# Tomb Kings vs Vampire Counts



## LordofFenris

So. I played my Tomb Kings against the new VC for the first time, and it did not turn out well. Granted my opponent had a very good turn 1 magic phase, it was a quick stomp. I now have to figure out a few things:

1. How to put a stop to the VC lore....I will need better dispel.
2. How to combat the Ethereal Skirmishers....not good. I will need magic weapons
3. I was under the impression that no two caster can have the same spell from the same lore....my opponent had two level 2's with the VC lore sig.

So I need a few tips on how to combat this. 

Now I will lament:
It seems to me, granted after one game, that the revamped VC may be a little too strong if you are not packing an army well versed at shooting. No Str3 bows do not count. VC now do everything Tomb Kings do, but better...except shooting. VC don't do that at all. Examples I noticed:

Look at Grave Guard vs Tomb Guard. Almost the same profile, minus some Ld I believe. However, for the same price, they come equipped w heavy armor, while Tomb Guard only get Light. Add to that, for one more pt, you can get a great weapon. In order for Tomb Guard to go up one str, not two, you need to pay two pts. And the base cost is the same for a Tomb or Grave Guard.
Magic? Not even close. The last two spells in the Lore of Nehekhara are useless. I need to raise bodies, not mess with peoples stats or create vortex's. Nothing in the VC lore is bad. It also seems to me that TK got beat in the Monstrous Infantry category. I thought Ushabti were supposed to be good? In a stand up battle vs the Man-Bat VC there was NO comparison...I fear to see what the MI Ghouls will be like. I can hear those who don't agree w me now: "But you have chariots as core". Thats nice. Doesn't help much when VC can throw units of Zombies in the way, or worse, those damn 1+ Ethereal Skirmisher units. If I have no magic weapons or magical attacks I can't even hurt you? Oh surprise! Another undead army has no magical attacks except for the big boss special character, (See my other thread). And I heard that if your Vampire Lord dies, and another Vampire is present, you can pass the army's generalship to him...to avoid crumble? Can TK do that? Nope. Your Heirophant dies, so will you eventually. whew.
So in short...help me. I have no clue how to deal with them other than spam magic weapons, dispel scroll, multiple casters. I won't say they are broken or cheesy, there has to be a way to exploit their weaknesses. I know killing the Vamps will do it, but I'm not sure what the TK have access too so they can accomplish this. Lore of Death? Arkhan the Black? Horded Ubshati w Great bows?


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## Barnster

Monsters? Can VCs call huge sphinxs and other giant constructs? Nope, The mortis engine and terrorgheist could be a thorn if your opponant takes them though

With VCs the key is as it always has been killing characters, catapults and monsters can do this pretty easily, if you can start to knock out the characters you win, all you have to do is do this without losing your characters,its not easy but it is doable, you can pretty much ignore the rest of the army then as most of the stats are no better than yours and your unbreakable so wont be running away.

combine charges knock out a unit with combat res and jonnys your uncle, the vamp is all alone and will fall, its tough to do but is doable 

Take as many liches as you can to increase the chance of getting offensive spells and to reduces VC magic ability


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## Lord Azune

LordofFenris said:


