VC: Playing as Undead Legion

I googled Blood Knights and I got boobs.  Was not disappointed.

Before you dig any deeper, please see the article I wrote about VC/TK interactions here.  I'll start off with my VC list because I have the most experience with them (I got into them when they got their new 7th Ed. book).  My playstyle has always been a killy armored Vampire Lord because that's how I envision myself if I was to personally take command of the army.  It just sings well with me.

For now, I'll skip the Special Characters and all the Nagash Vol. 2 units.  I want to concentrate on the original army books.

Vampire Counts Unit Bucket:
Vampire Lord, Master Necromancer, Necromancer, Vampire, Wight King, Tomb Banshee, Zombies, Skeleton Warriors, Crypt Ghouls, Dire Wolves, Grave Guard, Black Knights, Crypt Horrors, Vargheists, Fell Bats, Spirit Host, Bat Swarms, Hexwraiths, Terrorgheist, Mortis Engine

Tomb Kings Unit Bucket:
Tomb King, Liche High Priest, Tomb Prince, Liche Priest, Necrotect, Skeleton Archers, Skeleton Horsemen, Skeleton Horse Archers, Skeleton Chariots, Necropolis Knights, Ushabti, Khemrian Warsphinx, Sepulchral Stalkers, Hierotitan, Necrosphinx, Screaming Skull Catapult, Casket of Souls

Preliminary Observations
I don't think Skeleton Horseman and Archers are worth it because of the price range.  Skeleton Horse Archers maybe because of the Fast Cav, but I'm not sure if I like the price on Horseman vs. just having Dire Wolves for chaff purposes.  Our Skeleton Warriors are better than the TK book, Ghouls are excellent forms of core choices as are the Skeleton Archers.  The good thing here is that they fulfill very different roles and thus, do not compete for choices.  Skeleton Chariots are up in the air because while they can be good, I think with Archers, Dire Wolves and Ghouls they will be hard-pressed for a slot.  That is, unless you want a take an all-moving list with perhaps a Tomb Prince or King in tow.

The next big observation is that VC stands out in two unique ways from TK, and that's via the Ethereal units, and with the scream mechanics.  For TK, it has to be shooting, and Undead constructs for me.  This is why you see me listing out a lot of the competitive options from the TK book that you normally wouldn't see by itself.  I'm talking about the Necero Knights, Ushbati, and Sepulchral Stalkers especially.  These guys were subpar until all of a sudden, you can take 2x Mortis Engines and a Necrotect in the same list with them.  All of a sudden, 4+ Regen is very, very scary for a lot of people who thought they can just shoot them to death.  VC also provides the UL with 2+ armor via the Black Knights, and as we all know by now, that's our main mode of transportation for the Blenderlord if we a well-placed hammer blow.

From a lords/heroes perspective, the Vampire Lord remains the strongest melee component that we have.  Tomb Kings and Princes are more unit buffers more than anything, until you fit the Golden Death Mask and then their role changes (only the King, and only mounted on a Chariot I feel).  More on this later.  Master Necros and High Liche Priests are always good, especially since we have such diverse magic coverage now.  For example, you have access to Death, Shadow, Lore of Vampires, and Light, Death and Lore of Nehekhara.  This is great, but you have to also consider the fact that you can't mix and match magic items.  The VC magic items just destroy TK in terms of competitive selection, and I think that outside of Light and LoN, there won't be much that the TK casters will offer us, simply because the best item there forces through an IF.  That might be a game changer with Purple Sun, but we'll see.  In terms of BSB, VC dominate the arena with Vampiric powers and the beefy WK, but also because of magical items like the Nightshroud.

Last, but certainly not least, we just gained an ass ton of monsters that we can bring in our lists.  That's the only thing that can be said right now because there is a significant price-tag that comes with it.

Exploring Different Archetypes
Before we look too deeply into how we can expand on the archetypes, we need to explore what the existing archetypes are for the armies.  In VC, because we have a more flexible book, we have a ton of different archetypes to explore.  To give you an idea, here are a couple of things:  Walking Blenderlord with an infantry heavy army, Blenderbus with fast moving options, magic-heavy double Necro lists with Regen engines Crypt Horror meatwalls, magic-heavy double Necro with infantry armies, magic-heavy scream machines with Terrors/Banshees, Blenderbus 2x Terrorgheist, and any combination of these.

When you look at TK, you have either your balanced playstyle of some shooting, some combat, and a block of Tomb Guard, or you have flat out all shooty lists with minimal combat.  Monster-heavy was something that people experimented with in the beginning, but with the changes that everything can wound anything, this quickly went out the window because a lot of people hated spending a lot of points for minimal protection.  Even with the Lore of Nehekhara's awesome healing aura, this was not enough to keep the expensive constructs up.

OK, so now that the boring stuff is over, let's talk about how we can combine the strategic flexibility of the VC book with the TK book.  Just to let you guys know before hand, I see the TK book as a support book to our more powerful VC book.  This is quite apparent when you look at the units and uses of the units.  Things like the Tomb Prince for a WS buff, Necrotect for Regen + Hatred buff, Archers/SSCs for shooting solutions, Casket for magic buff, Hierophant for magic buff, all of these things are buffs at the end of the day.  The only combat elements (close combat) that the TK book has to offer us is when you can combine Regen from the Necrotect, with the Regen aura that our Mortis Engines can provide.

With that said, here is the first and most apparent archetype of the combined books..

The Regen Undead Construct Engines of Doom
No, I'm not really calling it that, but the pieces of the puzzle should be pretty self-explanatory.  The first thing you'll notice here is the vast amount of points needed to sustain this combo.  Not to crap on anyone's parade, but the first thing I need to call out is the vulnerability to flaming, and the fact that Dwarf Cannons with RoBurning and Skull Cannons of Khorne will make your life really miserable.  Sure, there will healing, sure, there will be shooting, but you need to keep in mind that laser cannons with flaming shots makes large things with Regen very unhappy.

Here is what you will need:
Necotect in a zombie bunker - The dude that gives as 12" bubble of 6+ Regen to all Undead Constructs.  He needs to survive, he needs to be protected, and you might as well put a MR3 Black Peripat Master Necro with him in that bunker to give him added magic sniping protection.

Mortis Engines - These are your Regen engines because they stack with each other and give the rest of army bonuses to Regen.  If you have 2x Mortis Engines and the Necrotect, you will see 4+ Regen on all of your constructs as long as they're within range of the engines.

Any Undead Constructs that you can think of - Necropolis Knights, Ushabti, Khemrian Warsphinx, Sepulchral Stalkers, Hierotitan, Necrosphinx.  Choose some of these guys that you want in your list and go to town.  Even with a sole Mortis Engine and some decent healing, you will greatly increase the lifespan (lol) of these units.

The shooting that never existed in VC
OK, so here's what you do here.  You take all the cool shooting components from the TK army and then supplement your existing VC army with it.

What you do:
Gut your entire core and replace them with Skeleton Archers.  How you want to take them completely depends on what you want.  A big unit does a lot of damage, you don't need a musician because you always hit on 5s no matter what you do.  I would probably roll with units of 10-15, or bigger units of 20-30, I would take at least 2 units of these.  You want to maintain your deployment advantage with Vanguarding Dire Wolf chaff, so make sure you have save 160 points for 4x units of 5.  The rest can either be all shooty, or if you want, take a unit of Ghouls and have some combat in there.

Next, you take 2x Screaming Skull Catapults and keep them cheap, the 90 point variant is fine.  Then, you add a Casket of Souls because it's the most awesome thing in the world and gives you a pseudo-shooting solution that can buff your magic as well.

This will allow you to keep the rest of your army how you want.  From here, you either branch into an counter-punch style Blenderlord bus, or you can play a beefy counter-punch Regen style block, or you can play a bunch of fighting infantry like a Tomb Prince in Grave Guard with Banner of Barrows block.  Basically, at this point you can pretty much freestyle because you just reprimed your core for archer-based chaff removal, kept your own chaff superiority, and added a cheap firing solution in the form of 2x SSCs, which can potentially remove large monsters from the field, like Chimeras.  The first time you hit a Regen WoC Chimera with this thing, he will be pissed that you now have this option.  Infantry blocks from other armies will also be shocked by the fact you can now rain terror onto his face.

Another cool addition would the Lv.4 High Liche Priest taking LoN.  This gives you a greater chance to get Incantation of Righteous Smiting, and possibly allow your big archer units shoot a lot more.  Just something to keep in mind.

Terror Bombing you into the ground
OK, this one is a little more gimmicky as you guys know, but the idea here is to deliver a Tomb King with Golden Mask into the enemy lines along side your Vampire Lord's knight bus.  I think this one is the least competitive out of all of them, but the option is definitely there.  The best way to deliver this kind of combo because....

1. It's effective, not because of the fear-bomb, but because Golden Deathmask is amazing as an item overall.
2. When it does fear-bomb, it's hilarious because it makes your army godly.
3. Blenderbus + Chariots is the key:  It allows you to dictate where the combo is delivered and with all the speed and precision to do it.
4. You might as well bring Terrorgheists because if you're taking this combo, you're not out to make friends anyway.

So here's what you need:
-To be able to play 50% Lords.
-Golden Deathmask on a Tomb King (because it was deemed unfun for it to be on a Tomb Prince), on a chariot, with some more chariots from core.
-You need a Blenderlord in a Black Knight bus, with LoV because you need to be able to heal stuff and move the fast-movers with VDM.
-You need 2x Terrorgheists because they move fast, and combos insanely well with the combo you're going to produce.
-No matter what, you will need the Golden Deathmask, Screaming Banner (on knightbus), Fear Incarnate (on Red Fury, Quickblood Lord), Aura of Dark Majesty (on supporting Vampire BSB).  You might as well go Supernatural Terror too while you're at it.

The Splash of TK
This one is pretty self-explanatory.  Here, you just take the bare essentials from TK and add it to your army.  I'm talking about just adding the Casket or something else, because you want the rest of your army to be VC for some reason.

