Ok, here's what I've settled on and am painting up...slowly...
Master NecromancerLevel 4;
Black Periapt; Talisman of PreservationVampireBattle Standard Bearer;
Sword of Might; Enchanted Shield; Book of Arkhan; Heavy Armour; Red Fury
VampireLevel 2;
Staff of Damnation; Heavy Armour; Shield; Dark Acolyte
Cairn WraithCore21 ZombiesStandard, Musician
21 ZombiesStandard, Musician
5 Dire Wolves5 Dire Wolves40 GhoulsChampion
Special[/u]
29 Grave GuardChampion, Standard, Musician,
Banner of the BarrowsSpirit HostSpirit Host6 HexwraithsCorpse CartUnholy Lodestone
Rare[/u]
Mortis EngineBlasphemous Tome
The Master Necromancer and the Vampires all take the Lore of Vampires. I think having a Shadow caster in here would be nice, but I think a minimum of 3 Invocation casters is required to make things tick.
I dropped the Rod of Flaming Death for the Talisman of Preservation for the Necromancer. The relatively short range of the Rod of Flaming Death, and the scarcity of Power Dice, meant I just wan't using it. I'd rather keep the magical focus alive with a 4+ ward in the event he has to get in melee or takes a cannon to the face. He'll sit in a Zombie unit, behind the lines, trying to keep the other melee units within Invocation range, healing things up and handing out buffs as he's able.
The two Vampires I'm not quite satisfied with, and will surely be swapping around their equipment. I LOVE the Staff of Damnation (when cast, all friendly units within 6" get an extra attack!), I LOVE the Book of Arkhan (casts Danse Macabre on one unit, giving a free move or rerolls to hit in melee!)...both items I really want to have. That just doesn't leave much room for more toys.
The BSB has a respectable 3+ Save, and dishes out four S6 attacks, getting extra attacks for each unsaved wound caused. She's a CR generator, but easily killable by rank and file. She'll most often be found in the Grave Guard, but switching over to the Ghouls when I think they'll need more help vs. something a bit tougher.
The other vampire is an Invocation engine. His Dark Acolyte gives him an extra d3 on his casting roll when he successfully casts Invocation, making them harder to dispel. In fact, it effectively makes him a second Lvl 4 caster for the purposes of getting the spell off. Being Lvl 2 he'll bring back an additional wound, as well. He's got the basic Vampire fighty status of four S5 attacks, but only a 4+/Parry to stay alive. He'll most likely be found behind the lines, either in Ghouls or close to a unit for LOS, keeping as many things as possible in Staff and Invocation range.
The Cairn Wraith is part of my effort to bring in a lot of Ethereal units to be a royal pain in the butt. He has the extra benefit of causing Terror, and can dish out 3 S5 attacks. Not earth-shattering, but will be gold in many situations. If nothing else, his Terror will force Fear tests on units that cause Fear (Ogres!). And, I really like the old "Grim Reaper" models
The two Zombie units are there to be cheap bunkers and to be grown to huge size with a few casts of Invocation...see, Invocation targets all friendly units within a certain range. It can increase zombie units past their starting size, and zombies get an extra d6...so for zombies everytime I cast Invocation they gain 2d6 + wizard's level of fresh meat. When combined with the Corpse Cart's Lodestone (see below), I'm bringing up about 10 new zombies in BOTH units everytime I cast Invocation. If I can get off just one Invocation on turns 1 and 2 before the shit really hits the fan, then those Zombie units are up to 40 big each...enough to take a charge and hold someone for a turn so I can do something constructive!
Moreover, they're cheap deployment "drops", and each carries a standard so I dont' auto-lose that one mission. The Standards are hard to get, too, as the unit won't just run away...you have to kill them to the lost twitching body part!
The Dire Wolves are more and more of a question mark for me. They're cheap 40 point deploys, but they're too weak to do anything other than die horribly. I can use them to absorb a charge when angled properly, but otherwise see no use for them at all. They do count for core, and are extra deploys, so for now I'm keeping them. They're also painted, so that's a bonus
The Ghouls are still one of my favorite units, though they were hit hard with the cost increase (went from 8 to 10). I really think I need more like 50 to do what I want with these guys, but no points.
