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Lords:
- Spellweaver: (Lore of Beasts) Lv 4, Great Eagle, Talisman of Preservation, Asrai Longbow: 320
Hero’s:
- The Sisters of Twilight: Gwindalor: 275
- Waystalker: Bow of Loren: 110
- Spellsinger: (Lore of Shadows) Lv 2, Dispell Scroll, Great Eagle, Asrai Longbow: 195
Core:
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 20 Eternal Guard: Command, Shields: 270
Special:
- 3 Warhawk Riders: Wind Rider: 145
- 3 Warhawk Riders: Wind Rider: 145
- 5 Wild Riders: Command, shields, Banner of Eternal Flame: 180
Rare:
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110

A nasty little list imo, could be made better by switching out the Eternal guard, but I'd like some sort of anchor for the army. Waywatchers and Waystalker are there to seriously mess with the opponent, if he leaves them they'll cause massive damage vs both elite/unarmoured units, if he focusses them, well they're hard to catch and that leaves my hawk riders free.

Chose Hagbane tips on the Glade riders to deal with monsters, not expecting too much out of them but its better than nothing and they're useful for redirecting and dominating positioning.
The Wild Riders are there to alpha strike units that overextend/knock out those pesky regenerating monsters.
The Hawk riders serve as a bodyguard for the sisters and my lord as well as the spellsinger. They're extremely fast and very versatile, able to pick off vulnerable units and if need be sit and shoot. The sisters are crazy good imo, one of my favourite units in the whole book, they can slaughter monsters and even infantry with their ranged weapons and are sooo hard to kill. I chose beasts on my Weaver to buff the hawk riders when they do decide to strike, making them tougher and harder hitting, also it allows her to toss out amber spears from opportune angles and positions. Finally, she can also use savage beast of horros to buff the Sister's melee damage to crazy proportions (12 S7 attacks between them not counting their mount) or use it on the Waystalker to give him 5 BS 7, ignores armour, sniper shots for mulching leadership and armoured targets (or 10 armour piercing shots).

Overall I think this army is fast and frustrating to fight, its sure as hell not durable but you can pick favourable engagements and wittle down the enemy as you do with sustained bowfire

Likely to be facing Vampires, Ogres, Lizardmen and Chaos. Vamps I'm confident against, relatively slow and the waystalker can snipe away at their lord all game, a 4++ can't hold out forver. Lizards will be tougher, skinks are somewhat of a problem but careful deployment should see me through and if he brings monsters I feel very confident. Chaos will struggle a lot with the sheer number of waywatchers and I have plenty of answers to Chimera. Ogres are more of a problem, an 18-man igongut deathstar would be tough to handle, I'd have to kite a lot and rely on Naestra's D6 multiple wound bow and sheer weight of fire to drag them down. Nothing in my army can stand up to that head-on

I honestly forget, is Combat Resolution still a thing in 8th? If so, this list looks... light as far as any units that can dole out enough to be a serious issue.

 Just Tony wrote:
I honestly forget, is Combat Resolution still a thing in 8th? If so, this list looks... light as far as any units that can dole out enough to be a serious issue.

Yeah 8the still has combat res. Basic wounds, +1 for standard (regardless of how many), +1 BSB, +1 charge, +1 flank, +2 rear... maybe forgetting a few.

 Just Tony wrote:
I honestly forget, is Combat Resolution still a thing in 8th? If so, this list looks... light as far as any units that can dole out enough to be a serious issue.

The list is an avoidence list, it is designed to avoid the big gutstars and focus off an opponents chaff. Anthing that gives good combat resolution is too much of an easy target.

Doomfire Warlocks break the avoidence tactic though.

So widespread 15 man units ranked up three deep could basically send this entire list packing?

 Just Tony wrote:
So widespread 15 man units ranked up three deep could basically send this entire list packing?

In theory.

It has been a while so my memory is not the best but around the end of 8th it was

Gutstar beat balanced, balanced beat Avoidence and avoidence beat Gutstar.
The Highelf Silverhelm Gutstar and the Doomfire Warlock avoidence messed with this balancing act though because the Silverhelms were too fast (and immune to magic) and Doomfire Warlocks were too tough.

And this RIGHT HERE is why I went back to 6th.

 Just Tony wrote:
And this RIGHT HERE is why I went back to 6th.

And you have to bring it up every time.

Yazima wrote:
Lords:
- Spellweaver: (Lore of Beasts) Lv 4, Great Eagle, Talisman of Preservation, Asrai Longbow: 320
Hero’s:
- The Sisters of Twilight: Gwindalor: 275
- Waystalker: Bow of Loren: 110
- Spellsinger: (High Magic) Lv 2, Dispell Scroll, Great Eagle, Asrai Longbow: 195
Core:
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 5 Glade Riders: Command, Hagbane Tips: 140
- 20 Eternal Guard: Command, Shields: 270
Special:
- 3 Warhawk Riders: Wind Rider: 145
- 3 Warhawk Riders: Wind Rider: 145
- 5 Wild Riders: Command, shields, Banner of Eternal Flame: 180
Rare:
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110
- 5 Waywatchers: Sentinel: 110

A nasty little list imo, could be made better by switching out the Eternal guard, but I'd like some sort of anchor for the army. Waywatchers and Waystalker are there to seriously mess with the opponent, if he leaves them they'll cause massive damage vs both elite/unarmoured units, if he focusses them, well they're hard to catch and that leaves my hawk riders free.

Chose Hagbane tips on the Glade riders to deal with monsters, not expecting too much out of them but its better than nothing and they're useful for redirecting and dominating positioning.
The Wild Riders are there to alpha strike units that overextend/knock out those pesky regenerating monsters.
The Hawk riders serve as a bodyguard for the sisters and my lord as well as the spellsinger. They're extremely fast and very versatile, able to pick off vulnerable units and if need be sit and shoot. The sisters are crazy good imo, one of my favourite units in the whole book, they can slaughter monsters and even infantry with their ranged weapons and are sooo hard to kill. I chose beasts on my Weaver to buff the hawk riders when they do decide to strike, making them tougher and harder hitting, also it allows her to toss out amber spears from opportune angles and positions. Finally, she can also use savage beast of horros to buff the Sister's melee damage to crazy proportions (12 S7 attacks between them not counting their mount) or use it on the Waystalker to give him 5 BS 7, ignores armour, sniper shots for mulching leadership and armoured targets (or 10 armour piercing shots).