Biggest additions to the VC army:
Casket of Souls
Liche Priest with Incantation of the Desert Wind
Necotect, for Hatred on Ghouls
Skeleton Archers
Screaming Skull Catapults

A sample army list

2491 UL
12 drops

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 553
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, 4+ Ward, Ironcurse

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire BSB = 250
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile
Nightshroud, Gem, PoFools

CORE:
15x Skeleton Archers = 90
15x Skeleton Archers = 90
36x Ghouls, Ghast = 370
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
13x Black Knights, FC, BoSwiftness = 383
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Screaming Skull Catapult = 90
Screaming Skull Catapult = 90
Casket of Souls = 135
Terrorgheist = 225

This army likes to sit back and shoot to weaken the enemy force, and then counter-charge with a Blenderbus, Terrorgheist and 6x6 Ghoul block to do the damage.  The shooting elements consist of the 2x SSC, Casket of Souls and 2x Archer units.  Ethereal Spirit Hosts are a must so you can have extra shooting with the SSC.

I mean, compare it to something like this pure VC list..

2497 WHFB
14 drops

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, 4+ Ward

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire BSB = 245
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile
Nightshroud, Gem

Lv.1 Necromancer = 100
Lore of Vampires
Cursed Book

CORE:
37x Ghouls, Ghast = 380
25x Zombies, FC = 85
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
11x Black Knights, FC, BoSwiftness = 331
5x Hexwraith = 150
3x Vargheist = 138
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Terrorgheist = 225

The first thing to note here is that I lost some drops when I decided to cut the Dire Wolves. The Spirit Hosts are still there so that's super good, but losing 2 drops means that you're on average instead of above average drop-rates for most balanced lists (armies range from 8-12 on average). This simply means that you might get out-deployed by a cannier opponent.

Let's look at what we cut from the list. I'll use the first VC list I posted as an example and you'll see there, that I lost: Vargheists, Hexwraiths, 2x Dogs, Zombies, and my Cursed Book Nercro. What I gained was: 2x units of Skeleton Archers, slightly increased the number of Black Knights that I have, put in the Casket of Souls, and bought 2x SSCs.

What this means overall is that I lose some of my mobility for a slightly more durable knightbus, +D3 PD per turn, 2x flaming stonethrowers, and I see the dogs cancel out as chaff for anti-chaff because that's what the Skeleton Archers will be used for. Because of the mobility loss, the army will have to play a little bit more static, basically having the VL bus observe the first couple of rounds of combat while the Archers and SSCs do their job clearing up the board. Archers will kill chaff, SSCs will hopefully kill big beasties or put dents on enemy infantry formations, and the Terrorgheist will hang out in the back looking for a good opportunity to jump on something.

Keep in mind that this is one way of playing this particular mixed/shooting hybrid, and incorporates a mounted Vampire Lord. Like I pointed out above, VC have a huge array of different builds they can muster, so this only the tip of the iceberg.

You can follow this living thread on the VC forums here.

VC: Adding the Casket of Souls

Releasing all dem souls!

In a previous article, I wrote about how to play with both VC and TK in the same army.  I mentioned in there that the Casket of Souls was practically a must take in all lists.  Why is that?  Well, here are some of my reasons:

• It gives you +D3 PD to use per phase, and it doesn't have to be for the casket. No matter how you dice it, there's just not many things in the game that gives you this kind of advantage.  You want it to boost your normal casting? Go ahead. You want to use the Casket? Sure. You want to feed your Peripat? That's fine too.
• It gives you a pseudo-shooting option that you will always have.
• It allows you to remove a key pieces off the map if it goes off. I'm talking about serious key pieces here: The Skullcannon is Ld.7 with 4 wounds, Empire Cannons away from their general are also under threat, Ogre Ironblasters are Ld.7, although 5W will be harder to manage. Most of the other danger pieces only have 3 wounds. Elf RBTs only have 2W are are Ld.8; thus auto-dying on average rolls. Mournfangs in a flanking position are now suddenly threatened big time, so are most low Ld. chaff: Furies, Dogs, Sabertusks, the list goes on. And it has the potential to bounce.
• Once your opponent have figured out that this is a dangerous piece on the battlefield, he will throw dice to dispel it. The fact that he has to throw DD at a FREE spell potentially (D3 averages 2 dice free), you will now be ahead in the magic phase. This increases the chances you will have VDM, Desert Wind, or anything else you want to conjur up with your opponents are on a 2-dice deficit. If he fails to dispel and loses concentration, while the probability is low, it's just a shutout.
• This limits your opponent's movement, deployment and chaff potential. Will he risk bounces and lose large amounts of low. Ld chaff? He will need to deploy tight, or not be very careful of his movements or risk getting blasted off the board.  Forget about low Ld flankers, forget about warmachines trying to get flank shots, anything that can possibly threaten flanks is also threatened by the Casket if their leadership is low enough.
• With Peripat and Casket, you're literally +2 PD/DD on your opponent from the beginning of the game. You get 2 from the casket, you decide to bank it, and thus you're up 2 while you negotiate your existing magic phase. This is free advantage on both offense and defense.
• It works with a number of things that messes with your opponent's leadership.  Doom and Darkness makes it more effective, Golden Death Mask of Kharnut, Aura of Dark Majesty, anything that reduces or prevents superior leadership from being used.  While I'm not saying that this is the best use of points in the army, the synergy is there and cannot be overlooked.
• It's relatively cheap, small and you can keep it out of LoS because it doesn't need it to do its stuff. The effect is Direct Damage. It's also T10, I've had people shoot it with a cannon and call it a waste on a 1,2,3.  Most people don't even bother with it, and if you tuck it away in a corner without LoS, no one really bothers.

Aside from the magic that Liche Priests can offer, I don't think there's too much from the book that VC can use to their advantage.  If only Tomb Kings can take their steeds, maybe I would be able to utilize that Golden Deathmask in more of my army lists.  Sadly, that is not to be.

What would I change in my existing VC army to incorporate the Casket and Liche Priest?  Cut the Vargheists and Necromancer for a Lv.1 Liche Priest, Lore of Nehekhara with a dispel scroll.  Unless you get something you really want, you'll almost always default of Invocation of the Desert Wind.  Otherwise, just place the Vargheists for the Casket and you're good to go.

VC: Analyzing my current 2500 list

Long reads require a beautiful vampire chick.

Before anything else, I'll throw up the army list so we can go over everything piece by piece.  My current rendition of VC is pretty much the same of what I ran in the past.  I still have an all-powerful Vampire Lord, but I've changed a couple of components around the rest of the army to fit a more aggressive playstyle.  Probably the biggest change here is the fact that I dropped a Terrorgheist for a greater selection of units and magic support.

2497
13 drops

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Dark Knight, Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, 4+ Ward

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire BSB = 245
Lore of Vampires
Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile
Dark Knight, Nightshroud, Gem

Lv.1 Necromancer = 100
Lore of Vampires
Cursed Book

CORE:
33x Skeleton Warriors, FC = 195
30x Ghouls, Ghast = 310
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
11x Black Knights, FC, BoSwiftness = 331
5x Hexwraiths = 150
3x Vargeists = 138
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Terrorgheist = 225

First, let's take a look at my Vampire Lord.  He runs Lore of Vampires obviously, and comes with the standard kit of Quickblood and Red Fury.  I always run my Vampire Lords with Beguile because the chance to make someone re-roll successful hits against you is just too good to pass up on.  This combined with your 1+ save, 2++ vs. fire and 4+ ward, you're extremely tanky while still capable of putting out ludicrous amounts of damage yourself,  With 13 deploys, you should be able to drop your characters last, placing your VL and supporting Vampire away from enemy characters so you're not forced to fight them.  If you do, I have strong faith in my lord's ability to take them down because of..

The Vampire.  I chose the Vampire over the Wight King BSB that I regularly take for 3 main reasons:  You can take another Invocation of Nehek that can be used close to your general, you are S5/S7 on the charge, and you can take vampiric powers.  The extra IoN gives me sustainability on my unit once I enter combat and allows me to heal up any characters that take damage.  S7 on the charge is just huge for me these days because there's a lot of T5 out there that I want to force damage through.  While the Wight King's main advantages over the Vampire is the extra wound and T5, he lacks the raw killing potential that the Vampire delivers.  Over a sustained fight, you need to be able to pile on those additional wounds, especially if the WK can't KB stuff like monstrous infantry.  In terms of durability, I'm already sporting the Nightshroud and 1+ AS, but the -1 Ld aura plus Beguile tests at -4 for both Lord and Vampire is remarkably good.  The Nightshroud's ability just can't be underestimated:  It is seriously one of the best defensive items in the game, rendering most magical weapons and GWs ineffective vs. your vampires in combat.  Not only that, but it strips away ASF and allows Quickblood to do its thing.

When you deploy these guys in a bus, you want to put them on the edges, away from any characters that you might face.  The first rank of 5 should look something like this:  VL V CH BK BK.  The VL on the edge means that hopefully, the least amount of attacks will be going towards your lord on a unit of similar size.  Since the last model swinging will also be in BtB with your Nightshroud, the Lord will reap all the advantages and additional protection that the NS will provide.  In addition, you will have 2 instances to apply your -4 Beguile, and hopefully that will be enough to push the damage through the unit instead of into characters.  Should you absolutely need to fight enemy characters (such as a challenge), the character fighting your VL will also be in BtB with the Nightshroud, and lose ASF in his fight as well.  Let's just say I got money on our guy.

Lastly, we have the humble Necromancer.  Sure, he gives me yet another IoN to cast around if he so desires, but he carries the awesome Cursed Book.  I don't know about you guys, but I think this is one of the best magic items in the game.  For an average of 2 dice, he can cast a lot of spells that a Lv.1 Necro would normally struggle with.  He has a 33% chance to cast a great spell on one dice, and I think that's a great price to pay for some of the best combat-swingy spells in the game.  All of them are hexes that can be cast in combat, and some of them are Remains in Play.  To make it even better, a lot of them have greater range than your other spells, allowing you to stay back a little further and still be a threat on the battlefield.  I absolutely love this item and I think it's a great way to improve your magic flexibility while keeping your LoV spam strong.  Good players can often play fine without a scroll in their army, so give this handy little thing a go for a couple of games and see where it gets you.  I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Alright, now we enter the bulk of the army and you'll see some set staples here.  I always take some kind of chaff and that's why we'll see 3x Dire Wolves and 3x Spirit Hosts.  Personally, I think VC have some of the best drops in the game for cheap and effective chaff.  Spirit Hosts might be one of the most annoying things ever since they can kill other cheap chaff, work as redirectors, and offer static combat res if your opponent is already tied up.  They can tie naked knights up all day, and being Ethereal means they can get places other units cannot.  In short, they're probably one of the best units in the entire book and everyone should have 3x for chaffing purposes.  Later in the game once your forces hit combat, make sure to run them behind enemy units and rear charge them for a static +2 combat res.  If they can't reform and all their characters with magical weapons are already fighting in the front, then it sucks to be them.  The same would apply to your Hexwraiths.

