Eldargals first Vampire Counts list ever.

[eldargal]

So the theme of my Vampire Counts army is going to be based around a coven of largely city based Lahmians, which limits the forces they have access to. No SCs, no zombies ('cos of the smell and lots of fresh corpses lying around is a bit lacking in subtlety), limited ghouls, no feral vampirey-whatsits like Varghulfs/gheists, strigoi, abyssal terrors and whatnot.

So mostly skellingtons and ethereals.:rolleyes:

Basic List:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

25 Skeletons
Command, Screaming Banner

25 skeletons
Command

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

10 Black Knights
Command, Lances, Barding

989 points.

The general idea being the characters sit in the skellington units, keeping them close together with the corpse cart behind to buff and both being in range of the other characters Invocation of Nehek. The Black Knights are the hammer unit. Little worried about the size of the skeleton units, even with their size being added to/healed.

So another option:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

35 Skeletons
Command, Screaming Banner

35 skeletons
Command

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

5 Hexwraiths
Hellwraith

The skellington bunkers are bigger, but the hexwraiths are possibly not as reliable a hammer as the black knights. In both lists the enemy have to take a LD test -4 or re-roll successful hits against her and take fear tests at LD-1 against the usual Fear tests, which isn't bad. I think. She also does 4 S5 attacks that ignore armour which seems respectable. There is also the possibility of the corpse cart giving ASF and unholy lodestone helps maximise the number of undead revived.

No Coven Throne yet as I want to figure out howto play the army before upping the size to 1750-2000pts.

Opinions, bearing mind this is for friendly play not tournaments.

[Bitrider]

I like the hexwraiths. Adds a tactical challenge, fun rule set and does beef up your skeleton crew you were concerned about.

G

[celestialatc]

I have not gotten the new book yet but no Grave Guard? Are you going to keep them out of your forces or thinking on getting a unit? They were THE unit in the last book. Or is it because they are wights?

[Alex Knight]

I'll have to wait until the book shows up at the FLGS today to make any solid comments. That said, at first glance I like the first list better. You said it yourself, the Hexwraiths aren't as solid a hammer as the Black Knights. The other question is what are/will be your usual opponents?

Okay. After looking at things - going to try to see how well the Hexwraiths and Black Knights can be made swappable. If it works out an option is: Do a box as Black Knight command and a box as swappable Hexwraiths and Black Knight standard. You'll want the extra 20 skeletons eventually anyways.
Otherwise, the other thought is if the gaming group doesn't have a problem with it (and you don't either, I know people that won't touch an unpainted army to play with...) build the caparisoned horses and leave them in the back ranks for the 10 Black Knights or as the Hexwraiths.

[eldargal]

I'm fine with wights, they are just skellingtons afterall.:) But no I've not included Grave Guard in these lists simply because I wanted to try out one of the new cavalry units. I did toy with having a 21 strong unint of GG to put the Vampire in as the hard hitting unit, I'll probably make another list to that effect soon.

I have not gotten the new book yet but no Grave Guard? Are you going to keep them out of your forces or thinking on getting a unit? They were THE unit in the last book. Or is it because they are wights?


Well having them swappable isn't a big issue for me, twenty pounds a kit isn't so much that I need to economise.:)

I'll have to wait until the book shows up at the FLGS today to make any solid comments. That said, at first glance I like the first list better. You said it yourself, the Hexwraiths aren't as solid a hammer as the Black Knights. The other question is what are/will be your usual opponents?

Okay. After looking at things - going to try to see how well the Hexwraiths and Black Knights can be made swappable. If it works out an option is: Do a box as Black Knight command and a box as swappable Hexwraiths and Black Knight standard. You'll want the extra 20 skeletons eventually anyways.
Otherwise, the other thought is if the gaming group doesn't have a problem with it (and you don't either, I know people that won't touch an unpainted army to play with...) build the caparisoned horses and leave them in the back ranks for the 10 Black Knights or as the Hexwraiths.

[eldargal]

Another list:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

40 Skeletons
Command, Screaming Banner

20 Grave Guard
Command, GWs, War Banner.

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

5 Hexwraiths
Hellwraith

1234 points

So the GG and Vampire are the hammer unit, hopefully with ASF from corpse cart. They head to the enemy cores to munch them up while the skellingtons try and tarpit enemy nasties. The hexwraihs try and take care of screening units and big monsters and such like. GG have war banner to mitigate crumbling if they lose combat, another option would be the banner which gives them armour piercing. I can afford the extra ten points that would be.

