So what do you think of the new book?

[Duke Danse Macabre]

The book overall is better than the last.
It still has fundamental flaws, the biggest is vampires still crumbling, something everything with the vampire rule should be immune to.
The Characters are decent for the named ones, Mannfred they have toned down and Made almost unusable because most play to 2000 point games and he can not be used, Vlad, weakened with his sword, yes plus 1 strength but a GG can put that out that kind of punishment.
All the old lords are a bit weaker costing more to have the same, magic items have been burned and we will have the same dependency of everyone else having the same items for the most part.
I like the new rise of the necromancer and gear on profiles.
Blood traits, sad we lost Forbidden Lore like we knew and loved but it was expected.
The army however is vastly improved, yes marching is rubbish but before the army worked off the backbone of the characters alone with only a couple set builds you could use to win, now they have opened the flood gates to new stratagems that are not dependent on the characters.
I may have mixed feeling about the characters and the lack of bloodline options though I am happy to see a few units at least but the army has improved overall once you get past the loss of the banners.
Just wish Blood Keep could of been used still, would of been nice to have the ability to survive against huge gunlines......
Guest the Kaileda TK list is going to run rampant in our store again now.....

 

[_Revan_]

Just wish Blood Keep could of been used still, would of been nice to have the ability to survive against huge gunlines......
Guest the Kaileda TK list is going to run rampant in our store again now.....

It's not usable on any unit, but the Flag of Blood Keep is still available on Blood Knights, at least .

Must say, I love that they're Initiative 5, the points drop is just gravy. Now I don't have to worry about a Corpse Cart/Lore of Light user to babysit them against Chaos Knights and Grail Knights. It'll be a massacre on both sides, but well worth it.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

I know mate.
Thats why I said I wish it could of been used still.

Not going to see much action on the BK as they are hard to field in any real power outside 3-4k games.

They may be a bit faster but goodbye to blood drinker keeping your guys going as well.

 

[_Revan_]

I know mate.
Thats why I said I wish it could of been used still.

Not going to see much action on the BK as they are hard to field in any real power outside 3-4k games.

They may be a bit faster but goodbye to blood drinker keeping your guys going as well.

I apologize, I took that to mean that you may not have noticed the item, when you meant that it's not a banner option for any other unit.

I kind of like the idea of just using 5-7 with the Banner of Swiftness, maybe Full Command. Even maxed out at 7 with Full Command and a max point Weapons and that banner comes out to 425. I probably wouldn't bother with the Magic Weapon though.

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

I'm quite pleased that people jumped on the chariot marching thing before I even checked the thread. Minions at work right there haha.

Only thing thats made me feel a bit down about the book is losing Skirmish on the Wraith unit. I used to love the lengths people would go to, just to make sure they were gone.

 

[Sception]

This is easily my favorite undead army book since back when the army was just called "undead". Vampire powers that let you play a particular bloodline without shoving them down our throats? With a character type specifically for the "too far from the norm to work that way" strigoi? Great. Zombies playable again? Awesome. Vampire melee characters more impressive? Love it. Vampire casters providing a high cost, high power option, while necromancers are viable choice as a cheap alternative? Fantastic.

I can field a dragon riding lord, or a throne riding lord, or ghiest riding ghoul king, and while it's not an optimal choice, and never will be in eighth edition, the new army crumble rules mean I'm not throwing the entire game away by doing so. My half-started zombie dragon conversion has been exhumed from the bitz box and work begins anew.

Tons of neat new toys (I can hardly wait to pick up some crypt horrors, and a mortis engine, and try out some of the wacky hexknights), some fantastic new models for existing units (The new black knights and wight king bring tears to my eyes).


While not everything is perfect, and I'm sure optimal lists will surface in time, and I really do think they overpriced ghouls (it was enough to remove the vanguard and raising over starting size abilities, they didn't need more nerf then that, imo), overall everything in the book has been given something it can do, something it can contribute that makes you want to think about fielding it.

There's options to play themed lists if you want them, or do your own thing if you don't. The book isn't overpowered, if anything it's slightly below the last army book in overall strength, but it's also not notably below the bar set by the eighth edition books we've seen so far.


