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. Generally the lack of ranged is for game balance reasons, as VC already have brilliant cavalry, Lords, monsters and excellent high teir infantry. Don't be tempted to download mods like Radious which give you cheap access to ranged as it makes the counts unstoppable and the game dull. Or do it, I'm not your mother.
• 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 while infantry hold the enemy in place. Grave guard are not flimsy at all, but they are a lot more expensive.
• 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. 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).
• Predictability: A very similar weakness to the Dwarfs, but in the opposite direction. Where as the lack of mobility or offensive infantry means the Dwarfs can never play offense, your lack of ranged units, artillery or solid defensive infantry means you can never play defense. Experienced players will likely know what you're bringing and be able to counter.

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. Manfred is the epitomy of a Hybrid Lord; he already starts with a discount Arcane Conduit, and the additional magic power from this alone makes him easily on par with Teclis and Morathi. Unlike these two though, he also is a terrific melee combatant, especially when mounted on a zombie dragon.

Mannfred starts in Sylvania proper with Castle Drakenhof. Starting as him can be a bit tedious, as your close proximity to no less than 4 different major order factions that really hate your guts (Reikland, Karaz-a-Karak, Karak Kadrin and The Golden Order) and the shit economy of the VC combined with ludicrous amounts of money your high tier buildings cost, make sure that you have a pretty bad time on Mortal Empires. Try not to push too aggressively into the Elector Counts that surround you, sow your Corruption and you should be fine, but always try to play it safe.

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 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. Comes with numerous buffs to monster 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, and no access to Arcane Conduit, 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: Your standard melee hero and right-hand wight. Overall killy and tough.

Necromancer: Your main source of additional undead, magic support and staying power so that your forces don't crumble. Can be put on one of the three Corpse Cart mounts for additional boons. Competent caster but keep him away from melee.

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): A Wight King with better base stats but, as a summon, cannot equip any items at all and will degrade over time (unless you fill his dedicated line in Kemmler's skill tree). Use him as a quick stop-gaps in your flanks or to wreck havoc in the middle of a blob, but don't expect him to last long.

Melee Infantry

• Zombies: Dirt-cheap fodder to tie up your enemy, and you better hope that they do that job right, because they have the lowest stats of any unit in the game to the point where Betonnian Peasant Mobs can defeat them. 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: An unstoppable engine of destruction if you're into cycle charging. Extremely quick, fire, magic and AP damage at once and to top it off, also causes fear and terror. It has a bunch of passive abilities that make it much better at leaving unfavorable encounters, however, it is quite susceptible to being intercepted by other heavy cav, utterly useless against big monsters and also quite expensive. Bringing one is quite the gamble, but at least a fun one.
• Mortis Engine (DLC): The biggest gun the counts have on offer and a downright terrifying one. Mortis Engines are basically upgraded, ethereal corpse carts that not only buff up your undead minions to unholy strength, but also sap the HP of the enemies frontline. They might be slow, but are scary and big targets, and them being ethereal also means that it is quite the hassle for your opponent to get rid of it.

