New Vampire Counts Army Book

[F.K.M]

OOOOhhhh god this is sooooo very sexy.

Comes out in two weeks. I think i will share my roommate's VC army with him and buy models for it. I feel sort of bad he got the old garbage black coach when the new one may be coming in a month or so but whatever. Many new plastic kits instead of metal or finecast crap. Lots of monstrous infantry (one unit that flies and is like a mini-version of the varghulf and then a more bad ass version of the crypt ghouls) and big units coming (for lords and as rare choices) as well as a new cavalry unit. At least a couple new lord choices are coming. We also have a bunch of named characters as well. Please, please, please, release some of the named bad asses from the previous army book. I want to see the dude that dueled and killed a dragon in 1 on 1 combat and sucked its blood to overcome his thirst for blood, zacharias on zombie dragon in a new kit, the bretonnian vampire red duke and a couple others. Please don't just focus on the van carsteins this time. There were so many other vampires in the lore that got absolutely shafted.

www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/400542.page

Knowing 8th edition army books they'll probably take out most of the banners and items so that you have to use the main rulebook's crap. Sure a lot of the army books had garbage items nobody used but making us have to use rulebook items prevents faction variety. I don't know it's a mild complaint i have. Not to mention orcs and goblins got 3 good banners and you need a BSB for each one i think. Now since you can only have one BSB in your army that meant you could only use one of the army book's banners and the rest had to come from the 8th edition rulebook. Pretty lame guys i've gotta say that. Sure all 3 banners were cool but what's the point of only using one race specific banner a game. That's just pathetic.

[Hookah, S.C.]

Sweeeeet. VC is my fave WHFB army. I just wish Lamian vamps weren't so nuts. Here's to hoping there decent in this army.

[Rommel's Eighty-Eights]

That's awesome I was thinking about buying some for my girlfriend to paint and maybe play and if these new models are as cool as you make them sound then I'll be running to the store. Thanks for the heads up....

88's

[F.K.M]

Well i sent you guys the article. I mean it's just rumors but we'll get the release in 2 weeks if it's true. That's pretty cool though as the wait isn't very long. The models look spectacular in some cases. The 2 model kit with all those ghosts streaming from it with vampire women or some necromancer dude on it are just awesome. Spectacular model and i'm surprised it's from GW and not from forge world or similar. It looks almost too good for a GW model and so detailed and intricate. Funny how a couple people even mentioned they wouldn't paint it for fear of their painting skills diminishing its greatness. Now that i've seen it they could use more lost souls floating under it but the one with the necromancer dude has 3 or so floating around the top already so i'll go easy on them.

[F.K.M]

Looks like GW just announced it.

www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=19900003a

[RedsandRoyals]

Yeah, Trooper and I saw their snazzy new stuff in White Dwarf today. The Mortis Engine/ Coven Throne looks astounding, and has some pretty disgusting rules. Also (SPOILERS) Jervis Johnson manages to lose to High Elves with the new VC book.

Reds

[F.K.M]

Well high elves are pretty stupid. You are aware high elf magic and close combat is pretty OP and stupid right? In fact the best way to kill them is with shooting and VC have almost none of that. In fact a lot of armies almost have no shooting available to them esp. outside of war machines. Dwarfs, wood elves and empire usually tend to rape high elf armies though. You can beat high elves but it's tricky and usually you need to use beefy units that can take a beating or use magic or shooting against them. The unfortunate thing about VC magic is most of it is hexes and augments and mostly about rebuilding your army. Unless they have more access to the other lores of magic like a certain vampiric power allowed in the previous army book i don't see this changing much. For VC pretty much all you can do is use ethereal units up the [not a very nice person] and hope it works or use the high toughness units like crypt horrors (supposedly toughness 5 with 3 wounds and a +5 regeneration which should be tough to kill even without boosts) though i'd bet the heavily armored knights can do a good job too.

Sad thing is skeletons and zombies are always unbreakable though they lose guys every time they lose combat. The unfortunate thing is steadfast (stubborn for more ranks) is a helpful 8th edition rule most helpful for armies with a lot of ranks or troops. Sad thing is undead are made to have a lot of numbers but you have to deal with losing guys. I suppose the problem with steadfast and unstable (unbreakable but slowly dies when losing combat) is it's just like stubborn and and fearless in 40k. Really you have to deal with the benefits and downsides of both though i'd prefer i high stubborn ability or unbreakable. Luckily with skaven all i have to do is throw in a plague furnace or screaming bell and everybody pushing it into battle is unbreakable instantly.

