Vamp army for rating

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Cynath ch'ill
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Vamp army for rating

Post by Cynath ch'ill »

army list for ya'll to critique. I've given up trying to make up new combo's with the dark elves until our new book comes out.

The Vamps are alot better tho for messing around with.

Vampire Lord
Helm of Comandment Talisman of Lycni, Dark acolyte, Summon Ghouls Lv3 +1 to summon ghouls, M9, any one unit within 12 can use his weapon skill
Total - 290

Vampire – 100pts
Dark acolyte, Summon Ghouls, black periapt, Dispel magic scroll. Level 2, adds +1 to summon ghouls, can store a die for the next magic phase.
Total - 185

Vampire –
Dark acolyte, summon ghouls, Staff of Damnation. Extra round of combat, level 2, +1 to summon ghouls.
Total – 185

Vapmpire –
Walking death, Avatar of death , The Cadaverous Cuirass, The book of Arkhan
+1 combat res, no special modifiers apply to him in combat and he gets a free vanhels each turn.
Total – 195

Characters – 865

Corpse cart
Balefire – 100

Corpse cart
Balefire - 100

23 Crpyt ghouls –184

15 skeleton warriors
standard, musician, banner of the dead legion – 157

10 crypt ghouls - 80

Troops - 621

6 Black Knights
Standard, warbanner – 185

Special - 185

Vargulf – 175

Vargulf – 175

Rare – 350

Power dice – 11, dispel – 7, one dispel scroll.

total - 2021.

tough centre of ghouls, which i will put the last two vampires into, keeping the lord close by with the skeltons beside him.

+3 to get new ghouls (i know they're not culmulative), plus a shed load of dice to raise new units with. 2 vargulf's to trouble shoot, they'll be running in tandem or with the black knights, or chasing down skirmishers/warmachines.

I was aiming for around 2000, any crit much appreciated.

Thanks
Last edited by Cynath ch'ill on Tue May 06, 2008 8:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Alkkrision
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Post by Alkkrision »

Damn Strigois... absolutely no foppishness in them :P.

Drop some of the Ghouls and get it down to 2000. One or two points over people aren't going to mind, but 37 points over is a half decent magic item.

To the list...whilst putting all your eggs into one basket looks like it'll work in this case, I've never really been a massive fan of it. Consider finding points for another unit of Skeletons or something, just to bolster your numbers somewhat. Somewhat more durable than Zombies, and always useful for keeping one of your characters in. Otherwise I can't really complain too much, the big center will most certainly be fluffy, plus it'll be tough for your opponent to drop the entire thing, if ever.
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Bad beast
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Post by Bad beast »

personally I'd swap the US's of your skellies and ghouls, the skelly's are really too many points for the space filler they you have designated them to, since you can't raise your skeletons above minimum size, while you can with your ghouls it makes no sense to have so many ghouls and so few skeletons

secondly unless I'm mistaken corpse carts don't count towards your minimum core requirement, so your a core choice short the the 3 minimum for a 2000 point army
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Cynath ch'ill
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Post by Cynath ch'ill »

@ bad beast - thats one freaky avatar you have dude.
The reason for so many ghouls is that they cost the same as a skele, but have poison and 2 attacks. Plus with two vampires in the front row, a unit of forty is staying there for good.

Ok, i've chopped up the core choices a little, i'm 21 points over, which i doubt is really that bad...ahem,

the smaller unit of ghouls is really growing on me, as with so much bolstering magic I can raise them up, or use them as screens, charge blockers... cool.
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Post by Furiouscado »

m 21 points over, which i doubt is really that bad...ahem,


I'd still say that's far too over.. usually 1-3 points is ok.. 21.. that's 3 ghouls

Also, you're vamps are gonna diiiiiiiie. They have no survivability. All your opponent has to do is make a B-Line for them and you're toast. If you want them to run around casting, put them on hellsteeds or something.
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Post by Rork »

furiouscado wrote:
m 21 points over, which i doubt is really that bad...ahem,


I'd still say that's far too over.. usually 1-3 points is ok.. 21.. that's 3 ghouls


I agree. I think you know Cynath that 21pts is too far over. 5pts at most if you're really having trouble.