[gcsmith]

looks nice. :) cant tell much since i dnt know about the book :p

lol.

[wittdooley]

So which troops choice seems to be the best?

[eldargal]

I think they are all quite balanced actually. Zombies are going to be a nasty tarpit, skellingtons can do a bit of damage and absorb some (and are cheap), ghouls hit harder but are more expensive so they aren't miles ahead of the rest. Dire Wolved I've not really looked at.

[gcsmith]

would love to give u a game sometime eldargal, shame u probs dnt live in scotland

[Chronowraith]

Dire Wolves are great now that they have slavering Charge back and thus +1S on the charge. Points stayed the same if I recall but they are incredibly fast and have the vanguard rule.

While zombies are a great tarpit (argueably better than Skavenslaves since you can raise more every turn) you have to be real careful who you try and tarpit. Chaos Warriors, Chosen, and any of the big horde killing units (Corsairs, Plague Monks, etc) will eat through them faster than you can raise new ones.

[Alex Knight]

Another list:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

40 Skeletons
Command, Screaming Banner

20 Grave Guard
Command, GWs, War Banner.

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

5 Hexwraiths
Hellwraith

1234 points

So the GG and Vampire are the hammer unit, hopefully with ASF from corpse cart. They head to the enemy cores to munch them up while the skellingtons try and tarpit enemy nasties. The hexwraihs try and take care of screening units and big monsters and such like. GG have war banner to mitigate crumbling if they lose combat, another option would be the banner which gives them armour piercing. I can afford the extra ten points that would be.

Might as well round out the points to as close to 1250 as you can and throw more skellies into the unit. It isn't enough to get you another rank, but it does give a buffer to losing a rank.

That all said, I think I like this list best. It has a little bit of everything a growing vampire needs, has a few more models than the first list, but better hitting power of the second list. A couple of points:

- I wouldn't bother giving the AP banner to the GG unit. You already have a -3 save modifier for being armed with GW and you have Killing Blow which hurts armor even further.

- Another thought is to put the Screaming Banner with the GG and give the skeletons the finger (and using the War Banner's points for something else.) The thought being, the GG are WS 3, which means your opponent failing their fear save will have to get a 5+ to hit and you hit on 3+. The WS 2 skeletons only benefit from hitting on a 3+, their opponent wouldn't suffer any additional penalties. That gives a bit more survivability to your ASL hammer unit.

So there's my two coppers worth.

[eldargal]

Other end of the country.:(

would love to give u a game sometime eldargal, shame u probs dnt live in scotland

I agree re the armour piercing banner, but I'm thinking of dropping great weapons for hand weapon and shield anyway. But giving them Screaming Banner does make more sense than keeping it with the skellingtons.

Another possibility is giving the Vampire Fear Incarnate instead of Beguile, meaning units in combat with her unit have to re-roll successful fear tests at -1 LD on 3 dice discarind hte dice with the lowest number. The downside is it is a little harder to justify for a Lahmian, I guess you could argue it is another one of her sorcerous auras. Of course assuming an average LD of 7-8 rolling 3 dice and picking the two highest with _1 just from aura is still pretty neat, throwing in fear incarnate may be a bit mean.

I'd like to try and squeeze in a couple of bat swarms, giving nasty units ASL seems pretty nifty now.

[gcsmith]

well I live in torquat during summer and christmas, Where I normally live outside Uni, so we could always have a game then.

And from what I know thats a good list especially with hexwraiths at soo low points being such a problem

[eldargal]

That would be nice.:)

I'm trying to figure out a way of including a Coven Throne at a lower level, it is quite hard, unsurprisingly.:rolleyes: Think I might just be able to squeeze one in at 1500. I'm impressed with the Coven Throne and Mortis Engine actually, people always complain about the big fancy kits not being competitive but I think both these are.

Edit:

The Coven and Mortis List:
Vampire
Coven Throne, Beguile, Aura of Dark Majesty 375

Master Necromancer
Master of the Dead 185

40 Skeletons
Command 230

30 Ghouls
Ghast 310

5 Dire Wolves 40

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone 120

Mortis Engine
Blasphemous tome 240

I don't think it is that great really, just an excuse to get both Big things in the one list at the lowest points value possible.