Overall I think this army is fast and frustrating to fight, its sure as hell not durable but you can pick favourable engagements and wittle down the enemy as you do with sustained bowfire

Likely to be facing Vampires, Ogres, Lizardmen and Chaos. Vamps I'm confident against, relatively slow and the waystalker can snipe away at their lord all game, a 4++ can't hold out forver. Lizards will be tougher, skinks are somewhat of a problem but careful deployment should see me through and if he brings monsters I feel very confident. Chaos will struggle a lot with the sheer number of waywatchers and I have plenty of answers to Chimera. Ogres are more of a problem, an 18-man igongut deathstar would be tough to handle, I'd have to kite a lot and rely on Naestra's D6 multiple wound bow and sheer weight of fire to drag them down. Nothing in my army can stand up to that head-on

Sorry Yazima, but Wood Elves is a faction I dont know too well. However I do suggest you do not underestimate what a Vampire Counts list can do. They do have the tools to defeat you though they are less used than the staples. Spirit hosts ignore your non-fancy arrows and can tie down your skirmishers. Raise Dead zombies summoned in contact can also hold down waywatchers. Vargheists bring their own fast moving pain and the Mortis engine severely hurts MSU with its damage pulse in late game. If your opponent goes with a Vampire lord (blender or maxed mag) and some nasty special blocks for unit crunching, the lazy loadout for Vampire Counts you will be ok. If they think outside the box a Vampire Count list has the tools to really mess with what you have here.
Spirit Hosts are easily dealt with or a nightmare depending on whether you have magic arrows in LOS. This isn't always a given as you can make screening troops easily enough with Vanhels or zombie summon. I would be tempted to hang back with spirit hosts then deploy them to harass flankers. I would also heavily invest in Dire Wolf core. People think of wolf dars of five each. Try fifteen in three ranks, multiples of. The advantage they give the Vampire player is that their flank is very long so it is easy to keep the unit in nehek range while the front end is chewing on elves.

Ogres I dont see too much of a problem with, its easy enough to shoot anything that isnt in a big combat blob, then avoid those while whittling some down for victory points. Write off the irongut deathstar as a source of victory points. Railroad it, shoot at other things and mop up the rest of his list.

Skink heavy Lizardmen can do what you do, for less, though most Lizardmen players bring Jurassic Park, which as you summise you have no problems with.

Chaos is also a faction which like Vampire Counts can bring you a lot of hurt if they discard the list meta. Hellcannon, Marauder horse, Dragon ogres (if screened), chaos warhounds, if not careful basic chariots can all be problematic. Large blocks of chosen, less so.

Since Age of Stigma the hard cadre of WHFB players remaining tend not to be those who can think past the meta, partly because there s no meta and partly because those who haven't moved on are those who wanted to collect, and those who are collectors are less interested in only collecting the models for a faction that perform well. They tend to collect some of everything, others lots of everything.
Could you end up facing vampire cavalry armies, in late 2018, yes why not. Surviving wont let go WHFB players tend to have well invested in armies and you could face anything.
Now if you have specifics of what you are definitely facing that is different.

I will say this for you, your army is focus functioned but not samey, you have enough variety and I am sure that win or lose it would be great to play against.

 Just Tony wrote:
So widespread 15 man units ranked up three deep could basically send this entire list packing?

Not really...in fact not at all, msu is going to get crushed by the hawk riders and skirmisher fire and will basically bleed victory points all over the place while being able to catch the sum total of nothing. The ONLY static unit in this whole list is the Eternal guard who are stubborn LD 8. Combat resolution is not a problem at all because the only combats I plan on fighting are the ones I choose. Fast, cav-based lists and heavy ranged lists are a problem. As mentioned, warlocks are a thorn but certainly not unkillable, I easily have enough firepower here to overwhelm MSU warlocks and I really don't have too many good targets for their doombolts since the spellweaver and singer have natural magic resist.

 Orlanth wrote:


Sorry Yazima, but Wood Elves is a faction I dont know too well. However I do suggest you do not underestimate what a Vampire Counts list can do. They do have the tools to defeat you though they are less used than the staples. Spirit hosts ignore your non-fancy arrows and can tie down your skirmishers. Raise Dead zombies summoned in contact can also hold down waywatchers. Vargheists bring their own fast moving pain and the Mortis engine severely hurts MSU with its damage pulse in late game. If your opponent goes with a Vampire lord (blender or maxed mag) and some nasty special blocks for unit crunching, the lazy loadout for Vampire Counts you will be ok. If they think outside the box a Vampire Count list has the tools to really mess with what you have here.
Spirit Hosts are easily dealt with or a nightmare depending on whether you have magic arrows in LOS. This isn't always a given as you can make screening troops easily enough with Vanhels or zombie summon. I would be tempted to hang back with spirit hosts then deploy them to harass flankers. I would also heavily invest in Dire Wolf core. People think of wolf dars of five each. Try fifteen in three ranks, multiples of. The advantage they give the Vampire player is that their flank is very long so it is easy to keep the unit in nehek range while the front end is chewing on elves.

Ogres I dont see too much of a problem with, its easy enough to shoot anything that isnt in a big combat blob, then avoid those while whittling some down for victory points. Write off the irongut deathstar as a source of victory points. Railroad it, shoot at other things and mop up the rest of his list.

Skink heavy Lizardmen can do what you do, for less, though most Lizardmen players bring Jurassic Park, which as you summise you have no problems with.

Chaos is also a faction which like Vampire Counts can bring you a lot of hurt if they discard the list meta. Hellcannon, Marauder horse, Dragon ogres (if screened), chaos warhounds, if not careful basic chariots can all be problematic. Large blocks of chosen, less so.

Since Age of Stigma the hard cadre of WHFB players remaining tend not to be those who can think past the meta, partly because there s no meta and partly because those who haven't moved on are those who wanted to collect, and those who are collectors are less interested in only collecting the models for a faction that perform well. They tend to collect some of everything, others lots of everything.
Could you end up facing vampire cavalry armies, in late 2018, yes why not. Surviving wont let go WHFB players tend to have well invested in armies and you could face anything.
Now if you have specifics of what you are definitely facing that is different.

I will say this for you, your army is focus functioned but not samey, you have enough variety and I am sure that win or lose it would be great to play against.

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to be using this list in a tournament actually. I know that I will have to face vampires, lizards, Bretons, Ogres maybe chaos and probably Tomb Kings. How will spirit hosts catch anything in this list? They present an issue in that I have a lack of magical attacks but they're roadblocks and redirectors, I can outmanoeuvre them easily and simply ignore them. Also since when can you raise dead into contact? I'm fairly sure they have to be a certain distance from enemy units and waywatchers can easily bypass them. I would love to vs vargheists, both for the sheer novelty of it and because they'll drop like flies vs the Sisters and poisoned glade riders. Mortis engines too are incredibly slow, an Asrai longbow has 30" of range which is well outside of the mortis engines effect range, yeah a mortis list will mulch my Eternal Guard but Naestra's BS 6, S5 D6 Multiple wound flaming attacks bow (with +1 to wound against forces of destruction) will drop it easily. A vampire lord is scary sure but less scary if he can't catch anything and is taking 2-5 armour-ignoring sniper shots/turn. He probably won't die, but he also probably won't pay for himself.
As I mentioned in my previous comment, Skinks and other skirmish-heavy lists are a pain, I don't expect to see too many of them though and if need be hawk riders and wild riders can run them down pretty efficiently. And as you say, park lists are gonna crash and burn.

Hellcannons aren't too much of a problem, they're nasty in combat but what they're less nasty against are 15 poisoned bow shots/turn at BS 4 + a potential 20 armour piercing BS 5 shots from the waywatchers. Artillery, in general, isn't tooo bad vs this list, it can kill the hawk riders efficiently but I have 3 ambushing cavalry units, a scounting character and 20 scouting waywatchers, thats a lot of backline pressure. Marauder horseman are a challenge though, they're viable and could put the hurt on my cav units and hawk riders, (assuming they get to attack back after ASF), I have the tools to deal with them though, especially wild riders, wild riders will dumpster maruaders so hard and once they're dead the rest of the chaos list will be really hard pressed to do much of anything.

