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I've been trying on the calculator to come up with a good VC list, and nothing seems to be working out in my head.

I keep hearing how broken VC are, but they don't seem like it to me at all. All the units are crap. I say that knowing what killing blow, T4 wights, etc can do of course - yes, they can kill stuff and win combat. But their basic units are zombies and skeletons. Ghouls seem alright, I should pick up some of those, but at the moment I have none.

Here's what I'm working with:

25 spear skels
25 hw/shield skels
40-50 zombies
corpsecart [new addition]
10 black knights
25-35 grave guard
10 fell bats
2 bat swarms
2 banshees, 5 wraiths
varghulf
Wight King on horseback
Wight King standard bearer

and lots of necromancer and vampire models [I collect a lot of vampires from other ranges too]

Characters cause me no end of headaches, equipping them and such. I'm a chaos player, so I keep looking at all these characters as weak and frail, because I feel like chaos characters are also weak and frail and these seem like a step backward. Special characters like Vlad look incredibly frail, having ONLY heavy armor to save them other than their ward save. Vampires seem incredibly weak being only T4, pigeonholed when trying to buy armor, and only one other 4+ ward save in the book. In theory having a bunch of 3-attack S5 mages in the army is a good thing, but I keep feeling like they're just going to die from regular attacks allocated to them by regular infantrymen.

The only good thing about necromancers seems like you can pick your spell - otherwise, they're like a wasted slot. I feel trapped, as the individual units are so terrible that taking lots of them doesn't really seem like a good idea, yet when I spend a lot on characters to bolster the army, there's not much army for them to stand in.

Is the only broken thing about VC the fact that they can make a deathstar out of graveguard or black knights, and keep regenerating it with Invocation? That doesn't seem like such a strong gimmick to me, but there seems little else that's really all that dangerous, and even the deathstar depends on just spamming combat res - aka not PLAYING the game and rolling dice, so I'm trying to avoid that.

Can someone lift the veil on VC and give me an idea how this is supposed to work?

All I can say is that you need some Blood Knights, they tear gak up.

Characters cause me no end of headaches, equipping them and such. I'm a chaos player, so I keep looking at all these characters as weak and frail, because I feel like chaos characters are also weak and frail and these seem like a step backward. Special characters like Vlad look incredibly frail, having ONLY heavy armor to save them other than their ward save.

Herein lies the major disconnect, I believe. You have stated that you don't believe that Chaos characters are overpowered. Ok. Your opinion. Now, here's the collective Dakka community opinion, in 4 pages of vitriolic screed.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/252731.page

Ward saves aren't that common in most other armies. Hell, in TK (my current army) I have to give up a lot to even have *one* on the board. Only Chaos players regularly expect them, from what I've seen. Welcome to the real world of WHFB, IMHO. I'd absolutely adore having the problem of *ONLY* having heavy armor. Not moaning about my army, I love TK and play them b/c of that, but fact is, heavy armor is a luxury. Ward saves are Trump-style livin'.


If you judge *any* army against the current Chaos offerings, well, yes, most other armies look underpowered. The problem lies not with the other armies, it lies with whatever drugs GW was handing out to the Chaos development crew. Must have been some seriously potent *censored for tender ears*.

Vampires have a few basic issues, covered elsewhere (I can't find the thread) but I'll try to recap. By issues, I mean OP issues, not underpower issues.

1. ITP not costed into units.
2. Various magic items are just not even remotely balanced. (Red fury + autohit str7ish lance hits on a 2+ or better character, anyone?)

Gah, there are others, but I play against VC, not for them. Regardless, they are not the most OP list out there, but they're racking up quite a record in GTs from what I hear. Especially the doggy death star build.

My personal issue with the army is that the vampires are casters. Every other army (I might miss one, apologies if I do) has to choose b/t magic heavy and melee heavy, with the lord/hero choices showing what your plan is. If I'm rocking a slaan, guess what, my lizards will live in the magic phase. Obvious from deployment, and I gave up much to do it.

