Post: #1

This is something I was discussing with my local forum and thought I'd share it you guys and ghouls to get your opinion on. Also, if anyone is brave enough to do this with actual models, please post back and let us all know how you got on...I know I'd love to see this.

Theoryhammer time!

Assume I start with 1 unit of 40 zombies (120pts).

I have 3 invocation of nehek spell casts per turn, assume that 2 of these casts are successful each turn.

Each cast will raise 2D6+(wizard level) zombies. Assuming I have a lvl 1 and a lvl 4 cast these spells, this is an average of (7+1)+(7+4)=19 zombies per turn. 7 being the average of 2D6. This would equal a total of 19*6=114 zombies raised back per game per unit.

Since invocation of nehek is now cast in bubbles, I could potentially hit 3 units of zombies per turn with each spell cast (under the assumption that the spell cast is the 6" range). This would then raise me back 19*3=57 zombies per turn. This would equal 57*6=342 zombies raised per game.

1. Would this be viable in any such way? Everything that hits zombies is going to kill something undoubtly in the 10-20 mark each round of combat and this would double each turn due to crumbling.

2. Combine this logic with putting a mortis engine behind the zombies giving all three units a 6+ regen save and a corpse cart giving all the units ASF as well as letting each unit reroll a single die for raising back models (i.e. i roll a one, i can reroll it for a potentially better result). Could this be now be viable considering that the units have to be backed up by 300 points of other models?

3. Do not factor mindrazor into this equation to make them better. Why? Because they are LD2 which would effectively lower their strength in combat. Also dont consider making them T5/7 with lore of life. Why? Cos vampires cant take lore of life under any situation.
(I realise this forum might know about point 3, but my local gamers and some people might not)

please discuss this absolutely insane idea...

Post: #2

(02-03-2012 01:59 PM)Fojovia Wrote:  1. Would this be viable in any such way? Everything that hits zombies is going to kill something undoubtly in the 10-20 mark each round of combat and this would double each turn due to crumbling.

If all your zombie unit's gets engaged they will crumble faster than you can raise them back, pretty much regardless of how strong magic you bring (because we wont have infinit powerdice anymore). But if you make your Zombie units strong enough from the begining they can hold for quite a while.

We may think that "hey" 900 something extra points over six turns is gr8, but most of the time we will lose a unit or two earlier. And also Zombies won't kill anything, regardless of buffs. They stack so much CR for the enemy that you don't want to use them as Anvils, just tarpits: Anything joining fight with a Zombie unit is at great risk.

But I agree that Zombie-madness is damn cool. And they should not be underestimated.

Post: #3

And if you had a corpse cart near your zombies, why nood throw in an unholy loadstone, for a reroll on each of the units... Tried a zombie horde like that. It was crazy... crazy fun. Had to start proxy'ing at some point. But they did do a little damage. And my opponent startet fearing them, because of their shear size. Looks can be deceiving

Sneglzillsd

Post: #4

Now let's consider 2 or more mortis engines actually joining the fight at turn 3 or 4. They will get destroyed, if only by CR.
And Kaboom, every unit in the bubble takes damage. This could actually mean victory for the zombies on the next turn, as they will have so many ranks left. Is this logic or insane reasoning?

Post: #5

I'd just like to express my newfound love for zombies in this edition. With a unit beginning with 40, then by the time they get into CC it's flirting with 70-80, my opponent quickly realizes his demise. Invocation bubble are great because mutiple units are effected and many times my opponent won't dispel it for fear of Curse of Years etc... Also, running my zombies 5 wide is nice because it adds ranks fast which eventually gets so long it encases my corpse cart and protects the flanks of my ghouls, like so

Zombies.....Ghouls.....Zombies
ranks....CorpseCart....ranks
ranks.......................ranks
ranks.......................ranks
ranks.......................ranks


Sure, they won't kill too much, though one of my zombies WOUNDED a bloodthirster, they take units out of games which is just incredible.

Post: #6

What happens when you roll double 1's on the winds of magic?
How can you get that many zombies back with 1 or two at best castings of IoN?
What happens when your enemy dispels all of your attempts?

This is way way way too dependent on magic IMO.

The only way that I can see a VC army being able to rely on magic consistantly is with MotBA (super xpensive)

I think raising zombies is critical to an army with zombies in it, however, if that's all your army does (the one trick pony scenario), you will get bitch slapped by any mid-high tier combat units. Just think, demons, sword masters, plague monks, any ogre, orcs, beastmen will crush zombies no matter how many you have and can raise.

I don't think anything in our book can put out enough damage to be able to flank a strong enemy unit that is engaged with zombies and successfully do enough wounds to out weigh the amount of dead zombies to avoid crumbling on the charge. I just don't see how you can win with that kind of list, unless your opponent has a "friendly" list like this one.

If your idea is to win a battle because of zombies, then yes this is a crazy idea. Get your head checked, we have an awesome book, 200 zombies on the table is just a bit to monotone for me. Gotta get the vargheists, black knights, GG and varghulf on the table to win battles.

Post: #7

They do act as great flank supoort in that a solid block is still relatively cheep and can hold out for quite a few turns against anything that dishes out less than 15 attacks.
40 zombies held my left flank for 3 turns without any magic support while my horrors chewed through my opponent's center.
I can only image how good they would've been with a corpse cart and mortis engine behind them.

Post: #8

Paying points for the mortis engine and the corpse cart to support your zombies, is spending those points on zombie related tactics, instead of simply spending more points on zombie models (25% core min. always). You are taking away available points to spend on 'Hammers' on rare and special.

