new to Fantasy Vampire counts

[somethingyellow]

Hey peoples
I want to start an Fantasy army, and I have always liked the Vampires..
I have never played a fantasy game before and It looks very complicated! (from a 40k Vet.)
I love ZOmMbiEesSS!!!! are they any good?
and If I were to start what should I get!?

O, and BTW My friend will sell me 5x Blood Knights for $50 AUD
They are worth $150... SHould I get 'em?
CHEERS!

[The Envoy (AWOL)]

...If you're able to get Blood Knights, one of the best Heavy Cav units in the game, for that cheap, go for it.

Vamp Counts are an interesting army. In order to allow them to survive, you need to keep your General alive. Thing is, your general is either a super powerful close combat beast, the Vampire, or a Necromancer. Most of your basic troops are horrible in most aspects, buuuuut, they all cause Fear, which is very nasty, and casualties can be raised.

All in all, they're a really cool army, you should read the Army Book before making the decision though, and maybe play a couple games with someone else's army before starting.

Buy those Blood Knights...

[somethingyellow]

Cheers! I will borrow the codex from a friend and Test-play a game!
I found a cool website Just like this one for VampireCounts!
www.vampirecounts.net/

[The Envoy (AWOL)]

Yes, there are a number of these all over the place. They're really good for starting out with Fantasy, since the two systems are different (though sadly becoming more and more uniform as the editions go by.)

[knight (M.I.A)]

Necromancers are weak sorcerors. Vampire are better but cost far more. Zombies themselves aren't that good. Unfortunately they die in dozens but the good side you can summon them in dozens as well.

I myself prefer Skeletons as only a free Zombie is a good Zombie, so I only summon them but never buy them.
Blood Knights... well I really dislike the minis as they just suck, but that is my personal oppinion and I prefer to convert my own.
You'll only be able to field them in really big games as a single one costs a lot already and the smallest unit will always be roughly at 300 points

[The Envoy (AWOL)]

They're like Bretonnian Grail Knights, only better.

[knight (M.I.A)]

There is only 1 Heavy Cav unit that can compete with them. And that are the Chaos Knights

[The Envoy (AWOL)]

Wow...I just took a look at the Blood Knights on GW's site, they do look pretty odd. They would be so much better if they all looked like the Kastellan though.

[Adam Selene]

I have been known to dabble in Vampires

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2,000 VAMPIRE ARMY LIST

Lord
Kruegeuar - Dark acolyte, Master of the Black arts, Summon Ghouls.
Vampire lord - Armour of night, Sceptre de Noirot, Helm of commandment, sword o might.
445 - General, Vampire, Level 4 (Extra level).

Heros
Grimoire - Dark acolyte, Lord of the dead.
Vampire - Tomb blade, Flayed Hauberk.
195 - Vampire, Level 2, 2+ armour save (skeleton warriors).

Vlardeish - Summon Ghouls, Infinite hatred.
Vampire - Sword of battle, Sword of striking, Cadaverous cuirass.
185 - Vampire, Level 1, 5+ armour save (ghouls).

Eschen - Rides a Corpse cart with Unholy lodestone.
Necromancer - Biting blade.
160 - Level 1 (Innovation of Nehek), 5+ armour save.

Core
15 Skeletons - Standard bearer, Champion, Spears, Light armour and Shields.
146 - 5+ armour save.

15 Skeletons - Standard bearer, Champion, Spears, Light armour and Shields.
146 - 5+ armour save.

15 Ghouls - Crypt ghast.
128 - Poison attacks.

15 Ghouls - Crypt ghast.
128 - Poison attacks.

Special
20 Grave guard - Standard bearer (everlasting death), Wight blades, Heavy and Shields.
267 - 4+ armour save.

Rare
4 Cairn Wraiths - Great weapons
200 - Ethereal.

2,000

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some stuff you might want to look into.

Dolgar - Heavy armour.
Wright king - Sword of kings, Enchanted shield.
140 - Battle standard bearer, Wight blade, 3+ armour save (grave guard).

Blood dragon - Infinite hatred, Red fury, Walking death.
Vampire lord - Sword of Battle, Flayed Hauberk, staff of damnation.
450 - General, Vampire, Level 3, 2+ armour save.

Meteor of destruction
Blood dragon - Red fury, Infinite hatred.
Vampire lord - Sword of Battle, Flayed Hauberk, staff of damnation.
560 - General, Vampire, Abyssal terror, Level 3 (Extra level), 2+ armour save.

Lone Hunter
Kruegeuar - Flying horror, Summon creatures of the night.
Vampire - Armour of Night, Sword of battle, Biting blade.
190 - Vampire, Level 1. - - - - NEED 3 fell bats (60 points).

Kruegeuar - Dark acolyte, Master of the Black arts, Summon Ghouls.
Vampire lord - Armour of night, Sceptre de Noirot, Helm of commandment.
430 - General, Vampire, Level 4 (Extra level).

Extra +3 combat resolution bonus
Azaras - Infinite hatred, Walking Death, Avatar of death.
Vampire - Hand weapon, War banner.
170 - Vampire, 4+ armour save, Level 1, Battle standard bearer (Skelaton warriors).

My battle plan revolves around a story line so all though l would rather win it doesn't matter what the battle result is as long as vampire lord Kruegeuar gets away safe (it would also be victory point suicide to let the enemy get his 545 points), to this end he will not get into combat, but will stand back and create hordes of zombies (raise dead, 10-12 on 5+) to charge the enemy's flanks and rear and give them WS7, he also increases units of ghouls (Innovation of Nehek, 2-7 on 3+) to bolster the small units. Grimoire will build up skeletons with magic and combat, he is to hold the line. Vlardeish will build up ghouls with magic and Kruegeuar's help, he is to hold the line. Dolgar holds the line. Eschen increases zombie units that have been created (by Kruegeuar), he rides a Corpse cart with Unholy lodestone (6-11 zombies on 4+).

