Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Vampire Counts (section)

====Playstyle====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">If the fluff isn't your thing, then you may be more interested in skipping straight to the crunch of your army. 
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Generally speaking, Vampire Counts really have two strategies; magic, and melee. This makes them a lot easier to play than most armies, and while many choices form a nice synergy together there's less risk at making a "wrong" decision. Anyone can benefit from a Corpse Cart ASF, Mortis Engines still pick away enemy troops, keep a Black Coach intact long enough and it will pick up enough abilities to tear into your enemy regardless on whether you took a magic-heavy or light list. 
A quick glance at the model summaries above should give you ideas on combos, like combining a Mortis Engine with as many Regeneration options as possible, or banking on a Terror/Fear and LD damaging list.

'''Fielding lords'''
The first thing that is apparent in the VC army is just how balls out powerful a Vampire Lord can be, the only other generic Lords in the game that can go head to head with them and survive with any frequency are Chaos Lords. The big draw back with this is the egg/basket problem, you can make them just about unkillable but it will cost you a huge number of points to do so. While tempting as this may be it is tactically unsound. In the current edition of Fantasy, for various reasons numbers are more important than individuals with high killing power. That tricked-out Vampire Lord worth 100 points of magic items, 100 points of Vampire upgrades riding a Zombie Dragon may win you one fight but if you spend those 400+ points on troops you can have four level 2 Necromancers raining spells down everywhere or a 60 Skeleton hoard with command and a magic banner. With Vampires its about value for points be it in survivability, magic superiority, killing power, or battlefield advantage.  if properly kitted out can be made a metric tonne more dangerous than a Chaos Lord. Nightshroud + Quickblood means that you're always going first. I7 means regular re-rolls to hit. Give him the Giant's Blade, and that's S8. Barded Nightmare + shield = 1+ armour save. combined with the awesomeness that is Lore of the Vampires, from a friendly Necromancer, +1A, re-rolls on To Hit and To Wound are possible. Take the Razor Standard nearby, and you are ignoring armour. Red fury and Dread Knight is just the icing on the cake. Against this, every character without a good Ward Save will die (though the ones that do have one and ignore armour will wreck him).  Another way to build him is to take a Zombie Dragon, Glittering Scales, Sword of Striking, Dread Knight and Quickblood and LAUGH as your opponent has to roll 6+ MINIMUM to hit you in melee, while you need a 3+ at MOST.
Ultimately, you must decide if you're going to use your characters for killing or casting. It's certainly possible to do both, but in almost every scenario it's better to divide those tasks between two characters.
Forbidden Lores can be very useful; after all, Time Warp and Danse Macabre both cast on the same Unit can put a Terror-causing Unit into the opponent's start area, Iceshard Blizzard take take yet another point away from your foe's LD while weakening those wretched shooting attacks you don't get, Final Transmutation on top of a crippled LD score can cripple his entire strategy, Pann's Impenetrable Pelt can turn an already impressive combat Vampire Lord into an untouchable monster, and so on. Just remember that the more casters in Lore of Vampires you can manage, the longer your force will probably survive.

The other options aren't so bad either, a Strigoi Ghoul King, with its somewhat mediocre Regeneration can be boosted to a 4+ with the help of a Mortis Engine, and for an insignificant 5 points you could shove a Dragon Bane gem from the Core magic items on him for a 2+ Ward against Flaming Attacks (making it damn near mandatory) so even if the enemy brings Flaming Attacks or spells you just got a massive boost in protection. Ghoul Kings still have a great Initiative score at 8, meaning it will go first no matter what against most units and characters (other than elves). Oh, and taking Quickblood? Cancels out the ASF that what he's fighting might have (*ahem* elves *cough*) so that most won't get rerolls against him, but he will get them against THEM (though they'll strike simultaneously).
Another fairly cost-efficient way to field him is taking the Book of Arkhan (Vanhel's Danse Macabre as a bound spell, which grants an extra 8" to move for his unit and re-roll for failed To Hit rolls, ideal for ghouls) and the Dragon Bane gem, as well as taking the Vampire upgrades Red Fury, Beguile, and Fear Incarnate. This will get his unit straight into combat where they'll tear the shit out of whatever they meet and is a psychology nightmare. Only take Dread Knight if you want him stuck against a unit champion or if you're chasing lone models and warmachines. Then again, overkill against a unit champion is also pretty okay.
The above set-up would set you back 390 or 400 points, depending whether or not you take Dread Knight and nets you a really versatile character.

