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So I've played skaven for at least 5 years now and I've been throwing back and forth the idea of vampire counts for a while. I might try them out a little from time to time just to freshen things up a bit.

The gear seems pretty good, the vampire spells are mostly buff spells with a possible re-direction spell and a vortex as well.

Some of this gear and stuff they have just seems fantastic. Vargheists are basically flying rat ogres without handlers so in many ways better than normal rat ogres. I've heard people try to use them to take down war machines because you can only move slowly unless you're vampiric (though the better idea I've seen is using a vampire on hellsteed to jump from cavalry unit to cavalry unit or behind cavalry/obstacles to then jump out at a war machine). I am curious if ethereal is effected by this though considering they don't suffer movement penalties far as I remember (i'll need to re-check the rulebook and army book for specifics or an FAQ if things still don't seem clear). If ethereals aren't too badly effected by movement then they could also be a possibility for war machine killing but they look like better cavalry and chariot killers to me as well as monstrous infantry killers.

The banners seem good and they're not short on nastiness.

I was throwing around some builds and for some reason I couldn't get over how high a wight king's leadership, toughness and wounds are. They did sound like a good damage sponge and I was thinking of using one as a BSB though I'd only give one a magic banner if he was on a mount and even then giving him the night shroud sounds fun but I'd probably prefer a night shroud on a coven throne vampire to troll the crap out of anybody attacking it in melee that much more. The other big use I thought of for wight kings is the fact their leadership is so high even if your general did die and you did instability tests then any unit near a BSB or with a wight king inside should fall apart very, very slowly. I mean testing on some good units with leadership 9 and a BSB nearby sounds fantastic. That said it'd only really work if the unit is infantry or cavalry (so no monsters, monstrous infantry or ethereal units). There's also the possibility some horde rank-and-file might die fast anyway but keeping some units solid when the general or other mages die could be helpful. I am unsure though because to constantly suffer instability tests you'd have to lose all your vampiric lore dudes and at that point you're pretty much dead anyway. Still it's an interesting idea I'd like to throw around if I can get it working and useful.

I figure a vampire with BSB would be good in a unit of blood knights if I so chose to use them.

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So I've heard overall vampire counts have plenty of options and they're all or mostly all viable. This seems very refreshing to me after coming out of skaven with basically one build which focuses on rare and hordes and nothing but that. It's kind of sad seeing skaven's current build kill my interest in the game. So I guess I might give vampire counts another shot. They sound like fun.

1) Wight Kings are...not that great. Yeah they're tough but they don't actually kill anything, so aren't earning you points. And when 25% of your points exist to do nothing but hold up the enemy you really need to get the most out of the other 75%.

They have a place in BK buses though, since they can deny a much larger number of incoming attacks.

2) BSBs are not good. -1 to crumble is such a drop in the bucket, and you really don't need the reroll for much of anything. Not worth the extra 100 VPs it gives up when it dies.

3) Hero vampires are too squishy. There are some builds that work (i.e. mounted builds, like 1+rr with dawnstone), but they're really not a very efficient use of oints for what you get.

4) Coven throne is waaaaaaaaaay too expensive for what you get. It's kind of a fun gimmick unit, but don't expect much from it. Certainly don't throw your Vampire Lord on it. It hits like a truck but has very little staying power, and is allergic to cannons. Much better on a BSB (for the SCR).

5) Vargheists are amazing....but tough to use. They're mildly overcosted if you don't know how to mitigate frenzy, since they'll waste every other turn getting back into the fight after a bad overrun. But if you can plan 3 turns ahead with them (where will they be charging next turn, where will this overrun take them, where will they go after?) then they're worth their weight in gold.

Also never forget that they're skirmishers. Stacking negative shooting penalties is the best way to protect them. In a forest, long range, multishot, and I'm a skirmisher...have fun hitting me.

6) The trick with Vampires is knowing what the ROLE of every unit you have is. Not everything can face off against every matchup. However with dead drops aplenty we have the tools to dictate that...so long as you're smart.

1) Wight Kings, like Wraith characters, work best in mass. One isn't worth it for combat. Two is decent. Three of them (or a mix of kings and wraiths), in the front of a big skeleton block suddenly has a lot of static combat res, and gives up very little.

2) BSB's aren't useful for core, but are useful for special and rare choices. If you are grinding down the enemy, (crypt horrors, bigger units of spirit hosts/hex wraiths), then the -1 wound is really useful. The re-rolls for swift reforms and combat reforms is nice.

3) Vampire heroes work in a few roles. Mounted up with the lord in a cav bus is obvious, spammed with double mortis engines and corpse cart for lots of 5+ regen and free ASF works.

4) Coven throne is fun. Best use seems to be give the vampire on it a charmed shield and opal amulet, and nothing else. This keeps it on the cheaper side, and you might even have the vampire riding it survive for a turn or two. Keep it near a general with aura of dark majesty lets the CV use his LD10, and gives the opponent the -1. Much better having the lord survivable in a different unit and having the throne tag-team nearby.

5) Varghests are overcosted, and like varghulfs, suffer from Init 4. If init 4 is fast enough, they are good units. If the opponent is swinging first, you'll find them much too expensive for what you get.

The thing to remember with VC is that a lot of the units don't want to support each other. Don't throw soft units into combat with hard units. You risk wiffing and losing them all. Don't throw hammers in with anvils, again crumble can bite you. In any other army, it's a good idea to have a big steadfast block grab an opponent and then hit it in the flank with a beat stick. Not true with vampire counts.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

So I've heard overall vampire counts have plenty of options and they're all or mostly all viable. This seems very refreshing to me after coming out of skaven with basically one build which focuses on rare and hordes and nothing but that. It's kind of sad seeing skaven's current build kill my interest in the game. So I guess I might give vampire counts another shot. They sound like fun.

This is pretty true. I've been playing VC for years and with this book pretty much everything is at least useable. When something is called "bad" in the book what they really means is that it's not the most optimal choice in a competitive game, not an unusable waste of money and points like with say, Beastmen. The Dark Elves book is also similarly well balanced with non of the units being completely crap. I've used practically every unit in the book at least once in friendly games and they rarely disappoint. Hawaiimatt is spot on though... unless you are extremely sure you will not lose combat do NOT send multiple units in.

Also, ethereal units are not affected by movement modifiers but if they are not within 12" of the general they cannot march anyways (non of them are Vampiric). Hexwraiths are the fastest but probably have better things to do than hut war machines.