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Hey guys, I'm seeking advice on Vampire Counts. I recently came into possession of a bunch of undead models (Mantic Kings of War undead to be precise) and so I decided to start a VC army using them. I'm only going to play them in friendly circles who won't care about non GW models, so it shouldn't be a problem.

So, I got the Undead starter set which is 20 Zombies, 20 Ghouls and 10 Skeleton warriors (can be found http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Kings-of-War/Undead/Getting-Started/Product/Undead-One-Player-Battle-Set-50-Figures.html) and, out of nowhere, by girlfriend randomly bought me a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon box to go with (pic related http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1290005a)

Now obviously, I appreciate that I won't be able to field said Lord on Dragon for a good while, but I'm seeking advice on two fronts:

1) What would be the best way to put together said dragon box. Would you go with Lord on Dragon or Ghoul King on Terrorgheist? And does anyone know if you can exploit the bits left over from the box to make anything worthwhile? Like, if I build the Terrorgheist, can I use the leftover Vampire model and just stick him on a horse or something?

2) Given what I've already got from the above box, what would your next purchase be to make this a viable force?

So... er yeah, help?

Thanks in advance...

As I understand it with VC you want a minimum of core and then fill out with killy vampires and the other effective parts of the list.
I understand that the ethereals can be very effective, (presumably best against troops without magical attacks).
Grave Guard would probably do to strengthen things up a bit, maybe some more necromancer models too.

If you really wanna go a lord on dragon go for it but a terrorgheist without a rider is a much better choice since it doesn't leave your o so important general vulnerable to cannon fire. With the kit I would suggest making it a terrorgheist, turn the ghoul king rider into a king on foot (might take some creative basing) then stick the lord on a horse.

As for next purchases, Azzaphox is spot on, we take the bare minimum core then fill our lord allotment, from there the rest of your points go to whatever takes your fancy in the hero/special/rare section.

You can play a terrorgheist at 1000 points, but not a ghoul king or mounted vampire lord so I'd aim at 1500 points. At that points lever you should either ignore the skeletons or ghouls them pump the other to get up to the min core. If you like skeletons that means you'll need 40 more of them then 20 or so more zombies (can probably use ghouls for that). If you like ghouls you'll only need about 10 more.

From there you'll want a few more characters (say just 1 or 2 of whatever you like out of the heroes section), then a unit of something to be your main combat block (30 grave guard, 10-15 black knights and 9 or so crypt horrors are your best options here).

All that should come out at around 1500 and you'll have a pretty decent army together.

You want a tooled up lord. Go for a flying ghoul king with scab scrath, red fury, the fire helm, and the other tricksters shard. You should be able to kill any character or most of a unit with him alone. If you have a lot of ogre players, get Conrad - he will rip apart multi wound enemies if he doesn't go stupid but for 140 points he's worth it.

I'm wary of kitting out a solo Ghoul King just due to his squishyness. 5+ regen doesn't protect you very much. You'll wreck a unit, sure, but any return attacks are going to hurt.

I'm more a fan of a blender Vampire Lord. You get much better protection for only a slight drop in offensive capabilities - and the ability to go level 4 caster to boot.

Vampire Lord, Armour of Destiny, Shield, Ogre Blade, Red Fury, Quickblood. Still a very good chance for 10 S7 attacks to completely wreck a target unit or character, but backed up by a 4+/4++ save.

In my experience...

I ran my vampire lord on food with Armor of Destiny, Red Fury, Sword of quick slaying...spellshield or whatever, and something else. I wasn't very impressed with the results.

I use a 5x10 horde or spear skeletons. Common opponent is a saurus warriors. With a buff and hex going off here and there from a cheap necro in a bunker behind them, or even with them, they can usually do a decent bit of killing. They're there for tarpitting though, which with how fast you can bring them back they do quite well. To note, spear skellies are slightly more offensive based than sword and board skellies. Tactically, sword and board might be superior as a tar pitting unit, but I prefer the extra spear pokes personally. You're choice.

