7th Ed. Vampire Counts Deathstar

SlannOfItza · Dec 13, 2009

Ok, I've been trying to beat my VC friends deathstar unit for a while now, I'm about to go play a game today and I already feel like I'm gunna lose. I'm using a Carnosaur list to try him out in a few games, but against this VC list I feel like I don't stand a chance. I have some ideas on how to handle it, but I was hoping someone on the forum here could point out some major flaw I'm missing...The unit is;

5 blood knights - Banner of Blood Keep (4+ ward against any ranged attack)
Vampire BSB - drakenhof banner (regeration)
Vampire Lord - Dreadlance, Red Fury, Night Shroud ( Lance that Auto-Hits, sucessful wounds allow extra attacks, and if you charge him you lose all charging bonuses and strike last )

This unit has charged and plowed through a block of 18 saurus, and then his generals attacks alone killed my EoTG that they overran into...

I've had issues with re-directed because he has enough summon undead spells that he summons small units ( 5-9 ) of zombies to screen himself, or re-direct anything I send at him.. Obviously most magic gets dispelled and if it goes through anything that causes dmg is either a missle or a ranged spell so they get the 4+ ward. plus unless its lore of fire or lore of metal they have regen...

And now he also changed up one of his lesser vampire in a nearby unit of grave guard to have forbidden lore, where he will take lore of beast to use beast cowers on my cold ones, EoTG, or Carnosaur...plus he'll use Bear's anger on himself to give the Tomb Guard a very killy hero in it.

Now I know his lis is cheesy, he knows it too, but the particular tourny he made it for is for power-lists so his is legal and welcomed. Problem is he loves it so much he has been using it for our friendly games too rather then make a new list or go back to an old one...

Any advice I haven't already thought of?

Craken · Dec 13, 2009

Just so you know the regen banner is probably on the hero bsb, not the unit, also the one that gives them ranged def, probably in the unit. That's just an observation, makes it a tad easier to get rid of the banner but not much.

You may be able to do some damage with lore of shadows and pit of shades, also a EotG or two may help out quite a bit here if you have one. Burning alignment can do some serious damage here. I probably would loose the carno and sit a Slann in the back, lore of shadows may be handy here easy way to get rid of the grave guard unit (Not the Vamp but it will weed him out) , and a lot of skink priest, maybe mounted on EotG's or even terradons may work. I would say your best bet is to out magic him, lizardmen have the power to do it. Once you weed the heroes out they should be easy spell targets.

Don't have my rule book unpacked yet but I believe even if your beast is cowering you can still fire off the burning alignment. also if that is a problem just make sure you have enough dispel dice to counter it.

As for those blood knights not sure if there is much that can withstand them, however you could put your EotG in a unit, too give it more lasting potentional.

Just some advice, not sure what will work for you though.

Craken · Dec 13, 2009

Oh yeah I forgot to say Slaamaners. They have fire, that should help too

erians · Dec 14, 2009

Slann is clearly the way to go here imo. The EoTG looses much of its efficiency when the priest on top cant get any spells thru, and if you face armies with no shooting your only EoTG boost that is useful is the BOOM, which means whenever you dont have enemies withing 12" you cant cast anything useful.

Lore of metal is win against the VC bus. The Spirit of the Forge is not a magic missle, thus the ward save doesn't kick in, its flaming attacks and thus the regen doesnt help. 1 Spirit of the forge will kill the entire unit, leaving only the characters behind (avarage of 7 hits wounding on 2+ with no save what so ever, bye bye stupid bus)! Use Banehead against the lord or BSB and spam the sniping spell.

The Slann also solves any problem in the magic phase, go for cogitation. This way his most powerful caster can't get IF aswell as making 1-dice spam raising an excercise in futility. Cupped hand is a decent choice, if you 5-dice cast spirit of the forge and miscast can still bounce it off on his general hoping for something nasty (S6 to everyone in BTB would be fun, or snake eyes ^^).

