I didn't find any answers to this, so I need some help here.. I play 2000p against Vampire Counts. All undead are immune to psychology and cause fear. They can't break from combat, but they take wounds for every combat resolution they lost combat with. He has a lord that has 10WS (fencers blades) that can give his WS to another unit (helm of commandment). He has 30 grave guards in horde formation with two heroes: In effect, this gives him a 32 model unit with WS 10 (and always hits first with magic (=reroll to hit)) +1 to hit (magical banner), and they have killing blow. (4+ as, 6+ ws) * A BSB, his wight king, who has 3 attacks with killing blow on 5+ (sword of kings), I have to re-roll any ward saves I might get. (4+as, 6+ ws) * Conrad who wounds one more for every wound he makes, re-rolls missed hits and has multiple wounds (2) (and possibly frenzy (+1 attack)). (5+ as) * They have a magical banner (Banner of the barrows) that gives grave guards and wight kings +1 to hit. And as if that wasn't enough, he ressurects them every turn with his 3 wizards (above their initial numbers!) (invocation of nehek + lord of the dead or summon undead horde) with a 3+ casting value spell. So every wizard can cast this spell too, so that's 4 casts that together raise 7D6 wounds. And he can actually cast this spell as many times he wants with every wizard, even on the same unit. He also has a black coach that is lvl 6 after 1-2 turns (because he has 2D6 +4 power dice each turn (master of the black arts)), has a 3+ as, causes terror, is a wizard that too can resurrect other units. With lvl 6 he has 1D6 +1 impact hits, hate all enemies, magic resistance (3), killing blow, etheral and flying. He has a varghulf that has re-rolls to hit, causes terror, has 5 attacks at S5, is a wizard lvl 1, and a 4+ regen save. With magic he eats my units with a no armour save wound and makes spirit ghosts that are etheral and has 4 wounds on a 12+ cast (wind of undeath), they don't do any wounds but can hold ex. a stegadon or my salamanders because I can't hurt it unless I waste my hero on it. With another spell (curse of years, 8+ casting value) he kills my units slowly (really hard against heroes/lords). He can only cast it once per turn. His core is just two skeletons that stands and dies (but with a 5+ as, 6+ ws, magical banner and so on) Can anyone tell me anything that helps? I have tried to bombard him with lore of light but he just resurrects them and he steal my Slann's power dice. His Grave guards have always mashed trough my blocks of saurus and TG + slann.
I am not familiar with Vampire Counts, but that seems a little much for a 2k pts game. I do know that if you kill his main vampire count, his army starts to fall apart. You could take lore of Death for the character sniping spells or Lore of Shadow to lower some of those stats (by d3). You could also take Lore of metal to turn some of his armor saves against him.
My two cents: Couple errors I think in how you're playing. Only vampire characters are wizards, not all units with the vampire rule. So that means the Vargulf is NOT a wizard. Neither is the Black Coach. Nor Konrad (it specifically says in the FAQ he is not.) As I read his lineup, he only has one wizard (the Vamp Lord.) Unless he has another low level guy, he can't double up on Master of the Black Arts for 4 dice, as far I know. I also want to make sure you're not playing that the coach "steals" dice. It absorbs them so they can't be used by either side. The coach also absorbs dice from the VC player as well. So that should cut down on his casting a bit. Anyhow, here is what I have been playing against VC regularly. I am 4-0 so far. I always go with a Light slann. My plan is basically to camp on my side and slow down his GG as much as possible while I burn it with sallies and nuke it with some magic missles. The Net of Amyntok is good for slowing the GG a turn or two. Get your sallies up there on the flanks and start flaming. You can either decimate the skellies or whittle away at the GG. Use some skinks skirmishers to protect the sallies from charges if you can. I also put a couple cammy skinks in the backfield to annoy his coach and try to pick off any lone characters. Or you can try to harass his skellies. Once he finally gets to your blocks of saurus, do whatever you can to get a flank charge on the GG. You want to get ranks on him because you're never gonna kill the GG in combat. You need to whittle it down in combat res. I have never gone down to GG when I get the flank. I like spears against the GG for that extra rank of attacks, but the ward save is also very good. Also you want to take the banner that gives you flaming attacks, to kill his regen. Once close combat has started, start spamming the light buffs (Speed of light, Phas are my faves and give your saurus good staying power.) Keep the Slann nearby for his leadership. You might want to bring a mounted scar vet with Venom of the Firefly to take out those pesky ethereals. If he's tying your steg up with ethereal, try a skink chief with the war spear, it does 2D6+1 magic impact hits. Thats usually enough to take out a spirit host. Also, if he makes his main caster he general alot then take cupped hands and bane head. Thats a fun surprise. As for the black coach, just ignore it. He will have to wait a couple turns for it to warm up. Then start sticking cheap units in front of it to tie it up for a couple turns. Don't bother wasting shots trying to kill it.