Zombies are terrible, never take them in your list. You CAN however raise them, so if you go that route it might be worth it to pick a few of them up. Just remember they are piss poor in combat, never expect them to do anything but slow things down, if that.

Ghouls are more killy than skeletons, but no armor to speak of. Some people prefer them, but I'd rather my specials do the killing while my core hold stuff still, and eventually win via attrition.

Cairn wraiths are pretty terrible so far for me. Keep them around to accept challenges aimed at your master necro or whatever squishy leader you don't want dying. However, I'm starting to think wight kings would do that job better. Have yet to include a wight king yet though.

Grave guard with banner of the barrows (It's kind of optional but I like the things to have that extra bit of killyness, also I only have like 20 of them right now). Most of what they run into dies, and dies hard. They can also get some necromantic support to raise there numbers. and keep them healthy.

I've had bad luck getting dire wolves to do...anything. From what I hear they're good for warmachine hunting, but I've yet to fight an army with those so I don't know. Even flanking things and not getting attacked I have trouble scratching much of anything.

I like the varghulf. First turn hatred and regen can be useful. Decently killy to boot. However, they need care when being used else they get cut down before doing their job. People say varghiests are superior, at least survivability wise. No experience with varghiests though.

Corpse carts are eh. Highly suggest you not mount a necro in one. Makes it a prime target for cannons, as well just about anything with decent killing power. Vigour mortis is decent, but I feel the 90 points can be spent better elsewhere.

I never leave home without spear skelly and grave guard with great weapon blocks.

2) Given what I've already got from the above box, what would your next purchase be to make this a viable force?

Depends on what you want the army to be like. Generally you can't go wrong if you avoid obviously bad units.

2 minute rundown:

Vampire lords are effective either on foot as a blood dragon with quickblood and red fury, sword of ogre strength, and whatever defensive items. You're going to be striking first, rerolling to hit, wounding on a 2+, and gaining an additional attack for each wound. Hard to beat that. Can upgrade to lvl 3-4, can go in a unit of black knights to raise a crazy amount of expensive knights per turn, can be run as a more bare bones fighter.
Hero vampires are logically mini versions of the lord vampires, same rules apply more or less though they cant be great casters.

Master necros are great. Take one if you don't have a caster lord.
Necromancers are alright. You will probably want some, possibly a master of the dead necro or master necro dedicated to raising up your main zombie, grave guard, and skeleton blocks.

Grave guard are best with great weapons in a horde as stated, 30-40. Banner of the barrows is more or less mandatory.

Zombies are great, take them in a deep formation, never horde as they are worthless attacking. Combo them with...

Wraiths are great in the front rank of a skeleton or zombie unit. For 300 points you can get 5 wraiths which will beat most units in combat, and always win due to outnumbering and ranks and ranks of zombies behind them. Totally immune to mundane attacks in combat.

Skeletons are okay. Take them with shields mostly, spears are a bit worse but not awful. Remind yourself that skeletons are not a killing unit.
Ghouls suck now. Too expensive and weak, don't take them.

Dire wolves are great in small units for blocking and warmachine hunting.
Spirit hosts, mostly the same deal.
Fell bats too.
Bat swarms mostly suck and give your opponent tons of combat advantage with in turn explodes all your grave guard.

I've not had much experience with the Strigoi units like varghulfs so I won't really comment.

Black knights are good, especially in larger units with a necromancer to raise them.
Hexwraiths are okay.
Blood knights are good.

Zombie dragons are bad.
Varghulfs are good.
Corpse carts are okay.

The special characters are all mostly decent.

 -Loki- wrote:
I'm wary of kitting out a solo Ghoul King just due to his squishyness. 5+ regen doesn't protect you very much. You'll wreck a unit, sure, but any return attacks are going to hurt.

I'm more a fan of a blender Vampire Lord. You get much better protection for only a slight drop in offensive capabilities - and the ability to go level 4 caster to boot.

