# Vampire Counts - Viable starting army?



## Hesky (Aug 26, 2009)

Hey guys,

Unbelievably new to fantasy.. In fact I have just bought my first ever fantasy rulebook and solely because of my obsession with the vampyric and a little nudging from a friend of mine who wants somebody to pit against his lizardmen army...

Am I in for trouble starting with a VC army and how do they fare against Lizardmen?? I would prefer it if neither side had any real advantage (cheese-builds aside.)

I havent bought any models yet although I do intend to buy the codex shortly.. Any ideas for a good starting 1000 points?

Hesky


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## Rahmiel (Jan 3, 2009)

Any army will make a good starting army depending on how you put it together. If you like the VC over any other then go with them. Against lizardmen your going to want something to wittle them down by either harrassing them or shooting them but that might be hard due to VC lack of ranged weapons. Try something like banshees and things that are ethereal, because normal weapons can't hit them. So you can tie up your enemy's heavy hitters and harass his flanks.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I really cant see how VCs kill anything (they havent done well against my ogres)- they are great at stopping the enemy but not so hot on the killing. I would take lots of graveguard for the killing blow (and decent armour) and have some knights of some kind around to go for the enemies flanks and to hit any stegs (ghouls have poison so will do well too).
- if you take lots of vampire (which you should always do) then you should be able to get a danse macabre off to magic your guys into the enemy (charge and/or ASF is great for the good VC combat units like ghouls or GGs).

Ethereal might do badly against lizardmen since their magic tends to be nasty (especially burning alignment)


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## Hesky (Aug 26, 2009)

For VC players out there what would you suggest for starting my army? (Outside the battalion that I have just ordered from GW.)


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## Franko1111 (Jun 25, 2008)

go second hand and max on either skeletons or ghouls. then after reading the army book you will see some upgrades for your vampire to raise one of the said units to higher that there starting size(hello little lizards your in for a surprise:grin.

personly I like the spear skeletons, the cheese builds I've heard of are centred around ghouls but the main reason being there just so cool.


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## Gharof von Carstein (May 19, 2008)

speaking as one of the VC generals on this board that plays VC non stop and hardcore i can say that its all up to preference. you could go either skeletons or ghouls for your core. here is a advise... dont go both. it seriously messes with the powers for your vampires as you want one or two to raise your core non stop. dont do the mix and match thing as it never works. Im a ghoul man myself. the models look better than the skeletons in my opinion and are way more survivable due to the T4. shooting is big for some armies and mostly its str 3. youd be suprised how often your opponent will not be able to throw the 5 or 6 needed to wound a toughness 4 creature. most players will argue that skeletons still get the armour save for their toughness 3. but most people will shoot at you with armour piercing crossbow hits. (damn you dark elves!) so the armour save will mostly be negated anyway.

dont buy zombies, they are a waste of points, raise zombies with raise dead.

VC dont have a shooting phase beside the banshees scream from the wraiths and that doesnt work against lizardmen. its Leadership test based and lizardmen have good leadership. so thats basically not a option.

oke so we dont have shooting, what do we have? we have one of the baddest magic phases in all of warhammer. this is where the VC army shines. 
You can go completly nuts on your magic phase. i leave it to you to check out the vampire lore and the vampire ability forbidden lore. just let that sink in for a second  together with powers as master of the black arts, dark acolyte and the raising powers. 

VC cant kill stuff? are you absolutly kidding me? we can kill stuff so dead its working on our side in the next battle! Vampires hit hard. not as hard as chaos champions from the warriors of chaos but they hit pretty fricking hard. Str 5 WS 6-7 is nothing to sneeze at. every vampire gets 3 attacks and your lord gets a whopping 4. thats a lot! grave guard, black knights get killing blow for free. give those grave guard great weapons and watch how str 6 blows totally destroy your opponent. 

a varghulf is a nice edition to any army. its a killing machine that can basically destroy small units and knights/other monsters very very dead. he has regeneration so for every wound he can roll a dice. 4+ he ignores the wound completly. borat would say; IS NICE I LIKE!

and than there are the other rare choices. the wraiths (are ethereal and can only be damaged by magic and magical attacks) they all carry great weapons and thus have str 5 ya thats deadly again. especially if you pick your fights right so they cant be damaged. 

and than there are the blood knights. just 5 of these knights can whipe out everything your opponent can throw at you. they each have 3 attacks and 2 attacks from their mounts. on the charge its str 7 with WS 5. on the charge thats 15 dice that are gonna ussually hit on 3+ and wound on 2+ ya they kill you dead. even their nightmares arent pushover as they have better stats than most rank and file and get 2 attacks each. give them their blood keep banner and they get a 4+ save against any form of magic and shooting that is ranged. 

for the rest of the units i suggest you take a look at several VC threads we have posted on this forum or join a specific vampire counts forum for more information.


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## Hesky (Aug 26, 2009)

Thats alot to think about. Thanks for taking the time to post some ideas.. I definately love the idea of a strong magic phase and I already picked up a ghoul box from the GW yesterday because I liked the models. So I guess I will start building from a ghoul point of view and see how I like the playstyle. 

Thanks for the tips I will keep you updated 

Hesky

EDIT: Now have a few core units up and bought Vlad who can double as a vampire lord for a smaller point army.. Have my corpse cart too. So what do you suggest next?


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## Zantesuken (Sep 6, 2009)

From the looks of things, (and speaking as your said opponent hehe) I think Varghulfs will be very very good addition friend.

Zante


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## forestreverie (Sep 10, 2009)

The most important thing for me is vampires. I always take as many as possible, for 1,000pts, I'd take one holding the Battle Standard (War Banner) and with Walking Death (for +3 combat resolution), the other 2 with Dark Acolyte and Lord of the Dead, for maximum casting ability.
That said, I use skeletons for my core troops, so maybe Summon Ghouls instead of Lord of the Dead would be the better option for you.
Luckily, at 1000pts, your opponent won't be fielding any Slann Mage-Priests, so you should be able to dominate the magic phase quite comfortably.


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