Speaking of Hexwraiths, I always like running one unit whenever I play VC.  Their applications are truly outrageous and they can do so many things its unreal.  I only like taking one unit of them because if you take too many, you risk drawing a bad matchup in the form of heavy magic missiles, magic shooting, or something else that can just wipe them off the board.  They're relatively expensive, and you can only heal a single one per IoN, so you gotta be smart about how you use them.  For me, they're excellent chaff killers since they can pass through enemy (and friendly!) units and deal good damage.  They can kill chaff, hunt warmachines, threaten any unit that won't beat them in combat res naturally, provide Terror tests, strip Regen, and offer static combat res in later parts of the game.  You just need to make sure you keep these guys away from magic attacks and within range of your general.  Since I'm running a relatively fast army, I don't really have an issue with that.

My Skeleton Warriors are there to be a bunker of my Necromancer, and the Ghouls in 6x5 allow me to fight on a semi-decent level.  The 2 poison attacks each really help once I push these guys up and tie up something nasty.  I always like some Ghouls in my army because they threaten a lot of the big beasties out there with high T.  Apply enough wounds either through luck, or with Vanhels and Ghouls become really threatening to some armies.  My Black Knights form my VL's armored bunker and BoSwiftness helps me get to where I want to be.  The Vargheists are just there to keep pace with my army and hunt down anything that threatens to block me or can threaten my flanks.  Since they're not the toughest things in the world and they have Frenzy, then tend to fly out to kill chaff and enemy warmachines.  Their plentiful attacks at S5 can really make short work out of most light units, and the fact that they're vampires allow me to reach out to other areas of the map I wouldn't otherwise be able to.

Finally, we have the lone Terrorgheist.  I've ran two TGs for the longest time, but as new armies come out and high S, D6 wound shooting becomes more and more accessible, things can get really bad, really fast.  Multiple Terrorgheists, Ethereal units and scream-lists are purely a meta thing I feel because there are some armies that just don't care they're on the board.  When you're playing something like Wood Elves, or Daemons of Chaos, investing in multiple units of Hexwraiths is just a bad idea.  You're essentially giving them points because you WILL lose them.  If you don't lose them, you know you've probably played them too conservatively, and thus they're not making back their points.  The same philosophy holds true for Terrorgheists because while they're god damn amazing, cannons just erase them from the board.  Unlike the Hexwraith unit that costs 150 in your list, these things are 225 per pop and each one lost is a huge chunk of your points.  Hexwraiths are also easier to hide and keep out of range.  Terrors need to be within 8" of something to scream, and if they're not screaming, they're not making their points back.  For this reason, I've reduced the number down to 1 and used the points to buff up other areas of my army.  Losing one is bad enough in a poor matchup, but losing two before you can get any use out of them is disastrous.

That's it from me, good night folks.

WHFB: How well does VC and TK play together?

Let my legions pour forth and consume this world!

Hey guys, just a quick article here about how I'm going to incorporate some of the new Undead Legions rules to my existing Vampire Counts army.

Here are some of the big things to take note of:

• There is no more Nehekharan Undead or specific Vampire Counts Undead, there is now only one Undead.  This means that all the magic, magic items and special rules that target a specific undead entity now affects all Undead models in your army.  The same applies for the Lore of Nehekhara and Lore of Vampires.  This is absolutely huge, and something I will expand on in a bit.
• You now have access to all of the units in both army books so you and mix and match like you please, following the normal army restrictions of course.  By normal, I mean now you can play with 50% of your army as Lords.  You want to take a beefy Tomb King along side your pumped up Vampire Lord in 2500 points?  Sure thing.
• Tomb Kings' units can now march within 12" of the army general, just like Vampire Counts.  This is gigantic because the army was never able to march before, and made up their movement with magic spells.  Let this sink in for a bit, because it's going to get wild in a little bit.
• Finally, your general dying no longer makes your entire army crumble.  If you lose your big bad Vampire Lord, nothing bad happens because Nagash's power is able to sustain your army during these dark times.  This can be a huge boon for late game attrition when your general rolls horribly to save.

If you guys haven't figured it out already, this unlocks a huge new can of worms that the Old World is not ready for.  Just when you think it's bad enough that some of their greatest heroes have fallen, the world is in ruins and they're being bombarded by Undead and Chaos at all sides, what more can go wrong?!

Here is where it goes wrong:

Tomb Kings can now march with your Vampire Lord right?  Both Lore of Nehekhara and Lore of Vampires can be used on all Undead units right?  Bring on the movement shenanigans!  If anything WHFB has taught me over the years is that these slow-moving, corpse-ridden undead guys sure can move when you want them to.  Between Incantation of Desert Winds and Vanhel's Danse Macabre, you can move your entire army into your opponent's backfield soon after you deploy.  Why?  Because there is no more restriction which Undead units are affected by these spells.  Incantation of Desert Winds is a signature spell that was built into the TK lore to make up for the fact that TK could never march before.  Now that every Liche Priest and their mother can take it, you have a grave decision to make when your opponent wants to cast this spell.  On a 8+ augment Undead (was Nehekaran Undead) units within 12" can immediately make a normal move as if it were the Remaining Moves sub-phase.  You can extend this to a bubble 24" on a 16+, but that might be out of the realm of possibilities for a Lv.1-2 supporting Liche Priest.

Now think about this for a second:  Your entire army just marched, and now it can move again?  What happens when you get off VDM (Vanhel's Danse Macabre) on a bubble 12+?  If that goes off, every Undead unit within 12" can now make another 8" move followed by re-rolls to hit until the next round of magic.  If you think Wood Elves are fast, or Slaaneshi Daemons, think again:  Undead are the new masters of movement and they do so with basic spells, one of which is a signature spell that every Liche Priest can take, and VDM with Book of Arkhan (BS PL3) from a Necromancer.

Sure, sure, but we can dispel that right?  Of course you can, but that's the beauty of it all.  For a spell like Incantation of Desert Winds, it just became questionable to a must dispel lest you want Terrorgheists screaming behind your units.  This level of magical commitment forces your hand and there's a possibility that it won't be enough to stop it all.  The fact that this is available on every wizard in the TK army means that you will always have it in your arsenal.

What happens when you combine an army with re-roll hits via VDM with Incantation of Righteous Smiting?  You have a dramatic increase in damage potential as your army is now capable of re-rolling hits with +1 attack.  Both of those can be stacked and both of those can be cast in a bubble if you so desired.  With Tomb Guard and Grave Guard benefiting huge amounts from these magical effects, it's no wonder that they stayed in different books.  If you think that's rough, think about what happens when you cast Hellish Vigor on a unit in combination with Incantation of Cursed Blades?  Your Skeletons now gain re-roll wounds and the ability to Killing Blow!  Throw this onto your Grave Guard and you now re-roll wounds and KB on a 5+.  If that's not crazy, I don't know what is.

When you throw magical items into the fray, things get even more ridiculous.  Incantation of Vengeance is a hex that not only reduces the movement's by D3, but it treats all terrain as Dangerous Terrain so everyone has to test if they move.  Combine this with Rod of Flaming Death (BS PL3) and the unit will take an immediate S4 hit on every model if it moves.  More interactions can be Death magic's lovely Soul Blight with Incantation of Desiccation that's essentially the same thing, but a possibility of a stronger, more expensive to cast -D3 S/T version.  As we already know, Incantation of Smiting is a great spell because of the +1 attack it gives, but when you combine this with Staff of Damnation (BS PL4) and its ability to give Extra Attack to every Undead unit within 6", things get really ridiculous if these spells start flying out.

Alright, enough about spells, I get it.  What more do the armies have that can help each other?  Well, think about it like this for a sec:  A lot of these items never interacted with each other before and certainly not on a competitive level.  I frown upon the decision to put something like Golden Death Mask of Kharnut (TK magic item) together with a unit with Screaming Banner (VC magic banner).  Your model now causes Terror, all enemy units within 6" of the wearer cannot use their general's Inspiring Presence or their BSB's Hold Your Ground rule.  Screaming Banner requires that enemy units in combat with the thing roll an extra dice for a fear test and discard the lowest result.  Add in the already existing fear-bomb that VC have such as Fear Incarnate (successful fear tests must be re-rolled) and Aura of Dark Majesty (-1 Ld aura), and you have something much greater.  Although seen as a gimmick by some, other armies are not as fortunate because they don't have plentiful ITP units.

Another popular unit being talked about is the Necrotect.  For a very affordable price in your hero slot, you are able to grant any unit Hatred.  Slap this in a unit of Great Guard with Banner of Barrows and you'll be hitting things with re-rolls with +1 to hit.  If that's not enough for you, add in a Tomb Prince or Tomb King special rule My Will Be Done! and give your WS to the entire unit.  WS5 or 6 Grave Guard will hit most things in the game on 2s, wound with 2s.  Slap on some of the magic spells we talked about earlier and things get out of control.  One of the other rules that that Necrotect lends the army is his ability to give Undead Constructs within 12" range of him a lovely 6+ Regen.  This doesn't seem like a lot at first, but then you apply the Mortis Engine's ability to improve Regen saves and your perspective changes a lot.  For your opponent, this changes in a very bad way as most armies already struggle with T8 Necrosphinx, and now they have freakin' 5+ Regen and take 2 less wounds from losing combat if you have a BSB nearby.

Lastly, expect to see a Casket of Souls in every list.  Not only does it work wonderfully with the whole scream-machine that VC tends to throw out every now and then, but it supplies a lovely +D3 PD to the army.  Combined with something like Black Peripat and maybe the Mortis Engine's +2 to cast for Lore of Vampires, you might just dominate the magic phase.

