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Ok I kinda gave away pretty much everything I needed to say, however here I go.

Where is the zombie love, I really mean it. I am new to WHFB and after much deliberation decided on a vampire counts army loaded with zombies, tons of zombies. However, after looking up some of the VC threads and strategies comparing the core choices of the VC army I realized nobody seems to even consider the little bastards.

Nah, that's not quite true... there is Zombie love in the air, but with their downed stats they got a very clear battlefield role: Fodder. They cannot kill anything, just keep an enemy unit in place and die (again). That's where I use them and they haven't disappointed me yet.

Greets
Schepp himself

Also skeles when they have lt armour shield and HW get a 4+ armour save which makes them much more survivable.

From what I've seen zombies are either in large (30+) tarpit units or in summoned units.

Most people prefer to use other core selections because the Zombies are so easily summoned. Raise Dead will start a Zombie unit with D3+4 Zombies (or even D3+9 if the caster has the Sceptre de Noirot) and casting Invocation of Nehek on your summoned unit will increase the amount of Zombies in the unit bij D6+4.

As others above me have already said, they are great at diverting strong units (dying in the process) and tarpitting (when enough Zombies are in the unit). Skeletons just are a better core selection due to their higher survivability.

Zombies also took a big hit in going down to T2. It means they die like crazy and give up bad CR. Combined with S2 and no real pursue, they are weak sauce. Even as a tarpit, they lost alot of oomph.

Skeletons, on the other hand offer decent staying power and the ability to carry a magic banner. Ghouls offer 2 poisoned attacks and T4, making them quite killy.

And they can both house characters.

I love zombies and have converted a crapload, but other than min sized units to fill core and hide on a table edge, they rarely see play anymore. GW went overboard in nerfing them (much like necros) and so they are now a subpar choice.

I disagree strongly!
If you expect them to tarpit a unit, especially a strong one, forever than good luck. They can maybe hold stronger units for one or two turns. If you need one or two turns to get you force into position than summon these guys in front of a unit and call it done. They can wonderfully guard a position or flank because even if they get destroyed in the end, they hopefully have helped you to overpower the rest of the army.

They will never run away, you can easily reanimate them, you can easily calculate how long they will last. Use this to your advantage.

Greets
Schepp himself

Well since I came into the game with the recent codex I initally realized that they can't do much. My army idea is the ultra slow moving zombie horde, 100 zombies are only 400 points or so. Even with T2 five units of 20 zombies right off the bat is great cover (line of sight and tarpiting) for Vamps. That frees up alot of dice in your first magic
phase since you don't have to summon every squad, dice better left for Danse Macabre or something.

Of course I could be horribly wrong, it wouldn't be the first time.

Just make sure you have stuff in the army that can also kill something, then you shouldn't do so bad.

Greets
Schepp himself

I was thinking of CC vamps heros or lords (when it gets to that), Corpse carts, and a vargie.

That way it's a fairly cheep army start. Like VC battalion x2, Vargulf, Zombies x3, and then misc chars. Should be like 300 bucks or so.

With two Battalion boxes, you have 40 skeletons, 20 Ghouls, two corpse carts and 40 zombies.
If you want to start a zombie horde, I would go for the individual parts.

Greets
Schepp himself

Damn, just replace zombiesx3 with zombie boxes so in total I'll have 20 ghouls, 40 skellies, 100+ zombies, two corpse carts, and a vargie for starters. That way I get a decent starting force for relatively cheap.
I'd like to get some Blood Knights but for $90 I could get way more stuff at the start. If they are half as smashy as I've heard it probably wont be too far off.

I played against a whole zombie army one time. It seemed the more zombies that got into combat with my warriors, the greater combat res was on my side. The lesson I get from this is they're not all great by themselves, but best when used as meat shields or tarpits along with the more hard hitting units and survivalists.

So far ive only seen zombies used in conjunction with things like blood knights or crypt guard. Get the zombies in and stop the force then flank them with cavalry.