Not so with VC. I think 11-13 casting dice is pretty standard in a VC list, and that's without having to give up hitting power to do it. There are other things which put this army commonly in the OP category, but that's my main one.

Just my $.02

Jason

I would also chime in that VC, out side of a few cookie cutter lists, is generally crap. That really isn't that surprising since that is the usual case for most books. I probably will get quite a bit of flack, but VC are only one of the best armies because they can beat daemons. Daemons don't like big blocks of guys who won't stay down. Eventually they end up losing, and are forced to have to make instability checks. Unlike VC, when a daemon dies, it stays dead.

As for how good vampire characters are: your vampires should throw up the chump if he gets challenged, and should be able to handle R&F guys just fine. His somewhat poor saves are more than made up by his relatively decent combat ability.

Special characters in most books are a poor buy. VC are not really an exception. You end up paying points for fluff abilities that rarely come up, and you would never pay for on a generic character. There are of course exceptions to this, but they are pretty rare.

When you say chaos I assume you are talking about chaos daemons? I actually agree that they are somewhat fragile, with some rather obvious exceptions. But they almost universally have decent toughness, a good number of wounds, and a war save that can't be normally gotten rid of. Since they usually kill what is in front of them, their fragile stats rarely matter though. The same is true of vampires. If you are talking about warriors of chaos, I don't know what to tell you, those guys in general are the toughest guys in CC in the game (as it should be).

Um....wow not the response I was expecting, if only for the fact that I meant Warriors of Chaos, the army I play. I don't really know much about the Daemons characters other than that a khorne herald hates everything and has killing blow with a 0+ armour/5+ ward and magic resistance, bloodthirsters get 2d6+3 attacks, and a Slaanesh army can control your movement while making everything have like -6 leadership.

But I'm talking chaos characters. Anyone with a daemon sword hits themselves. Archaon hits himself. There's like one ward save item in the entire army. The weapons are horribly overpriced [just look at the O&G book and tell me they're not]. Sigvald [the character I prefer to use] has no ward save and thus is VERY vulnerable to killing blow. I also seem to always fight armies that also have ASF and higher initiative, go figure. Or, since he's only S5 with all those attacks, he tends to bounce off anyone heavily armoured. Not a very duel-centered character, which makes little sense given his arrogant fluff. And he's T4, which has actually saved me more than hurt me since most people, when fighting chaos, take those "gain a million abilities vs T5+" swords.

The heroes also are very frail. Chaos magic armour is very expensive as well, and just a 4+ down to 2+ doesn't cut it against most other armies' heroes I'm afraid.

But that's wandering off topic. I mean in terms of offensive potential, sure. A vampire has 3 S5 attacks. But I don't know, maybe it's just my dice but that really only ends up doing about 1 wound. My exalted heroes have 4 attacks and I'm lucky to get that many wounds out of them in any given combat, especially in any challenge where any shmuck unit champion with 2 attacks seems to always hit with both [due to hatred or some such rule] and then kill them [with killing blow or some such rule]. Hence why I say vampires seem fragile - even my chaos heroes can't stand up to even a little punishment, so it doesn't seem like I can expect much from my vampires!

In the end what I keep finding to be true is that paying points for high stats is folly - I'm constantly smacked around by heroes and units with lower stats, but more special rules. Elves, with ASF. Dark Elves, with Hatred AND ASF, or Killing Blow, or BOTH, or ALL THREE with those shrines. Waywatcher lords that are only S3 and T3......but they re-roll failed to wound rolls [there's a lot of those, since my lord's T5] and have killing blow! My WS is higher....but I need 6's to hit them in a challenge! Things like this always make me look at my "tough, awesome death machines" and shake my head, and now I'm left doing the same.

Maybe I need to see the army in action. As of so far, I get to generally watch my WoC heroes and units get slapped around by special rules and high static combat res units, but maybe hordes of unkillable units will make all the difference.

