Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Vampire Counts.

Why Play Vampire Counts?

• Because you want the realms of the living to drown in the night as the dark creatures consume their souls and bodies.
• Because you really, REALLY wanted Dracula to win in the novel.
• The enemy can't dive your backline if you have no backline!
• Because you aren't quite sick of zombies yet.

Pros

• God Tier Lords: Every Lord in your army is a caster of the Lore of Vampires, the strongest lore of magic in the entire game. Combine that with impressive melee stats and incredible mount options across the board, and Vampire Lords are among the most powerful in the entire game. Plus, with all the Bloodlines being playable you have plenty of even more powerful lords to choose from.
• Fantastic Heroes: Vampire Counts also have amazing heroes on both the battlefield and the campaign map. Vampires are casters that can fight almost everything and win using their high melee stats and regen. Wight Kings are superb tanks with high HP, a silver shield, and a nifty anti-infantry bonus. Necromancers are essential both on and off the battlefield, granting AoE regen to allies — improved further and adding a few buffs with a corpse cart mount. Outside of fights, have a group of ten Necromancers with the "Lore Keeper" trait run amongst your cities, granting 100% off construction costs, 100% research rate, and a massive "Boost Income" bonus. Banshees are great agents that have access to "Assassinate", "Damage Walls", and "Block Army". The "Devious" trait gives a stacking boost to action success chance and a lower action cost.
• Healing: Other factions have healing, but you are one of very few that can bring back dead models. This means that casualties aren't the biggest concern in the world for you as you can always just bring them back with a good Invocation of Nehek cast. Pro tip: Don't click that "end battle" button; instead, spend your remaining winds of magic to revive everyone and win the fight with zero casualties.
• Cavalry: Blood Knights are among the best cav in the entire game, and, combined with the ability to revive models, can be oppressive. Even Black Knights are pretty damn good for what they do.
• Air Power: With cheap expendable options like Fell Bats and crazy damage creatures like Vargheists and Terrorgheists, getting control of the sky as the Vampires is pretty easy. Just watch out for missiles and vortexes like tempest designed to kill fliers.
• Monsters: You got plenty of large damage dealing monsters for numerous occasions. From fliers to ground monsters to bats and dogs to harass skirmishers, you got a beast for nearly every occasion.
• Inexpensive: Most of your infantry choices are pretty cheap, which allows you to really lean into your more expensive troops and still have enough cash left over to get frontline to hold them in place. You can expect to outnumber your enemy in most battles, so be sure to use that. An early technology renders zombies and skeletons completely free of upkeep.
• High Infantry Models: The zombie and skeleton units boast one of the highest model counts in the game. Pair that fact with your ability to bring back dead models and you have a blob to reckon with.

Cons

• No Ranged Units: None whatsoever in the first game, meaning you are always forced to go all-in; otherwise, the enemy will just pick you apart. You do have plenty of tools to deal with enemy ranged, but you can still feel the inability to put out reliable damage from a distance. It also makes your siege defenses an absolute joke. The second game allows the recruitment of a small number of Sylvanian crossbowmen and handgunners after you unlock a Von Carstein Bloodline lord but they honestly aren't worth it unless you're going up against Drycha and her roided up treemen + treekin.
• Flimsy Infantry: Believe it or not, literal walking corpses animated like puppets don't make the best fighters. While Zombies and Skeletons can hold the line, don't expect them to win without help. Your cav, monsters, heroes, and lords will be doing most of the work in winning the battle.
• Reliance on Lords: Lords are important in all armies, but yours literally keep your shambling mounds moving and fighting during the battle. If they die, the rest of the army is sure to follow.
• Lack of Anti-Large: Aside from Blood Knights and Skeleton Spearmen, you'll be hard pressed to find anything in your Roster with Anti-Large damage. Facing off against heavy cavalry and monsters is not something you particularly enjoy.
• DLC: Yes, a weakness pretty much everyone has but still worth mentioning. Mortis Engines and Corpse Carts are very useful in your average battle – almost essential – and sadly you need to fork over dough if you want to get these key units.
• Slow Infantry: Zombies, walking skeletons, and possessed suits of armor are slow. Who knew?
• PC Killer: Large number of units with high model counts combined with vampire-focused maps specializing in fog and your frame rate can easily take a dive, even on beefy rigs. The campaign map isn't safe as vampire corruption covers the land in fog and particle effects. Lowering or outright disabling volumetric fog is a must.
• Outdated: A problem that plagues all of the Game 1 factions is that the development of game 2 kind of left them behind. The Vampire Coast does basically everything you can do better at less of a cost and has access to ranged units. Hopefully we will still see a rework or at least a DLC that fixes some of the worst problems (especially your lack of Anti-Large units).

