Vs. Vampires, It's too "Dead" in this area ;D

[Ah-a-nothepsis]

Hi! I'd like to talk about Vampires. I'm not sure if this area is being revamped or what, but I'll post here in hopes that it helps someone. I love to help out, even though most of you are a bunch of heathens and I will conquer your cities soon.. but, I digress.

So, you're having problems with Vampires? Never fought them? I'll go over a few things that I have experienced.

Faster Undead?
Vampire armies cannot march, sort of like us.. The only difference is if a unit is within 12" of a Vampire, this changes things.. They can March if that condition is met. Do not forget this.

I hate crumble!
Do you..? Well, when you drop their Vampires and stuff, bad things happen too. You need to have minimum 1 fodder unit to throw at the Vampire Core units so you can fight at important places on the table... Like where his General and wizards are. Kill 'em all. I have faith in you.

Dirty Bloodsucker Magic!:

Some of their spells can be cast multiple times. Usually Invocation of Nehek? Not sure if I'm spot-on about this or not, but in any case you want to ensure that your army has enough dispel dice to counter even an enemy's Level 2 dropping a couple spells and throwing only 1 dice at each.. That can get annoying and you don't want to be chunking too many dice at that crap. I suggest a Dispel Scroll and having a wizard with the +1 to channel spell. These two items help a lot, regardless of your list build. They can charge in the magic phase with Dance Macabre. Ensure that you do not let this happen, because most of the time they will get "ballsy" and move into position for this spell. When you dispel it, there's a good chance you can counter-attack with your own charge...

Big Stuff:

Some players like to take those damn Terrorgeists. Try not to charge it with Sphinxes or Knights. It get's a stand a shoot reaction most of the times. If you must charge it, do so when it's been wounded by shooting and/or the Casket's ability (It's Wounds help it's shooting attack out bigtime).

Sometimes people take Blood Knights. They're very nasty vampires on big horses and if they charge you they will make a mess. Don't bother with bows at them unless you have to, or you've got tons of arrows. Some people laugh at Ushabti but if you know you're going up against Knights (of any Warhammer army), 6 Ushabti with Great Bows are not a bad choice. Cast Smiting on them and watch the Knights drop! A Necrosphinx is good if you can charge Blood Knights. Making sure you can feed a big block of skeletons to them is ideal, while you fight in other places (cast cursed blades on the skeleton chaff with a King in the unit then watch the fun). Casket is great fun to use on Blood Knights, especially if you have a Death Liche Priest for -3 Leadership.

Black Coach: This thing is silly! Hehe. It's a chariot but as the game goes on it can end up flying around and doing nasty stuff. Basically it sucks up power dice on certain dice scores, and uses them to buff itself. If you are more clever than your Vampire opponent, sneak a fairly inexpensive Destroyer King (Or Queen! ) for 250pts in combat with the Coach, preferably after you make him charge some skeletons or even Tomb Guard.

Oh, you don't run a Destroyer King? *GASP*!

Let's go over some benefits of taking this guy against Vampires.

+There are ways that the Vampire player can have Regeneration, even on some highly armored units- Heroic K.B. ignores Regeneration and armor.

+A Prince is always great to use, but the extra Wound on a King helps since your opponent's average combat characters go first anyways..

+There are plenty of other armies out there with monsters, and you should be making a list for any opponent anyways, Right?? "Better to have and not need....", as the saying goes.

+Taking this type of offense King does NOT shut down your protection available to him. I'm sure you've heard of the Potion of Toughness. Well, there you go.. 4 Toughness 5 wounds with a nice heroic killing blow and Toughness 8 if you need it for a turn!! Don't forget about the Herald. While not praised by a few people, adding a few extra wounds when your King get's hurt definitely pays off in a game where your enemy can heal HIS characters but you can't heal YOURS!



I don't have my Vampire codex on me, but hopefully I didn't mess up on their rules too much.. I know it was a little vague. Corrections are welcome!!

Ah-a

[KingRonin]

I don't think they can charge with dance macabre in the the new book