Border Patrol advice needed!

[vonkinson]

Hi all

Trying to get a Border Patrol 500 pointer sorted to go against Empire, Brets and WE's (seperate games).

I don't foresee any of them being magic heavy which is always nice so was thinking of:

Vampire with flayed hauberk - 125
19 ghouls - 152

2 Wraiths + banshee - 175

6 Dire wolves - 48

Total - 500
pd - 3
dd - 3

I know the wraiths are chewing up valuable points but i'm hoping with the opponent's lack of magic (i'll still have 3 dd on hand anyway), i'll be able to use them as a shield for those pesky cannons and gunners. The dire wolves will hopefully be able to get around to eating the crew, or take the first volley of shots in order for my main unit to advance.

This is meant to be an experimental army and played for fun rather than tourney situation.

What you guys reckon?

Hints, tips and general advice is very welcomed as i'm pretty new to VC.

 

[TMS]

I'm not very familiar with the rules for playing border patrol but I suppose that it requires you to have only one core unit? Otherwise, you're currently short on one, heheh.

Anyway, the list looks solid. Including wraiths at this points level might be a bit evil of you, how fun will it be for your opponents to face something that they literally cannot kill, aside from crumbling them with CR? This all depends on who you'll be fighting of course, your opponents might stock up on magical items on default. The wood elves have their forest spirits to save them, The Bretonnian grail knights have magical attacks as well...

Anywho! Again, the list looks solid and it sounds like you've got a solid plan to go with it as well. Shield your ghouls while your march them forward. If you go up against another block of infantry (or two), make sure to keep the dire wolves around to negate their rank bonus to break them more swiftly.

Oh, one last thing as well... remember that since your vampire is acting as the general, undead units within 12'' of him will be able to march instead of the usual 6''. This increases your flexibility somewhat, heheh.

 

[vonkinson]

Thanks for the reply

Border Patrol rules in a nutshell:

- Must be led by one hero (no more hero choices may be made) that totals no more than 125 points (including equipment)
- Must have at least one core unit
- Can take either one rare or one special choice but not both
- Magic standards are not allowed
- Total army cost can be no more than 500

I think that's the lot, oh something about having between 2-4 units but no more (total).

You'll be sad to hear that i lost miserably!

He took a unit of 5 Grail knights with his pally in. Managed to charge right into my wraiths, whilst at the same time smashing his unit of 9 (lance formation too the cheeky ****) Knights Errant into my ghouls. Got the wolves into his flank however.

Thing is, all of his army (if you can call it that at 500 points!) had a 2+ save and a 6+ ward save (which was actually 5+ ward if being attacked by S5 or above).

All in all, i just couldn't get through that armour. Yeah poisoned attacks we nice but everything seemed to ping off him. Only thing that did any good was the vampire who had the -2 save mod due to S5.

Suffice to say, his first attack in lance formation managed to wipe out about half of my ghouls straight away. That mixed with some very lucky rolls (on his part) led to a pretty dire game!

Ah well, we had another one soon after, seeing as the games only last about 1hr each. Traded in a few ghouls, wolves and wraiths for a unit of 20 crypt guard with full command. Killing blow is nice and the additional armour saves worked well. Still, lost again but it was a good match.

Need to rethink a way to get through his armour using border patrol rules.... gonna be tough!

 

[Master Vampire]

GG? They're not much better as their AS gets negated anyhow.

I'd say try out Zombie + Varghulf. Will be interested how that works out.

 

[vonkinson]

The AS is only negated if they manage to charge, otherwise it's normal 3+ against the Errant (S3) and 4+ against the Grails (S4).

I'll have to reread the rules, but i don't think more than 125 can be spent on a single model too (not just the hero), otherwise a VG would have been very nice.

Big unit of 30 zombies would be nice i guess just to get them all bogged down.