Post by Andrew on Aug 10, 2010 10:21:13 GMT -6
This may be a biased opinion, but I've come to the conclusion that in 8th edition, Vampire Counts are indeed bugs hitting the windshield. In three games, I've seen them lose by the top of the 3rd turn. Now granted, they were all against Warriors of Chaos (as mighty a windshield as there might be), but effect still remains.
The magic rules change has really been the death blow to the army. When you don't have a level 4 caster of your own (because Vampires can slaughter dudes better for cheaper), facing off against one shuts down your magic completely. You'll have anywhere from level 0's (bound items) to level 2-3 most likely, trying to cast spells that auto-fail on a roll of 2>. So, you're likely to chuck two dice at spells, reducing the amount of spells you can cast in a turn, hurting the army. Only getting a +1-2 on the roll also doesn't help, when an enemy level 4 can simply toss one die and likely dispel it, essentially giving them more dispel dice than you have power dice. This makes the magic phase fairly useless unless you're lucky with the rolls. Unfortunately, this is the one phase where Vampire Counts need to do the best.
Combat rules changes have also affected VC armies, but not in a good way. Some other armies got better, some worse. Again, this could be because I've only seen them play against WoC armies, but when a single block of chaos warriors can summon 70 attacks on two blocks of skeletons (30 each) and wipe them out through combat rez in a single turn, taking only a few casualties in return (because the Warriors go first and need only 3's on both rolls), the VC really suffer. They're supposed to be able to absorb casualties; when they don't get a magic phase to replenish them, that's it. No buffs like ASF, reroll hits, etc.
Egh, so I might shelve my VC for this edition if games with them continue in this fashion. Like I said, I haven't seen the general survive more than 2 turns, even when hiding. I'll try a few games against other armies though. Empire, Elves, men, etc. They might do okay against those, but we'll see.
The magic rules change has really been the death blow to the army. When you don't have a level 4 caster of your own (because Vampires can slaughter dudes better for cheaper), facing off against one shuts down your magic completely. You'll have anywhere from level 0's (bound items) to level 2-3 most likely, trying to cast spells that auto-fail on a roll of 2>. So, you're likely to chuck two dice at spells, reducing the amount of spells you can cast in a turn, hurting the army. Only getting a +1-2 on the roll also doesn't help, when an enemy level 4 can simply toss one die and likely dispel it, essentially giving them more dispel dice than you have power dice. This makes the magic phase fairly useless unless you're lucky with the rolls. Unfortunately, this is the one phase where Vampire Counts need to do the best.
Combat rules changes have also affected VC armies, but not in a good way. Some other armies got better, some worse. Again, this could be because I've only seen them play against WoC armies, but when a single block of chaos warriors can summon 70 attacks on two blocks of skeletons (30 each) and wipe them out through combat rez in a single turn, taking only a few casualties in return (because the Warriors go first and need only 3's on both rolls), the VC really suffer. They're supposed to be able to absorb casualties; when they don't get a magic phase to replenish them, that's it. No buffs like ASF, reroll hits, etc.
Egh, so I might shelve my VC for this edition if games with them continue in this fashion. Like I said, I haven't seen the general survive more than 2 turns, even when hiding. I'll try a few games against other armies though. Empire, Elves, men, etc. They might do okay against those, but we'll see.
