So, I have felt a strange craiving for fle...ehh, I mean to play my vampire counts army once again. This time I want to try the Von Carsteins. While beeing a strigoi player at heart I still like the fluff part of the Carsteins to be more intrigueing. While not beeing the strongest of vampires, they still are the coolest. On to the army itself!

Von Carstein 1000p

Necromancer: extra level, book of arkhan 125p
Necromancer: extra level 100p

Heavy magic so for the sole purpose of rising more of the dead. Book of arkhan is always a nice addition to the magic phase aswell.

Von Carstein thrall: hauberk, wolf form, GW 134p

Pretty standard setup for a Carstein thrall. He´s there to kill things, anything that might threaten my battle plan. 3 WS6 S7 attacks should see off most foes. Main targets, wizards/warmachines/enemy characters/generating kills

20 skellies: spears, standard, musican 195p
25 zombies: standard, musican 165p

There to take the charge and pin the enemy units in place. I admit that spears are not the best option for for the skellies, but that is what my models are armed with so I´ll go with the WYSIWYG

10 zombies: 60p

Zombiebunker, necrobunker..call it what you will. There to keep my necros alive (no pun intended) basically.

5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p

Flankers and something the thrall can run around with.

8 ghouls: 64p

Ghouls are ghouls and do what they do best kill things and act as screen if nessecary.



Total cost of army: 993p

6PD + book
4DD

So, what do you think of the army? I will post my own comments about it later on. I have to go to work in like 10 minutes or so, but I just wanted to throw the list out there for everybody to see :).

EDIT: So the plan is to get the enemy units to charge my main blocks and to keep them there while the flankers can deliver the killing blow. I admit that black knights would have been a lot better for this task, but the thrall somewhat makes up for that. They also fit the army theme :). Fear is my greates friend here. My necros will hopefully see to that I can fight an endless war of attrition.

Looks very much to me like the backbone of a 1500-2000 pts army. My main concern here is where your actual kills are going to come from? Aside from the Vampire Thrall, you don't have anything over S4, and even that S4 is coming from the wolves when they charge. The Ghouls should be able to get some against lightly armoured opponents, but I wouldn't count on anything else killing anything.

Other than that, looks ok to me. You've got the numbers and ranks, and the flankers (even if the wolves do tend to disintegrate at the slightest glance from the enemy). Just need something that packs a bit more punch. Personally I'd try to squeeze some Black Knights in there somewhere, or swap a Necromancer for another thrall.

Cheers,
DLJ

The thing with undead, as I see it, is that they dont win by kills like other races. Instead they rely on fear to break the enemy in order to run them down. I went for strong magic in order to raise troops which will hopefully place enemy units in positions that are very advantegeous for me, then swamp him and run him down. The vamp is there to handle anything nasty looking, wizards, warmachines etc. Also, the dire wolves are cheap and there are 3 units of them. Black knights are usually missile magnets since people tend to fear that killing blow ability. Will surely have them in bigger games.

I dont really know what to sacrifice in order to get those knights and if it would be worth it at all?

In my experience, VC sorely need the kills from dedicated combat characters and hammer units to offset the fact that zombies and skeletons are so easy to mow down. If you want to go the heavy magic approach and win through hordes and hordes of summoned zombies you really need to have the full three necromancers, although I've never been a favour of this tactic as it can be scuppered by miscasts painfully easily. It doesn't help that VC are one of the weakest races at less than 2000 pts as well, as the enemy can pretty much win the game by killing a single T3 W2 model....

As for squeezing in the black knights, I'd drop the necrobunker (never necessary until just before the main blocks engage, and only then if there's no convenient terrain to hide behind), a unit of dire wolves and a couple of ghouls. Should be able to fit in five vanilla knights then, and a champion if you drop the spears from the skellies. Not too hard to keep them safe from harm either, dire wolves and the vamp should be engaging the enemy missile troops and warmachines by turn 2, so the Knights can play catchup.

It's either that or swap a necromancer with another thrall to lead the other combat block. If I'm being honest, I'd go with the extra thrall and the black knights though....

Cheers,
DLJ

Hmmm, sounds intresting indeed. Though I´m keeping the necros in there. I lvl 2 is not going to do much and since the general needs to be a spellcaster I may have two of them. I´ll still outmagic most races at these points. I shall see what I can do and come back with a second version of the list :).

Double post :P . Ok here are some suggestions, not only one list but two! Let me know what you think of them.

Von Carstein 1000p v.1.1

Necromancer: extra level, book of arkhan 125p
Necromancer: extra level, periapt, scroll 140p
Von Carstein thrall: hauberk, wolf form, GW 134p

20 skellies: standard, musican 175p
20 zombies: standard, musican 135p
10 zombies: 60p

5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p

9 ghouls: 72p

total cost of army: 991p

That one, or...

