# Advice fo VC against WoC



## victarion (Dec 15, 2009)

I will likely end up playing WoC tommorow on game night and just wondering if anyone has any good advice for going up against the WoC with VC. I know I am tailoring my list which is bad in the long term scheme of things. But this fella has a history of tailoring so much so that he could open up his own shop and sell some suits and pants.


I forget the name of the spell but he will usually some sort of level 4 caster that causes 2d6 str 2d6 hits and on an 11 or 12 it removes your entire unit from the board. His battle tactic is to sit back on the board far back and blast apart the opposition with magic. Never moving Forward. Only attacking when you come within reach with Chaos Knights and a War shrine/unit of chaos warriors. Somehow he works it so that most of his units are immune to psychology as well.


Any thoughts?


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

Alright - I just had a long ass post I'd been typing for 5 minutes dissapear so you're going to get the coles notes...

First, that spell you're worrying about is called infernal gateway & it goes off on a 15. Tzeench casters have a +1, meaning he needs a 14 on 3-5 dice. On 3 dice he should be averaging an 11... Just keep one or two scrolls around in case.

If his units are ItP then their either khorate & frenzied, in which case bait them with something you can afford to loose, or will stand up to 4 attacks per model on the charge (thats what zombies are for!)

OR they're Slaaneshi which is worse for undead. Slaaneshi units are NOT ItP but rather are immune to fear, terror and panic; this means that simply beating them in combat by one and outnumbering will not force them to autobreak (or insane courage...) You'll actually have to hit them hard.

In my opinion running a Dreadlord could be your best bet. I run a Lvl3 caster w/ Walking Death, Red Fury and Dreadknight. Replace the lance with the dreadlance, the armour with nightshroud and replace the shield with an enchanted sheild. This makes you a lvl3 caster with 4 attacks that hit automatically & are S7 on the charge. You have an inherent +1 to combat res & therefore should worry about charging her out of her unit at targets of opportunity. The armor of night means that even if charged,nobody will be hitting you before you get the chance to kill them first.

I'd also recommend a corpse cart or two with Balefire if you are worried about his magic - (2) carts will be a collective -2 to his casting & will also give you 2 opportunities to cast Miasma of deathly vigour - which when coupled with great weapon graveguard is a devastating thing to see!

Obviously skeletons are terrible when compared to warriors. You're hitting & wounding on 5's with a single attack & Assuming their using sword & board they still have a 2+ armor save (good luck).  So in light of that, I would recommend softening them up with a casting of curse of years if you can get it of. Even if you only get to have it last a single round you should be killing 3-4 warriors out of an 18 block (which is how I've seen most run - 6x3) just do it over & over & over. Then, I'd recommend graveguard with greatweapons & the banner of barrows. Coupled with a helm of command - even on a hero level vampire means you're hitting and wounding on 2's with killing blow (and coupled with miasma of deathly vigour will be striking first...)

If you have ethereal units keep them away from his knights - other than that, they should pretty much be able to wreak havoc (just don't charge the front of a brick!)

And honestly, don't even consider adding zombies to a flank / rear for extra combat rez. Warriors will butcher them & turn that easy combat res right back around & you'll find yourself worse for wear. against WoC, zombies are for baiting, blocking and tarpitting - nothing else!

If you do have them (I don't) Blood Knights are definitely a great use against WoC. They're without a doubt the best knights in all of Fantasy & frankly warriors don't have any shooting for you to worry about! If you're able to get the charge (and you should!) blood knights will be able to tear through anything you point them at! Just be carefull of maurader horsemen baiting you and magic missile spells - but again, any vampire army should be able to shut down WoC magic....

What else? Watch out for word of agony - D6 S4 no armor save wounds to any mode in base contact BEFORE combat can wreck your characters - definitely keep your general away from his lord.

I guess the last thing to mention is the strength of the Wight King BSB with Gem of Blood & Sword of Kings. Sure you're only WS & S 4, but you have KB on a 5+, can benefit from the banner of barrows AND the helm of command, are T5 and with the Gem effectively have 4 wounds! AND you're only 150 points!


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## victarion (Dec 15, 2009)

I didn't think the wight king could take magical items and be the bsb at the same time.



The problem I am having is I have 2 corpse carts to deal with his magic or in the least aid with balefire, but with two I cannot seem to afford bloodknights so I am running a Varghulf instead. I guess I might be able to afford the BloodKnights and the Two carts if I slimmed my core units down to 10 ghouls and 10 skeletons and just counted on them beeing lost points. Then the only thing I would have in my army of any substance would be a large healthy unit of Graveguard with regens, a Unit of 4+ warded Blood Knights and two corpsecarts. The rest would be just zombies and small units of skeletons. I do need to have at least one core unit live to harbor my other two level 2 caster vampires. I am trying out Vlad also and am using a Wight King for the BSB ( regen banner ). I think I do like the idea of Graveguard with two handed weapons though and with two miasma of deathly Vigor going off twice every turn that is going to suck up alot of his dispells and leave room for some invoc casting or some offensive casting.

