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I have decided to start playing Warhammer Fantasy. I started 40k earlier this year and became an avid player, getting 3-4 games in per week. I have a few questions about play style/strength/etc.

I'm going mostly off of aesthetics/fluff for my choices as I did for 40k. I'm trying to line out a 2500 point army. I like the playstyle (in my head, anyway) of lots of strong infantry with magic buffing/debuffing. The models/lore being good is an important factor for me. My ideas are as follows.

1. Vampire Counts. I like the lore, I like the lords and the look, as well as some of the specials/rare such as Grave guard and the Black Coach. My list is approximately:

Vampire Lord - Level 4. Beguile, Quickblood, armor of destiny, heavy armor, shield.

Two necromancers level 2 on corpse carts with balefire.

40 Zombies X4 with standard bearers

20 Grave Guard x 2 with champion, standard bearer, musician.

The Black Coach

Hexwraith x 7

Something like that anyway. My basic idea is a lot zombies supported by buffs and heavy infantry with a cavalry unit for flanking. I tried to make the lord beefy since, as I understand it, really bad stuff happens if he dies. One concern I have is that VC is overplayed. There are 5 guys at my shop who play regularly and 3 of them have a VC army.


My second pick is Wood Elves. I haven't made a list yet, but I assume it would be something along the lines of:

Highborn

Spellsinger x 2

20 Eternal Guard x 2 with BSB, Musician, Champ
20 Glade Guard x 2 with BSB, Musician, Champ

Treekin x 5

Treeman x 2


Another army I am considering is Tomb Kings. A similar set up with lots of Tomb Guard and Sphinxes, although once again, no idea how effective this strat is. I'm also considering High Elves, similar strategy. I am trying to stay away from named characters as my shop doesn't use them in most games. I'm just looking to get an idea of strength and if some armies are played a lot/never touched. Thanks!

hoilismad wrote:
I have decided to start playing Warhammer Fantasy. I started 40k earlier this year and became an avid player, getting 3-4 games in per week. I have a few questions about play style/strength/etc.

I'm going mostly off of aesthetics/fluff for my choices as I did for 40k. I'm trying to line out a 2500 point army. I like the playstyle (in my head, anyway) of lots of strong infantry with magic buffing/debuffing. The models/lore being good is an important factor for me. My ideas are as follows.

1. Vampire Counts. I like the lore, I like the lords and the look, as well as some of the specials/rare such as Grave guard and the Black Coach. My list is approximately:

Vampire Lord - Level 4. Beguile, Quickblood, armor of destiny, heavy armor, shield.

Two necromancers level 2 on corpse carts with balefire.

40 Zombies X4 with standard bearers

20 Grave Guard x 2 with champion, standard bearer, musician.

The Black Coach

Hexwraith x 7

Something like that anyway. My basic idea is a lot zombies supported by buffs and heavy infantry with a cavalry unit for flanking. I tried to make the lord beefy since, as I understand it, really bad stuff happens if he dies. One concern I have is that VC is overplayed. There are 5 guys at my shop who play regularly and 3 of them have a VC army.

Ok first off good choice on VC as i reckon there awesome their ability to ressurect the dea is awesome, there core are cheap there GG rule with killing blow and heavy armour, Crpyt Horrors rock i suggest getting some 3 wounds 3 attacks (poisoned ) and a stomp regen save of 5+ its pretty awesome

for a Vamp lord you want red fury for generating extra attacks, armour of destiny already is heavy armour and a ward save.
here's what i run:
-shield
-heavy armour
-lvl 3
-nightshroud ( enemy in base contact loose strength bonuses from weapons and gain ASL)
- sword of strife ( +2 attacks)
-red fury (for extra attacks)
-quick blood ( for ASF with re-rolls)
- fear incarnate ( i forget what this does)

in total hes 499pts

30 min in Grave Guard do they have great weapons or sword and Board?

dont use CC necro's they become a warmachine target and its not worth the buff.

40 zombies for core is not going to last definatly have more core units i.e more zombies or add a unit of skellies or ghouls or both

hex wraiths great choice but they are magic missile magnets. i run a unit of 5.

so are you thinking of adding any carin wraiths or wright kings or Crypt horrors or anything else?

I'll definitely take the advice about my lord's upgrades into consideration as I was just picking blindly. All my Grave Guard are sword and board. I thought the Corpse Carts are just buffing machines so I figured I could put the necromancers on them as all they are really gonna do is put out buffs.

I thought 4 groups of 40 zombies would be decent. Should I make less units but make them larger? Also, is the Coven mount any good? No, I hadn't looked into any of those other units I was at 2500 points with this.

Don't stick a necromancer on a corpsecart they will just get shot off right away.

At 2500pts you can fit both a kick ass CC vampire lord and a lvl 4 lore of death necro.

