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Recently a friend got a good deal on some vampires and is going to try them out to renew his interest in Fantasy. He is a solid tournament player, though not one of those WWAC kind, and doesn't really know what all is good in vampires. I looked over the book with him and reached the same conclusion that there is a lot of good stuff in there. So I told him since I've been around Fantasy more in the past year or so that I would scour the internet for help and make a list for him to try out. That brings me here Dakkanites. What is good in vampires now? I remember certain builds for lords, none for heroes unfortunately, but am unsure if those builds are still applicable in today's competitive environment. So can I count on you all for assistance? I'll be posting up a list shortly* that will use what I recall being good, plus some judgement calls by me, and would appreciate feedback on that.

*=Link to the army list.

So the first thing your friend will want to do is find the White Dwarf with the Vampire Counts rules updates (Wraiths and Banshees being Hero choices, Terrorgheist rules).

Secondly, your friend should decide whether he wants a Combat oriented or Magic oriented Vampire Lord. If he decides to go with a Combat oriented Lord, I'd advise a supporting caster to make sure you have a variety of spells. Wraiths and Banshees are really good Heroes to take as well (can pop out of units to tie up things like a War Hydra, or redirect units). Then there is the Wight King BSB (most often seen with the Regeneration Banner). I'd only take this if you are going for a Grave Guard horde.

For a strong Vampire Counts list your friend will probably want to use Ghouls (for minimum Core) and Grave Guard as the main combat blocks. Do consider your amount of Banners when writing an army list in this edition, as not having enough will lose you the game in the Blood and Glory mission. For this reason, a Magic oriented Vampire Lord is usually bunkered in a Skeleton unit (combat abilities don't really matter as you don't want your General there and they cost the same as Ghouls but can take a Banner).

Rare is where the most variety is found in the strong Vampire Counts lists. The Black Coach, Varghulf and Terrorgheist are all great choices. Cairn Wraiths are probably better to take in the Heroes section (probably more points left there). Blood Knights are decent, but for pure combat damage I would look at getting more Grave Guard with Great Weapons instead.

I know my friend likes a combat lord, but I'm unsure how to run one. Vampires have a lot of equipment that looks nice in their book, and I'm sure there are good combos hidden within.

By supporting caster what do you mean? Another lord or a Dark Acolyte Hero? Also is it important to have separate raiser for the different units (IE one for skeletons and one for ghouls)?

Why do you say, or seem to indicate, that Grave Guard have better combat damage then the Blood Knights? The Knights get 30-ish attacks, where as the Guard get 11.

Forgive the rather simple questions, but both me and my friend are walking blind here. My knowledge of skaven doesn't help too much as I don't use many items and rely more on units themselves.

Since the Vampire Lord will also be the General (and we all know what happens once VC lose their General), you will want good survivability. The best survivability gear should be taken to ensure your Vampire Lord will survive long enough to not have the army fall apart. For a combat oriented Vampire Lord on foot this generally means taking The Flayed Hauberk and Crown of the Damned. For a mounted version (I wouldn't recommend this) the best option would probably be Dread Knight and Crown of the Damned. Then, as you may know, a combat oriented Vampire Lord always wants to take The Red Fury. The weapon selection of your Vampire Lord is based around this ability. The weapons that combine well with The Red Fury are: Dreadlance, Giant Blade, Blood Drinker and Sword of Strife. A Vampire Lord on foot will only be able to afford Blood Drinker or Sword of Strife, with the latter being (in my opinion) the best option (due to a Vampire Lord on foot being with fairly cheap models, making the Blood Drinker less good than with more expensive models). For a mounted Vampire Lord, you will want either Giant Blade, Dreadlance or Blood Drinker. Again, Blood Drinker is the least damage oriented of the choices. Giant Blade is probably superior to Dreadlance (mainly because of what comes next). To increase the amount of hits (and therefore the use of The Red Fury) you can add Infinite Hatred (unless you have taken Dreadlance, in which case it is useless). In short, my favorite combat oriented Vampire Lord is:
Vampire Lord, Level 3, The Flayed Hauberk, Crown of the Damned, Sword of Strife, The Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Ghoulkin.

As for supporting caster, I meant a Hero Vampire. Unless you are running 3000 points or more, you probably won't be able to field two Vampire Lords. I wouldn't give him Dark Acolyte, but would rather give him The Forbidden Lore, which will give you access to an entire Lore. Lore of Beasts has crazy good synergy with a combat oriented Vampire Lord, the signature spell is amazing for any unit and the Transformation can actually be worth it on a Hero level caster! Something like the following set-up should be good:
Vampire, The Forbidden Lore (Beasts), Helm of Commandment, Black Periapt.

As for the raising powers, they are not what they used to be in 7th edition. Due to Wizard levels as bonus to cast, the reduction of 4+ to 3+ is never used (a 1 or 2 as a casting result is always a fail, meaning you will always get 4 on a succesful cast if your Wizard level is 1 or higher). It can be useful to be able to raise your Ghouls over starting size, but I wouldn't consider taking any of the other raising powers.

