Could a Vampire Counts player help me build an army?

[Minigrift]

Hi all,

Very possibly not the right forum to ask, but I have found a lack of help extremely forthcoming in other places. Figured it couldn't hurt to ask, might get lucky

A while ago a friend of mine gave me a whole bunch of 1990’s era Undead miniatures. This is what he gave me:

Nagash
Dieter Helsnicht on Manticore
Wight King on Zombie Dragon
Vlad & Isabella von Carstein
Krell
Necromancer
Mounted Necromancer
Ghost
Vampire on Nightmare
Wight King on Skeletal Steed
89 Skeletons with 3 command groups
10 Black Knights
2 Chariots (may convert them into corpse carts, using skeletons and bones rather than septic flesh)

Easily about £200 worth of stuff

Are Nagash and Dieter still usable in anyway?

Since I got them I’ve been meaning to put them into an army, but been concentrating on getting my other armies finished first. I also assembled most of a Black Coach from my bits box - incomplete but going to convert the rest. Also found a Vampire with sword and shield, a Mordheim vamp and a Banshee,

Anyway, bought the book the other day and put together a 2,000 point army which I would like to be both fluffy and competitive. Want to concentrate more on the ancient dead rather than the recently deceased - so no Zombies/Ghouls or Crypt Horrors for me. Aside from that, anything goes

Starting at 2,000 points, this is the army I've been working on:

Lords

Vampire Lord; Red Fury; Quickblood; Dragonhelm; Talisman of Preservation; Sword of Might; Other Trickster’s Shard; Barded Nightmare; Heavy Armour; Shield; 418

Heroes

Level 2 Vampire; Sword of Battle; Enchanted Shield; Heavy Armour; 144

Wight King; Shield; 89

Level 2 Necromancer; Master of the Dead; Dispel Scroll; 145

Core

29 Skeleton Warriors; Full Command; 175 (Vamp here)
29 Skeleton Warriors; Full Command; 175 (King here)
14 Skeleton Warriors; 70 (bunker for Necro - can increase their size with Master of the Dead)

5 Dire Wolves; 40
5 Dire Wolves; 40

Special

9 Black Knights; Full Command; Lances; Barding; Banner of the Barrows; 314 (Lord here)

Corpse Cart; Balefire; 105

Spirit Host; 45

Spirit Host; 45

Rare:

Black Coach; 195


2,000


Basic plan is to have the knights, coach and wolves all on one flank - the coach doesn't need it but the wolves can take advantage of his vampire general status. All the skeleton blocks run together, two bigger ones at the front and the smaller running up behind, the corpse cart will be supporting these. The wolves and hosts are for harassment purposes, warmachine duty etc, the hosts can also lock small units (with no static CR) in place. Basic plan obviously subject to change dependant on scenario/opponent.

Using the models I have I'd like to make the army as competitive as possible. Will be stretching to 3,000 points eventually so don't mind purchasing new units/models to help 'flesh' out the force.

Have absolutely no experience with VC, by the way

What do you think?
Anything lacking/missing?
Anything I should swap/change?
Do I have enough magic/combat potential etc?
Anything you would like to add?

If indeed I do get a response, you shall have my eternal, undying gratitude

- MiniGrift

[Ace073]

While not a VC player myself, the scariest player in my gamin group is. He has three armies, one of which is a knight bus similar to what you have going here. I wont presume to say 'this is better you need this' but you can decide if you like bits better yourself.

Apart from a terrorgheist. They are really good.

Now the knight bus is really the centre of the entire army, and his looks similar to yours, except his vampire lord is bumped up to level four wizard, the wight king has joined the unit of knights. The combat build of the lord itself is very similar to yours, the main thing to always take is quick blood and red fury, as the knights sometimes suffer from 'rubber lance syndrome.' As long as your lord keeps tearing face, though, it shouldnt be a huge deal.

The wight king is there to make or accept challenges in place of the lord, as hel earn much more combat rez (usually) tearing apart the unit itself. Also killing blow + ethereal should have him do fairly well in said challenges.

