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Hi there. I used to play WHFB a couple of years ago but never really got very into it tactically as I was a bit young to fully grasp many of the more complex rules and scenarios. Now I've gone back to it, and discovered that apparently the rules are in 8th edition and there are new Army Books and some CRAZY new models! This has definitely made me want to start playing it again, and more seriously than when I was a kid.
My problem is, I don't know very much about most of the armies (especially any units released after 2006) and I only ever really had a grasp of the basic tactical aspects of competitive WHFB having only ever played with friends etc. I've got the new rulebook and had a read through most of it, and I reckon I remember the basics. Now the issue is getting myself an army.

VC appeal to me most, so I got the army book but no models yet.

I'd like some advice from anyone who could help about which armies I would have a natural advantage/disadvantage over, or any particular units or tactics I need to be wary of. Suggestions for good VC tactics or any links to good battle reports would be awesome. Also, I would appreciate advice on whether the battalion box is worth getting to start a small army with or whether I would be better off buying boxes of zombies and just getting a necromancer. Cost is a factor as I am a student, but I plan to expand the army over a year or so, so it isn't too much of an issue in the long run.

Thanks.

You have asked several questions. I'll try and keep this a reasonable length.

The box set: Yes, it CAN be a good buy, but it also has some useless stuff in it. It gives you every kind of core (which CAN be good but you may not use some of it). But it will let you try out each core to find out what you like. The corpse cart CAN be good, if you use it and it fits your playstyle. The wolves are a pretty-much must, no matter what you do (their movement and vanguard is amazing as blockers and redirectors)

Tactics:

Mortis engine + Terrorgheist + Crypt horrors is amazing...just no two ways about it

The biggest advantage (and drawback) of the vampire counts army is its inherent synergy necessary in the lists combined with the fact that there are only a few models in the book that are sup-par...and even they are useful under the correct circumstances. Ultimately it boils down to this;

What do YOU like in the book, and what do YOU like in the models?

Figure this out, then read through the book and figure out what they are telling you goes with it in the "theme" of the units that you like.

Figure out how you like to play, do you want to grind your opponent out with a million zombies, not killing anything but being unkillable? Do you want to make your opponent cry in the magic phase as you unstoppably raise dozens of minions to throw at him? Do you like the idea of uber-powerful vampires cutting their way through everything before them and everything else is just an expendable meat shield? Maybe you like the concept of ethereal ghost armies from beyond running over the battlefield to steal the enemies souls? The VC book can do all this, but you gotta pick. So decide what YOU like, decide what type YOU want to play, then build to it. If you think you know what kind of army you want to play, post it and we can give you some more specific guidance.

The three big things to remember:
1. Invocation of Nehek is ALMOST and auto-include...and lots of it. It is possible to build a list without it, but it's not easy and most lists require that many of your casters have it. This will be your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.
2. When properly tooled, a Vampire Lord will make just about anything cry in close combat. Even greater demons dont like fighting our Lord-level vampires. You can find reams of forum-threads on this subject, just google Vampire Blender Lord.
3. Screaming (terrorgheist, mortis engine, and banshees, in that order) are VERY powerful...not many opponents out there DONT fear it like the apocalypse. They will devastate an enemy, but your opponent knows that too, so expect your scream units to draw ALOT of attention (seriously, they are strong: i had two terrorgheists scream an 18-man block of empire knights clean off the table in a single shooting round, and that's not uncommon).

Post some more specifics and we will be happy to help out. Good luck

Thanks for the response. I've been reading through some other threads etc and a few things interested me. But in answer to the points you inquired:

Mainly I think I want to focus on strong vampire character combat (I like character combat challenges and fun stuff like that in a game) with a solid backup of zombies. The fluff and visual appeal of models is also very important to me as I spend a lot of time modelling and painting, usually getting a lot of extra bits online to make my units look nice. I like the vampire character models but not so much the cavalry. I want something fast to sweep over/around with and take out any war machines/wizards that try to take out my characters etc, but I'm not sure what is best to use. I think I prefer horde troops to all the ghostly stuff but after what you say about screaming units maybe I should reconsider this.

