Thoughts on the not-so-long awaited new Vampire counts army book.
Very interesting. Several little adjustments to unit stat lines and the, some would say, sacriligeous removal of must field arcane items has, I think, shifted the army back to it's intended slaugter by the dozen, shambolic horde of undead style, from the near universal and altogether stagnant routine of bare minimum ghouls and then spam grave guard trend. Units can't march unless they are within 12" of the general or are themselves vampires. mm shambling horde indeed.
Every unit has recieved a points reduction and most have either lost something like a WS here (i.e grave guard now only WS3 and no magic attacks
, zombies - WS 1 and ASL......) or gained a toughness there (i.e zombies T3.
). This internal balancing ensures that certain units are not necessary better than others, and a wonderful world of variety opens up before you.
Characters, from which this army remains very dependent on, have gone up in price. Yuck. but have been given the option of purchasing mundane equipment (yes, they couldn't do that in the last primitive book.) and all the list of vampiric powers has been cut in half making alot of the old builds and combos unavailiable, which is not necessarily a bad thing, since new combos and builds open up, and there are a few nasty ones I've managed to come up with.
Note, these options cost points. Lots of points.
What vampires can do now besides glitter and sparkle among other things:
-fly
-drink blood on the roll of one 6 if successfully causing a wound(s), thus regaining a (one) lost wound. ( The Hunger special rule)
-dazzle you with their eyes making you reroll successful hits failing a LD check at -3. (beguile)
-Always strike first ..at a price of 30 points (quickblood)
-beat your head in again and again (red fury)
-
Negate your BSB when rolling for Fear checks
-be more fighty and less casty
-be more casty and less fighty
-lower your LD just by standing next to you.
No more raise spam. No more vanhals danse charge. No more auto lock on winds of undeath and produces free spirit hosts. No more free plus 2 magic dice, 4+ ward banner against shooting, weapon skill hat......
They've taken away my Weapon skill hat. I LOVED THAT HAT.
lots of new units including FLYING monstrous infantry (imagine flying minotaur, but not a minotaur) ethereal fast cavalry, massive chariot mount, massive support engine, massive dead bat, yes i'm including this as new).
All in all I'm quite satisfied with the new book. I would have like it if phil kelly didn't just plagerise 85% of gav thorpe's fluff and unit entries, into the new book, but the updates that, at first glance looks like a nerf, but taken as a whole seems to work out as a sum of its parts. Vampire counts are definately not stronger than they were, and in many respects have been weakened, but I think it will be an army that is lot more fun to play and a lot more fun to play against.
