New pointers and help

[Neforon]

Hi guys

I've been on this forum countless of times, but have only recently subscribed since picking up the hobby again. Me and my friend play casual games. I play VC and HE, he plays Dwarves. Our past couple of games have brought up some questions I'd love to get answers to. Can you help me?

1) Before we temporarily quit the hobby, I used to be able to really 'bring the pain' with VC's, even against his annoying dwarfs. Now I always seem to be on the receiving end of that pain. Cannons kill my monsters and my beautiful Nagash, the gun line tins out my small redirect dogs, he stops my precious spells and his dwarves tank up the damage I can put on them. The only thing that puts a dent in them is my Blender Lord (although their crazy (ward) saves still stop me from using Blood Fury to its fullest) and irresistable Purple Sun. I've read the tactica handbook from Najo and Sunking (and have learned a lot), together with some other tactics. Still, I feel like I'm playing wrong vs Dwarfs. Have you got some Dwarf specific tips and tricks for VC's?

2) Secondly, I played Nagash last night and the Dwarfs completely obliterated him in two turns. He got hit by ONE cannon, inflicting six wounds and then got slapped by his Dwarf Lord. Is there really no way to block his bloody cannons? We played it that he could shoot over his own units, because Nagash is a large target. There's no building big enough to save Nagash and I basically feel like he's just a risk now. The cannons really bug me overall though. Whatever I deploy (terrorgheist, mortis engine, corpse cart, ...), I feel like it'll be gone in a second. Any suggestions on how to keep my things save from cannons, apart from runing the double threat (double terrorgheist, double engine, etc). I know I'm supposed to hunt them with my dogs and fell bats, but so far the crew has been able to slay my bats.

3) Lastly I feel rather lost when building my army. Before I had such good synergy and now it feels like slapping some units together and hope for the best. I'd like to post whatever units I've got down here. Could you give me some ideas on what to do with them and potentially advise some extra buys?
Here's my stuff:
- Lots of vampires and necromancers
- Wight King BSB
- 20 Ghouls
-30+ skeletons
-50 zombies
-corpse cart
-3 vargheists
-terrogheist
-Nagash
-5 blood knights
-20 Grave Guard
-2 spirit hosts
-2 Fel bats/bat swarms (I proxy the fell bats cos I don't like their models)
I hear Crypt Horrors and Black Knights are really good, but they seem like a big investment (which I'm willing to make, but maybe not in one go). Is there a viable list at 2000-2500points that I could come up with? Maybe add some small units that I can temporarily proxy?

Thanks in advance
Nef

 

[Asmodeus]

First of all, for 2500pts you need core units - and you simply dont have sufficient models in your collection. In 2000pts game you need to have 500pts on core - your current models are worth 450. You can raise their value adding command groups and magic banners, but that leave you army without ability to raise them above their starting number(which is one of the biggest assets of VC army) not mentioning of summoning entire units (another asset of VC). You can use that Grave Guards as skeletons but it is still not very good as grave guard is nice unit to have in VC army. You can make conversions from models used by other armies(so you can sometimes spare some money while having much more personalized army) or you can use models provided by other manufactorers - sometimes they are much cheaper.
Crypt horrors or BK are solid special choices and you can build strong builds centered on them. You have terrorgheist that is good rare choice so you can add it to that BK or Crypt Horror and have playable army from the start. Bloodknights can be used as Mounted Vampire characters to fit in that BK.

As for Nagash.....If you playing on true line of sight as described in rulebook, near all large target models can die from cannon shots. As you dont have too much models to summon, i advice you to select normal lord choices and hide them in units and skip Naghash entirely. That will probably spare you lots of points to more usable characters. You can also screen Nagash with some monstrous unit/other large target acting as ball catcher and heal both Nagash and that large target with magic.
Hunting war machines is quite obvious advice - direwolves, fellbats, hexwraiths, bat swarms, flying vampires, Vargheists.... - all can be used to silence enemy cannons. You can also blast them with magic. Anything to save precious commander from harm is good. Even overkill when you sending much stronger unit against a cannon and even when you risk loosing that unit entirely - if they can secure Nagash, it is good as he can either raise them back(if unit is still on table but is crippled terribly) or summon another unit. Dwarfs will not summon anything nor raise back their cannons. It is first mistake about VC army but one rule is true: Units are expendable, characters are not but they still can be expendable as long as it secure the general. General is most precious and it should be protected by all costs. The trick is that sometimes securing him will cost you entire battle
You can always make some huge building or hill that will cover Nagash if you stil want to use him on true line of sight against Dwarfs. May sound ridiculous, but as you notice in rulebook on that beautifull pictures, some terrain pieces used by GW are huge enough to hide even Naghas - hiding him behind some straw hut can be problematic indeed. Hiding him behind watchtower or section of castle walls should not be problem at all.
Many players are using some more regulated rules for line of sight - for egs. Simple Line of Sight used in ETC, to prevent outgunning everything by cnnons and other cheap warmachines so you can ask your opponent to use such rules instead of thouse in rulebook.

