Small VC Army to begin learning WHFB

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**xspire**

To transition my list from 800 to 1600 I have the following ideas:

Lords and Heroes:

I currently have a vampire hero at 200 points

Vampire (Hero)
Lvl 2
Barded Nightmare
Aura of Dark Majesty and Beguile ( Decided not to take quickblood at a small points level as I6 is strong)
Heavy armour (Probably not the best option, I'm not sure whether to give him a good weapon but at the moment I had 39 points left to spend on the hero so gave him lvl 2 wizard and heavy armour, I don't think in will matter too much whilst i'm learning - suggestions welcome)

The options I have is to add another similiar vampire hero taking up another 200 points, or to take something else. I am leaning towards taking some other things because, if I take another vampire hero I wont have anywhere else effective to put him except for in the unit of black knights, making them a huge magnet as they have both my heroes in, and if they both die my whole army suffers massively. Additionally, I can't gurantee that this unit will be staying within range of my slower core choices.

What I am thinking is keep the 200 point vampire hero, and then take a lvl 2 necromancer hero and a tomb banshee. I would then have an extra 5 points spare, so for example I could drop the lvl 2 on he vampire and have 40 extra points to spend on a weapon/armour etc etc.

My tactics would be to place the tomb banshee in my big block of core, and then take a small bunker behind that for my necromancer to chill in and the main purpose would be to keep my tarpit healthy.

Other potential ideas could be to take a lvl 4 Necromancer Lord (keep him cheap at 200 points though) and the vampire hero, but I'm completely open to suggestions at the moment as I haven't bought any extra lord/hero models yet.

Core:

For core I was thinking of expanding my skeleton unit to either 40 or making it a horde of 50 - with FC and shields.
And then taking an extra unit of 5 dire wolves to make 2 units, and a zombie bunker of 20.

This comes to 420, 20 points over the minimum but not a waste, I could drop a skeleton because the banshee would be in that unit making it 415 points.

Another idea I had was to just take 39 ghouls with a ghast and let the banshee chill with them, thats 400 exactly. I don't have any ghoul models at the moment though, so would appreciate and thoughts on completely changing my core choices.

Special:

At the moment I have:

9 Black Knights w/ FC
Barding and Lances

Ideally I want to keep this unit in my army for 1600 points, but would then be looking at adding perhaps 6 crpyt horrors or vargheists and filling the points out with some other things. After hero and core choices, and assuming I keep the black knights, I have roughly 400-500 points left over of which I'm not totally sure what to invest my money in and beef up my army with so any suggestions are welcome, what works well with what I already bought etc. - Cheers

**xspire**

Any advice at all guys? I hate to bump my own thread but the staff at my local GW are not really interested in trying to help me build a balanced, usable list - all they want to do is get me to buy expensive models, one guy was trying to pursuade me to buy Blood Knights before I had even got any core or a hero sorted out. I have my small 800 points but I want to wait for some solid advice before spending some extra money!

**jonolikespie**

I don't like a master necromancer at that points level. You *can* fit one in but you don't want to, Manfred the Acolyte is a pretty good lvl2 caster who can carry you, then you can squeeze in a ghoul king that will eat enemy units.

40 sword and broad skeletons are good, spears in a horde are not.
2 units of 5 dire wolves are good.
As is a unit of 20 zombies, but if you are over your core min I'd suggest lowering the skeletons to 36 or whatever.

After the black knights if you have the points left 6 crypt ghouls are cool, if you don't have the points a couple of units of 1 spirit host are good.

**xspire**

I don't think I can squeeze a Lord choice in really, if I take a Lord either Ghoul king or vampire I will be relying entirely on heroes/lords and 1 unit of black knights to kill everything in my opponents army, unless this is a valid tactic? I am still new after all but this is the way i'm thinking about it at the moment. I appreciate the advice of taking a caster vampire instead of trying to make room for a Lord necromancer though, it also fits in with my army theme a lot better too. Where should I put a caster vampire? Either mannfred or a normal hero choice, would they go with a unit of skeletons or would I still need to take some zombies?

I am really leaning towards picking up some Crypt horrors, everyone seems to say good things about them. I'm just trying to figure out the rest of the list to see how many I can fit in.

**jonolikespie**

xspire wrote:
... will be relying entirely on heroes/lords and 1 unit of black knights to kill everything in my opponent's army, unless this is a valid tactic?

