Greetings
As promised I am back with my Vampire Counts army list in hand to run through my army with you all.
I started playing Vamps after picking up the battle for skull pass box and deciding I didn't like the dwarves and gobbos all that much... so I headed to my FLGS (Imperial Outpost just east of 51st ave. and Thunderbird in Glendale, AZ.) and began perusing through the many army options. It didn't take long as I saw the cove to the Vamp army book (dear God don't call it a Codex) and instantly found my niche. Vampires kick ass and so do zombies and werewolves and the Vamp army has all of these (yes I know the Vargulf is a Vampire not a werewolf, but damn if it don't look like a lycan). So I grabbed the battalion box, a few blister packs and the army book and never looked back.
A few key points about the Vamps that really make the army cool as hell.
- Every single freakin unit and character causes fear, with many options to cause terror. Of course many armies have ways of working around fear and terror, if you treat them as bonus abilities and not base the armies entire strategy around breaking enemy units with fear tests you will always be surprised and never disappointed
- All units are immune to psychology and do not break from combat. The one down side of course is that combat resolution can destroy the army as excess combat rez counts as wounds against the units in combat, but...
- All troops can be resurrected and characters healed, in many cases past their starting levels. Nothing feels better than to drop 10 skeleton warriors on the table as your opponent laughs at the small unit size, then watch his/her face melt as you resurrect 20 more skeletons to ad to the unit right as it smashes into his battle lines.
- Zombie units can be raise from the ground up, meaning at deployment your army may have no zombies and through consecutive magic phases vast units of zombies could spring up all over the board causing all kinds of speed bumps and flee traps for your enemy... oh yeah and the new units of zombies are worth 50 vp so let those dead boys grow baby grow.
-Last but not least, my favorite rule... resurrected models and healed wounds DO NOT effect the VPs of the units, units are only ever worth their starting VP. I love this rule. My buddy Justin (a.k.a. Captain Re-Roll) plays Wood Elves and runs a Dryad heavy (very very very heavy) list. We had a long battle one day and at the end of the fight he was pretty messed up and we decided to call the game with VPs determining the winner. His eyes gleamed with lust for victory as he began adding up what he though were extra VPs for all of the dead skellys I resurrected. With undue confidence he proclaimed "Well I totally win dude... I killed like a bugillion of your dudes and your units are all beat up, thats gotta be like a hundred gillion victory points... (and here is my favorite part)... I GUESS BEING ABLE TO BRING DUDES BACK ISN'T SO GOOD AFTER ALL". He proceeded to laugh as I smiled to myself and handed him the army book with the resurrection rules highlighted in bright Green. I leaned back in my chair and sipped on my Pepsi as I watched the confidence leave his face. "THIS IS F'ING STUPID!!!" Ah Justin, if only you would actually read other army books than your own you might not run into this problem.
Any way that's the kind of stuff that makes Vamps so neeto, so neeto in fact that I have not started another army yet and have been concentrating only on Vamps... no small feat for myself as I typically have multiple army projects going at once. Well now on to my army list.
The following is my 2250 tourney army list. I've played it 4 times now and lost once to a Deamon Army (the next big thing after Vamps)
Characters-
Vampire Lord --- Hand weapon; Sword of Striking; Walach's Bloody Hauberk; Helm of Commandment; Wizard Lvl 3; Dark Acolyte; Master of the Black Arts; Lord of the Dead; 6 Power Dice
Vampire --- Hand weapon; Tomb Blade; The Flayed Hauberk; Wizard level 1; Walking Death; Infinite Hatred; 1 power dice
Vampire --- Hand weapon; Talisman of Protection; The Book of Arkhan; Wizard level 1; Dark Acolyte; Avatar of death; 2 power dice.
Core-
Skeletons X 20 Spears; shield; light armor; full command; war banner.
Skeletons X 20 Hand weapons; shield; light armor; full command; Banner of Hellfire.
Skeletons X 15 Spear; shield; light armor; full command.
Ghouls X 10 Ghast.
Ghouls X 10 Ghast.
Dire Wolves X 5 Doom Wolf
Dire Wolves X 5 Doom Wolf
Corpse Cart with Balefire
Special-
Grave Guard X 20 Hand weapons, heavy armour, shield, full command, Standard of Everlasting Death
Rare-
Varghulf
Well that's it my army. I put my lord into one of the Ghoul units to protect him a little from missile fire and then surround the unit with the rest of my army. The vamp with the Tomb Blade goes in a skelly unit where each wound caused by the vamp raises a new skelly to add to the unit. The book of arkhan vamp goes in my Grave Gaurd and uses the bound spell in the book of arkhan to keep the unit moving. Corpse cart shoots up the middle providing ALWAYS STRIKES FIRST to all units in 6 inches and the Varghulf and the Doom Wolves take flank duty swooping though the field getting at flanks and rears as best as possible. With thew magic phase I have 11 power dice to heal units and rez zombies or pester enemy units with missiles and spells that wither away at their troops. A game of attrition is at hand for my enemies and with the right use of magic I can usually out last most opponents. Any hoo hope you enjoy looking at my list, leave my a comment if you want I'm always up for help. Also if you in the Phoenix/Glendale area, swing by Imperial Outpost, I'm there Saturdays and I would love to meet new players. My name is David Bishop and you can usually find me playing Federation Commander or 40k wishing some one would show up and challenge my Vamps. Also if your looking for an online army list creation tool try out www.armyroster.com its great and the guys on the forums are really helpful with new players.
