Good day to you foul night-abominations.

I am an avid Empire player. However, my lovely wife has decided to start playing Warhammer with me. She decided upon Vampires, Necrarchs to boot!

I made this 2000 point list for her and was hoping you could critique it. I made it after pouring over your very forums.


Lv.2 Necrarch Vampire Count*
- Book Of Arkhan and the Biting Blade
- Dark Acolyte and Unholy Cynosure
*She is in a unit of 14 Skeletons w/ Light Armour with a full command

2 Lv.2 Lady Necromancers*
- One with The Rod Of Flaming Death and the other with a Power Familiar
*Each one in a zombie bunker (a new term I picked up!) of 10 Zombies

Wight Lord*
- Heavy Armour, Shield, Barded Nightmare
- Sword Of The Kings
*Leads a unit of 11 Black Knights! 12 total with him. The unit also has the War Banner.

2x 7 Ghouls

3x 5 Dire Wolves

25 Grave Guard
+ Shields, Standard Bearer and Musician
+ Banner Of The Barrows

It clocks in at 1998 points. She is a very good player and enjoys the fact all my excess minis can be made into members of her army. :(

I'd start by slightly modifiying the count's kit. Drop the book, get NNB instead. Switch the Power Familiar necro to having BoA/scroll. (Your army has no scrolls. Bad Idea.)

Make the WL a BSB with SoK and gem of blood.

Give the BKs barrows.

Give the GG war banner.

Put the two Necros in a single bunker and ditch a wolf unit, and add 4 models to the Count's unit.

Do the BKs have a champion, because they should. The GG should as well, but I'm not sure how you'd find the points.

My edits put the list in at 1996pts.

Topic moved to the Necrarch sub-forum, due to your wife's army being a Necrarch one, rather than a Necromancer one.

Lots of Mortis' advice is great, but I'd keep the Power Familiar and ditch the Rod of Flaming Death. That, or ditch both, the first just like Mortis suggested, and the other in favour of a Black Periapt and a Dispel Scroll. The Periapt is invaluable these days, giving you more flexibility with where your Power Dice go.

Both the Grave Guards and the Black Knights should have full commands. As I'm not convinced a mounted Wight Lord BSB is as effective as an infantry one, I'd take a look at him for the points you'll need for that.

Other than that - nice. Two solid infantry regiments, a fair amount of support units plus the great Black Knights. It should prove effective.

I thank you for your time.


Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

The Grave Guard do have a Standard and a Musician, forgot to list that. Added a Champion - challenging some 200+ point character when you possess Killing Blow can be fun! I forgot about that. The Black Knights do have a full command.

I have dropped the Rod Of Flaming Death for a Dispel Scroll and The Black Periapt on one Necromancer. I have also swapped Magic Banners per your instructions. War Banner on the Grave Guard and Banner of the Barrows on the Black Knights.

I have a question. I posted this list on my Empire page and everyone keeps saying to drop the Graveguard, as they are a bad/ineffective choice. Huh? Granted, I have never faced them (my wife is the first Vampire player I have faced, ironically) but the GG sure seem to be a great unit! Why are they telling me they suck?

I will drop a unit of Dire Wolves and the Light Armour on the Skeletons (since summoned Skeletons lack the Armour) and beef up the Zombie Bunkers to 14 corpses each. They will both also have Standards and Musicians - shame they can't have Champions. I was gonna keep 2 Zombie Bunkers - having 2 Wizards in one unit sure sounds too risky.

That is 2000 points exactly. I took off the Light Armour on the Skeletons because if I summoned more into the unit, according to the rules they must have the same type of equipment as the others.

Undead around our present store are not represented. I have only fought Tomb Kings once and have not even faced off against another Vampire player. As a side note, I have also never fought Greenskins or Hordes of Chaos before and had half a game against Beasts of Chaos. Fought about everyone else though.

I've no idea why people tell you the Grave Guards suck. Sure, they can't be raised back like their Tomb King equivalents, but they *do* have excellant armour to counter being mowed down. Plus they're rock hard and tend to scare the opponent's characters to death (ie: they make wierd manouvers to avoid the Guards' in fear of a killing blow).

As for the Skeletons' armour: do keep it. If you summon to an existing unit, the summoned models will be equiped with all the things the unit already has. If you wan't to stick to WYSIWYG, than remember that you only need about a half of models in a unit to be equiped exactly in the manner the rules say (ie: physically having light armour in this case), for the entire unit to count as having it.

Only creating new units summons vanilla skeletons with hand weapons and shields only.

Oh, a note on the Zombie Bunkers: sometimes I have but one for *three* Necromancers, one of them being a Master and the army's general. True, it's risky. But it's workable too.

I thank you for your time.


Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Ah, thanks for the clarification on the Skellies and the Armour.

You really say multiple Necros in a bunker can work, huh? Alright, what the hell! :lol:

I'll slap the 2 Necromancers into a single unit of 23 Zombies with a Standard and Musician. The Skeletons then get their Armour back and I can pop Forbidden Lore on the Vampire for an extra spell.

Okay, here is the re-worked build.


Lv.2 Necrarch Vampire Count*
- Book Of Arkhan and the Biting Blade
- Dark Acolyte, Forbidden Lore and Unholy Cynosure
*She is in a unit of 14 Skeletons w/ Light Armour with a full command

2 Lv.2 Lady Necromancers*
- One with a The Black Periapt and a Dispel Scroll and the other with a Power Familiar
*They both go in a big Zombie Bunker of 23 Deadles with a Standard and Musician

Wight Lord*
- Heavy Armour, Shield, Barded Nightmare
- Sword Of The Kings
*Leads a unit of 11 Black Knights! 12 total with him. The unit also has the Banner Of The Barrows and a full command.

2x 7 Ghouls

2x 5 Dire Wolves

25 Grave Guard
+ Shields and full command
+ The War Banner

Witch the power familiar to BoA and scroll, then drop forbidden lore and BoA on teh count in favour of NNB. Has almost the exact same effect, but gives you an additional scroll.

I'd really considerstarting the necro in a unit of 19 skellies and making the WL a BSB with gem of blood/sok.

Gee, I never thought about that. That does indeed make more sense, doesn't it! :rolleyes:

Magic Items and Bloodline powers switched out to your suggestion.

I'll see what I can do with the Necros...