HawaiiMatt wrote:
Take you vampire counts army, and add a casket. Replace half your normal core with skeletons with bows.
Most of the vampire count units are better.

If you want an infantry death star, go with Vlad, and a support vampire with aura of dark majesty and fear incarnate. Give grave guard screaming banner.

Opponent will be taking fear tests on 3 dice (dropping lowest) without the BSB re-rolls, and at a -2 to Ld.
Vlad also gives the unit -1 to be hit (combat and shooting).

More often than not, your opponent ends up WS1 (hitting on 6's due to Vlad) and takes a beating from the S6 killing blow great weapon attacks.

Because Vlad causes terror, you're still forcing fear tests on fear causing opponents, like ogres.

omerakk wrote:
Thanks for the help guys! Lots of great info!

One quick question regarding grave guard for those of you that run them; would you go with a standard ranks of 5? Or would running in ranks of 6+ for extra attacks be a better choice even though it would be more expensive?

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

omerakk wrote:
Thanks for the help guys! Lots of great info!

One quick question regarding grave guard for those of you that run them; would you go with a standard ranks of 5? Or would running in ranks of 6+ for extra attacks be a better choice even though it would be more expensive?

When I run grave guard, it's 7 wide, with either the tomb prince or tomb king in the unit. The extra weapon skill means I get hit less often, so they survive a bit better.

-Matt

omerakk wrote:
Thanks for the help guys; fantastic information so far.

Any advice on the new Morghasts? I haven't even seen them in action.

 Acardia wrote:
I have been running Morghasts Arachi in groups of 6. They hit like a truck and don't take that much damage, their extra pip of armor save does help a lot. I have been running a lvl 4 Nehek to spread buffs around, and all the TK buffs really make these guys super killy.

omerakk wrote:
Let's go in yet another direction and talk Hexwraiths.

Would you consider a unit of 5 wide the optimum size to take advantage of their passover attack?
And what type of list do you think Hexwraiths help benefit the most?

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

omerakk wrote:
Let's go in yet another direction and talk Hexwraiths.

Would you consider a unit of 5 wide the optimum size to take advantage of their passover attack?
And what type of list do you think Hexwraiths help benefit the most?

If you want hex wraiths, you want them with a liche high priest. You've got a lot more spells that heal them, and a vanguard, followed by a march, followed by a magical march could really do some damage.
With all the cool toys that undead get now, I'd rather have 2 units of 5 than 1 unit of 10.
In the past I had a lot of luck with the 10 man block, but I think magical attacks are just too common now, and multiple units is the future.
Besides, with 2 units, both units can heal back at the same time; and lore of nehek is pretty good on hexwraiths.

-Matt

omerakk wrote:
Haha fair enough; free stuff definitely kicks ass

I'm really loving the look of hexwraiths starting on the board; even if that isn't nearly as good as free summoned ones.
I'd like to toss in some nice converted crypt horrors, maybe some vargeists... tie the whole thing together with a casket, archers, maybe a terrorgeist and/or sphinx.

I really wanted to add in Morghasts, but I'm not really sure where they would fit in to my army unless it was monster/construct oriented.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
I actually like summoning Vargheists more. The speed lets you off set the very short summon range (unit completely within 12"), and creating a 146 point unit nicely fits into the 150 point cap.
Best of all, it's a signature spell, so you know you're going to have it.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
I actually like summoning Vargheists more. The speed lets you off set the very short summon range (unit completely within 12"), and creating a 146 point unit nicely fits into the 150 point cap.
Best of all, it's a signature spell, so you know you're going to have it.

Very different role, though.

Summoned vargheists are a suicide missile that just crashes into the enemy's face and kills a bunch before it goes down. Purchased vargheists are a flanking unit that eats the enemy's back field before swooping in to assist. You can't do that with summoned vargheists because the range won't let you raise where they're hitting things in the flank until late game, where you'd probably rather be casting buff or healing spells while everything is locked up in CC.

Vargs are still a great target for summoning, though, regardless. If a bit expensive.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
I actually like summoning Vargheists more. The speed lets you off set the very short summon range (unit completely within 12"), and creating a 146 point unit nicely fits into the 150 point cap.
Best of all, it's a signature spell, so you know you're going to have it.

Very different role, though.

Summoned vargheists are a suicide missile that just crashes into the enemy's face and kills a bunch before it goes down. Purchased vargheists are a flanking unit that eats the enemy's back field before swooping in to assist. You can't do that with summoned vargheists because the range won't let you raise where they're hitting things in the flank until late game, where you'd probably rather be casting buff or healing spells while everything is locked up in CC.

Vargs are still a great target for summoning, though, regardless. If a bit expensive.

Mount your wizards. Turn one, you're 14 to 16 inches forward, summoning another 12". It's more mobility than the 20" fly.

-Matt

omerakk wrote:
This may seem like a stupid question, but in regards to skeleton archers from Tomb Kings, how large of groups should you run?

Are blocks of 15-20 solid? Or would multiple smaller groups of 10 work better?

Still not sure if I want to go magic heavy to buff the heck out of an existing army, or focus everything on maximum summoning of new units.

omerakk wrote:
This may seem like a stupid question, but in regards to skeleton archers from Tomb Kings, how large of groups should you run?

Are blocks of 15-20 solid? Or would multiple smaller groups of 10 work better?

Still not sure if I want to go magic heavy to buff the heck out of an existing army, or focus everything on maximum summoning of new units.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

Keep in mind that you'll find diminishing returns from archers unless you're loading up on ways to reduce enemy T. S3 shooting isn't all its cracked up to be, unless it's against foes reduced to T1/2. And even then armour will give you nightmares.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

Keep in mind that you'll find diminishing returns from archers unless you're loading up on ways to reduce enemy T. S3 shooting isn't all its cracked up to be, unless it's against foes reduced to T1/2. And even then armour will give you nightmares.

This is where TK diverge from UL.

Massed S3 is great against softer targets.
Banshee screams and Terrorgheists are extremely good against low wound count high toughness high armor save targets.
Combined, they are the swiss-army-knife of undead.

The TK problems of dealing with high toughness and great armor is not an issue for the Legion.

-Matt