After a brief tenure with the army of sylvania, I decided that I wasn't too fond of the footslogging undead horde approach. I wanted something more elite, with more speed and hitting power. After another read-through of the Vampire Counts book, I decided that blood dragons, contrary to popular belief, are perhaps the most underused VC army outside of Lahmians. Sure, every noob might start out with them, but when was the last time you saw a nicely painted and converted Blood Dragon army on the tabletop? I know that I've seen many more Strogoi and Von Carstein armies, but that may just be my location. Anyway, here is the blood dragon list I've been playing with in the last few games, and so far I've been having great success.

The Knights of the Black Grail

Characters:
Blood Dragon Vampire Count: lvl. 2, barded nightmare, lance, shield, red fury, master strike, ring of the night, black periapt: 367 pts.

Necromancer: lvl.2, 2xdispel scroll: 150 pts.

Wight Lord: barded nightmare, heavy armor, enchanted shield, sword of kings: 111 pts.

Blood Dragon Thrall: barded nightmare, lance, shield, heavy armor, red fury, strength of steel: 147 pts.

Core:
Skeletons: 15, full command: 145 pts. (necromancer's bodyguard)

Dire Wolves: 6: 60 pts.

Dire Wolves: 5: 50 pts.

Dire Wolves: 5: 50 pts.

Dire Wolves: 5: 50 pts.

Special:
Black Knights: 9, barding, full command, war banner: 290 pts. (count goes here)

Black Knights: 9, barding, full command, banner of the barrows: 310 pts. (wight lord, of course)

Black Knights: 9, barding full command: 265 pts. (thrall goes here)

Total Army: 1995 pts.
Casting Pool: 5 power dice
Dispel Pool: 4 dispel dice + 2 dispel scrolls

I dunno, it seems light on infantry for a vampire counts army. I would add in another block of Zombies or something, just to soak up charges and stuff.

Ummmm....the premise of this army is powerful charges made by the knights, supported by the wolves. I suppose I should have said that in the original post...infantry wouldn't fit into the theme or strategy of this army.

although this army is small, i play a similar style too and it works wonders. Just remember to screen your knights with wolves as they are fire magnets. O and its a good list too :D howver just 1 point :

I would strongley suggest to change your necromancers body guard to zombies as they are musch more easy to summon and in the end zombies and skeletons when making them a body guard thing.......are the same, weak armour ...... just alot more expensive.

I would personnally drop the musicians (all four), and switch the Sword of Kings for a normal Lance since the Wight Lord is mounted, I would prefere the str bonus in the first round. That would give you 50pts to use elsewhere, to get more Wolf, more Skeleton, more Black Knight (maybe split a unit in 2 and add one to each for 6-strong), etc.

Edit: And like Vampiric said, Skeleton to Zombie might be good too, and get you more free point!

I would tend to concur with dropping the Sword of the Kings. It seems like the natural thing to give a Wight Lord, but in a Blood Dragon army, your vampires do the character killing. Of course, often that's not a matter of choice, but well. That's why they're Blood Dragons. So a utility Wight Lord is cheaper, and still extremely effective.

You're still going to have a hard time dealing with cheap throwaway units. You will also be hard-pressed to avoid being trapped by a skilful player with a well-constructed army that has enough redundancy, because your units cannot flee charges. These are things to be careful about.

My personal opinion is that while it looks themed and may even play well against some armies, you might get bored of it after a while. Worse, your opponents will! And they'll tag you for that boring BD player with the "cheesy" Knight army, whether or not it is actually cheesy. Of course, if you and your opponents don't mind, that's fine and good. I won't do it, though, because my group doesn't like that sort of thing.

Derfel, you make a solid point. I think I'll relegate this army to "fun" games, instead of using it often and in a tournament setting. I'll stick to the Von Carstein's for the majority of the time, as well as tournament play. Thanks to all who replied, I think I'll post my new Army of Sylvania list soon.

I saw a very competive list similar to this once, which I fought at a tournament. Three units of knights, bats, wolves and a unit of zombies making the majority of the army. The way it differed was to have a Blood Dragon Lord and 2 Lvl 2 Necromancers. That's a lot of magic for this kind of army, and it worked beautifully in every game but against me. He'd raise zombies behind the enemy lines in vast numbers, and then danse them into combat when the knights charged. Not an awful lot you could do to stop him unless you were magic heavy yourself. Only problem for him against me is that the raised units gave plenty for my Strigoi to munch on, and his mundanely-equipped general died in a challenge against my Wraith after nine rounds of combat! He conceded after that. :D

Might be worth trying out that particular variant if you want to go to tournies. It's not particularly fluffy, but it sure works most of the time.

Cheers,
DLJ

I like it. It's a nice breakawat from the traditional horde of shambling infantry that VC players find so popular. It's tough and hard-hitting in combat, which isn't something people usually expect from a Vampire Counts army.
Just one question: are you using the Blood Dragon appendix list from the back of the book? Because, from what I understand, if you use the appendix list, you can field your Black Knights in lance formation.

another thing with the black knights is that im prety sure when you have two ranks of them they near inbeatable in combat, even when charged, against most oppoenents.

i believe you can have lance formation when you use the appedix list yes, i think its sort of a undead bretonia army (guess the opponents will be annoyed at another scrap verses them ^_^ )