Also, I'm glad you like the list


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be honest, i feel good about my chances of placing highly. To do well against this list you need to build and play very specifically which in tournaments is hard to do without sabotaging your chances. I'm worried about tomb kings since special characters are allowed and Khalida basically turns a TK list into a machine-gunline but other than that I feel pretty confident.

Yazima wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So widespread 15 man units ranked up three deep could basically send this entire list packing?

Not really...in fact not at all, msu is going to get crushed by the hawk riders and skirmisher fire and will basically bleed victory points all over the place while being able to catch the sum total of nothing. The ONLY static unit in this whole list is the Eternal guard who are stubborn LD 8. Combat resolution is not a problem at all because the only combats I plan on fighting are the ones I choose. Fast, cav-based lists and heavy ranged lists are a problem. As mentioned, warlocks are a thorn but certainly not unkillable, I easily have enough firepower here to overwhelm MSU warlocks and I really don't have too many good targets for their doombolts since the spellweaver and singer have natural magic resist.

That's assuming, of course, that the MSUs are slow. The Warhawks can stay in avoidance mode all game but the rest of the army will eat damage from the MSUs. Especially if they are any decent heavy or fast cav. The Riders are a problem to be sure, but their real strength is in not being able to be blocked in. The whole Dark Rider army that was a thing bogged a LOT of people down until you realize you can expand your frontage to make all your bulk units 2 ranks deep and essentially form a picket line across the whole table. Granted the Warhawks break that, but if your cav is spread out enough to form some interlocking ranges, they should run out of fly room. All of it depends on best arrangement of forces and a host of things going right, but I don't think they can really whittle down the army THAT fast, especially with Psychology not playing the same role as it did in previous editions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
And this RIGHT HERE is why I went back to 6th.

And you have to bring it up every time.

Yeah, and? Come back and take the high road when you don't street team 8th in every 6th thread.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
And this RIGHT HERE is why I went back to 6th.

And you have to bring it up every time.

Yeah, and? Come back and take the high road when you don't street team 8th in every 6th thread.

I dont, just just have never learned that that is all in your head.

Yazima wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

You are welcome.

Yazima wrote:

I'm going to be using this list in a tournament actually. I know that I will have to face vampires, lizards, Bretons, Ogres maybe chaos and probably Tomb Kings.

Yes moe on the tournament later, but for now ignoring that.

Yazima wrote:

How will spirit hosts catch anything in this list?

M6 is not slow, yes you can dodge but you can also run out of space quickly.

Yazima wrote:

They present an issue in that I have a lack of magical attacks but they're roadblocks and redirectors, I can outmanoeuvre them easily and simply ignore them.

They are redirectors and roadblocks when you need them to be, they are also chaff intercept when needed. As for outmaneuvering, if you have a unit or two of skirmishers in a normal list yes, but you have lots of skirmishers, you can flee in a blob or you risk being herded, you have to separate. This allows intercepting unit to get you.

The idea is to match your MSU evaders with MSU chasers. Ultimately you can run out of room and by running away from one threat you run into range of another. This can get very dangerous if Vanhels or fast flyers or zombie summon closes an escape route for you. It would involve patience on behalf of the vampire count player, you cant just chase down fleeing elves in one turn, you need to trap them over multiple turns. Vampire Counts are not a slow army, they are an army with a poor movement rate, there is a difference. The faction has several ways to be where you don't want them to be, thankfully that normally involves substandard or gimped units and not main combat blocks. but it can catch a skirmish army if you know how.

Yazima wrote:

Also since when can you raise dead into contact? I'm fairly sure they have to be a certain distance from enemy units and waywatchers can easily bypass them.

Summon behind or alongside your units, string them out 2d6+3 zeds is quite a roadblock. A net to catch evading elves. They can start 1" away, they can also surround small units but its a That guy move.

Yazima wrote:

. I would love to vs vargheists, both for the sheer novelty of it and because they'll drop like flies vs the Sisters and poisoned glade riders.

Your sisters seem to be the answer for everything. I thought they were sniping vampires. Seriously though, yes vargheists are vulnerable but if you can hide them long enough to net some prey they can join in the fun and feast.

Yazima wrote:

Mortis engines too are incredibly slow, an Asrai longbow has 30" of range which is well outside of the mortis engines effect range, yeah a mortis list will mulch my Eternal Guard but Naestra's BS 6, S5 D6 Multiple wound flaming attacks bow (with +1 to wound against forces of destruction) will drop it easily.

Again, busy sisters shooting everything at once. I thought they were sniping vampires and wiping out vargheists? Admittedly flaming attacks are a problem As for slowness, Vanhels, if needed. And you wont be 30" away everywhere. That's the whole idea of riding you down.

Yazima wrote:

A vampire lord is scary sure but less scary if he can't catch anything and is taking 2-5 armour-ignoring sniper shots/turn. He probably won't die, but he also probably won't pay for himself.

I dont take one and prefer to split up the characters. I might not even take a lord at all in 2k. There are other ways to build. I like mini-blenders for instance.

Yazima wrote:

As I mentioned in my previous comment, Skinks and other skirmish-heavy lists are a pain, I don't expect to see too many of them though and if need be hawk riders and wild riders can run them down pretty efficiently. And as you say, park lists are gonna crash and burn.

As this is tourney (this wasnt stated before) I will have to retract much of my previous commentary, likely you will face a conventional vampire counts list, it might have some fast elements but likely will rely on a creeping death based around crypt horrors or grave guard. A vampire counts anti-skirmish list wont do so well in regular play. Looking at a non tailored list that also has to deal with ogrestars and other stuff I must say I have some problems. Could try a zombie summon horde, but that doesn't work as well as it once did. Could try offensive magic while out reaching your firepower with nehek. That might work, but it would involve bunkering, opportunity to gain vp in killpoint games is limited.

Yazima wrote:

To be honest, i feel good about my chances of placing highly. To do well against this list you need to build and play very specifically which in tournaments is hard to do without sabotaging your chances. I'm worried about tomb kings since special characters are allowed and Khalida basically turns a TK list into a machine-gunline but other than that I feel pretty confident.

You should do well. It will all comedown to the scenarios though, if there is ground to take or to hold you might come unstuck.

 Just Tony wrote:

Yazima wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
So widespread 15 man units ranked up three deep could basically send this entire list packing?

Not really...in fact not at all, msu is going to get crushed by the hawk riders and skirmisher fire and will basically bleed victory points all over the place while being able to catch the sum total of nothing. The ONLY static unit in this whole list is the Eternal guard who are stubborn LD 8. Combat resolution is not a problem at all because the only combats I plan on fighting are the ones I choose. Fast, cav-based lists and heavy ranged lists are a problem. As mentioned, warlocks are a thorn but certainly not unkillable, I easily have enough firepower here to overwhelm MSU warlocks and I really don't have too many good targets for their doombolts since the spellweaver and singer have natural magic resist.

That's assuming, of course, that the MSUs are slow. The Warhawks can stay in avoidance mode all game but the rest of the army will eat damage from the MSUs. Especially if they are any decent heavy or fast cav. The Riders are a problem to be sure, but their real strength is in not being able to be blocked in. The whole Dark Rider army that was a thing bogged a LOT of people down until you realize you can expand your frontage to make all your bulk units 2 ranks deep and essentially form a picket line across the whole table. Granted the Warhawks break that, but if your cav is spread out enough to form some interlocking ranges, they should run out of fly room. All of it depends on best arrangement of forces and a host of things going right, but I don't think they can really whittle down the army THAT fast, especially with Psychology not playing the same role as it did in previous editions.