Agreed with dmac on all accounts, there's definitely some issues with the Vampire rules. The list sounds legal but the spellcasting is skewed. When I use lore of light on vamps, they just die. Get that Vamp with helm of commandment into combat and he cannot give his weapon skill to anyone else. Use sallies on the grave guard and win. If the lord is with the graveguard then he is doing it wrong.
his varghalf has reganeragtion might be worth it to do any fire atack on him ;P personaly i like to give a slann lore of death spam his general with death magic (witch is easy posible when he has crown of commandment and wants to stay out of close combat) until he is death then his army crumbels and then you kill his other charaters ;P
Thank you so much, this should help me with new strategies against him! That rule help, then he has two vampire lords (one with fencers in a ghoul unit, the other protected by skeleton). I'm sorry for confusing, he uses the Varghulf OR the Black Coach, mostly the coach nowadays. It's good that it takes his dice too, but he only needs 3+/8+ to cast his spells so I'm screwed anyway on that point I made a quick list (2000p) : Slann Mage-Priest General Cube of darkness (redirect miscast) Obsidian Lodestone (magic resistance 3) Bane head (double wounds against a character) Focused mystery (loremaster, light) focused rumination (free power dice) Lore of light (extra damage vs undead, some nice augments too!) 425p Skink Chief Ancient Stegadon War-spear (+D6 impact his) (flanker/hunter, whatever he can) 382p Saurus Warriors 20, Full Command 250p (they wont have time to use spears) Skink Skirmishers 10, brave 76p (harass) Skinks 12, brave, music Kroxigor (counters their fear, adds leadership) 129p (help the saurus and gain some flank bonus if used properly) Skinks 10, brave 58p Temple Guard Full command War banner (+1 combar resolution) (slann protectors, will most likely take the hit from the GG) Salamander (2) 150p Salamander (2) 150p (firepower, will fire away as much as they can, as usual )
If you're afraid of his magic phase, consider the Cube of Darkness. It will definitely stop one spell and has a 50% chance of ending the magic phase. Use it on his first spell on a turn when he has a lot of power dice and it can ruin his day. But that said, I haven't found VC magic to be that much of a threat for 2 main reasons: 1. As others pointed out, the Black Coach takes his Power Dice also, which usually costs him a couple. 2. If any casting roll is a natural 1 or 2, then the spell fails and the Wizard is done for that phase. So VC can't spam 1 dice Invocations, at least not without a lot of risk. So even with a 3+ casting value, if he is using 2 or more dice per spell, he'll only be able to cast a few spells per turn, and a Slann should be able to dispel several of those.
The important thing is to stop him casting. The next thing is to stop the Black Coach, as it can very quickly be a real nuisance. And soon spells wont help, as it can have MR3 + its 4+ ward. Killing the general helps too, but that is not essential. Your units will usually be better, try to rack up CR. Your list looks strong, but you may have trouble with the Coach, try and kill it quickly. I say this as a player who primarily uses VC.