Vampire Lord, Armour of Destiny, Shield, Ogre Blade, Red Fury, Quickblood. Still a very good chance for 10 S7 attacks to completely wreck a target unit or character, but backed up by a 4+/4++ save.

I've always kept my ghoul king in a unit and use flying when I need to jump out and move across the battlefield. He has a 5+ regen and 2+ vs fire. If you are afraid, issue a challenge. Enemy characters must accept or not fight. I'm not advocating charge their Death Star alone.

If you have an annoying OK player, try Konrad. He isn't a magic user so their one big magic item won't affect him. Next each time he wounds he does 2 wounds and will get 2 additional attacks due to red fury (works with any weapon that does multi wounds). It's really entertaining when you get one guy who can potentially get 7A and kill 3 Ogres and 2 wounds. That gets him 11 extra attacks that can kill an additional 5 more ogres and put 2 more wounds (or kill that one ogre with one more wound). That is something near 24 wounds. As long as he doesn't go stupid!

Okay, quick update!

Thanks for the help everyone, been some great advice!

So, I broke open my dragon/terrorgheist box, and I've finished building it. I've pretty much split it down into as many individual units and the like as I can, so I've ended up with:

- A Terrorgheist (just going to field it on its own as a rare choice)

- Strigoi Ghoul King on foot (probably going to pop him into a unit of ghouls or zombies)

- Vampire/Vampire Lord which I was going to put on a horse, but found that I'd have to deface his armour to get him to sit properly, so I've ended up mounting him on the neck/head of the dragon bits that I've got left over, and then basing that to make it look as if it's coming out of the ground. I'm planning on running that as a counts-as nightmare, since it fits on a cavalry base.

So, my plan next is to get another mantic undead box and a necromancer, so I can get a unit of 40 zombies, 40 ghouls and then use the 20 skeletons I'll have as Grave Guard, since the Mantic skeletons are a bit in between standard GW skellies and armoured undead.

How does that sound?

1) Never run your general with zombies, your king/lord will add +10 to your combat rez but anyone fighting zombies will win by 20, you'll still loose and eventually they will crumble your lord. Ghouls are fine if it;'s a unit of 40 or so but really you want him with grave guard if he's on foot.

2) That Nightmare idea sounds AWESOME!

As for your future purchases, sounds cool, might want more skeletons/grave guard after that though.

 Necroshea wrote:
In my experience...

I ran my vampire lord on food with Armor of Destiny, Red Fury, Sword of quick slaying...spellshield or whatever, and something else. I wasn't very impressed with the results.

Swap Sword of Swiftslaying to Ogre Blade, then give it Quickblood. Some result - you have ASF, but you're now S7. Watch things fall down in front of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kajata wrote:
So, my plan next is to get another mantic undead box and a necromancer, so I can get a unit of 40 zombies, 40 ghouls and then use the 20 skeletons I'll have as Grave Guard, since the Mantic skeletons are a bit in between standard GW skellies and armoured undead.

How does that sound?

I'd honestly use the Skeletons as Skeleton Warriors, and try to bump it up to 40-50 in the unit. They're good bunkers. 40 Ghouls and 50 Skeletons gives you the required Core for 2500pts. Add 10 more Ghouls, and you've got the Core for 3000pts. 50 Ghouls and 50 Skeletons isn't a bad Core selection. Gives you a big bunker of Skeletons and either a big Ghoul horde or two smaller Ghoul units.

Regardless of my personal views on Mantics undead - if you plan on sticking with them, they have Revenants which make better Grave Guard. More heavily armoured. One box of Revenants will give you 20 Grave Guard - a plenty big unit.

Is an all ghoul army doable? I was thinking Ghoul King, ghouls for core, those monstrous infantry ghouls and maybe one of those Mortis Engines to buff them.

 More Dakka wrote:
Is an all ghoul army doable? I was thinking Ghoul King, ghouls for core, those monstrous infantry ghouls and maybe one of those Mortis Engines to buff them.

I can't say much for an all ghoul army, but a horde of ghouls will certainly kill some stuff. However, due to having no armor and t4, without some necromantic supervision they will die off before too long. Just remember that combat resolution will most likely slap them silly, and then they take the difference in wounds.

