Topic: Advice on 6th ed vampire counts.

[The Black Knight]

Hello guys!

I've been recently asked to participate in a 6th ed warhammer tournament in March. I've decided to take my freshly painted VC for a spin. Having mostly been playing 8th I must say I am a bit lost on what to take in 6th. The tournament is 1333 points with no SoC or special characters allowed. I have been scrolling the internet to find some smaller point VC army lists, to have a better understanding of how they play in 6th but no luck. Any ideas? Or perhaps someone can direct me to a 6th ed centric group to ask direct questions?

[brr-icy]

There's a 6th edition group on facebook for 6th that I help moderate. The big thing with that army is magic for raising. If you can overwhelm them with numbers of zombies and skeletons, you're gold. Someone there can give better advice on small points games, I don't play under 3k anymore, haven't for years

[Michael W]

Like brr-icy said, lots of magic.  A couple of Level 2s and a Bound Item will burn through most opponents' magical defenses pretty quick.  Though personally I'd probably do a Level 2 with a bound item and a Wight Lord just so I had a killy champion, but I'm not sure that's the most competitive way to go.

The best VC opponent that I played in 6th had only one unit of Skeletons (usually only 15 guys, I think), but that unit got targeted with at lnvocation at least once a turn, sometimes more.  By the time it got to combat it was large enough to benefit from the Fear auto-break rule against everything except goblins.  I remember ghouls being aggravating war machine hunters / flankers (personally I liked Dire Wolves, but I will admit that Ghouls were much harder to kill and 6e Skirmish was very powerful) and Black Knights with the Banner of the Barrows being kill-on-sight deadly.  Oh, and hunting down single characters can be a real pain in the neck, so a well-played Banshee is a nightmare to fight against.

That said, 1333 is not a big game, even in 6th, so I'm not sure how much you can really jam in there.

[Heinrich von Kampfmann]

 Outnumber by fear causing enemy!   

Just summon a unit of extra fear causers, charge them into a flank or rear with a front charge and watch the enemy autobreak when you win combat.

Go with cheap infantry, something ethereal, cheap heroes.   

[The Black Knight]

Many thanks for all the comments!

I realize I am asking for a bit of niche advice, so I appreciate everything that I get.

@brr-icy - joined the group. There seems to be a lot of information about VC already, will need to look through all of it for some juicy tips.

@Michael W and Heinrich

So it seems that a lot of magic and a lot of zombies is needed to make the army effective. That is a bit of a bother since I only have 1 necro painted and nothing but skeletons (60 of them though). As I remember in 6th wizards generate power and dispel dice, so for lower points, everything does seem to push you towards spamming Lvl2 necromancers. Which doesn't sound that fun to be honest, at least to me!
Bearing in mind your advice and looking realistically at what I have painted (and what I can paint until the tournament), I've developed this list:

1 Blood Dragon Vampire Thrall @ 143 Pts
     Blood Dragon; Barding; Heavy Armour; Shield
     Heart Piercing [25] - (re-rolls to hit in 1st round of combat)
     Sword of Might [20] - (+1 st)

     1 Nightmare @

• Pts

1 Necromancer @ 145 Pts
     General; Magic Level 2
     Ring of the Night [30] - 5+ ward save
     Spell Familiar [15] - +1 spell

1 Wight Lord @ 139 Pts
     Battle Standard Bearer; Heavy Armour
     Cursed Book [50] - all enemies ar at -1 to hit in 6" radius (that is an insane item btw)

24 Skeleton Warriors @ 265 Pts
     Light Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician, champion

5 Dire Wolves @ 50 Pts

9 Black Knights @ 310 Pts
     Barding; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician, hell knight
     Banner of the Barrows [45] - wights hit on a 3+ always

14 Skeleton Warriors @ 122 Pts, champion
     Shield

1 Spirit Hosts @ 65 Pts

1 Banshee @ 90 Pts

Casting Pool: 4

Dispel Pool: 3

Models in Army: 57


Total Army Cost: 1329


Pretty straightforward idea. The necromancer hides in the small skeleton unit behind my lines, the bigger skeleton block with the bsb marches forward acting as my anvil. The knights with the thrall are my hammer. Dogs do dog stuff, the spirit host chaffs, the banshee plinks wounds off of stuff.

I realize that my casting potential is pretty meagre, but I really don't want to stick another necromancer in the smaller skeleton unit. I think I could swap out the thrall for a wight lord and maybe replace the bsb with a wraith. That would free up some points to give someone the rod of flaming death for an additional bound spell. I could also drop the ring of the night from the necromancer to give him the book of arkhan, but that leaves my general with no save whatsoever. That seems borderline suicidal!

Anyways I am not looking to create an op list, just something that I feel comfortable to play with. Will need to organise some test games soon.