Caster, Combat or Balanced Lord?

[xxSLAYERxx]

I was wondering with the new book that came out what kind of builds are people having. Me personally i try to go for a Balanced lord that is a good caster and a good fighter. There has been times when ive beaten things twice my size XD so i was wondering what kind of vampires do you guys take now? any interesting dirty builds?

 

[crafty0ne]

Played a storm of magic game yesterday which was just my second game with the new book. Just for shits and giggles, I took a vamp lord with Flying Horror, Red Fury, and Skabscrath. Flew him from fulcrum to fulcrum and absolutely destroyed enemy wizards. Think there was only enemy wizard that survived the game. Very effective, but while Fun, I would not recommend this build for a non storm of magic game. He was all offense....no armour or ward save of any kind, so he needed to stay on the fulcrums as much as possible to benefit from there ward save. And even with being on a fulcrum for 4 out 6 turns, he still ended the game with only one wound.

 

[Kulgan86]

The point level you build your army for greatly answers the question. I'm building a 2000 point force. This restricts me to one lord ( if you assume you want a vampire lord to start with ) so he'll have to be a hybrid build. Basically he's tooled up for combat ( about 185 points in combat powers and magical items for combat ) and then two additional levels, some mundane equipment and I get a 493 point Vampire Lord.

I would preferably run a combat only Vampire Lord, and then a Lvl 4 Necromancer to do the casting but at 2000 points this is not possible.

And the ' caster ' lord is really the weak choice IMHO. Why sit back and only cast with a character with such great stats? I mean he's more prone getting killed when casting big spells then enganging combat with any elite unit out there.

The only reason for a caster lord would be the Master of the Black Arts but it is not worth the point sink.

 

[Zephyr]

I used to build caster lords but now they are just too expensive IMO and I prefer to leave most of the casting to necromancers. I now build vamps mostly for combat roles.

I might build them more balanced in bigger games but seeing that we have a batch of new gamers in my group who just started out we hardly play games above 1.5K.

My vamp is usually tooled up with hvy armmor/shield, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Endurance and Quickblood and Beguile for powers.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I have never really like hybrid Lords, I always feel it is better to focus on one or the other. With this edition I think I will be going more towards combat vamp, and have a necro for backup. (well, tweaked to fit in with my Lahmian fluff).

The Master Necro is so much better for points cost that a fully kitted up caster vamp.

 

[Sception]

On the other hand, adding three magic levels to a fully kitted melee vamp is still cheaper then taking a necro lord. Of course, that suffers from the 'all your eggs in one basket' problem.

I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with my lords these days. I like all three of our special character lords, I like necro lords and combat lords on foot or on horse and hybrid lords and ghoul kings. Against my better judgment, I even like dragon lords and coven thrones. I think It'll be a few months before I settle down with any one lord configuration in this book.

 

[Kaptain Von]

The only magical upgrade I'll be buying for the new Lord Ruthven is an extra level and that's more to help him cast than anything. Since another wizard can take over the army if he dies, I might as well get him stuck in proper like...

 

[El Syf]

I'm going for a level 4 lord tooled up for combat; being level 4 gives him a good amount of magic but i think given they get 5 attacks standard it's rude not to get your lord stuck in so he's maxed out combat wise. backing him up with a level 4 master necromancer (with no updgrades other then that) so I still get a good amount of spells when the vamp's in combat. pretty much tmaxes the 25% you can take in a 3k game

 

[HERO]

Lv.4, Red Fury, Quickblood, Dragonhelm, 4+ Ward, Ogre Blade, Heavy Armor, Shield, on foot or barded steed, this combo should never change!

From my experience, it's the best balance of everything!