2400 Casual (but still winnable) vampire list

[Joex48]

Edit: I did my adding up wrong, and just found I have 25 points left, but I'm not sure where to put them...

The basic plan is to move forwards with the Black Knight/Character unit, a little slowly at first (if there's a lot of distance to cover), to try and stay out of warmachine range until the Varghulf manages to hit them. I'll march my Skeleton bunker and ghouls up with the knights (who initially probably wont be marching), keeping the wolves and spirit host on either flank.

Once the main warmachine threat is out, I'll keep running the Varg/Terror around the enemy lines, and begin to rush up then with my knights. The Wolves would do alright to keep up, whilst the Bunker, ghouls and spirit host would take a little longer.

The Necro would be casting as the bunker moves, and banshee screaming at anything that may come close.

Hopefully the Knight bus should reach enemy lines fairly intact, the vamp lord casting invocation as they move up to keep the numbers, and then using my wolves in first, I'll try and redirect some units so I can hit them in the side, or the rear, with either my knights, or varghulf.

I'm going to be keeping the terrorgheist out of combat as much as possible, and just be screaming at things. Infested is mainly so that if my wounds do inevitably run low, I can move into a central enemy area and at least go out with a bang.

I'm pretty much just going to be running the wolves, knights and varghulf around in unison to hit as many sides/rears as possible, as both the knights and the varghulf are devastating at the side or rear.

Once the Varghulf and wolves have fallen, I'm hoping that the skeletons, ghouls and spirit host should've caught up, and can begin to mop up whats left. Some careful spirit host placement should make short work of some units. The Banshee scream against broken units, or once the general's gone, should inflict some massive damage too.

I'm hoping to roll raise dead, to bring some zombie numbers in to tarpit, but it's not a game breaker if I don't get it.

The Black Knight unit has the Wight King as more of a challenge acceptor (hence the nightshroud, to minimize hits against him), whilst the red fury vamp can blend through units.

I've playtested it with proxies in a friendly game, and it performed well.

I'm not going into tournaments with it, I'm looking for a fun list to play that's still got a fairly competitive edge, and uses models that I have/plan to get.

So I'd love to hear if you guys have any improvement.

Thank you in advance for any help!

 

[Craie]

You lack the means to deal with high toughness/armor, as your highest strength attacks will come from the BKs on the charge, You need something that will reliably kill heavily armored things. So the vamp should go ogre blade instead of bloodshed.

Overall, I think your characters are a little on the weak side. I'd try to at least get a baby blender in there. I don't think your banshee will do to much, same with the Necro. They are simply too slow in the skeleton unit. That necro will not be in range to use the vamp's LD for spirit leach also. I really doubt the Ruby Ring will do anything, as you have plenty of essential spells to get off with your level 4. Not to mention you are planning to actually get your necro's unit into combat, that will be 150 free points for your enemy.

Drop the terrorgheist upgrade. It is not worth it. Strength 2 does nothing, also don't freely give away VPs.

 

[helemaalnicks]

You necromancer doesn't have a proper bunker to hide in either. He'll have to face facts, he doesn't belong in this list. I would also replace him with a vampire, or revamp the core of your army and give him a different lore.

 

[Joex48]

Would it be viable to mount my Necro? Since there's full command and two characters already in my Knights, he'd be safely in the second rank? I'll then drop the Banshee and raise my skeletons up to 40.

Give the Vamp an ogre blade, and possibly a potion of strength also?

Then keep the Wight King, and add in a Vamp hero with red fury and sword of strife, or something similar? If I add another character to the unit, it'd then end up in the second rank, since a character can't displace command models...

Or, would it be better to scrap the necro and the wight king entirely, and take a tooled up second vampire? Who would then take challenges in place of the lord?

Thanks guys! My list making is always really bad

 

[Joex48]

If I can get a small vamp, or the necro, to carry the book of arkhan, then my knights can move 24" in one turn, and could close an average board in only two turns of movement also. Would that be a good idea?

 

[helemaalnicks]

If I can get a small vamp, or the necro, to carry the book of arkhan, then my knights can move 24" in one turn, and could close an average board in only two turns of movement also. Would that be a good idea?

If you want van hels, then why don't you just take 6 levels of Lov? You'll get it ~99% of the time that way.

Necromancer can go with cavalry, it just gives you a lot of miscast-problems, especially with death magic, which doesn't typically work without IF anyway.

I did not know characters couldn't displace command models. Brb says characters have to be in the front rank, unless it's full, and that command models have to go in the front rank, unless it's full. I'm reading it as if command models and characters follow similar rules in terms of what rank they have to be in.

 

[Joex48]

That's a good point with 6 levels actually.

Well it says under the characters section:

'When characters join a unit, they are places in the front rank (regardless of distance). Rank-and-file models, except for the command group that must remain in the front rank, are moved to the back ranks to make room for the characters. If there is no more room in the front rank, some characters will have to go in the second rank.'

That to me reads that you displace anything that isn't a command model, and when you run out of room you add characters to the second rank...

I could just scrap the Necro altogether, along with the banshee, and throw in a baby blender lord as a third character in the BK's then? The only issue is that he'd then end up in the second rank, if my reading is correct.

 

[helemaalnicks]

You might have a point. I'm really glad I use hordes, I do not have to deal with this problem.

