So I’m pondering expanding my tiny Storm of Magic Vampire Counts army into a full Vampire Counts army. While reading the VC book my mind drifted to figuring out how to stop Dire Wolves to stop running roughshod over my skinks when I play VC. Normally I get worried about them killing my Salamanders or flanking my Saurus so I end up trying to speed bump them with Skink Skirmishers. Then I’m stuck with a very hard choice. Run and risk their nine inch move catching the Skinks or try to stand and shoot and risk my skinks getting swept aside by a superior close combat foe. Then I thought what about Razordons? Place a Razordon team in front of where the dire wolves deploy. They Vanguard forward, probably within 18 inches of the Razordon(s). The team advances, shoots some spikes at the wolves. Next turn the wolves charge and face a stand and shoot. After two rounds of shooting there wouldn’t be many wolves left. Then close combat happens, the Razordon and Skinks go on I4 and probably take down a few more wolves. There are very few wolves to attack back, so the LM probably win combat, then the remaining wolves crumble away. Would this work? Would this work for other light Vanguard troops from other armies?
I would think so. I mean he does produce two artillery dice worth of shots when he stand-and-shoots. Of course getting misfires are always a risk. I say paper only shows you one thing, until you put it on the board and give it at least three whirls you won't know.
usually direwolves come in units of 5 for 40 points. they can not do anything to the sauruses, not even if combined with another unit in the flank (the sauruses will actually do more damage if hes silly enough to flank them with direwolves since the guys on the flank can do 2 attacks instead of just support then. anyway, they are no big threat to you combat units except as redirectors. THATS what they are for, and you can not ignore them there. salamanders will indeed make minced meat of them, but tbh so will skinks (especially if armed with javelins). you can move, shoot, the stand and shoot and then you strike first. you should win that combat easily. no need to bring out a very specialized unit when the run of the mill skink units you already (should) have will do the job just as well.
Understandable, my local vampire player tends to field them in groups of 10 or just shy of 10. He had some complex logic for 8 being the perfect size in fact. I don't remember why but it his lists usually have 8 or 16.
10x Blowpipe skinks can handle 5 dire wolves pretty well... same goes for the chaos hounds in the WoC book. Ive never faced a unit of 10 before, but Id put money on the skinks. Just stay far enough away to get the Stand and Shoot when they charge. Flesh Hounds of Khorne from the Demons book however... thats a different story!