Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

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SpellArcher
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#31 Post by SpellArcher »

Surely Flames is going to be more effective on something like a ghoul block than GG? The armour save should keep them going until the spell really gets strong. I guess its' the S5 that'd be the killer.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#32 Post by Foxbat »

I have run into several VC players that like to place their general in a smaller rear unit. This unit then becomes a very lucrative target as the Flames spell does not require LoS. Most VC players, no matter how cavalier, will defend this unit.

Of course if they do, then the odds of my Drain Magic spells getting through goes up.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#33 Post by Elaithnir »

@ Archer
Yes, but he can afford to lose the ghouls. Most VC players I've faced rely on their GG to bring in the victory. Everything else is icing/distraction. Some of those distractions have a lot of teeth (Coach, Varg), but distractions nonetheless...

:) That's true Foxbat. The fact that few of our spells need LOS is golden. And even a S3 flames is dangerous to a Necro/L2 Vamp.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#34 Post by Foxbat »

SpellArcher wrote:Surely Flames is going to be more effective on something like a ghoul block than GG? The armour save should keep them going until the spell really gets strong. I guess its' the S5 that'd be the killer.
True, but waiting for the spell to get to this level is painful. I tend to favour the more dice rolls sooner approach, which means re-casting Flames on the same unit in the second magic phase. If all goes well I get S3 rolls on the first magic phase and then S4 and S3 rolls on the same unit in the second magic phase.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#35 Post by SpellArcher »

What I meant is that S4 will hurt GG but it will decimate a ghoul block already hurt more by the S3. I guess you'd need to follow up with shooting or a charge on the GG to make it stick. Otherwise he'll have breathing space to heal it back up.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#36 Post by Foxbat »

SpellArcher wrote:What I meant is that S4 will hurt GG but it will decimate a ghoul block already hurt more by the S3.
Agreed. However, when I cast Flames on ghouls, it's usually because it's part of a larger plan or strategy.
SpellArcher wrote:Otherwise he'll have breathing space to heal it back up.
True enough, but then he's not dancing! :D
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#37 Post by Lord Anathir »

I think against a deathstar infantry unit, vauls unmaking/flames may be a the best options. but against most other options I'd probably go with metal on the lvl4.
For the dwarfs, there was only this. Hammerson met Grombrindal’s gaze, and the White Dwarf nodded slowly. If it must be done, let it be done well. Whether they were dead or alive, that was the only way dwarfs knew how to do anything.

And Grombrindal said "10 from the back, yeah?"
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#38 Post by Elaithnir »

Ok. Let's do a little Mathhammer shall we? :) For the sake of argument, let's say Flames went off on the unit of your choice (20 Ghouls or 20 GG with great weapons in this case). Leaving characters out of the equation (I'm assuming he'd stick the same characters in the units if he did), we get:

Against GG:
20 S3 hits = 4.444 wounds after saves (call it 4).

Combining this with 2 RBTs firing at long range:
12 shots = 3 dead.

Not that bad. 7 dead. He can heal those up with Invocation and ignore Flames right? Let's say he gets them back up to full strength and advances his GG.

Our turn, Flames goes off at S4.
20 S4 hits = 8.333 wounds (call it 8).
We have a choice. Leave Flames on to get to S5. Or let it go and cast a Magic Missile at the GG. Both have their merits, but for simplicity, let's leave it going.

Cool. He has 12 GG left.

RBT fire accounts for (short range now):
12 shots = 4 dead. He has only eight left.

(If we had cast a magic missile succesfully, he would have only 5 left, meaning we could attempt to focus all remaining firepower on the unit and take them out).

His turn, and he has a dilemma. He can almost assuredly get a charge on whatever it was he's aiming at, but with only 8 models, even 15 spears will be able to take them out of the game. Plus he has that niggling flames going off in our turn at S5! Let's be generous, and let him get his unit back up to 15 models in his magic phase, and get a charge into us.

Now it's really going to hurt. Those 15 models become 5 models when the flames come around, and our puny block of spears will stomp all over the GG.
In summary. He can't afford to let Flames keep burning off a few models every turn. Since he needs to keep his GG up to strength to win combats and to prevent our ranged fire power from taking out the (expensive) unit, he's spamming Invoc. No Wind of Undeath. No Raise Dead. No nothing. Just a bid to keep his main points unit up to fighting strength.
Keeping 3-4 PD for flames has become a priority.

