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Xaret

Ghoul
May 5, 2010
185
Norfolk
I say why choose. Generally Ghouls perform better against high toughness enemies, especially if they have poor saves, because of their poisoned attacks. That and the T attribute is the thing that most attracts me to Ghouls, without a doubt.

Whereas skeletons are pretty shoddy in combat with anything that has WS3 and T4.
 

Cruor Vault

Zombie
Apr 16, 2010
45
Boulder
I tried Skeletons when I first started my VC. I now exclusively use Ghouls, the T4, 2A and Poison more than make up for the lack of a save and no banner. Remember, a 4+ save means next to nothing in the current rules. Most things are going to negate it completely or reduce to it a 5+ or 6+ when you compare WS2 T3 to WS3 T4 with effectively no save on either of them, Ghouls always come out on top!
 

Yanda

Black Knight
Mar 7, 2010
376
Calgary, AB
Right now in 7th edition ghouls are the best core choice. There 2 poisoned attacks, WS 3 and T4 makes them broken at only 8 points per model. Add in a ghast to protect your heroes from challenges and your set. Skeletons can be a strong unit and will be much more popular in 8th edition but as or right now they really need a vampire to help them get the kills they need to win CR. I find ghouls perform great even against shooty armies as most ranged would need to roll 4's (or worse) to hit and 5's to wound, and with skel's it would be 4's (or worse) then 4's to wound and then they would get a 4+ AS but if your being shot at with HG or xbows your going to be at a Neg to save, so the 5's to wound kinda makeup for the lack of AS except against bows.
 

Johnny B

Grave Guard
Sep 21, 2009
283
London
Skellies will be the better choice in 8th if the rumours are true (saves not modified until Str 5, command models giving bonuses to charge moves, banners required to claim objectives, spears fight in 3 ranks etc). Ghouls are better in 7th as already mentioned.

Tbh, I'm thinking a big unit of Zombies, 1 unit of spear Skellies, Lord's skelly bunker and 2 blocks of Grave Guard plus 2 corpse carts for 8th xD
 

Master Vampire

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jul 12, 2007
2,341
The Netherlands
Yanda said:
Right now in 7th edition ghouls are the best core choice. There 2 poisoned attacks, WS 3 and T4 makes them broken at only 8 points per model. Add in a ghast to protect your heroes from challenges and your set. Skeletons can be a strong unit and will be much more popular in 8th edition but as or right now they really need a vampire to help them get the kills they need to win CR. I find ghouls perform great even against shooty armies as most ranged would need to roll 4's (or worse) to hit and 5's to wound, and with skel's it would be 4's (or worse) then 4's to wound and then they would get a 4+ AS but if your being shot at with HG or xbows your going to be at a Neg to save, so the 5's to wound kinda makeup for the lack of AS except against bows.

They may look broken on paper but in contrast to the rest of the army, it's pretty balanced. They are one of the few units that are accurately, but probably cheaper, priced for what they can do. Next to Vampires perhaps the only unit that has reasonable stats for the price in my opinion.

That said, I think Skeletons will have a 5+ AS against shooting, because if I remember correctly the HW + shield combo doesn't count against shooting.

About when to take Ghouls or Skeletons. Ghouls are handy to fight off bigger monster/ogre type armies, like Ogre Kingdoms. The poison is a huge benefit.

Other than that, you have to decide if you want some reasonable attack or go for pure combat resolution. T4 on the Ghouls is pretty awesome, considering some will have to roll 5 to wound. There won't be an AS though. Skeletons will have an AS, but this can be modified.

It might be best to try them both out. I guess Skeletons work against other swarm armies, but so will Ghouls. Skeletons work best against units making few kills + low S.
 

Yanda

Black Knight
Mar 7, 2010
376
Calgary, AB
Master Vampire said:
They may look broken on paper but in contrast to the rest of the army

I dont know about that I like to think of something being overpowered when I wouldnt be pissed off if it were worth more points. If Vargaulf were any more points I would take it even less than I already do. If Ghouls were 10 or even 12 points I would still take them, at 12 id probably bitch but I would still take them.

TBH we might be over-reacting a little bit. Exactly how many groups with standards are we going to need to field to have a competitive army? It might be more logical to have a few groups with standards and protect them with massive blocks of ghouls that get 2 attacks each 2 rows deep. Im sure that that will be the only way we could have success against armies like skaven in 8th edition.
 

Drakim

Skeleton
Apr 23, 2010
92
In addition to the things already mentioned, I'd like to add that VDM and corpse carts work better with ghouls. After all, if you get ASF those 11 attacks in the front rank are going to be pretty nasty, especially if you have reroll to hit. Much more than the 6 attacks the skeletons would have (spears aren't worth it, trust me).

But the magic banner can be very nice actually. Warbanner plus that vampiric power that gives +1 CR is a decent combo, especially if you already outnumber.
 