I usually do summon in alot of zombies to harry opponents and make life tough. I also usually bring the helm of command but I am thinking about dropping that and going for that item ( forget name) that causes every undead unit within 12" make a hand to hand combat attack.


As far as Vlad goes I actually think he might do well against them since he usually makes all of his units stubborn. This means they will be breaking normally on a 8 or a 9 if they are within range of there general right? ( with the negative 1 Vlad imposes on enemies leaderships.



He always takes that item that allows him to get my failed casting dice. And change the mistcast by 3. I donno really how to deal with that. Maybe commit more dice then needed to every spell to keep the casualties down to a minimum?


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

the wight king can take magic items as long as he doesn't take a magical standard - which is a BAD idea against WoC! Since they HAVE to issue a challenge you really do not want your character to give them free victory points for a magical banner!

One thing EVERY vampire player should do is to concentrate on a single type of core troops. That way a single 15 point power will allow you to continue to raise multiple units. Summon Ghouls if you're playing ghouls or LotD if you're playing skeletons - having units of both is... silly... now if you want to take the BEST units you can, you're probably looking at ghouls - while they have no armor & fewer points of SCR, their statline is almost uniformly 1 higher than skeletons - meaning I believe you are hitting on 4's rather than 5's & have poison. Warriors are going to leave your skeletons with a 6+ save anyways, so the extra point of toughness is actually probably better for you...

I don't know how he makes all of his units stubborn.... But if they are Slaaneshi & stubborn you're in for an uphill battle...

Oh - try not to use the Miasma to draw out dispell dice - that's your ace in the hole when using GG w/ GW...


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## matty570 (Jun 14, 2007)

Firstly, you can drop hte banner on the blood knights as it will be largely ineffective against WoC, if he gets off his uber spell then your not getting ward saves anyway.

Helm of command is better in my opinion than the spell that gives a free round of combat on the basis that it can't be dispelled and gives increased survivability to weak units such as zombies.

One question at clever handle, I noticed you suggest taking nightshroud and an enchanted shield? That's two bits of magic armour, I didn't think you could do that? Happy if I am wrong as I would love to spend the points on a shield for my vamp!


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

I assumed that armor & shield are seperate - couldn't take Walach's Bloody Hauberk & Nightshroud for example as they're both armor... I've been to a couple of tournies with this setup & nobody has complained so I assume it's kosher - kind of like a chaos lord taking the Chaos Rune Shield that negates magic weapons & also taking an armor choice <insert type here - usually see the immunity to killing blow in my opponent as he hates graveguard>

I second what Matty says - WoC have no shooting to really worry about (if you do happen to lose a model or two to maurader axes you can just IoN them back up...) so loose that banner. Also, I believe that many of the Tzeench spells end up being flaming attacks so the regen banner may not be effective (I may be thinking daemons...)

I don't want to give too much "build this list" advice, but I want to suggest running multiple units. Since WoC are very hard bricks to break - especially when fighting sub-par undead warriors pulling flanks, etc is very important - keep their characters out of combat by hitting them in the rear / flank & try to hit them with multiple sides. Warriors don't have any skirmishers to speak of & their fast cav is terrible so try to harry them in the flanks - keep their units from marching with zombies / wolves if you have them & try to gang up on a single unit at a time...


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## cain the betrayer (Oct 12, 2009)

armour and shield are not separeted they are just one section
and is there someting wrong with marauder horseman
they can be almost so hart hitting as chaos knights if they have flails and mok


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## victarion (Dec 15, 2009)

LOl all this trouble and he played his first game as Dwarves last night.

He quit by turn 5 on me. Vlad was bringing it hard and he gave up. Interestingly enough he did it without really "conceding" the loss which was mildly irritating. Especially since he did it at the end of turn 4 in which he had just finished his best attempt at destroying me and failed.



On the Flag of Blood Keep. The Flag of Blood Keep shields the unit from any attack that is ranged. Not just magic missiles. THe letter of the rule is "any ranged attack". The rules are very clear on this. The rules often use the term "magic missle" or "missile attack" for other spells but do not say this here. The Flag of Blood Keep grants a 4+ ward save to the void spell and a host of others.


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

Yeah but WoC don't have any SHOOTING to really concern yourself about - a cannon & mauraders... oh - and angry words...


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## Crimzzen (Jul 9, 2008)

You can't have magic armour and a magic shield. Says so right in the rules about armour - even using magic shield as an example. Sorry bud.


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## Karnox (Feb 27, 2010)

Funny that harry the hammer has bane shield and armor of damnation then. But yeah, you cant have both, which in my oppinion is rather silly if you think about it.


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