As far as the coven throne and mortis engine go i think rule-wise i'd prefer the coven throne but that's just me. I think i preferred the look of the mortis engine though. I'd like to see a few more of the rules and possibilities before i make any more decisions though. The new models all look fantastic. The vargheists look very vampire-like and beastly and the crypt horrors look good as well.

@reds: Does this make you want to get into fantasy then? VC are a pretty cool army esp. now. Now that they have monstrous infantry and better and more models and choices they're definitely looking more attractive to me. I'd still want to use blood knights even though they're not as cool sounding as they used to be. I think they boosted the stats just a bit though to make them more viable. I think blood knights used to be initiative 4 and now they're initiative 5 and they're also WS 5. I'm pretty sure at least one of those was modified to be better.

[RedsandRoyals]

Jan 7, 2012 0:08:58 GMT -5 F.K.M said:

@reds: Does this make you want to get into fantasy then? VC are a pretty cool army esp. now. Now that they have monstrous infantry and better and more models and choices they're definitely looking more attractive to me. I'd still want to use blood knights even though they're not as cool sounding as they used to be. I think they boosted the stats just a bit though to make them more viable. I think blood knights used to be initiative 4 and now they're initiative 5 and they're also WS 5. I'm pretty sure at least one of those was modified to be better.

Not at all, really. Disregarding having to learn a new rules system with limited time and building a new army with a limited budget, none of the armies particularly appeal to me aesthetically, which is a large part of why I collect and play an army.

Reds

[lockinvar]

Excuse me a second while I grab a tissue to clean up my pants. I saw the mortis engine/coven throne model. That thing is truly sexy. I can't wait to test my army against the new VC.

[F.K.M]

Jan 7, 2012 0:57:58 GMT -5 lockinvar said:

Excuse me a second while I grab a tissue to clean up my pants.

The front or back end ?

Also apparently the only way some nerds can get an erection is through their favorite nerdy moments.

@reds: I swear to god if you can't get into fantasy i'll strap you to a chair, tape your eyelids open and make you watch pictures of warhammer fantasy armies and read the lore and rules to you until you're brainwashed into playing. I figure req and trooper should have enough tools in between the both of them with their assorted other hobbies to help out .

Also how do you know the rules for the new VC engines are disgusting if you don't even know fantasy rules? I guess you just relied on the other people in the store huh?

[RedsandRoyals]

I know something of the rules from the old Ed (I played in a newb tourney at my old college once, did well), and there was someone there with us who did know the 8th Ed rules.

Reds

[F.K.M]

Something tells me i should move to virginia. I mean there's probably more jobs there and GW is pretty much set up in virginia as the headquarters for all of the U.S. Besides that i'd get to see you, req and trooper at the very least. Why does michigan mostly suck?

[Hookah, S.C.]

Loving the new models. The Coven Throne & Isabella especially. May have to pick up an Isabella, just for kicks.

[johnboy069]

I really like Krell, the new Wight King, and necromancers (including Kremmler). I am getting my wife the new Isabella, we bought the old metal Vlad/Isabella set when we first started the hobby and now she can have the new Isabella 2.0 lol.

[F.K.M]

Just putting this here so it doesn't get lost. I think a solar eclipse or lunar eclipse happening behind the castle in the banner would be a really cool idea. With a lunar eclipse the moon would be all bloody and maybe a solar eclipse could signify the end times.

www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=20300011a

[F.K.M]

In about 8 hours i go to buy the vampire counts army book and possibly a small bit of vampire counts models if my cousin remembers my gift card to GW. So i have to ask you guys. What should i get? Remember i'll be sharing my roommate's army. I think my roommate needs more core so maybe some skeletons but he did get 20 more zombies i haven't fully put together recently anyway. Getting the vampire counts battalion would be nice but i wouldn't have any money for anything else. I suppose i'll figure it out when i get there. It's a shame most of my roommate's VC are a bunch of small groups of random different units.

As far as models go i think i'm looking to spend around the 50-60 USD region. I need money for other things so you have to keep that in mind. I should have 94 dollars or so and my cousin's gift card will bring me about 30 dollars more. So yeah i should be able to afford at least a couple things.

