# Long absent, soon returning VC player



## space cowboy (Apr 3, 2009)

Ok, I have been away from Fantasy Battles since 5th edition. I played Undead back in the day and always leaned towards the Vampire/Necromancer side of things versus the Mummy side of things. I have been looking over the book (waiting for the 8th edition to come out before doing anything definitive) but I am curious as to if this seems like a good Lord choice for 2000 point games:

Vampire Lord
Talisman of Lycni
Armor that removes first strike etc.
Sword of Might
Crown of the Damned
Ethereal Vampire Power
Eternal Hatred
Scout Vampire Power

The reason I set it up like this is I thought it might be a handy combo to really disrupt gunlines and war machines super early in the game. Virtually impossible to kill him with what I am looking to hunt and he seems pretty effective in combat. I know it is gambling with my general, but I thought it would be an interesting choice. I would have done this with a normal Vampire, but the points don't work out combining Ethereal (for survivability) with Scout (for the added ability to disrupt my opponent's stuff that sits back.)

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Howard


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

Thats alot of points on the gen, condsidering hes not going to be with your main army. Remember etherial units can still be beeten on combat and suffer wounds, at a guess is he about 400- 500pts, nearly a quarter of your army. 

It will do well against some mass shooty builds but really suffer against others.


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## space cowboy (Apr 3, 2009)

So would it be better to strip him down a bit, lose ethereal, and make him just a vampire? Give him flight? Just curious because the last time I played undead they actually could shoot stuff a little bit, allowing the main body of the army to be less destroyed by cheap war machines and better shooting units. If it is of low concern now, then let me know, but it was of high concern back in the day for me.

Thanks,
Howard


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## Barnster (Feb 11, 2010)

I usually use fell bats to hunt war machines, I think your idea is solid, but 2000pts is too low for it to be effective, 3000pts and it starts to own as theres more war machines to nab, and you don't have to send your general on a potentially suicidal mission. 

A scout vamp hero can achieve pretty much the same thing at 2000 points, make him quite magical and you can start to raise a zombie horde behind gun lines, his stats are more than adequate to deal with most war machine crew (other than a hellcannon) and he can seriously disrupt the enemys plan. The general can then hide in a GG unit replacing any losses and providing a march bubble, Necros are far less effective than they used to be as support characters (still have uses but vamps are much better)


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## space cowboy (Apr 3, 2009)

So, looking over the proposed 8th edition rumors (25% character max) and seeing how that impacts the army list, I had a couple of thoughts that might make for interesting talking points.

First, with 750 points max on characters for a 3000 point game, is it better to go with a bunch of heroes or kit out one huge lord with a couple heroes, or 2 moderately kitted Lords?

Secondly, along these lines, is a Wight King a good general if dealing with just hero level characters? Seems more survivable to me than even the standard vampire.

Third, does spamming Necromancers seem like a good idea? It seems like it could be fun and that you could really push a ton of Invocations and bound spells through to keep your stuff bolstered and bogging down everything on their side.

Mind you, this stuff is just based on the speculation of 8th edition moving back to a straight percentage system, but with how close it is, and with the 'Ard Boys tourney series in August being 8th edition, I figure it doesn't do any harm to do some theoryhammer early.

Thanks,
Howard


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## Abhorash (May 28, 2009)

8th edition isn't 25% max characters . Its 25% lords and 25% characters . Us vamps won't be as hard hit as we first thought , maybe no Drakenhof but thats not so bad . Hers a link to the warseer rumour round up http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253845


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## space cowboy (Apr 3, 2009)

Abhorash said:


> 8th edition isn't 25% max characters . Its 25% lords and 25% characters . Us vamps won't be as hard hit as we first thought , maybe no Drakenhof but thats not so bad . Hers a link to the warseer rumour round up http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253845


Ok, so modifying the question then. Is it better to spam Necromancers (who are obviously not terribly great but are cheap) or to take a few better heroes? The reason I ask is the same. A bunch of Necromancers should be able to plow through your opponent's magic defenses pretty quickly if they are trying to stop your casting, but you are really only going to be getting Invocation off with any regularity, but the heroes would provide more consistency as well as being better in a fight.

Obviously VC are going to still be maximizing their character slots, so the real question is how is the Hero percentages best used?


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## Abhorash (May 28, 2009)

I don't vc players should change the way they set up their characters too much . In a 2500 point game we could get 3 fully tooled up vampires and a wight king . We would also have 625 points for our lord , which is more than enough for 1 uber lord or maybe even 2 mediocre lords . Going by the magic rumours I'd use the heroes for most of the magic support and the lord(s) would be more fighty and surviveable .


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

It's not just about the amount of characters though. The way rumours say combat is going and the rumoured change in fear means that the days of running a character on his own look to be numbered unless he's really fast as random charge distances and the way combat res and the stepping up rule thats floating around (and the fact that heavy cavalry are supposed to be getting the brakes put on them so less mounted lone characters too) All points the the death of any character charged by even basic core troops and as you'll never know exactly where the core troops can charge until after the dice are rolled you can't really judge it that well.


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