Another viable option is the Cold One riding BSB with Burning blade. Try to outmanouver him and get him in the flank, Blood knights only get a 6+ save and no regen, you should be able to do 2 wounds or so, which is enought to finish the unit off if you score some kills by magic and shooting first. Burning Blade on the Carnosaur old blood, and nonimate the general with Banehead and just jam it in his face is the only option without slann if you want to do any damage to it, but with Night Shroud the old blood will be cut down first, or challanged away by a champ and break on SCR.

Edit: If you go Carnosaur its probably best to just kill everything else, so nominate the bane head to his other vamp, kill as much as possible that isnt the bus and use terradons and skinks to bait him. This bus, unlike the normal Black Knight bus, has frenzy. Frenzied death stars are.....stupid. Terradons, skinks, chameleons and salamanders can easliy lure him out, if he screens with zombies just shoot them down. Being forced to charge everything within 14" is a pain, and with javs or blowpipes (or even better; drop rocks) zombies should die like flies. Flanking him with a skink unit would be great too, as he HAS to chase you when you break (and seeing as he will run in his flanks direction hes gonna end up in the middle of nowhere).

The Hunted · Dec 14, 2009

erians said:
Slann is clearly the way to go here imo. The EoTG looses much of its efficiency when the priest on top cant get any spells thru, and if you face armies with no shooting your only EoTG boost that is useful is the BOOM, which means whenever you dont have enemies withing 12" you cant cast anything useful.

Lore of metal is win against the VC bus. The Spirit of the Forge is not a magic missle, thus the ward save doesn't kick in, its flaming attacks and thus the regen doesnt help. 1 Spirit of the forge will kill the entire unit, leaving only the characters behind (avarage of 7 hits wounding on 2+ with no save what so ever, bye bye stupid bus)! Use Banehead against the lord or BSB and spam the sniping spell.

The Slann also solves any problem in the magic phase, go for cogitation. This way his most powerful caster can't get IF aswell as making 1-dice spam raising an excercise in futility. Cupped hand is a decent choice, if you 5-dice cast spirit of the forge and miscast can still bounce it off on his general hoping for something nasty (S6 to everyone in BTB would be fun, or snake eyes ^^).

Another viable option is the Cold One riding BSB with Burning blade. Try to outmanouver him and get him in the flank, Blood knights only get a 6+ save and no regen, you should be able to do 2 wounds or so, which is enought to finish the unit off if you score some kills by magic and shooting first. Burning Blade on the Carnosaur old blood, and nonimate the general with Banehead and just jam it in his face is the only option without slann if you want to do any damage to it, but with Night Shroud the old blood will be cut down first, or challanged away by a champ and break on SCR.

Edit: If you go Carnosaur its probably best to just kill everything else, so nominate the bane head to his other vamp, kill as much as possible that isnt the bus and use terradons and skinks to bait him. This bus, unlike the normal Black Knight bus, has frenzy. Frenzied death stars are.....stupid. Terradons, skinks, chameleons and salamanders can easliy lure him out, if he screens with zombies just shoot them down. Being forced to charge everything within 14" is a pain, and with javs or blowpipes (or even better; drop rocks) zombies should die like flies. Flanking him with a skink unit would be great too, as he HAS to chase you when you break (and seeing as he will run in his flanks direction hes gonna end up in the middle of nowhere).

All good tips, although I do have some remarks and questions:
Are you sure Spirit of the Forge isn't a Magic Missile? I thought it was...anways:
I think Slann is the way to go vs VC at any day. He is your magic defence + very good spellcaster in 1. Stick him into a unit of TG and only the blood knights (maybe the GG) will defeat this unit.
So, how to stop the BK?
Don't get into combat with it. Ever.
As soon as he wins a combat you either break, or he can reform to face you and thus you break next round. If he screens with zombies that's great! Look to the next figure (i'll try to do my best!)

