2250 VC, with bonus silly tactic.

1 Vampire Lord @ 460 Pts
General; Vampire; Level 3 Upgrade
1 Nightmare
1 Blood Drinker
1 The Cadaverous Cuirass
1 Book of Arkhan
1 Dark Acolyte
1 Lord of the Dead
1 Red Fury

1 Necromancer @ 180 Pts
1 Corpse Cart
1 Nightshroud
1 Black Periapt
1 Talisman of Protection
1 Vanhel's Danse Macabre

Vampire (Battle Standard Bearer) @ 303 Pts

1 Nightmare
1 Dark Acolyte
1 Lord of the Dead
1 The Drakenhof Banner

Vampire @ 203 Pts
1 Nightmare
1 Tomb Blade
1 The Flayed Hauberk
1 Dark Acolyte
1 Lord of the Dead

9 Skeleton Warriors @ 135 Pts
Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Spear
1 Banner of the Dead Legion @ [25] Pts
1 Skeleton Champion @ [17] Pts


9 Skeleton Warriors @ 96 Pts
1 Skeleton Champion

9 Skeleton Warriors @ 96 Pts
1 Skeleton Champion

5 Blood Knights @ 295 Pts
Standard Bearer

6 Black Knights @ 144 Pts


4 Fell Bats @ 80 Pts
4 Fell Bats @ 80 Pts


2 Cairn Wraiths @ 175 Pts
1 Tomb Banshee

Total Roster Cost: 2247


As for the silly tactic.

I was going to use a ethereal Vampire as my BSB. Then I thought about casting Bear's Anger on him to create a ghost werebear of doom...waving a banner around.

biggest problem with this list is the lack of units. VC rely on their units to carry them though a battle. when useing low unit numbers you can with some bad luck lose 2 or 3 vampires to combat resoultuion wounds(one round I took a hit of something like 12-15 wounds due to bad luck on my part and lose both my general and a wightking plus what was left of the skeletion unit they were with. Another thing to rember is how you have this built you can not increse the fell bats unit size either. so those batts will fall quickly to a lot of armies due to haveing no save and a fairly low toughness

Indeed, I wanted a cheep unit of fell bats and then just increace them but that would mean changing out my necro for another vampire. My plan is to simply buff up my main block of skeletons to sicking size, toss in the banner of regen and counter charge with calv and wraiths. I'll rethink things...

dude...more skeletons. Seriously!

MSU style doesn't work with Vampire counts. You need large units of dudes. the skeleton units will get crushed before you can raise enough models to make a difference.

Ten man skelleton units are fine. You have Lord of the Dead all over the place.

Three units of skirmishers aren't really necessary up to 2k. So if you need points one of them can be dropped. My instinct would be to kack one of the Fell Bat Units. On unit of flying skirmishers should still be enough to do the dirty work expected of them.

Maybe consider removing one of the cav units. Black Knights are hard to heal and even charging moderate anvils get stopped cold. It is possible they you'll get combind charges and it will work out. Unlike a treeman once those Black Knights are locked in combat a counter charge will ruin your day. Blood Knights are pricy but if you have spent the cash on them go on and try out these crazed killers.

There is a balance with cav, my last book forces had direwolves as the core and several Black Knight units, often a vampire on a dragon. It can work.

Strongly consider Grave Guard. Infantry Wights are stupid cool now. My 2+k forces alway have two units. Ten, fifteen, or twenty depending on how thick the fighting.

kainthedragoonx wrote:

dude...more skeletons. Seriously!

If Skeletons are going to be his anvil then yes, more are needed.

he needs something to hold down his opponents with something. VC is not a MSU army.


large unit of Skeletons + lord of Dead = Tarpit (shameless steal from another thread )

Lord of the Dead is not strong enough to have a 10 man unit of skeletons hold back against rampaging Knights of Chaos...or savage boar boys, or hell...the whole damn bret army.

if he was packing 4 vampire that would always be in range of the 10 man units then maybe he could if they all had lord of the dead but he doesnt(his lord will be out of range fairly quickly and he has a nerco) personal I dislike nercomancers, they are to me useless Id rather spend the extra point to get a vampire which I can make a lvl 2 wizard and be able to incrse the max size of units with(which the nerco can only do with zombies). You need to make a choice with your vampire lord either go magic or go for more fighting, the dark acoylte ability is nice sure but I would rather stay a lvl 3 mage and get 5 power dice useing the master of the dark art(think thats the name which gives +2 power dice). Your skeleton units wont hold back most units, because they will chances are fail to kill anyone in the round they are charged, and then they will die to combat resoultion. You might consider adding spears to them. I agree with bob about grave guard I never leave without them. I would sugest dropping one of the cav units and maybe one or both the fell bat units. Replace them with more skeletons maybe upgrade the nerco(I am guessing it is for the dance spell) to a vamp. And try to fit in some grave guard.

Hmm I seem to be able to get at least half of my 8 castings of IoN off a turn, after failures and casting. with the average raised being 4 skeletons with the corspcart nearby. With two units of bats to march block for a turn, I'm actually pretty confident I can hold a unit for a turn to get a flank countercharge.

kainthedragoonx wrote:

Lord of the Dead is not strong enough to have a 10 man unit of skeletons hold back against rampaging Knights of Chaos...or savage boar boys, or hell...the whole damn bret army.

I agree and dissagree.

If the unit is hit before several LotD effects then of course it will be gone within two rounds of cc. The fact that they don't garentee pop in the first one alone is a testiment to the inherrent anvil of even small undead units.

If the unit is bolsterd beforehand summoning then it will hold. I know this because it is what has happend and I almost never put more than ten skellies in a unit.

I already agreed earlier that if the skelletons were going to be his only stopping unit that they should indeed be larger. My concern is that skelletions just aren't the best choice for making an anvil.

Should an undead player taking the anvil idea seriously then it's about the Grave Guard. Fifteen of these guys is affordable and between the armor and toughness 4 they do the job.


A side note the last time I had a Bret charge that was a concern they were still using the triangle formation for the lance charge.

Well Sexi certainly already has the undead tactics of block and punch down.

Sexiest_hero wrote:

with the corspcart nearby.

At what point totals are you using yours? Curious because fitting them in my 2k or less lists feels wrong. So any outside data is good data.

2250 points. Just had another game saterday. and the skeles were the only units that lasted....again. I have two units up to 20 by turn 3 and they never droped below 15. I didn't lose any vampires because they were able to hide in the skele units. A bad case of rubber lances for my knights saw me have a loss.

Having seen allot of cav charges there definatly seems to be an art mixed with sicence behind them. No matter what army that cav is from.

My last dissapointing charge with Black Knights was hitting a treeman and not doing much damage. Then getting a counter charge in the side next turn and dying from combat res. Didn't have much choice since they were on a flank and do to how the battle was going elsewhere they were looking very much like a sacrafical unit.


A side note because I got stupid and paid the price. Rare choices are not characters and cannot issue or accept challenges. Unless a Blood Knight but they are a bunch of weirdos with some kind of "martial honor" crap. 8-)

I had my blood knights get wreked by grail knights (take that VC fluff. just to have them slam into my skeletons and get broken by the boney ones. I don't understand how they are the only parts of my army that carry games.

Ooh, ooh, I know this one

Skeletons...

Quote :

make good soldiers. They can't disobey orders, never surrender, and don't stop fighting when a random body part falls off.

Taken from MTG

Strangley I have found my foot soldiers(grave guard, vamps on foot and skeletons) do better than mounted units, course I have no real clue what I am doing with my mounted units so there is no big surpise there