Official Rumour Thread: New Vampire Counts Book

[Uziel]

we cant have it all ways. why should we have the very best of everything. we now have a fantastic special and rare selections and very good heroes and lords. If core became very good we would be over powered again.

My first impression is that you are indeed correct, but I do have to say that I was dearly hoping for a power shift towards the Core from the other sections of the army in this edition, as I find an army that can't do "ok" on the merits of it's Core alone, is not a proper "army" in my book, and it doesn't quite feel right. Ideally the Special and Rare options should be there to support the Core section,but I fear that yet again, GW has managed to turn this upside-down, leaving us with some months of hard-core gaming, before we see the "standard" replacement for the Ghoul/Grave Guard combo surface, for the next X years to come...
Still, I hope there is more to the new army book than what has been hinted at so far. Maybe they have managed to balance things out with some synergy rules or something...
One thing that makes me a bit pessimistic though, is the thought of cheaper zombies...

 

[Sanai]

The concept of a "stanard" combo doesn't come from the rules, it comes from the powergaming driven internet community. There is always going to be one combo that is more effective than the others, its just (partly due to the emergence of the internet as a place for gaming community) that the powergaming/waac attitude has taken dissproportionate amounts of prominence. No longer are the majority happy to be casual gamers fighting out cool battles with a cool army.

Instead the majority (or at least the majority of the internet vocal proportion of players) seem to have shifted from "We make an army to a theme we like, then have fun battles with friends" to "we aim to win, and make our army based on what people say is most effective on the internet, then have battles that are fun, if we win."

 

[Pladvoncarstein]

You are correct I would not mind our core being better but it would have to be at the expence of having special and rare toned down or serverly reduce the number we can raise back.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

A point reduction for Blood Knights does something unprecedented - it pushes them in to the 'best value for points' cavalry unit in the game as they now have Chaos Knights beaten hands down.

While I agree in essence about the core I think it should be seen for what it is - the core troops of an army. Reducing the points cost of skeletons and zombies may bring people to using these as hordes only and this is something GW can only see as win due to people now needing to go and buy more of each just to get their standard core deployment (I need another 10 skeletons for 30 of each and I are not pleased).
Moving ghouls in to a more specialised role and making them more expensive only seems to cement this but as they lack command I am happy to use them as a Skaven player might use Plague Monks. I would love Ghouls to be frenzied...

For those complaining about the army book cover, you need to look at the current warriors one - gay cybermen. No, really. It's awful.

The Vargheists, Hexwriaths and Coven Throne adding in even more support for the army does mean that a few blocks of solid static combat resolution are going to be needed or we're all for the high jump. With steadfast units holding us up, the press of skeletons is going to be needed to apply enough pressure to break battlelines in key junctures. We're unbreakable but without proper ranked up core, our enemy may as well be too.

I'm looking forward to bulking my skeleton units up to 40/50 each. I'm going to use this as a launching block to make Serena's host work and work well!

 

[Sanai]

Personally I like the concept of cheap, weak core that I can field in large hordes. They aren't there to win combat on their own, but to hold the enemy in place while other specialty units (and vampires) get into place to smash the enemy.

 

[Uziel]

You are correct I would not mind our core being better but it would have to be at the expence of having special and rare toned down or serverly reduce the number we can raise back.

True. I don't know how this will play out as of yet, but one of the things that I did fear we'd see, was the summoning "quick fix" to our core units. January will truly tell I guess. hehe

I must admit that one of the things that makes me a bit sceptical here is that there are so many new units, and nearly all of them have no "lore" -reference to back up their existence or to tie them to previous warhammer-lore. It's going to be many years before we get so see them appear in various wearhammer novels and so forh, and until this happens, I get the feeling that GW has prioritized selling a lot of new "must have" models for a quick buck, istead of working more within the framework they have already created through decades of novels etc, to give us an army that resembles anything that which we are presented with in the lore. I 8 3d, about half the army seems to consist of new units that we've never heard off before, and which have no previous lore reference, warhammer or otherwise...

Some of the new models look undeiably cool though, especially Krell and Isabella. There is always somewthing positive along with each new ed.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

The Vargheists look to be incredibly useful. Not only strong, but vampires (hence able to operate independently) and flyers, so able to annoy the opponent with march-blocking etc. making them just as slow as us undead!

If the general is the only one capable of making people march then I doubt we will ever see a vampire lord on monster ever again. *sigh* and I was just finishing assembling my terroghiest too.

