts, dark acloyte, lord of the dead
The Flayed Hauberk, Sceptre De Noirot, Blood drinker

Heroes

Vampire 185
Infinite Hatred, Avatar of death
The book of Arkhan

Vampire 190
Flying Horror, lord of the dead
Skabscrath, sword of might

Vampire 160
Dark Acolyte
Helm of commandment

Core

15 Skeletons 155
Full command, spears

15 Skeletons 155
Full command, spears

10 Crypt Ghouls 80

Corpse Cart 100
Balefire


Special

20 Grave Guard 335
Great Weapons, full command
Banner of the burrows
Rare

Varghulf 175

Cairn Wraiths 225
1 Banshee and 3 Cairn Wraiths

60 points left over.
Could either go with another wraith, or separate the skelys into 3 smaller groupds, with 60 points extra into them.

Any and all help/ criticism is welcome

Well I´m more of a TK player nowadays but my 2 grains of sand are.
Unless you want to go for looks (like I do) rather than points I´d suggest to drop the musics, worthless for undead. Also don´t go with small units for SKs or you´ll find that your enemy has hammered them before they had time to grow to horde size. And last, drop the spears and the helm of commad for shields and armor in the SKs and something else for the vamp, you want the units to soak damage not to deal it, your vamps are the ones doing the killing, while the Sks give the CR to make the enemy run.

M.

I made a few changes and came up with a new list. Not sure if this is an improvement but just playing around with some lists.
Let me know what you think

Lord
Vampire Lord 440
.+1 magic level, Master of The Black Arts, dark acloyte, lord of the dead
Blood drinker, Hand of dust

Heroes

Vampire 185
Infinite Hatred, Avatar of death
The book of Arkhan

Vampire 190
Flying Horror, lord of the dead
Skabscrath, sword of might



Core
Skeleton Warriors 151
15, spears, champion, standard

Skeleton Warriors 151
15, spears, champion, standard

Skeleton Warriors 151
15, spears, champion, standard

Crypt Chouls 80
10 ghouls

Corpse Cart 100
Balefire


Special
Grave Guard 290
20, Full command
Great Weapons
Rare
Cairn Wraiths 300
5 wraiths, 1 banshee

Varghulf 175

2213

You are going to need a steady flow of magi c to keep your troops up, consider dropping the flying vamp to a magic one and go deep diving with the Varghulf only. But I´m talking from theoryhammer rather than experiecne with the new dex.

M.

Musos are always worth it for undead.

You cause fear and your opponent doesn't, draw a combat and have a muso and they don't, autobreak that unit if you outnumber them.

Of course that was with the old VCs when you would amass huge units. The flavour now seems to be smaller units, and keep topping them up.

The Helm of Command is totally worth it. Denying the enemy their hits on 3's and giving it to your skeletons will take 1-2 of their CR per round, either because a skeleton hit who wouldn't have done so or because an enemy missed who wouldn't have done so. Remember it makes ws3 guys hit on 5's!

Its ideal if you have a caster Lord who will be hiding in a small skeleton unit behind the main line and primarily contributing through magic.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Musos are always worth it for undead.

You cause fear and your opponent doesn't, draw a combat and have a muso and they don't, autobreak that unit if you outnumber them.

Of course that was with the old VCs when you would amass huge units. The flavour now seems to be smaller units, and keep topping them up.

Theory: Yes, you might need rhen on a tie.

RL: In all my games I still have to get a tie on CR. I alway won or lost the combat but so far not one tie with a SK block to justify taking the musician (even as I always deploy them can´t leave the little ones at home while everybody else is having fun)

M.

Thanks for all the advice so far guys
Really is appreciated.
I was also thinking about a fairly specialised force, made up of 2 units of 20 grave guard, either 2 strong units of wraiths, cause let's face it wraiths just rock the cazbar, or 1 unit of wraiths and 1 varghulf. The rest of the points would be on magiced up vampires amd skeletons, probably a unit of ghouls and maybe a corpse cart.

This would probably be a fun army, but I'm not sure how effective it would be. The general strategy would be to raise many many zombies and use the wraiths/ grave guard and varghulf in a combined charge to break them.

Anyway, I'm just toying with this idead, because I have no idea how effective it would be.

Any thoughts?

Okay, so I did a bit of work, and came up with a new list.

2250 Vampire Count List

Lords
Vampire Lord 400
Red Fury, Dread Knight, walking death
Dreadlance, Book of Arkhan
(Level 2 Wizard) Rides with black Knights

Heroes
Vampire 200
Master of the Black Arts
Armour of night, Sceptre of Noirot
(Level 1 Wizard) for raising zombies etc

Vampire 195
Dark Acolyte, lord of the dead
Helm of commandment, crimson gem of Lahmia
(Level 2 wizard) buffing up skelys and raising zombies

Core
10 Crypt ghouls 80

10 Dire Wolves 80

20 Skeletons 200
Full Command, spears

20 Skeletons 200
Full Command, spears

Special

Grave Guard x20 290
Great weapons, full command

Black Knights x10 325
Full command
Banner of the barrows


Rare

Varghulf 175

2145
105 to spare. Not too sure what to spend it on, maybe a magic banner for the grave guard, or even a necro?
I could easily fit in a decent sized zombie unit, or drop the ghouls or dire wolves and pop in a black coach, or some wraiths.

I was also thinking about swapping out the black knights for a unit of blood knights. Not too sure how the blood knights will fair against good players, with their frenzy, but boy do they look hot and smash crap up. Could even have a unit of blood knights, with the tooled up lord and a vampire with the regenerate banner to beef them up more so. Probably the Flag of Blood Keep would be even better, as I expect alot of shooting and magic to go their way if i do field them.
Any thoughts on this one?