Mortis IMO is only worth using if it follows crypt horrors and terrorgheist (who has the extra pts these days?). Granted, zombies flanking either side of crypt horrors is a good idea, because they ARE cheap.

The Slave effect,
If we are talking points efficiency, then we need to take 25% zombies every match, so that we can have the maximum models to be supported so like 120 zombies (on the table before spells are cast) in whatever unit arrangement you desire with 3 IoN necros. Then you have the rest of special to take as many crypt horrors, corpse carts and accompanying mortis engineS. This is why I see ghouls as 'bumped out' of our book (too expensive compared to 3 1/3 zombies). Ghouls are now like the redheaded stepchild of the vc book. I wish ghouls were special units and had 6+ regen and were the strigoi equivalent to GG.

One reason I will never run this list is because I play vs dwarfs all the time. Flaming str4 grudge thrower, flaming cannon, flaming bolt thrower with +1 to hit, are such bitches vs regen. dependant armies (luckily you can pay 5 pts for a iron curse icon to get the same 6+ vs flaming warmachines)

In the end your army is always what makes you happy, not necessarily what is 'power gamer'.

Post: #9

Actually ghouls is not overpriced or bad in any way. We can't just go for only ghouls in our core anymore. But there should be one unit of ghouls in every list imo. The reason for this is that they are the only unit of core that will work solo with a vampire in them. Fear-combo skellies will do about the same btw. Since I feel that a strong center is crucial, most 2000-2500p lists will need at least one unit of ghouls.

Zombies sucks, but in a good way. They shall refuse a flank for some time or be raised in front of a unit to force them to face in a bad direction.

But Zombies won't win games on their own. (Not the games I've played so far anyways)

Post: #10

How about sticking a Bound item in with the Necro that goes with the zombies? Something like the Rod of Flaming Death so that the enemy has to do something about it? Personally I think that using two-three units just to support a zombie based tactic is crazy, but there you go. Even 100 zombies in a single unit will get pasted in 2 turns by a decent unit in a flank charge.

Post: #11

(02-04-2012 03:58 AM)TeflonTron Wrote:  How about sticking a Bound item in with the Necro that goes with the zombies? Something like the Rod of Flaming Death so that the enemy has to do something about it? Personally I think that using two-three units just to support a zombie based tactic is crazy, but there you go. Even 100 zombies in a single unit will get pasted in 2 turns by a decent unit in a flank charge.

Agreed, nuff said.

Post: #12

(02-04-2012 04:35 AM)drmooreflava Wrote:  

(02-04-2012 03:58 AM)TeflonTron Wrote:  How about sticking a Bound item in with the Necro that goes with the zombies? Something like the Rod of Flaming Death so that the enemy has to do something about it? Personally I think that using two-three units just to support a zombie based tactic is crazy, but there you go. Even 100 zombies in a single unit will get pasted in 2 turns by a decent unit in a flank charge.

Agreed, nuff said.

Double agreed. I placed a single necro in each of my zombie units (one with the Rod, the other with the Cursed Book). In turn 2, before rank/file charges, my necro simply leave the unit and hang back near the Corpse Cart, leaving my opponent forced to get tarpitted with no chance of hacking up my necros

Post: #13

good to see i got some of the reactions i expected out of this thread.

but please take this topic with a pinch of salt, i never said it was going to win any games, and i never said i was going to use it. i simply wanted to see what people would think of when faced with the sheer raising power that the zombies could provide to the VC in the new book.

i personally think that this tactic is complete and utter madness, but 1-2 units of zombies on the table has now become a very viable source of tarpitting a unit down for a turn or two whilst you position the rest of your army for charges once the zombies have died. i think i may start and give this a try (by proxy) for a few games and see how it goes.

eggspr, the way you've set up your zombies around the CC and ghouls, i assume these are just 5 wide and then as many ranks as possible deep? how do you use the CC once the zombies have gone? charge it or conserve the points by hiding it and keeping it out of the way?

Post: #14

Zombies taken this way are cheap. They make for excellent tarpits with a little tactical manuevering. People worry that 3 blocks of 50+ Zombies will be sitting targets. Your opponent only has so many hammer units.

1) Your opponent is going to focus far too much on this massive clump of models thus letting your hammer units get around and wreck havoc.

2) Zombies are perfect for nuetralizing OTHER tarpits like skaven slaves, flagellants, gnoblars , etc. They are perfect against ethereals if you are fighting another VC player.

3) With proper use of IoN you should have some models left in every unit at the end of the game thus giving NO victory points away.

Caveat: I do agree with everyone else, once engaged the zombies are on their own. I'm not sending in good troops to die to poor CS.

Post: #15

(02-05-2012 08:17 PM)Fojovia Wrote:  eggspr, the way you've set up your zombies around the CC and ghouls, i assume these are just 5 wide and then as many ranks as possible deep? how do you use the CC once the zombies have gone? charge it or conserve the points by hiding it and keeping it out of the way?

Yepper, 5 wide all the time for a number of reasons, like:

- Adds ranks easier which help with combat resolution when you get widdled down to 20 units (still have 3 ranks)

- Better protects flanks of whatever is in between my zombie units if the tarpit is deeper

- Thinner units means more units can "squeeze" in and benefit from the general's march bubble

- Enemy hordes won't be able to get all models in base-to-base contact, limiting the damage your unit will take

With my Corpse Cart, I NEVER get it in Close Combat, unless I know I'll win. I just keep that thing behind my Ghoul horde with ASF (and zombies) from the Cart. I'd charge my Corpse Cart if it was my last unit remaining, though. Granted, I haven't used the cart much so I'm no expert here, but my Corpse Cart never broke anything in combat, so I'd rather use it abilities over it's CC prowess.