Code:

------KKKKKK 

------ZZZZZZZ

--SSSSSSSSSS

Well, here's the plan:
K=Knights (here: Blood Knights=BK)
Z=Zombie, or any screener.
S=Skink, or even Saurii)

His BK are frenzied and can see your Skink/Saurus. They have to charge, but since there is no way they will fit: they can't. He can't run through the zombies he's just summoned. And if he charges your Skinks/Saurus with the zombies you can hold pretty safely or: simply flee. If you outrun the Zombies and are in range of the BK (ideal case!) they have to charge y ou but then run into his own zombies, and therefore fail, while your safe.
In other words: force the screen.
Walk into the face of the screen, giving him no options but to do nothing or move all the way around.
When he places zombies way ahead, still: force the screen AND redirect if he still threatens. You need multiple units to do this, so be sure to pack enough skinks, 12 man Saurii, Terradons and Salamanders for this. If it works: your support units (who aren't very usefull on the other VC anyway) manage to take out ~ 800(??) points.
Then: kill the rest of the army. Or Spirit of the Forge like a madman.
I just remembered something Strewart said! (kudo's to him for the next tactic:

Code:

KKKKKKKK
(Open area)
ZZZZZZZ

Random unit+Terradons)

Fly your terradons between the BK's and his Zombies and flee the charge. he now is stuck on his zombies. And your Terradons are either dead or fleeing. If fleeing you MUSt rally them and do it again

If he refuses to allow the open space: force the screen!
Bingo! 800 points do Noting!

I don't know if you know this old site (it seems to be offline

) full of 6th Ed. Lizardmen Battle reports. Complete with pictures and tactics. The City of a thousand eyes or something like that...Anyway, he had a report where he forced the screen on his opponent. By that move, he won the game. I can't find it ATM (i'm at uni) but i'll try to

Anyway, the Scarvet on CO trick might work, but always challenge in that case. And hope you roll well on your inevitable break test.
Spirit of the Forge and Snipe-spell are very good, as is 2d6 S4 MM (against other troops). The magic destroy spell (forgot all the names

) is also strong, as you can negate some of his uber-banners.

Hope this helps,

The Hunted

SlannOfItza · Dec 14, 2009

Wow, nice, some of this advice is really good!! Using his own screens to cause him to do nothing could be pretty useful. It'll be hard to get him to summon them infront of saurus or skinks though, he'd rather charge and take them out, or he positions so he has multiple charge options. Frenzy means he has to charge but if 2 things are in range he can pick which one. so he'll summon zombies at an angle to get in the way of my screens, and angle his blood knights to see 2-3 targets, making it very hard to screen all of them.

Also the banner for the 4+ ward saved is against any RANGED attack. So spirit of the forge (which is NOT a magic missle) still triggers the 4+ ward...That and he has so many dispel dice and scrolls I've never gotten any spell off that wasn't irrestible force or useless...Basically lore of metal only has 2 damaging spells, and he will block both pretty easily, and make sure no uranons thunderbolts go off either...everything else he lets get through and against ghouls and tomb guard he doesn't mind loosing 2-6 a turn, he summons that back with 2 friggen power dice, and runs 2-4 power stones so in a key phase he always gets his summons...

I'll have to try and practice using his zombies against him though, I'll see if I can't get the whole unit ( combined points cost around 1300 ) to end up stuck doing nothing. Perhaps I'll be able to trick him into summon zombies on all sides so he can't charge or move, then I'll just move away and his m4 screens will be in the way.

I'm gunna be trying a carnosaur list, so maybe If I take out his other 2 vamps in the tomb guard unit, maybe the ghoul unit too, I'll just avoid the BK and win by the skin of my teeth and table quarters...I really wish there was some way to actually KILL it. Which needs to be done almost in one or two turns, because even though he can onyl heal them 1 wound at a time, he has 10 power dice that he can throw one dice at a time, potentially getting 2 or more wounds healed every turn...Since I can't break undead I need to at least kill the BSB and General...thats at least like what? 500 points...plus an extra 100 for getting the general...Though if I loose my carnosaur riding general I'll give back nearly that much...

The Hunted · Dec 14, 2009

When he sets his BK in the middle of the field it naturally is tougher for you. Simply because his BK's have loads of options to go to. let's presume he has 3 sides to go to, left, middle and right.
1 of those sides is blocked by his own screen (as above).
If left is blocked by his own screen (BBHOS) simply set 1 redirector at an angle facing right.
if right is BBHOS, simple set 1 redirector at an angle facing left
If middle is BBHOS you get to pick if you want him left or right!
I dont know how many fast units he has, but if there's more: use more screens.
If you feel confident then charge his flank, but be sure to KEEP WINNING. Because is you lose he can choose to face you, which in turn will mean that you break next round...

