Dealing with VC defensive lines

[YellaBelly]

I've recently played a couple of games against Vampire Counts, and he has pretty much sat in his deploy generating ghouls, zombies and skeletons and making little or no forward move. I'm finding this quite tough to play against, since his static line doesn't give any opportunity for maneuver or trying to get flank charges etc. I just have to hit a massive unit head on and grind it down. A more aggressive approach from an opponent leaves gaps and mistakes that can be exploited.

It's not easy to force the issue with shooting, as he can regenerate his units faster than I can shoot them and any odd bolt thrower hits I manage on Varghiests, Vargulf etc can be healed back by his Vampiric Lore attribute. Magics tricky, he can summon extra troops with just one or two power dice, and do it with each wizard. If I start throwing dispels at them I risk getting hit with something nasty, especially when he can carry dice over to a following turn with a magic item (can't remember the name). My own magic is another option to start thinning his hordes, but with him being able to carry dice over and generate on a 5 roll with one wizard, he can block most spells which would do significant damage to his units.

So really, I'm after two things. Specific advice on how you prise a static Vampire line apart, and general advice on how to play against a static battle line which won't advance.

Thanks!

[Haagrum]

I haven't gone up against such static lists, but here are some suggestions:

1. Heavens lore for Comet. Turn one, max-dice one of those so that it's going to blast several units. The other spells won't be too bad either, particularly combining Curse of the Midnight Wind and Iceshard Blizzard.

2. Hex Scroll. If he takes several level 1-2 casters, particularly Vampires, this can knobble one very quickly.

3. Lore of Death for Spirit Leech. Most VC casters other than Vampire Lords are lower Ld and can be effectively threatened this way.

4. Frenzied troops. Whether it's Corsairs, Witches, Black Guard, Executioners or Sisters of Slaughter, our infantry comprehensively beat most VC troops. With Frenzy, it turns into a massacre with no risk of a failed Fear test.

5. Kill him with fire. I'm guessing he uses a Mortis Engine or two. If so, use that against him - Banner of Eternal Flame + melee unit = dead VC troops.

[Cold73]

I've played against a line like this before, but was lucky his Vampire General was more caster then Killing Machine.

Most VC will bubble everything up to be in range of General and his own spells.
All our troops will take a lot of his troops down in one turn.

I've used this to my advantage by placing Killer Units on either side of his blocks. He will never allow you a flank charge...so will have to choose which of his units reacts to which threat.

As for his magic...In the first few phases i will gladly let him get more models on his skeletons...if i can stop all his damaging spells.... remember...the larger his blocks become the more difficulty he will have in reacting to your threats on the flank.

As for my own magic...i usually go with LvL 4 Shadow; and a lvl 2 Fire/Dark/Death. (or 2 units warlocks in stead of that)
Why Shadow...2 reasons... one... his big troops don;t like Pit of Shades...and the Remains in Play spells force them to dispell them in his phase or risk giving me a stronger next magic phase.
Two... Debuffing units so that i kill them easier or they kill me with more difficulty is wonderfull. On average you should win combat with 10 each turn....forcing a crumble of 10...
By debuffing units...you can often win combat by 15....crumbling another 15 or so.
Now he will have to make choices...dispell my remains in play spells....and suffer more wounds in the combat phase...or try to heal through all this.

I like Haagrums idea of Heavens against most opponents that stand still...i dont like it against VC...
In my opinion the debuffs are to little to really bother them to much....and as for comet... even if you get it of and if it kills 20 or so in each unit...he will easly raise some to replace them.

[Haagrum]

As for my own magic...i usually go with LvL 4 Shadow; and a lvl 2 Fire/Dark/Death. (or 2 units warlocks in stead of that)
Why Shadow...2 reasons... one... his big troops don;t like Pit of Shades...and the Remains in Play spells force them to dispell them in his phase or risk giving me a stronger next magic phase.
Two... Debuffing units so that i kill them easier or they kill me with more difficulty is wonderfull. On average you should win combat with 10 each turn....forcing a crumble of 10...
By debuffing units...you can often win combat by 15....crumbling another 15 or so.
Now he will have to make choices...dispell my remains in play spells....and suffer more wounds in the combat phase...or try to heal through all this.

Generally good advice.

Death is worthwhile for Purple Sun too, since most VC infantry has very low Initiative, and this spell either draws out all of the dispel dice (meaning nothing carried over to the next phase) or goes through, generating more power dice as it does so. No VC player is going to let this spell go through if they can help it.

