My first real try at a VC army (2000 pts)

[TK_]

Hey everyone, I've been browsing the forum for a while and it looks to me that I've come to the right place for some constructive criticism on an army list... so here goes:


Lords (total of 305 pts)

Vampire
- Blood Drinker
- Flayed Hauberk
- Dark Acolyte
- Flying Horror


Heroes (total of 370 pts)

Wight King
- BSB

Wight Kings
- Tomb Blade

2 x Necromancer
- IoN
- Raise Dead
- Vahel's Danse Macabre
- Dispel Scroll


Core (total of 937 pts)

20 Zombies

20 zombies

20 Ghouls
- Ghast

20 Ghouls
- Gahst

1 Corpse Cart
- Unholy Loadstone

24 Skeleton Warriors
- with spears
- FC

3 Bat Swarms


Special (total of 318 pts)

24 Grave Guard
- FC


The basic idea is to use the Zombies as a meat shield to ward off any ranged attacks. I'll be deploying them 10 wide and hope to add some more models to them in the first magic phase.

The rest is pretty straightforward... Two big units of Ghouls, and the two Wight Kings with the GG and Skeletons. CC in the centre, flanked by the two Necromancers to keep the IoN spamming up...

Any ideas are welcome, so please let me know!

Cheers,

TK

Edit: removed the point costs, as it is against forum rules... my mistake!

 

[TK_]

Double post, I'm sorry...

But I thought the list above lacked a specific goal or theme... It didn't really focus on anything.

This is my second try:

Lords

1 Vampire Lord
- Helm of Commandment
- Blood Drinker
- The Flayed Hauberk
* Red Fury
* Infinate Hatred
* Walking Death


Heroes

1 Wight King
- Tomb Blade

2 Necromancer
- IoN
- Raise Dead
- Vanhel's Danse Macabre


Core

20 Zombies

21 Ghouls
- Ghast

21 Ghouls
- Ghast

1 Corpse Cart
- Unholy Loadstone

24 Skeleton Warriors
- spears
- FC


Special

24 Grave Guard
- Great Weapons
- FC
- Banner of the Barrows


Rare

1 Varghulf



Basically, I tried an 'Undying Army' thing with this list - The Vampire Lord in the GG, with Red Fury and Infinate Hatred to maximise his attacks with the Blood Drinker, to restore wounds to the unit. Same thing with the Wight King in the unit of skellies...

The Zombies are only there as a first line of defence against shooting (maybe raising some more just to be annoying), the Ghouls are for covering the flanks, probably deployed in 4 ranks of 5 with one dangling behind - I had 16 points to spare... They're gonna be slightly ahead of the vampire, so he can IoN them if needed.

The Corpse Cart, flanked by the two Necomancers will be behind everything, spamming IoN. The Varghulf is for flanking/war machine hunting.

Keep in mind that this is my first time playing VC's, so all advice is welcome!

Cheers!

 

[TK_]

Well, I played a game against Lizardmen with the second list... and it pretty much ended before I started :skull:

My friend got the first turn, and used his Skink Priest on Engine of the Gods to cast a Comet in the middle of my army in the first turn. He moved foreward, and that was his first turn.

In my first turn, I tried to move forward as fast as I could, to get as away from the Comet point of impact as I could...but it didn't matter: at the start of my magic phase, the comet dropped, hitting every single unit in my army. It actually wasn't that bad; the number of casualties ranged from 3-6 wounds per unit.

The REAL downside was, that he killed both my Neromancers on foot and the Corpse Cart too. That pretty much crippled my idea of the IoN-spamming

In his second turn, he got off a double charge against one of the ghoul units - Cold Ones in the flank, Saurus Old One on Carnosaur in the front... needless to say, they chopped through the Ghouls like a hot knife through butter, overrunning into the flank of my Skeletons...

We pretty much decided then and there that it would be better if we'd call it quits (there were still two huge blocks of Saurus waiting, not to mention the Skink Priest, shooting Comets )

Soo... I'll try that again some other time, packing a higher lvl mage and dispell scrolls aswell.


Any tips are, ofcourse, more than welcome

 

[TK_]

Anyone? :Vampire1:

 

[Count Lasombra]

I think you should remove the helm from your lord since you want him in combat where it's useless.
I'd replace the 2 necro'e w/ a supporting caster vamp with forbidden lore and a channeling staff or periapt.
Make your wight king a BSB.
IMHO there are much better uses available now for powerdice than ION spamming.
If I were you (this is just personal taste) I'd drop the cart and shave some points somewhere and add another Varghulf,or wraith's or BK's.
The reason I say this is b/c the lone VG is the only fast moving element you have..he has no support,and so must himself support in order to be effective.
Just some ideas.