Universal Traits

• Undead: Everything you have is undead. Duh. Refer to the general tactics page as to what that means.
• Vampiric Corruption:
• The Hunger: The Hunger gives the unit with it a small regeneration buff as long as it is in melee. All Vampiric units (Your Lords, Vargheists, Blood Knights etc.) have this.
• The Dead rise again!: After each battle, any unit that is completely wiped out has a fairly high chance to come back to life. It can be a bit random and frustrating at times , but it can't be denied that it nullifies a lot of the attrition Armies far away from your cities suffer over the course of a campaign. Combine this with free your free skeletons and Raise Dead and your armies will operate at full strength at lot more often than most other factions armies will. This ability is also unique to the Vampire Counts and no other of the undead factions.

Legendary Lords and Subfactions

Mannfred von Carstein: the Legendy vampire Caster Lord himself, having the blender power of an already impressive normal vampire lord plus the full selection of Lore of Vampire and Death.

in Campaign, He gets an upkeep discount and extra chevrons for using elite skeletons of the Grave guard and black knights.

Heinrich Kemmler: Would be the worst legendary lord if not for the fact that he can summon Krell. not much to say in MP except he is a necromancer that summon a strong Wight King and if you pay more, can your side win an engagement and not immediately die.

more interesting in campaigns as he is far removed from the vampiric cluster of Sylvania to spread mayhem to Britannia and Reikland from Castle Drakenfell in the Gray mountains. he starts with two ghost units, has a good relationship with chaos, doesn't need to roll out the a corruption carpet to move and improve recruitment of necromancers heros.

Helman Ghorst (DLC): He would have been the game's first legendary hero if CA had figured out earlier on how that would work, but he is an alternative starting lord for Sylvania. Despite Kemmler's street cred, Ghorst is actually the best and only necromancer lord you should consider in MP. Has Regen for protection and Should always be on his special Lodestone corpses cart to give out his buffs to his troops and passive DPS. what makes him even more worth the cost is summoning a unit of Grave guard or a Wight king instead of regular undead. All this and his price tag make him the best cost-effective caster choice if your trying to save money on a lord.

In the campaign, Ghorst is about playing the necromancer, Granting high Replenish and Research rates, bonuses to corpses Carts and Mortics Engines, like them having a bound zombie summon. Helman's own army also gives armor to zombies and all units are given poison attacks, turning your cheap undead into scary bricks early game.

Vlad von Carstein (FLC): The best Vampire Counts lord in melee, balanced by him not having access to any mount. He is one of the rare few terror-causing infantry characters, and is very tanky with all is regeneration abilities plus his ringing giving burst of 66% damage resist.

In the campaign, he and Isabella will be almost as inseparable as the Sisters of Twilight due to their combat buffs when reinforcing each other. he leads one of the opposed VC factions next door to Mannfred's Sylvania. As your starting lord, he Gives improved campaign movement and gives his personal army Siege attacker and army-wide Vanguard to not give the enemies time to mess with you.

Isabella von Carstein (FLC): the Alternative starting lord for the Von Carstein campaign, Giving big bonuses for vampire heroes. In MP She is A Vampire lord with supportive ability Giving out improved Offence and Regeneration to herself and other units.

