looking for basic vampire counts strategy

[Kuwanger23]

Hey guys,

So I have been posing fantasy for about 17 years off and on. I have only played about 8 games in this edition. And yes I have heard about all the doom and gloom of the next upcoming edition or reconstruction this upcoming summers and I am not in the least bit worried. So let's pretend that no one ever paraphrased any rumors when addressing this thread.

First off, let me give you a bit of background on me. I play warmachine/hordes competitively. I have played most gw games but nowadays focus on warmachine hordes. I'm getting back into fantasy with a bunch of friends and would like to take a different approach this time. I would like to play competitively as well as in leagues and house games. My gf and I travel to many cons every year and run our own gaming group on the east coast. My main armies have always been WoC and VCs. I dabble with other armies from time to time. My gf plays lizardmen.

Chaos comes easy to me, and until this edition so did vcs. The brute force of chaos allowed me to chew and grind myself out of most situations and the sheer hammer that is chaos makes it a lot easier to just win combat through amazing stats. Last time I played VCs I only had to win combat by one lol. This is no longer the case. So how do we do it?

I have read many tactical threads on this forum and others. But honestly I get lost building lists. My problem is I like all the models! And you just can't play everything in every list.

So what are people taking? What is successful? Keep in mind I read through the thread listing all of our options in red through purple and it was enlightening.

I have read some players saying that if you aren't running an all black knight bus army or whatever the other popular any was or is, that you won't win with VCs. I hope there is more thinking outside the box and versatility in this faction.

Anyway, feel free to ask me questions to better help answer some of that wall of words I just posted. I am not oppose to buying and collecting any amount of any model as I love the entire line. Also, I have not read anything on the end of times or lore of undeath.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[najo]

I'm one of the authors of the hand book. The other being @The Sun King. Any specific questions we can answer. Here is some tips to get you rolling.

1) Be prepared to lose at first. VC have a high learning curve. You got to have a good understanding of not only the main rules, but magic, psychology, combat results, and winning up hill battles.

2) VC has many viable builds and most of the units are playable. I play an aggressive infantry army with lots of vampire magic and vampire blenders. Sun King is more of a death magic, come and get me, fight my undead hordes and deal with my death magic type of player. Both styles work. Basically, how you use your general (mounted or on foot) and what your other units are (vampiric or not) determine how the army plays. You usually want to maximize your movement, so you need to keep these in mind when building.

3) Learn to make crumbling an advantage. How you lose combat result is critical to winning combat. Knowing when to keep vampires in their units or charging out of them, when you should charge or get charged, how to use zombies, when you should have multiple units engaged or not... All of this matters in how you mitigate crumble. For example, letting a unit get charged means you have one turn (instead of two) between taking damage and healing. That one turn is likely the one that swings the combat in your favor as you heal up causalities midway, but your opponent continues to suffer wounds each round. We don't fight fair. On that note, keep your vampires killing rank and file. You don't stay alive for hundreds of years by fighting the most badass guy in their ranks. Leave challenges for your skeletal champions, which die and then come back next turn because you let them charge you and then you healed. Yet another reason to fight in unconventional manners.

4) Play exclusively with lore of vampires until you are really comfortable with it. It is the key lore to our army and you need to know how much you should take to match your play style and tactics. Master it before messing around with other lores.

As for starting units: all of our core is useful. About 30 ghouls, 40 skeletons, 50 zombies and 15 dire wolves would allow you to build most types of armies. Just keep your core to 25% of your points. Crypt horrors are amazing. Take 8 of them. A unit of 3-4 varghiests is a useful glad hammer used to threaten on a flank and hunt warmachines. A terrorgiest is a nice option as is a mortis engine. I'm a big fan of the new morghasts to. Both versions get 4 of. Grab a couple vampires, a necromancer or two some wraiths and a couple banshees for your characters.

With that, you can build a lot of competitive armies. Rest you try out as you wish. Only real weak units I would avoid right now are the yellows and reds. When your comfortable, try out hexwraiths. Highest learning curve unit in our army, but very awesome to get good using. They are very nasty.

Good luck!