This all assumes poor target priority and movement by my army. If you delete priority targets (namely those that threaten your movement dominance) each turn you're extremely hard to catch. 5 wild riders alone can easily delete most 10-15 man units in one charge, especially when buffed with beasts, add a multi-rear charge from hawk riders and its goodbye. Yes they can spread thin and block my movement but thats exactly what I want. I can't stand vs ranked, powerful units but I can pick apart separated, elite infantry easily

 Orlanth wrote:

Yazima wrote:

How will spirit hosts catch anything in this list?

M6 is not slow, yes you can dodge but you can also run out of space quickly.

No, it is not slow, but it is a fair bit slower than the majority of my list. Yes, I can run out of space quickly assuming I misplay and allow small chaff units to hem me in when I have all the resources needed to wipe them out. Hosts crumble to static rez and both mages have magical attacks, not reliable but still something and on a highly manoeuvrable platform. Also the waystalker has magical shooting attacks. Yes he will be focussed on characters but sparing 1 turns shooting to remove a key threat is hardly a big loss.

Yazima wrote:

They present an issue in that I have a lack of magical attacks but they're roadblocks and redirectors, I can outmanoeuvre them easily and simply ignore them.

 Orlanth wrote:

They are redirectors and roadblocks when you need them to be, they are also chaff intercept when needed. As for outmanoeuvring, if you have a unit or two of skirmishers in a normal list yes, but you have lots of skirmishers, you can flee in a blob or you risk being herded, you have to separate. This allows the intercepting unit to get you.

Waywatchers don't flee, they out-move their opponents. If he is burning dice every turn summoning a unit of zombies trying to block up 110 points of wayswatchers who can and will slaughter them in cc with their asf additional hand weapons he is simply playing inefficiently with power dice and therefore right into my hands. All my waywatchers have to do is stay out of the front arc of units that can credibly threaten them. The only units that are ever going to be fleeing are my glade riders which represent a negligible investment and will easily outpace pursuers with their swift stride and superior movement.

 Orlanth wrote:

The idea is to match your MSU evaders with MSU chasers. Ultimately you can run out of room and by running away from one threat you run into range of another. This can get very dangerous if Vanhels or fast flyers or zombie summon closes an escape route for you. It would involve patience on behalf of the vampire count player, you cant just chase down fleeing elves in one turn, you need to trap them over multiple turns. Vampire Counts are not a slow army, they are an army with a poor movement rate, there is a difference. The faction has several ways to be where you don't want them to be, thankfully that normally involves substandard or gimped units and not main combat blocks. but it can catch a skirmish army if you know how.

MSU chasers? This assumes these msu chasers are robust enough to survive the offensive capabilities of the units they are supposedly chasing. If the unit chasing my elves is too weak (cheap) it will be overwhelmed by combat res and crumble (zombies, spirit hosts, dire wolves), if it is too expensive then it is an inefficient use of points. Take for example Black Knights, if my list by its very nature prompts an opponent to use MSU of 5 black knights they simply won't have the staying power to survive long enough to close the net, 5 black knights is an inefficient unit in itself as it fails to properly synergize with the lore of vampires high healing. Its all about cost-benefit, if the resources dedicated to threatening my skirmishers outweigh their cost then my army is operating more efficiently. As you admit these units themselves are typically substandard with poor movement, this allows me to easily choose 2v1 engagements with my faster hawk riders and superior troop quality. To properly counter the skirmishers my opponent would need to invest in more expensive units. It's a tactic that assumes mistakes on my part, which I hardly view as an effective strategy.

Yazima wrote:

. I would love to vs vargheists, both for the sheer novelty of it and because they'll drop like flies vs the Sisters and poisoned glade riders.

 Orlanth wrote:


Your sisters seem to be the answer for everything. I thought they were sniping vampires. Seriously though, yes vargheists are vulnerable but if you can hide them long enough to net some prey they can join in the fun and feast.

Not at all. They are highly flexible I will admit and can threaten most things, but in this instance the waystalker is for sniping vampires. Sisters don't have the sniper rule nor the BS to pull it off. 2D6 poisoned arrows + s5 D6 multiple wounds with no to hit penalty for moving on the other hand, yeah thats a fine counter to vargheists imo. Not that its even needed since almost every single thing in this list can put the hurt on vargheists at range. Yes they will cause damage if they get to strike, if being imperative. They're toughness 4, they have no saves and they strike last vs every unit on my list, they're certainly one of the harder units on the roster for me to fight, but by no means a hard-counter or unmanageable, they aren't going to catch hawkriders unless I mess up and I'm perfectly happy with them munching on glade riders then getting shot to pieces. Worst comes to the worst they catch and kill my waystalker/waywatcher unit if I misplay them, then what? 9 T4 unarmoured wounds aren't going to stand up to what they'll be hit with (I'm assuming you're talking about units of 3, 6 is impractical here), and lets not forget they're frenzied, I have plenty of frenzy baiters.

Yazima wrote:


Mortis engines too are incredibly slow, an Asrai longbow has 30" of range which is well outside of the mortis engines effect range, yeah a mortis list will mulch my Eternal Guard but Naestra's BS 6, S5 D6 Multiple wound flaming attacks bow (with +1 to wound against forces of destruction) will drop it easily.

 Orlanth wrote:

Again, busy sisters shooting everything at once. I thought they were sniping vampires and wiping out vargheists? Admittedly flaming attacks are a problem As for slowness, Vanhels, if needed. And you wont be 30" away everywhere. That's the whole idea of riding you down.

Nah, more like the sisters shooting obviously opportune targets. The varghiests are hiding looking for a good charge I assume? If not they're being misplayed and are probably being pincushioned or led in circles. Naestra needs one good shot and the ME is gone, let alone her sister's shooting+their unit. I have yet to meet a player with the skill level to manipulate a faster, msu army into a mortis engines effect radius, that would be extremely impressive. Besides if I'm less than half range away I'll take the increased to hit score happily, if the mortis engine is alive long enough to be racking up high strength on it effect I'm doing something very wrong...

Yazima wrote:

A vampire lord is scary sure but less scary if he can't catch anything and is taking 2-5 armour-ignoring sniper shots/turn. He probably won't die, but he also probably won't pay for himself.

 Orlanth wrote:

I don't take one and prefer to split up the characters. I might not even take a lord at all in 2k. There are other ways to build. I like mini-blenders for instance.

2.5k, not 2k. mini blenders are arguably even easier to kill with my waystalker and I don't see them as efficient when fighting this list, what are they blending? Eternal guard? ok that's fine with me, vampires are fast and mini-blenders are generally efficient but they have no good targets here. You'd be better off taking well-protected casters for maximum zombie summoning/vanhels chances. Just as a sidenote, if I cast savage beast of horros on the sisters its double effective due to their two profiles, in cc buffed sisters will kill even the most kitted out mini-blender easily before it can even strike.

