Vampire Counts Skeletons

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**Grimmor**

Ok i like the skeles, but do i give them spears or sword and board? Id like to know what everybody thunks of either.

**Grey Templar**

Sword and board. You actually gain some slight durability.

Spears give you another rank of Str3 attacks. Whoop de frickin do! Assuming horde formation, that gains you 2.5 wounds against T3(not common) with no save modification.

Better to have a 6+ ward that everyone benifits from then cause maybe one more wound. Skeletons arn't a combat block. They are supposed to hold the enemy till a heavy hitter can flank them.

**HawaiiMatt**

Only take spears if you're also running a mortis engine.
Not much point in having a 6+ parry when they get a 6+ regen.
I'd say that spear are exactly worth the nothing you pay for them.

-Matt

**Ineedvc2500**

Spear hordes. They have potential to deal more wounds. Id rather kill what im fighting and move on than get stuck in multiple rounds of combat. It also depends on your use of magic. I only use IoN so i dont really care about durability

**jonolikespie**

Ineedvc2500 wrote:
Spear hordes. They have potential to deal more wounds. Id rather kill what im fighting and move on than get stuck in multiple rounds of combat. It also depends on your use of magic. I only use IoN so i dont really care about durability

Sorry but you have no idea how to use skeletons. They are not a combat block and shouldn't ever be used as one. At most they are a tarpit that can take one or two enemies with them per turn. If you want to run them 10 wide, 4 deep, give them spears and try to get danse and vigor off on them any turn they are in combat you might have a chance of winning, but that's a huge investment for a sub par block that will require a lot of your power dice to work (assuming you even get the spells off). As for IoN and durability, two different things, they are more durable with shields. That is a fact. IoN will raise skellies back, trying to run them as a combat unit will mean you need to raise a lot though, the parry saves will save you 1 or 2 every turn which is 2 or 4 less you need to raise.

The only reason to run skellies with spears is if you know they'll be getting the mortis engines regen save.

**Ineedvc2500**

Easy guy its just a game. I disagree with you. I feel all units with a weapon in hand are combat units. Sorry but i think you are using the wrong unit for tarpitting. Zombies are far more effective for tarpitting. I feel you are stuck in 7ed. What if you could make skeles better at killing things aka causing more wounds why not? Skekes are 5 pts and you want them to survive when theres the potential to cause more wounds on higher point models? They are there to be sacraficed and raised. You dont know how to use skeletons in 8th pal

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dude who cares about 1-2 skekes when you can deal more wounds?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skeles are going to lose combat. Why not try and profit from there death

**jonolikespie**

Ineedvc2500 wrote:
Easy guy its just a game. I disagree with you. I feel all units with a weapon in hand are combat units. Sorry but i think you are using the wrong unit for tarpitting. Zombies are far more effective for tarpitting. I feel you are stuck in 5ed. What if you could make skeles better at killing things aka causing more wounds why not? Skekes are 5 pts and you want them to survive when theres the potential to cause more wounds on higher point models? They are there to be sacraficed and raised. You dont know how to use skeletons in 6th pal

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dude who cares about 1-2 skekes when you can deal more wounds?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skeles are going to lose combat. Why not try and profit from there death

I.. um first off 5ed and 6th..

As to "why not?": They are 5 points, they are more expensive than a zombie because you're paying for armour and a shield. Most times that armour is worthless but a parry save isn't. They are stil WS2 S3 T3 I2 A1. They are a more durable but smaller tarpit than zombies, using them as a combat block is not cost effective. You can get a ghoul that's WS3 S3 T4 I3 A2 and poison for 10 points, and I know I'd rather 20 ghouls to 40 skellies if I were trying to do damage to something.

**Ineedvc2500**

I fixed my typo sorry. This post is about skeles not ghouls. Thats a completely diff post.

**-Loki-**

If you are running a Corpse Cart mounted Necromancer behind your lines, it's actually not hard at all to get Vigour Mortis off and affecting those Spear skellies. It's not actualy any investment - it's just casting Invocation of Nehek, which you probably would be doing anyway.

**Ineedvc2500**

What im trying to say is if youre going to use them as a tarpit why not a tarpit that has more attacks and thus higher chance of dealing wounds

**Grey Templar**

Ineedvc2500 wrote:
What im trying to say is if youre going to use them as a tarpit why not a tarpit that has more attacks and thus higher chance of dealing wounds

A tarpit is supposed to be as durable as possable. Giving them spears reduces their durability by removing the Parry save.

The 6+ Regen is ok, but it can be negated. better to always have it. Another 5-10 attacks at Str3 are going to do jack squat against most enemies.

**Ma55ter_fett**

I use sword and board skele's for the reasons already mentioned.

**jonolikespie**

Because, in my experience, it is more useful to do 1 wound and take 5 than to do 2 wounds and take 7.

**Ineedvc2500**

Not looking at big picture. 2 wounds is worth it when you raise with IoN. IoN makes then more durable. We are arguing over 2-7 skekes? In a vacuum spears are not as good as swords but with comboed with IoN it seems better. Ive playtested sword and board and would always lose. When i play with spears i wouldnt lose by as much.

**jonolikespie**

I'd rather be focusing my IoNs on my grave guard though.
It sounds like you are throwing too many resources at them to do a take they aren't suited for. Yes with lots of IoNs focused on them and a corpse cart they can fight, but you're spending 90 points on the corpse cart and using more power dice then you should be on your skellies. You're better off focusing on grave guard or ghouls and making a killy unit more killy rather than trying to push skellies into a killy role.

**Grey Templar**

You are assuming you will be able to get Invocation off, its not garunteed.

Plus there is the issue that the enemy can often kill them faster then you can raise them. So having something to reduce the casualities is always a good thing.

**Ineedvc2500**

Ion is not focused it affects around wizard. It can hit GG too

**war**

I like skellies, always use sword and board. I guess if you used fire or metal and god a pile of buffs.... skellies still wouldn't kill much.

Besides, spears break easier. dumb thin plastic shafts

**-Loki-**

jonolikespie wrote:
I'd rather be focusing my IoNs on my grave guard though.

It's a bubble effect. Just try to have both units within range.

**jonolikespie**

Yes, it is a bubble, but I'd never position to keep the wizards in range of the skellies rather than the grave guard if I had to choose. As soon as they aren't within 6" of your main caster they begin folding, parry saves slows that a little though.

**Ineedvc2500**

You can adjust IoN to 18in. So the bottom line is do you wanna preserve your skelles or kill the enemy.

**jonolikespie**

But casting value goes up to 18 as well, it's a lot less reliable.

I want to preserve the skellies because a VC army should be killing things with grave guard, ghouls, black knights and other specials, rares and characters, not skellies or zombies.

**Ineedvc2500**

Holy crap why not try to make skeles more killy?

**jonolikespie**

Because you have to try.

Grave guard, ghouls or black knights are already killy.

**Ineedvc2500**

Spears are free. If your opp is going to dispell IoN lettm. I see theres no reasoning with you on this

**Grey Templar**

You can try to make Skeletons more killy, however the best you can do is make them on par with other average units. Which is a waste.

You need to make skeletons more durable so they can hold the enemy while your real killy units do the killing.

**Ineedvc2500**

You need to use zombies then

**jonolikespie**

I've seen a unit of 70 zombies get wiped out in 1 round of combat, sometimes you just need something with an armour save and a parry.

**Grey Templar**

Yup, Zombies can go down fast. Even a 100 zombies can go down quickly with the right unit attacking them.

Skeletons have a small amount of durability for only a little bit more then the zombies.

**Ineedvc2500**

You need to kill the enemy screw durability