Fluff-wise, I would have preffered something new. Special Character-wise I would have liked to see some from the other bloodlines, and I would have liked Isabella and Konrad to have defenses appropriate for melee heroes in eighth edition (T4, W2, and 5+ armor simply doesn't cut it in the 8ed world of step up attacks and multirank fighting). And with all the gorgeous interior art, I'm confused why they chose what they did for the cover. It's quite literally the worst piece in the book - I flipped through and looked at every other image, and each and every one would have made for a more impressive cover.

That said, these are pretty minor complaints to me. I love this book, I'm dying to paint more models (I have to finish terrain and demo sets for the local store first, though!), and I'm more excited about Warhammer than I have been in ages.


Initial impressions are always subject to change with time, but at least for now my assessment is two thumbs way, way up.

 

[Metal_ash]

I my self am actually rather disappointed on the "new" Vampire counts book.
Yes it is good to finaly have the points upgraded to suit the 8th edition. Also it is good to see the new units even though crypt horrors and vargheist is the only two of them that actually interests me.
What i am most dissapointed over is how little there is in this 96 pages army book that one can really consider new.
The background and lore are the same as in the old books, it is like they have just made a copy of the old text, only exception here is that 3 pages story with Mannfred, Heinrich and Krell against the dwarfs and high elfs.
Even like 75% or even more of the pictures in the book is old and have been part of old codexes to the vampire counts, only new is that they are now in colur.
Then we move to the Units, except the points costs that have been changed to suit the 8th edition it is more or less nothing new (except them totaly new units). The text that describes them are old, then they have put back some old rules like for example Slavering Charge on the dire wolves.
Vampire gifts are more or less the same, the magical are more or less the same with some rule changes to them.

So to summon my personal opinions on this new army book is that consider it is new how little in it that is actually NEW!
The good thing though is that it atleast is updated to suit the 8th edition in points, magic, items and so on.

 

[Sception]

I guess for me five new units (I consider the recent terrorgheist previewed in white dwarf to be 'new' to this book), and a new mount for our heroes that is basically a unit unto itself, is rather a lot of new stuff by new army book standards. That and the return of a number of old options (ghoul kings; kemmler & krell), and new abilities for some units we already had (fast raising zombies, debuffing bat swarms), and so on...

And while there's a lot of re-used art, there's also several new pieces, and it's nice to see the older bits in color.

I'll give you the fluff, though. Mostly just the one new story, which I wasn't overly impressed with, and descriptions of the new units.

 

[Uziel]

I'll give you the fluff, though. Mostly just the one new story, which I wasn't overly impressed with, and descriptions of the new units.

Damn. This is rather disappointing. One of the things that I've always liked about the warhammer setting as a whole is that history progresses (admittedly quite slowly). I was hoping for at least some post Storm of Chaos stuff, specifically related to Mannfred/Sylvania.

Overall, I look forwards to playing with the new book, and while there are a lot of good things about it, and it is without question an improvement over the 7.ed one; I still have some worries and complaints:

-I don't like the angle they have taken on Bloodlines. If every Bloodline Vampire (Strigoi being the exception) can mirror each other regardless of Bloodline, then to me this really dilutes the theme. I'm not for the 6.ed restrictive system, but SOME uniqueness to each Bloodline as far as the Vampires go would have been most welcome. The mixing of Bloodlines in the same army was also a bit of a bummer. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to stuff like that (which is why I'm not overly fond of the Deamons of Chaos army book for one).

-I think regeneration has been used on a lot of units where it doesn't really fit from a fluff perspective (ref, Strogoi Ghoul King, Crypt Horrorss).

-Our true core from the fluff (skellies and zombies) are still at a level where they will loose combat against nearly everything, and this is "fixed" by it being easier to re-raise them to some extent. I would have loved to have some non-spell buff on them that would make rolling all those attacks a bit more exiting. I was hoping for a core section that was a proper Horde, but also one that would at least fight somewhat decently, and not be bested by the likes Goblns and Skavenslaves. Happy that Zombies are improved though, and that they did not keep them as they were and dropped the cost.