Your Friend
The Count
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Plans changed by RPGers!!!
Greetings
So no Warhammer Fantasy report today. Saturday morning held great disappointment for me when arriving at my friendly local game store I found the entire store FULL of RPGers. Every last gaming table was taken. With small tears beginning to form in my eyes I left the store knowing my Saturday had just fallen into the realm of no plans boredom.
I returned home and spent the rest of the day watching TV with my wife and painting a few more figs for my Vampire Counts army. Not what I usually like to do on my designated "gaming day". Oh well what can you do about game store with too few tables and to many RPGers.
When it came time to write here tonight I realized... I didn't really have much to tell you guys, my day was a bit of a wash. I've decided to do a fast run through of my gaming background and what I play nowadays.
I've been playing games for as long as I can remember. From Hi Ho Cherry-O to Clue, my younger years were filled with the typical (read: found in target and toys-r-us) boardgames. It was my introduction to Star Wars at the age of 12 that got me started with less mainstream games. First I tracked down as many SW boardgames as possible. There were a few good ones, most notably the Star Wars Video Board game... holy crap that game was fun, but the well ran dry fast. That's when I found West End Games Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game. It was a boxed set starter RPG sorta like what D&D is doing nowadays. I was perusing through Game Daze in my local mall looking for anything new when I saw the box gleaming in shrink rap on the shelf. I immediately ran to it and flipped it over to read the information on the back. Adventure... check, Fun... check, Star Wars... check that was it I was sold. I threw down my $30 (all my lawn work and dog poo duty money) and raced home on my bike. My brother, a bigger Star Wars fan than I, sat next to me at the kitchen table as I tore through the contents of box. The first thing that really caught my attention was the maps. Fold out paper, square gridded, Black and white maps of cool obviously Star Warish stuff. A storm trooper camp, an Imperial outpost, the inside of a Star Destroyer. I spent a long time studying the maps excited to know how each map would work in the game. I found a few sheets of flimsy cut-out cardboard stands with all kinds of Star Wars goodies and baddies printed on them. While my brother began assembling the stand ups, I began reading through the collection of rule books. It became clear to my that this was no ordinary game, my brother and I would soon be adventuring in the Star Wars universe as our own unique characters, not Han or Luke, but Jedi Vhoss Darkwing (me) and bounty hunter Arden Plantaris (my bro). For the next few hours my brother and I digested every rule and scenario in the box. I called our friends Heather and Caleb (brother and sister duo I have know since birth) and invited them over to try out the new game. Being big Star Wars geeks like me, they raced over (they live three houses down, it didn't take long) With the addition of princess in hiding Sera Odoon (Heather) and stranded rebel pilot Ace Banner (Caleb) we set off on the included adventure and never looked back. A true gamer was born. Over the next 5 years the 4 of us played many other games. RPGs like Deadlands and Shadowrun. Boardgames like Robo Rally and Talisman (my garage saly copy of talisman loged so many hours of play most of the cars are unreadable today). I got hooked on miniature games with a birthday gift of 2nd edition Warhammer 40k box set, but no matter what new game we were hooked on we always founds time for a Star Wars RPG session.
Im 25 now and I still look back on my young gaming as the most fun gaming I've done. Heather and Caleb have grown apart from my brother and I, but I received an e-mail from Heather last month and in it she mentioned how much she missed sitting around the kitchen table at my parents house drinking Cactus Cooler and rolling some D6 together. Ill admit I felt a little tear in my eye.
Now days I spend most of my time playing Warhammer Fantasy/40k, LOTR, Federation Commander, Warmachine, and D&D with bouts of boardgames every now and again (Arkham Horror is my fav, and I just got a game of Twilight Imperium 3rd ed. in last moth).
Hope you enjoyed my little memory trip. Sorry it was a bit long.
Next I plan on writing about my Vampire Counts Army, both gaming and hobby/painting. Talk to ya soon
Your friend,
The Count
So no Warhammer Fantasy report today. Saturday morning held great disappointment for me when arriving at my friendly local game store I found the entire store FULL of RPGers. Every last gaming table was taken. With small tears beginning to form in my eyes I left the store knowing my Saturday had just fallen into the realm of no plans boredom.
