My recent opponents haven't fought vampires that much, but they know vampires are the engine which make the VC army run. In combat, however, unless they have a rock hard character with which to attack, they seem to ignore the vampires in favor of rank and file (which the vampire can easily replaced in my next turn). They always assume any vampire is either loaded to the teeth with magic items (including wards), or are just too tough for RnF to tackle. As a results, my vampires rarely get attacked directly.

If only they read the statline that shows a vampire hero is only a little nastier than an orc big boss (T4, 2 wounds)! Oh well, their loss, and my gain. :D

Do other people experience this?

I experience the complete opposite.

9 times out of 10, my general is always targeted by my opponent when they can. If not the general itself, then it's acompanying bodyguard, especially with mass shooting, particularly against dark elves, to the point where by turn 5 I can be pretty much reduced to tears begging my mate to 'quit shooting me!!!' :lol:

As far as other characters go, they too generally tend to be targeted. But targeted with rank and file, and generally not opposing characters. Unless the opposing characters are pretty much tooled to the teeth in which case I can expect to receive a challenge, and they can expect it to be received by my champion. Standard stuff.

But no, I don't find my opponents avoiding my vampires/characters... they fear them, certainly, but they tend to go onto the offence to deal with that fear...

My general has come under cannon and greater demon attack, but my opponents (thus far) have ignored my hero level characters.

A smart opponent will try to take out the VC characters if possible. Some armies lack the tools to do this effectively. Most armies rely on their characters to perform some role, removing them is always helpful. I always try to remove enemy characters if viable.

The scary part is that the Vampires while tough are a long way from unkillable. And given the effect of losing our general I am surprised they are not targeted more.

my general is always targeted, everything that can shoot, cast spells or anything else is always thrown at him and his unit. and you know evey once in a while that "look out sir" roll will fail and the cannon ball will take his head off (i curse all empire and dwarven cannons"

Well, unless you kill the general, it is pretty darned hard to beat a VC army, IMO. Every unit is a tar pit. Even a lowly zombie unit can tie up an opponent's elite unit for most of a game. We have access to enough spell dice that we can reinforce our units almost at will. You can see why playing VC can become a matter of "kill the general = a win , don't kill the general = a loss".

Anyone lost badly and not had their general die?

Actually it not that hard at all to defeat a VC army. With a moderate magic phase and some good fleeing, baiting and CR against you it can seem very daunting at times.

Personally I think out of all my armies VC always would seem like they have to preform very well, or you'll be in a world of hurt. Unlike say my Ogres army where you can basically throw anything together and it will work well, or at least half way decent.

That is funny, because I think exactly the opposite. Ogres have virtually no static CR, fairly low Ld, and have to be used with some level of intelligence, or you just lose, and badly.

VC, on the other hand, are all tar pit units, usually bringing lots of static CR, which never break, never panic, and which you can almost reinforce at will. You can let any VC unit of any size take a charge, and you know the enemy is still going to be there in a turn or two, unless you just get obliterated so badly the unit totally vaporizes. This gives HUGE tactical flexability, because it allows you to set up combo moves that have a very high percentage of coming off. Ogres, on the other hand, rely on doing well in combat every time, or they are S.O.L.

The only real weakness in the VC I see is that it all comes irretrievably apart if one model gets killed. But I have to admit I have only played Empire and Slaneeh-oriented demons so far with my new VC, so do not have a very wide base of experience from which to speak.

My current vampire lord hasn't died yet, I put him in a unit of skeletons and raise them up between 30 and 40 skeletons and all the opponent can do is avoid that unit or attempt to attack it with a good 3rd of his army and leave himself open to flank charges because he will get stuck every time, as long as you protect your flanks with our army and have a good well rounded general who has decent saves you have very little to fear in the way of getting your general killed, at least thats what i've found and I play on a regular basis and many different armies.

Do you play dwarves or empire much? There is only so much you can do to protect your general from cannon fire. Plus, a smart opponent will realize it doesn't matter if he throws a unit (or units) away against your general's unit...all he needs to do is kill one model (your general), and the game is pretty much over unless it is very late into it.

HAHA :lol: can't stop the nightmares Adrfit? That will teach you for playing Skaven!

My friend switched from Empire to Orcs, he LOVED his 2 cannons and was good at guessing. But I only faced it once, nothing happend.

Anyway, strangely now that it is the topic, my Lord has never been targeted, only once, and that was at the end of the game.

But the way I play it, it is like an obstacle course to get at the main baddie to end the level :P

First you have to stop them from marching, I use Fell Bats, they work VERY well!

2nd Have big fast units on the flanks, that will make him have to deal with them first.

3rd When he gets to you, start using Zomz to slow him down.

Lastly The Big Baddie: A Vamp Lord is no piece of cake, even a Casty one. Have units in support, GG with GW do well here.

So I think I use a kinda Phsycoligical game to keep them away. B)