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Hello everyone I'm fairly new at vampire counts, I've bought a whole bunch of stuff but I'm having trouble playing against dwarves. Unfortunately it is the team I will be fighting against most often. Could someone suggest a basic build (assuming I have unlimited numbers of anything available) that would work well against those evil munchkins! Lets say 1k points. Should I stay away form spells as much as possible since they can dispel everything I try to do? Thanks

At 1000 pts your going to have some issues
This is caused by the fact that vamps are a character heavy army while dwarf chars can clock in prety cheeply.


You need your magic, simply because his troops are better.
If you cannot seem to get any off tell him you want to go to a higher point level where his two free dispel dice (4 vs normal 2) don't matter as much.

The simple fact of the matter is the game is balanced around 2k to 2.5k games. Some match ups don't work at 1k.

2k is ok too. He will play whatever I ask him. (other than when I ask him to play a different army! LOL)

So should I focus on zombies ghouls or skeletons? I prefer the look of the skeletons but I don't want that to influence me into a losing army.

What usually kills me is his ironbreakers but moslty his cannons and other big guns just destroy my big units before I can even have a hope of making it across the board to him.

since dwarfs got loads of armor i would get some of the units with killing blow in VC.

also try to shield your good units with cheap blocks of zombies and skeletons.

maybe get some dire wolfs that can run around his army and kill his warmachines.

Could you tell us what he usually takes?


A large-ish unit of Grave Guard with a wight lord or Vampire BSB with the Regeneration banner would do very well. Basically the only things you'd worry about were war machines with the flaming rune - and even then, just devote most of your casting to re-summoning the unit back to full strength. 2 or 3 Vampires using all of their dice to keep casting invocation of nehek is hard for most armies to stop - stop all of it, anyway.

I've found a Varghulf to be very useful. On top of being tough, most dwarf players won't hesitate to launch cannonballs at a big scary ranked unit over a single monster - it's actually quite hard to hit single-based targets with those inaccurate cannonballs. He's great at killing warmachine crews and even does well versus their ranked units, especially if you have vampires nearby to heal him.

Cairn Wraiths also really mess with dwarves. They can only be hurt by magic attacks, which means rune-warmachines, Anvil of Doom, or close combat. You can actually use them to SCREEN a unit from dwarf firepower. Cannons will only hit one of them so that's not a problem, and if the anvil really does a lot of damage, they can be healed [though it's difficult]. Keep a corpse cart nearby. Vampires only ever get 1 wound restored from invocation even with the cart, but ethereal units will get 2 from each casting.

And despite their being Ld 9 or 10, having those two terror-causing units in their face will probably make SOMETHING run away. Standard dwarf units also have a tough time winning combat against basic skeletons. A large unit of dwarf warriors hits on 3's and wounds on 4's against skeletons, who get a 4+ save. Statistically, as long as you outnumber him, you'll win or tie combat every time. Weaken a unit with magic or have a vampire in the skeleton unit and you'll pretty much win every round - and then the dwarves will be running!

I really like skeletons for that very reason - armor. A big unit of zombies might be able to kill a unit of gunners, but against ranked units they don't stand a chance unless they're in the flank.

So with the wraiths just use them to block and never get them into combat? I have found that they are so expensive for how easy a large unit of junk can kill them. I haven't had much luck at all with them. Except in warbands, LOL

So always go 3 vampires, a corpse cart, graveguard, skelletons, skelletons, skelletons, and wraiths?

What do you think of spirit host? I just finished painting up 5 bases of them. All empire ghosts.

I don't like PAYING for spirit hosts, but it's nice when I can summon a unit using Wind of Undeath. Unlike wraiths, they can cancel ranks when they charge in the flank - very nice, and they're fast at M6.

Wraiths don't JUST screen. At deployment you might line them up across an important unit, then march forward on the LOS line between the dangerous shooty unit and the unit you want to block. Then start wreaking havoc - with a Danse Macabre you'll be charging said unit on turn 2, so you don't need to screen for very long.

Wraiths charging the front of a ranked unit may not do so well. Most units will have 3 ranks, numbers and a banner on you, and a musician in case of a tie, meaning you'll need to do 6 wounds to them and hope they don't have a magic weapon or additional combat res. Assuming wraiths are on their own, you'll need about 6-7 of them attacking in order to average 7-8 wounds that the enemy will save a few of. Things to increase your odds:

Charge them in the flank - can't cancel ranks, but the +1 res from flanking helps

Keep a Vampire with the Helm of Command nearby - WS6 wraiths are much deadlier than WS3 wraiths, and this brings the average to like....4, rather than 6-7 wraiths needed to really hurt the enemy.