> So. I played my Tomb Kings against the new VC for the first time, and it did not turn out well. Granted my opponent had a very good turn 1 magic phase, it was a quick stomp. I now have to figure out a few things:
> 
> 1. How to put a stop to the VC lore....I will need better dispel.
> 2. How to combat the Ethereal Skirmishers....not good. I will need magic weapons
> 3. I was under the impression that no two caster can have the same spell from the same lore....my opponent had two level 2's with the VC lore sig.
> 
> So I need a few tips on how to combat this.
> 
> Now I will lament:
> It seems to me, granted after one game, that the revamped VC may be a little too strong if you are not packing an army well versed at shooting. No Str3 bows do not count. VC now do everything Tomb Kings do, but better...except shooting. VC don't do that at all. Examples I noticed:
> 
> Look at Grave Guard vs Tomb Guard. Almost the same profile, minus some Ld I believe. However, for the same price, they come equipped w heavy armor, while Tomb Guard only get Light. Add to that, for one more pt, you can get a great weapon. In order for Tomb Guard to go up one str, not two, you need to pay two pts. And the base cost is the same for a Tomb or Grave Guard.
> Magic? Not even close. The last two spells in the Lore of Nehekhara are useless. I need to raise bodies, not mess with peoples stats or create vortex's. Nothing in the VC lore is bad. It also seems to me that TK got beat in the Monstrous Infantry category. I thought Ushabti were supposed to be good? In a stand up battle vs the Man-Bat VC there was NO comparison...I fear to see what the MI Ghouls will be like. I can hear those who don't agree w me now: "But you have chariots as core". Thats nice. Doesn't help much when VC can throw units of Zombies in the way, or worse, those damn 1+ Ethereal Skirmisher units. If I have no magic weapons or magical attacks I can't even hurt you? Oh surprise! Another undead army has no magical attacks except for the big boss special character, (See my other thread). And I heard that if your Vampire Lord dies, and another Vampire is present, you can pass the army's generalship to him...to avoid crumble? Can TK do that? Nope. Your Heirophant dies, so will you eventually. whew.
> So in short...help me. I have no clue how to deal with them other than spam magic weapons, dispel scroll, multiple casters. I won't say they are broken or cheesy, there has to be a way to exploit their weaknesses. I know killing the Vamps will do it, but I'm not sure what the TK have access too so they can accomplish this. Lore of Death? Arkhan the Black? Horded Ubshati w Great bows?


Any number of wizards can have the signature spell, its deemed to be the "essential spell" of the lore and thus every wizard can know it. Personally I'd go with a pair of Lvl 4 Liche High Priests. Pulling out a Heiro with Lore of Nehk and a Lvl 4 with Lore of Light. Banishment = 3d6 auto hits str 4 +1 per light wizard, which you can include more of in your heroes. Shem's burning gaze (signature spell) does 2d6 str 4/6 flaming. (Heirotitan works wonders for this giving you an extra d3 to casting per spell cast.)

Lore of Death also works for focusing on the vampire characters themselves. I think you can overwhelm his blocks of summoning with banishment though for what its worth.

Screaming Skull Catapults are also awesome due to magical flaming attacks.

Refering back to the Heirotitan, he also has the bound spell Shem's burning gaze, allowing you to pretty much force irresistable if you so choose.


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## Warsmith Drewgie

Wow the TK catapult is magical flaming attacks, NICE. I am assuming it uses the same stone thrower template. That is your answer, a direct hit from one of those bad boys is going to cause more damage than we can resurrect. In response to your statement of another vamp being present negates the army crumbling, it's actually not just another vamp, it's any character with the lore of vampires, so necromancers would suffice as well. However at the end of the phase that the general dies in, every unit takes a crumble test. The supporting characters don't come into play until the start of the next VC turn.


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## Creon

Fighting ethereal badness. 

1) Flaming Banner on a skellie unit. Instant magic attacks
2) Overwhelm with CR with a Skellie unit. Bam. Crumble to dust.
3) Magic Vortexes. Yeah, I know, the TK vortex sucks, but it does destroy ethereal units.


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## Aramoro

It's worth noting the Banner of Eternal Flame doesn't actually make your attacks Magical, just flaming.


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## aboytervigon

It's no good vampires got everything tomb kings should of got and more, there's nothing you can do that he can't raise back easy and simply.


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## Farseer Darvaleth

aboytervigon said:


> It's no good vampires got everything tomb kings should of got and more, there's nothing you can do that he can't raise back easy and simply.


... have you forgotten VC have no shooting? :laugh:


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## Ravion

Not to mention that the number of magic item we use to have has now been reduced to 9.


