there are 4 of us that play constantly ,me tomb kings, dwarfs, and the vampire cunts. I can handle most everbody else but the vampires. I must have played VC about 100 times and the only times i win is with the use of 3 or more steggies. (basically out chesse the cheese) the last time i played him, he ran 4 yes 4 units of blackies with a flying V lord and flying V hero (both w/ scout ability), along with a vamp and nerco in fodder units and a vargulf. i came with slanny 2 EoTG skinks and cube caddy. 2 uints of 16skink 2kroxis, skink skirms, 20TG and a unit of sallys. Basically what happened was his flyers attacked and broke sallys, blackies ran up the board (ethereal) ignoring terrain, slaying all in there way via flanks and whatnot. my magic was bismal, all his units were either in combat or out of los form casters. by turn 3 i threw my movement trays accross the room and quit, i was very bitter for the rest of the afternoon. its seems whatever i run against the VC he has somthing to counter me. i am fed up with these bastards and will do anythig to seek my revenge. if you have any army ideas or some tactics that you think would help rid lustria of these scum bags, much would be appreciated...hell, id even be happy with a draw at this point.
Leave the muppets (ranked skinks) at home. And not just against VC. And against VC 3 or 4 steggies aren't called cheese, they're called survival. Cheers!
i honstly fail to see the problem. black knights get killed by anything really. starting from spirit of the forge and the burning algnment to the common ranked saurus once they get to use spears. varghuls are some of teh weakest monsters in the game and should also fall to anything in the LM army. the vampires should be shut down with the slann and skinks, they should generate enough DD's, a cube and diadem go a long way aswell. also don't use ranked skinks, even TK skelletons eat them for breakfast. stay behind and blast his knights with magic, spirit of the forge + urnaons thunderbolt and even a rod of storm should take care of the knights while rule of burning iron + banehead will take care of his general unless he is unarmored. after that start sniping vampires while his army crumbles
my thought was to add terradons and i see your point with the skinks, just like to use them to protect my TG flank. i guess steggies could fill that role. as for my core selection would it be wise to go skink skirms or saurus'. i was also thinkin of adding a couple swarms as a tar pit any thoughts ? thanks for the feedback
terradons are quite awesome, especially if he scouts his vampires near them. they don't have to see the vamps to drop rocks on their heads and i doubt he can scout them in units. also you could consider running a lone slann and spend he TG points on more saurus or COC. there's a risk with doing that ofcourse but if you keep your slann protected from far charges it could save you
also the way you describe it, it sounds like he's using 4 units of black knights with the ethereal banner on each, whereas you can only use one per army of course. and as said, it's only ethereal for movement! can you confirm? again, as stated, black knights i would actually rate as fairly shabby. unless lead by a killer CC vampire, they're not that great. as an aside, a flying vampire lord and hero scouting sounds really harsh, but also really risky on his part - you can snipe them down with shooting/magic as they have no units to hide in right? if they're flying scouts, i cant imagine they have much in the defensive department. or the combat... or the magic department for that matter.... .... how did you loose again?
black knights have etheral movement by default. its the regen banner that makes people call a black knight unit cheesy, you might be thinking of that. and indeed, scouting a hero is very risky, there are a lot of things you can do to kill them. starting from dropping rocks on his head to burning algnment, throwing spells at him with a skink priest thats 2" away, both heavens magic missiles and other chaneeled through the slann and it can even go so far as to get you slann within range to cast the "all units within X" that YD6 SZ hits"
ah right, my bad. when people talk cheese on VC, i'm used to seeing the blood knights with the regen banner and the 4+ ward against shooting banner. seems a waste to put the regen banner on black knights tbh.... that would make the unit enormously expensive. plus iirc they only retain thier ethereal movement while they have no characters with them or something, is that right? so how would they have the regen banner while moving ethereal? or am i just totally confusing the rules here....
its the horse that grants them ethereal movement and a vampire can get the same horse. and a unit of 8 black knights with a vamp that has blood drinker (every unsaved wound revies a knight) and another BSB with regen banner is allmost impossible to take out. the fun part about the same combo on blood knights is that they are frenzied and are probably going to chase a unit of terradons all game arround, skinks work too.
