WFB ARMYLIST: Vampire Counts
Iamaddj here,
I’ve been playing Vampire Counts for about 11 years now and I am always looking for new and interesting takes on the army. So I’ve been playing around with some new builds. One of the piece of old VC fluff that has always intrigued me is the story of Heinrich Kemmler Lichemaster and his servant & ally Krell. So I thought I would play around with a list based on Necromancers and Wights. Heres the list I have come up with.
Wight King (Battle Standard Bearer)
-Barding; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Battle Standard Bearer;
-Undead, Skeletal Steed, The Drakenhof Banner
Wight King
-Barding; Hand Weapon; Shield; Undead
-Skeletal Steed, Sword of Kings, The Accursed Armor
Vampire
-Vampire; Hand Weapon; Undead
-Power Stone Helm of Commandment, Master of the Black Arts
Necromancer
-Corpse Cart; Hand Weapon; Undead Balefire,
-Staff of Damnation, Invocation of Nehek
Corpse Cart
-Balefire
Corpse Cart
-Balefire
20 Zombie Horde
-Hand Weapon; Undead
20 Zombie Horde
-Hand Weapon; Undead
20 Zombie Horde
-Hand Weapon; Undead
48 Grave Guard
-Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Undead
-1 The Banner of the Barrows
-1 Seneschal
15 Grave Guard
-Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Undead
15 Grave Guard
-Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Undead
Total Roster Cost: 2248
Tactics
The plan for this list is for the two Wight Kings to hang out in the big block of Grave Guard and march forward chewing things up. The Necro and Vamp will hang out in the back field and lend support to the big block. The Corpse Carts stop magic and the Zombies act as blocking units. The two smaller units of Grave Guard flank and provide homes for the Vamp and Necro.
The armored Wight King is actually a bit of a beast in combat. Toughness 6, 3 wounds, killing blow on a 5+, 2+ save and regen make him hard to kill and able to put out some damage. Though he only has WS:1 the combination of Helm of Commandment and the Banner of the Barrows means that he will actually hit most things on a 2+, which is amusing to me. On top of that with 3 Corpse Carts there is an excellent chance that he will get ASF, so he is about as tough as a lot of lords out there.
The list doesn’t go over the top with magic, including only two level ones. Mostly I will be using the 6 power dice between the two of them to raise. Healing the Grave Guard is their main goal in life. However with the addition of 4 bound spells I have a pretty good chance of getting off something I want. The Staff of Damnation isn’t always the best item I know, mostly I’ve taken it because I feel that any self-respecting Lichmaster should have a staff of some type. That being said it’s a pretty useful item when used with Grave Guard, effectively doubling their attacks, and lets killing blow really help out. I’ve found it can also be very nice to have when fighting High Elves, as it provides a way for me to get past the ASF. The list doesn’t have any scrolls which is a slight worry to me, but the 3 Corpse Carts should help to shut down magic. They will block any real spam lists (it’s always funny to watch Daemon players try to cast with their horror units at a -3). Realistically the big spells are either going to be cast irreastibly or fail to cast so scrolls wouldn’t help me there.
Final Thoughts
Overall I think this can be a fun list to play. Its slower then what I usually play but should really just grind forward running over anything in its path. I feel that the list is fairly balanced. Yes I do have a giant death star unit with the Drakenhof banner, but the list has fairly minimal casting, and importantly no Lord choice. If I wanted to ramp up the list I would drop the smaller units of Grave Guard, add a Lord, some Cairn Wraiths, scrolls and such, so it could definately be made more nasty. My only worry is that 3 Corpse Carts is too much, but they are pretty much my only real magic defense so I am going to stick with them for now.
Alright, well that’s all for now folks, questions and comments welcome as always, and watch your back when your travel in Sylvania.