For spellcasting: Still go for metal, Spell nr.1,3,4,5 and 6 are good. Commandment of brass is useless, maybe for stopping Coach?
1=vampire snipe, they don't like that usually
3=2d6 S4 MM, always a good thing.
4=favouring the odds in CC
5=destroy target banner! (or disable it, but still)
6=kill target armoured unit.
So, he has to stop Spirit, Law of gold? and the snipe. Add uranon's bolt to that, and he has to have some serious dispelling (assuming Slann+EotG here!)

As for the rest: only use your redirectors for his BK, the complete rest of your army focuses on his (small) part. Beat the crap out of them! Flank and hammer, you know; that kinda stuff.
Last but not least: read VC tactics! Familiarize yourself with his Vampire's setup, know their uses. Focus on strenghts and weaknesses. Know what a VC player can/will and can't/won't do. It's very good to know these kind of things versus your regular opponents. To add: Know your opponent. For instance:
My bret opponent likes early charges, and will take baits fairly easy. Knowing that, I can set stuff up (Like a Lone SV-BSB holding his suport lance...). It's stuff like these that can win you games,

hope it helps,

The Hunted

erians · Dec 14, 2009

Also the banner for the 4+ ward saved is against any RANGED attack. So spirit of the forge (which is NOT a magic missle) still triggers the 4+ ward...That and he has so many dispel dice and scrolls I've never gotten any spell off that wasn't irrestible force or useless...Basically lore of metal only has 2 damaging spells, and he will block both pretty easily

Hmm okay, im still not a 100% convinced he gets his save, while it says ranged attack it has "magic missles" and not "spells" or "magic" in its example and according to the SoTF spell their armor melts, so they get attacked by their armor (which isnt ranged) instead of from the spell itself, which is why it isn't a MM. You're probably correct tho, i guess its still a damaging attack with its origin from the slann. Even so the SoTF can do some massive damage, usually should do 3-4 wounds.

How many dispells does he have, really? If you play with 2x lvl 2s on engines and a slann with +1 PD disicipline you should dish out about 15+ PDs per turn + bounds (counter cheese with cheese !), and even with just 1 engine you could easily cast 13-16 PDs, so even if he plays with a lvl 3 and 2 casters (max if he has a bsb) he still only have 6 DDs, shouldnt be even close to enought, so unless hes packing like 6+ scrolls you should be able to get a ton of spells thru. On top of that the engines can booom twice / turn to kill around 2 knights per turn.

Lore of metal has Rule of Burning Iron, insane when combined with Bane Head (snipe that lord/BSB !), 2D6 S4 magic missles and the SoTF. On top of that it can destroy magic items (bye bye ward save banner, regen banner or protection on his general!) which is very useful, and Transmutation isn't that bad either (pretty situational tho). At least 4 good spells which can be cast every magic phase.

SlannOfItza · Dec 14, 2009

Well with SoTF, its not a magic missle but it causes dmg as ranged damage. It's distrubuted as shooting attacks, which is ranged. So that 4+ ward save saves them from alot... Even the burning alignment is a ranged attack, they get the 4+ ward from it as well... It's one of those, if its not from close combat but causes wounds its pretty much a ranged attack... Obviously something like pit of shades would destroy them if they ever failed the test, since its no saves of any kind, but even if it didn't say that, it doesn't do dmg, it simply removes models so its not a ranged attack of some kind...

I'm starting to see how to use the spells from the entire lore to my advantage. Law of Gold he picks the item so he'll prolly protect those banners, though he'll lose or get a weapon or armor disabled. The 2d6 str 4 is almost useless, ghouls and tomb guard can take that to the face and he just summons them back. And he doesn't have warmachines or chariots, and transmutation of lead is very situational...

