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So I was thinking of starting a vampire counts army, and I need to know how they play. I HAVE NEVER PLAYED FANTASY so just want to know how they play, their overal strategy, and what I should buy to have a good base army. The reason I am asking is because I liked how they looked. I will also be buying a rule book, and will have around $200 us dollars to buy the rules and the army. Any comments would be great.

Ok.

Vamps depend heavily on Magic and Characters. They often focus on re-summoning troops or casting their other damaging spells at your opponent. They often win battles of attrition, they don't like being combined charged.


I'd buy x2 Battalions, a Vampire Hero, and the Army Book. A good start right there.

Cryonicleech wrote:Ok.

Vamps depend heavily on Magic and Characters. They often focus on re-summoning troops or casting their other damaging spells at your opponent. They often win battles of attrition, they don't like being combined charged.


I'd buy x2 Battalions, a Vampire Hero, and the Army Book. A good start right there.

I was going to buy a hero, a battalion, one more pac of skeletons and zombies, the rule book, and the army book. Dose that sound good? I mean this would be my first fantasy army. I plan to expand from there after I get the hang of it.

You'll probably want to fill up your hero slots with vamps & necromancers as your army is magic driven.

Vampires are a grinding army, you march forward with on the whole lame or average troops (Blood Knights and Varghulf notable exceptions) and excellent characters.

Your army won't run, it ignores psychology and with some of the most undercosted and stackable items/abilities in the game, baring the much maligned daemons and you have probably the 2nd easiest army to use, after daemons.

*sigh*--I miss my VC...I started playing them a year ago, only got a few games in before I moved, and I had to choose what to bring with me--the Dwarfs won.

Cryonicleech wrote:I'd buy x2 Battalions, a Vampire Hero, and the Army Book. A good start right there.

I've been contemplating VC as well for my first Fantasy army, and after my initial research I agree with this for the initial purchase.

That gives you 100 troopers and 2 Corpse Carts for $180, which is a pretty good deal (saving $60 or so) and gives you a solid core.
A vamp or two on foot will round out your initial buy.

The Spearhead bundle does not look like a good deal on the other hand, unless I'm missing something.

Spearheads usually include a lot of metal so they are expensive and you don't seem to get as much as battle forces.

You should probably hammer out what kind of list you want to be running before diving into buying anything. I'm sure you already bought the codex, so work out some army lists and have a look at a few others.

The main debate for VC is ghouls vs. skelies. I prefer ghouls so I run 4 blocks of 20 ghouls and use this to tie things down and flank/rear charge with varghulfs and black knights. You need to find what kind of strategy and which models you really like before you buy anything.

Unfortunatly, my planes for a VC army have been pushed back too around decmeber. I am going to try and get my SM in order. I will be checking out a VC codex next time I am at the GW. I am actually starting the army because I liked the vamps and the zombies. But yah, I should try to go and make my list before I buy. I will alsoe be trying to update soem forum here to keep people up on my progress. When I get my idea for the army, I will be posting the list here for comments.

EDIT: I WILL HAVE LIMITED FUNDS FOR THIS PROJECT! Probebly around $250. So I can buy all the fancy stuff. I need to stay on budget.

I can "loan" you my rulebook, old chum, see you on friday!

UPDATE! I WILL BE BUYING MY VAMPIRES THIS SATURDAY! AUGUST 1ST! MY PURCHASE WILL BE THE FOLLOWING:

1 vampire army book
1 battalion
1 vampire
and either a box of Grave gaurd or skeletons.

My plans were pushed up when good ol sniper jolly lent me his rulebook, there by saveing me $50

So, staying on budget, how dose my first purchase look?I only had $160 US.

Hmm....

I'd shoot for more Ghouls honestly. You'll have 20 Skeletons already, and if you really want more I'd try to get that 5 Pack of Skelies for $8. Ghouls are some of your best troops, as they have 2 Attacks and are T4, which is pretty darn good for what they cost points wise.

Cryonicleech wrote:Hmm....

I'd shoot for more Ghouls honestly. You'll have 20 Skeletons already, and if you really want more I'd try to get that 5 Pack of Skelies for $8. Ghouls are some of your best troops, as they have 2 Attacks and are T4, which is pretty darn good for what they cost points wise.

So buy ghouls not grave gaurd?

Yeah ghouls and more ghouls. You'll need a lot. I bought some GG and have yet to even put them together. Ghouls just do so well.

I may may not have started fantasy yet but I have done my research (out of VC, Orcs and Goblins and Wood Elves Wood Elves won out) and I would personally go the graveguard, they are just as tough have great weapons and have killing blow thanks to wight blade ability, but it depends what other people bring in at your GW horde armies like Skaven or Tough and/or multi-wound armies like Ogre Kingdoms, if the former get the ghouls, the latter the GG

Just remember that you can pretty much double the number of Skeletons you have by arming the standing skeletons with the spears, and using the sword arms and the extra heads (as well as some of the extra arms) combined with the cunning use of cardboard bases to create skeletons "emerging" from the ground.