Just how powerful is all this?  Aside from the movement shennigans, I'm pretty sure it's going to be very powerful, but not unbeatable.  I'm not going to get into all the crazy Mortarchs just yet, but this should be enough to get the gears in your head moving.

VC: The book is not so bad

I remember when this card dominated..

Coming back to WHFB after a long hiatus, I took the last couple of days to learn about the new armies.  I stopped playing a few months after Dark Elves got their new book and during that time, Dwarfs and Wood Elves also got their proper updates.  Good for them.  It's been a long time coming since these armies got their updates and I hope everyone gets updated relatively soon.

So what prompted this post exactly?  Well, I've been hearing quite a bit from the online community that VC lost a lot of their appeal.  Wood Elves bring a lot of magical arrows into the fray and Dwarfs just have enough shooting to make your Terrorgheists miserable.  While these are both true, I don't think it's all doom and gloom for VC.  Out of all the books that have been released so far, I think VC has the best magic item selection and very powerful playstyles overall.

There are three main playstyles that is VC for the most part:

• The offensive style plays with a Blenderlord, loves to apply pressure with a knight bus and fast movers that jam up and annihilate the enemy.  He sustains himself via magic, chews through units through his lord and plays a more isolate and destroy game.  The lord likes to focus on one unit, annihilates it utterly and then moves onto the other while the rest of the army supports this action.  When you look at the army itself, it runs with fast movers like Hexwraiths, Terrorgheists, multiple drops of Dire Wolves, Vargheists, Bat Swarms, basically anything that can keep pace with the Blenderlord's bus of Black Knights.
• The defensive playstyle is on the completely opposite ends of the spectrum.  You like to footslog, keep your army as compressed as possible and win the game through attrition.  In order for VC to do this, they must have a strong magic phase in the way of magical items, namely the Black Peripat.  You might see one or two Master Necromancers in this list, forming your basic casting engines to be combined with the Mortis Engine's +2 to cast for Lore of Vampires.  The rest of the army is made out of anything with good staying power:  Big units of Ghouls, a big unit of Crypt Horrors, Mortis Engine for additional Regen, and anything else that can take a beating and stick in combat.  These lists tend to be slower than the offensive style of playing.
• The last style that you'll see is a mix of both.  You might have a Blenderlord bus, a fat stack of Crypt Horrors with Mortis Engine, and/or anything else that combines the ideology of both.  These lists might have more options when fighting against specific archetypes in the metagame, but they're definitely not as focused as the other two playstyles.  Personally, I think players that focuses on either pure offense or pure defense have better lists overall.  The reason for this is because the VC army likes to either move and move fast, or move slow together.  Breaking that 12" march bubble with your General causes some serious problems most of the time, especially when most of the spells you cast are best in an AoE.

I will say one thing that is the major flaw in the VC book:  Some of the units are gimmicky and very swingy in terms of effectiveness.  For example:  Hexwraiths can be great against something like Ogres, but they'll be hiding for their lives vs. Wood Elves.  Terrorgheists basically have nowhere to hide against multiple cannons, but against an army with little shooting, they can dominate.

At the end of the day, you gotta take what playstyle you playing with most and utilize units that can face anyone in a tournament setting.  That means knowing your meta and which archetypes out there give you the most trouble.  If you're expecting to see a lot of magic flying around, you probably don't want to load your list with Hexwraiths.  If you're expecting to see Ogres, Dwarfs and Empire a lot, multiple Terrorgheists might be a point sink more than anything else.  You just gotta know what you're fighting against and build a balanced list based on your own playstyle.

Lastly, for christ sakes people, revisit your magic items selection once in a while, you'll be surprised with what you'll find.  Black Peripat allows you to absolutely dominate magic phases and it might be one of the best Arcane items in the game, rivaling that of Book of Hoeth.  Nightshroud has been absolutely absurd for me, shutting down opposing ASF and removing the threat of magic weapon/GW-totting models entirely.  Shit, even that cheap little Cursed Book that you have there for 35 points might be one of the best items in the game right now.  A little Lv.1 Necromancer can potentially cast a Soul Blight with 1 dice that'll normally take him 3 dice to cast.  Not just that, but your opponent will throw at least 2 dice on his Lv.4 to dispel it.  If that's not magic power, I don't know what is.

Know your meta, know the archetypes, and know your opponents.  Above all else:  Know your own army.  It will drastically increase your win % as far as preparation is concerned.

VC: Undead elves are real

She can lead my army anytime.

Now that GW has officially confirmed the fact they exist, I'm going to add on some undead elements to my current High Elf army to make it into Vampire Counts.  I already have an asston of High Elves, all I need to do is get myself some undead elements and make it real.

• I'm thinking about using my Spearmen as Skeleton Warriors.
• Dragon Princes as Black Knights, although Blood Knights would be better.
• Ghouls I will need to buy, probably Mantic Ghouls because they look great.
• Dire Wolves I will need to buy as well.
• Pick up some Hexwraiths because I love the models and they look very different than the rest.
• I will need to pick up a Terrorgheist because there's not really a model like it.
• New Spirit Host models are coming out, so I'm going to pick myself 3 of them.
• Vargheists right now are a toss up, I might use them, I might not.  I gotta playtest more.

On another note, so what about those Undead Legions?  Being able to combine VC and TK will lead to a lot of crazy stuff.  Seeing how TK couldn't march before and now they can, do you think they will be more competitive?  What about the fact that Incantation of Desert Winds can now affect both TK and VC units? Would you like the ability to march twice?  Then put on a big bubble VDM?  Add in 2x Necrosphinx and a Casket of Souls and you have one potent list.

2500
13 drops

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Dragonhelm, Ogre Blade, 4+ Ward

HEROES:
Lv.1 Vampire BSB = 250
Lore of Vampires
Dark Knight, Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile
Nightshroud, Luckstone, PoFools

CORE:
33x Skeleton Warriors, FC = 195
30x Ghouls, Ghast = 310
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
12x Black Knights, FC, BoSwiftness = 357
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Casket of Souls = 135
Necrosphinx = 225
Necrosphinx = 225

Resurrecting a dead army

This should be fun.

Yup, bringing back the dead.  I have no idea why the sudden interest in Vampire Counts, but I have a crap ton of them sitting the garage waiting to get updated.  Warhammer Fantasy has died down a lot in my area, but I think I'm going to get back into it in a big way.  It's a solid game system and 8th Ed. has really made it more fun contrary to what other people believe.  By the way the current books are rolling out, I'm sure we'll see a more balanced game once the 7th Ed. power armies get rotated out (DE, Lizzies, Skaven).

Here's what I'm currently building towards at 2500:

2496
12 deploys

LORDS:
Lv.4 Vampire Lord = 548
Lore of Vampires
Quickblood, Red Fury, Beguile
Heavy Armor, Shield, Barded Nightmare
Dragonhelm, ToPreservation, Ogre Blade

HEROES:
Lv.2 Vampire = 233
Lore of Death
Aura of Dark Majesty
Heavy Armor, Lance, Barded Nightmare
Enchanted Shield, Cursed Book

Lv.1 Necro = 90
Lore of Vampires
Scroll

CORE:
40x Zombies (Standard) = 125
20x Zombies (Standard) = 65
35x Ghouls (Ghast) = 360
5x Dire Wolves = 40
5x Dire Wolves = 40

SPECIAL:
10x Black Knights (FC, BoSwiftness) = 305
5x Hexwraiths = 150
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45

RARE:
Terrorgheist = 225
Terrorgheist = 225

++++++++++++++++++++++

The main thing to note here is that I'm going for a pretty balanced approach.  There's a mini-cav bus, less screams than a scream list, and a good amount of magic as well.  The Vamp Lord and Lv.2 Vamp will ride in the Black Knights, 6x2 formation and they'll fly shotgun next to 2x Terrorgheists.  With 12 drops total in the list, I'm looking to match if not beat most deployment.  I won't have enough to out-deploy MSU armies, but this is a pretty good start.

Lv.1 Necro functions as a caddy and sits in the smaller zombie unit.  Ghouls will be a hitting force that'll benefit greatly from Van Hels, but it's the Lord and the Terrorgheists that'll do the heavy lifting.  Spirit Hosts are great units to have and Hexwraiths are severely underrated.  They're one of the best chaff removal units in the game and being able to scare off/kill Eagles/Sabretusks/Ratdarts are a huge bonus.

Anyways, this is what I got for now.  Construction of the army will probably take place now and into April, with enough time to get some games in before my primary army, High Elves enter the fray in May.  Tau comes out next and I'll probably get my hands on the book just to write an review.  Otherwise, I try to stay away from the blue goat fishmen as much as possible.

BR: 2500pts HE vs. VC

Hey guys, this is my first game vs. the new Vampire Counts with my High Elves so I'm really excited to report the game.  I literally just finished playing and I'm pretty tired, but I had to get this BR down before I forget too much stuff.  Throughout the game, I managed to snag a few pictures, but nothing too crazy because we were just having a great time.  I played against my friend Lucas and he's always a good sport.

Before the game began, I gave my opponent a choice between a competitive list and a casual list.  He went with the casual and I took the following:

Lv.4 Archmage, Silver Wand, Robe, Talisman of Saphery, Lore of Shadow
Noble, BSB, GW, AoC, Dawnstone
Lv.1 Mage, Sigil, High Magic
40x Spears in FC w/ Lion Standard
2x 10x Archers
20x Phoenix Guard, FC with Banner of Sorcery
24x White Lions, FC with Banner of Eternal Flame
12x Sword Masters
5x Dragon Princes
2x Great Eagles

I guess I also owe it to some folks over at Ulthuan.net for wanting to see some BRs that feature non-book lists, so here you have it.  I literally took out my case, and decided to take a little bit of everything.  Overall, I was pretty happy about the list.