Substituting Ghouls.
S3 Flames causes 7 wounds. RBT fire another 3.
His turn...and does he really need to raise the Ghouls back up? Or dispel Flames? Nah. He could summon a new unit, barrel the ten ghouls left forwards to interfere, leave them to burn... They're throwaway enough to sacrifice, which the GG are not.

Hmm. Long pointless ramble, but I guess I'm trying to say that it's not the quantity of kills you do, but the quality? How often do you see a Ghoul deathstar anyway? :)
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#39 Post by GobbladasSquig »

I'd rate Wall of Fire above Flames because it does extensive damage before it can be dispelled (unless the unit doesn't move, which is good, isn't it?), and in particular two strength 4 to any first rank characters. Strength 3 hits won't do the damage you need to cause. The only problem with Wall of Fire is that it pretty much requires a fire-lore level 4, which leaves drain magic for the level twos.

Against VC, I've found a largish unit of swordmasters with Standard of Balance and Amulet of Light irreplaceable. They've smashed through a 3-base unit of spirit hosts in one turn, overran into the vamp general's unit of skeletons, got counter-charged in the flank by another unit of 20-strong skeletons and a +1 CR dread knight vampire and wiped out everything in three rounds, losing 3 of their number in the process. They did have a Starlance+ToL prince to help out with the vamp general, but he didn't do anything after the initial round.

Lesson learned: Vampire players love to castle their general behind a durable unit, with units on the sides ready to counter-charge. However, they don't expect that the enemy can punch through their durable unit in one round and thus engage their general before they're flanked. Swordmasters are one of the few units that are able to do that.

'Squiggedit: Elaithnir, you've left out the regeneration saves that lower the RBT's efficiency. And if it's just 20 GG with great weapons, no buffs, I think you're wasting a lot of attention to take out a mediocre unit.

Just to compare, where as the flames going off did 4 wounds before he could react, a wall of fire would have done 25 hits -> 10-11 wounds assuming he moves with the GG in his turn.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#40 Post by Stormie »

I like the idea of double-stacking Flames of the Phoenix. If you can pile on that much pain, it's going to be amazing. However you need to significantly out-magic your opponent to do so. I simply can't see that happening against any reasonable VC list.

The maths-hammer is interesting, but at the end of the day, a 20GG unit with great weapons is indeed a pretty "mediocre" unit. If you're spending your entire magic and shooting for half the game targeting one unit and maybe just-about killing it, something has gone wrong. You don't win games against VC by getting their units down to 8 models... You should also be doing the maths against the usual choice of HW Shield Grave Guard, who are far superior. Of course the numbers won't be quite so nice then ;)

Oh and your maths and sequencing is very off Elaithnir. The true sequence towards the end is:
1) VC player charges GG into Spearmen
2) VC player heals the GG to 15 models and dispels Flames OR heals them up to 20 models
3) Grave Guard smash and kill Spearmen
4) Flames goes off in the High Elf magic phase and kill 2/3 of the unit again.

So all that magic and shooting, and the unit still takes care of the spearmen quite nicely and survives the phase. You going to leave the spell in play for another turn? Your opponent going to let you? ;)

But for all that, I have never seen Flames of the Phoenix actually get up to S5. That means you have spent an entire magic phase doing nothing with one of your prime magic users, meaning the VC player will easily be able to deal with the little magic you do cast that turn, and then if it gets to the end of the phase and he still has dice, then he's probably going to dispel it. Although I do see some interesting tactical possibilities, like if you have another Mage with a power stone ready to go, which will blast through the VC magic defence and force him to either take another massive spell, or let the Flames get up to a critical S5.

Good ideas! I just have yet to see them happen...
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#41 Post by Elaithnir »

My bad on the regen. :) Forgot about that. Maybe it's the metagame where I play, but the VC guys tend to baby their GG units for some reason, so that's not an unreasonable amount of attention to focus on the unit. As an example, the guy I face regularly likes to stick two Vamps and a Wight King BSB in there, charging them forward into whatever unit of mine poses the biggest gain (typically 24 spears with a BSB and a mage). In this particular case Flames really came through. The S3 hits caused a wound each on the Vamps, and the S4 polished one off, while reducing the GG static res. S4 took care of one Vamp and the champion. My spears mopped them up. :)
I agree. S5 on Flames is rare. I tend to drop it after S4 to cast it again on a different (or the same) unit, letting my shooting finish the job or keep their numbers low.
Wall of Fire is better at this than Flames sure, but some important things. As mentioned, its 12+ to cast, meaning it's right out for the dual L2 setup. It's also Lore of Fire, which means that Drain Magic is unavailable for the turn you really need it...