I want them to go in Horde formation, dishing out 40 Poisoned attacks, which should get around 7 wounds just from Poison, and win thru attrition. They are T4, but have no saves (unless the Mortis Engine can help...see below) so will die by the handful, will likely lose fights, but hopefully can kill off things faster than they die off. This requires a lot of bodies to live thru the enemies turn so I have a chance to get Invocation off on them to replace losses, hopefully replacing them somewhere near as fast as I'm losing them. This is where the 50 comes in, as I really need the bodies to keep the unit intact while waiting for Invocation to work, and if I get a weak Winds roll on a critical turn, this unit will crumble away to nothing.
You know what I'd like to try in that unit? A BSB Vampire with the 'Fear Bomb' trick. It won't work very often, and in fact I think is a poor choice for a 'take-all-comers' style list, but I can load up a BSB with a Banner that forces the enemy to use 3 dice for Fear tests, dropping the lowest...-1 to their leadership...and if you pass a fear test you have to reroll! According to other's math (I'm not cool enough for that...) that gives about 50% chance of a Ld9 unit failing it's Fear Test if it's BSB is in range...down to about 33% if no BSB. Having the Ghouls hit on 3s and be hit on 5s would be pretty fun! Just like the old days with the Helm of Command!
I'm going off on a tangent again, but the way I build the Vampire armies is a lot different than I would for non-vamps. For non-Unstable units, I think the Hammer-Anvil is the way to go. I tie up your big unit with a big stubborn unit, taking huge losses but remaining Steadfast, until I can hit your flank/rear with a Hammer that will do enough damage to win combat big, you're not steadfast because my Anvil is bigger, you run, I chase, you die.
But with Unstable, that kind of falls apart a bit, I think. The Anvil unit is basically taking double damage...if you kill 10 of me, win combat by 10, I lose 10 more, so I've lost 20 guys. Yeah, I'll stick around (as would a Steadfast unit), but I can't stick around as long, will likely not have enough bodies to remain steadfast until the turn my Hammer hits, so when it does you're Steadfast, and my Hammer gets stuck trying to win through attrition. Admitedly, Vampires do that well, but why waste the time and energy with the whole Anvil thing, and just go straight to the Attrition and focus on doing that well?
Here's an example: I've got a unit of 50 Zombies, ranked up 5-wide and 10 deep. They drive in to, for example, 40 Dwarf Warriors with Great Weapons. The Zombies get 10 big attacks, 3 hits, 1 wound, maybe kill 1 dwarf. The Dwarfs get 21 attacks (7 in base to base, 3 deep for horde), 14 hits, kill 12 zombies. Both have the same flags and banners, so the Dwarfs win by 11, 11 more Zombies "crumble" from Unstable, so I've lost 23 zombies, almost half!
On the Dwarfs turn, the same thing happens, and on my turn I'm down to 2 Zombies left...would I still want to drive my Hammer unit in to the Dwarf flank? Maybe, but the Dwarfs will likely have more ranks, be steadfast, finish off the Zombies, reform to face, and it's back to attrition.
So, as I ramble and wax poetic, my mindest is not one of pinning with an Anvil and smacking with a Hammer as Tarpitting with anvil-type units while the attrition-hammers kill something and get ready for the next. I have the same unit types, I just think of using them slightly different.
But of course, if the situation presents itself, I'll gladly combo-charge with a big zombie unit to try to out-rank someone to take away their steadfast for a hopefully decisive charge, but that itself is a bit perilous as the Zombies risk giving up so much Combat Resolution that they could end up making me lose the fight! Going up to T3 helps this a lot, but it's still possible...and with Unstable, every unit in the fight 'crumbles'...so if I have Zombies in the front and Hexwraiths in the rear, and I lose combat by 3, for example, I lose 3 Zombies AND 3 Hexwraiths. Ouch!
So back to the list...I have the first of my 'attrition hammers' in the Ghouls. There are good and bad match-ups for them, and I need to use the deployment part of the game to make sure they get a good one. Great Weapon Dwarfs are their nemesis, as horde vs. horde the Ghouls kills 7, lose 13, then lose 7 more to crumble...half the unit gone in one turn; then with little chance for effective Invocations due to the Dwarf innate magic defense. Against smaller units of elite infantry, or monsters, or damned near anything that doesn't have a super armour save, I'll gladly throw the Ghouls at them!