I didn't get the full list from my opponent, but here's what he had:

Lv.4 Vampire Lord, caster stuff
Lv.1 Beast Vampire
Wight King BSB w/ Black Knights
A unit of Black Knights
A unit of Vargheists
A big block of Crypt Horrors
A big block of Skeletons (Bunker)
A smaller unit of Ghouls
A larger unit of Ghouls
A Corpse Cart

We played on a map that's pretty straight forward.  I had 10 drops total and I managed to outdeploy him in some critical spots.  The biggest one is probably the White Lions vs. his Crypt Horrors and the Dragon Princes on his far flank while the rest of his army stayed together.

I'll post some pictures and talk at the same time.. hopefully it all makes sense.  Keep in mind some pictures are missing because we were having a ball!

• The game starts off with him going first.  He pushes models up and the Crypt Horrors are really aggressive.  The Mortis Engine gives them 4+ Regen so he's relying on them to really put some damage down.  Things move up but not too aggressively because he doesn't want to face the full might of the Elves!  Just kidding, his Vargheists gets really aggressive and he flies them hard at my Archers.  He throws big on an army-wide Van Hels and I Sigil it, failing to remove it.
• My first turn looked something like this:

• The Eagles do what they do best and redirect.  Red Eagle flies up and shows his flank to the Crypt Ghouls, taunting them to charge and clip the Eagle for a triple front, flank and rear charge from my DP, PG, WL and he knows he doesn't want that.  Blue Eagle flies and chills by the Vargheists so they Frenzy test for the Eagle, which then I'll naturally flee and they'll happily go into Sword Masters with a bad roll.  Doesn't matter, my units move and angle and doesn't do too much but anticipate his next moves.  Magic sees a few spells thrown around but nothing goes through.  Shooting sees the Archers down 1 Varighest and put 2 wounds on another.  Nice.
• My pictures keep turning upside because Blogger's ass so I'll pass on this next picture.  Either way, it doesn't matter.  Last turn during shooting, he pulls the Vargheist that can see the Eagle because he doesn't want to be redirected.  Unfortunately, he fails to restrain and the Varhgiests go into the Sword Masters anyway.  They chop them up to bits and reforms to face the Crypt Ghouls.  The Black Knights charge the Red Eagle and from a horrible display of martial skill, fails to kill the Eagle.  Instead, he does 2 wounds to it and I fly away.  He restrains because he's afraid of getting trapped and die.  I let Curse of Years through on my White Lions because he rolls high on his winds.  This turn gets a little ridiculous because he IFs Winds of Undeath on my Spearmen unit and I'm sweating beads, but he fails horribly at rolling, misfires with the template and places it on his own unit of Skeletons.  To make matters worse, he rolls a 11 on the chart (2 miscast rolls, I make him pick this) which sees him lose 3 whole wizard levels and every spell except for IoN.  He loses a whole bunch of Skeletons and we laugh like huge nerds.
• Next turn looks something like this:

• The White Lions go into the Crypt Horrors, the Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard go into the Black Knights and the Eagle rallies.  The Blue Eagle flies towards the Ghouls to be annoying, showing his flank and forcing him to redirect for my Sword Masters.  Magic sees the winds heavily go in my favor and I'm liking what I see.  Cool, I thought, time to cast a lot of spells!  He dispels Withering on the Knights and watches me IF Enfeeble on his Crypt Horrors, making them S2 for the round.  I put a small template on myself and lose 3 dice, and kill 8 White Lions.  We laugh again like huge nerds.  It's pretty sad, I'm pretty sad because I really needed them to be there later.  Anyways, I use the rest of my dice to dispel Curse of Years and we enter combat since shooting did squat.  The Dragon Princes swing with a crap ton of attacks, hits with a lot and wound with few.  The Phoenix Guard had the same exact problem.. so this combined charge didn't go as well as I hoped.  He still loses combat narrowly and pulls a few knights in response.  Undead is Unbreakable so I'm forced to hang out.  The White Lions, however, go buck shit crazy on the Crypt Horrors and I challenge with my Archmage.  His Champ accepts, does no damage to me and I stop some of his damage.  I did an insane amount of wounds and force a crap ton of additional wounds, but he hangs in there with his Champ that has 1 wound left.  Just a little more and I would of overran into his Mortis Engine.
• The next couple of turns turn pretty funny.  I don't have pictures because it's really funny, but what happened here was his Black Knights started to res up because of good magic winds rolls and the Peripat his Lord carried.  I didn't want his Knights to get to full, so I let the Signature Beast spell go off on the Black Knights. I try to dispel IoN and fails horribly so he gets a few models back.  Charges see the Mortis Engine enter combat and impact hits kills a few more Lions.  Now that the Corpse Cart is nearby and IoN went through, all the units within 6" of it gains ASF.  Well, that kinda sucks because it takes away from my White Lion's killing ability, and it proves to be the case when the Mortis Engine single-handily ties combat with the White Lion's BSB unit as I roll poorly to wound it (only 2 wounds).  The Black Knight unit, now with +1S +1T beings to kill the Phoenix Guard and I'm not liking where this combat is going.  I swing back, kill just a couple and we tie combat again.  His turn also sees the Blue Eagle charged and ran off the board, but in doing so left his rear opened for my Sword Masters to enter.
• I don't have pictures of the next couple of turns, but it basically stays all up in the middle.  I charge my Sword Masters in from behind and shit gets real.  A couple of Sword Masters die (I think 3), but he loses combat by something like 12.  Yeah.. time to pull models.  If my Archers would of made it into combat (both failed charge), I would have wiped the unit out in 1 round I think.  Magic goes poorly again as he manages to scroll my Mindrazor on the Dragon Princes and throws everything else at my Withering.  God damnit, those Black Knights are killing me.  My Red Eagle charges the Mortis Engine and combat sees a ton of hits in my favor and S6 was enough to drop the Mortis Engine.  It blows up and kills a bunch of units all around the center.  I think in total it drops 2x Phoenix Guard, 1x Lion and 3x Spears on my side.  It also drops a bunch of weenies on his side but he doesn't care.  Anyways, the Eagle overruns an amazing 2 inches (which is kinda good because it helps block his Lord's unit from charging my White Lions), and I restrain with my White Lions.  Combat with the Black Knights turn south and my Dragon Princes are cut down to 1 guy (who flees like a coward) and the Phoenix Guard flee as well.  He reforms to face the flank of my White Lions.
• I have a good picture of the last turn:

• You see that large template centered over his Lord?  That's what happens when you miscast on 5-dice of IoN and roll Dimensional Cascade.  To make matters worse, his Lord gets sucked into the void and 17 Skeletons eat massive shit.  The Eagle also eats shit but it's hysterical to see that go off in this crazy game.  The Black Knights charge the flank of my White Lions and I make way with the Archmage and the BSB.  I know he's looking for KB on my BSB, but I swing into the unit and kill 2 of them.  The AM challenges and the Wight King accepts (oops, bad choice) and I save a good amount of wounds.  I get lucky and there was no KBs to be had, but I managed to take a wound on the BSB.  Regardless, the crumble kicks into effect and the Black Knights gets hit hard with boxcars, the Corpse Cart dies horribly and the rest of the units start dying off slowly.  His remaining unit of Ghouls suicide charge into my 40x Spear unit in hopes of snagging the Lv.1 for points.  My White Lions lose combat but they're Stubborn and don't care.  The Spear unit also wins combat and that's pretty much it.
• Next turn just sees the Spear unit and Sword Master unit combo charge the remaining Skeleton bunker.  The White Lions, augmented by magic and the Black Knights hexed to death dies horribly.  Victory goes the the Asur!

We talk about the game after about some of the tactical mistakes he made during the game.  The Eagles were certainly a huge pain to deal with, but I think he could of played his Vargheists better.  I'm not entirely convinced on a caster lord, but he was doing it to save points so he can put more in the rest of his army.  Crypt Horrors just get dominated by White Lions w/ some magic support and he's definitely more aware of the Challenging Archmage now.  The Mortis Engine gave him a pretty strong magic phase with the +2 to cast, but miscasts can still happen and they're a lot more brutal with the engine around.  At the end of the night, we were just having a great time.  Thanks for the game Lucas!

Some observations on VC gameplay

So after a few games of playing with the new VC, I have some notes to share with you guys:

• A Lv.4 is really important in the army because of magic dominance.  You really need a strong magic phase to keep your units in good number.  Grave Guard are still amazing with GWs, it's just they're a lot more fragile than last edition.
• Supporting casters are a must have too.  The 6" bubble for rank 1 IoN is a great way to raise bunkers and keep units alive when they're next to you.  2 dice is a good chuck for a Lv.1 caster.
• Ethereal re-directors are decent, not the best.  The reason why is because of the 12" bubble and clunky bases giving you a harder time.
• Speaking of the 12" bubble, this is my biggest observation.  It keeps your entire army bunched up and close together and leaves very little choices on army composition.  A large core block of Skeletons is the right way to go (I've tried 60 and 2x 30) and the larger block allows you to anchor on one side of your flank entirely.  The 12" march bubble is very important in 2 respects:
• It makes cavalry-based armies a little less attractive.  You want movement, you desire movement, but leaving your army behind you while you seek glory is just troublesome.  Foot Lords are probably better because you want to be in the center of your army.  Cavalry Lords are bad unless your entire army can keep up with you (an entire cav army or flying Vargheists).
• Overruns and pursues can be bad for your Lord's unit.  Say you win combat by a lot and roll really high to pursue or overrun.  Unless your units are in position to charge or counter-charge next turn, their movement gets hampered a lot.  You can't march unless you're within 12" and you can't rely 100% on Van Hels to get your shit where it needs to be.
• If you plan on taking Black Knights, they should probably hang out behind your main forces or something so you can VHD them around the side so they can supporting charge next turn.
• Big blocks of Skeletons are pretty win.  My Ghouls have done pretty well in games, but I found Skeletons to be the core unit for price vs. effectiveness.  You just lock something down hard and that's always good.
• The biggest winners I've seen on various forums, battle reports and personal experience is the Mortis Engine, Crypt Horrors and Vargheists.  The Mortis Engine just lets you cast with +2 to all things and it's just ridiculous.  When a Lv.1 casts like a Lv.3, there's a good chance you'll get a lot more spells off.  With IoN needed to sustain your army's model count by the time you move across the battlefield, I would definitely recommend the Mortis Engine.  The funny thing is that Crypt Horrors are also really amazing.  T5 with 4+ Regen because of the Mortis Engine really holds the line when you need them too.  And Vargheists, flying Frenzy Monstrous Infantry is just really good.  Good WS, high S, good I, flying, a lot of attacks, it's all good.  T4 with no armor saves might seem like liability, but it's mother fing ridiculous vs. armies that don't have a lot of shooting or magic missiles.  They just fly over most re-directors and hit things on the flank.  Bam, dead units everywhere.
• So in summary, let's recap what I think is good:
• Big units of core to hold flanks (Skellies!)
• Ethereal misdirectors are clunky with the 12" bubble
• The 12" bubble really hinders movement and keeps your army tight
• Mortis Engine, Crypt Horrors, Vargheists and GG w/ Great Weapons (yes, they're still amazing) are the way to go.