I like Haagrums idea of Heavens against most opponents that stand still...i dont like it against VC...
In my opinion the debuffs are to little to really bother them to much....and as for comet... even if you get it of and if it kills 20 or so in each unit...he will easly raise some to replace them.

It's mainly there as a device to force your opponent to move. 2d6 plus X (X being the number of counters) as a number of S4+X hits on every unit within a radius of 2d6+X inches is effective against Vargheists, Varghulfs and Mortis Engines, or if you can block most or all of your opponent's resurrection spells for a turn (or if they think you can). Chain Lightning loves clustered units. Hell, even Wind Blast can be useful in that situation. As for the debuffing spells... well, Curse of the Midnight Wind really hurts Ghouls and Crypt Horrors (reroll Poisoned Hits) and Grave Guard (reroll Killing Blows). Iceshard Blizzard adds a -1 penalty to hit. Combine the two, and you'll take very few losses (and improve the crumble effect from Unstable). A Shadow mage can add Miasma to the mix to force down WS in conjunction with Iceshard Blizzard, meaning 6s to hit. No army other than Dwarfs has a hope in hell of stopping ALL of those spells, and they're all easily cast on 2 dice. If you've got Pit of Shades or the Purple Sun in reserve as well...

[Demetrius]

Take lore of death and throw long range Purple Suns at him. He can choose to dispel it or let snipes through, which is bad for him if the Vampire dies because then the army crumbles. Final Trans is also great for 6 dicing at his general's bunker from 36" and hoping for the 6.

Also, remember that you don't have to engage him if you don't want to. You can sit there shooting bolt throwers and casting magic at him, which should force him to advance himself. If he doesn't advance, you will win 12-8 after you pick up some points from chaff/ monsters/ small units, or win by more if you can get the general.

If you really want to engage him, a decent sized unit of Witch Elves or Black Guard should be able to chew through his block units fairly easily as long as you support them properly. Use your own chaff to block counter charges and you should be fine.

[umagon]

my friend field a vc army which i face like almost every week. winning ratio being like 8 to 10.
in general u will be attacking first so most units shouldnt be that much of a problem, have seen my 20 witch elves eating chopping though a 45 zombie unit in 2 turns. big group of witch elves with the flaming banner is a nightmare for every vc player
word of pain is a must if u take the dark lore, cripple their strong units and take m down with shooting magic or your own hard hitting units.
terrorgheist can be a problem, we do have high ld but if your opponent rolls high with his shriek roll then u will get hurt.
most vc players will bundle up in one part of the board since they wanna benefit from the ip rule ( zombies cant march for shiz haha
maybe some flyers on one flank .
pick your fights wisely and cripple his heavy units and you got a win.
my tactic for vc is plain and simple though, kill his general!! the crumble rule that the vampires have is nasty as frig, they will get hurt and prolly lose some units.

[Mikael.k]

I play regulary against VC and play them myself aswell. Huge units are hard to kill and one really needs to kill them in one fell swoop or they keep coming back. For instance, a banisment took 5 out 6 wounds from his terrorgheist, only to be healed back up in his round. The lore attribute allows him to get wounds back with all of his spells.

Also, VC dont like multiple combats since casualties from crumbiling is take from all units taking part in the combat.

Our characters are perfectly good at mowing down VC infantry. Just watch out for nightshroud, really good counter vs most of our characters.

[YellaBelly]

Thanks for the advice chaps. I'll have a little look through some magic lores and dabble with the spell suggestions made here. There seems to be a few options to deal some hurt. I'm thinking some doomfires backed by a squad of witches down one flank to take on his varghiests. Those flying things are the only critters he has that can march away from the general and with a 20" range they can make a nuisance of themselves. A doombolt or two should prompt a charge, and a timely flee will leave him exposed to a storm of poisoned attacks from the witches. If they take one flank he will have to react with his main blocks. If I can't blast them with some magic first. Hopefully I can take a win with a more decisive margin next game!

[Khaleth Blackheart]

For the vargheists just frenzy bait them or shoot them, there only T4 and no armour, so quite squishy, but as you say they can fly, so youl have a hard time getting grips with them with witches.
I'd say frenzied units and lots of attacks over strength are your friends here, he can't flee your charges and his units will generally be low T and armour, so witches, corsairs, hydras, and black guard should do pretty good.

[YellaBelly]

Shootings been pretty ineffective for the vargheists. Mostly -1 long range shots, -1 for their skirmish, plus another -1 for multishots on RXBs and then wounding on 5's. Multi shot bolt throwers work ok but just cant do enough wounds to take them off the table. With no panic tests it takes to long to clear them away....

