Here is the necrarch list I'm goin to test against O&G tommorow, and on a local tourney after like 3 weeks.
Here goes

2250 Necrarch v.2 - Vampire Counts Army

1 Necrarch Vampire Count @ 348 Pts
Necrarch; General; Barding; Magic Level 2
Master of the Black Arts [20]
Nehekara's Noble Blood [45]
The Gem of Blood [25]
1 Nightmare @ [0] Pts

1 Wight Lord @ 135 Pts
Battle Standard Bearer
Flayed Hauberk [30]
Sword of Might [20]

1 Necromancer @ 162 Pts
Barding; Magic Level 2
Book of Arkhan [25]
Dispel Scroll [25]
1 Nightmare @ [0] Pts


1 Necromancer @ 152 Pts
Barding; Magic Level 2
Staff of Damnation [40]
1 Nightmare @ [0] Pts

(special)
19 Grave Guard @ 335 Pts
Heavy Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician
Banner of the Barrows [45]
1 Crypt Keeper @ [12] Pts


3 Spirit Hosts @ 195 Pts

3 Fell Bats @ 60 Pts

3 Fell Bats @ 60 Pts


(rare)
1 Banshee @ 90 Pts

1 Banshee @ 90 Pts

(core)
4 Dire Wolves @ 60 Pts
1 Doom Wolf @ [10] Pts

4 Dire Wolves @ 60 Pts
1 Doom Wolf @ [10] Pts

4 Dire Wolves @ 60 Pts
1 Doom Wolf @ [10] Pts

5 Ghouls @ 40 Pts

5 Ghouls @ 40 Pts

5 Ghouls @ 40 Pts

5 Ghouls @ 40 Pts

10 Zombies @ 60 Pts

10 Zombies @ 60 Pts

12 Skeleton Warriors @ 158 Pts
Spear; Light Armour; Shield; Musician
1 Skeleton Captain @ [10] Pts

Casting Pool: 9

Dispel Pool: 6

Models in Army: 103


Total Army Cost: 2245


The Hero choice is the usual one for any necrarch army, but my spell list is kind of different. Necromancers have the usual Necromancery, and their main function is to get rid of dispel dices using invocations, while leaving my count to do his tricks (Lore of Death). The main spells I'm going for (On average I should have 1 of those each game):


6 - Drain Life
If cast successfully each enemy model within 12" (18") of the Wizаrd is affected.
Each unit takes D6 S3 hits; no armor saves; These hits are distributed exactly like hits from shooting.
This spell cannot affect Undead, Chaos Deamons, buildins and such things that are not trully alive. Cast on 10+ (3d6 = 10.5 + 1 on average)

I don't realy think that this spell needs any explanation - it just works. If I'm facing another VC army (or Tomb Kings/Chaos Deamons) I'll just pick Necromancery for my count as well.

and ofc

5 - Doom and Darkness!
This spell can be cast upon an enemy unit which is within 24" (30") of, and visible to, the caster. If successfully cast, the unit is enshrouded by a black cloud of despair. For the duration of the turn the affected unit will suffer a -3 penalty to any leadership test (including Break tests) it is required to take. At the start if it's following turn, the unit must take and pass a Leadershi[ test (at -3), otherwise it remains affected for the duration of that turn as well. At the end of the affected unit's following turn, the spell cases to have any effect.
Cast on 9+
Lasts one turn+

This virtually makes both of my banshees 2d6 + 5 instead of the normal 2d6 + 2. They are far more devastating, especially against elite armies.

Enough for the magic, lets talk about the characters a little:

The Wight Lord goes right in the Grave Guards unit, "fixing" his low WS with Banner ofthe Barrows. He uses the most common build for BSB, but in pretty much all my games it has proven to work just fine, so I got no reason to change it now.

Both Necromancers go in a unit of zombies each, just for protection against shooting (although I have NO idea how can a zombie actually SAY "Look out Sir!"). During the game they have a few main goals, depending on what am I playing against.

Against aggressive armies they're gonna try to slow down the opponent with summons and eventually march blocking.

Against magic heavy builds their main goal is to "drain" the opposing dispel dices with invocations.

Against shooting armies they are going to make sure that none of my main infantry units will get below 5 models.


In either cases their main goal is to summon up more skelletons in my general's unit, to make it combat viable alongside the Grave Guards.


And finally the count - you may find his current item builds kind of wrong (and it is) - the best thing to do will be to drop The Gem of Blood for Unholy Cynosure and Black Periapt (giving me 10 power dices or 7 dispel, whichever I need). The problem is that I'm not very experienced Warhammer player, and more often than not my count gets in battle, or even worse, my opponent's lord is in front of him! So without the gem they easily kill my general and from there...


