2250 VC Tourney

[The Plastic Surgeon]

2250 Pts - Vampire Counts Roster

Vampire Lord (1#, 470 pts)
. . 1 Vampire Lord @ 470 pts (General; Vampire; Level 3 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Undead)
. . . . 1 Nightmare
. . . . 1 Walach's Bloody Hauberk
. . . . 1 The Hand of Dust
. . . . 1 Dark Acolyte
. . . . 1 Forbidden Lore
. . . . 1 Summon Ghouls
. . . . 1 Avatar of Death (Shield)

Vampire (1#, 290 pts)
. . 1 Vampire (Battle Standard Bearer) @ 290 pts (Vampire; Hand Weapon; Lance; Battle Standard Bearer; Undead)
. . . . 1 Dread Knight (Barding)
. . . . . . 1 Nightmare
. . . . 1 Summon Creatures of the Night
. . . . 1 The Drakenhof Banner

Vampire (1#, 175 pts)
. . 1 Vampire @ 175 pts (Vampire; Hand Weapon; Lance; Undead)
. . . . 1 Sword of Kings
. . . . 1 Dread Knight (Barding)
. . . . . . 1 Nightmare
. . . . 1 Ghoulkin

Vampire (1#, 180 pts)
. . 1 Vampire @ 180 pts (Vampire; Hand Weapon; Undead)
. . . . 1 Enchanted Shield
. . . . 1 Helm of Commandment
. . . . 1 Avatar of Death (Shield)
. . . . 1 Summon Ghouls

Crypt Ghouls (14#, 120 pts)
. . 13 Crypt Ghouls @ 120 pts (Causes Fear; Poisoned Attacks; Undead)
. . . . 1 Crypt Ghast

Crypt Ghouls (15#, 128 pts)
. . 14 Crypt Ghouls @ 128 pts (Causes Fear; Poisoned Attacks; Undead)
. . . . 1 Crypt Ghast

Crypt Ghouls (15#, 128 pts)
. . 14 Crypt Ghouls @ 128 pts (Causes Fear; Poisoned Attacks; Undead)
. . . . 1 Crypt Ghast

Dire Wolves (7#, 66 pts)
. . 6 Dire Wolves @ 66 pts (Fast Cavalry; Undead)
. . . . 1 Doom Wolf

Dire Wolves (7#, 66 pts)
. . 6 Dire Wolves @ 66 pts (Fast Cavalry; Undead)
. . . . 1 Doom Wolf

Squad (1#, 100 pts)
. . 1 Corpse Cart @ 100 pts (Unholy Lodestone)

Black Knights (8#, 264 pts)
. . 7 Black Knights @ 264 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield; Undead)
. . . . 1 Hell Knight (Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield)
. . . . 8 Skeletal Steed

Black Knights (5#, 180 pts)
. . 4 Black Knights @ 180 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield; Undead)
. . . . 1 Hell Knight (Barding; Hand Weapon; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield)
. . . . 5 Skeletal Steed

Fell Bats (4#, 80 pts)
. . 4 Fell Bats @ 80 pts (Flyer; Undead)

Total Roster Cost: 2247

Please tear it apart, this is more first serious attempt at a list and haven't really played Fantasy all that much. The Vamp Lord & BSB go with the big BKs, the 3rd one with the smaller unit. The last one walks with the Ghouls

[L192837465]

Frostblade.


other than that, the bats are dumb, and could free up some points. though cliche, the dickenhoff banner is pretty good, but you're lacking some real punch.

[The Plastic Surgeon]

Frostblade would be good, but that's ALL the wargear gone on a LORD. He'd be pretty naked whereas now he's pretty well protected and can do cast as well as fight. What would give this list some real punch? I thought the bats would be good for war machine hunting or am I being silly?

Thanks for the tips!

[Joker's Wild]

If you want to make if fight well try

Blood Drinker
Crown of the Damned
Cadaverous Curiass
Power Stone

Dread Knight
Red Fury
Infinite Hatred

I would also take of the D banner. So expensive and cheesy. With the lord kitted out as above that will give you 125 pts to otherwise spend. With a 2+/4+ and immunity to KB and poison he can take a beating. Blood Drinker keeps the unit going.