Blood Knights have 30-ish attacks? In my book the Knights get 2 + 1 (frenzy) attacks, meaning a unit of 5 (a massive points investment) gets 15 attacks, plus 5 WS3 S4 attacks from the Nightmares. For a similar amount of points you can get a unit of 20 Grave Guard with command, which will have 13 attacks. Their Strength is higher in prolongued combats and they will not immediately lose attacks when they start taking casualties. Additionally, they have Killing Blow, and aren't limited by Frenzy. Blood Knights do more damage, but Grave Guard deal damage quite well too, and they are a lot cheaper.

Okay. What about other heroes? Another vampire to raise, a necro for vanhel's, wight king BSB, tomb banshee or carin wrath for ethereal hijinks?

Also I consider a good number for Blood and GLory to be seven. The VC lists I've written thus far have struggled to get six. Is there a way around this?

Here is there, pardon the pun, skeleton version of the list thus far.

Lords: 455
-Vampire Lord, +1 Lvl, Infinite Hatred, Red Fury, Ghoulkin, Flayed Haiberk, Crown of the Damned, Sword of Strife-455

Heroes: 180
Vampire, Forbidden Lore, Helm of Commandmnet, Black Periapt-180

Core: 525
30*Skeletons, Full Command, Warbanner-285
30*Crypt Ghouls-240

Special: 465
30*Grave Guard, Great Weapons, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows-465

Total=1625

Remember that your Vampire Lord also has 3 spells from the Lore of Vampires, giving you a decent chance to get Van Hel's Dance Macabre (unless you want to prioritize other good spells). Also, raising isn't as important as it used to be (one-dicing spells is pretty much history). Your Vampire Lord may get Summon Undead Horde, which is the main way to raise units at the moment. Additionally, both your Vampires have Invocation, so you should be fine. If you do want additional raising powers and certainty of Van Hel's Dance Macabre, I would add a Necromancer as they don't cost as many points. A Wight King BSB, in my opinion, is only worth it in a Grave Guard Deathstar Horde (which is a play style I don't really like). Otherwise you might as well give the Battle Standard to the supporting Vampire caster. As for Banshees and Wraiths, your friend may want to experiment a bit with how many he likes.

As for Blood and Glory, this is not a problem with the above army design, as losing your deathstar will pretty much mean a lost game anyway. In a VC army without the Grave Guard deathstar, I really like multiple units of 18 Grave Guard all with Banner. Alternatively you could use Skeletons more heavily, but I prefer to take all Ghouls (only take Skeletons if you want to bunker a Vampire out of combat).

As for the list, would your friend be playing a Deathstar based list or not? Currently, it seems to me like the list will be built around one very strong Grave Guard Horde with the Vampire Lord and a Wight King BSB with The Drakenhoff Banner in it. I don't really like the deathstar build, but it works for a lot of people.

So spellwise I want Summon Undead Hordes, Vanhel's, and Invocation. The Vamps both come with the later, but the Lord needs to get the other two from rolling. As I lvl three are his chances good to get those? I know each has a 1 in 6 chance, but both should be what 1 in 36, something like that.

From your description of the BSB he almost sounds like its not worth taking him outside of the Deathstar. Is this the case or will the minus one really prove all that effective?

We were talked out of a Deathstar with the abundance of fire that is around and about. Too many point for something everyone seems to easily counter. How successful have you found those small units? Its something I cannot fathom taking as small units of skaven die, but perhaps things are different for VC.

I think Invocation of Nehek is a 'free' spell, so the Vampire Lord will get Invocation of Nehek plus 3 spells from the Lore of Vampires. Doubles means you get to choose a spell, so the chances of getting Van Hel's Dance Macabre (assuming you exchange any double for it) are 156/216, which is pretty good in my opinion.

A Battle Standard Bearer is almost always worth taking, the question is just: do you take the Battle Standard on your supporting Vampire caster, or do you get a specific Battle Standard Bearer (Wight King)? In my opinion, you should only opt for the Wight King if you are going for the Grave Guard deathstar, as it will allow you to have a decently survivable BSB giving your deathstar Regeneration. If you aren't fielding the deathstar, there is no need for the Drakenhoff Banner, meaning your BSB shouldn't be in combat in the first place, so you might as well take it on a casting Vampire.

I think units of about 18 Grave Guard (with Great Weapons of course) are pretty solid. Only 12 of them get to strike anyway, so losing some on the way in isn't as bad. Don't expect them to go through massive blocks quickly though (unless the combat oriented Vampire Lord is with them), you have Ghoul hordes to do that job.

Invocation is indeed a "free" spell for every Vampire. In fact, you even get it if you choose a lore other than Vampire Lore via the Forbidden Lore ability.

BSB is good beyond its ability to take the Regen banner. Rerolls on Stupidity tests from the 4+ Ward helm are fantastic for example.

@ blue loki
I agree that a Battle Standard is good beyond the ability to take the Regeneration Banner, as I mentioned in my post. I just don't think it's worth taking a Wight King to carry the Battle Standard if you aren't going to take the Drakenhoff Banner.