Little bit about the strategy:

I deploy a compact core of my infantry in the middle, allowing all of them to march and flank charge in favor of any of my units being attacked /or if I charge someone/.
VC players everywhere tend to say that 4 units of Dire Wolves are optimal, but since in my army list I had one special slot free, I decided that a 2nd unit of fell bats will be more effective. With 3 units of wolves and 2 of bats I think that I won't have much problems against enemy war machines.
The spirit hosts are there to block bit things that I can't get rid of otherwise (like Steam Tank for example).

Well that's pretty much it. I'm open for suggestions and ideas both about the rooster and the tactics.



~Vic

P.S. I know that most of you will argue about my choice of having this large unit of Grave Guards, costing me 335 pts (almost as much as the count!), but it's just my play style that won't let me deploy without at least one HEAVY unit (and I do mean heavy)

P.S.2 my unit of skeletons has spears instead of hand weapons, because with all the casters I have, I will almost surely hit either Hellish Vigour or Death Dealer, and I do have Staff of Damnation after all if everything else fails.

You could use 4 more grave guard, and personaly I would give them halberds with their sheilds, but that's me.

Replace the Wight lord's sword of might with the talismin of protection.

Drop the gem of blood and either give the count ring of the night of the power that allows him to re-roll a dice.

Drop all doom wolves, the extra attack is not all that important

Get rid of a skeleton captin.

Perhaps add s few more skellies.

Hope that helps

Ar'kazail Out!

I suggest you download and print the followint pages:
http://home1.stofanet.dk/gotthardt/Playsheet1.pdf
http://home1.stofanet.dk/gotthardt/Playsheet2.pdf

Other then that, you seem well set. Good luck with your games ^_^ .

Thanks for the reply.

About adding 4 more grave guards - I'd also like to do that, but I really don't know what to drop for that extra 56pts.

About the Wight Lord - I really don't see how is a 6+ wards save better than adding +1 str, which is kind of important, because of his low (yes, IMO 4 is low for a hero choice) str. I would play thrall with every other bloodline, but necrarch thralls are just...

Doom wolves - I've playtested both with champ and without champ, and usually against shooting only 2 or max 3 wolves survive. With the extra attack I get a better chance to wound (outnumber enemy crew, eventually they can make 1 wound, so I need to wound them as well)

Why get rid of skeleton captain? I really don't see a reason why I should save 10pts of that, but I might consider that (although the idea of the skeletons is to strike 1st or to strike even after they die, so the more attacks - the better)

in 2500 army I can easily cover all the points that I'd want, but IMO this needs some playtesting in 2250. I'll tell you how the game went, after I play tomorrow.




P.S. Another concern I have is my magic def - I only got 1 dispel scroll with 6 d dices. I have to test and see if I can manage it with that, but I really think that I'll have to change my 2nd necro and make him carry at least 1 dispel scroll (if not 2)

P.S. 2 @ Razon - thanks for the links! I didn't have a rulebook nearby while writing this, and the first thing about Death Magic that google showed me was this, which is obviously outdated ^^. I'll go edit the main post

Well the taklismin is for giving him some very (very) minor protection, but it also allows the wight lord to still have killing blow, wich keeps enemt characters from challenging it, in addition if the enemy does challenge and you except the wight lord will magt a perfact pin cusion for absording his attacks.

A guy at my gaming are does this, it works pretty well.

Ar'kazail Out!

I got to second Ar'kazil on the Sword of Might issue. Loosing Killing Blow is a big no-no. I'd go as far as scrapping the BSB upgrade in favor of a great weapon. 3 re-roll misses WS 4 S 6 attacks *with* killing blow might just make up for that one point of combat resolution you're getting with the BSB.

This, coupled with dismounting Necromancers (really, if you're in combat with them, they're toast, no need to bother with the 5+ armour save) should free points for the additional Grave Guards! Definitely get the Black Periapt over the Gem of Blood. That's 10 more points freed, great for those Grave Guards, or just another Skeleton.

You shouldn't worry that much about your Vampire stuck in combat with the enemy. He shouldn't have problems with rank and file soldiers, 4 WS 5 S 5 attacks aren't bad, after all. And if he meets an enemy Lord... your Necromancers can heal him with Invocation, and if you roll Drain Soul, he can heal himself *and* cause harm to his foe. I don't have the rulebook to hand, but Drain Soul isn't a magic missile, is it now?

