Blood Knights & More! Rare Units of the Vampire Counts

February 2, 2012 by beerogre

Darrell and Andy take a look at the Rare Units from the Vampire Counts Army Book... what unspeakable horror await them within?

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Proportions: Heroic Scale: 28mm

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mecha82

13 years ago

From rare units my favorite has to be Black Coach and it has been that since 6th edition. Blood Knights are typical heavy cavalry. They hit hard. Too bad that models are overexpensive. 80€ from 5 resin models is just too much. Varghulf fills role of big unridden monster.

darklordfoamy

Reply to mecha82

13 years ago

Indeed with the price that is the same as Island of Blood which okay they are resin and nice models but still that’s bit to much. Still I’m converting mine from grail knights to keep with my Bretonnian theme and know others have done dragon princes and similar things so other options are out their.

t9nv3

Reply to darklordfoamy

13 years ago

I basically went with Dragon Princes. For the heads I used Mantic Ghouls….looks pretty good in the end, and only ended up costing like 30$

mecha82

Reply to t9nv3

13 years ago

I was thinking using Empire Knights myself.

t9nv3

13 years ago

With new monstrous infantry options, i’m not really in love with the Vargheist. His small base is really the draw for me, since it limits the amount of attacks back he can get. I’m going to be playing a VC list over the weekend. I’m running a unit of bloodknights with a CC vamp hero in the unit (crazy amount of high st attacks). I’m also running a Terrorgheist. No cannons, so the plan is to hold the terrorgheist within 12″ of my general for a turn or two then fly him behind enemy lines and have him use the scream attack on units of chaos warriors. It’s 2d6 plus number of wounds left for the attack, so i’m hoping he’ll be able to soften up some units of warriors before making a rear charge…or just causing general mayhem and pulling units out of position.

nighthawke

13 years ago

Cairn wraiths do not sacrifice all their attacks to do one Heroic killing blow, they exchange them to do an attack that automatically wounds with no armour saves if it hits, so a few of thse in a unit can scare the crap out of monsters etc.they can also use their normal attacks to deal pain to monsrous infantry etc at str 6.
the scream on a terrorgheist is not 2d6 plus its 2d6 plus its remaining wounds.
there are other things but ive just lost hope correcting them xD , on the dont take things that can kill your own guys im going to guess you think the orc book is horrible since everything can kill your own guys 😛

elbisrever

13 years ago

I’m sorry to say this, but you guys think to much in “Landraider and Terminator-tactics”; you don’t really see the tactics/combo’s you can pull off, only statistics. I know you’ve only just read to book, and it’s impossible to see the big picture, but you’re about to make the same mistake you did with the Necrons. Synergy is the big word for the new Vamps. As an example:
You have your big 50+ zombie unit ( which you are all fan off) and a unit of 30+ Skeletons as front line. Behind that you’ll have a corpse cart ( or 2 if points allow it) with either a Master Necromancer on it or close to it. Behind that ( or next to it) you’ll have a Mortis Engine with the Tome. You say the tome is bad, but consider this: You’ll have your Master Necromancer cast Invocation of Nehek on a 6+. You cast with 2 dice, where a miscast is very rare. You’ll get a +6 on your casting-roll ( 4 for the wizard level, 2 from the tome). Your Zombies, Skellies and corpse cart will be hit if succesfully cast. The corpse cart will cast off his Vigour Mortis, making the Skellies and Zombies Always Strike First. The lore attribute can give your Mortis Engine a lost wound back if needed. You’re a fan of endless zombies, well that 6+ regeneration is not much, but it makes your core troops all that more annoying to deal with!
And that’s just one of the many possibilities.
Synergy guys, synergy! 🙂

darklordfoamy

13 years ago

So thoughts on rares.