It certainly is. You can go 2 ways with VCs, magic heavy or combat heavy. Magic heavy you flood the board with zombies then use spells to buff your combat unit. Combat heavy you put a blender vampire into a deathstar unit and kill anything and everything it touches.
You'll find it is an army where the core does nothing but die, the special is competent but nothing on their own, but the lords and heroes are amazing, so your lord will almost always be your heaviest hitter.

As for caster vampire, Manfred is a lot better than just a lvl2, but whichever one you take you're better off keeping him in the black knights. He is a vampire so he still hits hard but you want to hope he doesn't get hit back. If you don't put him in there then skeletons are your only other option really.

**xspire**

So for example, if I was taking a vampire hero and a vampire lord, would it be ok to put them both in the same unit of black knights? If i had like 13 black knights with them

**jonolikespie**

Yep.

**xspire**

Ok this is what I am thinking of as my killy unit for 1600 points then:

Vampire Lord
Barded Nightmare
Red Fury
Quickblood
Ogreblade
Heavy armour and a Shield

Vampire Hero
Lvl 2
Barded Nightmare
Aura of Dark Majesty
Beguile
Heavy armour and a Shield

13 Black Knights
w/ Lances and Barding
FC
That eats up 945 points, do you think a vampire Lord could be ran without an ogreblade? I want to trim points for a Banshee and 3 Spirit Host without ruining my Lord

**jonolikespie**

You could run him without it but I wouldn't advise it. Banshee's are good, as are spirit hosts but your lord should be the priority.
Maybe a black knight or two, you don't HAVE to run 3 ranks of 5, you could try 2 ranks of 6.

**xspire**

Well I've managed to swap a friend some 40k bits and pieces for a bag of ghouls, so what I will be running until I can get some more models is something along the lines of this:

[1600 List]

Ghoul King
Red Fury
Dragonebane Gem
(Weapon wise, I'm not too sure what to give this guy, +A or +S, I've tried to research it but most people say it's 50/50 for games around 2400 points, and I'm too much of a noob to guess which is better at 1600 - 85 points left to spend on this guy)

Vampire Hero
Lvl 2
Barded Nightmare
Aura of Dark Majesty
Beguile
Heavy armour

[199]

Vampire Hero
Barded Nightmare
Red Fury
Sword of Swift Slaying
Heavy Armour

[200]

32 Ghouls
w/ Ghast

2 units of 5 Dire Wolves

[410]

8 Black Knights
w/ FC, Lances and Barding + Screaming Banner

[263]

3 Crypt Horrors
w/ Haunter

[1596]

Open to any suggestions, I included the Crypt Horrors instead of spirit host because I felt like with only 2 block units, I'm not gonna have many options against people spamming lots of units.

**jonolikespie**

Ah, the age old question of S sword or A sword. I personally prefer the S swords. 5 attacks is good either way, and with rerolls to hit you'll kill 4 of anything each turn, then get your red fury attacks and kill another 3. Attack sword means with red fury you kill 16 goblins, but if you go up against warriors of chaos or some form of knight you only kill 3.
I prefer reliability on my lord to the chance of killing a whole unit at once.

**xspire**

That's a great arguement for +S, a lot of newer players in my area play WoC as well because they are attracted to the low model count. Would you go straight for a Giant Blade or is an Ogre blade enough for 1600 points? If so, what else would you stick on this guy to increase his killing power, if I took an Ogre Blade for example, I would have 45 points left over to spend on my Ghoul King.

**boyd**

If you find you are facing a lot of ogres, take Konrad. When he gets his charge off, you will see them cringe that a 140 point character can kill so much.

Personally, I like the ghoul king with scabscrath, the 2+ save from fire, the other tricksters shard, red fury, flight, and the one more for flavor. He should hit like a load of bricks, scream, and break the enemy. If you need to, your lord can jet across the table to assist. I try to get a bare bones necro lord too so I have lvl 4 defense too. I keep him with zombies and as a support role in the back field.

**jonolikespie**

The very least a ghoul king needs is red fury, the ogre blade, the dragonbane gem (2+ vs flaming) and the other trickster's shard (reroll ward saves). After that you can add quickblood, beguile, giant blade, then say.. channel staff? but none of those are needed.

**xspire**

Ok thanks for all the feedback on that, I'll use him like this for 1600 point games:

Ghoul King
Red Fury
Dragonebane Gem
Ogre Blade
Quickblood
The Other Tricksters Shard

Exactly 400 points!

**jonolikespie**

Looks good.