Von Carstein 1000p v.1.2

Necromancer: extra level, book of arkhan 125p
Necromancer: extra level, scroll 125p
Von Carstein thrall: hauberk, wolf form, GW 134p

20 skellies: standard, musican 175p
20 zombies: standard, musican 135p

5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p

9 ghouls: 72p

5 black knights: barding 125p


total cost of army: 991p

Which one seems to be better?

I vote for the version 1.2

Give the Black Knights a musician, just as a filler.

Nay, drop a ghoul or two and give 'em a standard. You cannot have too many standards in a Von Carstein army, they have too many cool over-the-top symbols to use.

Personally I'd drop a ghoul and give the Black Knights a champion. More attacks over a given frontage is always a good thing.

Cheers,
DLJ

Tricky choice, but I think im going with the champ, although the standard is tempting aswell. Which one would be more effective game-wise? One more attack or +1CR (with the risk of losing 100vps´s of course)?

+1 CR is always going to be better than one attack. It comes down to whether you feel you might be playing the knights as a speedbump sometimes (in which case you don't want to leave them with a standard to be captured), or whether you intend to keep them strictly as flanking shock troops, in which case the standard is running a pretty low risk, and greatly increasing their effectiveness.

Well, I know that they wouldnt be a speedbump. I have zombies for that, so that would leave me with flanking shock cavalry. It was some time since I checked my rulebook, but does 2 banners count towards combat resolution, when neither of them are a battle standard?

No, normal banners are not cumulative, but you can combine a normal standard and a battle standard for +2 CR.

Then I wonder if the champion would be better, since my main units already have banners -_- .

That's precisely why you shouldn't be giving your Black Knights a banner. Unless you're running ten of them with a character as a hammer unit that can break units unsupported in a frontal charge, you should be relying on the infantry banners to provide the banner bonus in any combat the Black Knights take part in, in which case you simply want the Knights to cause as many casualties as possible as their banner would be redundant. Ergo, the champion is the way forward!

Cheers,
DLJ

But if you want them to be able to break enemy units with a flank charge without requiring another unit's support, you need the standard. Otherwise, if you're going to be throwing 5 points of static CR into their front anyway, why not just flank with much cheaper Dire Wolves?

Because Dire Wolves have this horrible tendency to get chopped to bits by whatever they touch, and thus not really contribute that much to the overall combat resolution score. Coupled with the same tendency of the VC foot-troops to undergo the same kind of reaction to combat, flanking troops need to be hard-wearing and able to inflict a casualty or two.

Cheers,
DLJ

Maybe so. I'll defer to your VC experience.

Von Carstein 1000p v.1.2

Necromancer: extra level, book of arkhan 125p
Necromancer: extra level, scroll 125p
Von Carstein thrall: hauberk, wolf form, GW 134p

20 skellies: standard, musican 175p
20 zombies: standard, musican 135p

5 dire wolves: 50p
5 dire wolves: 50p

8 ghouls: 64p

5 black knights: barding, champ 141p


total cost of army: 999p

There, the final list. I intend to make that black knight unit bigger when I expand to 1500 points. Always wanted to try a big scary unit of black knights :D .

Yay! Tried the list today and it worked wonders. Won a minor vs woodies (8 points from a solid!). This was highly thanks to my wonderful dice rolling during the magic phases (didnt fail to cast a single spell, 0 miscast, huge ammounts of raised dead, a lot of damage from gaze of nagash etc.).

My only regret was that I threw my thrall away needlesly, never charge dryads with only wolves and a thrall :ph43r: .

Other than that I stayed away from combat as much as possible, only when it suited me did I engage. Fed the enemy units with unimportant zombie units while blasting them away with superior magic! Like when a gaze of nagash killed 2 out of 3 treekin :P. Book of arkhan is brilliant, especially when your opponent isnt expecting it. The black knights could this way see off the waywatchers.

My other necromancer was the most productive model on the board. His gaze of nagash killed: a unit of glade riders, a unit of scouts, most of the glade guard unit and 2 out of 3 treekin :). Always great to win versus our arch nemesis, wood elves :P.

Seems like a nice list, maye worth giving your general a ward save to help against miscasts-black amulet? The rest of it looks good, might want to think about:
-use of thrall (really worth a whole unit of zombies??)
-an extra ghoul (so 2 casaulties don't cause a panic test)
-another knight

Anyway, as its a good list, really up to you, and this thread might be a bit dead as don't know when the new army book is coming out.

Happy gaming!

The new book is out and I should get my copy of it today, I hope..