Apart from those two, he only has necromancers left, to spam that invocation and such. The extra vampire is, I think, unnecessary. Nice to be able to march your core, but honestly they will just be tarpitting, and you should be using a fair few dogs to redirect things away from the knights while they smash through units one at a time.

Spirit hosts are always nice to have.

In the rare, black coaches are, i think, a bit less scary now that they no longer actually TAKE the power dice they power up with. That just makes them a big chariot. I think the good old terrorgheist might suit you a bit better in this case, because that scream is just dirty. Oh, you have a stubborn 'unkillable' lord?

Scream. Now you dont. Oh, a rival knight bus who has better knights than mine or better support? Scream. No armor saves. Now you dont.

Its also toughness 6. Not unkillable, especially with the new always wound on 6's rule, but still a hard nut. And it can scream in combat too. Yay.

[Minigrift]

Thanks Ace (it's like talking to Ace Ventura ), that was really helpful!

At the moment I would like to stick to the models I have. However, I am aiming to get this army up to 3,000 points and in that I will definitely be getting a Terrorgheist (or two). Once I have had a few games with the Coach, I might swap it for a Gheist and see which of the two I prefer - the Gheists do look too good not to include at least one, both model and rules wise.

Wight Knigs are not Ethereal, unfortunately, but they do have T5 and W3 and are fairly cheap. Also, not keen on 'deathstar' units and sticking a King with the knights would boost their points cost considerably. Still, it is something to consider for when I do eventually start playing games with the army.

Still unsure about the rest, though. If I were to drop the characters from the skeleton blocks then I'll have a Corpse Cart giving the skeleton 'warriors' ASF, which feels like it would be useless - I think it better to have characters to benefit from it's aura, or drop it entirely.

Suppose I could free up points to include a Coach and a Gheist... Hmm, will need to think about that!

Thanks again for your help Ace, was most helpful

[Tyrannus deathbringer]

Nagash

Worse fluff to model port ever in my book...

You should be able to make a nice undead army with all those components though

[Omnichron]

I would definitly go with zombies if I was a VC player. I've been playing alot again VC, and just having a couple of walls of cheap meatwalls as the zombies are, you can stop most of the heavy stuff any race would field. They are so cheap that they can soak up most of what is thrown at them... and if you loose 30 zombies, you just loose about 90 pts.

Also, I would consider the crypt horrors as well as the terrorgheist. The crypt horrors are also very cheap for a unit with that many wounds, high toughness and regeneration... they even have quite good offensive capabilities too. If you field a terrorgheist and keep him in the back, you can control the battlefield during the initial rounds, making sure that pegasus heroes and elite units don't get into positions which would be bad for you.

Ghouls are also great, although they will get utterly crushed by Witch Elves.

[Minigrift]

Um, thanks, Omnichron! You've pretty much suggested everything that I won't be including in my army - very helpful, lol

Terrorgheist is a good idea, though

I always quite like Nagash's fluff when I was a smaller chap. But the model, well, it's not quite up to today's standards of sculpting, still good to have for nostalgia and it looks fun to paint!

[Omnichron]

Um, thanks, Omnichron! You've pretty much suggested everything that I won't be including in my army - very helpful, lol

Happy to help!

I think that many variations of VC lists works, I juts mentioned some of those things I've seen work really well in local battles and some tournaments. At least I've never seen a VC player without tons of zombies, because those are just so usable as blockers and sacrifice. What would a unit of corsairs or witch elves do when they meet one line of ever raising zombies. Sure, they would kill alot of them, but not enough to take out those zombies on their own.

[Bonesaww666]

Burn the Black Coach and grab a Terrorgheist, or some Vargheists. If you got'em for free then this is just money well spent!

Asides from that the list looks usable.

[Minigrift]

Thanks, Bonesaw! And Omnichron!

Well, in the last few months I've had a dozen or so games with the VC and, suffice to say, I didn't really like them. Have since abandoned them for now and gone back to work for the Chaos gods! Much more satisfying

The Black Coach was actually one of the better things in the army - fun to play and scared the hell out of everyone when it got sufficiently powered up (ie, when I remembered to power it up, lol).