Scroll wise he is usually running 2 scrolls and 2 power stones...But his 7 dispel dice he uses really well, he lets everything through but the things that can really hurt him...He sometimes trys to stop uranon's if I get it, but sometimes will let the BK take it, its only d6 hits and he gets a 4+ ward and 4+ regen. He lets anything else tiny go off, and just summons back with his 8-9 power dice and 2 power stones...He'll only dispel SoTF, RoBI, and such...and if I roll irrestible obviously there is nothing he can do, but even if I just roll well, like I throw 4 dice and get like 20+ he just uses a scroll...

And I don't have 6 turns to take care of him, more like 3...he is not afraid of my TG unit in close combat...His general by himself can cause 6 wounds pretty easily... ( 4 auto-hit attacks at str 6, any wounds cause extra attacks and at str 6 he wounds on a 2+ so he gets 4 more auto-hitting attacks, wounding on a further 2+ giving my temple guard with 2+ armor saves only a 5+ ) Then his BSB attacks, and the the BK themselves cause 13 str 6 attacks as well...

As an example, he has charged a unit of Skrox, killed them all....and then overran into my EoTG, where his general killed the ancient steggy itself, by himself, not even with everyone elses attacks...Then he proceeded to reform, and then charge my temple guard who reformed to take it to the front, where he killed over half. If they weren't stubborn I'd be going off insane courage...No amount of saurus, or cold ones, or anything except temple guard survive the original charge...The temple guard eneded up being slaughtered....and I lost my slann and conceeded defeat just after turn 4 since my slann, EoTG, and such were all dead...

In another battle i redirected him slightly better and played to the end, but he still scored a soli victory because I spent most of my efforts killings his ghouls and trying to kill his tomb guard, but I lost more points then I killed, mostly because he just summons his guys back, I was unable to win prolonged combat as my saurus got multi-charged and had to fight 2-3 units at once. I feel I really need to kill the bk unit ( around 1300pts of stuff ) in order to cement a win, he has already admitted he would conceed the same turn they are killed, since it would also mean his general is dead and the crumbling would begin...

I'd also like to ask if there is ANY chance of a victory with a Carnosaur, since thats the list I'm playing with right now...It's actually up in the forum "First Carnosaur List" or something like that. No one even commented on it. Thanks for the help so far...

SlannOfItza · Dec 14, 2009

Also forgive any spelling errors in the above post...I typed it very quickly and its very long so I didn't want to go back and do edits, Lol...

kroxigor01 · Dec 15, 2009

I think the problem is not as great as it seems.

If the you're opponent is screening his Deathstar with Zombies, shoot (or even drop rock) the zombies.

Its not hard to kill 6-7 T2 zombies with 20 blowpipe shots or 5D3 S4 hits. The Deathstar can then see any handily placed skinks, must charge them and overrun, and can then be double charged by two Stegs or something.

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

Trust me thats the first thing I tried, but he only screens them from things he doesn't want to get charged by, usually when he cahrges he gives himself multiple things to charge, and charges inbetween zombies or he'll charge and kill some of my screens, and then summon zombies to be in the way of my counter charges..

Also with the nightshroud, when I charge him if I allocate any attacks on the general, I lose charge bonuses and automatically strike last, so I have to deal with his general for at least 1 round of combat. And he can do alot of dmg...

He is very good at his positions and stuff, but I've made some real headway with the advice I've gotten so far...

Other then that, I'd like to know if a carnosaur could do it or if I need a slann, and if there is any hope in killing it outright...

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

Here, devour this list and regurgitate me something that will work...

