In my gaming group, I keep getting my ass kicked by either frenzied or magic heavy chaos, and to a lesser extent Lizard Men. So I thought I'd rely a little more on my special units instead of magic.

I want at 2 spell castings a turn. Possibly 3 with black periapt. I chose a Necrach, as opposed to blood dragon because I still want a decent magic phase, and I think they do it well. Magic has been far too fickle for me to rely on it completly.

Battle Standard bearing wight lord goes in the middle of the army in grave guard unit so that units on sides benefit from standard and his cursed book.

On each side, a unit of skeletons. One with the Vampire. One with the Wraith. If enemy is frenzed, a wraith is obviously less good. But I might swap him out for a wight.

On the left and right flanks I have knights. Screening them are the ghouls and unit of wolves(on side by general).

The bats...I do not know about the bats yet. I like to have a unit that can basically go everywhere. I think I might start them out as screens for the front line. They are there to take care of lone skink shamans and tie up the salamanders, which seem to be extremly good against me when there are 6 of them shooting at me.

That said, my main concerns are salamander packs and chosen frenzied chaos warriors/knights.

1 Necrarch Vampire Count @ 340 Pts
Necrarch; General; Magic Level 2
Unholy Cynosure [20]
The Awakening [25]
Black Periapt [15]
Dark Acolyte [25]
Forbidden Lore [15]

1 Wraith @ 135 Pts
Great Weapon
Obsidian Amulet [45]

1 Wight Lord @ 139 Pts
Battle Standard Bearer; Heavy Armour
Cursed Book [50]

1 Necromancer @ 140 Pts
Magic Level 2
Staff of Damnation [40]

5 Black Knights @ 157 Pts
Barding; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard, Hell Knight

5 Black Knights @ 157 Pts
Barding; Lance; Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard, Hell Knight

20 Grave Guard @ 334 Pts
Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard, Crypt Keeper
Banner of Doom [50]

17 Skeleton Warriors @ 182 Pts
Spear; Shield; Standard, Captain

18 Skeleton Warriors @ 191 Pts
Spear; Shield; Standard, Captain

6 Ghouls @ 48 Pts

6 Ghouls @ 48 Pts

5 Dire Wolves @ 50 Pts

4 Fell Bats @ 80 Pts

Casting Pool: 7

Dispel Pool: 4

Models in Army: 92


Total Army Cost: 2001

Ok here are my thoughts. And I regularly smash choas, usually Khorne with my Necrarchs so hopefully Ill be useful. Against Lizzies I tend to draw every game since we have almost identical magic phases. First Lets address Choas.

1. You cant beat frenzied chaos in a toe to toe fight, they are too hard. This means you need to hit them in the flank...this means you need Van Hels. So. Drop the Wraith, add a second necro. Give him the book of arkhan. Dump the Staff of Damnation, its not worth it without a zombie horde and give him the pariapt and a scroll. Your Necrarch NEEDS Nehekharas Noble Blood for the Extra Power and Dispel Dice. So dump the periapt and the awakening and forbidden law for it. He will now generate 4 PD and 2 DD for you. Now raise your blocks of skeles up to 20's and drop the spears, they are a point sink. Get Rid of the Banner of Doom, give them the Banner of the Barrows, with killing blow and always hit on 3's those Chaos knights wont find you as funny. I would also swap out one of the ghoul units for wolves. You need sacrifice units for redirecting, ghouls can be manipulted by the charger too easily.

So where does this leave you. Well you now generate 10 power dice plus the Book of Arkhan, even a khorne army cant dispel it all. You are also rolling for 7 spells off Necromancy giving yourslef a good chance of an Extra Van Hels. You should also make sure all 3 of your Mages have Invocation.

So tactics. Well its simple. Frenzied stuff has to charge. Chaos are expensive and so rarely have 3 ranks let alone 4. So use wolves to divert the frenzied stuff then hit its flanks. Remember you can still auto-break them.

Things to avoid. More than 1 unit in combat with anything chaos, this just gives him more kills. Flanks are the best because you get +1 and he gets the minimum attacks against you. Rear is ok but he will have more attacks and i find it harder to with even with the +2. Also remember that by hitting flank of rear you reduce his armour save by 1. Try and keep your vamp out of Combat at all. Against Khorne this is easy as he has no missiles or magic. It can be harder against choas undecided lists but then there wont be quite as much killy stuff.

Ok So you also mentioned magic heavy armies. The above list will also give you a head on challenge here. You now have 10 dice, thats 2 spells on 3 dice and a spell on 4 dice. Not many people can match that. A tzeentch horde will but tzeentch magic in general sucks. Ours is better. Protect your knights or get them into combat fast....remember you can Van Hels the same unit multiple times in 1 turn. Other than that your units get back up.

So on to lizzies. You say your opponent is fielding 6 sallies. That means he has a 4th gen slann. So unless he is skink priesting you will have the magic advantage. Again van hels is the order of the day. Raise a unit in front of the sallies and van hels them into combat as soon as possible. Remember he has to line up his skinks as well so make the unit as wide as you can, the use as many attacks as possible to kill skinks. Add to this unit if you can.
Remember sallies cant stand and spit, so long range charges are fine, dont worry about flank as they count as skirmishers so rank up regardless. And remember they are fairly short range. A BK with a single Van hels can easily hit combat from out of sally range. Personally I find summoned skellies the best option if you have no spirit hosts on hand.
Things to avoid. Luckily with 2 units of Sallies you dont have to face a steg (possibly the best unit in the game) so you have fairly little to worry about there. Try to avoid getting your vamps unit in combat with anything more muscled than a skink. Lizzies tear through skellies almost as fast as chaos.
Tactics. Swamp the slann. Breaking and running down a gen 4 slann is surprisingly easy, even if he has a temple guard bodyguard. Fear is your best weapon. Skinks will run most of the time even on 3 dice so try hit the slanns unit with as much as possible as hard as posible. 2 units of knights should do it. Watch out for Light Magic if he takes it, Holy Nova can really mess up your day at str 6.

Hope all that rambling helps. The armies you mention are generally not good mtachups for us but they can be beaten, so keep trying.

Ok, I made modifications to my list and I thank you. I think one of my biggest problems was sending more than one unit in at a time. ie, easy to kill wolves. I managed to get a spirit host into his warriors flanks, but the skeletons I threw in with it won him the battle.