8th Ed. Help against Vamps. 2k

[Darth_Rinku]

First of all, my friends and I are still playing 8th. We started playing towards the end of 8th and decided to stick with it.
I'll be playing my first standard match against Vampire Counts this weekend and was looking for guidance.
I have a pretty good idea what I'll be up against because he's limited on models, and I've watched him play a smaller game.
Here's what I was thinking:

Slann - lore of light, bec cog, foc mys, harm con, book of ashur, & obsidian amulet.
Scar vet - bsb, glittering scales, sword of might.
Scar vet cowboy - dawnstone, sword of battle.
Tetto
Temple Guard - full command
Skink cohort - 5 krox, poison, standard
2 units of Skink skirm
And a Steg

My main concern is whether slann+tetto is overkill?
I want to control the magic phase and the strategy there is drawing out dispell dice each turn with comets, while holding him back since i know vc are pretty slow. Then using what power dice I have left to blast Tbats. I know he's running 2 Terrorgheists for sure, and that's what I'm most worried about.
That and his hexwraiths.

 

[Qupakoco]

Looks like an interesting list. First impression is that 5 Krox is too many. I'd rather run a block of two and three, allowing you more flexibility.

What does he run besides the 2 Terrorgheists and the Hexwraiths?

My experience with VC is that you'll typically be eye to eye in the Magic Phase. Having a Slann and Tetto will for sure be fun, but you will probably find that you'll be using either one or the other.

When fighting VC, I worry about the following:

Is he running a blender lord?
Are there deep blocks of Zombies?
Are there Grave Guard?
Are there any Ethereal troops?

Those typically hang up the win in a game for me. Terrorgheists can be poisoned, so no biggy. Hexwraiths will need to be Magic'd or Scar-Vet'd. You'll need to plan accordingly to kill them.

Definitely a big part of the VC game is controlling the magic phase, so you've at least got that covered.

 

[Darth_Rinku]

Well my original plan was to put tetto in the skrox unit for protection.

The guy I was playing had a limited amount of models so we ended up having to play 1500 instead of 2k. He didn't get to run his extra units of Hexwraiths, vargheists, and terrorghiest as he wanted because he just purchased them and they hadn't arrived in time. Also I don't think his skeleton blocks were as big as he wanted.

His list was the following.

Vampire lord in a skeleton unit of 25
Vampire hero in a skeleton unit of 25
20 ghouls
Corpse cart
4 units of wolves
5 Hexwraiths
Terrorgheist
3 separate spirit hosts
And another unit of skeletons with a necromancer

I wanted to keep a similar strategy to my original plan. This is what I changed to, taking the krox advice along with adding more skirmishers to handle the Terrorgheist.

Dual Oldblood Cowboys - each with 5pt magic weapons, one having to go armourless
2 skink priests - cube and dispell scroll
Tetto
5 units of Skink skirmishers
Bastiladon
3 kroxigor
And 3 Rippers

The strategy worked extremely well and he ended up surrendering after turn 4. Skink poison ended up winning the game for me along with lucky dice rolls.

I managed to block a lot of his vanguard thanks to tetto, and put my non general oldblood in his face along with a unit of skirmishers.

Turn 1 he lost almost all his wolves to skink shooting and I managed to draw out his dispell scroll with a comet. Getting off a beast of horros on my vanguarded oldblood, but forgetting to fire the beam of chotec.

His only charge was into my oldblood, who fled knowing there was an impending comet heading towards that side of the table. He inched the rest of his units forward, trying to stay out of Skink shooting. And redirected 2 of his hosts at the Rippers who blot toaded his necromancer unit and we're flanking around the side.

Turn 2 I didn't make any charges and stayed put. Oldblood rallied of course. Then i got off a large Comet, but he dispelled the amber spear. The skinks managed to clear the rest of his chaff.

His turn 2 started by flying his Terrorgheist behind my skinks and killing my krox in a single scream. Moving the rest of his army forward but not attempting any charges due to range. He failed to cast any spells. Going for several spells but falling short each time due to bad rolls.

Turn 3 my only charge was the Rippers into the necromancer unit and I redirected all of my skinks into range of the terrorgheist. Putting me in a bad position, but I felt it was necessary to avoid another scream. For magic he dispelled another comet, but I got a good roll on the beam of chotec. Clearing most of his hexwraith unit, and then melting his Bat during shooting. The Rippers did very well against the skeletons, clearing about half after combat res.

His turn 3 he finally charged everything he could. Charging through some skinks to get to my oldblood with his hexwraiths, his hero vamp, and a host. A unit of skeletons into some skinks. And his ghouls into another unit of skinks. He got a good winds of magic this turn. I dispell scrolled raise dead, but He irresistible forced a vortex. Managing to kill a bunch of skinks but nothing else. I lost a some skinks in cc, but they surprisingly held their ground. My oldblood killed his mini vamp, then finished off the host and Hexwraiths through combat res.

On the last turn the comet fell at str 10. Killing a chunk of zombies in his main unit and his Corpse cart. I cube of darknessed the vortex. And I killed everything except his lord and a few zombies before we called it a game.

Overall I was very happy with the way the list played, and we're still planning the 2k rematch once he gets his units in. Where I'll go back to my original list. Minus the big krox unit, and adding lots of skinks since poison seems invaluable against the counts.

Blood knights were also a unit he said he would try to incorporate. Along with a coven throne or mortis engine.