 

[Kuwanger23]

To use morghasts do I need a different book our can they be used in conjunction with the VCs book?

 

[Seneschal]

They are perfectly compatible with VC as stated in Endtimes: Nagash so you don't need opponent's permission. Their rules are included in their box.

I agree with the majority of Najo's advice, especially number 4. Stick to vampire magic for awhile to get a feel for it. It's a solid lore and gives us all the tools we need to win.

 

[heldantes]

I never considered number 3! That's great advice. Although I'm usually trying to get a charge before a cavalry bus gets a charge on me, this works everywhere else. Cheers!

 

[LordTobiothan]

The super concentrated basics of the vampire army.

If it is not vampiric, it does not do damage.

Any army that can deliver characters (the only rank able vampiric unit) is a functional army. That is why you were told black knights, they are the cheapest and fastest way to funnel your characters into combat. Not the only way though.

Never combo charge anything with tar pit units (anything non vampiric) including other tar pits. They just bleed cr.

There are exceptions. Such as crypt horrors being a good combo charge anvil despite being a tar pit unit, and terrorgiests doing damage despite not being vampiric (that shriek).

Other then that get a vamp or two with red fury and get creative from there.

 

[Kuwanger23]

So zombies:

I get that there job is to hold things in place for a bit. At least I imagine that's there job. And they do this even better with a mortis engine or two. But once you get to the unit they are holding up won't they just bleed combat res?

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Yes they will. So never charge another unit into a Zombie fight. Instead, if the fight needs hekp, magic more Zombies into the unit.

 

[najo]

Zombies have four uses in our army:

1) raise dead and redirect with them. This spell alone will win game by dividing a critical unit of their or if the fighting at an inopportune time.

2) necro bunker. If you play more defensive, zombies work as shelter for your necromancers. They grow easily from invocation, are cheap, and keep that caster safe from range attacks.

3) tarpit . taken as a bus, they can be used to clog up enemy units. Yes they die quick, but strategic positioning to your invocations and they will heal up every turn. Used well, they will lock down many units must of a game. Used masterfully, they will over whelm your opponent, scree up movement, add rank bonuses at the right time to a combat, and divide the table up. As an exercise in learning how to use zombies, try to break your own record on most zombies summoned at one time and largest/widest zombie unit on the table. My record is 103, and 40 zombies wide. Kept a doom bull trapped on the other side of the table with them, he didn't have enough turns to go around them or kill through them. Pretty funny

4) Vampire delivery. Now, other units with champions are better, yes. But zombies raise and heal very easily and if you need to get your vampire in combat, he is still safer in that unit then outside of it. I've had to use zombie buses (raised or taken in core) as emergency vampire delivery devices before. It works. Throw in a wight king or wraith, and it works really well. And remember, we don't care if we lose combat as long as we are killing them faster then they are killing us and we are healing that damage. We win the war of attrition.

 

[najo]

The super concentrated basics of the vampire army.

If it is not vampiric, it does not do damage.

Any army that can deliver characters (the only rank able vampiric unit) is a functional army. That is why you were told black knights, they are the cheapest and fastest way to funnel your characters into combat. Not the only way though.

Never combo charge anything with tar pit units (anything non vampiric) including other tar pits. They just bleed cr.

There are exceptions. Such as crypt horrors being a good combo charge anvil despite being a tar pit unit, and terrorgiests doing damage despite not being vampiric (that shriek).

Other then that get a vamp or two with red fury and get creative from there.

Actually, we have some non-vampires that are very effective. Crypt Horrors, hexwraiths, morghasts, grave guard, ghouls in the right circumstances to name a few.

Really our only true tar pits are zombies and skeletons. It's true you want to avoid combo charges with tarpits and other units, but it's all about doing the math before charging in and planning for crumble instead of getting surprised by it.

Agree with the rest of your points. Good advice.

 

[Kuwanger23]

Problem I'm having is I want to play everything. I suppose with time I'll be able to make different lists with different models and builds. But for now I've been thinking of working on something like this:

Vamp lv4 2/4+ blender with sword of anti heroes (personal preference)

Necromancer boa lv2
Necromancer ds lv2
Wraith
Spirit host
Zombies
Skellys or ghouls
Dire wolves to get to 25% core
8 crypt horrors
4 varghiests
2 mortis engines, one with +2

Corpse cart if there is room

Sound like a decent start for 2400-2500?

