Thoughts on the new Vampire Counts Army Book

[petercooman123]

I didn't find the deathstar hard, just plain annoying

But with orks and especially goblins you just threw some chaff at them and concentrated on destroying the rest of the army, wich wasn't that hard if you think about how many points were in that unit


edit: now that i think of it, with my dwarfs it wasn't hard 2. I had runes of fire on most of my warmachines. Bolt throwers and cannons skewer those GG very nicely.

[flamingkillamajig]

Yeah but this is considering i only had one warpfire thrower and lacked some good fire weapons. All the skaven have is the warpfire throwers and the scorch spell and that's it. Almost no killing blow too. Best chance you get is a test or auto-death and i'd need to throw out a brass orb or cracks call for that and only the first is any good vs big units. Then again cracks call is awesome vs artillery, monsters, some cavalry and ogre-sized units. I suppose if all else fails and regeneration annoys me too much i'll just throw a flaming attacks banner on a unit i've got.

I suppose my problem with the deathstar is that skaven don't have much speed for outflanking or much shooting or flaming attacks so all i could do was try to go around and fail thinking certain units could handle his grave guard and couldn't. He also tried using some overpowered use of an ability to drag his crypt ghouls up and then try to throw a giant initiative test spell my way down my entire line but it failed. Should've smacked him in the head for reading online all these super cheesy things he could do. Then again he could've used fencer's blades with helm of commandment and given his unit of grave guard WS 10. Now THAT would have been disgusting.

I'm going to see if i can't buy some vampire counts stuff tomorrow. I figure i'll get either crypt horrors, black knights or an army battalion as my roommate's force needs a lot more core. The other units however are just plain awesome esp. the models.

[petercooman123]

on a related note, just got trashed by the new counts. I know up front i was gonna get a though match, but as we agreed on fun lists i don't mind. I play fantasy for the fun anyway, not competively.

Me taking an all gobbo list against an all fear causing army didn't help

but it was darn fun

Game started of very bad for me, as my doom diver misfired and got trashed on the first shot of the game

Then got a vindictive glare off (3d6 str3 magic missile) and killed 4 out of 5 hexwraiths.

Things went downhill from there. My 50 speargobbo horde faced off against a 50 zombie horde. I had the warboss and bsb and he just zombies. I rolled a one for my nets and just didn't kill enough. To make matters worse he rolled 2 sixes for his magic dice, and i succeeded to roll another 1 for the nets in the next phase

But still it were those stupid spirit hosts that cost me the game. My flank units did not have any characters and couldn't do anything to them after a lucky charge roll.

Everything just ran one by one

But that's what you get with all gobbo lists. You lose alot, but have fun all the time.

Hell i didn't make one kill with 3 fanatics, and turn after that 2 turned around and trashed about 10 of my guys, the third smashing into a tree. You can only laugh about something like that

[flamingkillamajig]

At least you can take that with a stride and laugh at it. I don't think i could do that.

I don't know if i'll still have the money to buy the vampire counts stuff and i might only spend 30 and get 5 black knights for now. My half sister doesn't want me spending any more than 20 dollars and for some dumb ass reason she wants me to give her 40 dollars per day for gas to go to work now which is super unfair. This is considering i have 3 work days a week and make 160 dollars and would have to spend 120 dollars of it for her.

[petercooman123]

I just play for the fun of it you know. If it was a serious, competitive game, i would never go al goblin. Then the 2 30-orc boyz units go in togheter with some hard as nails bosses.

[flamingkillamajig]

Night goblins are actually really viable and i think they're nastier than orcs. Of course you need to do the right build with them. Fanatics, netters and trolls would annoy me pretty hard.

[petercooman123]

Not rolling two ones in a row for the nets would have helped too

They were actually an ok unit.

50 night goblins with spears, full command, netters, fanatic including bsb with 4+ ward and warrior bane and night goblin warboss with armour, shield and the blade that gives you fear.

This unit should be able to take on zombies normally. The combination of netting myself + zombies at +1A by a spell just did serious harm.

[flamingkillamajig]

Yeah but usually games have a way of turning luck around unless you just had a very bad list for what you were facing. The warboss and bsb should've saved you against fear easily.