-Nothing was done with how Unstable affects the army, which didn't surprise me as far as the Undead goes, but that nothing was done as far as the Vampires go, this was a big disappointment. This has always bothered me, as it is really not supported by the fluff, and it also limits how we can use our vampires.

- Ghouls are still a main battle-line unit by design, and I was really hoping that they would change them, and make them more ideal for lurking at the flanks of the army, where those cowards truly belong... I'm a fan of Ghouls, but the way they are now they conflict with their own fluff, which annoys me to no end...

- I was never a big fan of how easy it was to heal vampires with spells in the earlier editions, as this is not supported by the fluff, and they are after all Vampires. Blood should be the focus in this regard. Yes, we have the hungering rule, but it is a bit weak and unreliable. Instead we have the Vampire Lore bonus that lets us heal our Vampires much too easy in my opinion, probably to the extent that the Hunger special rule will never really be needed, or rather so rarely that most people will forget about it (like fear tends to be forgotten).

-A bit disappointed on the Horror Aspect of the army, even though they had included a item/power combo that was really powerful in that regard. Still, I think the VC army should by design be more frightening to face than lets say an OK army, and they could have included something that could help us break huge blocks (goblinas, skavenslaves etc) with a low LD a bit easier. With the new BSB rules in the game, low LD enemies tend to not suffer any ill effects when going up against the VC army, and that annoys me to be honest.

-If Bloodlines are indeed "back", in the list, then I think they could have shown this by dropping the "dead" Von Carsteins, and instead have replaced them with some Vampires from the other Bloodlines, instead of playing it safe and doing the same ones yet again. That's just lazy and unispiring.

Those are my major complaints, but not to sound too negative here, there is also a lot of stuff about the new book that I truly do like which Phil Kelly and Co should be praised for, the first ones that comes to mind are:

-Bat Swarms and Dire Wolves usable again! Really liked the Bat Swarm fix.
-Making Crumble less of a problem, so we can actually risk our General in hth, which makes for more diverse Vampires
-Free spears on Skellies! Never made sense that Night Goblins got them, and we had to pay extra.
- Removed some magic item that were too powerful, hence saw use in just about all competitive games..
-Even though I'm not a big fan of all the new units introduced (Crypt Horrors, I'm looking at you..), for the most part they have been good, and in some cases great).
-Red Fury/Infinate Hatred combo is gone. Finally. A bit tired of seing all those hateful and supremely angry vampires, which somehow were still great spell casters to boot..

The main reason I've voted as I have, is the Bloodline issue, and the army Core issue, but I will still enjoy playing the 8.ed I think.

 

[Sception]

The Vlad and Isabella are the oldest vampire counts special characters and the ones with by far the best story behind them. I'm not overly impressed with Konrad (hero version never really fit with the scourge he was, and he never had the defenses to function as well in combat as he should), and wouldn't mind dropping him, but in general I'd rather just have more special characters, rather then replacing any of the ones we already have.

As for bloodlines, well, we know each others opinions on that, Uzi, and have argued it out elsewhere. While the book is pretty much everything I wanted, I'm sorry it couldn't also be everything you wanted as well. Hopefully Warhammer forge will take some interest in the vamps and put out campaign books providing variant lists and special characters specific to some of the other bloodlines. A Red Duke campaign would be pretty cool.

 

[Uziel]

The Vlad and Isabella are the oldest vampire counts special characters and the ones with by far the best story behind them. I'm not overly impressed with Konrad (hero version never really fit with the scourge he was, and he never had the defenses to function as well in combat as he should), and wouldn't mind dropping him, but in general I'd rather just have more special characters, rather then replacing any of the ones we already have.

As for bloodlines, well, we know each others opinions on that, Uzi, and have argued it out elsewhere. While the book is pretty much everything I wanted, I'm sorry it couldn't also be everything you wanted as well. Hopefully Warhammer forge will take some interest in the vamps and put out campaign books providing variant lists and special characters specific to some of the other bloodlines. A Red Duke campaign would be pretty cool.