EDIT:
Stormie, I've literally never seen a unit of GG with anything else than Great Weapons. Again, local differences in playstyle? Also, I don't consider on L2 mage to be a major magic user. In fact. If I play 2 L2s, magic isn't really the focus of my army. :)
As for the sequence. Ok. He needs Van Hels to charge the spearmen. That's 3PD. Which you may get to dispel. Then he needs to heal the GG up to 15. That's 4 single die castings (considering Invoc is 4+ to cast, so 2 go off, 2d6 models raised right?). Again, you can dispel some of these if you so choose. That's 7 PD used. Then he needs to dispel flames on 4PD. We're up to eleven PD used. Unlikely he'll have that many available to him, but ok, let's let him have all that. So the GG are at 15, and charged the Spears. The spears get 16 attacks, killing 2. The GG get 4, killing 2 (GWs). So now we both have a banner. Both have two ranks. Both have two kills. Equal numbers. So...draw? How is that smashing the spearmen exactly? :) To beat the spears he HAS to get the GG back up to 16 at least.

Hehe. I'm having a lot of fun thinking this out, even if it is a huge abstraction and would be very rare on the table... I guess I'd stop Van Hels, and stop as many Invocs on the unit as possible!
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#42 Post by SpellArcher »

I guess it might depend on what characters are lurking in either the ghoul or GG units?
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#43 Post by Stormie »

Elaithnir wrote:My bad on the regen. :) Forgot about that. Maybe it's the metagame where I play, but the VC guys tend to baby their GG units for some reason, so that's not an unreasonable amount of attention to focus on the unit. As an example, the guy I face regularly likes to stick two Vamps and a Wight King BSB in there, charging them forward into whatever unit of mine poses the biggest gain (typically 24 spears with a BSB and a mage). In this particular case Flames really came through. The S3 hits caused a wound each on the Vamps, and the S4 polished one off, while reducing the GG static res. S4 took care of one Vamp and the champion. My spears mopped them up. :)
As stated, if characters are in there, then yes, definitely go for it! Although it also sounds like you were somewhat lucky ;)
EDIT:
Stormie, I've literally never seen a unit of GG with anything else than Great Weapons. Again, local differences in playstyle? Also, I don't consider on L2 mage to be a major magic user. In fact. If I play 2 L2s, magic isn't really the focus of my army. :)
Oh yeah, Great Weapons aren't rare, but the hardcore players will have them armed with hand weapon and shields, which is cheaper and just generally better. I myself use great weapons, but then I also use Skeleton Spearmen ;) If the only magic you have is 2 level 2s, then having either one of them sit out a turn for magic is crippling and going to leave the VC player with more dispel dice than he knows what to do with (so he'll dispel the spell). But then you've already agreed that S5 is rare here, so moving on... to the fact that with only 2 level 2s, you're unlikely to be getting the spell off in the first place. The earlier numbers were what, a 50-50 chance of successfully getting it off? Ignoring the VC player's dispel dice too. So good luck with that ;)
As for the sequence. Ok. He needs Van Hels to charge the spearmen. That's 3PD. Which you may get to dispel.
What, change goalposts much? In your original scenario, you said he could charge. You didn't say he'd have to VHD them as well. So, no, that is not 3 power dice used already ;)
Then he needs to heal the GG up to 15. That's 4 single die castings (considering Invoc is 4+ to cast, so 2 go off, 2d6 models raised right?). Again, you can dispel some of these if you so choose. That's 7 PD used. Then he needs to dispel flames on 4PD. We're up to eleven PD used. Unlikely he'll have that many available to him, but ok, let's let him have all that.
Are you sure you've played vs Vampire Counts before? 11 power dice is quite common indeed. So in actuality, he's likely to blow 8-10 power dice on healing the Grave Guard up to full strength, or make do with a couple of castings and then get rid of Flames. So yes, let's let him have exactly what I said he could get in the first place, which was correct ;)
So the GG are at 15, and charged the Spears. The spears get 16 attacks, killing 2. The GG get 4, killing 2 (GWs). So now we both have a banner. Both have two ranks. Both have two kills. Equal numbers. So...draw? How is that smashing the spearmen exactly? :) To beat the spears he HAS to get the GG back up to 16 at least.
Well, like I said, he'd probably get them back up to 20 models. And remember if you were using the better, more likely scenario for the GG, then more would reach combat, and more would survive, and they would batter the Spearmen. And if it is just the 15, then you now have Grave Guard fighting your Spearmen in a combat that can only end with victory for the GG if it continues one-on-one, as the GG will be getting back up, whilst the Spearmen will not.
Hehe. I'm having a lot of fun thinking this out, even if it is a huge abstraction and would be very rare on the table... I guess I'd stop Van Hels, and stop as many Invocs on the unit as possible!
It's not rare on the table at all- I do it commonly, and the number of people I've seen complaining "I got his Grave Guard down to 2 models, then he raised them back up to 20 in his turn and auto-broke me!" is quite large. It's why, ya know, everyone hates VCs, and why people have a hard time beating them ;)
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#44 Post by Alathenar »