Slann Mage-Priest
- Level 4
- Focus of Mystery
- Focused Rumination
- Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
- Rod of Storms
- Dispel Scroll
- Battle Standard Bearer: Warbanner

Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Wardrums of Xahutec
- Plaque of Tepok
- Engine of the Gods

Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Cloak of Feathers
- Diadem Of Power

18 Saurus Warriors
- Spears
- Standard Bearer
- Musician

10 Skink Skirmishers
- Blowpipes
- Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers
- Blowpipes
- Skirmishers

10 Skinks
- Javelins
- Shields

10 Skinks
- Javelins
- Shields

4 Terradon Riders
- Drop Rocks
- Hit and Run
- Flying Cavalry

16 Temple Guard
- Musician
- Standard Bearer

Salamander
- Extra Handler

Total:

Power Dice: 4+3+2+2 (11 +1 per spell by Slann + 1 Bound Spell)
Dispel Dice: 2+2+1+2 (7~9)
Dispel Scrolls: (1)
82 Models

Sorry some have rules + upgrades underneath, I didn't feel like cleaning the list up much... Please tell me what I can do to this to make it kill the BK and be able to handle some of my other opponents;

Bretonnia
VC ( different player with fluffier lists )

Thanks...

Dumbledore · Dec 15, 2009

You will 100% want becalming cogitation on the slann. Drop 6's will hurt his raise-spam by a great deal.

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

I agree, where do I get those points though???

erians · Dec 15, 2009

I personally rarely ever do any real wounds with my salamanders, I take them for the panic tets as they rarely get any clean hits and usually only cause 1-2 wounds for me (might just that Im not used to them and cant cope with the random range). Even if you score a 100% clean hit (hitting all 5 blood knights) you only wound 1.66 of them, 1.1 gets thru the armor and then he has a ward resulting in 0.5 wounds for a perfect hit, which are rare. Removing the salamander would give you points to get discipline you want.

A carnosaur list would have huge trouble against that list as we mentioned, and the best way to go about it is either by dodging it which is very hard when he has danse, or ZULU DAWN his ass and kill every blood knight before he can raise them. Charging it with a EoTG and a warspear ancient (even in the front) would do 3D6+2 impacts, which means 12.5 hits, 10.4 wounds, he regens and saves 6 of them but its not enought, they're down to 1 guy, which should get killed by the stegadons. Getting all skinks into position, the engine to position and just go all out concentrated fire should bring them down some, but the problem with shooting is that when their numbers drop you start allocating attacks, hitting the multiple wound and usually even harder to kill characters.

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

Yeah, a salamander doesn't do much against VC (it wasn't meant for BK just other blocks) so against him I might do an edit to have the becalming cogitation, but what would I do with the extra 30 points? (back to 5 terradons? why do I always manage to fit 5!!

)

Also since I don't have the models, I can't do double stegs (yet) but thats not a half bad idea. I'm just worried he'd summon zombies and go right around it, and charge other things...

So since my list should be an all comers tourny list, I think I'd keep the salamander, unless someone can take 30 points and drop something else to make something awesome...

Okopipi · Dec 15, 2009

One less Terradon?

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

Okopipi said:
One less Terradon?

Ok, well that leaves me with 3...

...and, if I drop the salamander and add becalming i'll have 30 left over, add the extra 30 from the terradon and...

...i could field a unit of 5 chameleons to marchblock and give me more time to cast spells and setup better redirectors...

...Wow, nice job Okopipi. I hadn't thought of that.

SlannOfItza · Dec 15, 2009

So is this list better to handle the VC and such?

Slann Mage-Priest
- Level 4
- Focus of Mystery
- Focused Rumination
- Becalming Cogitation
- Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
- Rod of Storms
- Dispel Scroll
- Battle Standard Bearer: Warbanner

Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Wardrums of Xahutec
- Plaque of Tepok
- Engine of the Gods

Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Cloak of Feathers
- Diadem Of Power

18 Saurus Warriors
- Spears
- Standard Bearer
- Musician

10 Skink Skirmishers
- Blowpipes
- Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers
- Blowpipes
- Skirmishers

10 Skinks
- Javelins
- Shields

10 Skinks
- Javelins
- Shields

3 Terradon Riders
- Drop Rocks
- Hit and Run
- Flying Cavalry

16 Temple Guard
- Musician
- Standard Bearer

5 Chameleon Skinks
- Scouts
- Chameleons

Total:

Power Dice: 4+3+2+2 (11 +1 per spell by Slann + 1 Bound Spell)
Dispel Dice: 2+2+1+2 (7~9)
Dispel Scrolls: (1)
85 Models

7th Ed. Vampire Counts Deathstar

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