Monsters

• Vargheists: They don't might look like much, but are actually one of the most cost-effective monstrous infantry in the game. For a meager cost of 700 gold, you get a flying, fairly fast regiment of creatures with Frenzy and The Hunger, that also delivers a tremendous beating with 80 weapon strength, decent melee attack and AP damage. Vargheists will carry your early game armies well into the lategame. Their flight allows them to only pick encounters of your choosing and they certainly have little trouble shutting down enemy flyers that might come your way.
• Crypt Horrors: Vargheists, but with poison, and on the ground. Actually not half bad. They retain a good weapon strength and still get AP damage. If you can't win the air battle, Crypt Horrors aren't that bad of a choice, actually.
• Varghulf: This is an iffy one. On campaign, they're absurdly hard to get for a unit with such low survivability. On the other hand, they can reliably engage all infantry in the game and come out on top. Needs good micro and some attention. When they are exposed to things with bonuses against large, they just melt away.
• 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: Ironically, all that AP damage actually works out in your favor, since most of your units are pretty lightly armored. What you're really going to have to worry about are their monsters and anti-large. Their army is quite squishy, and your monstrous infantry and cavalry will have a grand old time stomping on most of their infantry options (though watch out for Black Guard, which can take out your cav and monsters, and still have time for coffee at the end). You can absorb a lot of their missile play with chaff, or use summons to take their Darkshards and Shades out quickly. Make sure to do so before they can get their shots in to your lord or monsters though! Scourgerunners will kite most of your monsters to kingdom come, so bog them down with bats or wolves as soon as you get the chance. Your cavalry can easily outmatch theirs most of the time, but Doomfire Warlocks can be a problem with their bound doombolt spell. The worst units to deal with are their monsters. Kharybdiss can spell doom for many of your better units, but is pretty slow and easy to tarpit. Black Dragons can also be a problem in the air, and many of their lords have them as a mount option. Murderous Prowess also means you can't get the Dark Elves to rout as easily as most of the other factions, so make sure you're playing a longer game, and pay attention when it procs.
• Dwarfs:
• Empire:
• Greenskins:
• High Elves:
• Lizardmen:
• Norsca: This is a rough one. Their skirmish cav will drive you to insanity if you don't manage to shut them down with bats or wolves, their infantry (and monstrous infantry) can go toe-to-toe with yours, and their monsters simply counter yours in most cases. Mammoths in particular are an absolute nightmare for your battle lines to deal with, and you don't have many ways to shut them down quickly. Skin Wolves and Marauder Javelins can take the fight out of your monsters in an instant, and they usually have an easy time positioning their anti-large units to take down your elite cavalry since you can't apply pressure at range. Your best bet is to try and leverage your magic to get their monsters to rout early; perhaps with a death wizard that has spells like spirit leech or doom & darkness. You can typically outfight them in the skies (with the Frost-wyrm being expensive and rather squishy) so use that advantage to the fullest to shut down their ranged (if they bring any) or pick off their skirmish cav. It's a hard matchup for sure, but not impossible. Still, avoid it when you can.
• Skaven:
• Tomb Kings: The Counts have the edge over their Nehekaran brethren. Since the Counts are likely the best rush faction in the game, shutting down their artillery and missiles should be second nature. Fliers really matter in this matchup, since all the Tomb Kings have in the skies is the piss-weak Carrion. The Vampires are far superior in the infantry grind, and have an edge in the cavalry matchup (though Necropolis Knights can be a problem). The biggest stumbling block is the Tomb Kings constructs, which can seriously threaten if not dealt with effectively. Luckily, the Counts do have a few armor piercing options, and can usually shut them down with their lords or hero units. However, watch out for the Necrosphinx with it's ludicrous bonus vs. large.
• Vampire Coast: Once you close the distance, the coast turns into mush. The trick is getting there without getting shot half to hell. In this matchup, a more mobile build will be to your advantage. Make sure you're using your environment, and don't feed too much into their skirmish game. Trees are helpful to keep your big monsters from getting shot, and you can usually outmatch them in the skies and with cavalry. If there was ever a time to drop that extra money on a unit of Black Knights or Blood Knights, it's this matchup. Just don't let them get bogged down in deckhands mobs!
• Vampire Counts:
• Wood Elves: you know the "We have more bodies than they have ammunition" quote? Well, the wood elves have more ammunition than you have bodies, so don't try your usual Infantry blob + Wind of Death combo. Bring out the big guns, and you may have a chance.

Campaign Strategies

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Magic Banner Immortal Empires
Total War: Warhammer	The Empire Dwarfs Greenskins Vampire Counts Bretonnia Warriors of Chaos Beastmen Wood Elves Norsca
Total War: Warhammer 2	High Elves Dark Elves Lizardmen Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Coast
Total War: Warhammer 3	Kislev Khorne Tzeentch Nurgle Slaanesh Grand Cathay Ogre Kingdoms Daemons of Chaos Chaos Dwarfs