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Hello there. I played my first test battle of old world today, and i had a 500pts vampire count list.

Vampire thrall, beguile power and lvl 1illusion
Cairn wraith
3x10 skeleton warriors (one unit has a banner)
5 dire wolves
3 bat swarms.

Now in the first scenario I faced a gunline of elves, and by deployment, we were a minimum of 24" apart. Undead are not allowed to march and skeletons have a movement value of 4, joining skeletons with characters does not cure this in this new edition of the rules.
I barely managed to cross the midline 12" up the board before the game was over and only managed to kill one single elf.

I realised this was an issue, so for the next game i changed my spell into vanhels dance instead. But since I was lvl 1 only succeded casting twice, and only rolled results of one inch extra movement both times (maximum is three) so it barely got my units further up.

My questions:
Are level 1 mages useless?
How do you solve the slow movement problems as undead, preferably vampire counts.
Seems almost like i would need 2 supporting necromancers per skeleton block, just to get regular marching speed with vanhels dance and hellish vigour. But any dispells and you are screwed. Am I missing something here?

 Gitdakka wrote:
Hello there. I played my first test battle of old world today, and i had a 500pts vampire count list.

Vampire thrall, beguile power and lvl 1illusion
Cairn wraith
3x10 skeleton warriors (one unit has a banner)
5 dire wolves
3 bat swarms.

Now in the first scenario I faced a gunline of elves, and by deployment, we were a minimum of 24" apart. Undead are not allowed to march and skeletons have a movement value of 4, joining skeletons with characters does not cure this in this new edition of the rules.
I barely managed to cross the midline 12" up the board before the game was over and only managed to kill one single elf.

I realised this was an issue, so for the next game i changed my spell into vanhels dance instead. But since I was lvl 1 only succeded casting twice, and only rolled results of one inch extra movement both times (maximum is three) so it barely got my units further up.

My questions:
Are level 1 mages useless?
How do you solve the slow movement problems as undead, preferably vampire counts.
Seems almost like i would need 2 supporting necromancers per skeleton block, just to get regular marching speed with vanhels dance and hellish vigour. But any dispells and you are screwed. Am I missing something here?

Yes. You're playing a legacy army that GW has deliberately gimped to get you to buy Tomb Kings instead.

Okay, probably not quite THAT level of tinfoil hat insanity. But Vampire Counts isn't part of TOW beyond the legacy list, and so there was a lot less incentive to ensure it was balanced, much less competitive. Odds are things just got overlooked, and you've found one of them.

Part of it is the inherent problem of the Vampire rules, yes.

A (much) larger part of it is that the game doesn't really function below 1500 points. Small games can work, but they require a scenario, special lists, or a gentleman's agreement to work properly. If you're playing the rules out as written, with no modifications, 1500 is the minimum.

Level 1 mages can work, but work best if they can hang in the rear, out of dispell range, and cast Cost 6 or less spells. In general, Level 4 mages are vastly more capable than lower levels (one of the major design flaws of the rules).

You "solve" the slowness of Vampires by playing larger games with more powerful mages and a few fast, hard-hitting units to complement your shambling hordes.

Ok. It just seems odd to me, but one of the missions I played had only victory points from killing enemies. There was no incentive for the enemy to aproach my army. And since vampires have no shooting, i must come to them....

Even if i had 2000pts army, all my infantry would be unable to cross dead mans land and would not help in the game. Great paper weights though... So I would have like half an army in the fight in such scenarios, vs their full force.

Do tomb kings have similar issues? I read their army book and they have an ability to add d3 movement to units as a command skill with their leaders. This is slighly more reliable than vanhels dance spell. But it still seems slow.
How do tomb kings use their infantry offensivly?

Seems odd to design a game for 72"x48" tables
with about 6 game turns where undead can only walk 4" per round minus maneuvers.

The obvious mistake is that you are casting the wrong spell. Dense Macabre provides one unit with +D3" movement, whereas Hellish Vigour provides multiple units with a second movement phase (IE- +4-8"). It doesn't help that they've mixed up the spell effects from how they worked in prior editions.
Tomb Kings are much the same in that their movement is dependent on casting Desert Wind. There is an obvious discrepancy in casting values between the 2 factions but otherwise, its not really a Legacy issue as much as a magic issue.

It's mostly a question of scale; Vampires need Hellish Vigour to get anywhere, and the casting value means you need a Lord-level wizard. The simple truth is that 500pts is a really bad game size for a faction that needs half of that to even function.
In larger games, Dark Vitality and Flying help enormously to move your flanks along so you only really need a single caster to get your centre moving.

EDIT: There is also the option of minimising your reliance on Skeletons/Zombies and instead going for Ghouls and Dire Wolves. Both of these have Reserve Move by default so don't need any magical encouragement.

Wait are the casting values for hellish vigour missprinted? For the casting values it says 9+/12+. But if you read the text on the spell the values are 7+ and 10+, wich is far more reasoneable if you compare with the tomb kings variant.