 

[TobinRoss89]

I think you should remove the helm from your lord since you want him in combat where it's useless.
I'd replace the 2 necro'e w/ a supporting caster vamp with forbidden lore and a channeling staff or periapt.
Make your wight king a BSB.
IMHO there are much better uses available now for powerdice than ION spamming.
If I were you (this is just personal taste) I'd drop the cart and shave some points somewhere and add another Varghulf,or wraith's or BK's.
The reason I say this is b/c the lone VG is the only fast moving element you have..he has no support,and so must himself support in order to be effective.
Just some ideas.

I completely agree, also what are you trying to do with your character set ups? Maybe if we had some insite into your noodle we could help you out a little more. For instance why does your lord have flying horror?

 

[TK_]

Thanks for the responses!

Actually, the first list was just a first try for me - getting a feel for the army. The Flying Horror seemed like a good idea at the time, to have a Vampire Lord virtually anywhere on the table. But as my second list shows, I've tried to give my list more of a goal or purpose. So I removed the Flying Horror and went with a more combat-focused Lord.

My idea was to maximise his wouding ability with the Red Fury and the Infinate Hatred and combining that with the Blood Drinker to restore wounds to the GG unit I'd place him in.

I tried doing the same thing in the Skeleton Unit, with a Wight King equipped with the Tomb Blade.

For more core, I really like Ghouls - 2 poisoned attacks a piece sounded really good to me.

I thought it would be a good idea to have something of a 'Medic' section in my list - that's what the Corpse Cart and Necromancers are for: to be behind everything else, to get some good castings of IoN in, and 'Vanhelsing' (pun intended) my units forward.



That was basically the idea behind the army. The Varghulf was only there because it seemed like a good idea to have a rare choice, but as you've pointed out - a lone Varghulf without anything fast to support him won't do any good.

Which raises a question (which I hope you guys can answer for me): is it really necessary to have a Rare Choice for VC in a 2000 pts game? I've altered my list after my bad luck against the Lizardmen (getting some more anti-magic stuff in, for instance), and this list has no rare choices... I'll post it here for you guys to shoot at:

Vampire Lord with Blood Drinker, Flayed Hauberk, Red Fury, Infinate Hatred, Walking Death and a Dispell Scroll. Naturally, I'll place him inside the GG unit.
Vampire with the Tomb Blade. To go with the Skellies
2 x Necromancer with all the spells and a Dispell Scroll.
2 x 20 Crypt Ghouls (with a Ghast)
24 Skeletons with spears, FC and a War Banner
24 Grave Guard with GW, FC and the Banner of the Barrows
20 Zombies. As a anti-ranged screen - the only thing that worked last game
and (I'm not sure about this) - 2 Corpse Carts, equipped with either the Loadstone or the Balefire. I'll be fighting Lizards again soon, so the double Balefire seemed like a good idea, but hey... that's me Maybe lose the Carts to free up points for a Wight King BSB with Regeneration Banner?


I hope I've given you a better view inside my noodle ...

 

[Crazeh]

You can only have a maximum of one dispel scroll now. Dropping them will give you the points you need to pick up a Helm of Commandment. Honestly though, I think you need some flank protection and/or a way to take out war machine crews pretty desperately. Consider investing in a Varghulf or Black Coach, and possibly some Dire Wolves or Fell Bats.

 

[TobinRoss89]

You can only have a maximum of one dispel scroll now. Dropping them will give you the points you need to pick up a Helm of Commandment. Honestly though, I think you need some flank protection and/or a way to take out war machine crews pretty desperately. Consider investing in a Varghulf or Black Coach, and possibly some Dire Wolves or Fell Bats.

Agreed, You need some faster elements in your army to deal with flankers and war machines

 

[KhazModan]

It is always nice with some faster elemements in your army but you can survive without them. I play with an all infantry army, the cavalry have always disappointed me. Sure you can and probably will get flanked but that’s why we have zombies and skeletons. Usually that gives my centre enough time to smash that entire enemy centre and get out of harms way. Of course if you fail to break the enemies centre it will all go horrible wrong, but I like it.
I blame the lack of cavalry on Konrad von Cairstein who in one of his fits decided to slaughter all the horses in the army since one of them gave him a strange look.

 

[TK_]

Great tips, thanks guys!

That was a real eye-opener, about the single dispell scroll... didn't know that. (aren't they common magic items?)
I'll probably play another game tonight, with an all-infantry list (and only one scroll )... I'll let you know what happened and what list I used - still not sure about the Corpse Carts

 

[TK_]

Well... that was a complete disaster... again

There was one major thing that killed me: his Slaan. Not with his casting - the two Balefires and my dispell (sc)rolls made sure of that, but with his dispelling... I couldn't get a single spell off, not one lousy IoN

And then, when I faced his two saurus blocks, even my Grave Guard (with the combat Vampire I described above) lost on combat resolution and started crumbling. I've also learned the hard way that 24 Skellies with a Vampire won't survive a single round against Saurus: I killed none, he killed 11, the rest were killed by crumbling.

Right there, I decided to call it quits

 

[BaronBloodfist]

Well it might be a little late for comments since you already lost, but maybe it will help you with your next battle.
If you know that you are going to roll against Lizardmen and even if you dont', i really dont like that list. Its not completely wrong of cause, since everybody has his own playstyle, but there are some things which are not optimal in my point of view.