[Soap]

Well, I best see if I can find 25 quid and a spare hour to get to my local gw tomorrow and get the vampire book for my new army... Maybe next weekend if I'm lucky!

[F.K.M]

I got the new vampire counts book as well as the vampire counts battle magic cards. I thought i wouldn't get the cards when the online store sold out but my store had em the day of VC re-release and sold out within hours i think. I don't know much about it but i do know vampires can choose to know spells from the lore of death, the lore of shadows or the lore of the vampires. Necromancers however are restricted to lore of death and the lore of the vampires. I haven't read much on all this honestly and i think they added a new spell in there. Raise dead now works for skeletons as well and it's improved as is invocation of nehek. They have a new spell similar to van hel's danse macabre but it re-rolls to wound i think for a unit. I think it's called hellish vigor. There's a bunch of new vampiric abilities and stuff.

There's so much in this book but i was busy playing games of warhammer fantasy with my skaven today. I'm reminded just how fun the hellpit abomination and warpfire throwers can be. In the first game my luck was horrible for like the first 2 full game turns. It was ridiculous. I even had clanrats fail a stubborn leadership 10 roll on a 12 and then i rolled double 1's for flee distance. The odds of that are so impossibly slim and yet my bad luck was just catastrophic.

I also played a small 600 pts game against somebody that barely knew any fantasy but it was a learning game for him so i took mostly garbage. I had 40 clanrats with a warlock engineer (that only had cracks call and howling warpgale), a doom flayer (because a warpfire thrower was considered overkill by all of us including me) and 4 rat ogres with some upgrades. I don't even think he had the right unit composition since it was a battalion box. My warlock engineer also had skavenbrew which actually gave me death frenzy basically this time (i think it's called rabid) and it did really well against my enemy. On the other hand my rat ogres did ok but died and the doom flayer didn't get to really do anything.

In my first game i had constant bad luck as i mentioned before as the skavenbrew actually killed some guys i had and had no positive effects which really urineed me off as it's a one in six chance. Not to mention in the game i rolled like crap for skitterleap and barely wasn't able to skitterleap my grey seer into position around his army to do a massive cloud of corruption or to do it around the knights for massive damage. My plague furnace did manage to mess up his dragon knights though with toughness tests and everything. In fact it also wiped out his swordmasters which had 6 guys left at the time. Really he killed my 20 stormvermin (he hit them with his some fast cavalry and spearmen), 85 clanrats (they died from the swordmasters but they took a few of them along to their graves), warlord on bonebreaker with fellblade and my grey seer with skavenbrew (which did nuts) and that gave him a ton of points. My hellpit i put into a good position and even at one point i killed like 13 or more sea guard or spearmen with a warpfire thrower. It also even got them to flee even if they rather afterward. My hellpit proceeded to kill his cavalry by flanking it even with mediocre rolling for me and then i came back around and destroyed his spearmen with it. My plague censers also managed to kill his shadow warriors. There wasn't really much to say about it. Most of his guys were dead and he had maybe one cavalry unit left and mostly just ranged units left. It was an uphill battle but one that i probably could've won if we had continued. Problem is he had a nutsload of little units that takes forever to wipe out completely whereas i had a few big units with a nutsload of points in each and too much invested in each one for my own good.

Other than that i split the cost of a game with my roommate. He at first said he wanted modern warfare 3 but i wasn't too excited for that game and then i suggested space marine and he said he just wanted a game to play for the xbox 360. Space marine had less copies available but even new it was about 32 USD at the gamestop i got it at. That's actually really, really cheap. Finally i ate a sandwich today for lunch. In between an expensive new hardcover army book, the VC battle magic cards, the sandwich and the game (space marine) i spent a nutsload today. At least the space marine game was cheaper than anticipated even if my GW gift card was 20 dollars instead of 30. I guess it evened itself out.

[F.K.M]

So my report on the new codex. It's a very nice codex in the game rules and stats. Some of this stuff is ridiculous. For instance the hexwraiths are not only ethereal but have magic attacks, great weapons and their attacks are flaming. Hexwraiths can go through both friendly and enemy units as well and they can even make a str 5 magical and flaming attack when going through the enemy. I'm not sure if hexwraiths also went through armor but they might. This is an extremely heavy hitting unit. The terrorgheist is pretty good as you can give it the upgrades to explode into bats if i remember correctly and it either has poisoned attacks or you can upgrade it with them. It's regeneration is pretty mild (+6) and my favorite attack it has is the death shreak. Basically during your shooting phase you target a unit in close combat or 8" away and you roll 2d6 and add the number of wounds the terrogheist has left (it starts with 6). You then each roll 2d6 and compare them against each other. The enemy loses as many wounds as the terrogheist beats it by and they all go through armor and are considered magical attacks.

