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I'm looking to start a vampire counts army and was looking for advice on how to build my vampire lord. While the core of my army would be classic zombies and skeletons I am unsure whether to go full on wizard vampire or go "blender lord" with the magic coming from necromancers. Any help would be great, thanks.

In my opinion, if you want to go Magic-heavy in your Lord choices, there's very little point paying extra points for combat potential you aren't really after. Furthermore, once you start taking some of the best magical items (such as the Black Periapt on your Lord choice, and a Scroll on a Hero wizard), you don't have enough points allowance left to get all the gear and upgrades that make combat vampire Lords so scary. As a result, you have a wizard who is overcosted for his wizarding potential, and doesn't really pull his weight in combat either. Like many things in Fantasy, you want to be at one extreme of the scale, and having something in the middle tends not to work. Mannfred Von Carstein is a decent choice if you're aiming for a mixture of both though.

If you're going Magic Heavy, a Lvl4 Necromancer with the Black Periapt and the talisman of Preservation, bunkered in a big, 5-wide unit of Skeletons with full command and two Tomb Banshees (hence pushing the Necro to the second rank) is the way to go, in my opinion. A cheap Vampire/SGK is an option to act as your general and hence allow your Necro to take Death. I'd then get two-three hero Necros on a mix of Death/Vampires and maybe grab a couple of the nice Arcane Items the VC have to offer.

That's not to say that Magic Vampires don't work - they certainly do - it's just that you're better off simply loading your Vampire Lord up for combat and then upgrading him to a Level 4 and maybe giving him the Earthing Rod too. This still gives you an all-important Lvl4, but it's not really "magic heavy" and the Vampire Lord itself is certainly far more geared up for combat.

Ultimately though, it depends on your playstyle and what you want to get from the army. It's certainly worth seeing if you can play a few games with both builds (even if you have to proxy Necromancers and the like), to see which one you prefer.

Hope this helps, any more questions just ask!

I've been happy with my casting vamp lord.
He's ~170 points more than his necromancer counterpart, but isn't a slouch in combat.
Fast throw away units that can dash in an slaughter a master necromancer get butchered by the vampire lord.

It's kind of a mid-field general. You don't need to protect him nearly as much as the master necromancer, and he can tangle with some enemy units. You don't want him to hit anything too elite, but he holds his own against a lot of threats. I can push further forward than a master necromancer would want to. You just have to remember that he isn't the red fury ASF bad-ass.

I'm not discounting the value of the cheaper level 4, nor the hitting power of the vamp lord buzz-saw, but their is room for the mid-range vamp lord.

-Matt

I've always though Vlad Von Carstein was the best middle of the road Vampire in magic, close combat and i think he wins both in durability. Especially if your playing Legions and take him as the Mortarch of Shadow, which is very powerful upgrade to grant access to Shadow Magic and the unit-wide -1 to hit.

Also when my friend builds his level 4 Vamp Lord that he expects to see combat he gives him aspect of the dread knight and glittering scales, meaning Ws 4 or below models hit him on 6's. This seems to of kept his Lord safe from most mundane threats, as any lucky wounds that get through are easy to regain.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Also when my friend builds his level 4 Vamp Lord that he expects to see combat he gives him aspect of the dread knight and glittering scales, meaning Ws 4 or below models hit him on 6's. This seems to of kept his Lord safe from most mundane threats, as any lucky wounds that get through are easy to regain.

I've not got my army book on me and as it's not a common upgrade I'm not familiar with it, but doesn't Aspect of the Dreadnight force you to declare a challenge? That's going to make surviving a fair bit trickier.

 The Shadow wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Also when my friend builds his level 4 Vamp Lord that he expects to see combat he gives him aspect of the dread knight and glittering scales, meaning Ws 4 or below models hit him on 6's. This seems to of kept his Lord safe from most mundane threats, as any lucky wounds that get through are easy to regain.

I've not got my army book on me and as it's not a common upgrade I'm not familiar with it, but doesn't Aspect of the Dreadnight force you to declare a challenge? That's going to make surviving a fair bit trickier.

Yes, unless you have Krell, or a model with Ld >= the Ld of the model with Dreadknight (such as another vamp lord).