I'm thinking of bringing my fledgling VC to 'ard boyz, and the army's basically looking like this:

Vlad
Fighty vamp lord

wight lord bsb w/ drakenhoff
3 caster vamps

25 skels
25 skels w/ spears
20 zombies
20 zombies

25 grave guard w/ hatred banner

varghulf
bunch of cairn wraiths

And that's probably about 3000 - and like 1500 of it is the characters, which makes me nervous. We'll see!

Well I am not exactly proficient in making VC lists, but I don't believe I ever see people paying for zombies. Its better to have skeletons, and to raise zombies in game.

I would recommend staying away from named characters. I can't think of any of them that is actually good in an all comers list. In fact the ones I have played against were so expensive and so bad that they handicapped my opponent awfully.

Most VC lists spend almost half of their points on characters. They are a character driven army, since their troops are awful. They win by grinding the opponent down, the vamps keep the blocks together, and add some punch to the units. So if you get rid of vlad for a normal casting lord, the cost will come down, and the list should improve.

It is nearly impossible to give advice a VC list without the specifics of the characters. There is quite a few pitfalls in making a character with as many options as a vampire.

A second varghulf would be helpful if you can fit it in.

As a side note: Why would you take special characters with Chaos? Chaos has some cool ones, but very few are worth gimping your army with their high points cost. It is possible to make a nearly unkillable character, assuming you aren't crazy and blow your allowance on a expensive sword. For instance I can make a chaos Sorcerer lord have a 2+ armor, and a 3+ (6 vs magic) ward save AND regenerate. That wizard is tougher and more capable than many armies combat characters. You can do the same to a lord, and he becomes very choppy indeed (and has T5!). If that isn't what you want, you can give them immune to killing blow, or the ability to never take multiple wounds. (so the those d3 wound weapons you sometimes see will always just do 1.) I just don't see the fragile part of Chaos characters, assuming you don't blow the budget on dumb weapons or special characters. (though I think Valkia would be awesome to run, like a mini bloodthirster.)

All of your troops are ITP and cause fear. That means other units in other armies have to make tests for charging, fleeing, and the ability to just "raise" multiple fear causing units and add to their numbers WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT makes up for what you may consider the army has lacking.

Basically, for VC's if someone can get to your Vamps/Necro then you're screwed. Keep them covered or in units and just cast away.

It took me quite a while to figure out a good strategy v VC, as I play empire and most of my leadership is 8 or lower. Not very good for what I also thought was a fragile army at first, until I started failing my charge rolls.

I like that some of the armies are over powered. It seems perfectly reasonable that a pack of undead, magic, hell spawned monsters would be tough to go up against.

That said, I haven't played any games where VC or DoC were involved. So I don't really know how over the top they are.

...and that "effects ITS models" thing is kinda nuts... but again: undead, magic, hell spawned monsters.

Really vampires have excellent items and stats. Try playing with T2 casters and T3 skink heros who can usually carry only one magic item, have only light armor and usually are more of an excuse to cram another stegodon into your army.

Chaos, DE and Scaven have always gotten excellent magic items and heros due to GWs tendency to hype them up more then their more staid opponents.

Chaos's magic weapons are horribly overcosted, though. Orks have way better ones.

I suppose the thing about characters might be right. My fear is killing blow. Killing blow, killing blow, killing blow. It's everywhere, and I've never seen it not work. DE assassin? Dead general. Random shmuck executioner? Dead general. Wardancer? Dead general. It never fails, and I have a tough time keeping my general away, because they just reave through every other unit/character/unit with character I send at them. And they seem to always have an answer for what I have. Special ward saves against non-magical when I'm without a magic weapon. That STUPID DE magic item that essentially gives them a 2+ ward save, etc.

Yes, I can make things regenerate - but that doesn't stop killing blow. *sigh*

Sigvald, the reason I take him is for the Ld 10 stubborn. I generally lose combat against whatever I'm fighting, so I need it badly. Regular chaos lords just don't seem to cut it.