 

[Sanai]

The Vargheists are the first, and only flying monstrous infantry to exist . So we get something pretty cool.

 

[Uziel]

The concept of a "stanard" combo doesn't come from the rules, it comes from the powergaming driven internet community. There is always going to be one combo that is more effective than the others, its just (partly due to the emergence of the internet as a place for gaming community) that the powergaming/waac attitude has taken dissproportionate amounts of prominence. No longer are the majority happy to be casual gamers fighting out cool battles with a cool army.

Instead the majority (or at least the majority of the internet vocal proportion of players) seem to have shifted from "We make an army to a theme we like, then have fun battles with friends" to "we aim to win, and make our army based on what people say is most effective on the internet, then have battles that are fun, if we win."

Not denying this Sanai. The sad fact is though, that this is what appears at nearly all tournaments, bacause it is the only realistic options of your goal is to win, and this it often becomes the army that people buy and bother to paint.
I still think it is GW (or other game designer's in comparable cases), to do their best to open up for a workable yet flexible list though, but I can't shake the feeling that GW's main priority is the quick new model buck, instead of thinking a bit more in long terms as far as players enjoying playing the mame and trying new lists etc go. this is probably why I enjoyed the consept of the bloodlines so much, because it offered more of a variety of army lists and playing styles over a much longer perioed of time. Sure, the Bloodlines had their flaws, but I think it was borderin on genoius in some instances, as you'd only need to buy some new characters, and perhaps some new Rare unit or two, and this would allow you to field an entire new army with a new feel to it.
I enjoy fielding an army with a proper feel to it, and come march, I fear people (with the help of the internet community as you stated above), will have found some "nr 1 build", that will become the de-facto mono build of 8.ed. This in itself wouldn't be such a problem if the true power of the army was shifted towards the Core section, as this would encourage players to instead gain an advantage by doing the unexpected from time to time. Just saying that in 7.ed, this would rarely ever give you an advantage, at least not comparable to going with the ghoul/GG mono-build...

 

[Uziel]

The Vargheists, Hexwriaths and Coven Throne adding in even more support for the army does mean that a few blocks of solid static combat resolution are going to be needed or we're all for the high jump. With steadfast units holding us up, the press of skeletons is going to be needed to apply enough pressure to break battlelines in key junctures. We're unbreakable but without proper ranked up core, our enemy may as well be too.

The problem with this chain of thought, is that since "clipping" is no longer an option, any Horde formation of Skellies/Zombies "supporting" these new units, especially against a comparable enemy Core unit or god forbid a Special Choice unit, this will just help send these new Rare options of ours even more quickly back to their graves. It is not a question of IF we loose, but how much we lose the combat by. Unstable units supporting one another has always been somewhat of a tactical flaw, and reducing point cost on skellies/zombies is just a quick fix that doesn't really adress the true tactical issue.
This statement is based on no changes to the Unstable rule mind you...

 

[Uziel]

The Vargheists are the first, and only flying monstrous infantry to exist . So we get something pretty cool.

That's going to become a bit interesting to see the long term effects of for sure. Not sold on the models though...

 

[Abomination]

Uziel wrote:

Not denying this Sanai. The sad fact is though, that this is what appears at nearly all tournaments, bacause it is the only realistic options of your goal is to win, and this it often becomes the army that people buy and bother to paint.

YOu are probably right about that. I too have encountered this attitude of "I'm on a tournament so I play to win". Sadly enough a lot of people then only play outside tournaments for practicing (for tournaments).
"Hey, you wanna play? I want to test my new army-list..." and so on

A possible way around that is a campaign or a league. I have organised about 3 up til now with more or less decent results. in a more relaxed athmosphere ( which a gaming evening with provides in contrast to a tournament ) people are more likely to simply play rather than compete. at the moment we have a map based campaign going using this programme: http://www.hexographer.com/
I've read through GW's "Blood in the Badlands" and I have to say that I quite like it. especially the siege rules.

have you tried campaigns or similar things? if yes, with which outcomes?

 

[Sanai]

I would like to see more campaigns, itd be a good way to have alot of fun and to detach from the waac a bit.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

Even without changes to the unstable rule this is something we have always had to cope with and is why we have magic able to replenish our own units. As Unstable across the board it is imperative that we be shrewd in our picking of combats and knowing which tools sort while roles is only one step in that. I have no doubt cookie cutters will appear but I do hope the new books, much like TK and OnG promotes the ability to advance a theme as well as go 'hardcore'.