PS - And this is probably pretty random.. but I managed to get my hands on a Ogres army for really cheap.  Guess I'll have Ogres on top of VC soon!

PPS - Hellheart vs. Vampires when they have a Mortis Engine just ruins their undead lives.  Roll twice on the Miscast chart and you pick the result.  Terrible.

PPPS - I have a game as High Elves vs. the new VC tonight!  BR will come soon :)

More VC army construction

UPDATED: 1-19-12

I'm still working on the finer points of designing a solid VC army and I'd like to take you guys on a guided tour on how I reach certain decisions.  Hopefully, this short article will help you guys in your army building stages as well.

First, I'll talk about my lord choices:

Vampire Lord = 433
Lore of Vampires
Red Fury, Quickblood
Knight, Ogre Blade, Dragonhelm, 4+ Ward, PoFool

Lv.3 Master Necro (Book of Arkhan) = 190
Lore of Vampires

This here is what I had at first.  I wanted to do this for the following reasons:  Keeping the VL at Lv.1 makes him a mere support caster.  It gives him focus, as he's now a primary melee attacker.  Bigger spells are not really used by him, thus limiting the amount of PD thrown (which in turn lowers the chance to miscast).  This also allows me to fill in a Master Necro at Lv.3 and Book of Arkhan.  It gives him a dedicated role and allows him to cast elsewhere (2 casters vs. 1) while maintaining a good magic item.

However, my list progressed to something like this:

Viktor Draconis (Lv.4 Vampire Lord) = 538
Lore of Vampires
Red Fury, Quickblood
Knight, Ogre Blade, Dragonhelm, 4+ Ward, PoFool

Lv.1 Necro (Book of Arkhan) = 90

Going over the points again, I took a look at my Lv.3 Master Necro and the Vampire Lord and stared at them for a very long time.  I understand the pros and cons of having both a Vampire Lord and Master Necro, but I wanted more than that.  More knowledge, more options, more understanding.  One of the first things a competitive player does when he min-maxes his list is to trim the fat.  He maximizes on the amount of points he has allotted himself and he goes to no end to find a work around one simple concept:  How to get the best bang for your buck?  Then it hit me.. the Master Necro Lv.4 is 200 points on the dot.  To upgrade my Vampire Lord to a Lv.4 takes 105 points.  That's half of the points to unlock the VL to his full potential and gives you a larger array of spells.  The reason why this change is appropriate is because of points:  I can't possibly take a Red Fury Lord and a Lv.4 in the same army list at 2500 points.  The only way I can is to take one person who can do it all:  A Lv.4 Wizard with the speed, power and protection of a fully-armored Vampire Lord.

I decided that the good outweighs the bad:  The good is that you have a Lv.4 in your army and a combat Lord at the same time.  The bad is that you are now the biggest target on the battlefield:  3 wounds, one body, one location, the General and the highest level caster.  Sounds like a bad deal right?  Not for the 100 points saved and the big middle finger saying I'm coming for you anyway (reasoning need not apply).

As for the Hero slots, I'm still a little undecided.  When I show you my army list later, you'll see that I still have ~100 or so points left over.  Here's the combo I have running right now:

Edward Cullen (Vampire) = 202
Lore of Vampires
Aura of Dark Majesty, Fear Incarnate
Shield, Glittering Scales, Scroll

60x Skeletons (FC, Screaming Banner, Spears) = 355

I used to have the Vampire mounted on a horse in a unit of Black Knights and the Vampire Lord, but I decided against that.  One of the reasons why is because it paints a giant target on my head, and since I changed my Vampire Lord to a Lv.4, I don't want an even bigger target placed over my head.  This falls into the "too many eggs in 1 basket" approach.  The combo might be ridiculous on paper, but when you total up the points to see it work, you begin to wonder if it's worth it or not.  I decided that it was not worth it, but instead focus on something that'll improve the overall strength of my entire army:  Adding additional threat!

What's scarier than a giant horde of Skeletons flanked by a giant unit of Grave Guard w/ Banner of Barrows?  When the giant unit of Skeletons you're in combat with is never going to let you go until you're all destroyed.  With the Scary Vampire placed in the giant unit of Skellies, you have an assload of Unbreakable wounds to chew through w/ Fear tests going off every turn that'll make you hate life.  Skeletons suck in combat compared to most things, but they are actually pretty decent when you put them in a horde formation with Spears and give them the ability to make someone WS1.  Hit on 3s with an assload of attacks is going to cause issues to anyone in the game.  Not just that, but they hit you less, you kill them more and it balances out their Undead rule to maybe even... beating units in combat.  Maybe you don't have to pull more Skellies out of every combat.  Maybe, just maybe, I think Skeletons should be scary on the battlefield.

This, completes the goal that I wanted to do:  Expand on the number of threats on the battlefield while reducing the bullet magnet size of the Black Knights.  Kill 2 birds with 1 stone as far as I'm concerned.

Now, we look at another the other obvious combos:

35x Grave Guard (FC, GW, Banner of Barrows) = 500
11x Black Knights (FC, Banner of Swiftness) = 331

7x5 Grave Guard with Great Weapons and Banner of Barrows.  Deploy them next to the Fear-bombing Skeletons and your opponents will most likely sweat.  Think about it:  Grave Guard hits most things in the game on 3s and wound on 2s with Great Weapons.  Vs. a giant Skeleton bunker that's afflicting fear to targets 10-wide, you're looking at hitting things in the game on 2s.  In turn, this also ups the amount of damage you receive because WS1 hits WS3 on 5s.  All of a sudden, being in combat with Grave Guard + Fearbomb gives you the same amount of protection as the now missing Drakenhof Banner.  In fact, vs. higher WS units w/ Flaming Banner, recurring Fear gives you infinitely more protection.

The other unit here is the Black Knights.  I took the Screaming Banner off them so I can spread the threat somewhere else, so I decided to up their count to 11 and give them Banner of Swiftness.  One of the problems with Knights these games is their size, their price, their ability to NOT deny Steadfast and their speed.  I wanted to amend as many of these as possible by upping their unit count to 11 first.  This gives me more bodies to pull, more units to put back because of my new Lv.4 (D6+1 is a lot!), and less models that needs to be there for when Disruption might come into effect.  Being a 6x2 formation also provides a larger number of attacks at the cost of almost no maneuverability.  The Banner of Swiftness gives me additional threat range, and allows me to get in combat quicker.  Honestly, I need to get in combat ASAP with the Lord and his unit to minimize on the amount of shooting I have to face.

So with that in mind, here's my current list as of today:

2500
9 drops

LORDS:
Viktor Draconis (Lv.4 Vampire Lord) = 538
Lore of Vampires
Red Fury, Quickblood
Knight, Ogre Blade, Dragonhelm, 4+ Ward, PoFool

HEROES:
Edward Cullen (Vampire) = 202
Lore of Vampires
Aura of Dark Majesty, Fear Incarnate
Shield, Glittering Scales, Scroll

Lv.1 Necro (Book of Arkhan) = 90
Cairn Wraith = 60

CORE:
60x Skeletons (FC, Screaming Banner) = 355
27x Ghouls = 270

SPECIAL:
Spirit Host = 45
Spirit Host = 45
2x Fell Bats = 32
2x Fell Bats = 32
35x Grave Guard (FC, GW, Banner of Barrows) = 500
11x Black Knights (FC, Banner of Swiftness) = 331

Now I'm looking at a total of 9 drops with heroes.  That's a pretty decent amount of drops and the Fell Bats mean absolutely nothing to me.  If they re-direct some things out of the way, great.  If they don't, it doesn't matter because I still have 9 drops total.  I added the Cairn Wraith in there for another Ethereal re-director and Terror.  Having a Terror-causer in the scary Skeleton unit can give me Fear over Fear-causers, so I think that's great.

Thanks for reading.

2500pt VC army brainstorm

Alright guys, gloves off.  I have enough models to make it happen, so now it's time to proxy a few games and see how I do.  However, there's some stuff I want to go over first.

2246

LORDS:
Vampire Lord = 433
Lore of Vampires
Red Fury, Quickblood
Knight, Ogre Blade, Dragonhelm, 4+ Ward, PoFool

Lv.3 Master Necro (Book of Arkhan) = 190
Lore of Vampires

HEROES:
Vampire = 210
Lore of Shadow
Aura of Dark Majesty, Fear Incarnate
Knight, Enchanted Shield, Scroll

CORE:
60x Skeletons (FC, Spears) = 330
29x Ghouls (Ghast) = 300

SPECIAL:
40x Grave Guard (FC, Banner of Barrows) = 520
8x Black Knights (FC, Screaming Banner) = 263

The first thing you'll note is that I have 250 points left to play with. After careful, careful consideration, I decided to take out my Blood Knight bus for a smaller Black Knight filler group. They cost almost half the points of the Blood Knights and they get to carry the Screaming Banner into critical battles. Not to mention I can also res a whole bunch of them at once. I firmly believe that the Vampire Lord and the Vampire themselves will be able to put out enough damage by themselves.

The Lord's shortbus now carries the Fear-bomb combo: -1 Ld, no BSB re-rolls on Fear tests (or re-roll successful ones), 3D6 discard the lowest Fear test.