But at any rate, back to the list. Vlad I like because he's a level 3 caster, he's got a chance to come back to life once slain, which is nice for a general to have, he's got a good mix of vampire powers [similar to what I would take normally], and he's got the added benefit of the 4+ ward save from the ring. He's also got an extra attack, more than a vampire lord would have.

The other vampire lord I've built for the army:

Vampire Lord, Level 3, Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Beguile, Sword of Kings, Nightshroud, Crown of the Damned, Cursed Book - 455

This guy's basically riding with Vlad and going to take challenges for him - I considered the Cadaverous Cuirass, but I think I like the idea of killing the enemy first. Most "gimmick" characters with lots of offense and not much armor will be crushed by the re-roll misses, likely re-roll wounds, killing blow with red fury that will pretty much always go first, even when charged by someone that ASF.

If I DIDN'T take Vlad, I'm not sure what other kind of lord I'd take. I enjoy Vlad's +1 to combat res being in the same unit as that bodyguard guy, as well as the -1 leadership to enemies [makes Beguile nice]. I guess I could take the +1 res, -1 enemy leadership, and then some caster-centric power and load him with caster-centric magic items too.... How does that sound?

Orcs do not have better magic items.

You afraid of KB?

Grab a Ward Save type-item. boom.

Otherwise, your list looks fine.

As far as I can tell the benefit of vlad is that he has more than the normal 100 points of magic items, has a slightly improved combat stat line, and a ward save.

The powers he has really don't help with the strength of VC. The strength of the list is spamming castings with low casting value. The rank and file are weak, but you need to make sure they stay unending. Vlad isn't a big caster lord, so does not really contribute to the magic phase like other lord builds. Most of vlads powers don't play to the strength of the list. It is completely ok to lose or tie a few rounds of combat, your guys aren't going anywhere, and there is always more of them.

If you want a combat based VC list, try looking into black knights and blood knights (though blood knights are a bit steep for sub 3k) The helm of command on a lord is very nasty when its black knights getting the boosted WS. Nobody like WS 7 wight blades. (especially when its a regenerating unit with either hatred, or the banner of the barrows.)

To tell you the truth i wounder the same thing when i first started them. It turns out an when the whole army causes fear ,dose not run in combat when you lose combat , being immune to psychology and and bringing back units that died and making more is amazing sooooo yeah i call that preety broke. but they are not unbeatable i mean my all goblin list beat a VC list by t3 total wipe of the bord nothing on it. you just have to know how to play agenst them

Outnumber + Fear = Holy crap

That's my response to them.

and T4 troops with 2 atks each with poison is painful. and do i realy have to say it blood knights people

Blood knights are way to overpriced.

Your over priced. blood knights and kill whole units 3 atks each with WS 5 S7 on the charge and 5 pony atks ha show me somthing that wont fall to that it will kill the front rank of anything. make most stuff flee after wards and at 55 points each they are amazing

VC aren't overpowered when you play them like Chaos. Speaking of which, have you tried WoC? Seems more your style.

deathscyth wrote:Your over priced. blood knights and kill whole units 3 atks each with WS 5 S7 on the charge and 5 pony atks ha show me somthing that wont fall to that it will kill the front rank of anything. make most stuff flee after wards and at 55 points each they are amazing

Black Guard

Large Units of Zombies

Large Units of Skeletons

Pheonix Guard

There are more, but these main units, if run correctly, won't break under Blood Knights.

Black Guard can become unbreakable with Kouran

Pheonix Guard Laugh at your S7 with a 4+ Ward

Zombies and Skeletons don't really care that you kill them...

Also, VC are broken because their core units are Immune to Psych, Cause Fear, and can be re-summoned. Their Specials and Rares are hard-hitting and/or hard to deal with.

I personally wouldn't mind fighting VC, but those are what the main points are.

