VAMPIRE ARMY GUIDE! - Total War: Warhammer

the vampire counts masters of the undead in the Dark Arts they're a terrifying foe for any faction to face like most factions in total war Warhammer they have some unique traits that can both help and hinder their army it's important to understand them to truly be effective with the vampires so this guide will delve deep into the vampire army however there will be nothing on the campaign this is purely about the army and how to use them on the battlefield it is time the - March so let's begin with the Army's overall traits so they're actually pretty good all round in the areas where they have units of course they have no ranged but their lords are good they've got some good Infantry's they've got good Cavalry's they've got good monsters so they're pretty strong in all their possible fields but there is an issue with their value for money which I'll talk about later on and as factions go they're one of the strongest for their magic in necromancy which is pretty important to their play style their biggest disadvantage of course is that they have no ranged units no missiles no artillery so they're primarily a rush faction overall they also suffer from pretty low leadership most of their infantry is even their monsters have pretty low leadership which can be a struggle but is an important part of their play style which I'll elaborate on in a second a kind of in the middle they lack any real effective anti large units which means they can struggle against monsters themselves they also don't route and run away like all other factions this can be seen as a good or bad thing depending on your situation so it's important to understand these things when playing is the vampires but before we get in depth on the tactics and strategies of the vampires there's one very important thing that you need to understand which relates to their leadership so all the undead units of this army have a binding to their vampire master that raised them from the dead these grave guard have a strong binding this Terra ghost has a weak binding because it's losing leadership the binding will get stronger and weaker depending on how the units leadership is once it gets too low though the unit will start to crumble like these zombies here and crumbling is the thing that we need to try and avoid although it is somewhat inevitable you'll see these crypto is here go in and out of crumbling as their leadership goes up and down as you can see by the description it's a constant direct damage effect on the unit itself there's only disabled if the leadership is above zero so crumbling is the vampire's form of routing they don't run away they just slowly die instead so how can we counter this you might think I'll just try to keep my leadership up nice and easy right well not really with the vampires they don't really have a lot of great leadership buffing abilities very few leadership buffing spells no Grail rly core old grumbler type things etc so how the hell do they stay in the fight longer regeneration my friends vampires are the master of necromancy the master of bringing things back to life instead of using leadership in cheer you want to keep you from running away they'll just hand you a bandage and tell you to keep fighting instead some of the units have regeneration themselves others emit mass regeneration to nearby units and the vampire Lords themselves could of course use magic to keep their undead units alive or dead or Undead either way just remember crumbling is bad news you need to offset it with regeneration and there's also dis integration which is the same thing as crumbling just a lot more damage so they die a lot quicker it's their form of being shattered now that you hopefully understand that you'll understand that the vampires fight is not only against an enemy but against time as well hence where they are a rush faction now for an overview of the vampires main strategies so first of all as I just mentioned they are a rush army they can't sit back and just take artillery fire and tank it because it could result in crumbling same with missile fire so you have to be quite quick as soon as you come into range of any of those kind of dangers then as I mentioned earlier magic is of a key importance for the vampires they have a lot of strong offensive spells spirit leech fate of Yuna wind of death curse of years and then of course there's regeneration spells invocation of mehek is a fantastic spell it's very cheap to use and it not only regenerates the health of the unit but also resurrects dead combatants from that unit as well because a lot of vampire units aren't very good value for money using spells to buff them up and make them stronger at certain times it's pretty important for getting the most out of your more expensive units and what about all these cheap units in the army what's their role well the vampires are very much built around harassing the enemy stopping the enemy from executing his game plan is their game plan zombies skeletons dire wolves bats all these things are great for tying up the enemy while the better units in your army do most of the killing this is also the use of the vampires necromancy the ability to raise the dead out of the ground wherever they want on the battlefield great for spawning it behind enemy lines so that you can get some flanking penalties on the go you could get them after skirmishes that are behind the frontline disrupt them they're not going to get a ton of kills if they're zombies or something but they can at least buy time for Crypt Horrors or flood nights to come over and smash them into bloody corpses another big part of the vampire strategy is that all of their units are really really scare pretty much all of the units cause fear was some causing terror as well this is going to reduce the leadership of the enemy making them more likely to rout a bit quicker especially if you flank the enemy using necromancy to spawn some zombies behind an engaged frontline you could then get them into the back of the enemy frontline they will then be sandwich and taken attacked in the rear penalty as well as fear and or terror abilities - which means any unit caught in the middle of that probably isn't going to stick around too long this also gives the vampires a lot of opportunities to do a lot of damage to units while