I returned home and spent the rest of the day watching TV with my wife and painting a few more figs for my Vampire Counts army. Not what I usually like to do on my designated "gaming day". Oh well what can you do about game store with too few tables and to many RPGers.
When it came time to write here tonight I realized... I didn't really have much to tell you guys, my day was a bit of a wash. I've decided to do a fast run through of my gaming background and what I play nowadays.
I've been playing games for as long as I can remember. From Hi Ho Cherry-O to Clue, my younger years were filled with the typical (read: found in target and toys-r-us) boardgames. It was my introduction to Star Wars at the age of 12 that got me started with less mainstream games. First I tracked down as many SW boardgames as possible. There were a few good ones, most notably the Star Wars Video Board game... holy crap that game was fun, but the well ran dry fast. That's when I found West End Games Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game. It was a boxed set starter RPG sorta like what D&D is doing nowadays. I was perusing through Game Daze in my local mall looking for anything new when I saw the box gleaming in shrink rap on the shelf. I immediately ran to it and flipped it over to read the information on the back. Adventure... check, Fun... check, Star Wars... check that was it I was sold. I threw down my $30 (all my lawn work and dog poo duty money) and raced home on my bike. My brother, a bigger Star Wars fan than I, sat next to me at the kitchen table as I tore through the contents of box. The first thing that really caught my attention was the maps. Fold out paper, square gridded, Black and white maps of cool obviously Star Warish stuff. A storm trooper camp, an Imperial outpost, the inside of a Star Destroyer. I spent a long time studying the maps excited to know how each map would work in the game. I found a few sheets of flimsy cut-out cardboard stands with all kinds of Star Wars goodies and baddies printed on them. While my brother began assembling the stand ups, I began reading through the collection of rule books. It became clear to my that this was no ordinary game, my brother and I would soon be adventuring in the Star Wars universe as our own unique characters, not Han or Luke, but Jedi Vhoss Darkwing (me) and bounty hunter Arden Plantaris (my bro). For the next few hours my brother and I digested every rule and scenario in the box. I called our friends Heather and Caleb (brother and sister duo I have know since birth) and invited them over to try out the new game. Being big Star Wars geeks like me, they raced over (they live three houses down, it didn't take long) With the addition of princess in hiding Sera Odoon (Heather) and stranded rebel pilot Ace Banner (Caleb) we set off on the included adventure and never looked back. A true gamer was born. Over the next 5 years the 4 of us played many other games. RPGs like Deadlands and Shadowrun. Boardgames like Robo Rally and Talisman (my garage saly copy of talisman loged so many hours of play most of the cars are unreadable today). I got hooked on miniature games with a birthday gift of 2nd edition Warhammer 40k box set, but no matter what new game we were hooked on we always founds time for a Star Wars RPG session.
Im 25 now and I still look back on my young gaming as the most fun gaming I've done. Heather and Caleb have grown apart from my brother and I, but I received an e-mail from Heather last month and in it she mentioned how much she missed sitting around the kitchen table at my parents house drinking Cactus Cooler and rolling some D6 together. Ill admit I felt a little tear in my eye.
Now days I spend most of my time playing Warhammer Fantasy/40k, LOTR, Federation Commander, Warmachine, and D&D with bouts of boardgames every now and again (Arkham Horror is my fav, and I just got a game of Twilight Imperium 3rd ed. in last moth).
Hope you enjoyed my little memory trip. Sorry it was a bit long.
Next I plan on writing about my Vampire Counts Army, both gaming and hobby/painting. Talk to ya soon
Your friend,
The Count
Saturday, December 13, 2008
My first post!
Greetings from Count Zero
I just wanted to put a quick post up to say hello and explain exactly what will be in this blog.
Most importantly this blog will be about my gaming life. Who I play with, what I play, and whats going on with the games I play. Most of my gaming is of the unplugged variety, but I play a few XBOX 360 games from time to time and I may mention them if they really impress me. My first "official" post will be about my Warhammer Fantasy Battles army... The Vampire Counts. Im playing a 2250pt game latter today and I plan on talking about the outcome along with general VC stuff. Talk to you soon.
Your Friend
The Count
I just wanted to put a quick post up to say hello and explain exactly what will be in this blog.
Most importantly this blog will be about my gaming life. Who I play with, what I play, and whats going on with the games I play. Most of my gaming is of the unplugged variety, but I play a few XBOX 360 games from time to time and I may mention them if they really impress me. My first "official" post will be about my Warhammer Fantasy Battles army... The Vampire Counts. Im playing a 2250pt game latter today and I plan on talking about the outcome along with general VC stuff. Talk to you soon.
Your Friend
The Count
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