What are our good matchups?

[Alark]

Hey guys,

I’m still very new to VC so this may seem like a stupid question, but what exactly are our good matchups?

All day long I hear about Ogres stomping up with Greedy fist combos and Hell Heart, Lizardmen dominating the magic phases, Dwarves destroying us with gun lines and magic war machines, High Elves butchering everything with ASF and better magic, Demons killing all our ethereal units while again having stronger magic, etc…

Now obviously I am very new and have not played as many games as everyone else, but I do fear from what I read and hear that Vampire Counts are not as competitive as other armies. Am I wrong? Please put my fears to rest.

Regards
Alark

 

[Tomb King]

Its how you use them and different list will hold up differently to different armies. We match up well vs orcs, skaven, dark elves, and wood elves. However no army has an auto win Situation it still comes down to skill dice build and of course luck.

 

[Bune]

well i kind of blame it on the time which you have decided to play vampires we have yet to refine our lists and find proper builds so while some may have success against some armies others may have other experiences i find the vampire army pretty strong against ogres since we can have a huge amount of ethereal units and dangerous flying units like vargheists. also against heavily armoured armies like brets and chaos we have a good chance since our scream absolutely obliterate them sometimes because they sometimes also have low leadership. this combined with the fact that we can customize our lords like no other army makes our army very vertasile . unfortunately many armies have a unit or two that almost specificaly counters some of the advantages that we have.

but in closing i find we are pretty effective against, brets, ogres, warriors, beastmen, khemri and orcs. a baaad matchup is a dwarf army with two destroyer scrolls type things and a lot of warmachines.. empire also wreck our shit if build like a tournament army.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Feeling down? Play a game against OnG and just laugh and laugh. Or Empire, Bretonnia, Dark Elves, Ogres, TK, Warriors, Beastmen.....

 

[Luvadin]

Bune, how do you use your Vargheist against Ogres? Considering they're normally S4 and T4, combat vs regular Ogres for example is favorable to us in terms of damage done but we also suffer some wounds... And their charriots/warmachines are quite of a match up... A flank charge on Maneaters can be good for us but if we not break them and they're able to reform, we're done.

I play regularly against Ogres and I have some difficulties in figuring out how to maximize their use against them, so if you say they can be useful, I would like to learn your tactics! Thanks!

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Varghiests are great for Iron Blasters and as mage assassins IMO

 

[Luvadin]

Supposing you attack the Iron Blaster with 4 frenzied Vargheists (only 3 base contact), you have 15 attacks that do an average of 2.78 wounds. On the other hand, you recieve 1.83. Supposing you got a flank charge, you win combat by 2 or 3 and they should check on 4 or 5 if near the general (assuming Slaughtermaster)... If they pass it, next turn more or less the same. Seems reasonable

 

[rothgar13]

My Beastmen have held up extremely well against VC of late, so maybe that matchup isn't as good as people would have you believe (that said, this was against the absolute best the Beastmen have to offer). I'm also of the opinion that TK v. VC is about even. I can tell you that the following armies struggle against VC, and why they do:

Bretonnia (Ethereals make non-Grail Vow units sad, Unbreakable Great Weapon infantry makes all cavalry sad, and I haven't even gotten to how sad a Red Fury Vampire Lord makes them)
Dark Elves (Elves don't like it when the troops they just fought or shot at come back for more, and screams deal with some of their big threat units - like that pesky Dreadlord - without much of an issue)
Orcs & Goblins (Ethereals give them major issues, and Fear-bombs are the bane of Goblins everywhere)
Warriors of Chaos (their typical MSU-MMU style goes down hard to scream-spam, and Grave Guard have always given them issues)
Wood Elves (kind of hard for them to play the run-and-gun style when shots can't wear you down)

 

[Yanda]

I find skaven a tough matchup. Plague Furnace, HPA and Warp Lightning Cannon are really tough to deal with. I think in 15 games vs Skaven ive never killed the Furnace and maybe killed the HPA 3 or 4 times.

 

[Burnanation]

It's all in the list. One list that might wreck Beastmen, might come up very short against Daemons, and the same the other way around.

All in all VC have tons of choices out there to deal with lots o' stuff.

Side note: Never count an O&G army out. They have lots of nasty tricks and lots of things that can make it a bad day for the undead.

 

[rothgar13]

As an O&G player, I can tell you the only common VC tactic O&G can reliably stuff is Fear-bombing. It's actually pretty easy to make an army where every important unit is Immune to Psychology (Savage Orc Big 'Uns, Trolls, Squig Herds, Black Orcs - all of them are ItP). They still don't have a good answer for Ethereals, especially stuff like Spirit Hosts (the best we can do is a mounted Big Boss running solo with a magic weapon), screams are a major issue for O&G chaff (which is mostly Ld6 or less), and Goblins just plain fall flat on their face against VC.