Although I'm fairly certain that the characters horse does not have the ethereal movement and actually makes the unit lose the bonus
Found it; the Black Knights ride Skeletal Steeds, which give them the ethereal movement. Vampires can ride Nightmares, which have better stats, but don't have the ethereal movement, so if a Vamp joins the unit then the Black Knights will lose it.
thanks wolf, i was fairly certain i wasnt going crazy... well on this subject anyways so can we now confirm that this 'combo' in fact doesnt work, at least as far as the ethereal movement goes? still a pretty nasty unit mind...
i'm not an expert on vampires. i played them a few times but this problem never came up, nor is it that important. if you don't have etheral movement you just avoid dificult terrain and it still kills you
A couple of things with vampires. First, you have to know the list. They are one of the hardest lists to beat if you don't know how to fight them. Once you figure it out, you are set. The single most important thing about vampires is their characters. Their entire army lives on its characters. If you can kill them, you win. Simple as that. Frequently they will have all 4 characters they are allowed. This frequently means 10+ power dice plus bound items. They now have the ability to beat you do death, and out magic you. Once you start killing their characters they start to lose their edge in the magic phase. They may have a lord with 6 pd, but with all of the LM anti magic, that is not a major problem. With this in mind, make every effort possible to kill their characters. If it means losing a stegadon just to kill a hero, know that you are the one what comes out ahead. The other thing is you need to have a good idea of what tricks your opponent will have up their sleave. The most important is the ability to use a bound 3, magical moment. Every Vampire player will have the item, if not, they are a poor general. It is to good not to take. FOr this reason alone, know that your opponent will have it. The final thing is that you have to know what spells are worth dispelling. This is probably the hardest part about fighting the army. There are some spells that you will generally want to let through. Early game, let the movement spells go. If he is not going to be trying to charge you, odds are he is just pulling your dice. In the mid game, look for what charges he can magically get. Set some dispel dice aside to stop those spells. If this means you don't dispel anything else, fine. Just take the damage, and let his raise more skeletons. One of other thing, you have to be willing to let your opponent raise a ton of skeletons/zombies/ghouls. There really is really not a big problem with this. They have some many dice, you can't really stop them. The important thing is knowing when to stop them. If they have unit that is about to die, stop those. If they are healing a hero, don't let them. The other thing about healing units, is know they are going to cast the spell again. Most vampires cast on a 3+ to raise troops. For this reason, don't throw dispel dice when he rolls a 5 or 6. Use your dispel dice when he rolls a 2 or 3. This makes you much more likely to stop the spell. Fighting vampires is hard as a new general, but once you figure them out they can be beaten.
Have been playing VC quite a lot lately. Killing his heroes shuts down his magic phase and dispel strength. CO's are very good vs VC and can often take out a hero by themselves. CoJW is very good at killing heroes, get in, kill the hero (you have 2 cobat phase to do so,) then get out, not geting bogged down with a millon skellies or zombies. I run a SV with CoJW, F Frog (poison and magical for ethereal). Also EoTG with War Durms works real good, just have to watch out for the VC movement spell. Slan with metal or beasts is all good too. Would add more but gtg Samuel
Heres a few tips i use against vamps. Drop ranked units of skinks and any kroxigors. For my core I would take 3 units of skirmsh skinks. Two with blowpipes and one with javilins since there always hitting on 4's mostly. I like to take 2 units of 12 saurus with command and spears for the rank bonus. Saurus cavalry are good for the purpose that they cause fear so they cant be outnumbered by a fear causer since they theselves cause fear. The two eotg are nice but I like to take one eotg and another reg steg with war spear. In most cases tat will run through a unit. Add terridons to your list! there a must. Sometimes i like to run a unit of 4 with a close combat chief in the unit for hunting your lvl 2 vamps or your casting vamps. Drop your rocks, throw your javs, then rear charge on your next turn.
thank you all for your help, by far the best warhammer forum. you guys are great! im gonna take down the VC tomorrow ill let you know how i make out