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2250 Pts - Vampire Counts Roster - Unnamed

Level 3 Vampire Lord
Blood Drinker, Flayed Hauberk, Wristbands of Black Gold
Forbidden Lore, Lord of the Dead, Master of the Black Arts

24 Grave Guard ; Champion; War Banner

The Vampire Lord's retinue. They hold the center as the Vampire Lord attempts to raise
enough Skeleton Warriors to keep casualties down as well as to take advantage of the Banner of
the Endless. SCR 5 isn't awesome, but it'll make opponents pause. I think.


Necromancer
2x Dispel Scroll
Invocation of Nehek @ [0] Pts

Strictly a scroll caddy, but also a back-up Invoker. Perhaps use his Invocation first to
try to heal units before I use the Lord's Invocation to bring them over unit size.

20 Skeleton Warriors
Champion, Standard of Everlasting Death

20 Skeleton Warriors
Champion, Banner of the Endless Nightmare

15 Skeleton Warriors
Champion, Banner of the Dead Legion

Of course I'll want to try to over-raise the unit with the Banner of the Endless Nightmare. The
other two warrior blocks are there to tarpit and guard the flanks.


BSB Vampire
Dread Knight; Summon Creatures of the Night; The Flag of Blood Keep

5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves
4 Fell Bats

5 Blood Knights
Champion, Screaming Banner

The BSB Vampire will try to use his Invocations to keep the screening units alive and
safe from shooting. The four bestial units are there to screen the Blood Knights from
unnecessary Frenzy triggers.

This is a newb's attempt to construct a list after buying the book today. Please instruct.

Personal opinion? You don't have enough casting power by half. Also, Skeletons are total crap compared to Ghouls, they have too many magic banners for cost effectiveness anyway, and the Grave Guard is possibly oversized. And... you don't need or want that many bestial units. Dire Wolves honestly lose combat to a 2x5 formation of Dwarf Crossbowmen in close combat and have no durability whatsoever. That said, the models are pretty awesome looking. That alone might prove reason to take them.

About the Blood Knights, don't forget that minimum unit size is four. Not five. You don't need to drop the points on another Blood Knight unless you really want to, and four Knights + Vampire is disgustingly powerful anyway.

I'll elaborate with Mathhammer if you'd like but, at the least, do swap those Skeletons for Ghouls and drop a Blood Knight.

Please explain the mathhammer. I was going for looks with this army build, so I
thought I'd use Skeletons as a nice thematic rising of the Blood Knights' vassals
or whatever.

Right now I'll concede the Blood Knight thing. I liked the idea of moving Dire Wolf
screens (I want to like the models, but it's still difficult. I'll know when I start to actually
paint them), but I'm willing to negotiate.

Ghouls Vs. Skeletons

In all cases, the non-Vampire Counts will be assumed to be charging and all units will be assumed to have Champions.

Empire Swordsmen

Ghouls -- Empire Swordsmen have 6 attacks. They hit on 3s and wound on 5s. An average of 4 attacks will hit, resulting in 1.33 wounds on Ghouls. The Ghouls will strike back with 9 attacks. They hit and wound on 4s. An average of 1.5 attacks will be poisoned, leaving 7.5 attacks. 3.75 attacks will hit and 1.875 attacks will wound, resulting in 3.375 total wounds. The Empire Swordsmen will save 1.6875, resulting in 1.6875 wounds on the Swordsmen.

Difference -- Ghouls win by 0.3575

Skeletons -- Empire Swordsmen have 6 attacks. They hits on 3s and wound on 4s. The Skeletons save on 4+. An average of 4 attacks will hit, of which 2 will wound and 1 will be saved. The Skeletons strike back with 5 attacks, hitting on 4s and wounding on 4s. They will hit with 2.5 and wound with 1.25 attacks. The Swordsmen will save half, resulting in 0.625 wounds for the Skeletons.

Difference -- Swordsmen win by 0.375

Empire Knightly Orders

Ghouls -- The Knights have 6 attacks and 5 attacks for horses. The Knights hit on 3s and wound on 3s. The horses hit on 4s and wound on 5s. The Knights will hit with 4 attacks, resulting in 2.64 wounds. The horses hit with 2.5 attacks and wound with .825 attacks. This is 3.465 wounds for the Knights. The Ghouls will strike back with 2 attacks, hitting and wounding on 4s. 0.33 attacks will be poisoned, leaving 1.67 attacks. 0.835 attacks will hit, and .4175 will wound. This is .7475 wounds for the Ghouls, resulting in 0.1233375 unsaved wounds.

Difference -- Knights win by 3.341

Skeletons -- The Knights have 6 attacks and 5 attacks for horses. The Knights hit on 3s and wound on 2s. The horses hit and wound on 4s. The Skeletons save on 6+ versus Knights and 4+ versus horses. The Knights will hit with 4 attacks, resulting in 3.333 wounds. 2.7778 wounds are unsaved. The horses will hit with 2.5 attacks and wound with 1.25. 0.625 wounds will be unsaved. This is 3.402 wounds total for the Knights. The Skeletons will strike back with one attack, hitting and wounding on a 4. This results in .25 wounds, resulting in 0.0416667 unsaved wounds.

Difference -- Knights win by 3.360333



The difference in both cases is small, but favors the Ghouls over the Skeletons. The Skeletons can have a standard bearer for +1 CR, which the ghouls cannot, so the Skeletons win each combat by a fractional amount more than the ghouls. However, Ghouls are far more powerful offensively than Skeletons, their ability to wound high-toughness targets with Poisoned Attacks, and the addition of Ghoulkin to a Vampire for an effective 16" move on the first turn, the Ghouls win hands down. In my opinion.

Also look at how many ghouls you can IoN versus Skellies.

Ghouls generate much easier.

And ghouls do attacks to units fleeing instead of chasing them. 1 attack per rank.

Skellies will chase. It will make a difference in the outnumber of the CR. if they have 3 ranks and you have 3 ranks and they have a banner and you have a banner then who outnumbers the other. Your down by a couple and lose a couple extra Skeletons. OK bring them back and now you have 3 ranks and they only have 2 (you have killed at least 1 hopefully). This will make it a battle of attrition versus whatever you face.

Lastly just because you have a big unit of x to start with it does not mean you need to. IoN your GG's and build them up during the game. Saves you point at the start for other toys to play with.

I thought you couldn't Invoke more than the starting unit unless you had the appropriate
special ability?

You are correct, you can only invoke past the units original size if you take the proper blood power.

So Grave Guard can't be Invoked past starting unit size because the Lord of the Dead
applies to Skeleton Warriors, right?

That is correct.

As for Ghouls vs. Skeletons, you already know that skeletons can take a magic banner, which can be huge. I find that Ghouls are more offensive and Skellies more defensive so take your pick which you prefer.

Da Viking: You are confusing Ghouls with Zombies.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Maybe a block of Grave Guard and Skeleton Warriors can be my "warrior undead" and
then take the Ghoulies as Undead peasants, like.

Sorry My mistakes.

I thought there was a way to bring GG back besides tomb blade.

And yes Zombies not ghouls.

Too much dinking and not enough think on my part!