I think I can fit it and maybe more after I get to my book and work some numbers.

However, a lot of my friends are starting the game new coming from warmachine as well and i will be playing 1000-1500 with them until they can play more.

 

[Kuwanger23]

Did the math, comes out to 2500

30 zombies
24 ghouls
40 skellies
6 dires
8 crypt horrors
4 varghiests
2 engines
2 spirit hosts
1 wraith
2 lv 2 necros
1 lv4 vamp

No corpse cart

 

[najo]

That's a good start. You could drop some zombies, take two units of five dire wolves to get an extra drop and another redirector. I personally run vampires over necromancers for extra killing power. Also, we are the one army that really doesn't need dispel scrolls. I never use them and I win 70% of my games. I use black periapt religiously too. My goto lord looks like this:

Vampire Lord, QB, RF, Great Weapon, ToP, Heavy Armor, Black Periapt, Level 4.

My play style is very aggressive. In combat by turn 2, using redirectors and raise dead to keep movement clear. Curse of Years puts a ticking time bomb on enemy units. Van Hels is very key to keep rerolls and movement keeping my opponent up against walls. Hexwraiths play in to my style as they orbit my general and move through chaff deleting them, then end up in key positions to intercept and redirect as needed or setup for another run through.

Some of my methods are advanced though. Right now focus on you're general's march bubble and the order you move units in and how you hop characters between units.

 

[Kuwanger23]

Funny your vamp build is similar to what I had, and offence of vamps over necros is my sentiment as well. But I second guessed myself based on what it looks like everyone else is doing. I think once I get more comfortable I will be less sheepish and walk my own path.

Awesome info guys! Keep it coming. Thanks.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Actually, we have some non-vampires that are very effective. Crypt Horrors, hexwraiths, morghasts, grave guard, ghouls in the right circumstances to name a few.

Really our only true tar pits are zombies and skeletons. It's true you want to avoid combo charges with tarpits and other units, but it's all about doing the math before charging in and planning for crumble instead of getting surprised by it.

Agree with the rest of your points. Good advice.

Crypt horrors morghasts and grave guard are tanky grind units over actual combat units. While I wouldn't classify them as tar pits, I didn't want to go into specific detail in my post so I just lumped the anvils in with the tar pits because they are closer to them then the blenderizer units.

Ghouls are hilariously ineffective at tar pitting, killing, or being an anvil unless used with specific tactics and support. Not really my recommendation for use in core for someone new to the army, which I probably should have noted in my last post.

Hexwraiths are an interesting unit to note though. Don't really have a place for them in a list of basics about the army. They are like a vortex that you control and can only be dispelled or weakened by magic attacks. I suppose I wouldn't recommend them either in a person's first few lists.

Thanks for provoking some thoughts out of me najo, I think I even learned a bit of what I think of some of our units.

@Kuwanger23 I agree on the sword of anti heros. That is my personal preference as well. You'll be happy to note it works just fine.

 

[najo]

I hear people complain about ghouls, and I find them to be very effective. I almost always have a Van Hel's on them, but I also am careful what I put them against. Their poisonous attacks tear up enemy infantry and monstrous infantry. They can do slot of damage to monsters to. Since they heal fasts, it doesn't matter if they take some damage if they are deep enough. Your meta will dictate if and how you use them, but it's really more how deep and wide should they be.

Crypt horrors are the best anvil in the game. Period. Played right, and supported with healing. and they won't die.

As for sword of anti heroes, two points I have to disagree with on it. 1) for it to be effective, you have to put your vampire against units that are designed to absolutely kill him. He will get surrounded by characters or dragged into challenges. If your vampire isn't in these types of fights, then he losses the benefits of the sword. This brings us to my second point. 2) your vampire should be grinding rank and file, swinging CR in your favor and avoiding characters until you got their army put in its place. Sword of Anti-Heroes doesn't do that.