Next on the list is the Grave Guard, another hammer-type attrition unit. These guys hit a LOT harder than the Ghouls, thanks to their +1 to-hit banner and S6 Killing Blow weapons. They're only marginally more survivable than the Ghouls (heavy armour only), but can dish out a lot more damage. They actually win fights vs. my nemesis the Dwarf Horde, but only just barely. There aren't a lot of bad matchups for these guys, though I'd try to avoid things that shit out a ton of attacks at higher Initiative (though they have Great Weapons, I hope to be swinging at I3 due to ASF from Corpse Cart...see below).
The Ghouls and the Grave Guard serve one more purpose: they're hard to get points from. At over 400 points for each unit, and so many bodies to grind through, it takes a lot of dedicated effort to get them dead to get points. Point Denial, sort of
I have two Spirit Hosts. They're more ethereal pain in the butt units. They have M6, so can zip around pretty decent, and four attacks and wounds gives them a good chance at killing small fast cavalry units, etc. They'll primarily be used to block charging enemy units, forcing them to take angles they don't want and letting my heavy-hitters deal with one thing at a time. Moreover, they're cheap, are great "chaff" deployment drops, and can even go hunt enemy artillery. They are very weak to magic weapons or spells, of course, but hey, they're cheap.
Another ethereal unit, the Hexwraiths. They're ethereal terror-causing fast-cavalry with S5 weapons that are flaming and allow no armour-saves. Moreover, they have a special rule that allows them to move through unengaged friendly and enemy units, doing automatic hits to an enemy unit they move through. With 6 of them, I should be doing 4 wounds on the 'drive-by' attack on things like...Chaos Knights! Then with Fast Cav free reform, they'll turn around and be ready to do it again next turn...or go after enemy flanking units or war machines. But, most importantly, they're really cool looking models!
The Corpse Cart is another really fun model that has some really great support effects. First and foremost, if the Cart is the target of a Vampire Lore Augment spell, it will give ASF to all friendly units within 6". Guess what...Invocation, the spell I plan to spam 3 times a turn with my 3 casters, is an Augment spell that targets all friendly units within it's cast radius. This means that just by casting Invocation to replaces losses and/or increase Zombie unit size, the Cart is giving out ASF! I've added on the Unholy Lodestone too...this lets me reroll one of the dice for an Invocation effect. Hopefully this will help counteract the Ordo effect, preventing the snake-eyes when trying to boost up the Zombies!
Also, it's not terribly easy to kill, being a S4 T4 Chariot with W4, and a 5+ armour save with Regen (4+). It's not something I'd throw in to combat very often, but it can hold it's own against small units.
And last, is the giant Mortis Engine. It has a Banshee Wail, doing an 8" scream attack like a Banshee. It has it's 'aura' effect that will give my units Regeneration, and do damage to enemy units...the longer it survives, the more damage it can do! It's a S5 T5 W5 Chariot also with 5+ save and Regen (4+). It has a lot of low str attacks, so is fairly worthwile vs. smaller units. But I've also given it the Blasphemous Tome. This naughty book will give me +2 on the casting rolls, but also makes all wizards within 12" roll mishaps twice, and their opponent pics the result!
I figure since most of the spells I'll be casting with just 2 dice, I'm not too worried about it, and if I can get it close to the enemy wizard it could really change how they approach their magic phase.
Both the Cart and the Engine would be "behind" my big units, hoping to be in range to provide maximum support while not dieing to cannons and magic. They'll also be used to drive off flanking things trying to mess up the big units from the sides. Not many Fast Cav units want to take impact hits and get tied down under a million s3 attacks!
The overall list will be very relient on magic working to help win attrition and get buffs. I really worry that I'll struggle to do that, not only because of the randomness of the Winds of Magic but because my opponent is sure to stop the most critical spell(s).
But overall, it should look fun on the table, with a mix of feral dirty ghouls, zombies...and parts of zombies...jumping out of the ground all over and staggering around...ghosts all over...and the 'elite' grave guard stoically cutting down all in front of them.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading...would love some feedback on this!