"I got his Grave Guard down to 2 models, then he raised them back up to 20 in his turn and auto-broke me!"
Jeez, i can only imagine how frustrating that would truly be.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#45 Post by Elaithnir »

Ok, breaking it down. How many DD does a VC player likely have? 2 basic, 2 for 2 L2s and 2 for a L4. That's 6. If only one of our mages casts Drain on 2 dice, he'll need to spend at least 3 to reliably stop it. Then we use the other 2 to cast something else. Shield, Curse whatever. If you feel lucky, Fury (though I don't recommend it). He won't stop that, saving 3 dice to dispel Flames. 50-50 chance. That's hardly more dispel dice than he knows what to do with...


What, change goalposts much? In your original scenario, you said he could charge. You didn't say he'd have to VHD them as well. So, no, that is not 3 power dice used already ;)
Not really changing the goalposts here. Break it down. You start 24 inches apart (although, these days I never deploy right on the strikeline). First turn he moves up 8. Now you're 16 apart. Second turn he moves up 8, and Van Hels the other 8. Sorry. That's how I played it out in my head. Should have made it clearer. :)
Are you sure you've played vs Vampire Counts before? 11 power dice is quite common indeed. So in actuality, he's likely to blow 8-10 power dice on healing the Grave Guard up to full strength, or make do with a couple of castings and then get rid of Flames. So yes, let's let him have exactly what I said he could get in the first place, which was correct ;)
Yep. 11 Power Dice are common... but not on one caster. And not all his casters will be in range to cast Invoc. So that leaves an L4 caster with 4 of his own and pool dice to use. Then again, if he blows 8-10 power dice on healing up the GG... Wow. Awesome. :) That leaves me not worrying about the rest of his magic phase. Isn't that the point of the original strategy of trying to cast Flames? To have him expend so much energy on keeping the GG up that he can't do much else?

Agreed that if he gets the GG up to max (at the exclusion of all else), then the spears are toast. This shouldn't worry the HE player too much I think... If I can make him focus on getting his GG into combat intact at the cost of one of my own units of equal cost, it's worth it. As long as it keeps him distracted.
It's not rare on the table at all- I do it commonly, and the number of people I've seen complaining "I got his Grave Guard down to 2 models, then he raised them back up to 20 in his turn and auto-broke me!" is quite large. It's why, ya know, everyone hates VCs, and why people have a hard time beating them ;)
Yeah, that complaint is exactly why you focus on destroying them utterly...or settle for him raising and raising and crash over the rest of his army while he does.:)
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#46 Post by Alathenar »

I agree about those points of destroying all the support units then u can truly focus 2-3 units on just wiping out the GG entirely. What are peoples experiences with Blood Knights? are R.B.T's enough to deal with them. or just cook them with SotF? what if they take 2 units of these bad boys!? :shock:
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#47 Post by Elaithnir »

Blood Knights... Hmm. I can honestly say that the few times I've faced them, I've not had problems... Frenzy is a wonderful thing. :) That said, if they get into combat they hit like a brick, although if you can reduce the number of models (to like 2 or 3) before the charge you can stand a chance to hold. White Lions with a lion standard would work I suppose...?
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#48 Post by Stormie »

