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Sooooo I'm a hobbiest first and a gamer second. that said I'm really loving the look of (most of) the vampire counts! (currently play 40k) I think the most reasonable thing for me would be to pick up a box of skeletons, tinker about with the kit and see how i feel about the sculpts and painting them and so forth.

SO my questions are:
Skeleton warriors...spears or sword and shield, mind you i know the bare logistics of kinda whats going on in fantasy, i know spears get 3 ranks and shield and sword get parry and...armor?
my idea for this army is going to be rotten, dirty, flesh hanging and so forth kind of appeal i want to try to avoid the gross looking bat creatures (they come in a set of 3 and are posed like team rocket from pokemon where they look like they're taking a family photo or something) I realize its for their bases to block together but I think it just looks...slowed at best. so im kin of shooting foooor skeletal legion of the damned kinda theme where its less vampires more skeletal stuff (i think the zombie sculpts are awful as well but not beyond saving with a nice paint job) sooo advice questions concerns are all much and well appreciated, I have no idea what I'm doing but so far I like WHFB game system over the POS that is 40k with gray knight, space wolf an blood angel and 10000 space marine chapters that 1/45 people paint to a presentable level

tl;dr
vampire counts, skeleton themed list under 1k points i guess

Well, the nice thing about VC is all vamps are warriors and mages. In a 1k army be hard to take a lord so beefing up a hero is better. You ccould take a wight king, this will help with the skeleton theme. As for core, skelies with ccw/shield get parry, spears don't get parry but a 5+ against shooting which is still good. They are all I really take as core anymore, ghouls to high points cost, dire wolves die so easy, but zombies are great but I just use spells to make them. As for specials, I prefer grave guard. Rare is hard, love my terrorgheist , used to love my blood knights but... The new book is really well done but I have some issues with it, like we all do with our favorite armies books.

I also play 40k (18+ years) but when 5th ed fantasy came out I started playing, actually like it better, right now, as far as game mechanics. 40k has been leaving me questioning alota the rules lately, hopefully 6th will fix things.

Hope this helps.

great thank you so much, i'll check back on this thread as my army gets going, i stll have a pile of rue book to read and an army book before i can commit to playing but I think paint 10-30 skeletons can hurt in the mean time, plus i can kinda work out the rules hands on that way as well, it helps me to shuffle stuff around to better understand stuff

I would run the Skeletons with Shield and Sword to keep them cheap.

Crypt Gouls are the better core choice over Skeletons, but if I had to have skeletons I would keep them cheap.


Spears really arn't worth the cost for only a few more piddly Str3 attacs. the parry save is far better as skeletons are meant to be anvils and it helps them survive longer.

But if you prefer the astetics of the spears then by all means go with what looks cool

So i picked up the new vamp count book yesterday, the entire unit may upgrade to spears....free

Well, I believe there are two main paths to take with VC as far as broad army themes go: either go Vampire or Necromancer (of course, there's nothing stopping you taking a bit of both).

If you want a skelly hoard army and aren't too fussed about Vamps, they you could always go pure Necro (I'll admit, I have no idea how competitive this is, as I tend to lean to the moddeling/painting side over TT - like you, I guess ). For example, a recent WD (forget which) gave several army lists, one being a Heinrich Kemmler/Krell army as a way to do a no-Vamp army (I have a similar wish-list waiting in the wings), meaning you could just as easily use your own characters using that blueprint if you'd rather make up your own fluff etc.

I thing I will say, though, if you plan on making the most out of your magic phase, paint up extra batches of skellies and have them on hand (or this can be where you stick your zombies) - any necromancer worth his rotten soul will be raising fresh troops from the ground left, right and centre!

Not too long ago, I gave my army breakdown on vampire counts for a newer player. Here is that thread (scroll down a few posts for my unit breakdown). I have been playing the vampires for a while now and I have used every unit in the book, so these are my thoughts from a first hand perspective. I hope this helps. Good luck with the new army!

Grey Templar wrote:I would run the Skeletons with Shield and Sword to keep them cheap.

Spears are free.