 

[Neforon]

Hey Asmodeus

Thanks for the well-written advice. Luckily my opponent is a good friend of mine. He lets me proxy skeletons from HE spearmen most of the time when I summon stuff. I usually go with a huge block of skellies, some proxy'd hounds (I play on buying ten though) and my thirthy ghouls (10 of which are proxied). Before I quit I wasn't big on painting all the little stuff. Nowadays I'm okay with that, although it's way more awesome to paint Nagash than Skeletons ;-). In either case I wasn't planning on using Nagash much: partially because of the huge amount of proxy and secondly because he's just too expensive to enjoy building an army list.

Not quite sure whether I'll go for the BK's or CH's.. I'd like both, but I think I'll give them a proxy tryout first and then decide. There's sooo much awesomeness in our army.. I want a Coven Throne and Mortis Engine, but they'll be torn apart by cannons, I want a zombie dragon but I already have a ton of vampires, I want the Mortarch kit but I enjoy building my own lords.. So many choices, eh?

Guess I'll follow your advice on fleshing out my core army first and maybe proxy the BK's or CH's to see how they perform. I reckon that - if I want to use my Grave Guard - Crypt Horrors might be the better option here. They can perform the anvil role and I can use my GG to carve up some nasty armoured dwarven units.

I'll suggest the simple line of sight idea to my friend. I strongly doubt he'll agree, as he's quite competitive and doesn't like suggestions that downgrade his army's power. If he does agree though, I think that'll take some of the heat of my army. In my mind the idea is very enjoyable. Nothing is worse than painting up this huge center piece for your army and seeing it blown to bits in the first turn.

If you think of any other tips, please let me know, as I'm eager to learn as much as possible.


Regards,

Nef

 

[Asmodeus]

There is quite nasty combo with Nagash - pick Hierotitan+casket of souls(proxy them).
Play on Khaine magic - so you will be have 4d6 of power dice +D3 from casket.
Hierotitan add +d3 to casting value so Nagash can reach +8. Then, try to cast Purple Sun of Xereus through your big block of zombies - yes, you kill lots of them ,but for each W caused, you will get powerdice on 5-6. Then, you can either summon what you what from your collection, or you can cast as many buffs/debuffs from any spell lore available for Nagash, including Pha`s Protection (4+ for negaing warmachine attack)

 

[Neforon]

Hah, I already knew about the titan with the casket, but casting it on your own zombies.. Now that's some lovely Vampire Counts worthy sacrifice . Genius!

 

[Asmodeus]

But remember, that Dwarfs have runes and they can shut your magic phase - i dont know how competitive your adversary is, but you should not underestimate anti-magic potential of dwarfs. If you could grab his armybook and exploit their weakness, that could help you defeating them in pure magic combo. Anyway, good luck with lord of undead.

 

[Draykorinee]

Go mantic if you proxy stuff, I use werewolves as crypt horrors at ten pounds for 3 i have9 and the black knights are only 19 pounds, gw crypt horrors are pretty overpriced. mantic Zombies are great too, however the ghouls suck, I'm buying some gw asap.

My friend uses ironbreakers, can't bloody hurt them stupid Gomril armor.

 

[Neforon]

Reading his book is actually a really good idea. I feel a little dirty, as if Im all about winning, bit it Would really help.

Ill check mantic out qgqin. Not a big fan on Their models. The zombies look way beter though

 

[Asmodeus]

Reading his book is actually a really good idea. I feel a little dirty, as if Im all about winning, bit it Would really help.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Small clue from great strategist. No need to feel dirty

 

[Neforon]

Sun Tzu <3