Hope I'm not resurrecting this topic unreasonably! I know it's no longer VC month.
However, I feel I have some things to say or add being a VC player.
Against VC Swordmasters are INCREDIBLE. They lack the shooting to take them out and the shooting they do have ignores armour saves anyway. Sword Masters will obliterate a unit of Blood Knights if you can force them to charge you. Hitting and wounding on threes and before them means probably 2 will go down. When considering that a lot of VC players run only four or five of the things that is a huge blow to their effectiveness. Especially if you can kill a couple before they charge. I can only imagine how disheartened I would be charging my hatred and frenzy Blood Knights into a unit of Swormasters with the Standard of Balance. But that would be a very specifically anti-vc list I'd imagine.
White Lions are also great as has been said but can lack the sheer number of attacks to really cripple VC units or lower their numbers to a point where stubborn will matter.
Amulet of Light is obviously a great addition to an army when facing VC.
As has also been said there are a lot of bunkered lords or heroes behind big infantry blocks supplying their WS to them. If these units can be taken out it will make your life significantly easier. Eagles, RBT's and Dragons would be good at this as generally they are quite weak units but are behind the enemy's main battle line.
If I play the bunker setup on a lord I tend to have a very static deployment. With Grave Guard in the middle, at the front, flanked by a unit of zombies on either side to protect the flanks and behind them the bunkered lord two corpse carts protecting the lord's unit's flanks. Then a varghulf, blood knights and some fell bats to do their own thing. This is a hard army to beat as the points are all in one place and to approach this place is incredibly dangerous especially with Vanhels. It is never wise to under estimate the power of zmbies to bog down a unit the only way to reliably take them out is to cancel their ranks and do a lot of wounds. Other wise tere will be that one zombie left that will mean another 10/20 in the VC players next turn. To add the heroes I play are the caster lord behind the Grave Guard, a mounted vamp with the blood drinkier in the blood knights, a Drakenhof BSB in the Grave Guard as well as the wight standard which means they hit on two's, and finally another wight king in the Grave Guard who uses night shroud and sword of kings. (i.e. better than ASF, hitting on 2's and killing blow on a 5+)
The other army I play is a bit unconventional when compared to the other armies I've seen played but I'm sure you will come across armies with similar units.
It consists of a Level 3 Zombie Dragon Lord with Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Beguile (enemy makes ld -3 roll or vamp re-rolls to wound)/Walking Death (+1 CR), Nightshroud (any model attack bearer removes; ASF and all charging bonuses as well as dropping the enemy I to 1), Sword of Might, Book of Arkhan (Bound lvl 3 Van Hels), and Wristbands of Black Gold (3+ ward vs. any ranged attack). This guy will chew through infantry at a ridiculous pace and is surprisingly survivable given the ability to heal up the dragon's wounds, move behind terain and charge in the magic phase as opposed to leaving himself open to shooting. Any roll to hit him or the drago in CC is at -1 which means everything in the HE army is hitting him on 5+ in CC with base line stats. Your best answer to him is shooting but he is incredibly agile with the move again spell and incredibly good at killing almost anything. The breath weapon on the dragon is also a worry for elves as it's st 2 no armour saves so be wary your dragon princes and white lions are out of it's range. If you ever see a VC lord on a dragon don't expect much else in the army. My lord is the most expensive he can be at 730 points. Which means if he goes down that's literally a 3rd of the armies points gone. So if you ever get the opportunity shoot at the dragon he will suffer especially having only Toughness 5 and a 5+ scaly skin save.
A unit of 5 Blood Knights with no champion with the 4+ ward vs. ranged attacks banner and a musician, and BSB with Hatred Banner and is screened by 5 Fell Bats. Don't overestimate the downside of frenzy with these guys as there is a good chance they have that Van Hels in waiting. Never assume to charge your star dragon into these guys as any blood knight can accept a challenge. Meaning that your dragon will score 6 CR from kills most likely but be outnumbered, with a BSB and normal banner. Which does mean the unit loses by three but with the bsb it only takes two wounds which can be raised up in the next phase. This happened to me with a Chaos Lord on a manticore and the combat lasts three turns until, eventually, the lord broke after fluffing a round of combat.
Two units of 12 ghouls with champs and a unit of 14 with a champ and vamp with the helm of commandment, lvl 2 and summon ghouls (+1 to cast IoN on Ghouls and may raise them above starting level). These three units effectively act as one whole. And one should never underestimate the WS 6 on a unit of ghouls. It makes them that one little bit harder to kill and means they can stand fairly consistently against most elite infantry units. Also with ghoulkin they get to the other side quicker than you'd expect.
VC can struggle to deal with big monsters like Blood Thirsters and Star Dragons and so it is not uncommon for the Dire Wolf trap to be initiated. This trap consists of a seemingly random unit of 7 Dire Wolves with a Dire Wolf champ. However, this unit is an incredibly effective deterrent for big scary monster characters. If charged or if charging the unit champ will issue a challenge which the big beastie has to accept the mean thing will most likely get 6 for the wound and overkill but is out numbered meaning you will only be able to win by five leaving a single wolf there to hold you up in the next player's turn. This tactic is learned very quickly by enemies having faced it before because it's a 66 point unit taking their monster unit out of the game for a full turn but it does mean that in my army where I feature two of these units I can almost ensure that their big monster won't be rushing down either of my flanks. It's unlikely for this tactic to work if you are aware of it but DO NOT forget about it.
A varghulf also features. This guy is phenominal at hunting war machines and archers as well as letting the Dire Wolves near him march.
A savy VC player will use his ability to raise zombies to limit your running away by raising 5 zombies behind you and then charging using van hels with a more dangerous unit in front of the unit in question. This means if you break from fear you're dead, if you break from combat you're dead and if you hold you're probably almost dead. I've used this tactic a lot and if the initial tactic is a failure it still means that unit is march blocked by annoying zombies. This is how VC slow the game down. It's efective in both fast lists and slow ones because it either slows the enemy down to your pace or increases the effectiveness of your speed by severely limiting theirs.
Also be wary of what you let through of VC magic. Not every spell in the VC magic phase is imperitive for the Vampire to get off so you need to try and recognize what is important. It's not like most other magic phases where the current magic phase will only affect the next turn in the game it's that it can affect the current turn too. Things like move again, and raising units affect the game this turn and you need to identify how badly it will affect you. VC magic is also all about misdirection. A VC player with a unit of Blood Knights in front of your White Lions that is raising up Ghouls is trying to trick you into dispelling those raising spells so he can safely cast Van Hels. The best possible spells I feel I can get on a level 3 lord are IoN which is 0 level, Van Hels, Raise Dead, and Curse of Years. In order of importance. These spells all have reasonable casting values and are exceedingly effective. This is why I believe items like the Sigil of Asuryan are great against VC because you can steal away their 0 level spell (although this might have been FAQ'd) but you can also steal away Van Hels which will make the game a lot harder for the VC player. Drain Magic is also insane because it takes away the VC magic phase's reliability. I would not be happy casting IoN on a 7.
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