Advice needed against VC

[Zibion]

I know that there is a great thread on this, but I have 2 rather specific questions which do not really fit a general discussion.

1. How to deal with Spirit Hosts and other ethereal nightmares? Especially with a MSU list, like mine, which does not generate too much static CR? Spirit Hosts are mobile, have 4 attacks, 4 wounds, 6 move and ignore terrain. It is hard to corner them into a flank charge and front-charging 3 bases with small MSU units seems, well, suicidal. I thought about charging them with a chariot, which would probably tie them down for a while, depending on my leadership checks. Is there a nice, efficient way of either getting rid of them or getting them bogged down?

2. How do you protect your sorceress from mage hunters? The VC have fell bats, which are rather nasty. I like having my sorceresses in small units of shades - this gives them protection from missile fire, decent mobility and excellent line of sight, but somehow the bloody bats end up eating her every battle How do you solve this problem?

[Dalamar]

1. magic, or noble hero hunter with magic weapon, unfortunately it will take him a while to kill them but he should tie them up nicely and not lose the combat.

2. I put her inside a unit... that way mage hunters usually have 1 round to kill her or they will break from combat. Other than that, use terrain. VC bats don't have ground movement worth mentioning, Sorceress inside a forest would be almost untouchable.

[Tacitus]

1) The noble with a magic weapon, magicy death or use of something like a hydra to tie them up is about the only way to do it effectively.

2)While the bats may not be able to enter the wood, she'll be a sitting duck for spirit hosts, any castings of Wind of Undeath (it hits every enemy unit afterall) and anything else that the VC player decided to throw at you. This leads me to agree with Dalamar, the best you can so is stick the sorc in a unit (rxb units are good for this) and try to deter chargers.

[Dalamar]

Spirit hosts might ignore terrain, but they still can't charge what they can't see and you see into 2" of the forest. so if the forest is big enough you can stall spirit hosts for quite a few turns moving 1" out of their sigh every time get get too close.

[Tacitus]

While that may be true it would also essentially remove the Sorceress from the game, as her ability to impact (read: see to cast) would be almost non existant, which is a problem for the high number of LoS based spells available to us.

[Cananatra]

Take a highborn on a dragon and fly it straight at his general. They are sadly deficiant in ward saves, i play them trust me on this. Hit him hard, throw all your attacks at him, as soon as he is gone suddenly the undead fall appart very quick. My main opponent has a tendency to use this tactic and from the Vamp players point of view its dificult to beat. Your vampire lord cant take a dragon and its rider.

Yes the dragon is a quite expensie unit to use as a suicide unit but after it kills the general, well the match is more or less over.

EDIT: sorry i know this doesnt answer your specific questions but it allows my opponents to just ignore those threats when he is acing me, i'm too busy stopping that dragon from killing the most important model in my army.

[Tacitus]

In response to Canantra:-

The dragon riding Lord is an excellent tactic to use, assuming you're not playing against an experienced VC player.

If this is the case then the general will most probably be lurking in a 'bunker' unit (small ghoul regiment or the like) behind a large black infantry regiment with too little space for the dragon to land between them and contact the Vampire. This results in you either having to chew through the full RnF unit to the front (a poor prospect for the guy on a dragon as he'll just be fed the unit champion, who can now be re-raised) or try to get a flank charge and hope there is enough space for the base to fit; which there usually isn't.