Grey Templar wrote:Crypt Gouls are the better core choice over Skeletons, but if I had to have skeletons I would keep them cheap.

Depends what you want out of them. Skeletons are a decent tarpit now that they're so cheap (5 points each, even with spears, is quite nice), and can fight back okay with an augment or two behind them (which is insanely easy to accomplish with one or two Lore of the Vampires casters throwing out bubble effect augments). Ghouls are a hammer unit, and they're also pretty pricey now (being 10 points each). Running only Ghouls will give you a very small army.

Grey Templar wrote:Spears really arn't worth the cost for only a few more piddly Str3 attacs. the parry save is far better as skeletons are meant to be anvils and it helps them survive longer.

Again, Spears are free. So it just comes down to whether you want them to tarpit better by having a parry save or fight a bit better from extra attacks. There's no cost decision involved.

-Loki- wrote:
Depends what you want out of them. Skeletons are a decent tarpit now that they're so cheap (5 points each, even with spears, is quite nice)

Considering this, along with the inherent "hoardiness" of skellies, anyone else feel it's rather criminal that they've been reduced to just 10 models a box? I fear what this entails for the as yet un-updated sets that still have 20 models in them...

I fully intend to use a ton of rank filling units such as:

http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Warlord/sku-down/14547#detail/IG_1289_1

to represent maybe 4 models, sprinkle stuff like that and some guys coming out of the ground and i'll have a horde that has some dimension. I will be attempting to go mostly undead although the vampire bit of it is growing on me a bit. My local area is fairly casual and there isn't a GW store thats a reasonable distance so thats not an issue either way.

Thank you for that thread link btw and all your input guys, I'm still looking over the army book and enjoying it endlessly

Anfauglir wrote:

-Loki- wrote:
Depends what you want out of them. Skeletons are a decent tarpit now that they're so cheap (5 points each, even with spears, is quite nice)

Considering this, along with the inherent "hoardiness" of skellies, anyone else feel it's rather criminal that they've been reduced to just 10 models a box? I fear what this entails for the as yet un-updated sets that still have 20 models in them...

I'm making two blocks of 50 skeletons. Consider that in Australia, Skeletons are $41au per box. That's $410au at local prices for 2 core units.

I won't be buying them locally. Dicebucket will be getting my money for the more palateable $19.80 per box.

-Loki- wrote:
I'm making two blocks of 50 skeletons. Consider that in Australia, Skeletons are $41au per box. That's $410au at local prices for 2 core units.

I won't be buying them locally. Dicebucket will be getting my money for the more palateable $19.80 per box.

Ouch. This is why my wish-list may stay a wish-list, especially considering it's a skelly hoard that draws me to the army, alongside the cool necromancy, of course.

Like I said... criminal. It's the same now for a lot of cavalry sets too, methinks. 10 is a nice round number for them, 5 just don't cut it... just like 20 is a nice number for infantry - especially for hoards and especially for core units that are supposedly the backbone (literally, hehe) and/or signature unit for the army.

Zombies really are the signature unit for Vampire Counts, and they're still 20 to a box.

Speaking of that, I really should buy a box or two before the price hike this year. I have a feeling they might split up the zombie box to 10 models.

-Loki- wrote:Zombies really are the signature unit for Vampire Counts, and they're still 20 to a box.

Hmm, well I've always viewed the skellies as the seminal VC unit, and I think they've always been marketed as such;

GamesWorkshopDOTcom wrote:Clad in corroded armour, their lifeless hands gripping swords, spears and shields these undead warriors should form the bulk of your army. Large units of Skeletons standing rank upon rank, side by side are the defining feature of a Vampire army.

Speaking of that, I really should buy a box or two before the price hike this year. I have a feeling they might split up the zombie box to 10 models.

That would probably be wise... as it seems this 10-in-a-box thing for core infantry is slowly but surely taking over.

-Loki- wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I would run the Skeletons with Shield and Sword to keep them cheap.

Spears are free.

Still not worth it IMO. The extra rank of Str3 attacks is worse then having 5+/6+ saves.