Vampires should either boost strength or attacks, then send them into units they kill easily. I offer strength because red fury gives me the attacks. I want to kill a wide variety of enemy and punch through armor. I take great sword, because it saves on magic item points and I am not armed with a magic weapon. High elves shit a brick when they have to deal with my lord.

 

[LordTobiothan]

I hear people complain about ghouls, and I find them to be very effective. I almost always have a Van Hel's on them, but I also am careful what I put them against. Their poisonous attacks tear up enemy infantry and monstrous infantry. They can do slot of damage to monsters to. Since they heal fasts, it doesn't matter if they take some damage if they are deep enough. Your meta will dictate if and how you use them, but it's really more how deep and wide should they be.

Crypt horrors are the best anvil in the game. Period. Played right, and supported with healing. and they won't die.

As for sword of anti heroes, two points I have to disagree with on it. 1) for it to be effective, you have to put your vampire against units that are designed to absolutely kill him. He will get surrounded by characters or dragged into challenges. If your vampire isn't in these types of fights, then he losses the benefits of the sword. This brings us to my second point. 2) your vampire should be grinding rank and file, swinging CR in your favor and avoiding characters until you got their army put in its place. Sword of Anti-Heroes doesn't do that.

Vampires should either boost strength or attacks, then send them into units they kill easily. I offer strength because red fury gives me the attacks. I want to kill a wide variety of enemy and punch through armor. I take great sword, because it saves on magic item points and I am not armed with a magic weapon. High elves shit a brick when they have to deal with my lord.

The best use of the sword is running into units with a character and ignoring the character (skeleton champs help here). Units without a character get obliterated by a vampire lord without a weapon, yes you should still avoid units with too many characters but a unit only needs one for the sword to have the value of an ogre blade.

So in most cases it is slightly worse or the same as an ogre blade, but in a vampires worse cases (lots of characters) it makes up a lot of that weakness.

It's really just personal preference though.

 

[Kuwanger23]

Worse case there are no heroes in the unit here should be able to grind regular infantry down. Elves, rats, lizards, other undead, ect. Just try not to put him up against a lord designed to kill characters I guess. But aren't you trying to avoid those fights anyway?

 

[Kuwanger23]

I didn't mention that I've been playing what I like to call scrub hammer for about 17 years. Our group was never really competitive but we had decent players. The store we had about 20 fantasy players at closed about 6 years ago or so. So I have only literally played about 15 games since but have been keeping up with the changes. Now that I'm older and more mature (32), and know how to list build and make balanced lists in other games I want to revisit fantasy on a competitive scale as well as casual store leagues. I used to blame dice for failing but I'm more responsible now and though the system warmachine uses for dice is more forgiving and accurate I now know it is different for a different game.

 

[najo]

Sword of anti heroes against a unit without characters is dead weight, worse, up against banner of the world dragon it make him useless. I prefer my vampire lord to be as effective as possible in as many situations as possible, and in the situations he is most commonly going to be found. Anti heroes forces him towards bad match ups, great weapon or ogre blade means he is slaughtering chaos warriors or most monstrous infantry/cavalry and making them break.

 

[najo]

I didn't mention that I've been playing what I like to call scrub hammer for about 17 years. Our group was never really competitive but we had decent players. The store we had about 20 fantasy players at closed about 6 years ago or so. So I have only literally played about 15 games since but have been keeping up with the changes. Now that I'm older and more mature (32), and know how to list build and make balanced lists in other games I want to revisit fantasy on a competitive scale as well as casual store leagues. I used to blame dice for failing but I'm more responsible now and though the system warmachine uses for dice is more forgiving and accurate I now know it is different for a different game.

How is war machine more forgiving with dice?

 

[Woolly.Mammoth]

I have read some players saying that if you aren't running an all black knight bus army or whatever the other popular any was or is, that you won't win with VCs. I hope there is more thinking outside the box and versatility in this faction.

BK bus is far and away the best character delivery system, in an army that needs its characters delivered. Its not just fast, it's a solid anvil as well with 2+ armor and 4T, so you can do the charging without fear of getting blown out before Nehek, when you can recover a guranteed 5 models back per cast.

