VCs still got a chance ?

Well, i got this new VC army cause it was a good deal and i nvr did get the hand of the Bretonians.
But with the changes to psychology and the ammount of attacks coming back at you in hand to hand and Ini strike order, Undead took a bad hit in this edition.

VC troops used to be good for their cost, now undead are paying for fear/terror abilities that really dont have as big of an impact as they did before, toops went from being ok, to flat out mediocre, and overpriced.

I know a couple of you guys played VCs for a while, any tips on how to make the army work in this edition ? No more 10 men strong units and stuff, now gotta start Big and get Bigger. Ive read that Ghouls is the way to go now and that Zombies are just plain useles right now.

I don't like undead in this edition (which is why the TK are gone).
As you said, your paying for benefits which no longer work very often or very well.

Take away fear and your skeletons are left with low WS, low Str, low Init, low Toughness, low save models for 8 points that can't stand up to a 5 point marauder flailmen. Hell, they'd even have a hard time with 3 point Night Gobos.

Ghouls with T4, 2A, and poison seem much better. I'd build around hordes of Ghouls and the Grave Guard.

Blood Knights and Etheral wraiths are also good looking options.

My Brother has played and still continues to play VCs and has made some expectionally nasty lists. Here are some of the tricks he uses.

1. He takes several Necromancers. While they may seem useless, they provide extra channelling attempts and basic freebee 1 dice chances at raising undead.

2. His magic focuses around buffing his undead. Don't forget that the undead have that fantastic 'always strike first' spell, which combined with the helm that confires WS 7 can become nasty.

3. Grave Guard are a staple in his army, and he gives them the +1 to Hit banner as well, which has proven to be quite nasty.

4. He throws in barebones vampires with units like dire wolves or fell bats. He gives the vamp a GW or something similar and the ability to allow them to join the unit (the M upgrade one or the fly one). This suddenly makes these throw-away units VERY threatening, thus pulling away enemy shooting / war machines from your big stuff.

5. Don't ignore fear, it's much more effective then you think. WS 1 sucks.

scurrdi wrote:
5. Don't ignore fear, it's much more effective then you think. WS 1 sucks.

That is does...grrr. Also you can take lore of light thru a bloodline power...and you have mannfred

ShadowMaster wrote:
Ghouls with T4, 2A, and poison seem much better. I'd build around hordes of Ghouls and the Grave Guard.

Blood Knights and Etheral wraiths are also good looking options.

Ghouls and Grave Guard working in tandem feels like a solid transitional unit until things get fleshed themselves out with new 8th books and the such.

I've always liked Cairn Wraiths, ALWAYS. 3 great weapon attacks on a terror causing ethereal skirmisher? A unit of those can take on most non-character type of models very safely with a cheap/plentiful unit of anything to provide static combat resolution.

I'm not going to discount the judicious use of zombies considering how cheap they are - 50 zombies with full command for 212? That's a lot of warm bodies (no puns there, being figurative) just occupying a flank for you, keeping valuable stuff away from other units.

While I haven't played VCs in a while, I would think that the main shift would still be towards infantry.

True, fear doesn't work the same, and steadfast doesn't help Undead because they lose rank and file by the number they lost combat by, not by a break test.

So it seems clear to me that if any army was to go Horde, it would have to be the Vampire counts.

Give your skeletons spears and go ten wide 4 deep. Anything unit that hits them will take at minimum 28 strength 3 attacks, with the crown of command, at a possible weapon skill 7.

I think the biggest problem with current VC's however is not the downgrade in fear or terror. I think the biggest nerf has been in the area of magic.

I used to be able to take 15 power dice and cast Innvocation to replenish skellie units and roll a single dice 15 times if I wanted to. It would simply be impossible to stop that many attempts , with no matter how many dispel you had.

Now, if you risk casting Invocation on 1 dice and roll a 1 or 2, BOOM, that's it you broke your concentration and your magic phase is over. This means you must use 2 dice to cast the spell every time. Even if you spam level 1 vampires to overcome the concentration loss, you have a 33 % chance everytime you roll 1 die, that the magic phase for that wizard will be over. Plus , with the winds of Magic rules, you'll never have more than 12 power dice. This means that at most, you'll get off 6 invocations a turn, and that's assuming you're not trying to cast any other nasty spells.

So this seriously hampers your ability to not just replenish units, but also, to get off the much needed Danse Macabre, to catch people in the flank against your skellies.

I do have to agree however, that not autobreaking your opponent with fear, is also a big nerf for the army.

So while the VC's are not impotent, they certainly have lost the sharpness to their bite.