[Khaleth Blackheart]

I only said shooting to emphasise how fragile they are, magic would work fine. But a peg master, especially with the cloak of twilight for the d3 wounds would wreck them.

[Bigboar]

I've recently played a couple of games against Vampire Counts, and he has pretty much sat in his deploy generating ghouls, zombies and skeletons and making little or no forward move. I'm finding this quite tough to play against, since his static line doesn't give any opportunity for maneuver or trying to get flank charges etc. I just have to hit a massive unit head on and grind it down. A more aggressive approach from an opponent leaves gaps and mistakes that can be exploited.

It's not easy to force the issue with shooting, as he can regenerate his units faster than I can shoot them and any odd bolt thrower hits I manage on Varghiests, Vargulf etc can be healed back by his Vampiric Lore attribute. Magics tricky, he can summon extra troops with just one or two power dice, and do it with each wizard. If I start throwing dispels at them I risk getting hit with something nasty, especially when he can carry dice over to a following turn with a magic item (can't remember the name). My own magic is another option to start thinning his hordes, but with him being able to carry dice over and generate on a 5 roll with one wizard, he can block most spells which would do significant damage to his units.

So really, I'm after two things. Specific advice on how you prise a static Vampire line apart, and general advice on how to play against a static battle line which won't advance.

Thanks!

My regular vc player really fear my shooting and rush to reach my lines, what shooting do you deploy?
With 20ds, 10dr, 10 shades, and 3-4 rbt I don't think he can generate what you kill (just concentrate your fire on one or a few units don't spread your shooting).

Also dark and light are a big problem for him. With light magic and doombolt if he dispell all your missiles something wrong with your dice...Black horror can kill half of his horde in one round, when close Word of pain somerimes makes his low ws troops useless (0ws means no attack and autohit for you)

Also I used with succes a suicide fast cav unit (3x2 or even 2x3) to charge and kill his necromancers (in first line usually without protection) then the magic fase is even more on hour side.

The problem I have with vc it's when at low points he deploy a lot of ethereal and you can only have 1hero and a lv2, and those screeming huge bat ar a pain. (again shoot them or sacrifice some fast cav)

[Zenith]

The ethereal fast cav, hurt me alot.
We dont have an option for magical attack troops.

[Sangfroid]

Sisters of slaughter with a flaming banner 15 ish, they will go thru his horrors no probs, they will go thru his monsters no probs, they will chew thru around 12 skellies/ghouls/zombies per turn plus banners and cr (remember he can't use his ranks to offset your cr) so you should clear out around 25/30 models per turn add in a peg master or Lord in the flank and it won't take long to finish most things (avoid attacking his vamps let them die by combat res eventually unless you have a Killy Lord to get thrum their armour.

Dark magic is also great a single cast of bladewind on a unit of 60 zombies should on average kill 40 models for skellies it's around 32 even so that's a lot of models to res back especially combined with shooting. Plus most necros don't have a save so a coupe of casts can take out smaller characters too lvl2 with tome of furion to take this and power of darkness is useful)


Also hand ow corsairs are a dream here reform wide and get in close and start shooting if he charges either flee or hold to drag him out of position 2 units of 15 will really do well
Edit: also a dragon or manticore can also work well I these lists no real threats from range except spells and if they get in and start breathing or stomping will generate a good amount of cr

And take metal magic so you can cast enchanted blades to give you magical attacks and or final trans to strip out his characters

[marcopollo]

Lore of life also has the capacity to do damage (shield of thorns) to ethereal in combat -- plus it is a RiP spell. Dwellers on a mage bunker can wreck them. And the magic missile is decent enough.

[Phierlihy]

I consider relying upon magic as a very poor plan indeed. Instead I'd take as many shooting units as you can and just sit there and pound him with missile fire. Don't advance. Just shoot him. And pour all of that firepower into one unit at a time. This will A] get you a win in your favor because you killed a unit of dogs or something else equally pitiful and B] send the message that you don't need to play that game by his rules. Nothing says you have to engage either. And you can reinforce the point by killing a chaff unit on turn 1, then just back up with everything and move further away from him all game.

[Zenith]

As many shooting units, as needed and not more.
You are certainly right, in not playing his game.
But should he advance, then you suddenly need to change plans. A unit witch elves or black guard, will do.

[marcopollo]

Typically, you will be able to get off your secondary spells most of the time. So what lore gives you the best secondary spells to deal with undead lists like that?

Something with a good knockout spell, a decent attribute and secondary spells that complement your playstyle.

There are a few types of armies that I hate to play against, not because I can't beat them, but because they make the game boring. Gunlines and castled-up points denial lists are my two least favorite opponents.