For a perspective, it looks something like this:

I've run the numbers for the screaming banner/fear incarnate combo (add aura of -1Ld if you will) and these are the odds of failing the fear tests for different. First number is without the rerolls (the enemy is close to his BSB) and the second is with the rerolls:

Ld10: 0.2 - 0.36
Ld9: 0.36 - 0.59
Ld8: 0.52 - 0.77
Ld7: 0.68 - 0.9
Ld6: 0.8 - 0.96
Ld5: 0.89 - 0.99
Ld4: 0.95 - 0.999..
Ld3: 0.98 - 0.999..
Ld2: 0.99 - 0.99999....

I'm also running 40x Grave Guard with HW/S for durability and killing power, and I feel confident with their ability to stay in battle and do damage with Van Hels, Book and hopefully more castings of it from my Lv.3.

Now, I have 250 points left over and I'm not entirely sure what to take. There's so SO many good options! That's why I need your help and your logic to why. Here are my options:

1. Terrorgheist (+1 extra deploy)
Giant T6 6W creature with Death Shriek. Threat value, pretty damn high.

2. Spirit Host, Spirit Host, Spirit Host, and a Cairn Wraith (+3 deploy)
3x solo Spirit Hosts act as great Ethereal road blocks that can hold up Great Eagles, Light Cav, even bigger Cav units in general indefinitely. Cairn Wraith actually does damage and has Terror.

3. 2x Cairn Wraiths, Necro w/ Staff of Damn (0 deploy)
More magic, can also carry a scroll to give the Vampire a Dawnstone for 1+ re-rollable. 2x Cairn Wraiths for road blocks that actually do damage.

4. Black Coach, Cairn Wraith (+1 deploy)
Black Coach, T6 3+ armor save, 4+ Ward, Terror-causing chariot that can get really big if you roll silly. Cairn Wraith as a filler.

5. 5x Cairn Wraiths as rare (+1 deploy)
250 points of standard face roll Ethereal Great Weapon dudes.

6. 5x Hexwraiths, Spirit Host, Spirit Host (+3 deploy)
Hexwraiths to do damage, 2x Spirit Hosts to mess with deployment.

7. 2x Bat Swarms, 2x Cairn Wraiths, 1x Spirit Hosts (+3 deploy)
Bat Swarms flying behind your units to provide ASL once your units get into combat. Cairn Wraiths for added damage and roadblocks and Spirit Hosts for a speed bump.

8. Add a Wight King BSB somewhere, take Spirit Hosts and Bats. (+2 deploy)

These are just the combos I can think of right now, but I'm really curious what you guys think.  Keep in mind you can mix and match any of these that costs low enough. Also keep in mind that this 250 points left is the most important part of the list. Lots of options.. but the most important goal of these last few points is to provide flexibility in an all-comers list.  This means a balance between roadblocks, re-directors, power-hitters, stronger magic, or any of those mixed together.  The ultimate question is:  What's the best?

What say you guys?

8th Ed. Vampire Counts Army Book Review

Possibly the worst cover art I've ever seen.

To start things off, I'd like to say that I'm very happy with the new Vampire Counts book.  It's a solid army book with lots of different options and has tons of versatility.  One of the things I enjoy the most when reading new army books is judging its internal balance:  The book must be interesting enough that there's multiple viable builds possible.  What can I say?  Phil Kelly wrote the book and the man is capable of delivering awesome material.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for... the book review.  To start things off, let's talk about the spcial rules and work our way down to special characters, lords and heroes...etc.

The Vampire special rules come off pretty strong:  For one, Vampires gain something called Hunger which allows those with the Vampric rule to gain a wound back on a "6" provided they kill something.  This happens at the end of every combat phase.  The Undead army itself can't march unless within 12" of the army general or has the Vampire rule, so VC certainly move a bit faster than Tomb Kings.  Another thing that might sadden the TK players is that once the VC general dies, instead of crumbling into the ground turn after turn, after the first turn of crumbling, another wizard with the Vampire Lore can seize control of the army and stop crumbling all together.  Pretty cool huh?

Vlad makes an appearance in the book and he's better than he was last time.  He still has the Carstein Ring which gives him a 4+ Ward and the 2+ "We'll Be Back", but he comes back with Heavy Armor and is a Lv.3 wizard.  If he and Isabella is in the same unit, both of them gain ASF and can really maul things in combat. He comes with Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile and Supernatural Horror, and he carries the Bloodrinker.  Don't worry, the Blood Drinker has been nerfed quite a bit and now it grants Vlad +1S and a wound back on 4+ since it procs off of Hunger.  Isabella deserves a little mention because she's almost double the price but comes with normal Vampire stats so she doesn't suck in combat.  She also has Beguile.  Just like Vlad, if any of this duo dies in combat, the other one gains Hatred and Frenzy for the rest of the game.

Both Mannfreds are still in the game and they didn't really change much.  I personally think Mannfred's Lord form is too expensive to take, but that's because I'm comparing him to the other caster lord, Heinrich Kemmler.  Even though some people think Loremaster Vamps and Ethereal or Flying Lv.4 is good, I still think he's overpriced (even if he has +1 to dispel!).  The reason why is because you can take a Lv.4 Master Necromancer for a lot cheaper and you can take Vamp or Death lore.  For the amount these guys cost, I think they're an essential buy in terms of magic potentinal because the Vampires will see more frontline action.

Vampire Lords are in the game and some say for the worse.  That's because they're more expensive, comes with 1 more attack but is only a Lv.1 Wizard at the start.  You can buy him up to 4, but he can become super expensive after all the levels.  I'd like to mention that all Vampires can now take mundane weapons, armor, shields and barded horses.  This gives them good protection without effecting their 100 points in Vampric Powers and 100 points if Magic items.  Believe me, there will be so many builds of different Vampire Lords that'll make everyone happy, even if Bloodlines are no longer in the game.  I'll get to the different magic items and vamp powers later.

Another lord-level character is the Ghoul King.  He has a lower WS of 6, but has I8, 5+ Regen, Poisoned attacks and Infinite Hatred (Hatred in every round of combat).  He's also a Lv.1 wizard and costs slightly more than a Vampire Lord and cannot carry magical armors.  However, this doesn't stop him from taking other things that can make him dangerous, as well as Vampric Powers.  Imagine this for a sec:  Ghoul King, Red Fury, Bloodshed Sword (+3 attacks), Potion of Strength.  8 attacks at S8, re-roll to hit WS6 and each wound becomes another attack.  Have fun with that one.

Krell makes an appearance, and I'm not too impressed.  He still comes with his Black Axe of Krell, the S6 ASL Great Weapon that inflicts D3 wounds.  The magical armor that he wears saves on 4+ and nullifies magic weapons ONLY if he saves with it.  That's pretty balls.  On top of that, Krell is relatively expensive for what he can do and he must always issue and accept challenges.  The good thing with him is that if you take Kemmler in the same unit, Krell gains Heroic Killing Blow on all his attacks during the challenge.

Moving on, we still see Konrad von Carstein in the game and he got a tad bit more expensive for another attack.  Yay for that, nay for the fact he lost Infinite Hatred.  He still has great stats, inflicts Multiple Wounds(2) on his attacks and Red Fury.  Still worth the points I think.  Necromancers are also in the book and they're great buys for a cheap Lv.1 or Lv.2 Wizard.  One Master Necro or normal Necro can take Master of the Dead for some points and gain the ability to raise Skeletons past their starting size.

Vampires are obviously in the game and they can be BSBs while carrying Vampric Powers, but I think the real winners of the hero-class goes to Wight Kings.  They are still T5 with 3 wounds, come with Heavy Armor, Shield and the ability to take barded steeds, lances and what not.  The great thing is that they're dirt cheap and are incredibly cost-effective with Killing Blow, durability and armor saves.  Just great and great.

Last but not least, we have the Cairn Wraiths and Banshees in the hero slot.  They haven't changed since they put them in a few months back and their uses are still the same.  Good, cheap, terror-causing guys that can kill things in combat and are Ethereal road blockers.

Phew, now that's done, let's move onto the other units in the book:

Starting with the core choices, I'll first note that Dire Wolves are back in the core slot.  They are 5-20 and gain Slavering Charge, which gives them +1S on the turn they charge.  Pretty cool to have an old rule back and I'm glad Phil Kelly decided to give VC some mobile core.  The true argument here is if they'll be better to take over the "improved" Zombies, Skeleton Warriors or Ghouls.  Let's look for a second.

Zombies are still ASL and WS1, which makes them awful in combat, but they are now S3 T3.  This makes them one of the best tarpit units in the game once you factor in their points.  However, for just 2 points more, you have a Skeleton Warrior unit which can take Full Command, has Light Armor/Shield and can upgrade to Spears.  On top of this, they can take a 25pt Magic Banner and call the unit complete.  How does this look compared to the Ghoul which is double the price of the Skeleton?  I'd say if I had to choose, Skeletons are my go-to unit in terms of raw balance.  Zombies die in the droves and kill absolutely nothing.  Skellies have armor saves, can take Parry saves and have Full Command.  Champions are incredibly important when challenging uber lords and keeping your necros out of combat, and that's something Zombies cannot offer (even though they can join the unit).  On top of this, Ghouls at the same stats but more expensive makes Skeletons more appealing.  Honestly, I don't think VC need punchy core units, that's what the Special and Rare choices are for.

So going off that, let's look at one of the most hated units in all of Warhammer:  The dreaded Grave Guard.  They're 1 point more than a Ghoul and come with excellent, excellent stats for the price.  S4, T4, built-in Killing Blow (although they lose magical weapons), Heavy Armor and Shield.  If this isn't amazing, I don't know what is.  With Drakenhoff Banner gone (Thank the Lord!), I think the ideal configuration is a big block of Grave Guard with HW/Shield.  The defensive buff is just too great to justify spending points on Great Weapons and no protection.  Not to mention the fact that you can protect your casters while still maintaining high kill ratios with your battle spells.  I'll get more on the spells later, but I still think Grave Guard are some of the best specials in the game.

The Corpse Cart has been moved to the Specials section and they gained a litle extra.  Just a little bit more expensive, but they gain +1W and Vigour Mortis.  VM states that when you cast an augment spell on the CC itself, all units within 6" gain the ASF rule.  On top of this, Zombies lose their ASL rule and gain the ASF rule specifically so they can strike first!  I think that's pretty cool.  They can still take Balefire and Unholy Lodestone and have Regen so what's not to like.