There's also a similar sword worth 75 points that has some junky abilities in my opinion but it also has the death shriek. Helm of commandment is sadly gone but much of the useful gear makes it back. Unfortunately the hand of dust is also gone. There's a lot less wargear and banners however but on the bright side most are useful. The banner of the barrows is still here but the regeneration banner is gone which is a shame. The blood knights still have their banner of the blood keep but now it's an upgrade only they can use. Some of the equipment and items are now attached to characters such as heinrich kemmler wielding the tomb blade with possible slight improvements and vlad now wielding the blood drinker sword which i think only regenerates his own wounds if i remember correctly now. However so far as game rules go the equipment is once again the only area i'm a bit disappointed in mostly due to no hand of dust or helm of commandment and only one magic weapon choice though it causes death shriek and is good. Problem is if said weapon doesn't kill something in combat during the whole game the character dies at the end of the game and counts for victory points.

There are some nice new vampiric powers including dread knight which i think adds +2 to your WS (obviously different than it used to be) and quicksilver which give always strikes first. There's no infinite hatred in vampiric powers anymore but you should have mostly the same effect with quicksilver anyway. I think they have a vampiric power that allows you to sacrifice all of your attacks for a heroic killing blow. There are quite a few characters and heroes with heroic killing blow actually.

Ghoul kings are in and they're pretty awesome. I think they have regeneration of maybe +5 and i know they have poisoned attacks. These guys have a somewhat greater and lesser profile than the vampire lords. Mostly their initiative is higher (8) but their WS is lower i think (maybe a 6) and BS is a good bit lower but they don't shoot anyway. Ghoul kings can only use spells from the lore of vampires if i remember correctly. Necromancers can use the lore of shadows, death and vampires and they can raise skeletons beyond starting size if you upgrade them with it. Vampires can use the lore of death i think and the lore of vampires obviously. Apparently only wizards in your army that know the lore of vampires can be your general and the only way to stop your army from crumbling for the rest of the game is another wizard that knows lore of the vampires takes temporary command but you still lose guys when your general dies and if your next vampire lore caster dies then you lose more when he dies and so on. If you run out of vampire lore casters your army just keeps crumbling and you can't stop it.

As far as heroes go heinrich kemmler can choose to fly or be ethereal from the start of his turn (or was it magic phase) to his next one. He seems like a pretty cool hero. Krell is an ok hero but he has a great weapon and it makes him always strike last. There may be a way to change that with corpse carts as they make zombies ASL change to ASF but i'd like to see a FAQ first. I think the ASF overrides it. His weapon black axe of krell does the D3 wounds but it also keeps damaging an enemy if it wounds it and if kemmler is in his unit he has heroic killing blow. He's not a great hero but he's alright. I feel like most of the characters are the same and the only added heroes are kemmler and krell.

The lore of the vampires is mostly the same as well. One of the vampiric powers actually helps you raise D3 more undead with invocation of nehek. There are actually quite a few nasty abilities that allow for plenty of customization. Invocation of nehek has been boosted tremendously but there is definitely a range. Every friendly unit is effected in 6" but it can be boosted to the 12" and 18" varieties with a casting value equal to the range in inches for all 3 values. You also raise D6+(your wizard level) for each undead unit and they have rules about only adding so far. If there is obstructing terrain or an enemy unit you and you can't place models without touching them then the ones that can't be placed are lost. Also banners are lost for good and can't be resurrected. It also can raise all units but some bigger units or vampires can only ever regain one wound i'm pretty sure whereas ethereal, monstrous infantry and maybe cavalry can only regain 1+(the wizard's level) in wounds. Raise dead works with zombies and now skeletons but it is a higher cast value with skeletons. Van hel's danse macabre is the same as before but both versions are combined into the one spell (8" movement that i think can be resolved as a charge and the always strikes first with re-rolls to hit). We also have the new spell hellish vigour which is the same as van hel's danse macabre except it's re-rolls to wound instead. The spell that creates spirit hosts is now gone but we have a vortex 'remains in play' spell now that moves across a certain area. It can be str 3 small blast and goes through armor but you can boost it to str 4 with a large template and go through armor instead. The spell moves three times the result on artillery dice and if you roll a misfire it lands on the casting character's head so you may want to fly them somewhere away from the army (a vampiric power) before you use it so your army doesn't die horribly in such an instance. Other than that i know that curse of years and gaze of nagash are the same. Invocation of nehek is of course the signature spell and successful uses of lore of the vampires regenerates a wound on the spellcaster or any hero in 12". I think there's also a vampiric power that allows you to raise beasts beyond their starting size with invocation of nehek.