Honestly I'm surprised you havent mentioned Hexwraiths and Black Coaches. The coach is well protected, fast and hits hard, in a caster battery list it could also feasibly gain fly and ethereal relatively fast in which case it would become an utter nightmare. Hexwraiths s5 soul strider effect would also be devestating against waywatchers and could feasibly be yo-yo'd through them with proper vanhels use. I feel as though these are faaar better counters than combat hero's and vargheists. We don't tend to see many hexwraiths among VC players in my area though

Yazima wrote:

As I mentioned in my previous comment, Skinks and other skirmish-heavy lists are a pain, I don't expect to see too many of them though and if need be hawk riders and wild riders can run them down pretty efficiently. And as you say, park lists are gonna crash and burn.

 Orlanth wrote:


As this is tourney (this wasnt stated before) I will have to retract much of my previous commentary, likely you will face a conventional vampire counts list, it might have some fast elements but likely will rely on a creeping death based around crypt horrors or grave guard. A vampire counts anti-skirmish list wont do so well in regular play. Looking at a non tailored list that also has to deal with ogrestars and other stuff I must say I have some problems. Could try a zombie summon horde, but that doesn't work as well as it once did. Could try offensive magic while out reaching your firepower with nehek. That might work, but it would involve bunkering, opportunity to gain vp in killpoint games is limited.

This list has no great way to deal with grave guard other than simply ignoring them, crypt horrors are manageable though. I feel as though bunkered caster lists also wouldn't fare well. I really do think this a nasty list for VC's to deal with. Yes if they play very well, bring all the right counters and I misplay they can definitely win, but I'd say i certainly have an advantage.

Yazima wrote:

To be honest, i feel good about my chances of placing highly. To do well against this list you need to build and play very specifically which in tournaments is hard to do without sabotaging your chances. I'm worried about tomb kings since special characters are allowed and Khalida basically turns a TK list into a machine-gunline but other than that I feel pretty confident.

 Orlanth wrote:

You should do well. It will all comedown to the scenarios though, if there is ground to take or to hold you might come unstuck.

Yeah holding ground vs any large infantry formations is unrealistic unless I can pull off some pretty spectacular multi-charges. Not inconceivable when you consider how easily I can pick off chaff to dominate the movement phase, but still hard. Anyways, I'm looking forward to it


50 Skele archers with Khalida and some chariot support would melt this list though

To be honest Yazima this was all I had to counter you. If there was a scenario you would have problems in kill point games Vampire Counts would struggle, but there are things they can do. The alternate is to play to VC strength and march up in a blob and do zip all game, normally VC are a complete mismatch against ranged MSU. I stuggle enough against High Elves built that way, but have to adapt. Wood elves are a mismatch if played ranged MSU. Even so if playing an objective grab mission I could just blob up, nehek all day and sit on special ground and tick up victory points. There wouldnt be much you can do about that.
Bottom line if we faced and drew and objective mission everything is fine, camp the victory location and sit out out under nehek. If we drew a kill point mission I can do one of two things about it, cry, or take the battle to you as best I can. Its a bad matchup but I do not need to leave it completely one sided there are things I can do.

As for my units first spirit hosts normally are independent, I use then in threes when not as redirectors. People assume Spirit Hosts means take three all singly. I have nine though I dont use them all all the time, I also have that many for 9th age and for casual play. Wolves I actually use in units of fifteen (though I only have 20 so I sub in chaos warhounds). I do this anyway its not an anti MSU gimic, the long bus of dogs means they get nehek on their tails. I dont actually use wolf darts, never have.
Why you might add? Because they are one of the better and more creative ways to fill out mandatory core. Though i have large skeleton and ghoul reserves to draw upon too for my lists. Wolf buses catch people out as they are utterly expendable, easily replenishable and get in the way. Yes they don't last long against a dedicated melee unit of any kind, but they only need to get in the way long enough. Great LOS blockers for a start.

As for the Hexwraiths I had honestly overlooked them, I should not have but I did because I don't have any. Likewise I have no Doomfire Warlocks and for the same reason. They are broken and unfair. That being said I ought to spam them against what you have.

As for miniblenders, each one is a nehek battery. Multiple hero VC is something I do beleive in. One can rack up a lot of nehek (usually four plus) and should get two Vanhels from my necros and the book. Sometimes I run corpse cart sometimes not. I wouldnt bother trying here.

Assuming I was tourney I would take the same character line up as above with multiple heroes, would run a corpse cart, double Mortis, double grave guard and crypt horrors. Wolf blocks and ghouls for core, six spirit hosts but no vargheists. If serious I would swallow my pride and buy some Hexwraiths, but I don't do tourney so I probably never will. I dont like the models anyway, but love the Black Knights.

I agree, Hexwraiths are a stupid unit and have horrible models. Its also a massive risky bringing them since WE can easily bring arrows to counter them. Just vs this particular list they could work.

So I'm assuming you run 2 miniblenders and a master necro? I don't disagree with the choice, in most matchups at least. I like corpse carts, definitely not here though.

I generally don't like double mortis lists, yes it can grind through badly prepared armies but come up against gunline or strong ranged lists and you're in a world of hurt.

I played a test game today against my friends Bretonnians. I'll try to do a write up when I'm home to give you an idea of how it plays.

His list was something like this
Lords:
- Prophetess (General): Lv 4 Lore of Life, Pegasus, Talisman of Preservation, The Silver Mirror
Hero’s:
- Paladin: Questing Vow, Virtue of Noble Disdain, Insignia of the Quest, Dragon-helm, Enchanted Shield, Pegasus, Morning Star, BSB
- Damsel: Lv 1, Dispell Scroll, Channelling Staff, warhorse
- Damsel: Lv 1 (Beasts), Prayer Icon of Quenelles, Dragons Claw

Core:
- 11 Knights of the Realm: Command, Some banner that protects against ranged attacks
- 15 Peasant Archers
- 15 Peasant Archers
- 20+ Peasant Archers: Skirmish, Command
- 40 Men at Arms: Command
Special:
- 10 Pegasus Knights: Banner, Musician, Shields, Gleaming Pennant
- 6 Mounted Yeomen: Command, Shields
Rare:
- Trebuchet
- Trebuchet

Yazima wrote:

So I'm assuming you run 2 miniblenders and a master necro? I don't disagree with the choice, in most matchups at least. I like corpse carts, definitely not here though.

Sometimes. Master necros are an obvious include but I often don't bother with lords at all for vampire counts, even in higher point games. The only faction I would consider a hero only build strategy for as viable, also the only non MSU list where the BSB is optional. I would run 2-3x level 2 necro and 2x level 1 miniblender, and a level 1 defensive vampire general, with a parking lot of augments. Wight BSB optional, if I take one I will make a level 1 necro, with strictly 1 dice nehek only general. Leadership is not an issue. All vampires will be Nehek or Miasma, shadow lore attribute is great for doing a switcheroo between an exposed necro and a miniblender. Surprise!!. I dont care all vamps are level 1, they get the easiest spells and have but one job: don't miscast. My necros are all lore of vampires, some switch out for nehek but I will be looking for one for suicidal casting with Curse of Years, with three level 2's I normally get what I want, and the first one to roll Vanhels will automatically also gets Nehek, no matter what his other spell actually is, so I have easy casts and don't lose his spells. I will hide this necro priority. With this many level 1's I take the Blasphemous Tome and one dice cast as much as can be one dice cast.
The only real downside is I miss out on +4 to cast/dispel, but I can live with that, and the Tome helps.