It's funny, but it took me a while to understand the 'new' Zombies. To be perfectly honest, most people who are playing around and winning games with their BK bunkers and staff/helm lords still don't understand Zombies and thus have problems against many armies for example Daemons of Chaos.

In a VC army that aims to win some games I would love to have as many Zombies as possible. When the book came out people looked at Skeletons, but then people realised Ghouls are superior in almost every way and inferior in nearly none and so they started taking as many Ghoul units as possible. Lately however I've cut back on Ghouls because I've realised that Ghouls are only needed for very specific tasks, and one task which they perform admirably in, tarpitting enemy units, can also be performed much better by Zombies.

Zombies aren't there to win combats. They will nearly always lose them. However since the Skull Staff lord can use 9 power dice he can cast invocation 9 times succeeding on a 3+. That's a gazillion of Zombies raised to existing units. It doesn't matter how much you lose by, the combat will never end. Additionally, since all succesful VC lists have to cut back on unit starting numbers in order to afford heroes and elite units the army is very weak during the first two turns when it has to pump the units up to size. This can be circumvented by taking a few already large Zombie units to start with to take some pressure off the small Ghoul units. If an enemy is closing on you quickly, you can engage it.

Additionally, having three Zombie blocks on the table from the beginning, and the very distinct possibility of you summoning two more during the game, means that some armies like the infamous Great Wall of Nurgle and their GD can't get past them in any way. Even flying threats like Bloodthirsters have to stay pretty much 17"+ away from any Zombie unit lest you move it and Danse it into combat. You can even do all sorts of funny congaline reforms and then Danse into combat if absolutely necessary. Daemons are an elite army that deals exceptionally well with elite armies, so VC armies who spend all their points on heroes and Knights and Varghulfs or Wraiths will get hammered. VC players who also spend on core should always be able to get atleast a draw. Many people simply don't realise how many Zombies are raised. Raising Ghouls can always backfire if you keep failing spells and rolling 1 or 2 models when you succeed in the casts. You'll always get enough Zombies.

Just to give you an example. A Bloodthirster and 5 Flesh Hound charge a unit of 25 Zombies. This is the most powerful frontal charge most cookie cutter power Daemons can dish out. Zombies gain Helm of Commandment effect. Flesh Hounds kill 3.3 Zombies. Bloodthirster kills 5.2 or so. Let's call that 9 kills. Zombies are down to 16 models, and outnumber the attackers and so assuming they didn't bring a standard have the resolution of 4. They lose by 5 and are down to 11 models. What if Helm of Commandment wasn't in range? They would have lost 1 more model to Flesh Hounds, would not have outnumbered, but would still be down to 8 models. No sweat. You know what happens in the magic phase? Yes you do. Ten or eleven attempts to raise more Zombies if necessary. It often happens that already the first Invocation from the lord rolls a 6 which is a 7 after the plus one and the opponent won't wish to use dispel dice on that, and then we get D6+4 more models for example 8, bringing the unit already almost to 20 and totally disheartening the opponent. If a flank charge is looming you can pump the unit up to 50 models if you want, it's not a problem. Most important thing is that either the opponent was stupid enough to charge the Zombies or you caught them with a Vanhel's Danse, but now they won't be going anywhere for the rest of the game and your regenerating Knights and Varghulfs and Ghouls are free to go grab you a victory. As far as conventional enemy land hammer units like Knights are concerned, they often have to charge the Zombies because of your deployment and aggressive playstyle.

Of course you shouldn't go overboard on Zombies, but as my core I usually pick 3x10 Ghouls with champions and 2x20 Zombies or 2x10 Ghouls with champions and 3x20 Zombies. There's still plenty of points to go around. My killing power comes from two units of BK, one fighty hero and two Varghulfs and of course the Ghoul unit that I decide to pump up to full size. VC can easily become a horde army with this approach, and hordes that are unbreakable are sort of tough to wipe out. Considering I start with 5 infantry blocks and possibly summon two more there's the possibility that by the end of the game there will be more than 150 RnF undead on the table. Remember that Zombies are still scoring units, and there won't be a single game where the VC won't have atleast 20 Zombies in every table quarter/objective

Amen, Therion, I tried to explain but my words didn't work as well as yours I guess...