The Red Duke (FLC, MP only): he is in the campaign but you have to confederate with Mousillon to use him. in MP he is more of a duelist lord then the Blood Dragon lord, with his El Syf hex making a target easy picking and cut though its Physical resistance in comparison to the Blood Dragon that is all in on only melee damage.

Units

Generic Lords

Vampire Lord: like most of VC, the army is held together by a few strong units with the rest being expendable support. Already a Strong melee fighter, able to blow through most infantry. All that plus he is a caster of the lore of Vampire. In MP, He is already Expensive and paints a big target on his back to get shot down, so only buy what you need on and tray to distribute more of your funds spread across your army

Master Necromancer: If you were to look up the word "Redundant" in a dictionary you'd find a picture of this dude's face. As a caster lord he's rather pointless because literally, EVERY lord in the Vampire roster comes with the Lore of Vampires, which is about all he brings to the table. I mean I guess he's cheap compared to a vampire but the bonus you get with them more than makeup for the price increase. Worse yet he has to compete with the hero version of the Necromancer, who literally does the exact same thing this dude does but for cheaper and you can have more than one of them in an army if you want. The Master Necromancer either needs a serious buff/rework to give us a reason to pick him over any Vampire or even the hero version, or he needs to just be removed from the game because honestly, I don't think anyone will miss him.

Strigoi Ghoul King (DLC): Your single entity hunter compared to the infantry muncher that its a Vampire Lord. Is buck naked for defense except for having Regeneration in addition to the Hunger. Has Poison attacks in addition to High AP plus an ability to a Burst of Even more AP for himself and allies, making him Prime as a Hunter of armored single entities. its Magic setup is a mix of Vampires and Death to help in his leader and hunter role, including a unique spell to summon crypt Ghouls/Horrors for a poisonous goon squad. Can be mounted on a Terrorgheist which Improves his survivability, mobility, and is ready a single entity hunter.

Bloodline Lords

You can pretty much ignore the generic lords above because in both campaign and MP there's no reason to take them over these guys.

Lahmian Vampire Lord: Focused on Debuffing, and being hard to hurt in melee. She has a mixed caster of Shadow and Vampire. Her role is using her high speed to jump on enemies and use Seduction to slow them down as they take punishment.

Von Carstein Vampire Lord: a mix caster of Vampire and beast, and summons a Varghulf instead of a manticore. His Storm of the Night will grant you an edge in the Air superiority matchups.

Blood Dragon Vampire Lord: Around one of the best melee characters in-game with all the stats that matter (attack, defense, Ap damage, is a wizard, monstrous mount option). The weakest of the Bloodlines in terms of magic (Meaning he just has the pure Lore of Vampires instead of a mixed lore, so take "weak" with a MASSIVE grain of salt.)

Necrarch Vampire Lord: Your caster vampire but not as good in melee as even a normal Vampire Lord. His focus is how good a wizard he is getting a mix of Death/Vampire/ and Beast's Buff and debuff spell, very good at keeping your magic tanks full enough to sustain you, wizard assault.

Strigoi Vampire Lord: Upgrade to Ghoul King, granting greater Melee attack and defense. Their AP burst ability is only affected themselves, and get another way to give them a burst of HP.

Heroes

Wight King:

Necromancer:

Vampire: A strong fighter caster hybrid like the lord version. Takes up Shadow and Death, lores not fully covered by other units.

Banshee: A terror causing Ghost goon with High AP. She defiantly needs to stay away from magic, but good a gooning.

