First round, deciding on a list.

So the first round of the escalation league fast approaches, and I need an army list!

With my decision to play Vampire Counts for the league settled on, I had to work around a few restrictions, especially for the first round of the league. These were -

• 500 Points
• No Lord Choices
• Must be 50% Core Unit Choices
• Maximum of 1 Special Unit Choice
• No Rare Choice
• Maximum lvl 2 Mage

Luckily, as the new 50% Lords/heroes rule has been errata'd in by Games Workshop, this meant that I could spend 250 points on heroes and 250 points on core if I wanted to, which is pretty much perfect for Vampire Counts!

The army's strength lies in its ability to muster huge numbers of rank and file troops to 'tarpit' or hold up the opposition, while it uses it's incredibly strong magic and tough as nails characters to hit the enemy where it hurts. Sadly, if/when these characters die, the entire army starts to crumble to dust, but thats the price you pay for cheap troops!

I knew I needed strong magic, so a level 2 necromancer was my first port of call. 'Naked' he comes in at 100 points. It's a fifth of my allowance but really worthwhile. All the lore of vampires spells are pretty useful, and the signature spell lets him ressurect fallen skeletons or zombies. With an upgrade he could even add more to the regiment, but thats for another day!

Secondly, I wanted a vampire as my general. Why play the Vampire Counts army and not take one? They're incredible in combat and will go toe to toe with any other general (chaos warlords can be an issue, but you just hope for good luck on the dice!), or blitz through units of troops. Considering they can get wounds back by rolling a 6 when they wound, they can be pretty resiliant too. A vampire hero with heavy armour and an extra hand weapon on foot was a shade more than the necromancer, but not much.

That left me with a load of points left to fill with core. A block of 24 skellies with command for the vampire to bunker in seemed good to me. Skellies are deceptive when it comes to combat. They aren't the best at fighting, but the sheer number of dice means you always get a few hits through. Add on a large rank bonus, light armour and a shield as standard (with it's amazing parry save) and the ability to regen them through the magic phase and you have a unit that isn't going anywhere. I then took a unit of 20 zombies with a standard for my Necromancer to bunker in. Protecting him is fairly important, and a bit hunk of zombie meat does the job brilliantly!

With 80 points left over I looked at my options. I felt like I needed something a bit faster than my sluggish ground troops. Fell bats were an option, but they don't have a great statline in my opinion. Good enough to go and tie up war machines if you really need them, but they're no Wood Elf eagles, that's for sure! After a bit more reading the answer was obvious...... dire wolves. They can't fly, but they do move 9" a turn, that's 18" with a march, and they get a vanguard move! Again, not the best of statlines, but at forty points for five it meant I could take two packs of five. Perfect for protecting flanks, redirecting charges and harassing things. Great!

So, that's the list so far. I'll be looking to update it to 750 points for February's game, so let me know in the comments what you think of it so far. Would you have built it differently?

Now.... time to get the brushes out and paint the lot!