Things to consider getting on you vampire

Vampire
Lvl 1 wizard (better at CC plus you don't have to worry about miscasts take sig vamp spell)
Red fury (required pretty much)
Quickblood (remember not only do you hit first but if your initive is equal to or higher than the model you're strikeing at you can reroll all missed hits so this is also pretty much a requirement)
Fear incarnate/dreadknight/nothing else

Ogre blade (+2 str is awesome since it puts you at 7 which is 4 off your enemys armor save)
Book of arkham (is nice for the extra movement not required if on foot but helps loads if the lord is with a calvery unit)
Charmed shield (cheep)
other tricketers shard (enemy's reroll sucessfull ward saves)
heavy armor (or a magical varent)
Some sort of ward save if you want.

Lord Necromancer
lvl 4
Lore of death (take sig death spell to kill enemy characters and purple moon if you roll it and kill baby kill)

For specials just about everyone takes a 30 strong unit of grave guard with great weapons and banner of the barrows they will kill most anything, throw the vamp lord in here for more fun and you will kill everything.

...Dang look at the time I really should be studying...

EDIT:

Damn can't kick this habit...

Coven thrones are hard to use and super expensive, I would spend your money on units that are easier to use a proven to work. People seem to like the mortis engine better.
.
Terrorgheists are pretty ace if you take a pair of them

Zombies won't kill gak... won't .... kill... gak.... I mean it they won't kill a damn thing and will lose every turn of combat. They are only there to tie up enemy units in combat forever.

Skeletons are better (have an armor save and with a shield a parry save) they can also take magic banners.

Crypt ghouls are the "Best" at killing stuff but don't come with any kind of save and one ghould costs as much as 3 zombies or 2 skeletons.

Back knights are pretty cool, they could as etherial for purposes of moveing (can move through terrain as though it wasn't there) and barding does not slow them down. If you take 13 of them with a mounted wight king and a vampire with the book of arkham you have a very fast moveing very maneruverable hard hitting unit.

Spirit hosts are loads of fun, bring three in a unit and flank with them, or throw them at a unit that has no magic weapons in it (they are fully ethereal so only magic and magic weapons can touch them)

Hexwraiths I've never ued but they look pretty awesome.

Ah, that makes sense about the two different lords. I just really like the Coven Throne model lol. So, would it be better to take big groups of skeletons? I figured most of my killing would come from my special/rare units and my core would just be to bog people down.

I love how my coven throne looks too (its why I bought one) but the absolute cheepest you can go to get one is 335pts (hero vamp riding no other upgrades)

450 if your lord vamp is riding it (before upgrades)

You'll have to read up online on how to make it work.

If you're looking for some good general vampire counts info then I recomend http://www.vampirecounts.net/portal.php

Some of their tactic's articles are a little out of date but if you look through the army list sub forum you should be able to find plenty of tips as well as plenty of good starting lists.

Note; Anything on the subject of vampire counts by Johnny-Crass is well worth a read.

Thanks I will definitely look into it. Any insight as to whether my wood elf list is viable at all?

Not a clue.

It's an older codex but that doesn't matter so much in fantasy.

Oh, I thought it still mattered someone. I'm new, though.

For woodelves you definately want to include atleast 1 block of 6 treekin, preferably 2 blocks of 6 though. Sadly the elves are very expensive for how fragile they are. For core Glade Guard are still excellent archers, but you will want to include 20 ish dryads to really stand a chance against most armies. Sure the tree spirits are flammable, however ; some armour is better than none, and unless they have magic weapons or are daemons of chaos you will get your ward save. Generally on the tournament scene, the wood elves with the least amount of elves do the best. This is not always true, but it sure helps. Also its not bad to have a regiment or 2 of 5 glade riders to charge block, and warhawk riders are pretty good at warmachine/archer hunting since they get a vanguard.

(edit) You probably also want a lvl 4 lore of life with a dispell scroll.

Do people normally try to take one high level wizard and one beefy CC character regardless of their army?

In any competition you will generally see a lvl 3-4 wizard in every army, the only real exception is a conclave of light army, where you may see 4 lvl 2's all lore of light. A beefy CC character is hit and miss, since Lords effectively geared out can be very pricey. There are some exceptions With bretonnia, skaven, orcs and goblins, you will always see a level 4 and a CC lord because the lords are decent, not really the best, but cost a low enough points that you dont lose much from other area's of the army. With WoC you will see a lvl 4 and a beefed out Hero since their characters cost a lot of points, so 2 lords is very hard to accomplish. Daemons of Chaos, their lords are just rediculously expensive so its player prefferance there but a lvl 4 for them is upwards of 500 points, 600 if its a greater daemon. High elves, dark elves, its not rare to only see a lvl 2 since they can for 10-15 points take a magical item to give +1 spell.

General summary, expect a lvl 4 in almost all games, since alot of the time, the lvl 4 lord magic user has an extended selection of magical lores they can use when compaired to a lvl 2. These additional lores to choose from usually suppliment the army better than what a lvl 2 can select.

A beefy CC lord/hero can go either way. A lot of players would rather take the points towards a good BSB, to suppliment their "deathstar" unit, and that usually is a lot more deadly than buffing out a single melee champion. A prime example is dark elf corsairs, since they can incluse a sea serpent banner as the unit is base to get frenzy, then add in a hydra banner from the BSB for an additional attack. You got a front rank with 4 attacks now for basic infantry.