So I've been setting up great charges with my black knights. I've gotten the charge on both dragon princes and brettonian knighs of the realm. Both times I outnumbered. Both times, I've hit and bounced, not one killing blow, nothing. All the kills have come from the horses. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Is the use of a wight king mandatory? My whole army can't be skeleton blocks .

bad dice rolls?? What are they armed with?

Lances, and Hand weapons and shields. They all come with killing blow. By my math they should be making at least one kill. I use them in two ranks of 5.

my undead horse do tend to do better than whatever is mounted ontop of them(well acuatly so do my cold one knights) I even have had bettter luck with the mounts than the heros rideing them which is sad. And no wight kings I have found to do worse than a normal vampire on foot(aganist other cav even with the king blade or whatever it is called 5+ killing blow it did terrible)

though I might just be cursed with bad dice rolls(my leadership roles tend to be high rolls my to hit rolls tend to be low)

I've never had the two armies I faced so far, High elves and Bretonian knights fail a fear or terror test, They just arn't scared of fleshless knights or Wraiths. Mayby I can use them for flank charges, but thin I can use cheaper units for that task.

Sounds like a bad luck streak. Some things are just meant to be, like until recently, my Pegi knights refused to make a fear/terror test to charge. Failed 3 in a row in one game, they ran off the board and never touched a thing.

If you look at the math, they should pass the test 6 out of 10 rolls, but for me, they fail 9 out of 10. Until recently, I fired them and stopped bringing them for a while. Now they pass as often as they are suppose to .

The other thing you are running into is that I believe Black Knights are only weapon skill 3. Which means in both of your examples, the knights you hit are returning hits on a 3+ vs your 4+. even if you get a killing blow, the brets have a ward save to stop it on a 5+. The Dragon Princes get 2 attacks each where the Brets should have rank bonuses. The only thing worse for Black knights charging Brets in the front is getting charged by them.

The best thing VC can do against Brets is to try to gat DM of and hit them with a unit of infantry and try to get a side or rear charge off on them with the Black Knights. The Dragon Princes? Hard fight unless you get lucky. Then again, they do cost a lot more than Black Knights to field. Blood Knights on the other hand would make quick work of them if they got the charge.

As far as Killing Blow goes last knight out of my three units of Grave Guard out of several rounds of close combat the only six as on a steam tank which can't be effected by it.

Sexiest_hero wrote:

All the kills have come from the horses.

This isn't all that unnatural. I've had times when all
my armies had black knights that the horses were more deadly. Known
others who played Empire or Bretts that had far more angry mounts than
riders.

It's a statistical bump that will flatten out when compared to the long
run. Unless it becomes an observed result and in the absence of
keeping a record it may just become a more noted event.

Sexiest_hero wrote:

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Is the use of a wight king mandatory? My whole army can't be skeleton blocks .

The only way you could be doing it wrong is if the inbound charges start with a major disadvantage in combat resolution and you don't know the odds. That doesn't look to be the case.

The dice are fickle but that's statistics. It only tells us what the weighted events to expect not what will happen.

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When buying Black Knights there's only two things one is getting, the two plus armor save and maybe a single charge one is relying on. I am not using cav so much these days but as with all important charges there are tricks for Vampire Counts.

• The aforementioned Vanhel's Danse Macabre. As long as it is cast after the unit is in contact you'll get those to hit re-rolls. Math wise in WFB often more dice is better instead of a higher sucess chance on fewer dice.
  
• Helm of Commandment. This item is sick, I put it on a vampire who is stacked towards the magic side in the rear echelon. Getting WS to six really helps the to hit roll.
  
• Banner of the Barrows. Was exceptional in the last book. A little different now but just as good. This item should always be dropped on a unit you expect to do allot of dirty fighting.
  

Mix two or all three and a single unit can hit on two plus, get a re-roll, and maybe a Killing Blow might actually happen. Haven't done this tripple threat myself but the latter two have worked out well enough. VDM isn't to blame. The Magic Phase is something that can go in any dirrection and it really sucks to rely on it because it goes sour so easily.