To optimize points, most don't take lances, load it with characters instead. Any Infantry combo can be done in the BK bus, and now your lord is also immune to stomps. Put a blender + mini-blender and its almost impossible to lose any combat, even if hit from your back or flank. Add in a WK and Necro, BSB ... you get the picture. Put a ton of wolves, bats and SH to redirect. Get a 8 CH anvil and dump the rest of the points in a ghoul horde. This is about the nastiest that you can get with a VC list. This list has won multiple GTs. Its a massive points denial list, because you have to figure out how to deal with the bus to get any points, and there are very little solutions.

I personally don't play this way because there's too much fun stuff in VC. Sometimes I play a bus with a Blender, Blender + mini or sometimes just a mini-blender, but I haven't used BK in a while. Still, this is a beastly list.

1) Be prepared to lose at first. VC have a high learning curve. You got to have a good understanding of not only the main rules, but magic, psychology, combat results, and winning up hill battles.

VC are only difficult to play if you're playing an experienced player. But this is true for anything really; experience and skill should win. When both sides are inexpirenced, VC actually come off as an all-anvil unlikable super army with powerful magic and get to ignore half the rules that make the game difficult.

All you have to do is back up your infantry with vamp wizards and use VDM to get them in your opponents face on turn 1. After they charge you, erase as many wounds as possible with Nehek. At this point your opponent is stuck in a bunch of un-winnable combats, and your army has completely regenerated even beyond its starting numbers. This is the joy of VC.

Experienced players will use speed advantage and re-directors to make it not so easy for you. Each army has their bag of tricks to prevent you from controlling the game. Most players will make sure that you don't get off that boosted VDM and save all their dispel dice for the inevitable Nehek they know is coming. Without your speed and the ability to replenish your wounds, yore are stuck with a slow footslogging army with considerably weaker stats that your numbers won't make up for.

Winning with VC is mostly about learning to balance this so that you're more on the side of control. For this reason its best to have at least 3 vamp wizards and a book of Arkhan to make it considerably hard for your opponent to shut down your magic. Things like Black Periapt, casket of souls and blasphemous tome also greatly help. This combined with the basic strategies of combat is how you win with VC.

My best advice for going up against experienced players - go for the throat. Dont be distracted by high value targets that you'll never catch or spend the whole game trying to take down. march your entire army directly where they will do the most damage. Protect your own flanks with chaff so that you don't get stuck in any bad combat, and at the least you should be able to soak up a ton of points by ripping apart weak targets before getting obliterated yourself.

Ghouls are hilariously ineffective at tar pitting, killing, or being an anvil unless used with specific tactics and support. Not really my recommendation for use in core for someone new to the army, which I probably should have noted in my last post.

I hear people complain about ghouls, and I find them to be very effective. I almost always have a Van Hel's on them, but I also am careful what I put them against. Their poisonous attacks tear up enemy infantry and monstrous infantry. They can do slot of damage to monsters to. Since they heal fasts, it doesn't matter if they take some damage if they are deep enough. Your meta will dictate if and how you use them, but it's really more how deep and wide should they be.

Ghouls are sweet. Many try a simple 5x4 and get discouraged by the results. A small unit with little combat res is going to do very little damage and crumble hard. Even 7x4 is not going to be overly impressive, but still better. a full 10x4 is where its at. There are not many options to quickly deal with a horde of 40 T4 units, and 40 poison attacks will scare almost anybody, especially if they have re-rolls. This may be expensive but its all core. You'll probably lose combats but you will cause a good amount of wounds in return, wounds that no other core have the ability to cause. The wounds caused on you are quickly erased at up to 10 restored per Nehek. Restore an entire rank of a ghoul horde on a 1 dice nehek, and I promise you that your opponent will not think your ghouls are ineffective, nor hilarious.

 

[najo]

Vampire's learning curve is high because our troops cost more points for less stats than other armies and if you put the wrong units in combat together you quickly will crumble and lose the game. It takes understanding all the phases and interactions of units in combat to know how to minimize crumble.

I disagree about the black knight bus. With vanhels and general marching you can move across the board in 2 turns. The black knights are decent but over hyped. Relying on knights means your delivery unit has less wounds and it's points come out of special instead of core. Plus your general will likely leave your army behind unable to march. Since black knights don't hit hard, they aren't very effective aside from keeping shooting and magic off your lord.

