Ghoul Bus?

[setual]

How bad of an idea is it to put a combat Vampire Lord in a unit of 19 Crypt Ghouls? Sure they'll die fast, but a kitted out Lord (think Quickblood, Red Fury, Ogre Blade, ToP, Enchanted Shield, HA) should be able to do enough damage back to compensate for that. The other problem I see with this is there is no musician option for Ghouls, so they aren't as mobile as other units. Anyone have any experience with this? Or am I just plain dumb for considering it?

 

[Burnanation]

You hit the major stumbling block on the head. Your lord is going to suck up a big chunk of points. You need to get him into combat. The Vamp Lord will break whatever unit he gets into CC. If you put him in with the ghouls you will be short the music man and that might bite you in the rear.

Also consider Sword of Bloodshed instead, three extra attacks with redfury will help really hammer those R&F units.

 

[Valvatorez]

To be fair, all of our ranked infantry die fast. At least ghouls can deal damage themselves.
If you were to do this though, I would run with a few more in the unit.

 

[Aedin]

I agree with Burnanation.

However, heed this word of warning. If a dark elf or chaos player gets him in a never ending challenge and brings combat results to bear against the unit your vampire will disintegrate.

I usually like to field my lord in the following manner.

Vampire Lord
Lance + Heavy Armor + Shield + Hellsteed

Magic Items

Nightshroud
Talisman of Preservation
The Other Trickster's Shard

Vampire Powers

Beguile
Quickblood
Red Fury

Charge him into a unit of your choice by himself and win!
Wash rinse repeat.

 

[setual]

Charge him into a unit of your choice by himself and win!
Wash rinse repeat.

Is it that easy to get a vampire all by his lonesome into combat? Seems like he would attract every ranged attack the enemy had.

 

[Aedin]

Charge him into a unit of your choice by himself and win!
Wash rinse repeat.

Is it that easy to get a vampire all by his lonesome into combat? Seems like he would attract every ranged attack the enemy had.

He flies on the mount so keeping him in combat is not a problem thus neither is shooting besides I have had great luck with the 4+ ward vs cannons. But no build is invulnerable.

With that said it has always been my experiance and tactic to bring as much combat point generating attacks against a vampire if he is in a unit and avoiding the vampire all together and POOF ! no more vampire and you did not even lay a hand on him. At least by himself I have had great luck having him make the deciding differance by reducing the # of units the enemy can bring to bear against my core block.

 

[setual]

Charge him into a unit of your choice by himself and win!
Wash rinse repeat.

Is it that easy to get a vampire all by his lonesome into combat? Seems like he would attract every ranged attack the enemy had.

With that said it has always been my experiance and tactic to bring as much combat point generating attacks against a vampire if he is in a unit and avoiding the vampire all together and POOF ! no more vampire and you did not even lay a hand on him. At least by himself I have had great luck having him make the deciding differance by reducing the # of units the enemy can bring to bear against my core block.

Good point. Also, ran the math-hammer and looks like +2st beats out +2a for unsaved wounds caused, even against rnf

 

[Aedin]

Ya 7st really helps most things go away lol.

 

[Yanda]

Extra Attacks:
Better against Ward Saves

Extra Strength:
Good against Toughness/Armor

Different tactics vs different armies.

 

[setual]

Extra Attacks:
Better against Ward Saves

Extra Strength:
Good against Toughness/Armor

I think you're generalizing too much here. Both of your statements are true, but most enemies with ward saves are going to also have higher than average toughness and (most likely) armor. Think of it like this: hit with 5 attacks at st. 7, wound on 2s v t. 5 = 4 wounds for a ward save to make. hit with 7 attacks at st. 5, wound on 4s v t. 5 = 3.5 wounds for a ward AND maybe a 5 or 6+ armor to save. Higher strength basically always wins out imo because it eliminates all but 1 and 2+ armor saves. plus with quickblood, I7 and WS7 and red fury you're really not going to be short on hits to begin with.

 

[Mikael.K]

Intresting tactic, a bit like the DE pendant lord that is so popular . Still, chewing through big units might be problematic. Still, very good vs fast armies and with high strength he could even tackle knight units! Deffinelty going to try this one .

How about challenges? Wouldnt that be a problem? Deffinetly takes a bit more time to beat the unit.

