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Hi folks,

At the moment I am very tentatively flirting with the idea of getting into fantasy for the very first time, and have a couple of questions. Been a 40k player for a long time but think the time may have come for a bit of fantasy, mostly because I just want to look at a big horde of skeleton warriors. My introduction to wargaming and miniatures 15 or 16 years ago was watching my big cousin paint his Undead army, so there's probably a bit of nostalgia at work too.

First of all, I am not a competitive player, I don't really care about winning every game, and the army I build will be mostly based on aesthetics, but I would like to know if my plan is viable at all as It does seem rather simple. An initial 2000 point list that I put together consisted of 1 hellsteed mounted vampire lord, 20 Black Knights (in either 1 or 2 units), 3 blobs of 30 Skeletons, a couple of necromancers and possibly a few spirit hosts. Very little else. Maybe the odd Wight King or Cairn Wrath thrown in occasionally. No zombies or ghouls or wolves.

So rather than ask about a specific list, I'd just like to know what what you thought about the viability of an army made up of just a skeleton core with some black knights?
And how about the size of those skeleton units? One of the guys at the club ( a TK player) reckoned that 30 is much too small, so what do you think 3x30ish, or 2x50? Or is that still not big enough a core? 3x50? I really don't know if I can paint 150 skeletons.

And also, by how much must I prepare for expansion through the raising of the dead and such? (So that I've got an idea of how many extra skeletons I should paint to have on hand)

Thanks for reading guys, and thanks for any input you can offer.

Alan

For extra skeletons, you pretty much don't need any. At most you get a single caster who can increase the size of skeletons, and if it is remotely useful to do, you can count on your opponent dispelling it.

If you want to do a skeleton based army, I would suggest 2 big units and 1 or 2 smaller units. Use the smaller units to cover your flanks and hide your characters (necromancers).
Use the bigger units to hold out and let the heroes do the hammering. At the very least, I'd put a Wight King in with each big skeleton block; though a 2nd cheap hero would be nice (another wight king, or a wraith).
Support with black knights, and maybe Grave Guard.

Works out just fine. You've got the characters to make some kills, the skeletons to give you static combat res and break steadfast, and knights to cover the flanks. Add in some support (spirit hosts and hexwraiths) and you have a very effective skeleton themed undead list.

The army is totally playable without ghouls, zombies and the other vampirey stuff.

-Matt

Someone on the TK board ran the numbers and worked out that you need 50+ with a prince (giving them WS5) or 80+ without to be viable (both with FC in horde). So when your TK friend says 30 is too small, that's where he's coming from.

Now obviously TK and VC are very different, so YMMV. You have heroes that are better at generating active CR, and can raise your skellies beyond the unit cap.

I'd still say that 30 is too small a unit to really be doing all that much on its own. Run in bus it might be alright, but then you're not generating the attacks back necessary to pull out a victory so it's really just a stalling game. If that's all you want then great, but as a TK player I build my skittle units for grinding out victories (though it usually takes 5-6 combat phases to get there).

I use a single unit of 50 in my core, alongside zombies and dire wolves. I think less would not be so great.

Everything Matt says is correct, in my opinion.

Thanks guys, your advice is really appreciated. I'll start with 2 big blobs of 50 with full command and a hero or two, and build from there. Black knights, spirit hosts, maybe hexwraiths or terrorghiest (cos it looks cool) for support.

And so, a vampire lord (lvl 3or4)mounted on a nightmare amongst my black knights is a fairly decent hard hitting hq unit? And an ok way to deliver the vampire into combat?

Also, how do you field your necromancers? In terms of numbers, positioning and general strategy?

Thanks again,

Alan

 alanmckenzie wrote:

And so, a vampire lord (lvl 3or4)mounted on a nightmare amongst my black knights is a fairly decent hard hitting hq unit? And an ok way to deliver the vampire into combat?

Yes and yes.

 alanmckenzie wrote:


Also, how do you field your necromancers? In terms of numbers, positioning and general strategy?

Depends. If you're putting "one or two" heroes into both of your skeleton units, you'll likely only have points for a single necromancer. You might not even have points for that.

For the most part, I've never found more than one to be that useful, but I also don't use a build for my army that would create useful opportunities for more than one. There are quite a few good builds for Vampire Counts that include more than one, but I don't think you've got that build going currently.

As for general strategy... if you only have one and he's a hero level, the general strategy is to not get him killed. His main job will be to try to stay as close as possible to your skeleton units and cast Invocation of Nehek every turn that you can spare the power dice. This forces your opponent to waste dispel dice to prevent that spell from going off, because if it does, that necromancer will be topping-up those skeleton units a lot otherwise. And that spell might never, ever go off, but then your opponent has less dispel dice to put against your Lord.

As for positioning, you want him to be as close as possible to your skeleton units without actually being inside them. If he's inside them, he'll be forced into the front rank and will be killed on the first round that his unit is in combat. You also don't really want him walking around alone, because he's too easy of a target for shooting. There are times and matchups in which this isn't so bad, though. Just depends.

The best positioning for him is in a minimal-sized unit of zombies that sits in the backfield (behind the skeleton units) every game and every turn and never sees combat. A unit of zombies like that is 20 models and 60 points, and worth including if you're determined to use a necromancer.

Make sure to check out wargamesfactory for your skeletons. They're $20 for 30, which is WAY cheaper than the GW variant. They also mix quite well with VC skeletons, I've found.