As others have said, he really only has 1 legal caster, the vamp lord. If you take Becalming cogitation on your Slann you will give him fits when trying to cast on 2 dice. Say he is rolling two dice to cast all of his spells, because he is scared of rolling a single 1 or 2 and failing out for the phase (if he's not, he needs to read 8th ed rules). So rolling 2 dice, there 36 possible roll outcomes. A natural 1 (not possible) or 2 will end his magic phase and auto-fail to cast. Also a double 6 will go off irresistible with a miscast, something not very desirable when casting such low spells. This means only 2 out of 36 rolls are bad for the VC caster normally. He will roll successfully 94% of the time, which is pretty darn reliable. Now say you take becalming cogitation. This means he ignores sixes completely. This increases the number of ways for him to fail to cast. Still fails on (1,1) and (6,6), but now also fails on (6,2), (6,1), (2,6), and (1,6). In other words, his chance to fail is tripled. Casting reliability is now 83%, which he will on occasion fail. And failing now means an end to the magic phase for that caster. The benefits don't end there, because even though rolls like (3,6) and (4,6) will still go off, they will be far easier to dispel than before.
Hello, I'm quite new to WHFB, but, I'm a fast learner First of All, Master of the Black art can't give you more than 12 Dice, this is quite important. GG death ball is very effective but salamanders qill definetly be usefull. You can't mis a block of this size Have you tried the Engine of the Gods? vs undead this is a Str5 hit with no AS... Also undead are known for thier low I value (not as low as ours though, but I3 vs the Purple sun is quite nice i think. And yes, the Black coach eats his dice also and he is not a wizard... neither is the vargwolf.
Also, I think it's worth mentioning that Invocation of Nehek goes off on a 4+, not a 3+. Not much of a difference, but you never know.
Lugoffo, do us all a favor and smack your opponent up side the head for being a dastardly cheater. That guy is steight abusing you! Read VERY carefully on the magic rules and check out his army book (I'm sure your local game store will let you stand at the rack and read up on the book if you don't wanna buy it). I mean this guy is Vampire Counts, not Chaos Mortals or Skaven! He can't have this much cheese!
They can do cheese. One of our players does VC and is very pleased to share what cheese he comes up with for his VC. They just don't cheese like Chaos Mortals or Skaven.
no, he has a power that lets him have -1 to cast it, dont know what it is... I'll try to smack him next time
That would only work on certain units- three different powers- Skeles is one, Ghouls another and Fell bats and bat swarms the third power.
I played agaibst him lady night, and I didn't win. Was a close one though! I mashed his ghosts + banshees with my stegadon war spear, and my skinks actually beat his skeletons! My tg failed me and rolled one inch too few - they could have killed that caster if his but instead the gg and skeletons flanked me and the rest of my army was too far away to help...
just played a 3k game last night against (you guessed it) VC. I didn't know who I was playing for the tournament, so i brought my heavens list to work with me (didnt have time to go home before the game). i ended up tweaking it slightly when i found out what army i was playing (our tournaments are more like league games, first one to 25 pts overall wins). heres the list i ended up with: Slann: Rumination, Focus, BSB, Flaming Banner, Cube Slann: Rumination, Focus, Dispel Tetto Priest: Lvl 2, Engine 50 Saurus: command, spears 24 Skinks 10 Chameleon skinks 10 Chameleon skinks 2 Salamanders: 1 extra handler 2 Salamanders: 1 extra handler 2 Salamanders 2 Salamanders His army was: 86 Skeletons 5 Spirit Hosts 4 Wraiths, 1 Banshee, 1 Etheral Vamp 1 Solo Vamp 24-30 Grave Guard, Wight Kink, BSB, Another Vamp I think that was it. Overall the game went mostly in may favor. I avoided the spirit hosts for the most part (they killed off a lone sallie and the 2 depleted units of cham skinks). His grave guard/characters never got into combat (failed theyre charge on turn 6 into my big block by 1"). His skellies did a good job taking out some sallies and tetto's unit, which was good because of placement (had my solo slann too far away from the big block at that point). I would say that if you don't take Light against them, your just being silly. It easily won me the game. Sallies had some decent rounds of shooting (took out 25-30 skellies in 1 round) and the engine killed off a good bit of the wraiths and the etheral vamp once the unit was gone, but the sig spell and banishment destroyed his characters and the grave guard. Turn 1 saw me take out the solo vamp with that helm of command thing. I just kept chipping away at the unit from there. Had mostly below average WoM rolls too, nothing special (I believe it was 4, 6, 7, 8, 5, 7 before channeling). By the time the failed turn 6 charge came about, he was down to 2 GG and the 3 characters. Take 2 slanns, take light, and laugh with glee (you'll need a bigger game than 2k for this to work obviously)