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Hello,

I'm currently puttering around with starting a Vampire Counts army (I love the idea of swelling hordes of undead mixed with some hard hitting units) and was hoping to see if I'm headed in the right direction.

Here is my list:

Lord:
Vampire Lord - Barded Nightmare, Shield, Mastery Level 3, Red Fury, Quickblood, Armor of Destiny, Dawnstone, Sword of Swift Slaying = 497

Heroes:
Necromancer - Mastery Level 2, Master of the Dead = 120
Necromancer - Mastery Level 1, Dispell Scroll = 90
Wight King - Battle Standard Bearer, Enchanted Shield= 115

Core:
Skeletons X52 - Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer = 290 (Necromancer w/ MotD goes here)
Zombies X20 - Musician (Other Necromancer Here?) = 65
Zombies X20 = 65
Dire Wolves X5 = 40
Dire Wolves X5 = 40

Special:
Grave Guard X20 - Great Weapons, Seneschal, Musicial, Standard Bearer, Banner of the Barrows (7 Across, Wight King goes here) = 320
Spirit Host X1 - 45

Rare:
Blood Knights X4 - Musician, Standard Bearer, Flag of Blood Keep - 320

Total: 1982 Points

Thoughts?

With the sprit host I don't think that they would be very effective unless they are in a unit of 3+, then they might survive more than a turn of combat. I would take out the sprit host and reinvest the points into another blood knight. Then I would add in another grave guard model because its better to have a full rank +1 just incase you loose that extra guy in combat for rank bonus.

The zombies I would form into one unit of 40 for the horde formation and to hold down the enemy while the blood knights or grave guard go into the flank. I would suggest you loose the level 1 Necromancer and use his points to point your level two into a corpse cart to give your zombies always strike first.

A few things I noticed:

You have DOUBLE ASF on your vampire lord... quick blood and the sword both provide it. Drop the sword you have for something with plus strength. Your current build is slightly different from the usual one, but you could still put on the sword of might for str 6 attacks.

Wight king is whatever. You could buff him up a little more or just leave him nice and cheap as is. I would consider upping the Grave Guard count though to more like 27-29 (for 28 or 30 total, respectively)

For your necros I would put them both in a zombie bunker behind your line and push the skeletons forward without a necro in the front. He'll just die anyway.

Speaking of dying, your blood knights plus lord will be the largest target on the board and WILL draw a whole lot of attention that they don't want/ can't handle.

Not saying that unit won't wreck face, but it will face a lot of problems as it is basically a 5 man death star in itself.

I like it, very Blood Dragon style list, got a similar build at 1200 haha...

Only problem I can see is, it's great having a choppy lord with the blood knights buy every bit of ranged pain is going to go into those blood knights as they will hurt everyone the hardest.

You'd (I think) be better served having your killy vamp in with the skeletons, dropping the wight king and chucking a necromancer in with the grave guard (killy in thier own right).

Maybe (not sure how) try to get some varghiests or something else that is quite fast and hopefully vampiric to take the heat off of your blood knights.

Look at it from the enemies perspective.

"oh well I'll shoot the bloodknights and blender lord with everything I have first turn, and probably second turn if they don't get a charge off, now with that threat sorted and the fact you've copped a quick round of crumble and can no longer march I'll shoot the grave guard and then eventually get around to your skeletons and zombies"

With the other build (if you can get some vargs in).

you're oppenent should be more like:
"gak ok, need to kill those tough arse blood knights, while watching out for the vargs flying toward me on the other flank, crap I also need to dig through those marching skeletons with the blender lord in there as that is really going to hurt when it hits my lines, oh grab and those grave guard keep getting up from all the necromancers dropping IoV"

Also maybe drop the mastery on your vamp as you don't want him dropping down a hole (use for low level IoN) and maybe get an extra necromancer with a book of arkhan to make your Skele bus be able to move up a cheeky 16" on the first turn (or get a banner of swiftness for an even cheekier 18" ).

With the rebuild, maybe chuck a cheap dispel necro with the ironcurse icon in the grave guard to help mitigate warmachine pain (steal for 5pts really).

Sorry if that is really badly written, hopefully it helps

 Commissar-Danno wrote:
The zombies I would form into one unit of 40 for the horde formation and to hold down the enemy while the blood knights or grave guard go into the flank. I would suggest you loose the level 1 Necromancer and use his points to point your level two into a corpse cart to give your zombies always strike first.

Just a quick tip with VC: DO NOT DO THIS. Or at least be very careful doing so. Whilst the hammer and anvil tactic works well with most other armies, if you charge an expensive VC unit into an enemy unit that is already in combat with Zombies, your enemy is just going to attack your Zombies and kill loads, causing you to lose combat, at which point both the zombies and your really expensive unit crumble. If you think you can still win combat, or can finish off the enemy unit before it gets to strike, fine. Just don't do this without thinking it through.

As for the list, I have a few comments:

With the Vampire Lord, I would run with the standard Blender which, at 2000pts, looks something like this: Lvl4, RF, QB, Heavy Armour, Ogre Blade, Tali. of Endurance, Enchanted Shield, Ironcurse Icon. This gives you a good mixture of brilliant offence with good defence, and ensures you have that all important Lvl4.

For the rest of your characters, I'd consider using Shadow Magic on the Lvl1 Necro, because Melkoths is awesome on Grave Guard. Also, drop the Wight King completely. For VC, a BSB does more harm than good, it's only benefit being one less crumble, whereas you're paying over 100pts for it (because you need an unnecessary Wight King to take it) and your opponent can get an extra 100VPs for it. It's ok on a Hero Vamp, but tbh, the points are better spent elsewhere.

Speaking of which, use any leftover points to bump up that Grave Guard unit as much as you can, as they work best around 30 (or higher). I've yet to try Blood Knights in a game, I hear they're not the best choice, but they can be good and you've got a good build for them as well.

Hope this helps

So how about this?

Vampire Lord - Mastery Level 4, Heavy Armor, Red Fury, Quickblood, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Endurance, Enchanted Shield, Ironcurse Icon = 491

Necromancer - Mastery Level 2, Master of the Dead (So I can get my skeletons up as well) = 120
Necromancer - Mastery Level 1, Dispell Scroll, Lore of Shadows - 90
Necromancer - Mastery Level 1, Lore of Shadows = 65

Skeleton Warriors X49 - Musician, Standard Bearer, Champion, Banner of Swiftness (290) Vampire Lord Here
Dire Wolves X5 = 40
Dire Wolves X5 = 40
Zombies X20 - Musician = 65
Zombies X20 - Musician = 65

Grave Guard X25 - Great Weapons, Seneschal, Musician, Standard Bearer, Banner of the Barrows = 380

Blood Knights X5 - Musician, Standard Bearer, Flag of Blood Keep = 345

That's 1991 Points, I'll probably just pick up some cheap magic trinket and an extra model in the Core.

Thoughts?

Looking better man!

I'd be tempted to drop all the lvls off your lord, drop a necro and add a master necro.

I'd still love to see another fast moving threat so those pimp arse blood knights dont get picked out as the only cannon bait!

Looking much more focused though!

The list is looking a lot better, just a few nitpicks:

Drop the Shadow Magic Necro that isn't carrying a Dispel Scroll (unnecessary) and downgrade the MotD Necro to Lvl1 (all you want is Invocation). This saves you 100 points. There's a lot of stuff you could do with this, but I'd buy 4 more Grave Guard and two units of 2 Fell Bats to use as chaff. You'll have to drop the Icon on the Vamp Lord though.

And finally, move the Vamp Lord to the Grave Guard.

Hope this helps!