Note that this is half theory. I don't have two Mortis because I don't do tourney. I only have one Mortis as its a centrepiece model, alongside a T-bat, as I am a casual player/collector at heart. The comments on the character loadout are all true though. As far as I see my strength are in the special units and I want to invest as many points as possible in those. I could afford core tax, grave guard and crypt horrors corpse cart and (double) mortis in a large enough list, but only if I dont go crazy with character expenditure. Thankfully necros are cheap and vampires while huge points sinks are cheap enough if you dont fall in. Sword of Might, Red Fury and Seed of Rebirth for my actual miniblender, with shadow magic. Something similar for the second, but with nehek. General gets a ward save and nehek. Someone gets Book of Arkhan and someone else gets a dispel scroll. Done. Wide and shallow character selection. If needs be I can screen them all with whatever I dragged up as core tax.

Yazima wrote:

I generally don't like double mortis lists, yes it can grind through badly prepared armies but come up against gunline or strong ranged lists and you're in a world of hurt.

The regen augment is too powerful to leave out. It works on the engines also, and nehek should keep them on the table. If facing cannon then I deploy them separately and adapt.

Yazima wrote:

I played a test game today against my friends Bretonnians. I'll try to do a write up when I'm home to give you an idea of how it plays.

His list was something like this
Lords:
- Prophetess (General): Lv 4 Lore of Life, Pegasus, Talisman of Preservation, The Silver Mirror
Hero’s:
- Paladin: Questing Vow, Virtue of Noble Disdain, Insignia of the Quest, Dragon-helm, Enchanted Shield, Pegasus, Morning Star, BSB
- Damsel: Lv 1, Dispell Scroll, Channelling Staff, warhorse
- Damsel: Lv 1 (Beasts), Prayer Icon of Quenelles, Dragons Claw

Core:
- 11 Knights of the Realm: Command, Some banner that protects against ranged attacks
- 15 Peasant Archers
- 15 Peasant Archers
- 20+ Peasant Archers: Skirmish, Command
- 40 Men at Arms: Command
Special:
- 10 Pegasus Knights: Banner, Musician, Shields, Gleaming Pennant
- 6 Mounted Yeomen: Command, Shields
Rare:
- Trebuchet
- Trebuchet

Poor Bretonnians, nearly always variants of the same list.

An interesting fight, certainly a lot of fun...

Kind of a weird army to fight. By no means tailored against me but nonetheless shooty with a very fast, powerful, flying deathstar. Also, lore of life rinses elves in so many ways.

- His Prophetess got shield of thorns, regrowth, earthblood and dwellers below
- His Lv 1 Damsel with heavens got lucky with harmonic convergence
- His Lv 1 Damsel with beasts stuck with Wyssans
- My Spellweaver got Amber Spear, Wyssans, Transformation of Kadon and Savage Beast of Horros.
- My Lv 2 Spellsinger got the Withering and Pit of Shades (Melkoths)

The Withering, Amber Spear, Savage Beast, all 3 I need. Harmonic and Dwellers are a little concerning but nothing I can’t handle. Pit of shades is nice but its not what the backup caster is there for, so I switched it out for Melkoths. He has good magical defence with the equivalent of 2 scrolls and 3 casters, but I have all the spells I need to bait them out.

[/b]Deployment:

He deployed first, his trebuchet sat about 12” apart from one another behind his bowmen. His skirmisher bowmen were deployed further forward on the left flank, his Pegasus-Star on the right flank with his prophetess and paladin. In the middle were his men at arms with the Damsel on foot and on the left hand side of the middle were his knights of the realm with his Damsel of Heavens. His yeomen ranged forward in front of his Pegasus-star to screen them.

I placed my Glade Guard block midway up my deployment zone in the free venom thicket for protection against ranged attacks, the poisoned attack bonus and the general forest bonuses of fighting in woods. My Wild Riders skirted the left hand edge of the wood so as to be obscured from the skirmisher bowmen’s line of sight but able to charge through the wood to assist my glade guard. They were slightly staggered so as to be able to leave open the possibility of getting into the flank of anything taking the glade guard head on while still remaining partially in the forest when they did so. One unit of Hawk Riders containing my Singer of shadows sat at the edge of my deployment zone on the left flank, the other containing my spellweaver and sisters of twilight were on the right flank opposite his Pegasus-star. 2 units of waywatchers deployed just behind the front arc of his bowmen and near the trebuchet on the left side of his deployment zone, another unit of waywatchers along with the waystalker deployed to the right of the yeomen and out of the front arc of the Pegasus-star while the final one deployed behind his righthand trebuchet.

[b]Turn 1:

His army obviously prayed so I went first. Almost everything stayed put with my wild riders rotating slightly and my hawk riders on the right scooting up into bow range of the Yeomen. My Hawk riders on the left moved up slightly as well. Magic was largely uneventful, I think I rolled two 3’s and channelled once. I cast the withering on his knights of the realm reducing them to T2 and 4 diced a large amber spear at the peg knights, he didn’t have the dice to stop it so decided to pop his silver mirror, the resulting backlash wounded my spellweaver. Shooting and the Sisters of Twilight killed 3 yeomen, the Weaver and Hawk riders finished the rest. My waywatchers and stalker felled a Pegasus knight between them, the waywatchers on the right flank opted to fire multiple shots and killed the crew of one of the trebuchet. The two units of Waywatchers on the left flank killed 4 peasant archers and 3 knights of the realm between them. The leftmost hawk riders fired on the KoTR but failed to cause any damage.

In his turn everything moved forward or turned to face the waywatchers besides the trebuchet of course. His KoTR marched their max range forward and his peg-star swooped into charge range of my hawk riders/sisters/weaver. His horde of men at arms marched directly towards my eternal guard while his skirmisher bowmen attempted to pin my waywatchers into the corner of the board and save the remaining trebuchet. His two units of normal bowmen moved up to fire at the respective hawk rider units. He rolled well, 5 and a 6 for his winds of magic. He dispels the withering, casts harmonic convergence on his KoTR, resurrected all of his slain KoTR with a regrowth, wyssan’s on his men-at-arms and then tried for a dwellers on my hawk riders but failed to cast it. In his shooting, his skirmisher bowmen killed 1 waywatcher, his left-hand normal bowmen caused 1 wound on a hawk rider and his righthand bowmen failed to wound the other unit of hawk riders. His trebuchet killed 6 eternal guard who held firm.

Turn 2:

2 units of glade riders arrive from ambush, one arrives on the left hand side of the board edge near my 2 units of waywatchers and right next to the trebuchet, the other arrives just behind the Peg-star on the right board edge, one remains in reserves. I declare one charge this turn, my hawk riders on the left charge into combat with the 11 bowmen and make it easily. One unit of waywatchers on the right flank slips past the encircling skirmisher bowmen, the other continues to retreat backwards. Meanwhile, my other Hawk riders simply fly backwards out of range of the peg-star. The Eternal guard and wild riders remain where they are. I roll a 1 and a 2 for my winds of magic but channel on my weaver, deciding to go for broke, I 4 dice a large amber spear into the KoTR with irresistible force, sadly the spear only kills a single knight before being stopped cold by a blessing of the lady. I roll a 9 for the resulting miscast which wounds the weaver reducing her to her final wound but also removes the effects of harmonic convergence and wyssan’s wildform from his units. In shooting, Naestra kills another Pegasus knight with her bow, the waystalker successfully wounds the prophetess, his waywatchers down another Pegasus knight, the other waywatchers on the right flank kill 3 peasant bowmen. Combined fire from the waywatchers on the left flank kills 5 of the skirmishing bowmen. The glade riders wound another Pegasus knight and the ones behind the trebuchet kill 3 of the 4 crew with their poisoned arrows, the remaining crew member breaks and flees from the board.