'''Troops, So Many Troops'''
Unless you are intentionally fielding a small high-value force you will probably outnumber your opponent. This is because Skeletons and Zombies are cheap, spammable, and you can end up with more then you started with and if you don't then you are doing it wrong. However, VC Core also tend to be useless at killing anything with WS5+ or T4. Regardless of this fact, a horde of troops can hold anything that's not packing some serious killing power in place until they have been whittled down to nothing or you bring something bigger to finish the job the twice-redshirts started. Something else about skeletons, is that unlike Zombies, Skeleton Warriors can take 25 points worth of magic standard. A good option is a horde carrying Screaming Banner (enemy units taking Fear tests in combat with the unit carrying the banner roll an extra dice and discard the lower one) marching with a Vampire who has the Supernatural Horror (causes Terror) and Fear Incarnate (enemies that pass their Fear test must reroll it and cancels out their Stand Your Ground from their BSB). Suddenly you increase the enemies chance of failing a test radically. You can also take Banner of Eternal Flame to push your horde up against anything with a regen save. Make sure to watch out for Lords, Heroes, and things with a save against flaming attacks. Ghouls on the other hand are your hammer in the Core selection, a unit of 20 will pack 16 poison attacks in a 5wide formation, unfortunately they are twice the cost of skeletons making a basic horde (10x4) over 400 points.
Dire Wolves generally have no role other than directors, and if you aren't taking Fell Bats or Cairne Wraiths (Rare version) are probably your poor man's option in those roles.
That being said, they work fantastic as redirectors. Most armies can benefit from having a Unit of 5-10 on each side, but generally it's a useless practice to field a massive army of them unless they're just there to soak up points.

A small problem is that everything in the Core slot is slow, except for the Dire Wolves and as with most fast units, use them for flanking if you want them. Their high movement speed and head start in the game means they can rip into an enemy's warmachines before their troops have come into range of anything, and they can get almost anywhere on the map in a hurry. Due to having Swiftstride and M9 it is possible to charge from a very long range meaning most shooters need 6s to hit, and in addition to this they gain +1S on that charge making them very good at dealing with small units of archers.

'''Late Night Horror Special'''
Looking into Special, one sees you have three primary types of options; glass cannon (Vargheists, Hexwraiths), support (Spirit Host, Bat Swarm, Corpse Cart), and better anvil than Core could be (Grave Guard, Black Knights, Crypt Horrors). Fell Bats get the honor of being the warmachine hunters. Which is why ultimately, you'll probably want to decide between Fell Bats, Dire Wolves, or Cairne Wraith (Rare) hit squads. Special is most likely where you'll spend your time changing your mind, trying to come up with special combos to use.

'''The Rape Train Has No Breaks'''
The Rare options in the army are the heaviest. Barring the Mortis Engine, the Rare section is essentially a list of the strap-on varieties you can peg your opponent with.
Every option (still not the Mortis Engine) is the biggest hammer in your army. Each of them is squishy for their points as well, so take them with a plan for use which involves getting them into position. The Engine itself is nice for it's passive damage-dealing, but is probably best taken to bolster your anvil if it has Regeneration and pimp your magic. For example, a naked master Necromancer in range of a mortis engine cast at the same comfortably broken bonus power (+5) in LoV as Nagash, and Nagash casts LoV at the insane and ball shriveling +7.
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