Elaithnir wrote:Ok, breaking it down. How many DD does a VC player likely have? 2 basic, 2 for 2 L2s and 2 for a L4. That's 6. If only one of our mages casts Drain on 2 dice, he'll need to spend at least 3 to reliably stop it. Then we use the other 2 to cast something else. Shield, Curse whatever. If you feel lucky, Fury (though I don't recommend it). He won't stop that, saving 3 dice to dispel Flames. 50-50 chance. That's hardly more dispel dice than he knows what to do with...
I said that in reference to a HE player who doesn't cast with one of his Mages for that turn. So you start with Drain Magic- on 2 dice you have a good chance not to cast it at all. If it does go through, yeah, 3 dice gone to dispel probably. Then try Shield, Curse, whatever- it gets through... so he has a 40-60 chance (chance of casting Drain on 2 dice) of having a 50-50 chance of dispelling Flames (If Drain isn't cast, then he will definitely dispel it- not that he needs to, as I've established!). Add in a dice from Black Periapt, bonuses and penalties from Skull Staff or Balefire Carts and it favours the VC player even more.
Not really changing the goalposts here. Break it down. You start 24 inches apart (although, these days I never deploy right on the strikeline). First turn he moves up 8. Now you're 16 apart. Second turn he moves up 8, and Van Hels the other 8. Sorry. That's how I played it out in my head. Should have made it clearer. :)
So you're just sitting there? That's a bad way to play against VCs. You need to get down their throats before they raise up their own units to massive sizes or envelop yours.
Yep. 11 Power Dice are common... but not on one caster. And not all his casters will be in range to cast Invoc.
Yes, they almost certainly will. 18" goes a long way, and casters are almost always pretty close to each other.
So that leaves an L4 caster with 4 of his own and pool dice to use. Then again, if he blows 8-10 power dice on healing up the GG... Wow. Awesome. :) That leaves me not worrying about the rest of his magic phase. Isn't that the point of the original strategy of trying to cast Flames? To have him expend so much energy on keeping the GG up that he can't do much else?
You might feel happy about that, but so does the VC player. He's outplayed you wonderfully. You will have spent 400 points on magic, 300 points on shooting, and achieved nothing. He will have spent similar levels on his magic (VC characters do other stuff as well), but at the same time you've been putting all that effort into maintaining the status quo of hurting his GG, you've been ignoring his Bats, Dogs and the general advance of his forces. Let's see how you do when you've run out of scrolls and your RBTs are dead ;)
Agreed that if he gets the GG up to max (at the exclusion of all else), then the spears are toast. This shouldn't worry the HE player too much I think... If I can make him focus on getting his GG into combat intact at the cost of one of my own units of equal cost, it's worth it. As long as it keeps him distracted.
This was your own example, remember. You were acting as if the Spears were going to go in and win the day. They're not. So your plan here won't work. In actuality the GG will be more likely advancing on the important targets, bogging down Dragon Princes, etc. They could even take Swordmasters, with the right support.
Yeah, that complaint is exactly why you focus on destroying them utterly...or settle for him raising and raising and crash over the rest of his army while he does.:)
But you have it backwards. If you're focussing your entire army on one unit, and not even killing it, you're losing the game. You certainly won't be crashing over the rest of his army!

On Blood Knights, if two good players go against each other and one has a frenzied unit, his opponent should be able to minimise the damage the frenzied unit does quite easily. With High Elves it can be difficult as we don't have too many throwaway units, but if you can double up the Eagles (One baits and flee, the other repeats while the first rallies, and repeat) then you can send them out the game for a long time, and perhaps even get a crucial flank charge. Just be careful of Blood Knights partially screened by Fell Bats- the player will charge something with his Fell Bats to get them out the way, and then declare a charge with the Blood Knights on whatever else is within 14" of them and destroy that.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#49 Post by SpellArcher »

White Lions are good against Blood Knights. Standard of Balance is key here to stop the frenzied attacks. Not sure they would cope if a character's in the unit though.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#50 Post by SpellArcher »

Double post. My bad...
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#51 Post by Foxbat »

Stormie, I’m not sure why you are so focused on seeing if the Flames strategy can be relied upon to destroy a unit.