I also do not know about the things I need to watch out for from other armies as many units out now I have never seen before. Locally the main armies I will have to fight will be Lizardmen, Skaven and Ogres.

Hmm, nothing wrong with horde units...some very powerful builds without screaming so don't fret on it too much. Now lets see....

For the sweep-around to take out warmachines:
The biggest issue you will come across with this is that this unit will almost always be outside the range of your general, so in order to march, it has to have the vampiric rule. This narrows it down to one of 3 units: Vargheists, a Vargoyle, or Blood Knights. The Vargoyle is generally considered to be one of the few units in the book that is sub-par. Mostly not because it is no good, but because it is competing in the rare slot against units like the terrorgheist or mortis engine which are amazing.
Alot of people dont like blood knights either since they consider them to be too expensive for their combat potential. Personally, i SWEAR by them. It's pretty rare that i dont field them. I run them up the flank, hit warmachines, then just start punching through their lines from one side of the board to the other.
Vargheists are the quickest of the three, and that can come in handy, though their frenzy can make them difficult to control at times. If you decide on them, just DO NOT FORGET that they are skirmishers (due to the flying rule). This will help increase their survivability agianst missile fire. Vargheists and Vargoyles both dont have armor, so they can be a bit fragile in that sense. But both will absolutely MURDER warmachines, and once they are in the backfield, all 3 units will cause your opponent some serious headaches as no one in the right mind will feel safe with them back there.

Now, on to the long part...the Lord:
Glad you want to go combat-lord. Our combat lords are some of the strongest in the game, even demons dont like fighting us. I'm not going to waste time on the build for the lord itself, as i said in my previous post, there are lots of forum topics dedicated to that very thing. So the real key is not the lord....but his delivery system (I am assuming you are going for a vampire lord, not a ghoul king). You have 3 choices on his delivery system: Zombie Dragon, Grave Guard, and Black Knights.

Zombie Dragon: This is a really COOL model...and that's about it. In a competitive environment it gets owned really bad. Since you have listed skaven and ogres as two major opponents, i would NOT recommend this delivery system. Cannons will make you cry. It is possible to set up a dragon/lord combo that only hits the lord on 6's in close combat, but that wont matter for multi-wound cannon shots. One good shot and your whole army crumbles. This is a cool, fluffy choice. It can be fun to play if you aren't facing cannons, but otherwise, leave the dragon at home.

Black Knights: This one is fast, but it has some issues: The knights DONT do the killing, they are there for one reason, to die. You raise them back at 1+wizard level, so if your lord is a level 4, you are raising back 5 per casting. You get look out sir rolls if there are at least 3 left alive, so their purpose is to simply take hits for the lord. This means that the Lord must do the killing...he wont be able to do that on his own no matter how nasty he is. So what you end up with is what's known as the "black knight bus". AT LEAST 10 black knights (not kidding on this number, 10 is the minimum to ensure their survival). Then you put the lord + 2 vampire heroes with red fury in the front rank. Ram them into an opponent 3-wide and watch the unit vaporize before you. The upside of this formation is that it is very fast, and if you put your lord on a hellsteed he can be both protected by the knight bus, and fly out to engage other targets on his own once the cannons have been silenced. The downside to this formation is it takes at least 3 characters including your lord to make it work right, so it's kinda putting all your eggs in one basket. Some like it...some dont. I prefer the next formation:

