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.
• 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.
• 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:

Heinrich Kemmler: Would be the worst legendary lord if not for the fact that he can summon Krell.

Helman Ghorst (DLC):

Vlad von Carstein (FLC): The best Vampire Counts lord in melee, balanced by him not having access to any mount. 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.

Isabella von Carstein (FLC):

Units

Generic Lords

Vampire Lord:

Master Necromancer:

Strigoi Ghoul King (DLC):

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:

Von Carstein Vampire Lord:

Blood Dragon Vampire Lord:

Necrarch Vampire Lord:

Strigoi Vampire Lord:

Heroes

Wight King:

Necromancer:

Vampire:

Banshee:

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:
• Grave Guard with Greatweapons:
• Cairn Wraiths:

Missile Units

• Sylvanian Crossbowmen:
• Sylvanian Handgunners:

Cavalry & Beasts

• Dire Wolves:
• Fell Bats:
• Black Knights:
• Barded Black Knights:
• Hexwraiths
• Blood Knights:

Chariots

• Corpse Cart:
• Black Coach:
• Mortis Engine:

Monsters

• Vargheists:
• Crypt Horrors:
• Varghulf:
• Terrorgheist: