• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
(-55/536) Vampire Lord: Ogre Blade; Talisman of Preservation; Charmed Shield; Potion of Foolhardiness; Quickblood; Red Fury; Level 4 Wizard; heavy armour; Hellsteed
(-6/135) Wight King: Nightshroud; Ironcurse Icon; great weapon
(-12/90) Necromancer: Dispel Scroll
(-4/225) 39 Skeleton Warriors: Skeleton Champion; musician; standard bearer
(-4/225) 39 Skeleton Warriors: Skeleton Champion; musician; standard bearer
(-2/95) 15 Skeleton Warriors: Skeleton Champion; standard bearer
( -2/40) 5 Dire Wolves
(-2/40) 5 Dire Wolves
(-22/464) 32 Grave Guard:
Banner of the Barrows; great weapons; Seneschal; musician; standard bearer
(-10/194) 4 Vargheists: Vargoyle
(-19/228) 6 Crypt Horrors
(-30/225) Terrorgheist

Total: (-200 / 2497) = Swedish 10



Vampire Lord runs in any of the 3 infantry units, or the crypt horrors, as necessary. GG are run either 7 wide or 5 wide, depending on who I'm facing. The WK goes either in the middle to maximize contact with NS or on the side to give ASL to whoever the VL is fighting.

The Crypt Horrors are mostly used as a screen for my terrorgheist / VL against cannons. The VL now has a charmed shield to protect against stonethrowers as well (he used to have a dragonhelm). Against lists without much shooting he can run with the vargheists and terrorgheist as an outflanking force.

At a 10.0 Swedish I think this list is reasonably solid. I could drop the terrorgheist for more Vargheists to bring me up to a 12, but I'm concerned that this does't leave me with much anti-armour.

The GG I'm also not super sure about. I mostly have them in here because they're painted. However they're a lot of points, and I could buy another unit of vargheists and some hex wraiths for the cost and go full-outflank.
 
Last edited:

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
I think the out flanking idea is more versatile. Go with varghiests and hexwraiths. What is the point of the 15 man skellies?
 

estwheadn

Black Knight
Jun 4, 2014
301
I think you should drop the lord's hellsteed, he's too vulnerable to cannon fire even with a 4+ ward. Having a 50% chance to ignore the cannon ball also means you have a 50% chance that you lose your lord and your entire army crumbles. A 2+ lookout sir is necessary for any vampire lord in any competitive list. Put him in the graveguard, that will give you a nice death star. Switch out the wight king for another necro with book of arkhan. Drop the 15 man unit of skeletons. Use the points from the wight king, hellsteed and skeletons to get more vargheists or a varghulf or some hexwraiths or spirit hosts. Btw I really like graveguard. They can be pretty fast with book of arkhan and they are amazing at killing and very easy to raise back. especially if you have the two skeleton units guarding their flanks each with a necro in 6" range of the grave guard. With that set up you should just have to out chaff your opponent and put enough pressure on his warmachines with the vargheists. You could also put the crypt horrors 6-wide in front of your infantry to catch cannonballs.

I also think you should drop the champion from the vargheists. You should still have enough attacks to obliterate their intended targets like warmachines and any chaff that gets in their way but you're opponent can't pull any challenge shenanigans if he has a tanky character in say an archer unit that you want to charge. I believe they are more tactically flexible without the champion
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
I think the out flanking idea is more versatile. Go with varghiests and hexwraiths. What is the point of the 15 man skellies?

15 skittles are a bunker for the Mage. Previously there were two mages (master necro pulling level 4 off the VL), but he got cut to pay for the wight king. Now you have me questioning whether that unit is necessary.

They have been useful in capturing objectives though (thus the standard).
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
I think you should drop the lord's hellsteed, he's too vulnerable to cannon fire even with a 4+ ward. Having a 50% chance to ignore the cannon ball also means you have a 50% chance that you lose your lord and your entire army crumbles. A 2+ lookout sir is necessary for any vampire lord in any competitive list. Put him in the graveguard, that will give you a nice death star. Switch out the wight king for another necro with book of arkhan. Drop the 15 man unit of skeletons. Use the points from the wight king, hellsteed and skeletons to get more vargheists or a varghulf or some hexwraiths or spirit hosts. Btw I really like graveguard. They can be pretty fast with book of arkhan and they care amazing at killing and very easy to raise back. especially if you have the two skeleton units guarding their flanks each with a necro in 6" range of the grave guard. With that set up you should just have to out chaff your opponent and put enough pressure on his warmachines with the vargheists. You could also put the crypt horrors 6-wide in front of your infantry to catch cannonballs.

I also think you should drop the champion from the vargheists. You should still have enough attacks to obliterate their intended targets like warmachines and any chaff that gets in their way but you're opponent can't pull any challenge shenanigans if he has a tanky character in say an archer unit that you want to charge. I believe they are more tactically flexible without the champion

1) Hellsteed vampire is indeed quite vulnerable. But his 10" swift stride flying charge helps him threaten in ways he couldn't without it. It makes the army more interesting than when he's just in foot. Also I like the model better with wings. He has the charmed shield now to protect himself against stone throwers, while the crypt horrors protect him against cannons.

I'll agree that he's perhaps not the safest choice. However I've quite come to like the flexibility he brings. It makes the game more interesting, even if that comes at the cost of more risk. Out of 20 games with this army he's only been sniped out with warmachines...twice I think? And both times were by stone throwers. Thus the charmed shield.

2) can't drop the small skeletons: I'm at min core. They could be more dogs, but that's about it.

3) in that case I would just decline the challenge. Champions don't have to accept. The champ is a cost-effective way to get more attacks out of the unit without increasing frontage, and is also effective at taking challenges where it's beneficial (say by protecting the unit by blocking incoming attacks or absorbing excess wounds). He's also proven able to pick up points from the underdog bonus.
 

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
What about a magic banner in the skelies, boost their numbers of both units and then an extra unit if dogs?
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
What about a magic banner in the skelies, boost their numbers of both units and then an extra unit if dogs?

Then the scroll caddy is exposed, which gives up 100 easy points. Plus I kind of like having a banner unit in my rear to capture objectives. I might shave it down to 13 or so to buy a banner of flame for one of the skeleton units, just make it easier to chip wounds off of hellpits and the like.

Didn't get a chance to playtest the list at all and I've been really busy studying for some exams this week, so I ended up just submitting pretty much as-is. The guys at my club are all playing Swedish for the US Masters (since 5/8 presently qualifying for the Pacific Northwest are from my club), so I'll have plenty of opportunity to playtest after this tournament, incorporating lists with everyone's feedback.

I'm also looking for a nice on-foot vampire model that will suit my "Tomb Counts" theme. Presently the major reason for my reluctance to drop the hellsteed (which I admit is a liability) is that I'm really loving my winged vampire model.
 

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
I like to put enough blenders or ethereals into my units to push the necromancer into the second rank. Means no wasted bunker models and you keep your necros close in the think of things.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
What's your target comp score? Is there a limit or handicap?

Band is 8-14, so I'm a little on the low side. Couldn't find any easy changes to bring the comp down, save dropping the terrorgheist for more vargs or hex wraiths. That means cannons start hitting my VL turn one though so wasn't super into that. The only things that immediately came to mind was dropping the dispel scroll for the flaming rod, and shaving a wizard level off the VL. In the end I figured both changes would probably lose me more games than the extra 170 or so points would, so I opted to keep them and see.
 

bigbadbat

Harbinger of Dandelions
True Blood
Jun 14, 2012
1,240
Minneapolis, MN area
Haven't done the Swedish math, but seeing that hellsteed VL just screams a unit or 2 of HW to me, That 4+ LoS! Plus 4+ ward is a killer combo.
Charmed shield is great, but I like Dragon helm for the extra pip of armor and the 2++ against flaming. Obviously this works better in tandem with the HW.
Tough decisions bro!
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Haven't done the Swedish math, but seeing that hellsteed VL just screams a unit or 2 of HW to me, That 4+ LoS! Plus 4+ ward is a killer combo.
Charmed shield is great, but I like Dragon helm for the extra pip of armor and the 2++ against flaming. Obviously this works better in tandem with the HW.
Tough decisions bro!

I actually wrote that list as well. 2x5 hex wraiths, 2x4 vargheists. Turns out Swedish does NOT like hexxies. And given how prevalent wood elves are in my meta right now I didn't feel like it was better than my current list. GG I can protect from bad matchups...hexxies just get shot. But it's definitely a list that's on my radar. Probably for my uncomped tournament coming up in February. The hexxies got traded for crypt horrors instead, who jived better with the GG. Foot list was too slow, and my outflanking force too small.

As for the dragonhelm, I actually ran that build for exactly the same reasons you say. Turns out that catching boulders isn't his strong suit. He caught two over the course of the weekend, and one of them killed him second turn. Not a fan. Charmed shield gives me some leeway there. We're gunna see how it goes. Watch me play three CD players now though haha.
 

About us

  • Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Quick Navigation

User Menu