 

[Luvadin]

Regarding DE, I believe they can always be dangerous thanks to their spell that gives them more PD and then having the sacrifitial dagger to cast Okham's Mind Razor on a hatred unit. Additionally, Pit of Shades can also be nasty on certain units (CH or ME) and the flying unkillable hero with Ring of Hotek will always be a pain on the neck unless you have a Terrorgheist, now we cannot charge with VDM and he can quite easily be placed out of our line of sight so we are unable to charge him. Hence, I wouldn't count them as an easy win (not impossible rival, either, but a demanding battle).

 

[Johnny-Crass]

I love screaming the 'Unkillable' Lord to death and the look on DE faces. Also Spirit Hosts were made for stupid hydras

 

[rothgar13]

Exactly. Spirit Hosts stuff Hydras with no problem whatsoever, Screams either send the Dreadlord running or kill him outright (same goes for any Ring of Hotek Master), and spamming IoN raises any casualties incurred from Mindrazor or Repeater Crossbows. Sounds like a manageable matchup to me - you've negated almost all their strengths. Just keep a Dispel Scroll handy for when they try and cast Pit of Shades on anything important, and you should be good. It's definitely as easy as anyone is ever going to have it against DE.

 

[Xander]

Rothgar... My roommate plays beastmen and he can't seem to beat my vampires no matter what he does. What do you normally take against them that you're so confident?

 

[Luvadin]

If he has no magic missiles and you can put your Spirit Host in the front line it's easy, if you have to hide it, it can be more difficult to tie up the hydra (However, a CW hero jumping off a unit will achieve this easily and with no risk). Regarding the dreaded lord, it's easy with Terrorgheist but if you don't field one, it can be quite more difficult.

 

[rothgar13]

Rothgar... My roommate plays beastmen and he can't seem to beat my vampires no matter what he does. What do you normally take against them that you're so confident?

Here's a link to my armylist. I'll preface that by saying that the lists at 2000 and 2250 are projected cuts, and that I do most of my playing at 2500. Beastmen is also not a book that has a ton of build options, so deviating from the established formula gets real detrimental real fast.

 

[TobiasRathein]

Yeah, Rothgar's list is built around debuffing your units and buffing his. It's almost a sure guarantee, as well; at the absolute worst he will have 5 power dice to your 1 dispel dice (assuming you don't generate dispel dice).

With his herdstone and conga line of Shaman he generates an additional 3 power dice per turn. He gives them all Lore of Shadows and proceeds to assault your weapon skill and initiative. It's awesome trying to fight a unit of S5 T5 buffed Gors when you're hitting on 5s. Not to mention that when his Bray Shaman starts swinging death into whatever unit he's fighting you can very well expect him to have another 3-5 models to generate that many more power dice in the proceeding magic phase.

Rothgar is also an intelligent player and has had plenty of answers for ethereal units, so those aren't really a great option.

Ultimately, the list I currently run (more or less a take all comers list) does not perform very well against Rothgar. A crypt horror and mortis engine list is probably the answer to Rothgar's army.

 

[rothgar13]

I remain unconvinced by the Mortis Engine, though there's no denying that Crypt Horrors are quality grinders.

 

[TobiasRathein]

I remain unconvinced by the Mortis Engine, though there's no denying that Crypt Horrors are quality grinders.

I specifically meant fielding the Mortis Engine against your Beastmen. There's not a lot of viable options for you to kill it. Against anyone with artillery, though, and that thing is going to get blown up.

 

[Xander]

I'll have to let my mate know about this. He's tried the herdstone before and it's worked well, but never a level 4 beasts. It actually looks quite solid. I guess that much domination in the magic phase could turn the game pretty well.

 

[rothgar13]

That's really the crux of the list. It's as good or better at generating power dice as any of the more touted magic armies out there (Lizardmen, High Elves, Dark Elves, etc.), and it does so while effectively adding another fighting character.

As for the Mortis Engine, two words: Amber Spear.

 

[Bune]

Bune, how do you use your Vargheist against Ogres? Considering they're normally S4 and T4, combat vs regular Ogres for example is favorable to us in terms of damage done but we also suffer some wounds... And their charriots/warmachines are quite of a match up... A flank charge on Maneaters can be good for us but if we not break them and they're able to reform, we're done.

I play regularly against Ogres and I have some difficulties in figuring out how to maximize their use against them, so if you say they can be useful, I would like to learn your tactics! Thanks!

killing pesky bellies and other mages and hunting warmachines is what i use them for. since they are flying they can't be redirected by stupid cats and such. but i have only used them a couple of times actually just started a thread about their uses in this section

 

[TobiasRathein]

That's really the crux of the list. It's as good or better at generating power dice as any of the more touted magic armies out there (Lizardmen, High Elves, Dark Elves, etc.), and it does so while effectively adding another fighting character.

As for the Mortis Engine, two words: Amber Spear.

I'd rather take my chances against Amber Spear than, say, two Dwarf canons and a grudgethrower.

 

[Chaos_Born]

Amber spear can be totally nullified on a regen of 4+ and can only be cast once per turn. I agree with Tobias that it's the dwarf cannons we should be worrying about on that front.