And yeah drop the bats for more dogs, they cant hunt machines just fine.

[Bork]

bats are awesome, bats have so many uses. if theres any kind of shooting on the other side of the table the dogs will get ripped up especially as they are obviously there to screen the black knights. personnally i take both and one of the units gets through somewhere to eat some WM crews.

i don't know how you feel about using special charecters but for the same points as your lord you can take count mannfred and have 6 extra spells, +1 casting level, +2 wounds and a sword that gives PD/DD for each kill. unless your utterly against SC's i'd be taking mannfred as the sensible choice.

drop the drakenhoff banner its just irritating and IMO not really needed. i'd seriously consider upgrading one of the black knights units into a blood knight unit. black knights work best as support, lightly armed taking advantage of their ethereal movement and speed. they don't hit very hard and cannot reliably break units. taking vamps in the units obviously helps but even then i'd be concerned. blood knights although hated by some will smash aside any unit with ease. if your facing heavy infantry your knights probably won't cut the mustard. if you remain with your black knights units i find a unit of 6 with a standard and banner of the dead legion combined with helm of commandment works miracles. very cheap and against the right unit you can smash through, break through fear and run them down.

[The Plastic Surgeon]

Thanks for the tips Bork, I'll have a little rejig without the D-Banner

Any suggestions on the SIZE of the Fellbat unit? Too small? Can I get away with SMALLER starting units of Ghouls if I can raise more?

[a ghost]

I played a fluff-based deathstar in a tournament the other day. Don't let accusations of "cheese" derail a list that you want to play.

I recommend fielding a unit of 6 Fell Bats, 5 if you have Summon Creatures. The ability to threaten a Flank Charge greatly increases their apparent threat level.

I disagree with the suggestion to completely drop the Drakenhof Banner, as it's appropriate vs. some lists. However, if you're going to run it, I strongly suggest a T4, W3 Wight King instead of a Vamp. Yes, you lose the magic level, but you're making the BSB MUCH more resilient.

I haven't yet fielded the Frostblade, as I'm not crazy about the risk/reward ratio. But I can see it's use vs. DoC. And they deserve the cheese. On a platter. With wine and crackers.

Hand of Dust is sub-optimal. It's cute, but unreliable. If you're stuck on it, put it on a disposable Necromancer. Turn him into a cruise, um, missile.

Sword of Kings is best reserved for a Wight with a Nightshroud. Tell that DE assassin to kiss your, um, armor.

Blood Knights are a decent suggestion. I personally prefer the softer, faster Dire Wolves. There's nothing like a 16" charge to wreck someone's plan. But keep in mind that with that approach, the characters must do the fighting. Form up narrow. With Blood Knights you get a wider, slower sledgehammer. Just depends on your style.

Anyway, I hope that you find this helpful.

[The Plastic Surgeon]

Wow thanks a ghost for the great feedback, I've almost given up waiting for a bit more and I've posted another list in the actual list forum (should've done that with this! doh!) and I'm still playing around.

I'm very interested in the Fellbats and I'm thinking of a Vargulf to go with them if I take them. That means a lot of points trimming and maybe just 2 vamps and a Wight King, maybe another Wight King or Necromancer. In my other list, I did just as you suggested, Sword of Kinds & Nightshroud

I really need help with deciding on starting unit sizes, especially for ghouls as my theme is that these vamps prefer the 'fresher' dead to do their bidding, I'll do an all Skellie list in the future, but I want to start with some ghouls and raise some zombie goodness!

As I'm new to Fantasy, when you say Deathstar, do you mean a really beefed out unit that does most of the killing and or a pair of units? Also, I'm debating whether or not to take cheap Blood Knights, just 5 of them basic with NOTHING else and use the points elsewhere or give them the full monty minus Castellan as he's more of a liability the more I look at it and put a fighty vamp in there (Vamp Lord preferably, if not, a level 2) backed with a solid unit of Black Knights and some Wolves.

