# Vampires need help beating Dark Elves



## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

More specifically, Executioners. I played my first bunch of games today as Vampires; my list was as follows.

Vampire Lord with Red Fury, Quickblood, Nightshroud, Sword of Strife, Potion of Strength, Heavy Armour and Shield
Heinrich Kemmler

Konrad Von Carstein

50 Skeletons with Champion and Standard Bearer
60 Skeletons with Champion and Standard Bearer with Banner of Eternal Flame

29 Grave Guard with Great Weapons, Champion and Standard Bearer with the Banner of the Barrows

Terrorgheist
Terrorgheist

I gave a pretty good account of myself against Lizardmen (with an earlier version of the list that had a major weakness in a Master Necromancer being my only Lore of Vampires wizard), soundly beat Tomb Kings but I got totally dominated by these Dark Elves;

Supreme Sorceress general (I believe with a Talisman of Preservation, rolling on Lore of Dark Magic)

Sorceress with Wizard Level 2 and Dispel Scroll
Master BSB (some kind of armour loadout)

50 Dreadspears with Full Command and Banner of Discipline (all characters go here for a LD10 rerollable bubble)
10 Darkshards with Guardmaster and Musician
10 Darkshards with Guardmaster and Musician

30 Executioners with Full Command and Banner of Swiftness
10 Cold One Knights with Lances and Full Command

Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
War Hydra

I had a couple of problems in the game;

1. Magic, casting and dispelling. I got two Invocations and one Danse by the end of turn 3 (whereupon I conceded having one wounded Terrogheist, the Vampire Lord, Kemmler and 5 Grave Guard left on the field), and the Dark Elves were able to reliably push through their own powers (Bladewind was responsible for a pretty significant amount of dead Grave Guard). I'm not really sure how to change this around; I liked the Black Periapt for more Power Dice when I tried it on a Master Necromancer, but I can't bring any Lord level characters if I keep the current setup. There don't seem to be many other ways of getting more dice, which was very problematic when I was needing at least a Danse or Vigour and an Invocation just to stay on par with the Dark Elves and replenish my shooting losses. How do you get good at the magic phase? 

I think this is more a player-based thing (the Dark Elf player is our group's most experienced and certainly best Fantasy player, and went unbeaten throughout all three games), since I had fewer problems stopping Tomb Kings with a Casket and multiple Channels from casting than I did some random Dark Elves (+5 to cast is _nasty_!), so advice on general magic strategy would be appreciated (of course, if there's stuff in the Vampires book that would help, I'm all ears!). NB: In our Triumph and Treachery game, where I could pick a player and make a deal with him to let me cast my Invocations, I did just fine and the army worked wonderfully (and I came second after making a really stupid mistake at half past midnight that cost me first place; resolving a combat where I crushed a unit of Tomb Guard, having forgotten I was engaged with a 500pt + 100pts-for-killing-the-General Slann on the other side of the board). So, obviously once I can cast, I can do well; it's just getting casts that I'm struggling with.

2. Executioners/deathstars in general. I say this because the same player runs a block of 50 Orc Big Uns with Black Orc Warboss, Great Shaman and Big Boss BSB when he uses his OnG and while I haven't played that, I imagine it's similarly difficult to deal with. I couldn't realistically damage them at range (the Terrorgheists were busy going after the Cold One Knights; a task at which they failed dismally), and Lore of Vampires doesn't have anything damaging enough to hurt a 30-man unit of dudes. Nothing I have by way of infantry can stand up to something that's going to kill eighteen or twenty infantry without breaking a sweat - the Grave Guard will just evaporate if they get hit by that, and Skeletons can't kill enough in return to make up for the huge combat resolution casualties. I've looked around and the general advice for killing Executioners is that they're really vulnerable to shooting; this has evident problems as a solution for me. 

So far I've though about finding the points to put my Vampire Lord on a Zombie Dragon, which will cover a lot of guys with the Nightshroud and cause a -1 To Hit penalty (so hitting on 4s, wounding on 6s against the dragon or hitting on 4s, wounding on 5s for the rider), with the Vampire Lord having enough killiness with Red Fury and Quickblood to easily win combat resolution. The big problem with that is Killing Blow; I think it's all but guaranteed that even if you assume that the Vampire Lord strips off the entire back rank, the 20 return attacks will in all probability roll at least one of those magic 6s to wound. The other problem is simply having the second and third ranks of Executioners maintaining their Str6 and killing the Zombie Dragon, which would be very unfortunate.


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## Uveron (Jun 11, 2011)

My first thought. 

And I don't know, but may be you need some chaff units Direworlfs or spirt hosts. They will let you control the engaments. you would also look at dropping Konrad for a necromancer and wraith to act as a body guard. 

Dark Elves are a hard battle for Vampire counts, and I have lost against them more than I won. 

and I only started winning when we swiched to End Times rules with 50% Lords... (Last time I ran a Master Necromancer and Manfred (Count version).


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

I agree with Uveron, I think that you need some chaff drops even slipping some points into Zombies would help especially if you can get that tarpit into the executioners. Other then that the Staff of Damnation is a good item that you can use to either hurt you enemy directly or hinder the battleplan by forcing a unit to stay stationary or take additional hits. Curse of years is also good against the pointy ears and since you have Kemmler you have the spell in your arsenal.

For a footslogging Vampire Lord I like, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Quickblood, Red Fury, Talisman of Preservation and Black Periapt which gives decent combat power and the ability to manipulate the magic phase


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## The Gunslinger (Apr 4, 2011)

Dropping Konrad for a cheap necromancer with a unit of zombies, hell even two if you can find the points, with some units of dire wolves on the flanks would be great. 

Let the vamp with grave guard and the gheists go around killing stuff, you need some tar pits to tie up units. And you need to be dominating the magic phase more, especially against dark elves. 

Unless you are really married to him, i would drop Kemmler for a regular master necro in a zombie unit.


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