The coven throne sounds pretty good but it might not be as good as first thought. The mortis engine has +2 to casting lore of the vampires with any character with a certain upgrade but you roll two results for miscasts and your enemy chooses which one. Also the mortis engine can blow up though it slowly damages the enemy and gets stronger each turn. I'm wondering if either are worth getting as the coven throne is mostly just a leadership check versus another leadership check i think and only really does something if you win it. It has other great abilities too though. The mortis engine however when using lore of the vampires and maybe the +1 to casting and dispelling staff with a level 4 wizard would make for a total of +7 to your dice rolled for casting!!! This is tremendous. The crypt horrors sound awesome and their lore is decent too and the vargheists may be cool too. I didn't really read much of the stories or points costs yet though.

This is most of what i remember but there might be quite a bit more.

[F.K.M]

Ok so i've learned a bit more about the vampire counts army book.

I know i got some of my earlier info wrong. Apparently necromancers can only know one of the following lores: the lore of death and the lore of the vampires but only one necromancer in your army (master necromancer or regular one) can be upgraded to have the 20 pts upgrade that lets them raise skeletons beyond starting size. The master necromancer isn't that much point-wise and starts off at level 3 with i think a 35 pts upgrade to be level 4.

The ghoul king can only know lore of the vampires but as i saw the stats he can't be more than a level 1 wizard but his stat-line and esp. abilities are greater than that of a normal vampire in most cases so he's more of a melee bad ass. He can't wear magic armor however and possibly has no armor whatsoever. Just for starters he has poisoned attacks, infinite hatred (re-rolls to hit every combat phase), initiative 8 (compared to the vampire lord's 7), regeneration +5 and maybe some other ability i can't remember. The dude is cool but once again can't go beyond wizard level 1 and can't wear magic armor (and maybe none at all). His leadership is also 9 to the vampire lord's 10 and he's only weapon skill 6 to the vampire lord's 7. Currently as far as the ghoul king is considered if i ever get a good enough sized army i'm contemplating using the 75 pt weapon (skabscrath?) which has death shriek, giving him an extra wound with the vampiric power (or finding other ways) and giving him the ability that subtracts 1 from the enemy unit's leadership in a given radius or giving him red fury (more attacks for every successful unsaved wound) and then throwing him on a terrorgheist so they can do a double death shriek for any enemy unit they get into close combat or within 8" from. Death shriek works by having you take your wounds and rolling 2d6 (a full health terrogheist has 6 while a ghoul king with that vampiric power has 4) and then you compare it against the enemy unit's leadership. Death shriek happens in the shooting phase but it is a magical attack that auto-wounds and goes through armor. Really those two as a combo would just destroy units esp. knights during the shooting phase. Then in the melee phase you have all the attacks coming from both. Really this unit is build for killing some heavy units. Goodbye warriors of chaos .

Vampires and vampire lords know spells from one of three lores: lore of shadows, lore of death or lore of the vampires. Both start out as level one wizards but can be increased to 4 for vampire lord with a 35 pt per level upgrade for vampire lords and probably the same to get the normal vampire up to level 2 for its wizard level.

Zombies are now toughness 3 and strength 3 so they have a big upgrade. When targeted by invocation of nehek you can raise another d6 of them and they can be raised beyond starting size as is. They have always strikes last but if you can throw down an augment spell on the corpse cart then all units within 6" of it get the always strikes first rule and even zombies get it rather than having the 2 negate each other like normal. The rest of the zombie stats are the same so WS 1 and initiative 1 but the toughness and strength increase for lower points cost is huge.

Skeletons are much cheaper now in points. The stats however are about the same. Spears are a free upgrade (i'm guessing because of the parry save of hand weapon and shield).