Don't get me wrong, I think Vlad and Isabella are cool as well (even have awesome models), but since they are technically from a bygone age as it were, I would have preferred a greater focus on Mannfred (and other "current" Vampires)in the VC book, and then have included Vlad, Isabella, Konrad and Mannfred the Acolyte in some sort of historical campaign, much like we had for the Red Duke originally. We've basically seen the same Von Carstein characters since 4.ed (with Konrad added later), and I just think it could have added a lot if we saw some new vampires, both in the tactical and fluff department. Special characters are an excellent way of providing some juicy new fluff, and it's not all that inspiring reading the same fluff once more.

That we have Malisteen.
Maybe we'll get to see some other Vampires in some campagin setting, but I fear that this won't happen, and if it does, it will be so close to 9.ed that theyæll see limited paly. I agree that something based on the Red Duke would have been cool.

 

[Undead Teapot]

I'm overall very happy with this book. I can't say it's the best ever because I only started playing vc early last year.

The main things I am excited about is the list diversity that I can use now. I love the changes to the bat swarms...now I need to buy the reaper swarms...and dire wolves.

I'm disappointed in the vampire lord, wish he was at least a lvl2 wizard base. Was also hoping for a red duke special character, but that was more wishful thinking. ^_^

 

[SotF]

I'm liking the book so far, haven't gotten to play it yet though.

One flaw that I'd noticed was that the big fluff battle where Mannfred was riding a zombie dragon is something that isn't doable in the rules

 

[Veland]

Hi

I got our new armybook, and made a few armylists with 8 ed rules that I'm not really familiar with (haven't played yet). Here's my simple thinking process while creating one of them.

1. Our units seem generally better considering their decreased point value.
However, 25% in cores will be just tarpits. At 2000 you can customize, whether you want 150 good zombie tarpits, 100 skeleton if you want to pretend to kill something and still lose, or 50 ghouls if you want to draw most combats. Looking at the rules for IoN and the unit stats, you choose zombies.

2. If you want your tarpits to move effectively, you put your general somewhere around. Which leaves your flanking units not really following the rest of the army. So either you squeeze everything (not really possible if playing the horde of 150 zombies (5*30+command groups) ) or choose vampiric units as your flankers. So, either blood knights or vargheists, as BC and varghulf do not actually compete now.

3. Suppose you have about 25% points for the hard hitting flankers, which let you buy around 10 blood knights or 11 vargheists or a combination of the two. Not really much to destroy the enemy with.

4. Lords. Lets go for a vampire lord to have more hitting power. Supposedly, you want to add some armour, horse, powers, magic items... I ended up with 568 pts for a lord mounted on a simple dead horse. Opps too much for 2000 pts. Sarcasm intended here. I could drop his magic level to 2, but no, 8 ed does not allow look out sir for a different base size, so sorry, he must go on foot. Still needs good armour, so where's the old good 2+ flayed hauberk? Gone. You get the same for 45 pts from common items. Wow. Give him a ward, 45 pts. A weapon for 10? Nah. Couldnt find any worth 10 pts. Better give him great weapon, maybe he'll survive until he can strike back and recover some lost wounds due to the hunger. Powers. Red fury, and dark acolyte should be enough for everyone. Fits in 500.

5. Heroes. Vampire BSB and a necromancer. Ouch. I cant fit any other arcane than the dispel scroll on one hero. Should I drop the magic banner to be able to fit any other arcane item in my magic heavy undead army? yeah, go for it. Vanhels is more important. Bt now I can't buy any good armour save (3+ or better), and can't have any other potent magic item for the old necro... Lol. Back to the idea of the common magic armour with 4+ ward built in, GW, and RF for the hero. BSB is there just for fun you know. And Necro can have the dispel + maybe the fireball ring if I still have the points.

I ended up with 3 characters who have to all stick with zombies to maintain their look out sir, and tarpit the enemy while vargheists will try to fly around and flank them. Maybe I will not lose this game, but I miss something here. Where are all the points for the new toys, the engines, carts, more interesting support units? Is it not a flaw of the book, that it's not really that customizable with so much limited magic items, powers, high pt cost and cores that can only tarpit?