Varghulf I find has to be a support creature to actually do anything as charge into almost anything bar artillery by itself and it stands a good chance of losing most of the time and good luck getting it into the artillery without taking a shot to the face. As a flanker though it is good as decent move it can help support your infantry but we have hex wraiths, vargheists etc so while in the old 7th ed book it stood by itself because no real competition now it does which makes it a bit less useful. Might be missing something here but I can’t think of a reason to really take it compared to the others.

Blood Knights oh I like these guys. Heavy cavalry that on charge pump out 3 str 7 attacks each oh yes that’s going to cause pain to just about everything but are best for other heavy units and monsters especially with a vampire count chucked in. Still a bit unsure about the flag of blood keep as useful but for the cost hmmm does say ranged attacks so I’m assuming that means magic missiles as well so against lore of metal very handy but think that needs to be clarified just to make sure.

Cairn Wraiths ah the old ethereal wraiths as good as ever as is the banshee and with chill grasp it’s useful to have in the fact way I see it infantry block slice with the weapons heavy cavalry grasp them.

Black Coach this hasn’t changed to much but is still a decent chariot unit and if dice go well early on it can get it’s powers almost straight away and then be a pain in the arse.

Terrorghiest this not bad a monster in fact it’s basically a dragon but with death shriek instead of a breath attack. With the variety of ld it’s not bad and combine that with the normal attacks and thunder stomp and it can cause a lot of damage and upgrades are not bad. Fulfills the role of big flying monster and does a reasonable job. Oh you said 2d6+4 that’s the example it’s actually 2d6+ it’s wounds so can be anywhere from 1-6.

Mortis Engines this I need to test before I can make an opinion on it. I see the potential of this with the swarm and reliquary causes havoc across the board and the blasphemous tome is also helpful and with a move of 8 can get around quickly but due to my skaven playstyle I come across a lot of flaming attacks and lore of fire and see this being targetted and blasted early on so when it explodes it will only affect the vampire army. Still I’m going to need to test this just to see how it does fare.

musteatbrains

13 years ago

I was never a big fan of fielding the Wraith unit in the last book, tried them shortly before the rease of the new book, and have used them in every game since. 4 Wraiths + 1 Banshee, a lot of points, but great to kill off monsters and monstrous infantry. Their main weakness is, as usual, combat resolution, so you will have to choose your targets carefully, try to get in the boni for charge and flanks… also a very good unit for supporting other combats.

As has been mentioned above, the Mortis Engine enables your lvl 4 Wizard to cast most spells on 2 dice (with an average result of 13), which not only limits the chances of miscasts greatly, but also means you have the energy for more spells (to raise/support units, or just to lure your opponent into wasting his dispel dice). And you can always Danse Macabre it into the heart of the enemy army towards the end of the game where it will hopefully get destroyed… tactical nuke, anyone?

Never liked Blood Knights; too many points for what they do. Instead of them, you can get a Terrorgheist and another Zombie block.

Terrorgheists I like, partially because they are one of the few unridden monsters you can get in this game. But the combination of their special rules can be quite devastating in the game as well, and when compared to other choices, their points costs are reasonable.

Instead of saying “oh, this has too many special rules”, you guys should really rather look into how those rules can be combined to make the VCs really, really strong… noone ever said playing them was easy.

rosspot83

13 years ago

Cairn wraiths are always worth taking. Got a unit of these into the watchtower, sould anyone shift them? Could he Fudge. Blood knoghts aren’t as good anymore just because you can’t have a vampire in there with the blood drinker anymore, to regenerate there wounds. Varghulf still good, just watch out for shooting. Black coach still underestimated. Hard as nails always will be.
Not digging the mortis engine or the bat beast thing. mainly because the models are too big and in my opinion cack.

quietus86

13 years ago

vargheist is the best rare in the book. Its hard as nails for there points.

partisan

13 years ago

btw a really awesome substitute for Blood Knights :

they each cost in betwenn 16,99-18,99$ which is in the end still a lot less then the GW ones if you buy 5 of them and I think they also look way better.