Grave Guard: First thing's first: GREAT WEAPONS! Hang on....oh yea, GREAT WEAPONS! ....did i mention GREAT WEAPONS! Good, cause i wasn't kidding
Now here's how you work this. Use at least 30 grave guard, 40 would be better. Dont forget the banner of the barrows, and use a wight king with either flaming banner or razorsip standard (my personal favorite). Rank them 10 wide in horde formation with your uber-LVL4(he better be) Lord in there. Then put a corpse cart behind him with a necromancer onboard with the Staff of Damnation. Now pop off a vampires spell on the corpse cart and you now have great weapons striking at initiative 3 (that's faster then lizardmen and on par with ogres). With banner of the barrows you are hitting on 3's at least. With the staff of damnation you are making an extra attack with 3 ranks at str 6. use your champion to soak up challenges and send your lord into rank n file. With your level 4 lord you will be raising them back at 4+D6, plus the necromancer/cart behind raising even more. You can march this unit right up the middle and just eat anything they come across. Put two zombie buses on either side for flank support, run your screening units ahead for blocking, and your flanking units down the side to hunt their warmachines, and you got yourself a hell of an army. Lots of good combat, just march in, say your "howdies", and start killin. Once you have these basic units built into your army, spend the rest on stuff you like or want to try. It's a good core for the army so it gives you a chance to mess around with different units to see how they work (seriously, i've play-tested most of the book in this manner to see how it works)

One thing to be very careful of: if you use zombie busses for tarpits, they are very good. But dont run them smaller then about 60 models and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can you allow your main combat blocks to get into the same combat that the zombies are involved in. The crumble from the zombies will kill your main blocks.

What to watch out for in other armies: If you have monsters, watch out for cannons. Other than that, watch out for anything wielding light magic, it will SERIOUSLY ruin your day (wolves come in VERY handy at this point).

Any questions or concerns?

EXCELLENT.
I might not be OP, but as a new player looking to start VC, this is exactly what I've been looking for.

In place of "Zombie buses", would it be possible to field Skeletons in that last build you outlined?

Sure
Zombies and skeletons fill very similar roles in our book. In the most competitive of environments zombies are considered superior due to their ability to be raised en masse and they are cheaper, but they both are viable choices for your average FLGS (i normally field skeletons, mostly because i dont want to paint 120+ zombies).

One really NASTY trick you can use if you come across a player that runs really hard lists:
Take 5 (yes 5) tomb banshees, then stack 50 skeletons 5 wide with the screaming banner. Put all 5 tomb banshees in the front rank and that unit becomes immune to anything that doesn't have magical attacks since the banshees are ethereal. The banshees still get a look out sir roll if you want it, but honestly why bother, most things cant hurt them anyway. And when you hit someone, you are punching 5 screams into their face on every one of your shooting phases. It turns a tarpit/crappy combat core into a pretty nasty unit.

NOTE: I am NOT responsible for your opponent kicking you right in the junk for use of this tactic, so use sparingly and make it count

When i run the grave guard build i outlined i normally have a block of skellies on one side and a horde of ghouls on the other, then make sure to pop vanhels on the ghouls and GG + the staff of damnation. Rerollable poisons from one, armor piercing great weapons from the other with rerollable hit-on-3's. It's not considered the optimum build for that setup, but hell, i like it.

If i'm playing 3k, the rest of my army is a 6-strong unit of crypt horrors with a TG and ME backing them up with a couple of wolves units for screening. It can definitely bring the pain when you need it to.

Ooooooh,
I thought you were going for that fear bomb thing I've seen mentioned, but that Banshee-bulldozer sounds particularly nasty.

You know whether there's any viable way to run a Black Coach?
(I never see it mentioned anywhere, but have the model, so was wondering if there was anything I could use it for, apart from a counts-as Corpse Cart).

Yea, the fear-bomb is a REALLY cool concept. The problem is it rarely works. There is so much out there that has ways to ignore it or causes fear itself. Against certain armies it can work but against really strong combat blocks most will blow right through it between the general and a bsb. Cool concept, but rarely works.