Cast Danse Macabre AFTER they enter combat - re-rolling misses ALSO reduces the number of wraiths you need to win combat. Using it on a unit that's fairly large anyway is just icing on the cake though, as you're not going to be outnumbering them and so they'll just be making a regular break test.

Charge wraiths in along with another unit.

Just a simple unit of zombies in the flank or something will really seal the deal. Even a unit of 5-10 just to cancel ranks really hurts. Just be careful though, on what sort of enemy you do this to. Empire spearmen, dwarf warriors? Ok fine. Dark Elf Corsairs? No way. They'll rack up so much combat res by killing zombies that it will actually hurt you. Skeletons wouldn't be bad either, whether in the flank or the front, just to give the rank, numbers, and banner bonus to your own side. In fact wraiths are pretty much a really good addition to ANY combat, as since most units lack magic weapons, it's free damage for you, at no penalty.

They also work fairly well against monsters and the like, since they have multiple high-strength attacks and monsters don't have magical attacks. They'll do a lot of damage versus Ogres, too.

I've had a lot of success against my dwarf-playing buddy by going light on magic and decking out my heroes for close combat. Dread Knight and Infinite Hatred on a vampire hero and he's good to go.

The Helm of Command on a vampire outside combat is a great way to make skeletons more effective. Taking the vampire's WS6 will have dwarves needing 4+ instead of 3+, and ups you to a 3+ from a 5+ to hit him back. I like to hold a unit in place with skeletons while cavalry comes in from the flank.

A couple cheap units of dire wolves are great to harass his war machines, either taking fire or tying them up in melee. If you're lucky they'll actually win the combat.

If he relies on a big block of Ironbreakers, try to save them for last when you can surround them. Low movement on all his troops means that you'll have a pretty easy time of outmaneuvering him the whole game.

I haven't tried ethereal units on him yet, since I'm afraid of his magic bolt throwers and cannons. Blood Knights are great if you can avoid taking fire from war machines--I usually keep a unit or two of dire wolves around to screen.

Well, I play both Dwarves and Vampire Counts so I know roughly the strengths and weaknesses of both decently well.
Dwarves being the short buggers they are, can't move very fast, and other then the Gyrocopter, the chances of getting charged are relatively slim. This is the biggest advantage available to you. Vampire Counts can move around pretty darn quickly, and have a fair amount of hard hitting units.

The Lord can go either two ways: staying back to support, or getting in there and taking some beards for his belt. Either boost up his magic so he has 6 dice on his own, and can add to skeleton or whatever core you focus on, with helm of commandment, bound spell, and some magic protection as an added boost. Alternatively you could make him a monster of combat, and send him headlong into a group of dwarves along with a group of vampire knights. My personal preference is to have him back off, so the army I recommend below fits that better. You should take at least 2 other magic users in order to be effective, 3 if you have the points for it. I find 2 others to generally be enough, and a Wight King is a useful character for fighting dwarves. Giving him the Sword of Kings, and either the acursed armor (T6 now) or Flayed Hauberk if on foot. If on a horse with black knights, give him the sword of kings again, and acursed armor. Regardless of the -3 to WS and I, with the Helm of Commandment from the nearby VC he will still count as WS 7, and if he is on a horse, and got charged by a dwarf... well we have a house rule whereby if a dwarf unit charges a calvary unit, dwarf player gets morale victory. XD

For your core, I'd say go with a couple of groups of skeletons, along with a corpse cart. For the elite, I would probably have 2 units of black knights, 1 unit of Graveguard, and 1 unit of Fellbats to go warmachine hunting. Give one of the units of black knights the banner of wights, and the other the banner of strigos. One group will get +1 to hit, while the other can re-roll failed to miss, allowing for relatively reliable cavalry. About 20 graveguard should be sufficient to hold off most dwarves, if you decide to take a Wight King, but him in either the black knights or graveguard, its both useful and fluffy.

To make sure the Black Knights are moving, either have a vampire riding around behind them (risky if he gets canon sniped), or add a Varghulf in.
The basic tactic here is to make your black knights/varghulf sweep around while your skeletons and graveguard hold the line.

As an extra annoyance, you can also summon some zombies to block line of sight to units, meaning only the indirect fire can do anything. As an added bonus, with invocation of Nehek, which all your vampires know, whichever unit gets hit can be restored, meaning that even if you suffer in the shooting phase, all hope is not lost as Invocation is cast on a 4, and as a necromancy spell you can spam the crap out of it as long as required.

Wouldn't the Cairn Wraith's Tomb Banshee be a powerful choice for this match up?

Oreo_Golem wrote:Wouldn't the Cairn Wraith's Tomb Banshee be a powerful choice for this match up?

The banshee won't be killing many dwarves as the lowest Ld is 9.

BUT CWs and banshee will be decent vs warmachine crews and shooting units (i.e. thunderers).