Vampire Counts Army Book Review

Today I am writing about the re-vamping (sorry for the punnagement) and the new book for my favorite army in Warhammer, the Vampire Counts. I like them the most because I like the Undead. They don't need to be fed, don't run away scared and can use the corpses of their enemy to bolster their forces. In Warhammer, these things don't exactly play out in literal translation, but are close.

The first thing that I would say about this new army book is that it is what I thought it would be. Just like the other 8th edition books, they nerf out the crazy combinations that you can do, gave some magic items and a lot of choices.

The units that are in the book have been more balanced and 8th edition friendly. Skeletons and zombies are now cheaper and and ghouls are more expensive. This still brings up the question of what to field, skeletons or ghouls. Ghouls are the more offensive choice while skeletons are more of an anvil. Ghouls have more attacks that are poisoned and a toughness of 4. Skeletons can have
a 5+ armor save and parry. Skeletons can also have a magic banner and a musician. One other note, skeletons are half the points of ghouls.

Zombies got better with now having a higher Strength and Toughness and now they can have characters. They make great bunkers for wizards that can't fight. Also, dire wolves are now again a true core unit.

The number of special units you can take now is great. This is where you can really customize a list to fight certain opponents and really give variety. The new Crypt Horrors are very tough and are hard to take down. The Varghiest on the other hand are very offensive. They have a lot of attacks with frenzy,
have a high strength and are the only monstrous infantry that can fly. Since they have the Vampire rule, they can also march. Also, because they are Vampiric, they are harder to heal and having no save makes them fragile.

Corpse Carts are great support for your fighting units. Their ability to give units are Always Strike First is better than it was before, since it goes off when a spell is cast.

Grave Guard lost a little bit with the loss of the Drakenhoff Banner and magical attacks but they are still a great unit for their points cost. If they are awesome when buffed with spells and corpse carts.

The Mortis Engine is good for lists that have lots of regenerating units and becomes more destructive as the game goes on. The main draw back to it for me is its points cost.

As for characters, they are string and expensive. With now having Master Necromancers being a Lord choice, It is possible having good hand-to-hand lord with a 4th level spellcaster. You can either do that with one Vampire Lord or a Vampire Lord with a Master Necromancer. There are also great new vampiric powers such as quick blood, dread knight and master of the dark arts. The Lore of Vampires is also a great lore for the army with 3 augments and Raise Dead to summon units that are not worth any victory points to enemies.

Overall, I really happy with the book and the lists that I have created. It gives a variety of lists and is balanced. A good book from Games Workshop.

The Road to 'Ard Boyz

Austin here talking about Games Workshop's 'Ard Boyz tournament coming a week from this Saturday! After long thought I have decided I am going to play. And I wanted to share my list!

Here is my Grey Knights list:

Draigo - 275

Xenos Inquisitor - Power Armor, Rad and Psy Grenades, Psyker, 3 Shervo Skulls - 102

2 X 10 GKSS, 2 Psycannons, 1 hammer, Rhino, Psybolt Ammo - 580 (290/squad)

2 X 6 Purifiers, 2 Psycannons, 4 halberds, Rhino - 424 (212/Squad)

1 X 6 Terminators, 1 Psycannon, 3 Halbards, 2 Falchions, 1 Hammer, Psybolt - 295

1 X 6 Paladin, 2 Psycannons, 3 Halbards, 1 Hammer, 1 Sword, Banner, Psybolt Ammo - 415

3 X 1 Psyrifle Dreadnought - 405 (135/Dreadnought)

Here is the thoughts behind this list. The Psyrifle dreadnoughts are for tank busting or squad hunting. They have 4 TL Autocannon shots that are strength 8!

The Grey Knight Strike Squads will be combat squaded and the 2 psycannons placed in Rhinos for extra protections and will just be a weapon's platform for anything that comes midfield against me.

The real brute force are the terminators (vanilla and paladin flavors!) and the purifers. The Purifiers are purely (oh puns!) for midfield domination and the terminators deep strike or outflank from behind and take the fight to the enemy. Or I could walk them up the middle and have them keeping a weight of fire on the enemy!

I will hopefully post some pics tonight or this weekend since I am painting the army and they are starting to come together!

-Austin

Grey Knights, a Size Comparison

I wanted to give a size comparison for the Grey Knights. This was my force. 500 points and all I could afford was 2 Strike Squads with 5 men each, an Inquisitor and a Dreadknight (my opponent really wanted to fight one). In each squad I had a daemon hammer and a psycannon. Not a lot for 540 points! The Dreadknight did have a great sword but I should have given him a teleporter! 6 inches of movement is too small for him! (I also had a unit of psykers because my opponent went over by 40 points. If they go off they are useful!)

My opponent had space marines and he could field two squads of 10 marines with flamers and plasma cannons, a predator and a space marine captain with a lightening claw! The Plasma cannon ripped apart my units but the Dreadknight, once it got into close combat was amazing!

Sometimes small games can be fun but elite armies will always be at a disadvantage for not being able to put more boots on the table!

Grey Knights HQ Units

Codex: Grey Knights is out and I have had a chance to play a few games with them. While it will not be for everyone it is very well balanced and very hard to play. I will go through the different units and War Gear options in the coming weeks but I thought I would talk about the normal HQ Units.

Being all Psykers all your independent characters are great at buffing units. You can use them to cast Hammerhands on the unit they are in. That is +1 Strength to the unit. This is a great benefit if you want to save your Grey Knights psychic power to turn on their Force Weapons.

Grand Master: The HQ units in this books are all about versatility. The Grand Master can change the very nature of your units. You want scouting Terminators? He can make them. You want counter attacking Purifiers? He is the HQ for you also. He also can make units score objectives like there were troops. Now you can't make a Dreadnought a scoring unit (it says in the Basic Rule Book that walkers can't take objectives), it can the mighty Dreadknight scoring! He can also change the reserve roll of reserve units by +1 or -1. Grand Master show that they are worthy of leading the most Elite of Space Marines.

Brother-Captains: Everything a Brother-Captain can do a Grand Master can do. So why take him? Well he is less points than a Grand master, so if you don't need to change your units rules, take the Brother-Captain. He can affect the reserve roll of reserve units and can take the same wear gear as the Grand Master. Really, you should take a Grand Master and just figure out how to afford him, the Brother-Captain is just a cheap knock off.

Librarian: If you can't take a Grand Master you might want to skip the Brother-Captain and get a Librarian. They have some truly awesome psychic powers. They can cast 2 powers a player turn and some of the powers can change your enemy's turn from offensive to defensive. I won't list every power but some can teleport units to the Librarian or make a safe area for your units.

Brotherhood Champions: These guys are combat monsters. They don't have normal attacks but have three different settings. They can attack every one in base contact, reroll all saving throws or make some devastating attack against monstrous creatures/independent characters. And if they die they have a nasty surprise for the enemy. These guys are cheap and make a great surprise to the enemy who attacks their unit. The trade off is they only have 1 wound! So you have to be careful with them.

Inquisitors: They are dirt cheap and don't have Space Marine stats. Why would you take them? Their War Gear is amazing! They come in three flavors, Ordo Malleus, Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos. Each one has different war gear options. Being cheap they can be the icing on the cake of an already strong unit. I like taking the Xenos Inquisitor with Power Armor, Rad Grenades and Psychotroke Grenades. Rad Grenades give -1 to the toughness of the enemy unit and Psychotroke Grenades affect the enemy's combat potention. There are a ton of options for shooting Inquisitors and close combat monster Inquisitors. And the best part is an Inquisitor unlocks the henchmen. They make an already unique book open up with more units, adding more flavor to an already unique book.