I don't think I'd ever run that, just seems like too much babysitting to me compared to skeletons, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with it. Go for it! A cool theme if anything, I love the strigoi and I'm happy to see them come back in the new book.

Lots of ghouls, a ghoul king and lots of crypt horrors are a great STARTING POINT for an army. You can do ALL ghould but I wouldn't suggest it, instead I would say a ghoul FOCUSED army and add a couple of mortis engines to the above, as well as a few necromancers, maybe some giant bats, possibly even a vargulf/vargheists. Make it a list that consists mostly of things are (or can be presented as) still alive.

Okay, so finally got around to buying a necromancer today to supplement the vamps I've got, but I've got a question if people would be kind enough to help me out.

The mantic revenants I'm looking at using for my Grave Guard (nice suggestion there from Loki) have got 1-handed weapons and shields from the look of it, although I'd love to be corrected about that if I'm wrong, and from what I've read, it looks like everyone is suggesting great-weapons with grave guard, so my question is as follows: can a unit have both great-weapons and shields? I'm new to the fantasy side of WH, and so I'm still figuring stuff out. Obviously, they can't use both, since great-weapons are two-handers, but can they be equipped with both and choose to use different ones depending on the turn? Or is it no shield if the model is equipped with a great weapon.

The reason I ask is because I would like to save money and buy the mantic revenants, but if I have to somehow mod them all to be wielding two handed weapons, then I might be a bit screwed. Maybe better off just buying standard grave guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, so re-reading the vampire counts book, it seems that if I give my grave guard greatweapons, then I have to lose the shields anyhow.

Another question though; what should I be doing with my necromancer? Do I stick him in a big unit of zombies or something to protect him from being singled out? Or does that scupper his magic potential due to the zombies probably being tied up in combat the whole game?

 Kajata wrote:
The mantic revenants I'm looking at using for my Grave Guard (nice suggestion there from Loki) have got 1-handed weapons and shields from the look of it, although I'd love to be corrected about that if I'm wrong, and from what I've read, it looks like everyone is suggesting great-weapons with grave guard, so my question is as follows: can a unit have both great-weapons and shields? I'm new to the fantasy side of WH, and so I'm still figuring stuff out. Obviously, they can't use both, since great-weapons are two-handers, but can they be equipped with both and choose to use different ones depending on the turn? Or is it no shield if the model is equipped with a great weapon.

The reason I ask is because I would like to save money and buy the mantic revenants, but if I have to somehow mod them all to be wielding two handed weapons, then I might be a bit screwed. Maybe better off just buying standard grave guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, so re-reading the vampire counts book, it seems that if I give my grave guard greatweapons, then I have to lose the shields anyhow.

Just let your opponent know you're running them with great weapons. Most won't care.

Or if you can convert the front rank to be carrying a 2 handed weapon with one hand and not putting the shields on anyone.

Taking another look, I'm thinking of now using the Mantic Wraiths as Grave Guard. They're still undead looking creepies in armour, but they're all wielding two handed weapons, and getting 20 of them is gonna cost the same as 10 GW Grave Guard. Should do the job!

You might want 40 rather than 20 but yea, they are certainly cheaper

Well, more is always better... well nearly always!

So assuming I've got the following:

40 Skeletons, 40 Zombies, 20 Ghouls and 20 Grave Guard, which units would you put the Ghoul King and Necromancer in? And would you get any more characters beyond that?

Necromancer goes in a unit of 20 zombies, the idea is to hide his unit from combat and let them give him some bodies to protect him from shooting. 20 is too small to be usefull but if the game is going your way they will be up to 60-80 by the end of the game and can be put into play then.

As for the ghoul king, he needs to be in your strongest unit, which is your grave guard but a fair margin right now.

I run my VC with a minimum of 3 casters. It's just too reliant on magic not to run without a Channeling staff. I run more core than not, but I don't run ghouls (as mine aren't painted yet). I'd either add a second Necromancer (Avatars of War do a GREAT sculpt), or a Vampire Hero.