Also, I know the nightshroud is very nice, but if one wants some offence that could be traded for the ogre blade. The lance will only be good during the charge, you want your vampire to be effective every single round. You already have good mundane save, 4+ ward and beguile, wouldnt that be enough?

 

[Demian]

Nightsrhoud is not only a defensive item, but is also for offense!

4+ Ward Save = purely defensive, or may I say, best defensive item.

Nightshroud = +1 Armour, protects you from great weapons / + strength magical weapons AND gives enemies ASL. ASL in enemies does improve your offensive capabilities, because even more of your models get to attack before your opponent, or cancels out enemy's ASF, allowing you to use Quickblood much better.

Ogre Blade = purely offensive item.

 

[Aedin]

Intresting tactic, a bit like the DE pendant lord that is so popular . Still, chewing through big units might be problematic. Still, very good vs fast armies and with high strength he could even tackle knight units! Deffinelty going to try this one .

How about challenges? Wouldnt that be a problem? Deffinetly takes a bit more time to beat the unit.

Also, I know the nightshroud is very nice, but if one wants some offence that could be traded for the ogre blade. The lance will only be good during the charge, you want your vampire to be effective every single round. You already have good mundane save, 4+ ward and beguile, wouldnt that be enough?

Well the best thing about the nightshroud in this build is you always get to reroll your misses even against high elves. This tactic alone saved my but from a dark elf assassin more than once. The character is supposed to be attacking rank and file troops but with nightshroud reducing their weapon strength and beguile and a 4+ ward makes him very survivable in a drawn out duel. Besides even at his own str 5 hits is nothing to sneeze at that's still 2's on a T3 model. You just watch what you fight that's all. Charge it against chaff war engines small bunker units of archers with that annoying wizard in it. That kind of thing.

If you do get in a duel with something that will tie him up you probably chose the wrong target. If there's another lord on the table that can do that to this guy then just tar pit him up with zombies while you kill everything else around him.

and if you do get in a fight with something with T5 or 6 you can always use Hellish Vigor to help

 

[Mikael.K]

I was thinking brettonian knights. Tying up a lance could be huge, but then I need that S7 most likely. This army is purely knights with a huge deathstar unit of grail knights that include his level 4 and two paladins, one of whom is the BSB.

 

[Aedin]

I was thinking brettonian knights. Tying up a lance could be huge, but then I need that S7 most likely. This army is purely knights with a huge deathstar unit of grail knights that include his level 4 and two paladins, one of whom is the BSB.

Not sure how big your talking but you will out distance him on the charge so he wont get his lance strength no matter what so he hits on 4's wounds on 5's you get to hit on 3's with a reroll wound on at least 4's after the first round of combat 2's for the first. Plus he has to reroll successful ward saves.

I mean don't get me wrong bad rolls happen and no build is invulnerable I might try it for some lol time. Depends what else he throws in the unit though. For instance you don't go charging this guy into an empire unit the can double its rank bonus for combat resolution.

The best tactic is probably to tar pit the grail nights and chew up everything else.

Sorry to get long winded but that is an expensive death star of knights. Put this character on a barded horse would give him a 1+ mundane save and you could throw him into a blood knight deathstar of your own if your building a specific list vs him. Not to mention Wind of Death is 1d6 s3 hits per rank with no armor save allowed and Curse of Years allows no armor save either.:grave:

 

[Mikael.K]

His biggest units are 12 strong, I belive his grails are so big aswell. One of the paladins have KB aswell. One does not want that unit to charge anything. I belive he has MR in there too to increase his ward save vs magic. A strong vampire could take that unit on, but killing it is another story. Could this vampire do that?

 

[setual]

Extra Attacks:
Better against Ward Saves

Extra Strength:
Good against Toughness/Armor

Different tactics vs different armies.

Since this came up I've spend an inordinate amount of time running and re-running the math on this, and come to the conclusion that, statistically, boosting strength is the best choice in literally every conceivable situation. The only reason one should even consider taking the extra attacks is due to the fact that if you do get really lucky you'll get to do an additional wound or two than would otherwise be possible. But one of the goals in making a competitive list is to dampen the effects of luck on your strategy, and the st bonus is a more consistent option.