I thank you for your time


Lord Gorthuar de Veris
Cult of Nagash

Thanks for the replies everyone! I really appreciate it.

I'll first start with a short version of the battle report of my game vs. O&G this evening.
For starters - we didn't finish the game yet - the guy I had to play arrived late and we didn't have time to play a whole game (because the gaming club we're playing in had to close, although we left the board as it is, so we'll finish the game tomorrow) - he just ended his turn 4 and it's my turn 4 starting.

For starters - I made a major mistake to deploy the spirit hosts right after the ghouls, so they ended up against his blocks of Black Orcs and Big 'Uns, so they were pretty much free points for my opponent :/
2) fell bats can't handle war machine crews - at the very best I made 2 wounds with them, most of the time either 0 or 1.
3) He knew that he's going to fight a Necrarch vampire army, so he had his rooster with really annoying things like banner that adds his ranks to dispel pool and magic item that "steals" 1 of my power dices and adds it to his dispel dices (sry, I just don't know much about O&G's items), and although he had only 1 lvl 2 wizard, he ended up with 7 dispel dices vs. my 8 power dices. For all the 3 turns I've played, the ONLY spell I got out was a 7+ invocation that added 3 skeletons to my general's unit (I think I really, really need some power stones).
More for this game - tomorrow :)

@Ar'kazail: I don't like the idea to rely on natural 6s (for both the ward save and killing blow), but I'll give it a shot in my next game.

@Gorthuar: You're mostly right - dismounting my necros (5pts +24pts = 29 free); eventually -sword of might +amulet of prot (=34 free); but I'll probably take halberd (-4 = 30pts). If I drop gem of blood I'm surely going for Black Periapt + Unholy Cynosure, because my lord always miscasts at lease once per game (= 20 pts). Then I drop skeleton's musician and add 2 grave guards.
Another thing is the 2nd necro's Staff of Damnation - obviously I don't have enough magic to get it through, so I'll probably be dropping my skeletons' spears and taking 2nd dispel scroll and eventualy power stone, or something else, but I'll think about this later.


Anyway, thanks again for the replies!



P.S. I actualy won that game versus the O&G army (with massacre for me) - what happened afterwards:
I risked everything on a single combat - I charged his block of Black Orcs with general inside with both my skeletons (/w count, and I gotta mention that the only spell that went through the entire game on my side was an invocation that added like 7 skeletons in this unit) and grave guards (/w bsb), knowing that if I don't win the combat and overrun he would flank me with his Big 'Uns the next turn.
Fortunately I didn't roll too bad dices, and the combat ended like:
Me: Outnumber, 6 wounds, Banner, War Banner, BSB (10)
Him: 3 wounds, Banner, War Banner (5).
So I managed to overrun and catch him. His next (5th turn) he turned around his big 'uns with BSB, to eventually be able to charge me on his 6th, on my 5th turn I decided that instead of running away I should just "ready" my units to face him, but instead of lining my units side by side, I decided to do a V like formation (dunno how else to describe it), so that he can't charge both my units at once, and the 2nd will always stay ready to flank charge him on my 6th turn.
On his 6th turn, for some reason he decided that his BSB unit of big 'uns can actually kill and overrun my 19 Grave Guards with BSB inside. After all he killed like 6; I killed 2 in response and the CC crumbled 4 more on my side.
My 6th turn was obvious - I flanked him with my count's skeletons and he didn't stand a chance against that.
On the other side of the field, my last unit of dire wolves managed to kill some war machines, and my banshees killed his remaining goblins and goblin wolf riders (although I had to sacrifice both my necros to do all of this I'm happy with it).

In the end he had only 1 Spear Chukka with half crew alive, while I had Half unit Grave Guards; Full Unit Skeletons; Count; Light Lord; 1 Banshee; 1 full unit Dire Wolves (/w Doom Wolf); Half unit Fell Bats; got all his banners (he got none of mine); killed general; 3x Table Quarters


P.S. 2 - I really need a way to get at least a few more power dices - I'll get 10 with Black Periapt and then what?

My new Count Build includes Black Periapt [15]; Gem of Blood [25]; Dark Acolyte [25] + Forbidden Lore [15] (= +1 spell known and +1 power dice; getting me 5 free pts; but sacrificing 1 dispel dice vs. Necrarch's Noble Blood) and Unholy Cynosure [20]. Ohh and I forgot to mention - I'm going back to necromancery as primary lore for my lord - I just feel that it's better in general. I'll still go for death against some armies, but I'll mostly rely on necromancery.

~Vic