7th Ed. Army of the month: Vampire Counts!

[strewart]

For those who don't know, the army of the month is a new initiative we have started up here aiming to get a community built tactica for every army focusing on a new one every month. For now, there is a sticky index at the top of the tactics forum. When/if it is complete, we may move to a dedicated tactics page but we shall see.

So post your ideas and tactics to use against VC!


First and most importantly, magic for VC is very strong and you will need to invest a bit to at least reduce it. You will also need to try to think about what the VC player may do and focus on stopping the most important things. If he is going to heal a unit that has only lost 2 models, chances are you should let it go. If he is going to heal a unit that only has one or two models left, you definitely want to stop it. There is nothing worse than cutting an undead unit down to a single model, then in the next turn seeing them all raise back to full strength.
Similarly the movement spell. If there is nothing he can charge, let it go. It is probably dispel dice bait. Otherwise, don't let him get magic charges off.

The key strength and weakness of the VC army lies in the head Vampire. He will most likely possess a good portion of magic, and critically if you kill him the whole army starts to crumble. This general really is the key to beating VC; when they are crumbling with very little magic they are almost always sunk. However, he is usually heavily armoured and hidden inside a big strong unit.

 

[the-graven]

What you could is this:

Take a flying Priest, and give you Slann lore of death and bane head. Now fly the Priest close to the head vamp, but stay out of his units line of sight, then cast Steal Soul with your Slann and with the Bane Head that's 2 wounds, with no armour save(and your Slann has 2 extra wounds ), that's for vamp killing.
EDIT: Srry exchange Steal Soul for Rule of Burning Iron.

Another thing is get close with EotG, use Burning Alignment and cast Cleansing Flare with your Slann through the Priest on the A.Steg, that's for unit killing.

 

[Caneghem]

What you could is this:

Take a flying Priest, and give you Slann lore of death and bane head. Now fly the Priest close to the head vamp, but stay out of his units line of sight, then cast Steal Soul with your Slann and with the Bane Head that's 2 wounds, with no armour save(and your Slann has 2 extra wounds ), that's for vamp killing.

Another thing is get close with EotG, use Burning Alignment and cast Cleansing Flare with your Slann through the Priest on the A.Steg, that's for unit killing.

Unfortunately, Steal Soul can't be channeled through skink priests, as it is not a magic missile. But steal soul or rule of burning iron are good for sniping the Vamp Lord, using the Slann's large target line of sight. Rule of Burning Iron in particular, since the vamp should have armor save and might have regen (not with RoBI)!

Alternatively, roll up a nasty miscast and use cupped hands of the old ones to pass your miscast to the vamp lord.. in any case Bane Head helps a lot!

 

[the-graven]

What you could is this:

Take a flying Priest, and give you Slann lore of death and bane head. Now fly the Priest close to the head vamp, but stay out of his units line of sight, then cast Steal Soul with your Slann and with the Bane Head that's 2 wounds, with no armour save(and your Slann has 2 extra wounds ), that's for vamp killing.

Another thing is get close with EotG, use Burning Alignment and cast Cleansing Flare with your Slann through the Priest on the A.Steg, that's for unit killing.

Unfortunately, Steal Soul can't be channeled through skink priests, as it is not a magic missile. But steal soul or rule of burning iron are good for sniping the Vamp Lord, using the Slann's large target line of sight. Rule of Burning Iron in particular, since the vamp should have armor save and might have regen (not with RoBI)!

Alternatively, roll up a nasty miscast and use cupped hands of the old ones to pass your miscast to the vamp lord.. in any case Bane Head helps a lot!

Srry forgot that only magic missiles can be chanelled, and Rule of Burning Iron is even better if he has a good save.

 

[walach]

there are a couple of potential real nasties (aside from the already mentioned magic), such as the BK bus (blood knights cheesed up with characters, typically at least a BSB), or the big unit of cairn wraiths (ethereal, so tend to jump through terrain and annihilate whatever they like).

as already stated, killing the general is a great way to beat them, though this can be quite hard to do.

don't forget, being beaten in CC is simply not an option vs undead (unless you're ItP), or you are highly likely to flee.

 

[Benjiac]

Well I think everyone gets that killing the general is a good idea so I will mention a few ideas of how to deal with some of the other stuff in the army that have worked for me!

The main aim of the VC player will be to tarpit your expenisve, hard hitting stuff (Stegs and Cold One Cavalry) and then either swarm you with loads of rank and file units or hit you hard in the flank with a Blood Knight unit or Varhgul. They will set up with a few units in front and then the Vamp in a bunker unit in the rear so it is protected. Maybe a Corspe Cart or 2 as well.

Best way to take out the core rank and file units in VC is with lots of attacks, they aren't running so you have to destroy them to the last one! This of course is what our Saurus warriors with spears do best. To combat outnumbered by fear causer put a Scar-vet or Oldblood on Cold One into the unit. Cold One Cavalry and/or a Steg charging in with them to deal the final blow makes the process quicker.

Some of the common setups I face have 2 Corpse Carts in them, they give ASF to all units within 6" and a -1 to casting Invocation of Nehek. To deal with them I use terradons and drop rocks on them. They have a 5+ AS, regen and t4 but only 3 wounds, if you don't finish them off with rocks you can always use their javelins as well. Lore of Fire magic missiles are also good here for getting rid of the regen.

Ghouls with 2 poison attacks each, t4, ASF from the Corpse Cart and if the vamp has Helm of Commandment, WS7 can be a tough nut to crack. Saurus Warriors even with their many attacks will have a hard time getting enough kills to destroy the unit needing 5s to hit, 4s to wound. I find Skinks are actually great at reducing the numbers at the start as they have no armour so every poison is a kill.

Wraiths are a pain but are only t3 so can be fairly easily dealt with magic+burning alignment from the EOTG. Just make sure you don't let them get near your Skink based units as Banshee howl will do murder on thier LD6.

Magic wise for the Slann I normally take Fire for the killing ability or Metal for the character sniping and getting rid of their Blood Knight death unit.

Ok that was just a quick write up, nothing special but hope it helps.

 

[TheWave]

Has rule of burning iron been hit with errata? In the main book its not a magic missile so the flying skink trick early wont work. I would also be wary of letting a lone skink priest near them where they can magic it down.

 

[Caneghem]

Has rule of burning iron been hit with errata? In the main book its not a magic missile so the flying skink trick early wont work. I would also be wary of letting a lone skink priest near them where they can magic it down.

It's not magic missile, but it has a healthy 24" range. Slann in TG has large target LOS, so he should be able to start blasting away with it before too long.