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I've been thinking about starting a new army for Fantasy and recently I've been having a craving for some undead goodies, The total extent of my knowledge about the TK and VC are that they are magic reliant. What are the main differences in play style between these two undead armies? Many thanks in advance.

Well the one sucks blood and the other has a mumification fetish? :p

They tend to have a lot of simmilarities because of that damn Nagash.

They have totally different unit types and magic. Like bowmen, charriots.not sure what more. I don't really play it.

Tomb Kings are slower, because they can never march, but Vampires can march if they are within 12(?) inches of the general.

Vampires can raise models much much better than TK.

VC is a much balanced book (but that could obviously change) and TK are considered generally quite weak (that being said I chose TK out of the two)

Tomb Kings have quite a bit of shooting. VC have almost zero shooting.

There's probably more that I've missed but these are pretty major ones off the top of my head.

Both armies are defined by weaker, Unbreakable/Unstable units fielded in massive numbers and backed up by large amounts of magical Augments. This is pretty much the end of the line as far as similarities go.

Tomb Kings are the slowest army in the game because they cannot March. They are also generally perceived to be one of the weakest armies in the game at present. A lot of this weakness comes from being utterly reliant on Magic to operate, putting your army at the mercy of the Winds of Magic. Low armour on everything that isn't a Necropolis Knight but good Toughness on their monsters as a counterpoint.
Compared to Vampires, they have weaker units and characters at the benefit of having a proper shooting phase and more reliable magic. Generally play as a mixed army with heavy shooting, magical support units and little in the way of true combat.

Another more subtle difference.

Vampire Counts are usually decimated by crumble due to loss of general and spells that affect units with low leadership. Unless it's a vampire, I don't think a single unit in their book is above L4.

TK on the otherhand only have Ld5 on basic skeletons, and an 8 or better in most other units.

Princes/Kings are 8/9's. Preists are 8's. Chariots are 7 or 8. The Casket of Doom is a 10. Constructs and Snake Surfers and Giants are 8's.

So even if you mass fire to kill my heirophant, my army won't disappear instantly.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Another more subtle difference.

Vampire Counts are usually decimated by crumble due to loss of general and spells that affect units with low leadership. Unless it's a vampire, I don't think a single unit in their book is above L4.

TK on the otherhand only have Ld5 on basic skeletons, and an 8 or better in most other units.

Princes/Kings are 8/9's. Preists are 8's. Chariots are 7 or 8. The Casket of Doom is a 10. Constructs and Snake Surfers and Giants are 8's.

So even if you mass fire to kill my heirophant, my army won't disappear instantly.

Hey now, ghouls are Ld 5...

That aside it may hurt us for a turn but if you have a vampire in the unit it gets his ld 7 & even at Ld7 its a max of 5 wounds, which we can easily bring back.
The main thing is VC want to have another caster with LoV that way he can pick up for the general & we don't need to keep testing.

Ok, here goes:

- VC are considered to be a stronger, and more balanced, book, overall.
- When the VC General dies, your army crumbles. Once. If you have another Lore of Vampire caster, you stop crumbling until they too die. On the other hand, if the TK Heirophant dies, your army crumbles and there's nothing you can do to stop it. However, as TK units' Ld is higher overall, they don't feel the effects of crumble quite as keenly.
- TK are very shooting-orientated. That's not to say they can't do combat well (and they can), it's just that VC have literally no proper shooting, whereas TK can viably field an entire ranged army.
- TK's magic is stronger (though VC's is still good)
- VC can resurrect models much easier, including bring whole new units into play
- TK cannot march (ever), whereas VC can do so if in range of the General (and certain units can all the time), making VC faster. Note the comparative. VC really aren't fast, just TK are even slower!
- VC have a much higher abundancy of Ethereal models
- VC have much stronger combat characters, some of the best in the game. The Tomb King ones are still decent though.
- Speaking of which, TK Princes and Kings pass on their unmodified WS to any unit they join, which is cool.
- TK have units which can "deep strike"
- TK have chariots (and can also make entire armies of chariots) and war machines. VC do not (really)
- TK's monsters are Necrosphinxes etc, and VC's monsters are Terrorgeists etc. They're two very different kinds of monsters.
- TK don't like fire.
- TK's Special Characters are actually pretty good, on the whole, whereas VC's aren't, really, except for perhaps one.
- VC have cooler magic items

Quite a few differences there, some of them minor, some major. Hope it helps!

Having played both (and enjoyed both!) I can sum up their differences in these simple terms:

VC rely on Vampires (combat characters) to do their killing, and the list revolves around getting them into combats you want them in while everything else just ties up other units.

TK rely on units and synergy to do their killing, so nothing can really handle things on its own but the army as a whole can be tough to deal with with strong shooting and combat units.

Personally the TK play-style appeals to me more, but to each their own.

Haha, I lack the patience and foresight to do anything more then "I'm gonna run there and club it in the face."

 gnoise wrote:
Haha, I lack the patience and foresight to do anything more then "I'm gonna run there and club it in the face."

Then perhaps you'd like Ogre Kingdoms of Warriors of Chaos more. Just a suggestion.