I do know many people take lists with 3 vampires though, and put them all in the BK bus. Maybe someone who does that can clarify.

EDIT: you asked for a casual list btw, and it is getting a bit hard. Maybe we're not being silly enough?

 

[Craie]

Check out "Make Way" in the rules section. Your characters can move into the front rank and displace command units during close combat.

 

[Olethros70]

True.

 

[Joex48]

Ah, so they'll be in the second rank for movement, but during combat I can choose to move them forward, and displace say, a musician, so that 2 vamps, a wight, a champion and the banner will attack, then when combats over they swap back?

 

[Joex48]

EDIT: you asked for a casual list btw, and it is getting a bit hard. Maybe we're not being silly enough?

Whilst I do want a fun casual list, I don't want to be walked over either. That's why I made the core of the army into a Black Knight bus rather than going Zombie mad or something like that, haha.

I do however really want to fit the Necro in, as he's quite involved in my Vampire Lord's fluff (There's about 20 pages of it so far, I'll link anyone if you want it )

 

[helemaalnicks]

I have a solution if you want:

40 ghouls + ghast: 410
5 dogs: 40
5 dogs: 40
16 skeletons, full command: 105

Then the army could easily take a necromancer, he could go in the bunker. He can't take death though, because he has low leadership, but LoV or LoS can both be usefull I think.

 

[Joex48]

How about something like this?

Lords/b]​

Vampire Lord - Barded Nightmare, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation, ToTS, Red Fury, Lvl 4 - 484

Heroes​

Vampire - Barded Nightmare, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Red Fury, Level 2 - 212

Wight King - Barded Steed, Dawnstone, Enchanted Shield, ToTS, Sword of Swift Slaying- 175

Necromancer - Level 2, Dispel Scroll - 125

Core​

5 Wolves - XX

5 Wolves - XX

30 Skeletons - Full Command - 180

34 Ghouls - Ghast - 350

Special​

12 Black Knights - Full Command, Barding, Lances, Banner of Barrows - 392

Rare​

Varghulf - XXX

Terrorgheist - XXX

Total = 2398​

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Dont tell exact points in posts GW property.

 

[Joex48]

Dont tell exact points in posts GW property.

Sorry, didn't see the two at the bottom. X'd them out now though.

 

[Craie]

You don't need level 2 on your baby necro, between the baby vamp, Lord and level 1 necro you'll already have all the spells.

Lord is missing quickblood.

Both Lord and VK have The other trickster's Shard. take it off the VK. VK should have Nightshroud to protect your other characters. I'd rather have Sword of Swiftslaying on the Baby vamp. So you'll hit first with rerolls. Good synergy with Red fury. I'd also give him Dawnstone for extra protection,

 

[Joex48]

Thanks for the advice.

Everything from above has been left untouched, except for the Lords and Heroes, which now look like this:

Lords

Vampire Lord - Barded Nightmare, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation, ToTS, Red Fury, Quickblood, Lvl 4 - 514

Heroes

Vampire - Barded Nightmare, Sword of Swift Slaying, Heavy Armour, Shield, Red Fury, Level 2 - 237

Wight King - Barded Steed, Nightshroud - 145

Necromancer - Dispel Scroll - 90

And the new total is 2399/2400. I just couldn't find the room for the dawnstone :/

 

[Craie]

Your lord is now at 105 points of magical items. drop the enchanted shield.

Since you now are left with 25 points of unspent magical items on your baby vamp, I suggest dropping the necromancer all together, and give the scroll to the vamp. That'll free up 60 points, which I suggest going to a spirit host, a shield for the VK and luckstone/lance maybe? Not too sure what to do with the extra points.

The other option is to drop Banner of the Barrows, get swiftness instead, freeing up 35 points. Enough for dawnstone on the baby vamp, shield for the VK and luckstone/lance.

I think either of those two options is better then what you have now. I'd probably favor the second one, as I value that extra one inch more movement, and more resilient characters more then maybe 1-2 more hits landing from the knights, which really are just there as transportation. VK is also not there to do damage, but it is nice if he does.

 

[Joex48]

Thank you so much for all the help

This is what it's looking like now:

Lords

Vampire Lord - Barded Nightmare, Heavy Armour, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation, ToTS, Red Fury, Quickblood, Lvl 4 - 535

Heroes

Vampire - Barded Nightmare, Sword of Swift Slaying, Heavy Armour, Shield, Red Fury, Dawn Stone, Level 2 - 262

Wight King - Barded Steed, Nightshroud, Shield, Luckstone - 155

Necromancer - Dispel Scroll - 90

Core

5 Wolves - XX

5 Wolves - XX

28 Skeletons - Full Command - 170

34 Ghouls - Ghast - 350

Special

12 Black Knights - Full Command, Barding, Lances, Banner of Swiftness - 357

Rare

Varghulf - XXX

Terrorgheist - XXX

Total - 2399

 

[helemaalnicks]

Why would you lose a rank bonus on either? Don't you use the skeletons in a 5 wide formation? That way they'll receive fewer attacks.

 

[Joex48]

I do yeah, but I just realised that the maximum rank bonus I can claim is 3, so it doesn't matter about there being two less, haha. I really need to start thinking things through more... I'll go edit the latest list now