This being said, my regular opponent and I both go for 'all-comers' lists for interesting tactical games as opposed to WAAC.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

If these new Vargheists are Rare, I will be a little upset; not because they don't deserve to be rare, and they probably will be, but it means I now need to make hard choices between my Blood Knights, Varghulf, Terrorgheist, and these new guys. Too much rarity!

I'll just have to mount the general on the TG instead and hope for the best.

So very hyped for the new VC.

 

[Sception]

You can't support a heavy hitter with a press of skeletons, that just kills the heavy hitter. Even against weaker units, it's just not an option. You can throw ghouls in there, though it will be more expensive, at least they won't bleed out combat res and kill your units in the process.

I predict the continuation of the minimal core investment (bunker skellies for casters, maybe a unit or two of wolves as deployment drops/redirectors if they count for core now, and the rest in ghouls. Build the army proper out of special and rare and heroes - meaning grave guard remain of supreme importance if you want anything resembling a traditional battle line; meaning that a lot of these fancy new toys may be rather difficult to fit into our armies after obligatory grave guard purchases have been made.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

Starting at a disadvantage because of static combat res doesn't help hard hitters though, hence sksletons. The flank charge and charging bonus for holding up an enemy along with the cancellation of their static combat res will help though. Thats basic tactics...

This may become more difficult with the new book if the march range is only 12" of the general so excellent tactics will be required to win instead of mediocre ones we use now.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

They will be outnumbered yes but they can dish out the pain and provided you are not fighting a huge army with dozens of units you will be fine,.you can only get so many models in combat after all.
The flank charge is nice but they would die still because even on the flanks unless its a large unit which I do not want to spend tonnes of points on it will be attacked back because they are easier to put down that what they are facing on their front to help with extra combat rez and they will not disrupt the foes unless they do not have steadfast which currently seems to be everywhere.

The march would hurt us but I think vampires will be the exception to this rule, for that reason I can see allot of 3 block armies in the future with quick flanking units of cav, flying or what have you.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

It would seem a little cruel giving us such choice but then saying you can not have much of it.

Choosing your combats is no longer a current concept, its all large blocks of troops now flooding the field so moving with a force is hard, its clash in the middle, grind and let your flankers rage around it provided you do not end up fighting one of a hundred gun line armies I have seen and come up against.
"Whats that?.... You have Kalida, 70 Bowmen, a level 4 in your own lore and a level 2 one with light, a flaming banner, a catapult, 2 war sphinx, a necro sphinx, a casket of souls and a unit of 5 cav bowmen ranked 1 wide?..... Great..... Thats only 140+ shots a turn hitting on 4's with poison and flaming killing a unit per turn plus everything else designed to not let me get across the board...."

Its hard to go for a themed army when everyone only ever seems to power game.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

Then I place our differences down to differing opponents and not design flaws and will cease the debate from this particular angle at my end. My friends and I play narrative games and do so for fun.

I pity WAAC players and their opponents. I do this because I do not understand the game from their perspective and doubt I ever will.

 

[Sception]

Starting at a disadvantage because of static combat res doesn't help hard hitters though, hence sksletons. The flank charge and charging bonus for holding up an enemy along with the cancellation of their static combat res will help though. Thats basic tactics...

This may become more difficult with the new book if the march range is only 12" of the general so excellent tactics will be required to win instead of mediocre ones we use now.

Starting at -3 to -4 combat res for no ranks and possibly, depending on the hammer unit, no banner, is better then ending up with -5 or -6 combat res because of the eight to ten extra casualties the enemy was able to inflict because you gave them Ws2, T3, 5+ save skeletons to gobble up like pac man pellets.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Its unfortunate but thats what we have to live with, even our store manager is as bad, insults your army then takes whatever force he see's win at throne of skulls.

Once you get to about 6k points on a large table though games get really interesting, so much more fun because you field stupid things.

 

[Nosfeatu]

Ok, a few things.

1st, I saw this mentioned and have to disagree. Core is not the foundation of the army, I mean it's there and important but I would argue that special is what the bulk of your army should be made of, since you can have 50% so fill up on Grave Guard instead of skeletons.

2nd, What does WAAC mean

and 3rd, I know I said this before but, has anyone heard anything on ranged units?

 

[Nagashizzar]

WAAC means Winning At All Cost

 

[Scarr Reincarnated]

WAAC means "Win at all costs". Basically using the best list possible.

I think Core IS the foundation. You need those models to take the last points because your death star may die eventually. And without them the whole concept would be surrounded and killed by combined arms.