BR,
Veland

 

[darthken]

Looks pretty good to me so far, ill be more versed after a couple of games though

My biggest disappointment is the BSB. We all knew there was no chance of keeping our regen banner. but they could have at least given us a banner that only the BSB could take (over 50pts)

Still lots of new units and tactics to try out, and my bat swarms are now extremely usefull against my pesky HE friend

 

[Uziel]

Hi

I got our new armybook, and made a few armylists with 8 ed rules that I'm not really familiar with (haven't played yet). Here's my simple thinking process while creating one of them.

1. Our units seem generally better considering their decreased point value.
However, 25% in cores will be just tarpits. At 2000 you can customize, whether you want 150 good zombie tarpits, 100 skeleton if you want to pretend to kill something and still lose, or 50 ghouls if you want to draw most combats. Looking at the rules for IoN and the unit stats, you choose zombies.

2. If you want your tarpits to move effectively, you put your general somewhere around. Which leaves your flanking units not really following the rest of the army. So either you squeeze everything (not really possible if playing the horde of 150 zombies (5*30+command groups) ) or choose vampiric units as your flankers. So, either blood knights or vargheists, as BC and varghulf do not actually compete now.

3. Suppose you have about 25% points for the hard hitting flankers, which let you buy around 10 blood knights or 11 vargheists or a combination of the two. Not really much to destroy the enemy with.

4. Lords. Lets go for a vampire lord to have more hitting power. Supposedly, you want to add some armour, horse, powers, magic items... I ended up with 568 pts for a lord mounted on a simple dead horse. Opps too much for 2000 pts. Sarcasm intended here. I could drop his magic level to 2, but no, 8 ed does not allow look out sir for a different base size, so sorry, he must go on foot. Still needs good armour, so where's the old good 2+ flayed hauberk? Gone. You get the same for 45 pts from common items. Wow. Give him a ward, 45 pts. A weapon for 10? Nah. Couldnt find any worth 10 pts. Better give him great weapon, maybe he'll survive until he can strike back and recover some lost wounds due to the hunger. Powers. Red fury, and dark acolyte should be enough for everyone. Fits in 500.

5. Heroes. Vampire BSB and a necromancer. Ouch. I cant fit any other arcane than the dispel scroll on one hero. Should I drop the magic banner to be able to fit any other arcane item in my magic heavy undead army? yeah, go for it. Vanhels is more important. Bt now I can't buy any good armour save (3+ or better), and can't have any other potent magic item for the old necro... Lol. Back to the idea of the common magic armour with 4+ ward built in, GW, and RF for the hero. BSB is there just for fun you know. And Necro can have the dispel + maybe the fireball ring if I still have the points.

I ended up with 3 characters who have to all stick with zombies to maintain their look out sir, and tarpit the enemy while vargheists will try to fly around and flank them. Maybe I will not lose this game, but I miss something here. Where are all the points for the new toys, the engines, carts, more interesting support units? Is it not a flaw of the book, that it's not really that customizable with so much limited magic items, powers, high pt cost and cores that can only tarpit?

BR,
Veland

Interesting reading Veland.

Although I don't have the book myself yet (even express mail on pre-order can be slow it seems), I am surprised to read that the cost for Vampire Character's have not gone down in the 8.ed book for the following reasons:

-It seems to me that costs have been going down slightly for characters since the release of 8.ed.
-charaters don't have nearly the kind of significance that they used to have in close combat in 7.ed.
-Yes, we have the Hunger special rule on them, but realistically, this special rule will only ever be useful in the most rare of circumstances, as the VC spell Lore ability will keep our expensive Vampires topped-off on wounds.
-From what I understand, we now start as lvl 1 wizards, instead of lvl 2. Yes, we have access to more than just the VC lore, but this is not unique in WArhammer; in fact most wizards have access to a small handful of lores. Have Vampires not been reduced in cost to account for this?
-YES, we now have some superb new special abilities (ASF to name one), but these are potential options, that should be paid for as per the ability chosen.
-With NO REAL combat boost to our Core/tarpit units, we do need Vampires to boost their combat effectiveness, but at 568 pts as you mentioned above, we're getting close to Archaon's cost here.
-Yes, we CAN make horrific combat charactres with the new book, but with such a huge price tag on the vampire itself in the first place, you almost have to to justify his initial cost. My point is that there is little motivation to make a "mediocre" Vampire as far as powers and items go.