For me I am really only looking to reduce a targeted unit down to a size that I am fairly confident that my battle unit can completely obliterate (via wounds and combat resolution) and then overrun into a subsequent unit. By using this approach, I can charge the target with a unit that only needs to rely upon a one use item to pass its initial fear test. Further, if the target is not destroyed, it will not cause an auto break.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#52 Post by geoguswrek »

Honestly, against VC, i think flames and fury are two of the best spells to rely upon. Reason being that you get drain magic too. on a level 4 this is really nice. Consider the following: level 2, level 4, banner of sorcery, ring of fury (my common set up). if i take Fire or whatever on the level 4, then my only drain magic is on at most 3 dice, so i'm not getting it through. If i take fire or whatever on the level 2, the big damage spell is on 3 dice, so i'm unlikely to hit the casting value. If however i take high on both i can cast drain magic twice (on somewhere between 2 and 4 dice each) and still cast flames of the phoenix on four dice as well, giving me 3 spells that my opponent want to stop, so i'm likely to get something through in most turns. Flames is a good spell since it does hit every model in a unit, and the only other spell we have that does that is wall of fire, which is good but we do lose the drain magic for it, and against vampire counts, it is the drain we really want. the problem with this is that it means we almsot never want to leave flames standing, since if we cast it from a level 4, then we are wasting a lot of power dice in the enxt turn by leaving it going.
If the opponent has a big unit of blood knights, consider taking metal. spirit of the forge really hurts them since they only ever come back one at a time. other advice is to use an eagle and sacrifice it(don't flee), drawing them out of the game since they have to align to the eagle and must overrun. or, if you want to bait and flee, put the eagle in such a way that between it and the fellbats you completely block los to other targets (they can't charge if they can't see)
DAMN THE VENOM SWORD
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=44127
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#53 Post by SpellArcher »

Sounds good to me geo.. Three spells the opponent wants to dispel is key for me, against anyone.

Anyone noticed how this topic's been up less than a week and already we've got more posts than for the Daemon topic. Wonder why?
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#54 Post by Stormie »

No-one who plays Daemons willing to admit it and discuss what scares them or their army? ;)
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#55 Post by Bel-Hathe »

Can we talk a bit about the Black Coach?

Is it generally played that the Coach sucks up PD after rolling for the Banner of Sorcery? I have played that way but wonder if it should be diced in the same way that other start of phase conflicts are diced.

I have found RBTs ineffectual against the coach even before it became ethereal!
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#56 Post by SpellArcher »

To me Sorcery dice are pool dice and should be included in the roll.

Yeah it's one tough cookie. Some people have had joy with the Star Lance, especially combined with the Talisman of Loec. I destroyed one by taking a charge with Silver Helms (general nearby) then flank charging with DP's.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#57 Post by geoguswrek »

If you are allowed them in your environment, a DoW cannon is really useful against the coach. since most people won't be however...
Getting the charge on it is hard, the opponent won't feel pressure to put it in charge range until it can fly and then it doesn't need to go within charge range anyway. If you have block units you can use these to box the coach in, since on its own it won't want to attack them. however if you do not have block units (and many people won't with high elves), it is very difficult for us to deal with (more so than a varghulf which we can magic if we need to). consider lore of beasts on one wizard (a level 2 with the seerstaff) since this gives you two spells that worry it: the movement spell and beast cowers, both of which are reliably castable from a level 2 (if you have the banner of sorcery you can normally cast both in a single turn and then 4 dice a drain magic from the level 4, again giving you three spells the enemy wants to stop).
If however you like using the stardragon, i would suggest using that against it, since the dragon will eat the coach for breakfast and be able to overrun into the back field, hopefully to safety.
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#58 Post by Stormie »

If you have a Star Lancer or a Star Dragon, you should be able to take care of it.

If you have a big block of troops, they should be able to take the charge from it. War Banner and nearby BSB will help a lot.

If you have neither of the above, then you're going to have to work very hard to get a charge on it (preferably a flank charge). You can try and manipulate its hatred as well to keep it out the game- Shadow Warriors in flank, charging out of forest, for example. If you have BoS then you're going to be pumping it up that little bit quicker, and be especially wary once it gets ethereal- by that point not even Beast Cowers or Commandment of Brass will work on it!
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#59 Post by Lord Anathir »

will baiting it through terrain even hurt it? t6 4+ ward right or is it t5?
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And Grombrindal said "10 from the back, yeah?"
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Re: Enemy of the Month October: Vampire counts

#60 Post by Elaithnir »

T5 IIRC. And yes. It will hurt it. Not so much the wounds it causes, but the mobility it loses. Chariots are half movement in difficult terrain too right? Don't have my book handy, but doesn't he take another D6 hits when he moves out of the terrain? Or further into it?
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