The hawk riders and spellsinger kill 6 peasant bowmen and run down the survivors carrying them just past the flank of the KoTR.
In his turn his Peg-star angles itself to support the central fight next turn, his KoTR crash into my eternal guard head-on and his men of arms are just able to hit the flank. His skirmisher archers charge my 5 waywatchers in the corner and his remaining bowmen turn to try and shoot my newly arrived glade riders on the right board edge. He rolls 1 and 4 for the winds of magic. He 2 dices a harmonic convergence onto the KoTR and barely succeeds which I let through then tries a regrowth on his Pegasus-star which I fail to dispel, resurrecting 2 knights. His shooting kills nothing. In combat the Eternal guard down 3 knights. The Knights roll poorly, despite harmonic convergence, killing only 4, and the men-at-arms kill 3 more, the elves are stubborn LD 10 and easily hold with 7 elves remaining. The waywatchers down 2 of the skirmisher bowman as they charge in before killing 4 more in combat. In return the bowmen kill 3 waywatchers. The waywatchers hold.

Turn 3:

I’m smelling blood in the water here, my glade riders on the right flank charge into the peasant bowmen, the glade riders on the left flank rear charge the skirmisher bowmen, my hawk riders’ scoot straight past the front arc of the peg-star, my wild riders charge into the flank of the KoTR. Meanwhile, my second unit of hawk riders move towards the peg-star to shoot at them, the all 3 groups of unengaged waywatchers move towards the peg-star, however, the one on the left flank is out of range still. Finally, my last unit of glade riders appears further down the right table edge in range of the peg-star. I roll a 3 and a 2 for the winds of magic, I 2 dice a wyssan’s wildform onto my wild riders, I then 3 dice a withering onto the KoTR but my opponent dispels it. The shooting phase is mediocre, dropping 1 peg knight and wounding another. The waywatchers and glade riders kill 7 skirmisher bowmen who kill 1 waywatcher in return and are run down, the glade riders on the right flank kill 6 peasant bowmen who kill 1 rider in return before being run down. In the main fight my eternal guard kill 2 men-at arms and 1 KoTR, the Wild Riders inflict 9 wounds, destroying the KoTR and accompanying Damsel and reform to hit the flank of the men-at-arms next turn. The men-at-arms kill 3 eternal guard in return leaving 4 remaining. The Men-at-arms only hold due to the reroll from the BSB and steadfast combined.

Things are looking grim for my opponent, but he still has his large Peg-star and his lord remains active, his peg-star charge into the small gap between my wild riders and the flank of his men-at-arms. He rolled a 1 and a 6 for the winds of magic and channelled one more. I dispelled his 3 dice attempt at a regrowth and allowed through a wyssan’s before dispelling shield of thorns. My wild riders struck first and killed 2 Pegasus knights, in return they are wiped out. The Eternal guard kill 1 of the men-at-arms and suffer 3 casualties in return. The single, heroic Eternal guard champion holds.

Turn 4:
My remaining ranged units encircle the Peg-star and get ready to bombard them with all the arrows I can muster. My glade riders on the left flank and both units on the right flank move into position to shoot, as do the waywatchers on the left flank. Both units of hawk riders continue to avoid the peg -star’s front arc. I roll a 4 and a 6 for my winds of magic. I 4 dice a savage beast of horros on the waystalker and easily get it off before 6 dicing the withering onto the peg knights with my spellsinger succeeding with IF. I roll a 6, reducing them to T2. The Spellsinger suffers a wound and loses a wizard level in the process. The combined WE shooting causes 9 wounds on the weakened Peg-star, killing 4 knights, the buffed waystalker also kills the prophetess. In combat, the single Eternal guard fails to harm the men-at-arms, but incredibly they cause only 1 wound in return which is saved by the champions parry save! The Eternal guard holds, god I love stubborn…
At this point, the bretonnian’s are leaderless, magicless and unable to catch anything of value. My opponent promptly surrenders.

Well...thats why I take Eternal Guard I guess. Lucky? Yes, but they hold so incredibly well despite the odds. I feel as though he was drawn into my tactics too easily, his units broke on my eternal guard while I was easily able to dismantle the rest of his force with my waywatchers and riders. KoTR are wet-noodles, they just don't perform that well here but I feel as though it would have behoved him to have split his pegasus knights into multiple units so as to be more of a threat, really all they did was kill 5 wild riders all game and get shot to pieces, he also had no protection for his artillery. Overall I'm happy with how the list performs, that being said, without the withering it would certainly have been a struggle, I'm debating switching out the waystalker for another lv 2 shadow singer, in the end he did kill the prophetess, but he generally didn't do much for the majority of the game.

 Orlanth wrote:

Sometimes. Master necros are an obvious include but I often don't bother with lords at all for vampire counts, even in higher point games. The only faction I would consider a hero only build strategy for as viable, also the only non MSU list where the BSB is optional. I would run 2-3x level 2 necro and 2x level 1 miniblender, and a level 1 defensive vampire general, with a parking lot of augments. Wight BSB optional, if I take one I will make a level 1 necro, with strictly 1 dice nehek only general. Leadership is not an issue. All vampires will be Nehek or Miasma, shadow lore attribute is great for doing a switcheroo between an exposed necro and a miniblender. Surprise!!. I dont care all vamps are level 1, they get the easiest spells and have but one job: don't miscast. My necros are all lore of vampires, some switch out for nehek but I will be looking for one for suicidal casting with Curse of Years, with three level 2's I normally get what I want, and the first one to roll Vanhels will automatically also gets Nehek, no matter what his other spell actually is, so I have easy casts and don't lose his spells. I will hide this necro priority. With this many level 1's I take the Blasphemous Tome and one dice cast as much as can be one dice cast.
The only real downside is I miss out on +4 to cast/dispel, but I can live with that, and the Tome helps.

How are you fitting 2-3 necro's and 2 miniblenders into games under 3k points? I don't recall the exact points cost of vamps and necros but that seems far too many for =/= 600 points

Level 2 Necros come in at about 100pts, level 1 vampires 150pts. Items cost extra but they are thin. It is doable at 2.4k.

For 2k I have to drop a vampire.

Necromancer 65pts level 2 +35pts = 100pts
between as many necros as i take: book of arkhan +25pts, dispel scroll +25pts
Vampire 105pts heavy armour +4pts enchanted shield +5pts, red fury +40pts sword of might +15pts = 169pts

If I dont take vampires I will have a wight king bodyguard. This is more for fun than anything else.

Points near the 25% limit, but without a lord. After minimum core tax this leave me approx 50% of the army for special and rare choices. I go easy on rare so I can afford the special units I rely on, particularly grave guard and/or crypt horrors.