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## experiment 626

Farseer Darvaleth said:


> ... have you forgotten VC have no shooting? :laugh:


Not to mention we also have to deal with;
- lower Ld across every unit & character outside of Vampire Lords
- 'Hierophant' + 'Army General' rolled into the same package so no chance for 'inspiring presence' to mitigate our crumbling
- characters needing to carry the army
- no more re-casting
- no more loremaster power
- no more drakenhof banner or helm
- all the big damage dealers coming mainly from our Rares section

Sure, it sucks how TK's can still get hard-hitting core chariots, numerous constructs, fighty characters who make their skittles WS5+, a shooting phase, war machines...

You know what, it's almost like VC's & TK's *are ment to be two entirely unique armies!!!*



Ravion said:


> Not to mention that the number of magic item we use to have has now been reduced to 9.


Ah, but so far I think we've honestly gotten the best item list of the first 4 books, so we need to be a bit humble here.:blush:

- Orcs&Gobbos got the epic shaft and have a pile of worthless crap
- Tomb Kings have about 4-5 'good' items, with only one of them (the death mask) being OMG-amazing-good!!1!
- Ogres have 10 items total, but still have a number of duds and the Big Names are pretty 'meh' too...

On the other hand, I can find a viable and decently competitive use for every single one of our items!


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## LordofFenris

experiment 626 said:


> Not to mention we also have to deal with;
> - lower Ld across every unit & character outside of Vampire Lords
> - 'Hierophant' + 'Army General' rolled into the same package so no chance for 'inspiring presence' to mitigate our crumbling
> - characters needing to carry the army
> - no more re-casting
> - no more loremaster power
> - no more drakenhof banner or helm
> - all the big damage dealers coming mainly from our Rares section
> 
> Sure, it sucks how TK's can still get hard-hitting core chariots, numerous constructs, fighty characters who make their skittles WS5+, a shooting phase, war machines...
> 
> You know what, it's almost like VC's & TK's *are ment to be two entirely unique armies!!!*
> 
> 
> 
> Ah, but so far I think we've honestly gotten the best item list of the first 4 books, so we need to be a bit humble here.:blush:
> 
> - Orcs&Gobbos got the epic shaft and have a pile of worthless crap
> - Tomb Kings have about 4-5 'good' items, with only one of them (the death mask) being OMG-amazing-good!!1!
> - Ogres have 10 items total, but still have a number of duds and the Big Names are pretty 'meh' too...
> 
> On the other hand, I can find a viable and decently competitive use for every single one of our items!


hmm...I didn't know you could CR that ethereal unit. You aren't going to be able to hurt it since its ethereal, so I guess if you have ranks, banners, ect you could win that. Didn't know they crumbled that way.

I would say as far as characters, VC and TK are pretty much the same. It was mentioned that it is one of VC's drawbacks. A drawback it shares with Tomb Kings. The only exception is once our Heirophant is dead, no one else can take control. Crumble happens. One needs to take themselves out of the role of a VC player and look at it from an objective angle...Are VC broken? Not at all. Are they top tier now? Probably. How any one can argue that an army that can raise more units than it started with is bad, they need a better grasp on this game. TK are the VC's little brother now, instead of it being the other way around to reflect the fluff. The one thing TK does well is beefing up skeletons. Yes you can make a horde of 40 skeletons WS5 and Hatred, but its a minimum 160pts inventment in Heroes to do so.


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## Aramoro

LordofFenris said:


> hmm...I didn't know you could CR that ethereal unit. You aren't going to be able to hurt it since its ethereal, so I guess if you have ranks, banners, ect you could win that. Didn't know they crumbled that way.


Here's the kicker, Unstable Ethereal units suffer double crumble from being Unstable and Ethereal as well, so 2 wounds per point they lose combat by. 

I will add the caveat that I haven't read the new VC book but i'm assuming they are Unstable and Ethereal.


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## Abomination

I think TK's certainly got the raw end of the deal. They still have an excellent book don't get me wrong. But I think the VC book does have a higher power level. Which to be fair I think is Mr Cruddance's fault. He seems to conservative and cautious. The TK's are still competitive against them though. The best way to combat them is xp and learn about them.


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## Farseer Darvaleth

Abomination said:


> I think TK's certainly got the raw end of the deal. They still have an excellent book don't get me wrong. But I think the VC book does have a higher power level. Which to be fair I think is Mr Cruddance's fault. He seems to conservative and cautious. The TK's are still competitive against them though. The best way to combat them is xp and learn about them.


