How to beat Vampires?

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Dm crew
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How to beat Vampires?

Post by Dm crew »

Vargulf, Grave Guards with regen and 7 WS, 2 Black Coaches, etherial spites are absolute cheat. Virtue of black arts (+2PD) and several hordes of Ghouls are also crap.
What can DE oppose against these units? And, of course, what are the best ways to kill usual Vampire Lord: lore of Death, close combat (but who?) or what?
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Nicol247
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Post by Nicol247 »

I play against the bat quite a bit. The key is to take out the general and march his army crumble.Due to there lack of shooting a Sorceress on peg with death magic is a winner for taking him out,just stay out of charge arc. A character on a dark steed with lifetaker has stopped my oppo taking wraiths full stop. And any high attack unit with the flaming banner would be good against the regenerate unit. Witch elves buffed with the cauldron should do the biz , hydras breath attack is flaming now aswell.
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Post by Phierlihy »

Or 4 Reaper Bolt Throwers.
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Post by Prince fabulas »

Mindrazor
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Tethlis
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Post by Tethlis »

If you have a fixed list you use, feel free to post it so we know what tools you're working with. Otherwise, you're opening the flood gates to a lot of list-tailoring discussion, which may or may not be what you want.

There are a few options available. First, hunting down support units has always been an Elven specialty, so be sure to pick on his troops that extend too far from the main line. This is especially true for the Black Coach, which you want to try and take out before it can absorb enough dice to become REALLY problematic. If you have a Dreadlord on Pegasus, he's great for tying up and smashing either black coaches or Cairn Wraiths, and making sure they don't bother the rest of your army. Items like the Ruby Ring can also be good to work into the list to help handle Ethereals, as well as making sure any combat character or unit champion you have is packing a magic weapon.

If you're interested in busting the Grave Guard Deathstar, I would suggest a couple different approaches. First, tie up the Vampire Lord with a Harpy unit or Pegasus Rider in the same turn you charge the Grave Guard; the Lord cannot pass his Weapon Skill on if he's engaged in combat.

Now that the Grave Guard are more manageable, Dark Elves have some great tools at their disposal in order to turn and take them down. As always, a combined charge with your elite infantry unit of choice, a Hydra, and Cold One Knights/chariots can frequently pack enough killing power to tear through the whole Grave Guard block in one go. It's important to either land a Flaming Attack with your highest Initiative troops to negate their Regeneration for the whole phase, or you can use Killing Blow to take out the Wight King and get rid of Regeneration that way. Either way, the Wight King is vulnerable if you use the proper tools against them.

As with any major combat, use of augments/hexes is crucial. With the Grave Guard at Weapon Skill 3, it isn't a huge step to get them all the way down to WS2 or WS1 if you're using Lore of Shadow. Similarly, decreasing their Strength or Toughness, or simply tossing Mindrazor on your multi-attack unit of choice will also achieve strong results.

The key with any combat versus Vampires, of course, is to make it overwhelmingly decisive and end the fight before the Vampires can get their raising spells and augments set up to resist your efforts. The second most important aspect is to make sure you match the right units against the right opponents, because fighting Ethereals with non-magical units or fighting Grave Guard with no support is a recipe for failure.
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Tethlis
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Post by Tethlis »

Sorry, double post.
Last edited by Tethlis on Mon Jun 13, 2011 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Saintofm »

Just read the tactics guiidon GW, and looked at the stat lines.

Do you know how he is going to took is Vampire Lord up, or how many vamps he'll take?

From what I can tell, vampires can be geared to two main extremes: Magic heavy super villains or close combat monsters.

Suprised he doesn't take corps cart as that could make all undead in 6" have ASF.

In any case, avoide ghouls as much as posible. You said they were coming in horde,s, so that means probably 40 poison attacks with your name on it.

Take out the coaches ASAP, they only get tougher as the game goes on.

Overal, his main stratagy from the looks of it is to out kill you, and so you have to counter that. Couldron of blood and your own killingblow or ward save might help with this.

As most undead units that don't have vampire in their name have poor I, I Lore of Death makes sense, but I would go with Shadows and weaken his stat lines. You will need the debuffs more then the uber kills

A tooled up master on a cold one might be able to go toe to toe with the lord.
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Post by L1qw1d »

I am having wife play 2500 vs VC (Lizzies for my wife). Already have her set with her Lores, and getting her ground work down.

Anything we should know about the Corpse Cart?

Also, I'm suggesting the Feedback Scroll so that if the General casts ( I THINK the player usually uses Caster Gen.) she can possibly take it out fairly quickly. other thoughts?
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Saintofm
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Post by Saintofm »

Judging from it's stats here,

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catal ... rod1050052

Pit of shades, purple sun, or a few bolt thrower shots couldn't hurt.

Black guard are another good choice as their halberds even things out.
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Post by L1qw1d »

doesnt seem very scary... miasma must be scary or summat; I think I could take that out with 12 RXB multishotting lol

I wonder why she uses it...
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Ichiyo1821
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Post by Ichiyo1821 »

The obvious is killing his general.
The other obvious, he won't let you near it and if he does, it means he knows he can take that unit he charged.

General tips without tailoring in mind.

Stop 3 spells. Invocation of Nehek, Van Hels Danse Macabre, Summon Undead Horde as needed. You simply have to shut his raising or you're dead.

Don't ever, ever, ever let his Bloodknights charge you. Not even with a POK Dreadlord. Just don't.

Don't engage his Grave Guard with one lone unit no matter what it is. You have to minimize the damage this unit does. Bait it first with Shades, Dark Riders, Harpies, terrain and what nots until you decide to commit to it. Thing is with VC, you have to be decisive. If you decide to take charge, shoot, magic a unit out, it's best you take it out completely.

Take out Black Coaches ASAP. if he gets 3-4 turns untouched it will give you headaches later on.


Tricks. He can't raise units if he can't place them. by putting Harpies, Shades, Dark Riders, etc etc on units you can't take out in one turn, you can limit the models he raises. Say you engage his Graveguard to the front with spears then have COK, CHariots, Hydras on the flank, you can do this so you keep him from raising more GG.

Bloodknights have frenzy. Keep an expendable unit 19" away from it for the first 2 turns. At ld 7 he can fail it if he is too far from the BSB or general. Rolling 12 on 3d6 is still very very rare.

VC have no shooting, so well placed Harpies can redirect his horde units with ease. If he uses his PD to cast magic missiles then all is good as he will have less dice to raise more models.

If he has lots of Ghouls then for sure he has Ghoulkin meanaing he gets an extra 8" move. If you have lots of shooting, deploy further back if you're melee heavy calculate accordingly. 8" free move, march 8", Van Hel's 8. he can effectily cover 24" meaning a first turn charge if you deploy at your maximum distance to his troops except for Battle for the Pass scenario. If he realizes he can't be charged first turn he might just abandon Van Hel's meaning he can be just around 9" away. Sure Cavalry, Chariot Hydra charge or maximized double Hydra flame pplus RXB shots on one unit of Ghouls.
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