Could it just be an error? I guess we will never know, since gw said they would never adress those legacy pdfs again.

The general consensus seems to be to use the lower values because the TK equivalent is (IIRC) 6+/9+.

Vampires and TK have very slow infantry that require spell support to shuffle up the board at some speed. If your list is only these blocks of infantry, you're going to have a miserable time against anything that's faster or uses ranged weapons.

And this is also why both factions have some other stuff that's incredibly fast. Bat swarms, fell bats, vargheists, spirit hosts, blood knights, dire wolves, hex wraiths, coven throne, mortis engine, black coach, zombie dragon, terrorgheist, and the vargulf all have fly, dark vitality, reserve move, or swiftstride (or a combination). The game plan was always to control the middle with a dumb tarpit while jamming the flanks with super-fast chaf and shock units to follow up. And to summon zombies on frustrating angles to skunk charges.

As others have said, super low points of fantasy don't tend to work well. It's extremely rock paper scissors, and filling the compulsory slots tends to force you into one of those categories. Everything's open to be used in fantasy; mass ranged, ethereal spam, death stars, leadership bombs, monster mash, wizards, etc... You gotta have some sort of solution to all sorts of potential problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Baragash wrote:
The general consensus seems to be to use the lower values because the TK equivalent is (IIRC) 6+/9+.

6/10

 Gitdakka wrote:
Ok. It just seems odd to me, but one of the missions I played had only victory points from killing enemies. There was no incentive for the enemy to aproach my army. And since vampires have no shooting, i must come to them....

Lack of scorable scenarios is (and used to be) a problem and a cause for fairly static, boring gameplay. Put some zones in the middle, like in Warmachine and the game instantly becomes more about positioning and maneuver.

You can also look at ASOIAF for inspiration.

What game would ASOIAF be?

 Gitdakka wrote:
What game would ASOIAF be?

KLIK

Static game play is as dull as dish water. My regular High Elf opponent does it a lot. They use Drain Magic to shut down my spells, so it becomes hard to get off the needed spells. They shoot my stuff up, and move their Melee units back. Mean while my stuff creeps forward at 4" a turn.

If ai am lucky I may get into combat at around turn 4.

I can not fathom out why in all the 400+ pages of a rule book they only have 6 missions, none of which curb static game play.

 stonehorse wrote:
Static game play is as dull as dish water. My regular High Elf opponent does it a lot. They use Drain Magic to shut down my spells, so it becomes hard to get off the needed spells. They shoot my stuff up, and move their Melee units back. Mean while my stuff creeps forward at 4" a turn.

If ai am lucky I may get into combat at around turn 4.

I can not fathom out why in all the 400+ pages of a rule book they only have 6 missions, none of which curb static game play.

Yeah the rule book missions are fine but very bland. The second one makes you play an infinite number of turns until one army reaches a break point of 1/4 starting unit strength. Surely VC have some play in that one?

Just in case your opponent is abusing Drain Magic: remember that it increases the difficulty of the spell by 2. It does NOT reduce your casting attempt by two therefore making it easier for him to dispel your stuff. The former makes spells a little tougher to cast, mostly for low level casters. The latter is straight up abuse by elven mages. Also, keep in mind this is Remains in Play so you can try to dispel it at its base value at the start of your turn if you're in range of the wizard (basically guaranteed dispelled if you have a leve 4).

Another tip from someone who has been absolutely thrashed by Vampires: try taking more units that can march. Bat swarms, giant bats, vargheists, terrorgheists, vamp on dragon all have Fly so they can march still. Also the undead dogs are Movement 9 vanguard which is almost as good as marching. Lastly, Blood Knights can march. There's a nasty little combo where you can resurrect all your Blood Knights in one go every turn. Just follow the BK bus around with a lvl 4 Necromancer on nightmare w/ the Sceptre of De Noirot.

Lastly if you don't have any of this stuff, you could always have a chat with your sweaty pointy-eared friend to dial back the competitive aspects of his list for a more fun (and challenging!) game.

All good points.

I knew that it was +2 to my spell difficulty, however I was incorrectly told that it was a 'lasts until the start of your next start of turn', I was informed later on that it is indeed Remains in Play, which makes it a bit easier to deal with.

I haven't got around to painting the faster stuff. I do find those units which have reserve move lack enough impact to be seen as a threat. Even getting the charge against High Elves is not a guarantee of having any attacks. They (High Elves) have great Initiative and Weapon Skill, so usually to first and their attacks hit.

It isn't so much the list the my opponent uses, but rather rhe static play style they adopt with it. A block of 20 White Lions who just move back 2 and a half inches for 4 turns seems to go against the game. I spoke to him about it, he plays for the win, where as I play for the spectacle of seeing a good scrap.

At this stage I am just going to have to consider either buying and painting more things to overcome this playstyle, or just stop playing, as it is getting to become a tiresome experience... or I just go back to my old love, and play Ogres.