The VC special characters suck except for Mannfred. In a small game Mannfred the Acolyte gives you a way to field a skull staff without putting it on your general. You can also field Lord Mannfred and have a badass caster lord that can stand up in CC. Every other VC character is completely worthless.

As for regular lords, you're better off just making them good casters and keeping them out of combat. VC doesn't win combats by killing a ton of stuff in CC. They win combat by killing a thing or two every round and then raising twice as many models as the enemy kills. Rely on your crappy rank and file to win combats and just concentrate on keeping them alive. Once your enemies are tied up with your rank and file then smash into them with your special/rare slots to decimate them.

As for normal characters, you've got plenty of choices. I always take a wight king. How many armies have a T5 3W character for less than 100 points? He's definitely a worthy candidate for the Drakenhoff Banner. You can also give him the accursed armor and the sword of kings if you want a character killer.

A necromancer is a great choice because you can mount him on a corpse cart and choose Vanhel's as one of his spells. Since he's a character mounted on a non large target you can stick him in a rank and file unit. Otherwise, your corpse cart will probably be a sitting duck.

Regular vamps are obviously a great choice. They're nice and balanced between CC and magic. I prefer focusing them on magic. Give the one that's most likely to end up in combat the flayed habuerk. That way he can hold his own. Focus the rest on his casting abilities to ensure that he can contribute during the magic phase.

speedfreak wrote:Blood knights are way to overpriced.

Only til you consider that they can be raised back. On several occasions I have had a unit of 5 shot down to 1 or 2 and then brought back to full strength. No other armies heavy calvary can do that.

artyboy wrote:The VC special characters suck except for Mannfred.

So don't use VC special characters. Are VC broken? No, Daemons are broken, VC are just better than everything else. Just shut down a VC players magic phase and you're golden. I know, hard to do, but it can be done. Also key is remembering that despite modifiers you cannot cast Invocation of Nehek on a 2 . some VC players try to pull this off, and I know you get +2 to cast, but on the roll of a 2, the spell still fails.

Afraid of Killing blow?

Cadaverous Curiass/Bloodrinker/Red Fury/avatar of death in a unit of grave guard and the Royal Standard of Strigos is a damn fine way to live. back that up with a Corpse Cart getting off the ASF bound spell and you are in a pretty soild position to live.

Vampire Lord
+ one magic level
Red Fury
Infinite Hatred
The flayed Hauberk
Crown of the Damned
Staff of damnation

430ish points
for being killy and mean mean on foot


Vampire Lord
+ one magic level
dark acolyte
master of the black arts
lord of the dead
skull staff
the flayed hauberk

440ish
for being magicy on foot

Vampire Lord
+ one magic level
dark acolyte
master of the black arts
lord of the dead
staff of damnation
walach's bloody hauberk

440ish
another magicy on foot lord

Vampire Lord
+ one magic level
Red Fury
Dread Knight
Infinite Hatred
Crown of the Damned
Staff of damnation

430ish
Killy on a mount

Vampire
Forbidden lore
Walach Bloody Hauberk
Nightmare

180ish
basic vampire,, take lore of beast with the forbidden lore ( the spell you auto get + equals very very nice unit leading vamp to rack up the cr.


The thing is this the vampire is there to be the backbone of the list and support the other units
you also have accept that you will spend Half your point on charcters , its the only way the list works because you need the vamps and necros to hold the units togther.

I don't play VC, but I was wondering if this combo would be effective?

Vampire (100) Skabscrath (causes terror), Avatar of Death (Hvy Armor and Shield), and Flying Horror (Flying) (180 total)

Single model Flying Terror causer. Little harder to hit with cannons and shooting. Of course could get zapped by magic, but it depends on how well you hide him.

I'd be careful.

Anyone who brings flying monsters might try to charge him...

I'm not a VC player, but I would definately run Manny in the army with another Vampire and Just start raising Zombies from the dead, while hiding in a unit or behind cover. This is what a friend of mine is doing and His army is tough.