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Hi all,
I've played GW about 20 years now, mainly 40k and specialist games but I used to have dark elves and chaos warriors for whfb, haven't taken an interest in age of sigmar until now.

To try and keep me interested in modelling and painting I'd like to start a vampire counts force, which seems possible, but I'm really new to age of sigmar and don't have the first clue about how to put a force together with all the keywords, allies, and such. Is it possible to do a vampire-led army with skeletons, varghasts, a few blood Knights, zombies etc, similar to whfb vampire counts, or is that going to lack rules synergy?

And how does one go about summoning skeletons etc?

Many thanks for your help!

There really aren't "vampire counts". But there is Legion of Nagash with vampire heroes.

Summoning is revamped in new edition which we don't know fully until it drops in June sometime. Basically with Legion of Nagash you can recycle dead units at grave sites if your general is near them.

Thanks for the response! So there's no benefit to limiting the army further than to Legion of nagash?

And summoning requires grave sites - do those require points or can you just place them at will?

Read through the war scrolls for Death on GW's website, or with the app. That should help your understanding of keywords, synergy, etc. My son's Death army was very much like the example you give, when he first started building it. It was quite viable against my Slaves in open play. He's since moved towards Flesh Eater Courts. So if you're more interested in matched or tournament play, best to pick a keyword and run with that for the better allegiance abilities.

 Captain Roderick wrote:
Thanks for the response! So there's no benefit to limiting the army further than to Legion of nagash?

And summoning requires grave sites - do those require points or can you just place them at will?

If you want to theme your army heavily on vampires, you should look into Legion of Blood. Their Blood knights and Vampire lords gain +1A with all their attacks (including their mounts) and they hit like trucks because of it.

Summoning is done differently. If a unit has the "summonable" keyword (and vampire units never do), you can opt to not deploy them onto the battlefield straight away, but deploy them in the grave. These units can then be "summoned" near one of your gravesite (you get 4 which don't cost any points: 2 in your own territory and 2 anywhere on the battlefield). Those summonable units in the grave can be set up near a gravesite when a hero gets close to said gravesite.

To further add to the above Vampires (and basically all death heros) are able to revive models in Summonable units, meaning you do quite well in battles of attrition.

Thanks all! Making much more sense now.
I'm probably going legion of blood or legion of night then.

I'm a bit confused by allies - is there any benefits to having a Soulblight force in or alongside a legion of blood one, and how would that work?

Allies are useful for bringing something to your army that it doesn't have. If you need a shooty unit, and your allegiance is lacking in shooty units, you can bring them in as allies, without affecting your allegiance. So, specifically regarding your question, what would Soulblight bring to your army that it doesn't have on it's own? If it brings something, than yes, there's benefit there. If you just want to do it for rule of cool, that's fine also.

Allies can make up no more than 20% of total points. If you're playing 2,000 pts., up to 400 pts of your army can be allies. 2,500 pts., and you can have up to 500 pts. in allies, etc. They don't affect any of your allegiance rules, abilities, etc.

 Captain Roderick wrote:

I'm a bit confused by allies - is there any benefits to having a Soulblight force in or alongside a legion of blood one, and how would that work?

There is no need to ally soulblight into Legion of Blood.

The Legions of Nagash book has several allegiances in there that you can choose for the same 33 warscrolls.

If you pick Grand host of Nagash, you get more battleline options, stronger morghasts and more healing of units.
If you pick Legion of Sacrament, you get stronger casters and options to resurrect dead units of your own through killing enemies.
If you pick Legion of Night, you gain more defensive skeletons and ambush tactics for a few of your units.
If you pick Legion of Blood, you gain more bravery debuffs to hit your enemy with and get better vampire units. (bloodknights, vampire lords and vampire lords on zombie dragons).

I would not go for a soulblight allegiance (an option still, but a dead herring if you ask me). You'll be limited in unit choice while Legion of Blood can include a lot more things and has better allegiance abilities in general I believe. Bottom line: you don't have to use allies if you run Legion of Blood, unless you want to include Flesh-eater court models or nighthaunt for some reason...

Many thanks all! I've been watching a few battle reports, they've been useful and your advice even more so.

I think I'll be taking a vampire lord with wings or steed with 5 Blood Knights (aka dragon princes mildly converted), and a necromancer with 40 (mantic) skeletons. This is for path to glory initially although it doesn't need much added to take it to 1k.

With gravesites liberally sprinkled, it should be tough to keep the skeletons down (especially since my general can ressurect them) and with vile transference I can try to keep the Blood Knights topped up. If the necromancer manages to cast vanhel's danse macabre while the skeletons still have 30+ and can get into melee, I'll be overjoyed!

For expansion after that, dire wolves for battleline legality, and Black Knights or spirit hosts for variety. I will also be getting a vlozd at some point because why not?

Remember: vile transference can't bring back slain models to life... It can only heal suffered wounds (which can happen for sure with Blood Knights).

You can specialize into soulblight which is the vampire faction with vargheists as your battleline. In GHB17 they had special battle traits, command traits and artifacts. Im positive this will carry over to 2nd edition

So, I've been thinking, planning, researching and watching batreps - looking for synergy.

It seems to me like my choices are:
Go Soulblight, hard vampire faction, blood knights Vargheists and forget about deathly invocation and gravesites
Legion of blood, medium between the two, bonuses available for blood knights and characters, but also target bravery with banshees and terrorgheists, skellies for battleline and black knights, dire wolves or hexwraiths to support blood knights
Or legion of night, preferably with a deathmarch battalion, lots of skellies with plenty of bonuses, and outflank with fast movers.

Has anyone tried all 3? If so what do you prefer and why?

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
You can specialize into soulblight which is the vampire faction with vargheists as your battleline. In GHB17 they had special battle traits, command traits and artifacts. Im positive this will carry over to 2nd edition

Soulblight was updated in Legions of Nagash as a subfaction with all of those and more.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
You can specialize into soulblight which is the vampire faction with vargheists as your battleline. In GHB17 they had special battle traits, command traits and artifacts. Im positive this will carry over to 2nd edition

Soulblight was updated in Legions of Nagash as a subfaction with all of those and more.

Wasn't it also made redundant by legion of blood?

pm713 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
You can specialize into soulblight which is the vampire faction with vargheists as your battleline. In GHB17 they had special battle traits, command traits and artifacts. Im positive this will carry over to 2nd edition

Soulblight was updated in Legions of Nagash as a subfaction with all of those and more.

Wasn't it also made redundant by legion of blood?

Both are in Legions of Nagash as Subfactions - Soulblight being all units with Soulblight keyword and Legions of Blood, - any unit in the BT Legions of Nagash book.

 Mr Morden wrote:


Both are in Legions of Nagash as Subfactions - Soulblight being all units with Soulblight keyword and Legions of Blood, - any unit in the BT Legions of Nagash book.

Soulblight lets you have the old bloodlines and blood knights as battleline, but loses the graveyard mechanic that the other factions have. You keep deathless minions though.