Despite all this I play casual so there is nothing stopping me from playing a vampire lord. I have almost as many vampires as I have zombies, if we exclude the corpse cart. This is first because I only have one block of 20 (mantic) zombies, plus a handful more still on the sprue. My zombies only exist for a bit of flavout. To do zombies properly I need literally hundreds so I chose to eschew them.
The other reason i have so many vampires is that I have enough to make different clan armies. I have only one Strigoi (wont need more), but have several Blood Dragons, Lahmians and two Necrarchs (will be adding a third). I also have several generic/Von Carstein vampires to add for seventeen full total, though that includes Mannfred twice.

I like to mix it up as you can see, and yes my army is casual, so if theme calls for a vampire lord that is what I take. Also some lists use necros, others dont, all based on theme.

I have the tools to make an tournament effective Vampire counts list, mainly by default, but i choose not to. Casual players often find themselves more strapped for points than competitive gamers, simply because we must find the points for thee toys we want to play. Which can be difficult. wheras a competitive gamer will naturally shy away from unnecessary waste for casuals it is our bread and butter.

I see, but why take so many nehek batteries when you're not bringing zombies. Only 1 necromancer can effectively increase skeletons which means your first 1-2 turns of magic are going to be relatively inefficient. VC infantry, besides buffed ghouls, can't hold vs anything, now if you've buffed up your zombie units to 60+ by the time your opponent reaches you they will easily tarpit even the toughest units by virtue of numbers alone.
I guess its a personal decision, zombies have terrible models and are generally boring units to use (aside from summoning shenanigans).

Yazima wrote:
I see, but why take so many nehek batteries when you're not bringing zombies. Only 1 necromancer can effectively increase skeletons which means your first 1-2 turns of magic are going to be relatively inefficient. VC infantry, besides buffed ghouls, can't hold vs anything, now if you've buffed up your zombie units to 60+ by the time your opponent reaches you they will easily tarpit even the toughest units by virtue of numbers alone.
I guess its a personal decision, zombies have terrible models and are generally boring units to use (aside from summoning shenanigans).

Good catch. I play mostly 9th Age 1.1 which allows you to boost size of skeletons. I find size boosting a problem. My group allows me to use a MTG dial down d20 and place it on a special base with corpses rising from the ground, plus additional +20 tokens. It saves on a lot of mess, and cost.
This is not relevant to your commentary though.

Actually I dont use nehek to summonhorde. I require Nehek to pulse charge the wights and other special troops. Grave Guard are really nasty but they do take casualties, the idea is to not allow time for an opponent to attrit them. I have 50 Grave Guard (two units of 25),12 Black Knights, plus 8 Crypt horrors and 40 Ghouls, I intend to regrow them all back to maximum or near maximum each turn. Endlessly recycling wights is as scary as it is nasty. I also have 3x 35 skeletons and 20 zombies and 15 Dire Wolves (with option to sub in another 30 chaos warhounds into the mix). Needless to say I cant use all those at once but I try to field all my Grave Guard if I can. Maximising special choice expenditure is how my army works.

Also remember that four neheks mostly from level 1's is not as much as you might think. They are mostly one dice, max two dice casts with Blasphemous Tome with corpse cart assist on the regrowth.. Some will be dispelled a third (of one dice casts) will fail outright. Some redundancy is built in, one way or another I must get enough nehek off. Vanhels is also important as it pumps the corpse cart augment and propels the army forwards. Unless extremely unlucky with rolling magic dice I am unlikely to whiff my magic phase.

Again were I to tourney I would take multiple units of minimum zombies as a cheap backstop and grow them. But even then its having more Crypt horrors and Grave Guard than the opponent can kill which is important. I only need a few in each unit to survive to regrow the entire unit every turn.

Your very shooty army could try to annihilate a unit at a time to stop that. I think you would be able to also. Hence need for supplementary zombie horde in tourney. As I play casual with what I have got i dont need that. Not that it would do me any good if I stuck to my normal advancing bunker tactics.

 Orlanth wrote:

Your very shooty army could try to annihilate a unit at a time to stop that. I think you would be able to also. Hence need for supplementary zombie horde in tourney. As I play casual with what I have got i dont need that. Not that it would do me any good if I stuck to my normal advancing bunker tactics.

You would be surprised. The more I test this list the more painfully obvious it becomes that without the withering nothing over T4 dies even if my whole army shoots at it. All you have to do is save your dispell dice/scroll for that spell, the rest of my magic phase is essentially trying to bait power dice out.
Don't get me wrong, if you play this army properly and get the right spells off it is absolutely brutal.
I'm starting to think that it might actually benefit me to cut some waywatchers and replace them with deepwood scouts with poisoned arrows. A mass crypt horror build would be completely unkillable for me. Similarly lots of wights would cause me trouble, I'm never going to kill more than 15 infantry models/turn with shooting.
That being said, I've also found that most MSU builds just don't work against me, its too easy to isolate and destroy them, the only thing that really worries me is skink skirmishers and thats entirely due to their price and poison, they trade up efficiently against everything in my army. They wound and hit on a 6 vs almost everything anyway so bulk of shots + poison becomes so efficient, waywatchers really cannot handle them, only hawk riders can.

I'm glad I didn't cut the waystalker though, he's proving exceptionally useful. I find that in competitive play most people tend to neglect protection on their often integral low-level casters in favour of using the points elsewhere to buff up their specials or rares. They'll drop a 4++ on their lord caster but often leave the backup very unprotected, often fencers blades at max, as he's usually cheap. What they don't take into account is the value of the spells they get on that caster, its usually far more valuable than putting 2 extra knights in a unit or an extra banner on something. Knocking out my opponents access to harmonic convergence or wyssan's on the first turn of the game is hilarious and can completely shift the course of the game

Yazima wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Your very shooty army could try to annihilate a unit at a time to stop that. I think you would be able to also. Hence need for supplementary zombie horde in tourney. As I play casual with what I have got i dont need that. Not that it would do me any good if I stuck to my normal advancing bunker tactics.

You would be surprised. The more I test this list the more painfully obvious it becomes that without the withering nothing over T4 dies even if my whole army shoots at it. All you have to do is save your dispell dice/scroll for that spell, the rest of my magic phase is essentially trying to bait power dice out.
Don't get me wrong, if you play this army properly and get the right spells off it is absolutely brutal.
I'm starting to think that it might actually benefit me to cut some waywatchers and replace them with deepwood scouts with poisoned arrows. A mass crypt horror build would be completely unkillable for me. Similarly lots of wights would cause me trouble, I'm never going to kill more than 15 infantry models/turn with shooting.

On the other hand I am also aware of my army's limitations, it involves troops with low movement rates and synergy of short ranged auras, mostly 6" radius. Thankfully this is optimum and the army can function with less or with a more dispersed formation but a recurring wight/crypt horror list is a form of combined multi-unit deathstar and anti-deathstar tactics can apply. These help skirmish lists. Unlike a deathstar I can choose to blossom out mid game and move key units away from augment wagons and multiple nehek, critically this should be done either when they are heading for an objective and there will not be time for remaining troops to whittle them down to prevent contention, or I have built up a large atrittional advantage that maximising unit size is no longer necessary.
So in a way my army swordline is a multi-component deathstar that breaks up mid to late game (while still mostly intact up to that point) to grab terrain or engage multiple opponents. This gives it an advantage over conventional compact lists in that the main assets can be in several places at once. Vanhels is critical to a clean dispersal.


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My vampires are a bigoted bunch, my elite units are wights only.