Black Knights are back and better than ever I think.  They went down a lot in points because you can choose to buy lances and barding for their steeds.  If you want them to run cheap, they can do that and still sport a good armor save while maintaining Killing Blow.  Blood Knights are also in the game with pretty much the same features except for +1I and cheaper.  Martial Honour is still in the unit so I don't see myself ever taking the unit champion upgrade, ever.  In addition, Blood Knights now can take their own fabled Flag of Blood Keep as a unit upgrade rather than take up space in the magic items section.

One of the biggest winners of the special section is the Spirit Host.  It's a lot cheaper and can be taken in units of 1.  This gives you great little speed bunps etherealing across the battlefield and that's always good.  I don't know if they're in the same category as Sabretusks, but they're definitely pretty good at what they cost.  Bat Swarms are also pretty good because any unit in BtB with one has the ASL rule (yes, any unit).  Going back to Ethereal, let's touch upon everyone's most talked about unit:  The Hexwraiths.  Unlike the rest of the internets, I'm telling you right now:  These guys are not as overpowered as what people say.  Sure, they are Ehtereal Fast Cav that can move through a target and force them to take S5 Magical, Flaming Attacks with No Armor saves, but they're pretty expensive for the damage they put out.  Not to mention they don't have Vampric and thus cannot march if not in range of the General.  This suddenly rates their Fast Cav status a little lower and makes people rethink their viability.  Also consider the fact that they die to a soft breeze of a magic missile and will cost a lot if your opponent takes them in numbers.  Personally, I think they're overrated.

Next, we look at Vargheists and Crypt Horrors.  I'll start with Vargheists first because I think they're the first flying Monstrous Infantry units in the game.  What's not to like about a bunch of flying, Frenzy S5, 3 attacks base, T4 dudes with 3W?  The Crypt Horrors are also pretty badass with T5, 5+ Regen and 3 Poisoned Attacks.  Factor in the fact that the Mortis Engine can turn that Regen into a 4+ and you've got yourself one heck of a durable unit.  In a VC army, anything that's not in full armor but contains this much durability is something to be respected.

The Black Coach is still in the game and it's slightly cheaper than it was last book.  That's great because these things can still cause a lot of trouble for anyone fighting against it.  Too bad they can't siphon your opponent's PD anymore.  Cairn Wraiths are still in the game with the same price under Rare (different from the hero versions) and so are Terrorgheists.

I guess I'll take this time to go over the Mortis Engine and Coven Throne.  The Mortis Engine is a rare that you can take that hands out Regen on your own units (it also has Regen itself).  Each turn, you roll a 2D6 and add the current turn number. That's the range of the Mortis Engine's Aura.  All enemy units take D6 hits equal to the strength of the current turn and friendly units gain +1 to their Regen save up to 4+.  If you roll a double, you take a wound with no saves of any kind.  You can also upgrade the Mortis Engine so that all wizards within 12" gain +2 to casting for Lore of the Vampires.  However, if you miscast, you roll the miscast result twice and your opponent picks which one to apply.

The Coven Throne is a mount that you can buy for your Lord.  It comes with some hot vampire chicks that swing with ASF and comes with a 4+ Ward.  The biggest thing to note with the Coven Throne is that it forces units in contact with it to do a Mind War.  You roll D6 + Ld. and your opponent does the same.  However the amount of points you beat him by, you apply to a chart that reads as the following: 0 does nothing, 1-2 is -1 WS and BS, 3-5 is re-roll all successful hits and 6+, the unit attacks itself.  Yes, the unit directs all the attacks it can put out onto itself.  To make matters worse for them, the Coven Throne comes with a Bound Spell 3 called Scrying Pool that if successfully casts, makes everything on the Coven Throne re-roll hit and wounds for the remainder of the turn.  Personally, as Blood Dragon, I would rather take a Zombie Dragon since it's cheaper than the last book, has +1T and +1W (but is now WS4), and still has Cloud of Flies and Pestilient Breath.

Alright, let's talk about the Lore of the Vampires, the vampiric powers and the items now:

The main attribute of the lore is called Curse of Undeath, and it heals the wizard or any friendly model within 12" for 1 wound.  That's a pretty good attribute if you ask me.

Invocation is the signature spell and it effects all units within 6/12/18" on the same, scaling casting levels.  Each time Invocation goes off, the unit is healed D6 + the wizard level of the person casting it.  Vampires, Ethreal or large models only ever get healed for 1 wound.

Vanhels is the next spell and it grants 8" movement if not engaged and re-roll hits to a unit.  It can be boosted to all units within 12" with the same effect.  Hellish Vigour is the next spell and it grants the unit re-roll wounds.  This can be boosted to effect all units within 12" with the same effect.  Next in the list is Gaze of Nagash and it wasn't really changed at all.  2D6 S4 missiles and can be boosted to go 48".  Raise Dead is still in the and it can be used to spawn Zombies or Skeletons (boosted) at 2D6+3 models.  Curse of Years is back and works exactly the same way as 7th and the big spell Winds of Undeath is decent.

Winds of Undeath is a magical vortex that when you cast it, you nominate a direction and roll the artillery dice x 3.  It moves that many inches and each unit beneath takes a D6 S3 hit (or S4 if boosted) for each rank of models in the unit w/ no armor save.  If you misfire, you center it on your unit and do the same thing. Good, but nothing in terms of Mindrazor, Dwellers or Purple Sun (and a good thing at that!).

As for Vampire Powers, here's what I see:

Master of the Black Arts - Expensive.  Re-roll one of the dice when determining Winds of Magic.  This can turn your otherwise crappy roll of 6 and 1 into 5 and 6.  A lot more dice to break open opponent defenses.

Curse of the Revenant - +1W is nothing to write home about with this price tag.

Red Fury - Great ability, allows you to build combat monsters capable of tearing through entire formations at a time.  I like to build my Vampire Lord with the Ogre Blade and just have him go to town with S7.  With 5A, each wound you put out generates another attack.  Too bad this freshly generated attacks cannot proc the next set.

Flying Horror - You fly.  Deal with it.

Quick Blood - The Vampire gains ASF and this is fantastic.  I7 Vampire Lords and I6 Vampires put out a decent amount of re-rolls with ASF.  Must take on any Vampire involved in close combat, and goes great with Red Fury because it's better than Infinite Hatred vs. equal or lower I targets.

Aura of Dark Majesty - Great price, great effect.  The -1 Ld. modifier might not seem like much now, but just you wait..

Dark Acolyte - +D3 to casting total for IoN.

Forbidden Lore - Loses Loremaster and you can take any lore from the BRB except for Life.  Still not bad.

Supernatural Horror - Terror.  Because Fear isn't good enough apparently.

Fear Incarnate - Absolutely amazing for the price.  Your opponents re-roll successful Fear tests.  If the BSB is nearby, the re-rolls cancel and your left with 1 fear test.  Combine this with Aura of Dark Majesty and things get ridiculous.  But wait, there's more....

Beguile - Cheap, -3 Leadership to model in BtB or you re-roll hits.

Master Strike - Trade all attacks for 1 with HKB.  Trash.  It should of been like the TK book where you nominate one attack to be HKB.

Dreadknight - +2WS, must always issue and accept challenges.  Trash, you're already WS7 and if you take this on your general, you're just waiting to get KB'd or killed by a better fighter.  This is also counter-intuitive with Red Fury and other combat heavy abilities.  I guess I would only take this on a Vamp Lord w/ Glittering Scales on a Zombie Dragon and I'm out to troll things.  WS9 with -2 to hit makes anything under WS5 hit you on 7s and lord-class people on 6s.

Summon Creatures of the Night - Cheap, can increase Dire Wolves, Bat Swarms and Fell Bats past their staring size.  No one will ever take this because of the price of Fell Bats.

Now that that's done, let's get to the Magic Items:

Skabscratch - Expensive.  Gives Frenzy, Devastating Charge, Flaming Attacks and have the Death Shriek rules.  If you can't kill a model by the time the game is over, you auto die.

Nightshroud - Necros can wear this too.  Can be combined with mundane armor because this is magical, so you can take this on a Vamp Lord on a Zombie Dragon.  +1 to AS, enemy models in BtB lose S bonus from things (e.g. Great Weapons), and ASL.

Banner of Barrows - +1 to hit for Wight models in close combat.  Same as last time, same price even.  But this can get better with a few tweaks.

Screaming Banner - Enemy Fear tests in combat with the unit rolls 3D6 (extra die) and discard the lowest.  OK, surprise is over.  Let's sum it up:  Aura of Dark Majesty gives -1 Ld., Fear Incarnate stops the BSB re-roll or forces him to re-roll successful Fear tests, Screaming Banner forces Fear tests on 3D6 discard the lowest.  WS1 unit vs. a Grave Guard unit with Banner of Barrows anyone?  Hit on 2s again while they hit on 5s?  Imagine the same combo on a unit of Blood Knights too.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new Fear-bomb combo.

Black Periphat - Saves 2 dice in PD or DD so you can use them as PD or DD next turn.

Staff of Damnation - Bound 4, augment, all friendly units within 6" gains Extra Attacks.  Pretty boss.

Cursed Book - Sac D3 PD for a random spell that goes off automatically on a D6 chart (non-boosted):  Mystifying Miasma, Enfeebling, Withering, Soulblight, Doom and Darkness, Curse of the Midnight Wind.

Book of Arkhan - Cheaper and has a Bound 3 Vanhels.  Does not burn out.

Rod of Flaming Death - Bound 3 Fire Cage from the Fire Lore essentially.

Well guys, I think that's pretty much it.  This is the entire book pretty much and I'm very happy with what I see.  Gone are the days of GGstars with Drakenhoff.  There's a lot of stuff in here that can spark a lot of interesting builds:  Blood Dragon builds with Fear-bombing Blood Knights and/or Grave Guard, Striogi builds with Terrorgheists, Mortis Engine, Ghoul King, Ghouls and Crypt Horrors, the list goes on.  I'm just happy that VC players everywhere can look across the table with a straight face instead of the same flavorless list.  I mean, look at the options man.. so many things to choose form.

I can't wait to see VC evolve as an army.