Dklyn

Crypt Horror
Dec 21, 2009
550
I use both, but I am a lot more skeleton heavy (due to someone selling a bunch of them, not due to strategic reasons ). For that reason, I've had to be creative in finding uses for my skellys.
I find skeletons are really good at holding a large core units (when zombies won't work well due to being too squishy.) The 4+ armor can deny CR that zombies would give and with some magic banners you can specialize them in ways you can never do with ghouls. One of the nicest banners is the doubling unit str. That means 15-20 skeletons will almost always outnumber the enemy, giving an extra CR without paying for the extra skeletons. What I usually do is a have a unit of skeletons sporting this banner charge (or take a charge) from a large core unit, hold them there for a strong unit to get a flank attack off and destroy them, or I just use a combat vamp in the skeletons and use him to deal some dmg, win combat and using the high unit str banner to ensure an auto-break and run them down. Of course, ghouls are still typically better since the amount of CR a skeleton unit can generate, a ghoul can make by kills but that doesn't work well for some units.

In essence I would say heavily armored units: skeletons are slightly better since the poison attacks are likely to be armor saved and no armor on the attack back can mean trouble.
Light-no armored units: ghouls work well because a 6 to hit means autokill and there will enough attacks to see that happen.

My $.02 :vampire3:
 

Tamodan Varison

Grave Guard
Dec 5, 2008
288
Now, in my opinion Ghouls are always better, unless you run a Vampire with the Skeletons with BSB, Warbanner and Walking Death, and give the Skeletons the banner that makes them able to claim a 4th rank. That's a CR of 9, before the Vamp even has struck...

I also found 2 links to threads with (+-) the same subject, so take a look...
Here :)
and here :)
 

Disciple of Nagash

Oldblood
Staff member
Feb 12, 2008
27,732
Personally I would hold off on making decision like this untilt hthe 8th edition is released, as the rules are looking to swing things in the skellies favour if the rumours are right.
 

Trevy the Great

Vampire Progenitor
True Blood
Mar 2, 2008
8,380
A place somewhere.
Ah, the age-old debate.
I have used Ghouls, and I've hated every minute of it. We have Vampires - our infantry isn't there to kill stuff, it's there to soak wounds and gain Combat Resolution! Ghouls try to do that and often fail - even 2 attacks isn't going to mean squat against a decent opponent, who'll make a mockery of that Toughness 4 and laugh at your lack of Armor Save, whereas Skeletons will often get at least a chance to save. On top of that, Skeletons will also get a higher Combat Resolution, which is much more valuable.

...plus Skeleton models are wwwaaaayyyy cooler.
 

Yanda

Black Knight
Mar 7, 2010
376
Calgary, AB
Vekarin the Dark Bladed said:
Ah, the age-old debate.
I have used Ghouls, and I've hated every minute of it. We have Vampires - our infantry isn't there to kill stuff, it's there to soak wounds and gain Combat Resolution! Ghouls try to do that and often fail - even 2 attacks isn't going to mean squat against a decent opponent, who'll make a mockery of that Toughness 4 and laugh at your lack of Armor Save, whereas Skeletons will often get at least a chance to save. On top of that, Skeletons will also get a higher Combat Resolution, which is much more valuable.

...plus Skeleton models are wwwaaaayyyy cooler.


What if there getting flanked. A group of ghouls can actually win combat and realign head-on. If a group of skeletons gets flanked there is no way they will ever kill enough to win a combat. They will get attacked in the flank all game which is going to suckup your power dice healing them or they will obventually crumble. Also how dare you make fun of toughness 4 =p half the units in the game need 5's to wound, aint nothing wrong with that.

Also what do you do when someone takes lore of light and casts that aoe ITP spell or is already ITP? if your skeletons are never going to kill them and there not going to break then your really going to have a tough time defeating your opponents. All in all both have there advantages and disadvantages, and in 8th edition I think its more likely that we will need to use a nice combination of both ghouls and skeletons in an army list to get the most out of VC.
 

Mictom

Skeleton
Feb 12, 2010
54
after trying both i found out for myself that my grand strategy dictates if i use skellies or ghouls.

in my, granted, short experience, i found that the ghouls are awesome. can be used on the flanks of the table, with ghoulkin they allow some blitz tactics, better against weakly protected units (thinking of minotaurs, ogres, etc.) and sooo many attacks with poison.

but lately i made the observation that for tarpitting your enemy, the skellies are imo far superior. the static combat res through banner etc. can easily turn the favor to your side. and against many core units they perform well enough and won't die in dozens. against chosen chaos warriors of khorne there is a decent chance that even your juiced up grave guard won't hold a sec ;)

so i would say it depends what style you prefer.
 

Ravenfeld

Skeleton
May 7, 2010
85
California
Vekarin the Dark Bladed said:
Ah, the age-old debate.
I have used Ghouls, and I've hated every minute of it. We have Vampires - our infantry isn't there to kill stuff, it's there to soak wounds and gain Combat Resolution!