Krell (Kemmler Only):

Melee Infantry

• Zombies: Dirt-cheap fodder to tie up your enemy, and you better hope that they do that job right, because their pitiful stats don't allow anything else. They got two things going for them, large unit size and hitpoint pool. Skeleton Warriors do their job better for only marginally more money and can even hope to kill some weaker enemies, so it's best to skip them.
• Skeleton Warriors: Spooky scary skeletons with Swords and shields. A more numerous variant of Empire Swordsmen, basically. Doesn't hit as hard, but is undead and comes with 160 models in one regiment. Comes with a shield for good measure.
• Skeleton Spearmen: Basically identical to normal Skeleton Warriors except that they come with Spears and actually are the only infantry unit you have with a Bonus vs. Large. Not that this matters though, theor performance is too bad against anything stronger than Mounted Yeomen. If you need a line of chaff, take Spearmen over Warriors or Zombies.
• Crypt Ghouls:
• Grave Guard: Spookier, scarier Skeletons. A straight, if a bit expensive upgrade from Skeleton Warriors and your go to choice for your main line in the late game. Their bonus vs. Infantry combined with decent armour and a shield make them formidable opponents that have little trouble with handling most other standard infantry.
• Grave Guard with Greatweapons: It's in the name. Your dedicated can openers for dealing with armoured infantry and anything in between.
• Cairn Wraiths: High phys resist and high armor piercing damage makes them your goto infantry for dealing with heavy armor piercing infantry like black orks who will eat grave guards for breakfast. They're completely terrible in every other way, trade terribly vs chaff units, and evaporate the moment anything that deals magic damage looks at them funny.

Cavalry & Beasts

• Dire Wolves: CA sure love their Wolf units. The archetypical wolf pack which all the others are modeled after. High speed, strider, vanguard deployment and a decent charge bonus make them your very flexible and reliable backline harrasser unit. At least against backlines that don't like being harassed, anything above the level of Empire Crossbowmen or Skavenslaves eats them for breakfast if left unsupervised. Can be a force to reckoned with if handled properly, but if you don't like microing around a lot, you're better off going for real cavalry later in the campaign.
• Fell Bats: Dire Wolves, but flying! Fell Bats don't really kill anything on their own, but their high mass means that anything they catch will be occupied with them for quite some time. Can be irritating as fuck when used right, but don't get attached to any one unit of them, because they lose against everything.
• Black Knights: Now we're getting into the good stuff. Standard Black Knights have the interesting distinction that they are the only proper cavalry in the game that focuses on dealing damage against infantry. Decent armour, melee defense and a bonus against footsoldiers mean that they will execute this job very well, and to make the package complete, they are also very nimble.
• Barded Black Knights: have extra armor with the much higher charger because of the lance. Naturally a between the high damage potential but expensive Blood Knights and the cheapness of Black Knights.
• Hexwraiths mounted Cairn Wraiths with blistering 94 speed, flaming attacks, and vanguard. like all ghosts, they are very offensive with High ap damage and Terror but crumble quickly with their only defense being a 75% Resist Physical. Useful at cutting up knights without magic attacks.
• Blood Knights:

Chariots

• Corpse Cart (DLC): Says Chariots but actually a slow-moving buffing unit. Usually, only see base or with Unholy Lodestone for cheap base melee buff or additional regeneration. there is also Balefire to also nerf enemies ability to cast but that's often hard to get much value from that.
• Black Coach:
• Mortis Engine (DLC):

Monsters

• Vargheists:
• Crypt Horrors:
• Varghulf:
• Terrorgheist: If a ranged unit starts attacking them, the breath attack is ready and the said unit is not immune to Terror then burn them, sometimes those two alone are enough to make the ranged unit rout.

Campaign Only

• Sylvanian Crossbowmen: Identical to Empire Crossbowmen, providing you with much-needed ranged fire. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.
• Sylvanian Handgunners: Identical to Empire Handgunners, providing you with much-needed ranged fire. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.

tactics

Multiplayer Strategies

• Beastmen:
• Bretonnia:
• Chaos Warriors:
• Dark Elves:
• Dwarfs:
• Empire:
• Greenskins:
• High Elves:
• Lizardmen:
• Norsca:
• Skaven:
• Tomb Kings:
• Vampire Coast:
• Vampire Counts:
• Wood Elves:

Campaign Strategies

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
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