It's unfortunate that the undead horde is so slow as to make it unplayable. I'm assuming you're taking Hellish Vigour and Danse Macabre if you can.

Sometimes we don't have to luxury of choosing our opponents or turning down games if we want to play. In this case switching things up with Ogres is probably the way to go if you don't want to invest in more VC plastic.

At a minimum I think you want 5-10 blood knights and a mounted character, OR vamp on dragon and a terrorgheist. A necromancer on the Mortis Engine would be great at buffing your horde and moving them along with aura'ed Vigour as well. A 36" bubble would probably get your entire hoarde.

This was the last list I took which managed a draw.

===
Vampire Counts [1999 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Vampire Counts
===

++ Characters [920 pts] ++

Vampire Count [420 pts]
- Hand weapon
- No armour
- Level 2 Wizard
- General
- On foot
- Crown Of The Damned
- Ogre Blade
- Curse Of The Revenant
- Master Of The Black Arts
- Supernatural Horror
- Illusion (swapped Signature Spell for Vanhels)

Master Necromancer [255 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Level 4 Wizard
- On foot
- Spell Familiar
- Ruby Ring of Ruin
- Lore Familiar
- Dispel Scroll
- Illusion

Wight Lord [105 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Heavy armour
- Battle Standard Bearer
- On foot
- Helm Of Commandment

Necromantic Acolyte [140 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Level 2 Wizard
- On foot
- Sceptre Of De Noirot
- Spell Familiar
- Necromancy (swapped Signature for Hellish Vigour)

++ Core Units [524 pts] ++

19 Grave Guard [277 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Heavy armour
- Shield
- Seneschal
- Standard bearer [Drakenhof Banner]
- Musician

Vampire Count and Master Necromancer went in this unit.

40 Zombies [130 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Standard bearer
- Musician

3 Bat Swarms [117 pts]
- Claws and Fangs (Hand weapons)

++ Special Units [555 pts] ++

19 Grave Guard [227 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Heavy armour
- Shield
- Seneschal
- Standard bearer
- Musician

Wight Lord and Necromancer Acolyte went in this unit.

10 Black Knights [328 pts]
- Lances
- Skeletal Hooves
- Heavy armour
- Shield
- Barding
- Hell Knight
- Standard bearer [Rampaging Banner]
- Musician

---
Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

The Grave Guard units where absolute beat sticks, when all the items/spells/abilities triggered. They wiped out a big block of Swordmasters, and White Lions, which along with a 5 man unit of Archers were the only things I managed to kill.

I have some unpainted stuff that will help I imagine, just not a fan of playing with unpainted models. I just need to find the motivation to paint them.

The Zombies are a weak unit, which I still deploy wide, even though deep is better for them, just because 1) Zombies should be mandatory in an undead force, and 2) wide is how Zombie Hordes are shown in media.

This looks really solid. I don't have any major criticism not being a VC player myself. The list seems very elite, with lots of points in characters and grave guard. So with some focused shooting and a little chaff your elf buddy probably isn't having a hard time keeping the heavy hitters out of combat.

Some things to try:
-Putting your vamp lord on a mare and sticking him with the black knights. Much easier to get him into a choice melee now, and faster.
-Drop a unit of grave guard and take more infantry. Overwhelm his capacity to kill you. -You could also lose a couple of magic items and/or banners... or even the lvl 2 to afford more infantry or fliers.

One last comment. My local member of the midnight aristocracy goes GW on all his grave guard now. The shields help your survivability, but with resurrecting them it's not that important compared to putting out quality attacks in melee.

All just my opinion of course.

Good luck!

 Gitdakka wrote:

My questions:
Are level 1 mages useless?
How do you solve the slow movement problems as undead, preferably vampire counts.
Seems almost like i would need 2 supporting necromancers per skeleton block, just to get regular marching speed with vanhels dance and hellish vigour. But any dispells and you are screwed. Am I missing something here?

Answers not in order:

Generally yes but i've only played 2,000 pts before. I'd say mages aren't as bad as you think but you have to be in range of each other's dispel or spell casting range. If you have a level 4 wizard wanting to dispel my level 1 but i just happen to be 25" away (max dispel distance for level 3-4 is 24") then you may as well have nothing trying to dispel my level 1 wizard. Placement is key and i've found that wizards enjoy being nearby units so in the case of a far flung out-flanking force it can be difficult keeping everybody in range of the mages without putting them in danger.

For tomb kings they did have some movement shenanigans as well as under the sands but i'd say units with high movement base (cavalry, war beasts, flyers, etc) should help you. Necros might help but better movement also could. Keep in mind tomb kings have a lot of ambushers, high movement, basic scout moves or other shenanigans as well as archers and this mitigates the problem for them more. For you for now you may have to focus on just getting faster units or forcing your enemy to commit forward if your opponent is a faster melee army but lacks shooting. Keep in mind shooting is still mostly crap and magic tends to go much farther.