The black coach is one of other units in the book that is considered sub-par. Now that being the case, it IS possible to run it to decent effect. It's biggest issue is it is a chariot and therefore, slow. It also has to be charged up by magic. So if you run a magic heavy list, meaning a couple lvl 4's with black periapt and master of the dark arts and every other magic trick you can run ,then it can be interesting. Once it gets charged up to 4 or so it becomes an abolute MONSTER. But until then it can be something of a liability. But hey, one of the great things about the VC book is that nearly every unit can be useful if you build for it. So if you want that, max out your magic potential, OWN the magic phase. Tarpit your opponent with some zombies or skellies, then charge up the black coach and smash it into stuff.

...I once saw a list that had no combat lord, but ran a horde of GG with a couple lvl 4's (one was vamp), with two black coaches and some bats that was pretty impressive. The bats kept flying around and causing all kinds of havoc with march blocking and redirecting and the like. Between that and the dude absolutely DOMINATING the magic phase it was actually pretty funny. I wouldn't try it in a tournament, but in a friendly game it could be interesting.

Hell, I might as well copy/paste the list of stuff I've got and see what's worth working with!

Models
• Krell (old model)
• generic mounted vampire Lord ("The Red Duke")
• generic mounted "Blood Dragon" Lord with lance
• generic Von Carstein vampire (Mordheim)
• generic Necromancer
• generic mounted Wight Lord (king?)
• generic Wight standard bearer
• old Zombie Dragon
• Black Coach
• Grave Guard (handful)
• Wraith
• Banshee
• Spirit Host (3)
• bunch of Skeletons
• handful of mounted Skeletons on skeletal steeds (... guess they could count as Black Knights?)
• Skeleton Chariot (pre-Tomb Kings split Undead... probably not useful now)

Basically picked up a bunch of models a long time ago because I thought they looked cool.
Years later, after playing 40k but never a game of Fantasy, I decide to take a look at them again... only to realize I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'd like to run some kind of Blood Dragon-esque / Von Carstien-ish fluffy army ("Hunting Party". Lots of dogs and cavalry). Also, I've got a slight bias for Skeletons / Wights, and against Gouls / Zombies, so would prefer to leave them out if possible.

Any suggestions with what I've got?

You'd need another mounted vampire but i'd run something like:

Black knight bus w/10 and rampager standard
3 red fury vamps (including lord/general)

Proxy zombie dragon as terrorgheist

Skellie bus for core (couple of them, if you have the models)

Spirit Hosts for drops and redirectors (these are amazing when used right)

Black coach for the flanks to hunt warmachines (by the time it gets there it will be charged up, and most people will ignore it over the TG)

Throw in a necro in a small zombie bunker to hold your core up with rezzing and if you can get some crypt horrors for the flank

OR

Use the GG with Krell and a couple vamps spread throughout in the build above...fill out the rest of the GG unit with some skellie models (most people are good with this since they are skelletons anyway provided you declare it, just put the GG up front so there is no confusion)

Then drop some spirit hosts with the black coach and proxy the ZD into a TG. If you have the points (prolly not, but maybe), put in a black knight support with a character in it to hunt chaff and generally cause problems for your opponent.

That should get you started and within a game or two you would know exactly what you like and dont like and will know what to do with models to purchase and where to take your army.

I use a variant of the Black Knight bus strategy to good effect. I run my bsb vamp hero with lore of shadow for miasma and my second hero vamp with forbidden lore: heavens to get iceshard blizzard. This lets me drop what my opponents are hitting me on to 5 or 6 depending on what they are and my miasma rolls. i have had Bloodletters hitting me on 6's. I like the fear bomb concept but i hate how many things are immune to it or can pass leadership too easily (cold-blooded, hold the line) so i wanted to make the same effect but with all the control in my hands.

I keep seeing that term, "drop".
Now, coming from 40k, I immediately think "drop pod", so assume "deep strike".
Is this anywhere near what the term actually means? (suddenly have them appear on the table and redirect your opponent's stuff so he can avoid the thing that just dropped?)

And how good is the Terrorgheist?
That's another unit I don't see mentioned much.
I'd hope to eventually run a Zombie Dragon mounted Lord in later high point games, but I'd be open to an alternative use for the model, if it's worth it.