First and foremost all I can say is that Skeletons are cooler model wise & concept wise in an undead army, they are a staple to the theme, what are ghouls? Weak, craven humans who feed on dead carcasses? Come on now! I liked things better when ghouls were skirmishers and they filled that niche, made a lot more sense to me as well now that I think of it. I have to agree with Vekarin on this one, if you want an army with infantry that kills people for a living go with Chaos Warriors, or Orcs! (They are the hittiest an bestest der iz!) but the strength of the undead has always been outlasting (and fear). If the rumors are true and fear will now add CR instead of causing enemies to flee Skeles will be even BETTER at routing their foes! In my mind the reason why Vampires are so brutal (aside from being vampires) is to offset the measly output of the floundering dead-things that make up the army. I mean all the special/rare choices can kill stuff well enough, and that is what using strategy is for, you don't use your skeles to win combat, you use them to tie up enemies and smash them with you GG/BK/BK/Varg/Wraiths. Classic Hammer and Anvil if you ask me.

I dunno, Ghouls seem like they should have remained what they were in 6th.

Thats my rant,

-- Ravenfeld

PS: Its funny, but I haven't played Undead, or in this case VC, since 5th ed. Yet I have all the army books.
 

count kill alot

Vargheist
May 16, 2010
610
Im all for ghouls with 2 poisoned attacks to start with, combine it with Masima of Deathly vigore and the helm of commandment. suddenly you have a unit with ws 7, 2 poisoned attacks and always strike first which easily outdo even elite units for just a few points. think about it 5 wide that's 10 attack that can potentially half your enemies unit in the first round of combat:Konrad:.
Count kill alot :suck:.
 

BoneHeart

Skeleton
Jul 7, 2008
62
In the webway
I always use skellies (i love the models), but will buy ghouls. They play different roles in the army, and I think they shouldnt be compared.
But I think in the 8th ed. skellies will be awesome, because command will grant more bonuses.
 

Randar

Grave Guard
Feb 22, 2010
290
skeletons in 8th ed Banners determine victories ! fight in 3 ranks with spears and claim objectives put them ghouls back in display cabinet and look at them someday and remember the good old days :grave:
 

Kalerith

Zombie
Nov 27, 2009
2
Norway
I must admit as a new vampire general that the Ghouls seems to be a really "killy" unit.
But skellies are not bad either.
I think that "true" vampire counts general stick with the skellies, mainly because they have done so in the past.
I respect them the most.
Personally i still go with ghouls, mostly because i like playing a serious magic heavy army.
Or at least that is how my lists have been this far.
And my painting skills also favour ghouls as i already have a "ranked up"
army.(Dark Elves).

And I have seen a great portion of zombie movies.
That have proably influenced my choice too.
And I really like painting the "wet" theme of the army with lots of gore and open guts, and stuff like that.
But in game i will say they both have their uses.
I probably would have a unit of both. Or two if my points afford it.
But model and paint wise, i favour the zombies.
 

Danceman

The Devil in Pale Moonlight
True Blood
Aug 19, 2007
3,472
Discredited rumours
Fight-until-someone-breaks
Lapping around
Armour Save Modifiers changing. They’re not.
Standard Bearer does not allow you to re-roll one of the charging dice

With the massed increased in attacks I think the skeletons will be the unit of choice, well have been most of the time anyways but now with the HW+SH changing into a 6+ ward save if attacked in the front. With fear chaning WS down 1 they might just hold their own(yeah, I know... I'm pushing it now). The importance of having banners around is also a point in favour for skeletons.

Ranks are also calculated at the end of the combat so if you lose you ranks in the initial attacks you won't get any CR for them. Outnumber is also gone so having a banner(outside from an objectives stand-point) is also another point in CR... Or two, with the War Banner.

However, ghouls definitely benefit a lot from the changes in fear as well(yes, I know we're losing auto-breaks...) hitting on 3s this a great number of attacks is a blessing + the odd poisoned attacks here and there.

It will be interesting to see what they'll do with the "outnumber" rule as there is mentioned of a rule which will 'make up for its disappearence'.
 

some_scrub

Zombie
Dec 24, 2009
19
Aside from the question of banners being needed to capture objectives, I think ghouls will remain the best choice in 8th.

They're already the best choice in 7th against almost any opponent because the difference between T3 and T4 is only relevant against weak opponents in HtH. Offensively they're obviously much better than skeletons. They only lose the ability to take a banner.

In 8th, static combat res becomes much less important, so the loss of the banner isn't such a big deal (unless you need ranked infantry with banners to be able to win the game at all...). On the other hand, with an increased number of attacks, the impact of poison and higher WS become more relevant. The Ghouls will only get 50% more attacks than skeletons, but their extra initiative becomes relevant. The biggest change is the change to the parry bonus. It looks like it will only apply in a rather small number of circumstances, and even when it does apply a 5+/6++ is noticeably worse than a 4+.

Ghouls were better in 7th, and they'll probably be better in 8th.
 

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