Vc Heavy Hitters

[ElementZero]

I have looked through my shiny new book and have seen some fantastic anvil units from the hordes of zombie to the Crypt horrors but I was wandering what units other than lords would serve as good hammer units. I have considered GG with great weapons and that is about it. (I am not a massive fan of vargheists as I have had bad experiences where my opponent would face them backwards to get rid of the frenzy problem)

Thanks

 

[Neforon]

Not an expert by any means, but from what I pick up the Terrogheist used to be awesome as some sort of hammer (although fragile vs cannons). Vargheists do fine as well. Then you've got the subpar choices (that's what I hear at least) like the Varghulf and the Blood Knights. Basically a lot of stuff from our rare repertoire! The fact that you exclude vamp lords is a little ironic though, since it's our only completely awesome hammer in the book.

A lot of people will probably agree when I say that you can read about the hammer and anvil and much more in the guide that najo and Sunking have written. It's a sticky of the subthread. Read it once or twice and it'll get you started just fine.

Nef

 

[ElementZero]

Thank you. I had not thought about the Varghulf

What I meant about the vamp lord was that I already know about his blederyness and will take him in any list but other than him what are the other hammers.

Thank you for the response

 

[Neforon]

Yeah, I figured that was what you meant. I wondered whether it would come out wrong and I guess it did. My English fails me sometimes!

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

What's wrong with moonwalking your vargheists? It's been a legit tactic with frenzied fliers/fast cav since 5th edition.

As for hammers, VC the standard go-tos are:

Vampire Lords, in a unit for ablative wounds (skeletons, black knights, grave guard).

Vargheists

Grave Guard

Hex Wraiths

Blood Knights


The lesser-used hammers are:

Varghulfs (vargheists are strictly better)

Black Coaches (don't get good until late game, when our army wants to be in-your-face early on. Also struggle against SCR)

Units of Cairn Wraiths / Banshees (too slow and fragile for what they do...hex wraiths are better)

 

[ElementZero]

No worries, would any of those be good for summoning with lore of undeath

I am pretty obsessed with including it in my lists but am not sure what to buy in order to summon

Thanks

 

[ElementZero]

I know that it is a legit tactic and can be hilarious but I would feel a bit awkward doing it as most of the opponents I face are old friends

Are black knights good hammers, what is their role ,if not a character bus?

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

As a supplemental point, you should think carefully about how your chosen hammers synergize together. Vargheists are fast and hitty, but want to be fighting in a flank and will get ground out against larger units if unsupported (they really don't like taking return attacks). Grave Guard are cumbersome and fragile, and need something like big bricks of skeletons/zombies/crypt horrors guarding their flanks so that they don't have to fight too much at once. Black Knights full of vampires are really fast, and are well supported by other fast hammers like vargheists, varghulfs, hex wraiths, etc. Also by terrorgheists (which aren't strictly hammers, but functionally serve a very similar purpose).

 

[Seneschal]

Hello

-Morghast Archai. Taken in a unit of 4, they give us high strength and a tough unit to crack. While expensive, their aura helps out other units and the ability to hover lets them jump over enemies to get to where we need them to be.

-Hexwraiths. Hard to master but worth the effort. Taken in units of 6-10 as they are targetted by magic missiles and wood elf arrows a good deal, they are second only to TG's in terms of what deals best with armored foes. Using dance macabre allows them to get their soulstriding ability off more than once a turn.

-Terrorgheists
The original destroyers of worlds. Take a pair of them and it's Warhammer on Easy Mode. Keep them out of combat (warmachine crews are fine) and scream away.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I know that it is a legit tactic and can be hilarious but I would feel a bit awkward doing it as most of the opponents I face are old friends

Are black knights good hammers, what is their role ,if not a character bus?

Black knights are generally used as ablative wounds for mounted vampire lords. That's really their only purpose. They're too expensive and don't have enough attacks really on their own. I guess you could fill them with a couple GW wight kings and a Banner of the Barrows if you really wanted.

I face old friends all the time as well, and nobody really bats an eye at moonwalking vargheists. It's a game, and not everything makes sense. 30 witch elves flying off into the middle of nowhere because an eagle stood in front of them at a funny angle, for instance...but chaffing is an integral part of the game and nobody is going to come after you on that.