Maybe I've missed something, but to me something is a bit off if/when the likes of Grimgor Ironhide starts looking cheap, even though our VC lord starts as a lvl 1 wizard..

I can see some other builds in the Hero department Veland, but it is still not going to free up a lot of points to the special and rare sections of the list. I have always been of the opinion that the Thrall has been to expensive and risky, and it seems that hasn't really changed. Never used a Thrall BSB, as he's much to vulnerable compared to the Wight King.

The marching bubble of the general is going to affect us greatly, especially in scenarios with random deployment, and in larger games, particularly if you wish to play some kind of army that does not include either the Vargheists or the Blood Knights because of fluff reasons. Being "tied" to one of those two for game-balance reasons doesn't sit right with me. Even the Hexwraths can become very hard to use effectively, as they will easily be pushed outside the generals range. The ability to increase the general's ability to eable march moves, should have come with a range upgrade at least, so that the army could work well in 3000+ point battles as well.
It would have been great to see that units could march if they had a Vampire character with them, as this would encourage the use of thralls greatly, allowing you to spread out your Core/special more.

 

[El Syf]

Vampire Lords and Heroes have become very expensive! The fact we can just buy magic levels to level4 (for a lord) is too tempting I found. Yes I am fielding a level 4 wizard and mantaining it's a Blood Dragon. Who's to say he didn't have a century or two off from killing to practice necromancy! After a few more reads the book isn't all that bad. Magic items took a spanking but if it's going to happen with all books from now on then we can't complain although I'd assume Dwarves would be the exception to it?. Special Characters I'm still finding a sore point though!

 

[Gryan]

Blood traits, sad we lost Forbidden Lore like we knew and loved but it was expected.

We kept the Forbidden Lore and they even made it 10 points cheaper

Overall I am pretty happy with the new book, really happy with the way they changed IoN and made a necromancer (no vampire) army feasible. Gots me a mortis engine and a Zombie Dragon/Terrogheist that needs to be tried on someone

 

[Pietr Von Carstein]

We kept the Forbidden Lore and they even made it 10 points cheaper

And it is worth more than 10 points less now seeing as it no longer grants loremaster.

 

[Duke Danse Macabre]

10 points less?...... In comparison its worthless compared to what it used to do.

 

[Count Darvaleth]

Vlad has armour.

'nuff said.

 

[Metal_ash]

All in all i say much have been fixed with our units anyways, both in points and rules to be better suited to 8th edition (at least most of the units have been looked over).

What really stings me except what i said in my other post is the vampiric rules.
I did hope for so much more here.
I hoped that they did not crumble but they still do, and they still are as slow as a zombie to react to a charge and can still only elect to hold.
I guess vampires have no self preservation at all.:grave:

In my opinion a vampire on his own should not be unbreakable and fight to the last drop of unholy blood.

Just a few more of my thoughts and opinions on this "new" ( yes i don't like to call this army book new consider how little text it is in it that actually is new ) army book of ours.

//Cheers!

 

[kevin.hopkins7]

Most things people moaned about have been taken away from us. We have been given some other, lowered powered tools to balance it out, otherwise our army would be useless without it.

I think actually using this army on the battlefield will show us not to be the most powerful, but around mid-tier.

Agreed. I will finally get to use my zombies, but now probably not gonna have GG.. I will miss my Deathstar. The Mortis Engine makes up for them tho. it is so cool

 

[Gryan]

Lol that's what I for reading the book at 3am, I think its still useful for the lore of metal against heavily armoured armies though

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

Forbidden Lore is useless? Am I missing something from everything other than Life that's been gone for a while? The basic lores allow for some tremendous combinations to be established if used properly. By the sound of it here is you've already lit its candle and sent it up the Ganges.

With the standard game moving more towards 3000 points and armies seemingly heading this way with 8th edition I see absolutely no reason to not use Forbidden Lore to create a walloping surprise for anyone who thinks the Lore of Vampires is the end word in our magic.