Drop refers to the number of units you place on the table. If you have junk units you can place those to get a better chance to counter your opponents stronger unit.

The terrorsgheist..if I remember has a scream that can be used every round even in hand to hand and does a number of wounds equal to 3d6 minus the units leadership with no armor saves.
It has a high toughness and 6 wounds.

Could be wrong though.

The terrorgheist is a very good monster for the scream strategy and i have seen many people swear by a pair of them.The scream for them is 2d6 plus remaining wounds minus your target's leadership. They are 260 points i think so if you use them then your list will need to focus on that as a big part of your strat.

"Drops" is short hand for deployments. One of the best things a vampire counts army can do is "win deployment" by deploying small unimportant units (chaff) and seeing where your opponent's stuff is to counter it.

So the most common of units like that would be Spirit Hosts, Wolves, and... ?

Would Bats be of any use? (think I saw a strategy that involved moving them up with Grave Guard to ensure the great weapons strike before the opponent's unit can).

And what about units of Carin Wraiths?
Any use, or just better off using something else?

Bat swarms to support a block of grave guard is a good strat as the swarms make the unit they are fighting strike last. put a corpse cart behind them and the grave guard with great weapons will go before anything. Units of cairn wraiths aren't as good as taking them as heroes imo, but that's because i use other things in my rare slots.

So that unit of Skeletons headed by Banshees.
Aside from loosing the scream attack, what would be the downside of replacing the Banshees with Wraiths?
(it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper, but would it have anywhere near the same effectiveness?)

Wraiths have 3 great weapon attacks each with not very good WS. they have to hit and wound to do anything, though they can't usually be hurt and you'll have static res to help you win. The banshees don't hit or wound to do damage, they just scream 5 times. You won't get as good potential combat res from them but you should do more overall wounds with the screams.

Brotherjanus is exactly right. The thing to remember about the screams (both TG and Banshee) is that while they CAN be used in close combat, they are actually rolled in the shooting phase. So they do not contribute to combat rez. That being said, both wraiths and banshees would be very vulnerable to anything with magic weapons.

The advantage to banshees is you dont have to BE in combat with an enemy, you just have to be close to them (within 8 inches). If you figure that your average core unit in the game has LD6 (i actually think it's lower then that, but for now we'll just say 6). A banshee scream is 2D6+2, averaging 9. This means on average against leadership 6 you will be screaming 15 wounds with no armor saves allowed onto a unit both in combat and out. The purpose of the 10 ranks of skeletons is to add to combat rez so you dont crumble to death if you are in close combat. And with spears they will add a few attacks of their own (not much, but some). The banshees rely on the fact that they cannot be hurt by non-magical attacks and their ranks to win combat rez.

It gives you a big, long shield to protect a flank of your grave guard from maurauding troops that no one wants to engage because of the screams. And if it's not in its own fight, it can sit back and punch screams into whatever your grave guard is fighting without risking damaging the grave guard to combat crumble like most core does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For your question on the Zombie Dragon i have a counter question:

Is your FLGS local meta cannon-driven?

If the answer to this is "yes", or even "kind-of" then fielding a zombie dragon is a bad idea. Even if the meta is not cannon driven you can't expect him to be able to charge into uber units and hold his own without support. Even with a blender lord on top he just doesn't put out enough attacks to do much more than break even. It is a cool model and if i know i am not facing cannons i will sometimes run it just for fun, but in that situation i always dual-charge whatever i'm fighting with a unit of blood knights to up my killing power and actually win the combat. Monsters really take a hit with the steadfast rule and the fact that cannons are more accurate than sniper-rifles.

From what I remember, I think it's Orcs, Elves (both flavors), and Chaos.
No immediate threat of cannons, but other warmachines are probably present.

Ok, I'll try putting something together with a Terrorgheist, using the Dragon as a stand in.

Still need to buy some more models to fill out the ranks before I actually attempt a game, but I think I have a much better idea of how to run things now.
Thanks.