Greets
Schepp himself

Therion: A little off topic but why do you think that Ghouls are superior in every way to Skeletons and inferior in nearly none? Not saying I completely disagree, just curious to know your reasonings.

Most of the discussion has seen them as a bit of a wash. Ghouls get superior killing power and T4 but Skeletons get full command, magic banner, and a 4+ armor save in combat.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ozymandias wrote:Therion: A little off topic but why do you think that Ghouls are superior in every way to Skeletons and inferior in nearly none? Not saying I completely disagree, just curious to know your reasonings.

Most of the discussion has seen them as a bit of a wash. Ghouls get superior killing power and T4 but Skeletons get full command, magic banner, and a 4+ armor save in combat.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I've already explained myself, but yes, Ghouls can defeat a wide variety of units that Skeletons won't even touch. As far as receving charges goes, I'm only concerned of cavalry, chariots, monsters and superheroes. A Knights Errant unit will hit Ghouls on a 4+, their horses will hit Ghouls on a 4+, and their lances will wound on a 3+. Skeletons will be hit on a 3+ by both the horses and the riders, they will be wounded on a 2+ by the Knights and they'll get a 6+ save against them. Did you forget that Ghouls have a superior weapon skill to Skeletons, or are you assuming that every Ghoul and Skeleton unit in every army will be affected by Helm of Commandment every turn?

Knights Errant vs Ghouls
8 lance attacks, 2.66 dead.
8 horse attacks, 1.33 dead.

4 dead.

Knights Errant vs Skeletons
8 lance attacks, 3.7 dead.
8 horse attacks, 1.33 dead.

5 dead.

Now, Skeletons can now buy the banner and spend extra points there and risk giving 100 extra VP to the opponent if wiped out, or even a magical banner which is again points away from units like Black Knights, and all they'll achieve is they become as good as Ghouls in receiving charges from those basic Knights. They'll still be absolutely horrible in any offensive manouvre.

The armour save of Skeletons is absolutely useless all in all. Everything dangerous ignores a 4+ save or atleast reduces it to 6+. Their weapon skill blows, they can't do any damage at all and gain nothing from having Vanhel's Danse cast on them, can't hurt large monsters and do a worse job than Zombies in tarpitting enemies because Zombies are so much easier to summon. There's no reason to ever take Skeletons, and bloodlines like Ghoulkin make the choice painfully obvious even to absolute retards.

But if you have 60 skeletons and 0 Ghouls on your shelf like me, you tend to use the skeletons. I suppose that's why so any people still field them.

Greets
Schepp himself

Zombies are hard to paint , models look too cartoonish to be intimidating . not as effective as skeleton point wise either.

Therion wrote:
There's no reason to ever take Skeletons, and bloodlines like Ghoulkin make the choice painfully obvious even to absolute retards.

Ah... welcome back Therion.

I still don't totally agree as I've found it is incredibly easy to get your skeletons under the influence of the helm of commandment all of the time that it matters, but I can see that I need to invest in some ghouls and give it a shot.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I basically agree w/ Therion. I use my Zombie's as a tarpit unit from hell but normally only start w/ 1 unit of them on the board at the beginning. I do still use skeleton units to hide some characters in but Ghouls are a plenty in my army. I think that any VC rocking 12+ power dice should be doing well and mine rocks 17 + a large amount of PS. I often times throw 9 dice at the same time, each as 1 casting, to either raise more Ghouls/DireWolves/Zombies....people freak out when they see more go "Okay....8d6 + a ton of zombies or whatever unit I am summoning" Swamp any thing elite w/ Zombies and let Ghouls/other units win the game for you