I am sorry if i mix things up or refer to a list of your which is not up to date anymore, because i dont really know what list you are going to use next from what you posted. So just take my words as a general advice.

1st: Skeletons: Never do Spears. If you need some numbers look in one of the other army threads. I have posted it now for about 4 times so it shouldnt be too hard to find

2nd: Ghouls have better survivability vs Saurus Warrios etc. Just run the Avian combat calculator and you will see that WS3 T4 is superior to WS2 T3 5+/6+ in that case. Plus Ghouls do more damage.

3rd: Beside from screening there is nothing 20 Zombies can do. This is also discussed in the tactics session of this forum in the thread "zombies beyond horrible?" If you want to buff and refill your core regiments you cant afford wasting preciouse IoNs on making those 20 to 40+. So make them bigger if you really want to have zombies or just leave them out.

4th: Graveguards. They are too good in dealing damage and too expensive to make them producing CR through ranks. Your aim would be to ensure that there are enough models to fight in two ranks all the time. Beside from that maximize your width not your depth. 7x3 is superior to 6x4 or even 5x5 (thats a pretty horrible deployment).

5th: The tomb blade is not really good. If you then put it on a guy who has only S4 and WS4 it turns from not really good not nearly useless. If you fight anything more than skins i would be suprised when you even create 4+ Skeletons through the blade to recover its costs. Give your Wight: Sword of Kings & Blood gem or Sword of Kings and the other tricksters shard and put him in the GG. He we be a very very nasty character killer and does also pretty well with his 5+ KB against heavy units.

6th: Lord setup: Leave the blood drinker at home. S5 on a fighty lord is just crap, especially if you are facing T4 guys. The blood drinker is also not very good if you combine it with an infantry block, because 1 wound of an infantry unit is just not that much worth to recover. Remember that you need at least 6 kills with the blood drinker to even recover the costs of the sword in a core unit and 5 kills to recover the costs if he is in the grave guards. And thats just the break even point.....
Your lord probably wants to have a ward save if he wants to face an enemy hero. Against most combat heroes or lords, your 2+ save will turn into a 5+ so he is pretty vulnerable to even normal heroes who are designed to kill your lord (and yes thats a common tactic against VC).
For offensive power your lord might prefere: Sword of Might & the other tricksters shard. Ogre Sword. Or Sword of Bloodshed and a potion of Strength. All those combinations turn you moderate lord into a killing machine.

7th: Combine your Ghouls to a horde and put your lord in that unit. Through that you have two blocks (GG + Wight Lord & Ghouls + VL) who can actually take on the Saurus face to face. If with one of your main blocks charges the enemy slaan regiment you actually have good chances to grind down the regiment and kill the slaan in the process. Especially if you get vanhels off.

8th: If you want to keep the corpse cart: Remember to use his bound spell. If you have Always Strike First and more Initiative (Ghouls have I 3) you can also reroll to hit.


If you use some of the things mentioned above your list should look like:
Vamp Lord cc variant.
Vamp Hero support
Wight lord BSB

Ghoul Horde.
Graveguardblock.
(Big Zombie Unit).
Corpse Cart.
Varghulf / Black Coach.
+X
+X

 

[TK_]

Sorry for my late reply, and thanks a lot for the great tips! It really made a difference in my last battle: the Ghoul Horde with a Vampire Lord (Red Fury/Infinate Hatred/Sword of Bloodshed) would've chopped through the units of Saurus, but my opponent is a very lucky guy - he kept rolling the 6+ ward saves for having the hand weapon + shield combo...

Still, they managed to kill one unit, which is far better than they've ever done for me.

The Grave Guard have a similar story - they were 7 wide, 3 deep with a Wight King (Sword of Kings) in the front, and a Banner of the Barrows aswel. They managed to kill a Skink Chieftain (the WK KB'd him in the first round of combat) and his Stegadon. But as with the Saurus, his extremely lucky rolls for armour kept him alive a little too long .

My other flank, a Varghulf and 5 Blood Knights, did next to nothing - the BK's got killed by a lot of Poison Darts, and my Varghulf got stuck in some Skink Skirmishers...

The only real downside to my last battle was my magic phase - the casting phase to be exact. With 4 wizards (VL, VH and 2 Necro's), I was able to get a total of 2 IoN's in, in the entire battle . His Slaan kept dispelling everything (and rolling a six every single time for Channeling :|). My opponent got really frustrated though, because I had similar luck with my dispel rolls - he could't do anything constructive (or rather - destructive) either...

All things considered, the best game I've played with VC's yet. I lost in turn 4, but managed to take a large chunk out of his army.

Next time, I'm gonna try to buff my magic phase by bringing Count Mannfred, and exchanging the Vampire Lord with a Vampire Hero with Red Fury and the +2 Attacks Sword... (and maybe bringing 2 hordes or Ghouls...)