SPELL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TO CAST - - - RAISE - - - - - - - - - - - - - -AFFECT
Innovation of Nehek - - - - - - - - - 4+ - - - - - D6 (+1 lodestone) - - - - - - regain
Innovation (Master powers) - - - - 3+ - - - - - D6 (+1 lodestone) - - - - - - - regain - increase
Innovation (Zombies) - - - - - - - - 4+ - - - - - D6 +4 (+1 lodestone) - - - - - regain - increase
Raise dead - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5+ - - - - - D3 +4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - create
Raise dead (Sceptre de Noirot) - - - 5+ - - - - - D3 +9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - create
Summon undead horde - - - - - - - 12+ - - - - - 5D6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - create
Summon undead horde - - - - - - - 12+ - - - - - 3D6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - regain

buy lots and lots of Zombies and raise them, points used for zombies are points wasted

[Makarova (M.I.A)]

Vampire Counts are hilariously overpowered. Gav Thorpe will take you away to where the sun never shines and bring you eternal pain as you are forced to watch him destroye every single other codex in the game.

Seriously... 25 skeletons, vampire and one of the 25 pts +1 combat res standards (they have two or three of them), and you can kill exactly anything without losing a single model.

If you insist on playing the cheesiest team in the hobby beyond Daemons, be VERY careful. It requires methodical planning, and you're most likely still going to win most of your battles.

Vampires - Avoid cheesy combos such as dreadlance + red fury. Avoid making them super magicians as that's even more cheesy. Keep their upgrades few and sensible.

Necromancers - Overpowered, but only because Invocation of Nehek is nowadays. They're still less cheese than vampires.

Wight Lords - Damn good, but still fair in most ways. Use them.

Skeletons - Solid unit. Do NOT give them a 25 pts banner, they will just walk over and crush most other units.

Zombies - Fun! Buy lots and lots of them. One of few units that are only good, not overpowered.

Ghouls - Fair enough, but you should by all means boycott them because GW made them Undead and changed the name to "Crypt Ghouls" to make them feel new and shiny so that the children will buy them.

Bat Swarms - Fair enough, don't know much about them.

Corpse Carts - Stupid things. Probably overpowered, but I don't know. Use them at your own risk.

Grave Guard - Boycott them for their pïss ugly models. The old ones were some of the most beautiful miniatures GW has ever made. If you insist on using them, I suppose they're fair enough.

Black Knights - Overpowered. Avoid to give them barding, that helps a bit, but not much. Extremely mobile and deadly, especially with a vampire.

Fell Bats - Unchanged from 6th ed, nothing wrong with them. Solid war machine hunters and supporters.

Spirit Hosts - Probably fair, even if they got cheaper. Wasn't a great unit to begin with.

Blood Knights - Ugly, expensive models and some of the best heavy cavalry in the game. Avoid like the plague. Why the hell would a bunch of knights from the Blood Order join your army? If you play Blood Dragons they're slightly more justified, but not much.

Varghulf - Wtf?

Don't listen to anything the Carpe Noctem people tells you to do, I was a member there for a year or so and most of them are fairly ruthless powergamers.

Yes, I'm bitter. I had just gotten a 2000 pts army, with almost 1500 pts painted and finished, and Gav Thorpe ruins my favourite team to the point of being unplayable, so I left the game. I predicted the rest of 7th edition would go the same path, and I was right about that.

I'm also a fairly experienced VC player, so I do what I'm talking about even if things mightn't be that bad nowadays since everything else has also become hilariously overpowered.

[Adam Selene]

You talk like cheese is a bad thing and when you say your bitter I can see where your coming from but the fact remains that people will play Vampire counts:
a) because they just love the idea
b) because they want to rip other armys
and Vampires can be killed, hochland long rifle, miners or knights taking out the general will do it.

[Makarova (M.I.A)]

Cheese is the very definition of bad and only positive if your name is RedsandRoyals and if you plan to build the cheesiest list the world has ever seen to smack around cheaters with (he didn't do it, but still).

I respect that people like the Undead, I obviously do myself, but cheese should still be avoided. I have only contempt for people who play a certain army because they're going to able to win a lot with it. Okay, granted that people have different approaches to the game, and call me narrow-minded, but powergamers are a plague upon the earth that ruins the gaming atmosphere for actual hobbyists. If you want to win that badly and have so little sense for the gaming world and the hobby, play a computer game. Or chess, you won't even have to paint anything.

Hochlanders are mediocre at best, you don't have enough of them unless you run a gunline (in which case no one should play against you, because you're filthy) and a vampire lord still have T5, W3 and probably a ward or armour save. I don't see what miners can do, it's not like vampires hang around the back afraid to get killed, that is no way to play an army that needs your march aura with the troops and doesn't have ranged weapons. Knights or powerful characters can take out the vampire general, sure, but basic knights in themselves aren't that great (to start with, lances always miss and horses are the only one who kills things in cavalry units, as we all know) and the vampire can always just challenge your unit to avoid hits. And most likely thrash your hero/champion. Or just put some 200 skells and zombies between himself and any scary knights. The biggest personal threat was and is still cannon balls that snipe you, but a ward save and Look out Sir rolls usually protect against that unless your opponent is damn lucky.