help me beat the vamps please

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Gildesh
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help me beat the vamps please

Post by Gildesh »

hey ppl how u all doin?? well this is just a quick spot of begging for some advice in beating a 2000 point vampire list. i have played against this opponent several times and he always seems to get the best of me. i need your help with lists and tactics please people. he uses a fairly balanced vampire list which seems to do well regularly any help would be much apreciated. thank you all for your help
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Welshy »

It really depends on your style and what he uses, but your magic defence, whether active or not is very important.
Secondly, the way i beat Vamps is by single mindedly going after his Lord, nothing else is important, and I will sacrifice anything to do it. This is a little too all or nothing for some players, but it is sometimes the only way to play against a powerful VC army, as they beat us in several other ways.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by imriel »

Agreed. I can only guess he will bring at least 3 characters, to keep his army from crumbling.

Keep in mind his army can't march unless he has vampires of some sort nearby.

Secondly, maybe use two groups of waywatchers. Granted, he has a set of armour that grants immunity to killing blow, but will most likely be on the general, if at all (not a popular item with Vamps though). But the high ballistic skill and lethal shot will keep his characters in check, along with the inevitable black knights/blood knights. (10 waywatchers: probably about 7 hits, followed by 1-3 killing blows per volley.)

Keep running and gunning. And never charge a unit in the front, always in the back! He cant raise anything from the dead because the empty space in the back ranks are occupied by your unit. Charge in the front, and on his next turn will just raise everything back again, and you start from scratch.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Beithir Seun »

Until the LEAF article on Vampire Counts is written, I would recommend having a read of this thread for general advice.


For specific advice, you will have to provide a bit more information. What does your opponent usually field? What sort of tactics does he use? What in particular gives you problems?
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Tethlis »

Indeed, fighting Vampires is an involved and complicated subject. The more we know about you and your opponent, the easier it is to give specific feedback that's useful to you. Posting up the lists you both usually use would be a good start.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Gildesh »

thanks evryone for the advice and apologies for my vague question, generaly speeking he brings 4 characters, 2 vamps a necro and a weight bsb.
his core usually is filled with ghouls and dire wolves and at least 2 corpse carts, his special usualy contains grave guard and black knights, spirit hosts and fell bats and his rare are usually a pair of varghulfs. personally i like to play a fast agressive army but i am flexible i have acess to enough moddels for any we list. thanks again
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Shankey »

My friend uses a fairly similar vampire list, so I can offer some advice.
First, never ever ever engage one of his units unless you have more static CR than him going in. This is really key, since the undead will never run, and you'll be stuck there hammering away until he gets another unit in the fight. He can afford the losses. You can't.
Second, take a spellweaver with the wand of wych elm as your general, backed up by a branchwraith with the cluster spite. This will give you a serious magic phase that can mitigate if not shut down, his necromancy. I personally always make her LV. 4 and use the lore of beasts, so I have a good chance of getting the beast cowers and/or the hunters spear. The beast cowers can be used to shut down a vargulf, and the hunters spear can threaten the flanks of his cavalry, especially if you put your wizard on a horse. The Lamentation of despairs is another good choice for the branchwraith, since it can be snuck in to finish off a wounded vargulf.
My friend learned long ago to not take spirit hosts or fell bats against me. The bats suck, and the spirit hosts are just dryad bait. The grave guard should never see combat either, just avoid them all game. You'd need to seriously commit to killing them, and its not worth the effort.
Take plenty of waywatchers and wardancers, as he'll be terrified of losing his general to a killing blow. I prefer two units of 8 dancers, and two units of 9 waywatchers. That might seem like a lot, but the only way he can really deal with waywatchers in the woods is through magic, black knights, or vargulfs. You can handle magic, black knights hate waywatchers, and you should cover them with a unit of wardancers anyway.If he charges, just flee and counter charge with the dancers.
Finally, I like to take a unit of 6 wild riders with a war banner, a pair of glade rider units for march blocking, and a big ol' pile of dryads. And a standard alter, for killing wolf screens.
Hope that helps.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Tethlis »

Good advice from Shankey.

There have been lots of past threads about fighting Vampires, so check out the Search feature for more information.

In general, I find the best bet when fighting Vamp Counts is to first remove his support units. These include things like Cairn Wraiths, Black Knights and the Varghulf. Now, these can be tricky to bring down if you're not careful. However, Wood Elves have plenty of tools to achieve these tasks. Missile fire, Wild Riders, Dryads and Wardancers, Treemen, Treekin and Alter Nobles can all help put these targets down. With them removed, he's left with large regiments. Some, like zombies, Skeletons and Ghouls, you can combo-charge to potentially kill them. Others, like Grave Guard, are simply too durable and should probably be marchblocked and avoided to minimize their impact during the game. Vamp Counts are definitely a tough matchup, and Wood Elves have to work hard to beat them. If you can strip away his mobile support units though, you gain a tremendous advantage and can pick your battles more freely.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

Although the individual units you mention are powerful, putting them all in one army, makes for a fairly small undead force at 2000 points.

His actual troops are comparatively low in number and either he must have few large units, or risk having complete units destroyed by our shooting. The smaller his army, the easier it is to outmaneuver it.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Gildesh »

hey all thanks for the help and im sure you will all be glad to know it helped me gain victory, mostly gown to luck though, i managed to gill his general in turn 2 as he made a mistake by guessing that my 2 alter nobles were out of charge range, the alter highborn made short work of his lord while the standard alter decimated the champion of the ghoul unit that he was hiding in, from there on in i only had to avoid the threats and squish the crumbling units with dryads and dancers, i did worry when his grave guard got into combat and destroyed my treekin in 2 short turns ouch!! but by then the damage had been done and i walked away with a major victory. in response 2 the small army comment he counters this by having the ability 2 raise ghouls above starting number on all his vamps and having 3 or 4 small units of ghouls 2 start. thanks again
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Tethlis »

Sounds like a good victory! Having an Alter Highborn and an Alter Noble to go Vampire Hunting is an excellent idea, and it sounds like it worked well for you. The strategy you mentioned, where the Ghouls start out low in number and are raised up as the battle progresses, is a pretty common strategy for Vampires. In that kind of situation, I find that the luck of the dice plays a huge roll. A few too many low casting values, or a few too many '1s' or '2s' when he's rolling to raise, and the battle suddenly becomes much easier to handle. Warhammer is fun because so much of it is random, but I also find it frustrating when the random outcome of a few D6s can easily alter the entire game one way or another.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Gildesh »

Tethlis wrote:Sounds like a good victory! Having an Alter Highborn and an Alter Noble to go Vampire Hunting is an excellent idea, and it sounds like it worked well for you. The strategy you mentioned, where the Ghouls start out low in number and are raised up as the battle progresses, is a pretty common strategy for Vampires. In that kind of situation, I find that the luck of the dice plays a huge roll. A few too many low casting values, or a few too many '1s' or '2s' when he's rolling to raise, and the battle suddenly becomes much easier to handle. Warhammer is fun because so much of it is random, but I also find it frustrating when the random outcome of a few D6s can easily alter the entire game one way or another.
yep it worked nicely and i dont think he was expecting to see 2 hard hitters run straight at his general and slap him silly in the second turn i feel so dirty bt soo soo right
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by Tethlis »

Naw, nothing to feel dirty about there. Vamp Count players have nothing to complain about where Wood Elves are concerned. He left himself vulnerable, and you made good use of an opening to end the game.
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Re: help me beat the vamps please

Post by ArchMagosAlchemys »

In that case, in the first turn(s) burn all your scrolls while you shoot as many Ghoul units dead as you can.
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