One thing I noticed from Gamesrgood, Ethereal models can't join a non-ethereal unit. It's in the BRB under the ethereal special rule

 Inquisitor Saroxas wrote:
One thing I noticed from Gamesrgood, Ethereal models can't join a non-ethereal unit. It's in the BRB under the ethereal special rule

You got that backwards. Non-ethereals cannot join an ethereal unit. No restriction for ethereal characters joining normal units.

-Matt

 Inquisitor Saroxas wrote:
One thing I noticed from Gamesrgood, Ethereal models can't join a non-ethereal unit. It's in the BRB under the ethereal special rule

You have this backwards. Non-ethereal models can not join ethereal units, but ethereal characters can join any unit a character can normally join.

I have to ask about the Vampire Counts as well. I'm very much interested in them but i'd like to know what's good or how to use things in a great synergy. I quickly found that necromancers on corpse carts tend to get sniped and I just felt necromancers for that build weren't so great.

Currently I have an idea for two builds. One involves the ghoul king with combat vampires with all of them being at level 1 wizards. I am going for a fairly ghoul oriented list with that one with crypt horrors as some heavy hitters and some chaff to run out and hit the enemy. I figure invocation of nehek is probably the best spell for each wizard but re-rolls to hit would be quite awesome on a mostly poisoned attacks army.

Another list I made has the level 4 vampire lord with 'master of the black arts' and lots of level 1 vampires (2 or 3) with invocation of nehek and that dark acolyte vampiric power on all of them.

I find I wasn't too terribly fond of dire wolves but i'm making my first forays into VC. I like crypt horrors a lot though. They know how to take hits. Blood knights sound interesting still. Ethereal units interest me. Cairn wraiths sound sick vs monsters. I may end up getting a bunch of spirit hosts since that seems cool and it sounds like they can take a lot more heat than other armies.

I really just don't know where to go with VC and they seem all so interesting. Though hexwraiths sound awesome I may give them a pass. They just sound like they die far too easily. I'm also unsure about some of the vampiric frenzied units since i'd probably need to either take a general or a bsb vampire with them to make sure they didn't run off in the wrong direction.

Ok, where to start

The Ghoul king with a bunch of level 1's is only ify at best. Dont get me wrong, the Ghoul King is a MONSTER in close combat and can be made even better with just a few items, but the build you described is lacking one thing, a LVL 4. The majority of players run a ghoul king with a master necro for just that purpose. It really all comes down to one thing, Invocation of Nehek. That spell is both your greatest strength and greatest weakness. Big sections of our book are weaker than their counterparts in other armies, be they slower or weaker or not as tough...or crumble ALOT. One of the biggest strength of our army is not that our units are across the board-so powerful, it's that we can bring them back so easily. But because the units are weaker it means most of the time, we HAVE to bring them back to be competitive. Thus, our signature spell is our greatest strength and greatest weakness. You have to be able to guarentee that you will get that spell off AND be able to stop some of the ugly #6 spells, that means a lvl 4. That being said, you CAN mitigate this a bit with a few other items in our book.

A mortis engine upgrade gives you +2 to cast, the corpse cart balefire upgrade gives them -1 cast/dispel. Add in a lvl 2, and you are casing like a lvl 4 with them casing like a lvl 3. Wont help you on dispel, but such is life, it can work. Incidentally, the mortis engine is a near MUST in ghoul lists simply due to the regen bonus. Crypt horrors are already good, bump their regen to 4+ and they get obscene. Pop a terrorgheist behind them for killing power via scream and you have a trio combo that will give your opponent waking nightmares.

Master of the black arts is...interesting. Some people swear by it, some hate it. I happen to be of the previous group. Dunno why, but whenever i roll for winds of magic i always get a 5 or 6, and a 1 or 2. So the ability to turn that 1 or 2 into a 3+ comes in VERY handy, and it bumps up my magic phase significantly. If i am building for magic, it's coming, period.