Set a target and stick to it, even if it means taking out something you'd prefer to have (you don't need all those magical trinkets!).
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Post by Vorchild »

Why do you feel you need two corpse carts? You only have 4 units that can benefit from them anyways and 3 of them for sure should likely be pretty close together as is. You really only need one with the number of power dice you have if you want the miasma to go off and affect all your units - same for the lodestone.

For the black knights, be sure to have a varghulf nearby (measurement for marching is from units with the vampire rule, right?).

Also, you're vamps are gonna diiiiiiiie. They have no survivability. All your opponent has to do is make a B-Line for them and you're toast. If you want them to run around casting, put them on hellsteeds or something.


With the dice and the bound items, they're not going to have any choice but to rush in at the characters and hope for the best. Normally when you take this much magic you plop a big unit of zombies or something in front of your characters (in your case, ghouls might be best) to help protect them from getting charged.

I must say though that the unit of 15 skellies kind of confuses me as its too small to be of much use and its never going to get any bigger because no one has the lord of the dead power. So, in my view, you'd be better off with another unit of 20 ghouls instead.
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Cynath ch'ill
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Post by Cynath ch'ill »

@ cenyu - I know, i should put up that I suck instead of the vamps for rolling out that tired cliche of a pun. I'll give you 2 cookies!

@ Vorchild - I thought i could run the skellies as a flanking unit, next to the ghouls with a vampire behind them (perhaps the lord with his high movement and helm). If they did get into trouble I could run a vampire in with them to boost up kills. I thought i could run a small no. becasue of the banner.
2 corpse carts with lodgestones are to disrput the enemy magic phase, but i'm wondering whether their effects are culmulative. I just realised i got the description wrong, its the balefire ability I want on them. plus i love the models.

Are my vamps really so vulnerable? Any fast moving elements barring a greater daemon or Dragon i think i can deal with the Vargulfs and maybe rolling up a unit of zombies to counter it.

Magic items on characters - have I spent wisely, i.e, should I take raise skellies and zombies over ghouls? Or does the present load out justify my relience on ghouls?

20 Zombies plus standard and muscian cost 92 points, If I drop the corpse cart for it would this be a better investment? Or i could keep the carts and drop the second unit of ghouls for 20 basic zombies.

so ghouls or zombies? or zombies instead of corpsecart?
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Post by Furiouscado »

Cynath Ch'ill wrote:2 corpse carts with lodgestones are to disrput the enemy magic phase, but i'm wondering whether their effects are culmulative. I just realised i got the description wrong, its the balefire ability I want on them. plus i love the models.


ya it's balefire you want and it is cumulative. the description says "for each corpse cart with balefire within 24", enemy wizards suffer a -1 modifier" ... It's pretty clear...

Vorchild wrote:With the dice and the bound items, they're not going to have any choice but to rush in at the characters and hope for the best. Normally when you take this much magic you plop a big unit of zombies or something in front of your characters (in your case, ghouls might be best) to help protect them from getting charged.


Normally you could bunker the vampires behind units, but he only has 3 units to bunker with. His corpse carts are going to need to be behind them already because without a necromancer, they can't join units. So if they're not behind screeners they'll die by turn 2. But the vampires are going to be sitting ducks. IT's a waste to use their magic to protect them by summoning zombies in front of them for 2 reasons:

A: His big weapon in this army is their magic. Once he spends all of it protecting his vampires and/or restoring wounds, he's not using it on the offensive to help win the game.
B: Zombies are quite squishy. He could summon a unit of 10 right in front of the vampire, they get charged, subsequently butchered (50 VP right there) then the enemy overruns into the equally squishy vampire.

To top this off.. all of this doesn't matter the second the enemy is on a hill and/or has a canon, guess weapon, etc...
You should really give your vamp lord the wristbands of black gold.. he's going to be running around by himself giving his WS to his units. He needs to not be so easy of a target... really...