 

[Yanda]

Since this came up I've spend an inordinate amount of time running and re-running the math on this, and come to the conclusion that, statistically, boosting strength is the best choice in literally every conceivable situation. The only reason one should even consider taking the extra attacks is due to the fact that if you do get really lucky you'll get to do an additional wound or two than would otherwise be possible. But one of the goals in making a competitive list is to dampen the effects of luck on your strategy, and the st bonus is a more consistent option.

Maybe post the data as proof? so everyone can make there own decisions. If your fighting Toughness 3 or 4 then having a higher strength doesnt really matter as much. Str 5 is still going to kill them and give large minuses to Armor saves.

 

[setual]

Since this came up I've spend an inordinate amount of time running and re-running the math on this, and come to the conclusion that, statistically, boosting strength is the best choice in literally every conceivable situation. The only reason one should even consider taking the extra attacks is due to the fact that if you do get really lucky you'll get to do an additional wound or two than would otherwise be possible. But one of the goals in making a competitive list is to dampen the effects of luck on your strategy, and the st bonus is a more consistent option.

Maybe post the data as proof? so everyone can make there own decisions. If your fighting Toughness 3 or 4 then having a higher strength doesnt really matter as much. Str 5 is still going to kill them and give large minuses to Armor saves.

When I said inordinate amount of time I was not exaggerating, I have no life whatsoever outside of Warhammer (and VC are my only army) and work. I will refer you to math-hammer.appspot.com to play with that for yourself, lets you do the math without much trouble if you don't have as much free time as I do. But basically take a unit with HA and shield/hand weapon. Against T5 they have a 6+ armor save and a 6+ parry save. Against S7 they only have a 6+ parry, which means you are literally doubling their chance for survival by not taking the strength. I will admit that when it comes to RnF the difference is fairly small, but still there and in favor of boosted strength. Then there are the intangible benefits, such as being able to wound T8 (war sphinxs) on a 5 instead of six, wounding T5 characters (duels, anyone?) on 2s, even v. T4 will see a +1 to wound bonus if you take S7 over S5. I could go on for hours but I'm fairly certain few of you want to read my ramblings beyond what I've already wasted your time with. Take it or leave it, the math and my personal experience has proven 100% of the time that strength is the way to go. And since they cost the same amount of points I truly believe most of the people who say attacks are the way to go are the kind of people who just think the dice gods will love them every game and let their Vamp do an unholy 16 wounds in a round of combat....bad news kiddies, it does not happen.

 

[Aedin]

His biggest units are 12 strong, I believe his grails are so big as well. One of the paladins have KB as well. One does not want that unit to charge anything. I believe he has MR in there too to increase his ward save vs magic. A strong vampire could take that unit on, but killing it is another story. Could this vampire do that?

challenges might be your best option there making sure to use your superior initiative to kill the KB model first and then just keep issuing challenges until there are no characters the start killing rank and file troops.

If you wander if he can hold up just run the battle simulated on paper "Mathhammer" and see what you get.

At the very least you should be able to hold that unit up while you take on the rest of the army.

 

[N1AK]

Against T5 they have a 6+ armor save and a 6+ parry save. Against S7 they only have a 6+ parry, which means you are literally doubling their chance for survival by not taking the strength.

It isn't literally double, although it is virtually double. Chance of rolling a 6 = 6/36, chance of rolling a 6 with re-roll = 1/6 + 5/6 * 1/6 = 11/36. Besides which the metric is a poor one anyway. Something that has a 0.00000001% chance of failing is half as likely to fail as something with a chance of 0.00000002% chance but the failure rate has changed by less than a millionth.

In the example you give the an extra attack would work out better than an extra strength if you had 4 or less attacks to begin with. 5 basic is drawn and 6+ the strength would always be better. However if it is +2 attacks or +2 strength then even with 8 attacks basic the extra attacks would increase your kills by more than the increased strength (mainly because str 7 is no better than str 6 in this match up).

Take it or leave it, the math and my personal experience has proven 100% of the time that strength is the way to go. And since they cost the same amount of points I truly believe most of the people who say attacks are the way to go are the kind of people who just think the dice gods will love them every game and let their Vamp do an unholy 16 wounds in a round of combat....bad news kiddies, it does not happen.

Extra attacks and extra strength both have a place in different builds, enviroments and play styles. I 'truly believe' anyone who can't see that is a pretty poor source for tactical advice.