Honestly, these sorts of things you just need to bring up in an amicable way to smooth it over with your opponents. Otherwise you end up with this arbitrary list of "soft" gameplay restrictions that hinders you but not your opponents. And how is that any more fun or fair?

 

[ElementZero]

Thank you, I am so glad that my first purchase was not the black knights as I almost bought them instead of my GG. I think that I will be replacing them with Morghast archai. Also wight kings as a bunker for my Vamp lord, GW or sword and board?

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Thank you, I am so glad that my first purchase was not the black knights as I almost bought them instead of my GG. I think that I will be replacing them with Morghast archai. Also wight kings as a bunker for my Vamp lord, GW or sword and board?

I found the best way to run Grave Guard was 32-34 of them, 7-wide with GW, full command, and banner of the barrows, accompanied by a Wight King with the nightshroud and a Vampire Lord. The two of these could also go into a skeleton unit if I wanted to spread out the hurt a bit.

Sword and Board is cool as an anvil, and against knights for KB, but Crypt Horrors are strictly better at this. You're better off giving them GW so that they can punch armour and high T.

As for black knights, they're still cool. You just want to stick a mounted vampire lord in there, and a mounted wight king with the night shroud. Suddenly you've got a highly mobile unit that will wreck face. T4 2+ saves means the BK give up very little combat res, and your blender need not work as hard to overcome that.

 

[ElementZero]

Unfortunately I decided against using ghoul of any kind before I saw how good the crypt horrors were.
I will stick to my decision though as I like the fluff of my army

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Unfortunately I decided against using ghoul of any kind before I saw how good the crypt horrors were.
I will stick to my decision though as I like the fluff of my army

Whats your fluff / theme?

 

[ElementZero]

A vampire lord, who used to be a witch hunter, defected and his necromancer posse have raised some long dead warriors from helfenn with the help of the warpstone fueled marshes and ismarching towards the mountains to find a dragon to quench his hunger. All of the dudes in the army are skeletons and the ones that I am raising with lore of undeath and raise dead will have flesh like zombies

I will be mixing gnoblars ogres and zombie minis for my zombie hoard.

Neither of these lets me raise or have ghouls

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Similar to my theme. I'm running a Khemric "Tomb Counts" list, where everything is skeletal and TK-themed.

The army I'm bringing to my next tournament looks something like this:

2 vampire lords (converted 3rd party models) on "hellsteeds' (winged models, cav bases)
wight king (converted from GW tomb prince)
11 black knights (converted tomb guard riders)

2x4 vargheists (converted with a headswap to look more Tomb Kingsy)

2x40 skeetons

4x5 direwolves


Anvils are the two skeleton units. Hammer is the blender bus and the vargheists. The former tries to eat through one unit a turn, the latter picks up vulnerable points and plays tag-team with the blender bus. I'd trade one varg unit for a terrorgheist but couldn't get it done in time.

I've previously run this list with a big brick of grave guard. Worked well. However I also had a small crypt horror unit just for taking charges and holding stuff up out on the flank. You could trade this for hex wraiths or something if you wanted.

 

[ElementZero]

I am running regular vamp blnder with QB RF and ogre blade with LVL 4 and nightshroud

A LVL 3 Undeath necro with the periapt because why not

A Tomb prince with armour of destiny and flail for WS5 GG

2x36 skellies with necro in one and FC, no spears

2x5 Dire wolves

28 GG with sword and board FC and barrows

2 Morghast archai

Then I ran out of pts (2000pts)

The tomb prince was chosen because I wanted better than a wight king to lead my undead (the shambling ones) section of the army the dire wolves are there because I can give them wet, swamp matted fur which looks awesome

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I am running regular vamp blnder with QB RF and ogre blade with LVL 4 and nightshroud

A LVL 3 Undeath necro with the periapt because why not

A Tomb prince with armour of destiny and flail for WS5 GG

2x36 skellies with necro in one and FC, no spears

2x5 Dire wolves

28 GG with sword and board FC and barrows

2 Morghast archai

Then I ran out of pts (2000pts)

The tomb prince was chosen because I wanted better than a wight king to lead my undead (the shambling ones) section of the army the dire wolves are there because I can give them wet, swamp matted fur which looks awesome

I don't like the necro in this list, purely because he has no good place to go. You want to use the two skeleton units as anvils and tarpits to protect the flank of the GG, and you can't do that with a 200-point wizard sitting in the front of them.