Okay last night we worked on a new version of the list that we're actually both happy with. Three Vamps gives us 5 of the six spells, plus three Inovacations. I insisted on a Necro for Dance, just on the very, very off chance he doesn't roll it, but this could easily be dropped for some magic standards on units. Otherwise I have a loose idea on the tactics and placements should go, but nothing concrete really. It was a tough battle trying to convince him razing isn't how things go, but eventually he saw the potential. I blame 7th, and possible a Vampire Player who didn't know his rules... There isn't a way to get Grave Guard above standard number is there?

Lords: 455
-Vampire Lord, +1 Lvl, Infinite Hatred, Red Fury, Ghoulkin, Flayed Haiberk, Crown of the Damned, Sword of Strife-455

Heroes: 545
Vampire, Forbidden Lore, BSB, Helm of Commandmnet, Black Periapt-205
Vampire, Avatar of Death for shield and heavy armor, Infinite Hatred, Blood Drinker, Dragon Helm-195
Necromancer, Vanhel’s, Dispell Scroll, Iron Curse Icon-85
Carin Wraith-60

Core: 665
30*Skeletons, Full Command-265
25*Crypt Ghouls-200
25*Crypt Ghouls-200

Special: 840
30*Grave Guard, Great Weapons, Full Command-420
30*Grave Guard, Great Weapons, Full Command-420

Total=2495

If your friend is really that concerned with getting all the Lore of Vampires spells, then I would suggest just taking Lore of Vampires with the Forbidden Lore Vampire. It will give you all the spells (and some of them multiple times, as your Vampire Lord will also have them) without having to invest 280 more points into spellcasters (I think having 2x invocation + 9 other spells is enough variety). I think I like the Lore of Beasts + 3 Lore of Vampires spells most though. An additional Cairn Wraith (to join the second Ghoul unit) would be useful too (Cairn Wraiths combine very well with the Lore of Beasts buffs as well).

Are the Skeletons meant to be a bunker for the supporting Vampire? If so, you could cut a lot of Skeletons and add them as Ghouls to the other units. If not, where are you going to hide your support Vampire (he will die in combat)?

I think the Grave Guard numbers are a bit much. Unless you are planning to field them in horde formation, only 12 of them will be able to strike, meaning the rest is standing around doing nothing (in which case 13 points per model is fairly expensive). If you are planning to run them in horde formation, then the units are actually slightly too small, as you should expect to take at least some casualties going in. Since adding more models to both units isn't really an option (where are you going to get the points?), I'd advise to either go with one large horde (40 Grave Guard) or take multiple smaller units (18 Grave Guard per unit).

Is there a specific reason why you and your friend are ignoring the Black Coach, Varghulf and Terrorgheist? They are all pretty solid units.

Since this is a thread about competitive VC, I've asked this before but I don't recall getting an answer.

How good are Grave Guard with HW/Shield? I don't really want to tie so many points up in a GG deathstar with great weapons and a Drakenhof Banner, but I also don't want to have a damage dealing unit that lacks punch. However, running Great Weapons means I've got an expensive unit with just a 5+ save. I'm not going for ultra competitive, so I just want to know how well they perform.

@-Loki-
In my opinion, the role of Grave Guard in a Vampire Counts army is to be able to take on more heavily armoured units that Ghouls would have trouble with (Saurus Warriors, Chaos Warriors, any type of heavy cavalry). For this role, having Great Weapons is very useful, as you just won't make enough Killing Blows to deal damage when you are S4.

Okay a brand new redo of the Vamps list, taking what he has into account. Yes its using the Deathstar, but we feel that since he doesn't have enough to run three smaller units we can try this out and if that doesn't work well move on to try the small blocks you mentioned. For this list he needs a Terrorghiest I know, and maybe the Wight King and Carin Wraith, but otherwise has pretty much everything else.

Lords: 455
-Vampire Lord, +1 Lvl, Infinite Hatred, Red Fury, Ghoulkin, Flayed Haiberk, Crown of the Damned, Sword of Strife-

Heroes: 465
Vampire, Forbidden Lore, Helm of Commandmnet, Black Periapt-180
Wight King, BSB, Drakenhof Banner-225
Carin Wraith-60

Core: 756
30*Skeletons, Full Command-260
30*Crypt Ghouls, Ghast-248
30*Crypt Ghouls, Ghast-248

Special: 595
40*Grave Guard, Great Weapons, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows-595

Rare: 225
Terrorghiest- 225

Total=2496

I don't know if you read over this last time, but here it is again:
Are the Skeletons meant to be a bunker for the supporting Vampire? If so, you could cut a lot of Skeletons and add them as Ghouls to the other units. If not, where are you going to hide your support Vampire (he will die in combat)?

Everything else looks fairly solid, although I am not a big fan of the deathstar build.

The support Vampire is supposed to join the skelies, but I'm unsure of how many to drop. About the Deathstar though we're taking it because he can almost field it, missing I think the Wight King. Once he gets a few games with it under his belt we'll see if that or MSU of Grave Guard. The main reason behind the decision was that Grave Guard aren't cheap to buy.