I disagree about how to run the Vamp Lord. Yeah he can be a beast in combat with red fury, but after my last test game, I'm falling in love with a caster vampire lord. If your set on a Ghoul King, combat is the way to go. I just don't feel you can fit a Ghoul King with a Level 4, and VC more often than not need that Level 4 after you hit about 1500 points or so.

The bigger your Grave Guard unit gets (if you get another box), the more mandatory the +1 to hit banner becomes (Banner of the Barrows? don't remember the name).

If I had unlimited resources, I'd probably agree regarding the Ghoul King/Vampire Lord situation, and I'd be taking a full caster Vampire Lord, but at the moment I don't have a model I can use for a vampire on foot.

I think my next purchase, after bulking up my core units some more, is probably going to be another vampire model, so I can have a vampire lord on foot stacked with my grave guard.

Stoupe wrote:
I run my VC with a minimum of 3 casters. It's just too reliant on magic not to run without a Channeling staff. I run more core than not, but I don't run ghouls (as mine aren't painted yet). I'd either add a second Necromancer (Avatars of War do a GREAT sculpt), or a Vampire Hero.

I disagree about how to run the Vamp Lord. Yeah he can be a beast in combat with red fury, but after my last test game, I'm falling in love with a caster vampire lord. If your set on a Ghoul King, combat is the way to go. I just don't feel you can fit a Ghoul King with a Level 4, and VC more often than not need that Level 4 after you hit about 1500 points or so.

The bigger your Grave Guard unit gets (if you get another box), the more mandatory the +1 to hit banner becomes (Banner of the Barrows? don't remember the name).

Is channeling staff even good? You pay 15 points for a 1/6 chance to get a dice. On average 90 points for each power die you get from it. Is that actually worthwhile?

I like the channelling staff. It's not a one use thing. It happens as long as he's alive. It's only 15 points for doubling the chance of channeling on one character.

In 6 turns, you will on average channel twice. Channeling staff will allow that one character to channel an average of 4 times. Granted you never know which magic phase this will happen in, but still it's better than not having it.

Stoupe wrote:
I like the channelling staff. It's not a one use thing. It happens as long as he's alive. It's only 15 points for doubling the chance of channeling on one character.

In 6 turns, you will on average channel twice. Channeling staff will allow that one character to channel an average of 4 times. Granted you never know which magic phase this will happen in, but still it's better than not having it.

Exactly. In other armies I'd say not worth wasting an arcane item slot since you'll only really have a lvl 4 with something better and a lvl 2 with dispell scroll but with VCs it is amazing. It is cheap, it isn't wasting a slot on your combat focused vampires and if it only goes off once it is worth it. 1 power dice is worth more than 15 points.

Go an on foot ghoul king and a basic terrorgheist, both are amazing!

Stoupe wrote:
I like the channelling staff. It's not a one use thing. It happens as long as he's alive. It's only 15 points for doubling the chance of channeling on one character.

In 6 turns, you will on average channel twice. Channeling staff will allow that one character to channel an average of 4 times. Granted you never know which magic phase this will happen in, but still it's better than not having it.

I guess I should rephrase, it's the equivalent of spending 90 points for one power dice per turn.

For 15p you get 1 power die per game, with a power stone you get 2 per game for 20 points, yes? Could be 25, I forget, but either way isn't that the superior option? You also get to choose when you want your dice.

Subscribed - I am now interested in this conversation...

Edit: That wasn't supposed to sound douche-baggy. I just meant that I'm curious to hear the opinions about the channeling staff/power stone.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Necromancer goes in a unit of 20 zombies, the idea is to hide his unit from combat and let them give him some bodies to protect him from shooting. 20 is too small to be usefull but if the game is going your way they will be up to 60-80 by the end of the game and can be put into play then.

As for the ghoul king, he needs to be in your strongest unit, which is your grave guard but a fair margin right now.

Putting a necromancer with zombies is just stupid