Edit again:

I just realised the list with the Grave Guard is illegal, under 25% core, so here is the revised list:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

44 Skeletons
Command

5 Dire Wolves

5 Dire Wolves

20 Grave Guard
Command, GWs, Screaming Banner.

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

5 Hexwraiths
Hellwraith

Another option is to drop the Dire Wolves and 4 skeletons and add a unit of 30 zombies + command to bring it up to 1250. Vampire goes in with GG and makes a mess of elite units with extra potent fear.

[gcsmith]

I think with zombies being summonable no point starting with a unit of them

[eldargal]

I agree, and I hate zombies.:rolleyes:

Just worked out my ideal Coven Throne Vampire Lady:

Vampire Lord
Coven Throne, Armour of Destiny, Ogre Blade, Quickblood, Aura of Dark Majesty, Fear Incarnate, Beguile.

Points: 630

5 S7 WS 7 ASF attacks with a 4+ ward save with opponents needing to take a leadership test at -4 or re-roll successful hits. On top of that they have to make a Fear test at -1LD and re-roll successful tests. Then you get the the enemy needing to make a LD test for Battle of Wills, also -1Ld thanks to Aura which either results in another loss of WS/BS (relatively unimportant) or they have to re-roll successful hits (does to the unit what the Vampires Beguile does to individual models) or if you are very lucky the units attacks are resolved against themselves. Finally there is he bound spell of the Coven Throne Scrying Pool which if cast successfully lets the throne, riders and spirit host to re-roll failed hits and wounds.

[gcsmith]

Gonna set myself a challange to make a lord to fight that from bret book

[Infinite Freedom]

I know you said no Vargheists, but what about the Terrorgheist? It is an absolutely lethal rare choice. Even more so if you are facing an army that has low leadership. Last Fantasy tournament I took part in, one VC player wiped the floor with every one of her opponents through a combo of Magic and two Terrorgheists. Kinda makes me glad that I didn't face her.

[eldargal]

Well the Terrorgheist is cery much a strigoi thing so it isn'y really suitable, but it depends on the circumstances. Some of the background relating to the Silver Pinnacle and its defenses talk about large, winged undead beasties.

[BlacknightIII]

I'm curious how the coven throne performs. Your build is very similar to mine. Let me know when you get a chance to play test it!

[eldargal]

Well I played my first ever game with VC using this list:

Vampire
Heavy Armour, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Biting Blade

Necromancer
Master of the Dead

35 Skeletons
Command, Screaming Banner

35 skeletons
Command

Corpse Cart
Unholy Lodestone

5 Hexwraiths
Hellwraith

...against a friends Skaven. I didn't take enough notes (it was a spur of the moment thing) to write up a battle report but I won, barely, and had heaps of fun. The highlight was my Vampiress killing a Hellpit Abomination (her skellingtons helped, mostly by dying).

[Infinite Freedom]

Well the Terrorgheist is cery much a strigoi thing so it isn'y really suitable, but it depends on the circumstances. Some of the background relating to the Silver Pinnacle and its defenses talk about large, winged undead beasties.

If a Vampire Count/ess can raise and subjugate a Dragon I'm pretty darn sure that they could bring a Terrorgheist to heel. Plus it's a cool model. If you wanted to you could model a Vampire Lord/Lady onto it's back rather than a Strigoi then use it as one of your rare choices. Plus the left over bits make for great conversions.

[eldargal]

True, but I'm still not sure it is in keeping with the Lahmian theme.

[Infinite Freedom]

If memory serves the original Strigoi, Ushoran, was a member of the original Lahmian Court. Thus one could say that all "Vampire" units fall under the Lahmian Banner, albeit distantly.

[eldargal]

Well technically all Vampires are descended from Lahmians, as it was Neferata of Lahmia who became the first and sired the future bloodline leaders. But they are well and truly seperate tribes now and don't seem to like each other much. In the Ulrika novels the Lahmians come into conflict with both Strigoi and the von Carsteins.:)

[Infinite Freedom]

Well technically all Vampires are descended from Lahmians, as it was Neferata of Lahmia who became the first and sired the future bloodline leaders. But they are well and truly seperate tribes now and don't seem to like each other much. In the Ulrika novels the Lahmians come into conflict with both Strigoi and the von Carsteins.:)

I differ to your knowledge, though I would like to bring up the point you pointed out in regards to undead flyers around the Silver Pinnacle. Though now that I think about it, said beasts are most likely Zombie Dragons.