2,250 Vampire Counts - Army of the Dead

[Randroid]

Posted this on AMM and my blog but I would love to get some more feedback before I finish building this list.

Here is my current VC draft list. I am still not 100% on this list and I am thinking about scaling back the magic a bit to make way for a little more utility. I was going for a not "cheesy" Vampire Counts army by avoiding the commonly seen items (Drakenhof, Dreadlance/Red Fury, FROSTBLADE!) in favor of a Skeleton-centric/casting list. A smashing hammer of Black Knights on an anvil of Grave Guard. Not sure how well it will work out in practice, but this is the basis.

2,250 Vampire Counts - Army of the Dead

LORD: (360)
Vampire Lord - Dark Acolyte, Dread Knight, Lord of the Dead, Balfefire Spike, Helm of Commandment, Wristbands of Black Gold, Black Periapt (360)

Level 3 caster lord - plan is to ride this fellow around behind the main line and pump up the Skeleton Warriors with his dice. After this is done he will switch over to support for the heavy hitters of the Wraiths and Black Knights/Wight King. Not a very combat orientated guy but hopefully he will do okay. In a perfect world I would find the points to give him Fly and buy him a level 3 upgrade but that would mean dropping Banshees from my Wraith units and I don't want to do that yet.

HEROES: (468)
Vampire - Nightmare, Dark Acolyte, Lord of the Dead, Walach's Bloody Hauberk (198)
Wight King - Skeletal Steed, BSB, Accursed Armor, Sword of Kings (165)
Necromancer - Additional Spell, Book of Arkhan (105)

The Level 2 Vampire goes in with the Grave Guard for troop support and march enabling. Wight King with the Accursed Armor goes in with the ranked Black Knights. Necromancer is just there for Van Hel's and extra dispel dice. He lives in one of the Skeleton units.

CORE: (440)
Skeleton Warriors x 15 - Champion, Musician, Standard (140)
Skeleton Warriors x 15 - Champion, Musician, Standard (140)
Zombies x 20 - (80)
Dire Wolves x 5 - (40)
Dire Wolves x 5 - (40)

Very minimal core. Makes me nervous having such small Warrior blocks but I assume my Lord and Vamp will be able to beef these guys up. Will likely run the Dire Wolves in one block of 10, possibly with the Lord inside. Considering dropping the Zombies for another unit of vanilla Skeletons (no command or banner) but I think the crappy dead guys have there place in a list.

SPECIAL: (529)
Grave Guard x 15 - Great Weapon, Champion, Musician, Standard, Banner of the Barrows (274)
Black Knights x 9 - Champion, Musician, Standard, Standard of Hellish Vigour (281)

The workhorses of the army, these guys will do the majority of the killing. Considered dropping the Black Knights down to 5 but I want to see how this mini-deathstar of mounted skeletons can do first.

RARE: (450)
Cairn Wraiths x 4 - Banshee (225)
Cairn Wraiths x 4 - Banshee (225)

I love Wraiths! Probably the most "un-friendly" thing in my list, these two units of 4 should be pretty devastating, especially against armies with little to no magic offense. I just recently got a box of Blood Knights so I may swap out one unit for those in future iterations of this list.

Total Points: 2,247 (of 2,250)


So there you have it - a list full of vampires and skeletons (nevermind that Necromancer and Zombies, they are skeletal enough to count). Would love to hear comments, thoughts, and suggestions on this list. I have only played about a dozen games with my VC so I am always learning something new about the bloodsuckers.

[CrusherJoe]

Wait. Blog? Link, please!

[RealGenius]

Yeah, I'll add it to the Blogtastic feed.

[Randroid]

I think it is already in the Blogtastic feed?

[URL="http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/"]http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/[/URL]

[Sigose]

added you're blog to my watch list! >;D

[jamesTFL]

that unit of knioghts is too big, a good buddy of mine ran the ole block of Cav + vamp for a while and found that they don't have the hitting power to crack other players rocks (black guard TG etc). He has since dropped them down to 5+vamp and really like them. You are also pretty light on magic i wouldn't count on too much unit buffing from either of your casters. The vampires can get up to 7 dice even on a 3+ its only 3-4 casts of which you can count on at least 2 dispels. That is if you dice spam raises. You army only has 8 dice you won't get a huge contribution from your magic. Running the lord by himself is risky even with a 3+ ward he can get one shot and caught by harrassers.

Might consider a Red Fury infinite hatred Vamp with the blood drinker in your BK unit instead of the wight king keeps the unit pumping and gives you marching and more magic. Also the banner of the dead legion gets you numbers in most cases so when you win on the charge people break and flee

Cheers

[Randroid]

Thanks for the feedback but you have pretty much described all of the things I don't want to do with this list!

Trying to avoid the standard stuff in favor of a more friendly list. Not to say I won't build other lists that are less friendly ...

[Joey Boor]

Drop the wolves and zombies and make more of your characters vampires, use the remaining points for skeletons. Focus on raising skeletons and zombies.

[Randroid]

Can't drop the Zombies as I need them for core. Don't want more Vamps, I like the Wight King and the Necro is a cheap Van Hel's battery.

[Joey Boor]

Take a bare bones unit of skeletons and use your vampires to raise skeletons.