GW would be much better on those GG. S6 is a big deal. WS5 will make them more durable either way, so I think 28 might be fine though it's a bit small.

TP should get a GW. His initiative is crap anyways.

Blender needs a ward save. He's way too expensive for just a 3+ armour save for protection. It would be better to drop the ogre blade for a great weapon and lose rerolls than go unprotected like that. Alternatively use the points saved from dropping the necro to get a wight king to put that nightshroud on.

If you can swing it, make the morghast archai a unit of 4, and run them 2x2. You don't lose attacks from the second rank that way, and they'll hold their points much better. Remember you get 5 wounds back hitting them with Invocation, since they're neither constructs, vampiric, nor ethereal.

 

[ElementZero]

Thanks. I am looking for a way to fit 4 morghasts but really want to keep the necro for the periapt and lore of undeath. I may just drop the nightshroud altogether for the ward but my local meta uses lots of great weapon heroes like dwarves and lizardmen so I really wanted to keep it.

I mainly want to keep the black periapt for those two dice but will probably drop the necro later when I have played a few more games and actually own any morghasts

 

[ElementZero]

I switched the tomb prince to armour of fortune and GW got another morghast but am keeping the necro for some games as I really wanted to try out lore of undeath.

If I run them with GW how should I set up the grave guard, Horde? would I do 6x5 for sword and board and 10x3 for GW

 

[Bravo_10]

I'm a definite lover of Grave Guard. They don't seem as well-liked these days because of how maneuverable the BK character bus is, but my GG have won me so many games that I can't not take them.

I don't horde my GG because they're not terribly strong against return attacks, and 12 or so S6 attacks that hit on 3+ (2+ if the other guys fail their fear test, which you won't see very often) are going to devastate a lot of other units. Plus going 5 or 6 wide lets you maneuver them around the field a bit better, which is something you're definitely going to do if you're up against a fast army. Also Vanhel's support on this unit is going to be pretty key to help it get where it needs to go.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I ran a unit of grave guard all last tournament season until the 50-50 Lords errata came into effect, where I switched to double-blender BK bus.

My feelings on the horde is that it lacks reach, and struggles against avoidance lists or lists with lots of speed. It's also very fragile, and requires a significant amount of finesse to use. The BK bus is certainly the "easier" option (funny, because I see so many more new players gravitating towards the grave guard).

After a season of running it, my impression was that Horde simply isn't the best way to do it. To make it work you need 35-40 models, and at that size the unit is too cumbersome, too expensive, and too many enemy units can fit into its frontage. And as you'll learn with VC units, their absolute bane is fighting LOTS of attacks all at once. You can passively tank a certain amount of damage with Invocation and return attacks, but too much damage and crumble will quickly overwhelm them.

Thus I preferred running them 7-wide, and using the extra points to buy a wight king with the night shroud. Not only does he protect the unit by blocking out a number of incoming GW/lance/magic weapon attacks, but he also can stand next to the VL and guarantee him ASF rerolls even against elves. He's the best utility piece in the game.

7-wide also shrinks the wide of the unit, allowing you to fit more into your march bubble. That's one of the really big issues with the GG brick...unlike the BK it really needs support from your core in order to protect its flanks and ensure good matchups. However also unlike the BK bus it crowds up that very same space dramatically. 7-wide makes it much easier to fit everything in without having them bump up against each other or chaff each other from counter-charges.

 

[Bravo_10]

^ This. Voiced pretty much any problem I've ever had with a GG horde. I personally prefer 6-wide to 7-wide, but that's mostly because I never owned a huge number of models for that unit. And the march bubble thing is something I noticed back when I used my general in a Ghoul horde (back when Ghouls were 2 points cheaper), completely forgot about that.

 

[Hardt von Carstein]

Hi! Being a complete beginner when it comes to Warhammer. I just wanted to ask you how many models do you use in your 6 or 7 rank Grave guard unit?

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

32 plus a Wight King I believe was what I brought to my last tournament. Seemed to be about the right size.

If you're doing it then just buy 3 boxes and a pack of "regimental bases" which are 20x80mm bases. You can use two of those with 3 GG each on them to make up the difference in numbers. Or, like I did, you can use two 40mm bases to do the same. They're a little more annoying for casualty removal though.

edit: I actually stretched 30 models into 34 bases this way.