The exact same was said, but the other way around, when TK came out. Just wait a little while and everything will settle.


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## experiment 626

Aramoro said:


> Here's the kicker, Unstable Ethereal units suffer double crumble from being Unstable and Ethereal as well, so 2 wounds per point they lose combat by.
> 
> I will add the caveat that I haven't read the new VC book but i'm assuming they are Unstable and Ethereal.


Since when?!!
Ethereal is a whole seperate rule from unstable in the BRB and there's nothing anywhere in the rulebook that states ethereal = unstable...

Is this a new faq on the GW site or something?


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## CoNnZ

-I see a lot of value in 6-dicing the Casket for opening turns. The area around the Vampire general is going to be packed with infantry units that are all trying to march, which is going to leave support units, cavalry, monsters out on the flanks where their low Leadership makes them vulnerable. Either way, VC strike me as THE army for Light of Death to have an impact.

-Lots of low-initiative units, which should let Stalkers have a field day. I think they're going to be a truly outstanding counter to some of the units that other armies really fear, such as multiple Terrorgheists.

-Dedicated casting, or dedicated combat, but no great way to have both. The ability to mitigate a bad winds roll requires almost all of a Vampire Lord's gift allowance, meaning a VC player is surrendering a lot of combat effectiveness this way. Similarly, to get a Vamp Lord to a high casting level, you're looking at a very expensive model who is wasting its stat line to modify a single winds roll. I don't think this option will be very appealing, since a lot of VC players are already leaning towards a tough-as-nails combat Lord (vulnerable to KB, by the way) with a Level 4 Necromancer for support. This creates a very diverse character allowance, but nothing special in terms of actually casting spells. Pick the spell that makes you nervous, stop it/scroll it.

-Their Leadership bomb (3D6 Ld test/re-roll passed Fear/-1 Ld combination) doesn't work against Tomb Kings; we dont take Fear tests. Yay. 

The bunkered Cairn Wraiths inside big Skeleton blocks for static combat resolution are prbably the ones to be concerned about. However, a King with a magic weapon can counter that pretty effectively; just watch out for the Cairn Wraiths hopping out of the Skellies to block/redirect. TK should be playing a largely defensive game against VC though, so we'll usually have time to reshuffle our battle line in anticipation of those kinds of maneuvers.

-Very expensive Ghouls means that VC Core will either consist of easy-to-kill zombies/skellies, or relatively few Ghouls that won't have access to Helm of Command like they used to. 

-Sphynx will allow options for tanking VC threats, but watch out for Ethereal blocks, Terrorgheist screams, or Potion of Strength-toting Vamp Count Lords.

-Overall make sure you go lore of light and have plenty of stalkers. Can be hard to do but it can be done. Was hard initially for me but after some practice you should know how to deal with thm


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## olderplayer

When I compare VC with TK magic lores, TK kind of got cheated. I feel like the author of the VC book really thought very carefully about how to make the army competitive and interesting, with multiple possible army builds, and learned from mistakes and the limitations in the new TK book. Unfortunately, I think TK is the weakest book in terms of competitiveness of the four new books in 8th edition. VC has more viable core options and the ability to spam Nehek and the area wide effect is huge. VC's has access to ethereals, better cav units, better monstrous infantry in crypt horrors and vargheists, and better characters with vamps having decent vampiric powers and the ability to fight and cast. They made dedicated casters in necromansers reasonably priced and able to take much of the casting risk off the vamps. TK gets better shooting and the casket and hierotitan and necrosphinx. 

Yes, they took away the Helm and the regen banner and took away some of the abilities of Danse and downgraded the winds and raise dead spells, but they boosted Nehek (all units in range benefit, D6+ level models restored per infantry unit, non-infantry units like BK and crypt horrors can regrow 1+ level wounds, and a necro with master of the dead can increase skelly units above starting size) and gave VC a great lore attribute and limited to crumble rule when the general dies.


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