Dire wolves are one of those units that are a near must in our army. Their ability to draw out assassins, run screens, kill chaff, and threaten warmachines with their vanguard is SOOO valuable. I never build an army without at least 2 groups of them. Spirit hosts are good, but they come from special, not core. And our core is DEFINITELY a tax, not a luxury. So anything i can build in core that will actually help me fight is gravy. Tarpits will only last for so long before you actually have to kill something.

Hexwraiths are great if your list supports them, you need to have 2 vanhels, meaning the spell and the book. They take some practice and skill to use right, but they can be awesome when wielded correctly. I personally never use them, but i've seen them played to devastating effect. If you like them, get some and give it a whirl (the wolves will REALLY come in handy here as a screening unit)

Vampiric units are the other half of the coin from crypt horrors. Horrors can take a hit well but dont kill all that great, not bad, but not great. Vargheists on the other hand kill EVERYTHING, but they die to a strong flashlight. Provided you can protect them, they are devastating, if not, they are useless. Which brings me to blood knights.

Blood knights are the exception to the rule for vampiric units not being well protected. As heavy cavalry with access to a 4+ ward against ranged attacks, they are a friggin tank. They are also some of the hardest hitting heavy cavalry in the game. I personally LOVE them and almost never leave home without them. I put a red fury vamp in them with a rampagers standard (reroll charge distance), give them as many knights as i can afford, banner of the blood keep, then put them on the flank and watch my opponent panic. NOTE: These dudes will draw ALOT of fire, if your opponent has any clue as to what he is doing he will point everything he has at them because they are so FRIGGIN dangerous and no one in the right mind will take a charge from them. This is good and bad. It means a very expensive unit is taking alot of fire, but it also means everything else in your army ISNT taking that fire. And the blood knights are tough enough to take it. Provided they survive, run up the side of the board and punch your opponent in the flank...you'll melt major face with it. One of my favorite lists is a blood knight/black knight bus list with terrorgheists and vargheists if i can affort them. The list has so much punch your opponent will have trouble just figuring out what is the bigger threat. It's fast, and once you get across the board (turn 2), you will absolutely MURDER your opponent. Seriously, its ugly.

Basically, when you build a VC list, ask these two questions:

1. What KIND of list do you want, point denial, ghoul, wight, vampiric, etc?

2. How do you plan on ensuring your generals' survival and delivery across the board?

Once you have answered these questions, start building.

Once you have the list built, look at the units. Our book has alot of built-in synergy, look at each individual unit and ask

Does this unit synergise with the rest of my army?

Then, go play and give it a shot...within a game or two you'll figure out what you like and dont like. Any more questions?

Wow. This is the most helpful VC tactics thread I've read yet. I just decided to try fantasy and Vampire Counts is the army I have decided to start with. You've just overloaded my brain with possibilities.

Based on my preferred play style, I really like the sound of the Blood Knight, Black Knight, Vargeist, Terroegeist list the most. What sort of core would you recommend there?

Personally I don't really like zombies. Ghouls and skellies are much more to my liking. I do like the list concept of a huge block of grave guard with support to keep them from dying as well.

stewy37 wrote:
Wow. This is the most helpful VC tactics thread I've read yet. I just decided to try fantasy and Vampire Counts is the army I have decided to start with. You've just overloaded my brain with possibilities.

Based on my preferred play style, I really like the sound of the Blood Knight, Black Knight, Vargeist, Terroegeist list the most. What sort of core would you recommend there?

Personally I don't really like zombies. Ghouls and skellies are much more to my liking. I do like the list concept of a huge block of grave guard with support to keep them from dying as well.

Yeah pretty much same here.Played Fantasy several editions ago andthen wrnt fully over to 40k. Now we feel we want to try fantasy again and I'm looking at either VC or Lizardmen. And what I like the most in VC are exactly knights, vargeist and Terrogheist. I know very little atm about Warhammer fantasy and how everythign plays out but these units look ace and would love to build an army revolving aroudn them.