New to Vampire Counts, 1500 pts

[Sandrelo]

Hi, I have never played a game with Vampire Counts and I'm looking for some good advice on whats good and whats bad in Vampire Counts.

My Current armies are Bretonnian's and Orcs and Goblins.

I dont actually own any models yet. This is because my budget is small and I want to make sure that I'm going to use what I buy so I would like to try out my lists (using proxies) before I go out and buy anything.

The list that I have put together and think is half decent is this:

Vampire Lord, Blood Drinker, Crown of the Damned, Dark Acolyte - 310

29 Skeletons, spears, Full Command with the Banner of Hellfire - 291

20 Ghouls - 160

4 Fellbats - 80

5 Black Knights, Standard, Warbanner - 161

20 Grave Guard, Great Weapons, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of the Burrows - 323

Varghulf - 175

Total points: 1500

First off, my most common opponents will be: Empire, High Elves, Wood Elves, and soon to be Dwarfs and Skaven.

As far as tactics I tend to use is the Hammer and Anvil. However, I don't think that Vampire counts, with out spending a ton of points, can get a decent Hammer.

The strategy I was thinking of using is similar to the Hammer and anvil except that there will more focus on the anvil (3 block units) and the Hammer will be replaced with fast tough units that can win a charge head on anymore, but can tie the enemy down or go for the flank for extra CR.

The Fast Flank
The Varghulf is perfect for taking out fast cavalry and non-1+ armour save knights. The Black Knights have good killing power and with the static CR of +2 and 1 - 3 kills on average, they can take on small enemy units. The Fell bats are for taking out artillery mainly although they might win against very small units. The other reason for the Varghulf is he is a Vampire so my Black Knights and Fell bats will be able to march, probably for the first two turns.

The Strong Center (Anvil) consists of the three block units (Ghouls, Grave Guard and Skeletons).
The Grave Guard with great weapons and very deadly (hitting on 3+ wounding on 2+ with magical attacks).
The skeleton unit and accompanying Vampire Lord should usually win combat assuming they are engaged in the front. Also with 6 ranks and the blood drinker raising more skeletons they enemy should not be getting the steadfast rule. The magical and flaming attacks are because the main opponent i play against is Wood Elves where both magical and flaming is awesome. They should get a decent amount of combat CR with the Vampire Lord and 3 ranks plus standard.
The ghouls are mainly going to be used as a tar-pit to slow down one of the enemies units while my Grave Guard or Skeletons chop up what ever unit they are engaged with and they are reasonable good in combat.

I was hoping people could give some advice on what makes decent fast units and what the best vampire lord kit is. I was also wondering what people though of my strategy?

 

[BaronBloodfist]

First of all i have to say that i like the basic structure of your list. Looks quite similar to the one i used my last match (it worked out ). There are some minor tweaks i want to suggest to you.

1st: Change Warbanner on the Black Knights to the royal Banner of Strigoi. Since you can ensure that your Knights will charge by a high chance they can increase the CR of the first round of combat so much better with the Banner of Strigoi. If you run the numbers you can see that the banner of strigoi will add about 2 kills in the first round of combat, which +2 CR. I think having more kills AND +2 CR in the first turn is superior to +1 CR over many turns, even without fear autobreak.

2nd: Ghouls are not a tarpit, if you put them 7x3 rather then 5x4 they can eat a lot of units, especially from the armies you mentioned as your opponents. Thus adding a Ghast might be a good idea.

3rd: Against Highelves and Empire the greatswords of your GG are just overkill. Since cavalry is less popular they face most infantry better with handweapons & shield. They will cause less deaths, but also survive longer. You probably want to use your GG to face another elite unit from your opponent like greatsword etc. So show what i mean here are some numbers, Swordmaster 7x3 vs GG 5x4:

Swordmasters do 5.76 kills against H&S GG
GG with H&S do 2.33 kills against the swordmasters

Swordmasters do 8.3 kills against greatweapon GG
Greatweapon GG do 3.33 kills against the swordmasters

As you can see if you replace the H&S with greatswords you do gain one additional kill on average but also suffer 2.5 additional deaths AND you have to spend points for the upgrade. If you play vs T4 armies and run the GG 7x3 things change of cause ... in favor of the greatweapons.

4th: I dislike the Fellbats, because you cant hide them behind your units anymore with TLOS everybody can see them almost everywhere and they die so fast against shooting. If they recieve a salve of for example 10 bs3 str4 / 10 bs4 str 3 hits they will lose 3.21/2.85 of their 8 wounds already. This and the fact that you can only heal 1 wound per IoN and that most enemies will strike first if attacked by bat swarms make them really bad performers in my opionion, but thats just my personal opinion (i did like the Fellbats in 7th Ed).

5th: You need an aditional hero like a necromancer. Chances are pretty high that you fumble while casting once and then you are done with only one caster in your army. With only one caster you also basically eliminate the option to do single dice IoNs on weak magic phases since with the first cast there is already a 33% chance that your magic phase ends.


Overall as i said those are just minor tweaks. If you fell comfortable with the list you posted above then buy it. I think you are able to perform well with that list.

 

[Sandrelo]

I see your point about the Grave Guard when playing against Empire and Highelves. The greatweapons are still useful against woodelves and dwarves (the two armies my brother uses). Especially since my brother was thinking of tanking more treemen and more treekin. Before I buy anything I'm definitely going to proxy the army a few times.

I think that even though Fellbats suck, we still need something to take out war machines, especially against empire.

I agree about the needing a necromancer, but i don't really like them and I would have to cut a fair bit to add him. (unless i just cut the Fellbats)

I agree about the ghouls after thinking about it for a while. They would get a large number of attacks and hopefully kills.

 

[BaronBloodfist]

If you really dont know where to cut points, leave the black knights at home, or use them in a different style.

If you see other lists an watch the tactics discussion you can actually see that many people share the experience that black knight do not contribute that much anymore. I cant prove that with numbers you know what i mean right?

@ Warmachines: Since i always used Fellbats in 7th Ed i was really struggeling but finall decided that they are just not doing their job anymore, so i thought about other stuff for war machine hunting. Two things i came about:
First, if you take 5 totally naked Black Knights they will cost about 115pts so only 35pts more than the fellbats i was using all the time. First of all they are not that less flexible since flyers can now be denied to march so they can only fly 10" plus fellbats now fly in that stupid new skirmisher formation. The inability to fly is compensated by having etheral movement. Since you can see through 90% of all the terrain in 8th, you can also charge through 90% of all the terrain with blackknight and their etheral move. Finally when it comes to fighting ... well i dont have to mention what happens when 5 Str 6 lances penetrate a warmachine crew.

A second idea was in case there are still points for heroes left to field a wight lord on a horse without barding and the flayed hauberk and a greatsword. He is basically doing the same as the naked black knights, while having 2 wounds and attacks less, but beeing a bit more flexible and having better defense (T5 and 2+ armor).

I think i both cases you got better warmachine hunter then fellbats, since blackknights and the wight lord actually ensure a kill if they arrive at the warmachine.

And yes i am pretty sad about the nicely painted fellbats i will leave at home from now on