[petercooman123]

Well to be honest i only failed one fear test, and that was on my wolf riders. It was the nets that did it for me. And those stupid ethereals. I blasted away 4 hexwraiths and 1.5 spirit host, but the remaining wraith and spirit hosts caused problems for me.

[flamingkillamajig]

Hexwraiths shouldn't be as bad as people would make them out to be. Sure they're fast and have powerful attacks and can only be damaged with magic weapons and effects but they're toughness 3 with 1 wound and maybe +6 armor. They're fragile as all hell once you get through them and i don't think they can have the highest numbers either. Not to mention you can only raise them one at a time per casting if i remember correctly and ethereal units die horribly to combat resolution. I would prefer to go black knights as they're very stable and can be raised 5 at a time per casting from a level 4 wizard with the vampire lore. Imagine how annoying that'd be.

Hopefully you didn't fail animosity or squabble. That's always a pain in the ass but it makes me laugh.

I'm unsure if i should do it but i think the mortis engine is mildly attractive. It boosts regeneration and people casting from the vampire lore on either side. The only problem is when it dies it explodes and against empire and dwarves it's very likely to happen even with its toughness, wounds and regeneration.

The coven throne is really good but the points cost of just one is going to be insanely high. Really you'll either get a choice of using that, a zombie dragon with a vampire lord or a terrorgheist with ghoul king and nothing else for your lord choice. To be fair i'm kind of glad about that fact as the coven throne is ridiculously powerful.

Btw did you hear about my battle alongside a friend's lizardmen against high elves? I think i'm going to post the version i wrote on the igmb here. Writing it all out again would be a pain. Let's just say the high elf player had teclis and in a gay OP army the special character was super OP and gay. You don't even want to know. It was so bad. Imagine a level 4 wizard with loremaster the ability to pass your first miscast, the ability to cast magic with irresistible force on a roll of any doubles, only able to miscast on a 6 and takes in d3 magic dice per friendly and opponent magic phase. The guy even had a banner that took in d3 dice for his magic phase and he threw teclis in a building in his deployment zone. The guy should've been shot.

[petercooman123]

I didn't fail any animosity checks. Goblins tend to run away more than to squabble

The hexwraiths are okay to kill, problem is you need something to kill them with. His last wraith that survived tied up a unit of squig hoppers, and was slowly munchin them down. Couldn't do a thing about it too

Next time you meet teclis, bring sjevirs hex scroll and turn the idiot into a toad. Then let the rat packs eat him

Kinda unlikely, but if it works it will be fun-fun

[flamingkillamajig]

I think jezzails should've had the sniper rule. I mean look at them. If 8th had come sooner or it was expected they'd have totally had it too and everybody knows it. Of course against something inside a building with hard cover and at long range they probably couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when trying to snipe him but outside of a building his ass is going to be destroyed.

I'm somewhat scared of the new vampire counts but i need to fight more of them. I need at least another one or two warpfire throwers and then ogre sized units will fear me if not almost every infantry unit.

[petercooman123]

And what about the plague catapult to splat him and his unit? Gonna be hard but if you focus fire with two of the things....

[flamingkillamajig]

I really want to like the plagueclaw catapult as i like the idea of stone throwers but the shame is this one is only strength 2 and avoids armor. This wouldn't be too bad but you need to use wither just to make it good. Not only that but if an enemy has regeneration you need to use fire on them in the shooting phase to remove it for the whole phase which is something skaven don't have much of. Other than the rulebook item the only flame based attacks they have are scorch which is an ok magic spell and warpfire throwers which are fantastic at almost everything.

Considering vampire counts have quite a few regeneration units, weak units and ethereal units this is actually a very sound weapon to use against them unless you're facing knights or the coven throne or similar.

Oh btw i accidentally edited your post instead of replied for some reason. I don't know how i accidentally did that.

[petercooman123]

No worries, don't care about the edit

Well the new vampires are kinda hard on skaven i guess. Hell they can even take away your reroll from your banner. That's why shooting them seems the best solution. You can keep them at bay with cheap skavenslaves too and aim at the support first. Once you kill those you should be the faster army and pick the place YOU want to fight and the conditions of the fight.