I rather run big units of core to put my lord in and then use special and rare points for the heavy hitters. Crypt horrors are superior to black knights in almost every way unless you are running a mounted army with necro bunkers.

 

[Asmodeus]

Every "bus" is more or less character dependant - so it is matter of personal taste and overal army build issue, rather what unit is best. We should not argue about units efficiency in this thread - both infantry and cavalry type armies are efficient and many tournaments can confirm this fact. Both types demand different units in the army - usually only zombies and direwolves fits good in both.

30 zombies
24 ghouls
40 skellies
6 dires
8 crypt horrors
4 varghiests
2 engines
2 spirit hosts
1 wraith
2 lv 2 necros
1 lv4 vamp

If you have all models mentioned already, you have strong base for efficient dual mortis build. The only thig that you can do, is to make this more playable and get some sparring battles.
Advices to tune this a little bit:
Spirit hosts can be replaced by pairs of fellbats. Cheaper and they can be deployed more rappidly cause having pair of mortis engines, crypt horrors and 3 units of ranked infantry deployed close togheter so it can be pretty tight to operate easilly and redirect enemy properly with only footslogging etherals. It is matter of practise so dont blame the army if you get stuck with some charges or in movement phase. Another reason against spirit hosts is that Khaine magic can allow your opponent to blast them with some cheap spell. If you playing without Khaine magic, etherals are very good choice.

I could advice you to have more compact core regiments - like bigger block of ghouls or bigger block of skeletons(to act as character bus). They will be having more damaging power in combat and will be more resilent if they take damage. For egsample - skip zombies, add skeletons and add ghouls. Or add zombies, add skeletons, skip ghouls. Or other, but try to make big blocks rather than small - except of zombies, but 20models strong are only for blocking/redirecting.

Ghouls are preety nasty with this dual engine build cause of regen - 4T and regen 5++, with lots of potential poison can be painful for horded, light armoured infantry like empire, orks, beastmen. Skeletons can have their hand weapons exchanged for spears, giving them additional few attacks, as they will be having regen anyway.
One trick with dual mortis is that you can have seed of rebirth and dragonhelm on single character - so he will be have either 4++ regen, or 2++ ward save against flaming attacks, depending on circumstances - for only 20pts.That can leave him more room to include more juicy options for more kills. Be aware, that it is dependable on your mortis engines - so if something kill them, your lord can be leaved naked - so it is risk.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Lots of great advice in this thread, so I won't tread over territory others have already covered better and will just give some general advice from my experience with playing undead.


Vampire Counts are the army math built. Other armies are playing a dice-rolling game, but as a VC player yours is much more of a straight numbers game. A good VC player will know how a combat will turn out before dice are rolled, and from that a good VC player can know how the board will look 2 turns from then on that same basis.

Why? Because we're immune to psychology, unbreakable, and unstable. With a little knowledge of statistics and averages you can work out in your head how many models you're likely to lose in a combat, +/- 5. That's a big swing for an army that's rolling break checks, but for someone whose army is unstable it's just a matter of crunching in your head how many rounds of combat you'll last at that rate.

If you're the type of person who's into that then VC is the perfect army for you. You can stick skeleton bricks in front of an opponents' hammer and count on them to last at least a certain amount of time. You can raise up free chaff in front of other people's units. You can put models back into your units to help them last just that little bit longer. All of this to give your hammers enough time to chew through the enemy at their convenience.


Winning with VC is incredibly satisfying because you get to watch your carefully executed plan come off without a hitch. And when something goes wrong you can figure out exactly at what point you made a mistake and keep that in mind for next time. It's the perfect army for a methodical sort of person.


..now of course, if you're NOT that sort of person it's still fun. It's just not AS fun, I would say, and seems to be a source of frustration for some. Some people just like throwing caution to the wind and charging in hoping that they'll make that LD4 rerollable break test should things go south. For us that's not possible, and it's all on you if you miscalculated and your VL gets punished for a bad charge-out by popping to SCR.