Krellnus wrote:I may may not have started fantasy yet but I have done my research (out of VC, Orcs and Goblins and Wood Elves Wood Elves won out) and I would personally go the graveguard, they are just as tough have great weapons and have killing blow thanks to wight blade ability, but it depends what other people bring in at your GW horde armies like Skaven or Tough and/or multi-wound armies like Ogre Kingdoms, if the former get the ghouls, the latter the GG

Right, but here's the problem with Theory Hammer. Grave Guard are the elite of the VC, to be sure. But, against Hammerers, Chaos Warriors, etc. They will do horrible. Plus, with only 10 GG, they'll do awful. 20 Ghouls are better than 10 GG. 'Nuff said. Theoryhammer doesn't get you crap. Ogres are immune against KB, as they are US3.

I am but a noob but I agree ghouls and perhaps troop spam are the way to go.If you do want some graveguard,stick Konrad in with them I heard they make a nasty combo.

Grave guard are good if you take 25 of them in a big block with shields or decent as support if you take 10 of them with great weapons.
10 with great weapons will not take a charge though, be careful with them.

for a starter army I would suggest 3 blocks of either ghouls or skeletons, it doesn't matter which. Both are good at different things and at grinding down rank and file over time.
Support this with a corpse cart and some dogs

Your gonna want 3-4 vamps in the army so grab em, you cam make them from dam near anything.

And a unit of 10 black knights or 25 gg to round out the army.

160 bucks is a prety tight budget and vamps tend to have about 3000 pts worth of models in their 2250 armies.
For 1000 points you could probably make do with a battalion box, 10 more ghouls, and 2x vampires. Probably would want a unit or two of dogs too, don't remember how expensive they are. Can be fleshed out with a vargolf when you can fit it in. Would be a decent 1000 pt army and would give you an idea of how the vamps play.

Well, i actually got a chance yesterday to go up to GW yesterday, and so i got a battalion, aI unit of GG (i REALLY like the models, plus I wanted something with some punch) the army book and a vamp. The gg will take a banner to give them flameing magic attacks, and the vamp will be tagging along for the ride with the frost blade and whatever other nasty bits of killing stuff can fit on him. my nect purchase in generally for Warhammer/ 40k will be 2x rhinos, then another box of skeletons to run. Ghouls will be used to tie up enemy units, and zombies will be apering aout of no where. And the corpse cart will be trudgeing along messing with magic. I like the idea of puting some dogs in, although a vangulf would probebly do the same thing for what I have in mind. Ambushes anyone?

Happygrunt wrote:Well, i actually got a chance yesterday to go up to GW yesterday, and so i got a battalion, aI unit of GG (i REALLY like the models, plus I wanted something with some punch) the army book and a vamp. The gg will take a banner to give them flameing magic attacks, and the vamp will be tagging along for the ride with the frost blade and whatever other nasty bits of killing stuff can fit on him. my nect purchase in generally for Warhammer/ 40k will be 2x rhinos, then another box of skeletons to run. Ghouls will be used to tie up enemy units, and zombies will be apering aout of no where. And the corpse cart will be trudgeing along messing with magic. I like the idea of puting some dogs in, although a vangulf would probebly do the same thing for what I have in mind. Ambushes anyone?

If you like GG a lot, run a huge block of them with a banner, then stick a Vampire BSB in that block, then stick in a couple more vampires. The unit will be unkillable. The Vampire just raise all the dead GG every turn with IoN and pretty much destroy most things they get into combat with. In 1000 pt games a death star unit like this is really effective because most armies don't have anything to counter that with.

The opposite of that army would be (and probably the more competitive army in higher point values) is tons of ghouls units backed up by fully decked out casting vampires, 2x Varghulf and a number of Black Guard units (usually 2 big units decked out or 4 smaller units).

When starting a VC army I would recommend buying at least 2-3 Vampires. They are the ones keeping your undead horde ''alive'' when marching towards the enemy and when kitted right they can dish out some real pain too. I found out that even though I own 2 necromancer models I rarely have any use for them. When I include necros in my list I put them on Corpse Carts so you don't need a separate model for em unless the CC is killed from under him. With the necro riding a corpse cart, you can put it inside a unit giving the CC and Necro some needed cover. Thats what I've been doing at least, a Corpse Cart alone in the field is pretty quickly taken down even with the regen saves it has.

The battalion is decent. Two of them will get you a nice, solid force to start out with. Get a couple of vampires, some grave guard and a wight king on top of that and you'll have a pretty solid list.

Here's my beef with the battalions. I like ghouls. I don't like skeletons. Unfortunately you get 2 skeletons for every ghoul in the battalions. The best builds use one or the other. Ghoul builds tend to be stronger. My suggestion is to sell the skeles and buy more ghouls. Aside from that, every vamp general needs a lot of zombies. Zombies may suck but they do have their uses and you can raise them whenever you want. Corpse carts are very good and are even effective when run in pairs. Having two of them in your army is fantastic. Put a necro on one, hide it in a unit and it becomes a lot more survivable.