Dire wolves are now core and are strength 4 on the charge.

Grave guard cost a very slight amount more in points. That's about it really. Btw no more helm of commandment or regeneration banner so you can forget about unstoppable groups of grave guard. However since they're infantry they get the normal d6+wizard level of them for invocation of nehek. Everything else gets 1+wizard level as long as they're not ethereal, a vampire or a large target. The remaining 3 units can only be raised one wound per casting of invocation of nehek so said units aren't as nasty as you think but black knights might be decent if your leader can summon 5 per turn.

Ghouls cost slightly more points wise but that's about it.

Hexwraiths as i said have magical attacks, str 5 for great weapons, their attacks go through armor and they count as flaming. This is an ethereal unit of course. Their armor is very low however and they have one wound and one attack a piece with 3 toughness so they'll die fast against magic missiles and such. Perhaps the only time warp lightning can be good in games is against these guys. Despite relying on being ethereal and not much else for protection they can go through units and attack one of the ones they go through. They might also have terror but i can't remember. Their unit size is only 5-10 in size and they cost more than black knights in points.

Blood knights are slightly cheaper in points and i think they're somewhat better in stats but it's very slight if anything.

I can't remember if black knights are cheaper or more expensive points wise as they were too expensive to buy before and looked terrible but now they're very much viable and heavily armored. As i said before invocation of nehek can very much increase their unit size esp. if you have a level 4 around as they can raise 5 per turn of casting and that spell can be cast multiple times. Basically 2 successful casts means a fully repaired unit of black knights. If nothing else you can laugh it off against the enemy if they are too weak to go through all that armor and then raise them just to add insult to injury.

Corpse carts have the minus 1 to cast from one loadstone corpse cart for a certain range (they don't stack). So it's the same as before. The other ability i can't remember what it was but it's much better and worth taking by quite a bit. Then there's the always strikes first ability you can get for casting an augment on the corpse cart. The corpse cart also has 4 wounds now.

The way vargheists are is a flanking unit that kills weapons teams but it's not very toughness and even though they can fly and have frenzy they still have to deal with the negative aspects of frenzy (make a leadership check and if you fail you have to charge a unit).

Crypt horrors are great on the other hand. They also cost less points. Sure they're weaker in strength but they're much tougher to kill and since they aren't vampires they may need a general to march but they can be raised back so much easier. Whereas vargheists are more fragile in toughness and are harder to resurrect. Crypt horrors have +5 regeneration, toughness 5, str 4, 3 wounds and poisoned attacks. They seem to be all about taking a huge beating but they can give an alright one in return (possibly still worth throwing against monsters).

You can have tomb banshees and cairn wraiths as either independent characters or in the squad from before (unit size 3-10) with tomb banshee as the unit champion. If i remember correctly cairn wraiths have an attack called chill grasp that let's them sacrifice all their attacks for one that if it hits it auto wounds the enemy and it goes through armor and is considered magical. Suck it steam tank and various monsters!

I'm not really excited about fellbats but bat swarms are really cool now. They have a special rule that lets them swarm all over a target and anybody in combat with them is instantly reduced to WS 1. Totally worth it if you can buy them all.

The mortis engine and coven throne seem pretty decent too. The coven throne is a mount for your vampire and i think you should throw a vampire lord on it so that the leadership 10 helps you more and messes the enemy up more. Considering its rules it's built to make the enemy do poorly against it unless something auto-hits it or similar. The mortis engine is a buffer and suicide bomber possibly whereas the mortis engine is more of a hex and heavy hitter. I'd be wary of using the mortis engine vs dwarfs or empire as it'd last all of 2 seconds against all those cannons and such and then it'd just blow up. You may want to heal the mortis engine as that thing needs to stay alive because it'll turn into a huge bomb. Hard to say whether it's good or bad because you'll probably throw it in the middle of your army but unfortunately that'll do plenty of damage. I guess against elves that'd be nice to use it against. At least if it does explode you can resurrect your army some more but being in the center of it would be a bit frightening.

I think you can only march for the most part if you have your general nearby (12" or less from said unit) but i think there are a few exceptions to this. Of course vampires can march regardless of the distance they are from the general. It sounds like your vampire units will be the harassing units while the main army will be undead and around the center protecting your general. That actually seems like the main theme of this army according to rules given.