Thanks again, and please review my other list and tell me more! I love this army!

[a ghost]

On unit sizes:

• Ghouls - 12 seems to work nicely for me. Especially if you've got Summon Ghouls. I don't see the point of Ghasts, unless you're running a character in the unit. Having a Champ w/no character just opens you up to an unwanted Challenge. And then you get popped by CR. Save the points.
• Dire Wolves - I see these as coming in 3 sizes:
  • Small (5-7) units are good for march blocking, possible flank chargers, missile screens, some warmachines, some lone casters, and as frenzy/charge screens for Blood Knights
  • Medium (7-10) are good for almost all warmachines, all non-lord casters, some lord casters, as flank chargers and light character bunkers
  • Large (9-18) "Dog-star" units are primarily good as bunkers for multiple characters, particularly Deathstars
  Keep in mind that you can go a little on the light side if you have Summon Creatures.
• Blood Knights - A unit of 4-5 is usually fine. Especially if you're adding a character. I ALWAYS kit mine out with a Standard with the Hellfire Banner. Unless there's lots of points left, in which case I'll take the ward save banner. Hellfire is just too useful in the meta-game to ignore. And it effects the horses too.
• Zombies - 20 for a meat shield. 30-40 for a "serious" tarpit. I use quotes because you only want to use them as tarpits, hardly ever for combi charges. They just give up too much CR.
• Skellies - Haven't fielded them yet. I need to assemble mine.

Two terms that I frequently use are Deathstar and Hammer & Anvil.

A VC Deathstar is bunker-type unit that sports at least two and more often three hard-core characters. Typically you see one with Bloodrinker and one is a BSB with the Drakenhof (Regen) banner. The idea is that the entire unit then becomes difficult to kill, and those that are killed are popped back into play by Bloodrinker and Invocation of Nehek (IoN). Clearly, the toughest of the Deathstars are those using Blood Knights. But this is a serious point sink, and can be clumsy due to unit size and frenzy. Black Knight Deathstars are amazing with Wight King BSBs. My personal favorites are "Dog-stars", which are faster and more maneuverable (thanks to being Fast Cavalry), but require that you only run the unit 4 models wide in order to protect the RnF. Failing to do so opens you up to CR issues. This means that you must run a second unit of something to Hammer & Anvil with the Dog-star.

A Hammer & Anvil is a combination of two or more units, where one (the Anvil) is designed to hold a target in place to setup a flanking charge from the Hammer. This can be done with Zombie tarpits, but that is risky as your opponent may choose to inflict as many attacks on the Zombies as possible in order to score wounds and increase CR.

Oh, Wight Kings are AWESOME, if you're willing to lose Lvl 1 caster that a Vamp gives you. They're tougher, hit harder, and cheaper. Necros are cute as disposable casters. But don't count too much on them. Think goblin shaman. Although a Necro on a Corpse Cart adds serious hitting power to a unit of Ghouls. (I use one frequently.) But you can do a lot of other stuff with those points.

[Unpresentable]

For the most part everyone's caught the weaker spots of your list. Characters need a bit of a tweaking. Fell bats have their uses, like march blocking. But id rather use Dire wolves just because I like the models better. Or summoned Zombies behind their lines does just as well.

First off don't take the frost blade. While a brutal weapon, 300+ vampire lords need some protection. Since they are the lynch pin holding your Undead horde together.

I know a lot of people have suggested Blood Knights, since they are a very potent Unit (Planing to pick some up myself). But may I make a suggestion? Grave Guard. There are a few reasons I never leave home without them. The first is the most obvious, they are 'The Anvil' unit in the VC list. They have a high CR, 3+ armour save with sword and board(in combat), and Killing blow. but the biggest upside is that they are infantry. Meaning you get more out of IoN. Id sooner summon D6 GG then a single Black Knight.

Finally just a tip since your new to Fantasy. You have two sizable portions of your army with very different movement values. The trick is using them together properly, for instance do not over commit your Black knights/Dire wolves without support otherwise your just feeding your opponent's army in waves.