Other than that I think you need to work on your core. You really only have 1 block of troops that will be able to withstand a charge. the 15 skellies will hold up longer than 10 ghouls, but not by much. Granted you can raise models back, but that's using up your magic phase. Just think about it. IF your 10 ghouls get charged by a unit of 20 whatevers with a banner.. they do 3 wounds... if you don't do a wound back, your entire unit dies... if you do 1 wound.. you get to keep a ghoul. This unit would be fine if you had let's say 2 or 3 other blocks of infantry and they were supporters, but you have 1.5. I just feel like you're going to have some trouble. You need to realize that a big weapon of yours is numbers combined with fear. use it!
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Post by Druchiishootlord »

Yes the balefile is cumulative and so a -2 to cast, since they'll pretty much be close together is a really rough idea and most people will be very upset. If you went with 1 to disrupt magic and the second to add some raising potential I think you may be onto something here.

Personally a naked unit of Zombies would be just fine. You'd be amazed at their staying power if they have WS 7...which means things go from needing 3's to hit them to a minimum of 4's and in some cases 5's. Hitting something on 5's when you expect 3's is a huge shock.
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Post by Vorchild »

Are my vamps really so vulnerable? Any fast moving elements barring a greater daemon or Dragon i think i can deal with the Vargulfs and maybe rolling up a unit of zombies to counter it.


With T4 and no armour, yes, they are very vulnerable. Its well worth the effort of a bunch of vanilla knights suicide charging into the front of the unit - let alone some hero and retinue.

Incidentally, the skellies are a flanking unit are not likely to work given that there are any number of things that can hit that unit hard enough instead to get a good chance at wiping it out. A single cold one chariot, for example, has a pretty good chance of sticking it for most of the rest of the game.
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Post by Furiouscado »

Vorchild wrote:
Are my vamps really so vulnerable? Any fast moving elements barring a greater daemon or Dragon i think i can deal with the Vargulfs and maybe rolling up a unit of zombies to counter it.


With T4 and no armour, yes, they are very vulnerable. Its well worth the effort of a bunch of vanilla knights suicide charging into the front of the unit - let alone some hero and retinue.

Incidentally, the skellies are a flanking unit are not likely to work given that there are any number of things that can hit that unit hard enough instead to get a good chance at wiping it out. A single cold one chariot, for example, has a pretty good chance of sticking it for most of the rest of the game.


First off.. you'll have to dodge enemy shooting and M9 isn't going to do that for itself. T5 is not solid staying power... especially when there's NO save whatsoever. Once the enemy gets close you'll be march blocked and only be able to run 9". Barring all of this you still have 3 other vampires to worry about. They can ignore your Lord and just pick off your incredibly vulnerable vampires. They have 2 wounds and T4... right now they're as easy to kill as 2 saurus warriors, dwarfs, or chaos warriors... seeing as these units have saves and sometimes pretty decent ones.

You don't have to give your vamps armor, but they will die if you don't.
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Post by Themetatronx »

I'm Curious Why You Have All Your Characters With "Summon Ghouls" And Then Only Two Units Of Ghouls, With No "Lord Of Undead" To Add To Your Skeletons...

I Would Suggest Dropping The Skeletons Altogether And Spliting Your 23 Man Ghoul Unit Into Two. Giving Each Vampire Their Own Unit. In My Army I Use 3 Vampires Each In A Unit Of Ghouls (Starting In The 10-12 Man Range) And They Almost Always Raise Their Way Up To 20-Strong By The Time They Reach Combat.

As Everyone Else Is Pointing Out, Most Of Your Vampires Are Really Vulnerable, So Be Aware Of That And Make Sure To Plan Accordingly In Your Movements. (Or Swap Some Gear Of Course)

Your Corpse Carts Are Nice, I Use Two As Well, But If You Take My Idea For More Ghouls I Would Also Suggest Using The Lodestone Upgrade. VERY Effective In My Experience.

Oh And I Love The Varghulf Twins, As Well As The Black Knights! (My Favorite Knights)
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