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OK, I was pondering making a vampire counts army, but I have no idea what play style works well for them. I really don't want to play a hoard army (again) so can anyone steer me in the right directions?

Well, you can do fairly well by just using a few units of core troops [and minimum size, too, if you want!] and just beef them up larger using magic. Then you can have more points going into the harder, more elite units and characters.

I emphasize that: AND CHARACTERS. Some armies can take a single general, maybe a scroll caddy, and get by on superior troops. You can't. You need characters to make sure you have lots of crappy troops to mess with the enemy and keep them from firing everything at your hard troops - and even help keep those alive too.

My army maxes out characters every time, all vampires or sometimes a wight lord BSB [Toughness 5 and 3 wounds, hero choice? Sign me up!]. I bring minimum units of skeletons or ghouls [don't mix them, one or the other!] and the vampires can all summon them above starting size. I like the Varghulf, so I bring him, and I'm a big fan of Cairn Wraiths. I bring a Corpsecart for help with resurrections, and then I squeeze in some kind of hard unit. Either a small unit of black knights or a large unit of grave guard, depending on points.

Never take Blood Knights. They aren't worth it.

Give someone that's a Vampire the Helm of Commandment. VERY nice making Wraiths WS6 for a turn, or even a unit of ghouls or skeletons.

Sounds to me like you will still need alot of models, does this army rely solely on hoards of undead?

You don't need alot of models at the start of the game, but VC power lies in the ability to raise entire units up mid game, so if you start with 20 zombies you may have 60 or more by games end, so you would need the extra models for those summoned.

That being said, VC combat and tactics are not horde style at all. Although I shudder to think of the all zombie army out there.