they're running away and routing so if you manage to route a really strong enemy unit but they still got quite a lot of their unit left you can keep chasing them with any old unit skeleton worries and they'll keep doing damage provided they can keep up with them and this is a great way to do damage to the enemy without taking any damage yourself they can also make a fair attempt at air superiority they've got some good flying units Vargas terror guys bats Lords on zombie dragons so it's definitely an option for them to make up for the lack of ranged units but it's not a necessity and lastly the vampire counts have great monsters for flanking crypt ours in the vargulf are very quick on their feet Vargas can of course fly straight over and get into the back of things even some Infantry's like wraiths and crib ghouls can be pretty good for flanking - as they're quite fast all these units and Cavalry's as well are going to be your main killers and damage dealers of your army as zombies and bats aren't really going to do it for you by themselves so all that I believe to be the main strategies of the vampire accounts remembering all this and applying it is of course the hard part so before I give you a demonstration battle of all this in action let's take a look at the unit roster and things to note about certain units now before we delve into these vampire units there's another important thing we need to know about as I mentioned earlier the vampires have an issue with value for money what you pay for and what you get isn't as good comparatively to other factions allow me to give you examples of this so skeleton spearmen one of the few vampire anti large units they cost 375 for a basic anti large speed unit if we compare them to the Empire's cheapest spear unit that only cost 300 that's 75 less look at how much better the stats are on the right all those green tabs are how much better the Empire spears are than the vampire spears yes the skeletons have shields in a bigger unit and more health but the extra health is kind of by the crumbling effect anyway so is this a good trade in terms of money I don't think so grave guard with great weapons the vampires toughest armor-piercing infantry but how do they stack up against similar units in their class will go Empire again great towards they cost exactly the same amount look at all the green tabs and how much better the great swords are then the grave guard and it's not the great sword - far superior to grave guard it's just that they're slightly better and you're paying the same and it's not the grave guard are a bad unit by any means it's just that what you're paying for isn't as good value for money as other factions get if you look at the Kaos Warriors with great weapons they cost a hundred less than the grave guard and look how much better they are they have a slightly smaller unit and no bonus versus infantry but their stats more than make up for that one last perfect example dire wolves cost five hundred for the vampires and they don't have scaly skin compare them to the beasts men's dire wolves they not only have scaly skin but they have better stats as well and they cost a hundred less at only four hundred I think that encapsulates what I'm trying to tell you perfectly hopefully you understand this but it's also worth noting that this isn't an imbalance issue with the game it's not creative assembly messing up on the numbers they're meant to have this disadvantage of value-for-money probably because they all have fear and they all cause fear so that kind of negates some of the lesser stats so if you're trying to square up with an enemy based on money just remember that you have a slight disadvantage in some areas now that we've got that out of the way let's take a look at the vampire roster so I'm just going to go through the different sections of the roster and point out things of note starting with the lords and heroes so all your Lords are casters of some kind they all can use magic the first four are kind of your lightly armored casters who really need to avoid melee in order to survive Strigoi ghoul king is slightly better he can throw down in melee with some lighter units but against other characters he doesn't really have the armor to be taking on tougher characters and then you move into your vampire lords who break the mold of what a wizard should be most wizards in this game are very lightly armored very frail they can't do melee fighting they're simply not tough enough but the vampire Lord and above can they've got plenty of armor they got some good melee stats they can all handle themselves in a melee fight and the cheapest of them the vampire Lord actually has the same stats as Frette pretty much and he costs a lot less the only difference is that Manfred has both the lore of vampires and the law of death spell books they can both be put on various mounts to make them even more dangerous or to simply get them out of trouble if you want the toughest of the vampire Lords though Vlad von Kahr Stein is probably the way to go he has a ton of health mad regeneration and he can throw down in melee with the best of them he can't use mounts though so be careful if you fear assassination and then you have his dearly beloved isabella von Kahr Stein who is more expensive than him but probably worse than him she has slightly better melee defense in a couple of extra spells but honestly I wouldn't pick Isabela over vlad any day she can use mounts though so there's kind of an advantage but I think Vlad out shines are just on this toughness alone which Lord you should choose comes down to how you want to play and then on to our heroes first of all the good old banshee she's great for taking on other enemy characters and she's ethereal Soccio negate a lot of damage and she can do a lot of damage to anything with the physical resistance so she can be pretty handy for assassinations and then you have the white king who is pretty much your standard melee hero similar to a paladin or thane a good bodyguard for weaker Lords now the necromancer a hero with a super special secret he has a trait that makes him really awesome to just have around he passively regenerates the health of units just by standing within 30 meters of them if I can find the spell that is master of the dead that's the one so you can see it replenishes his health and nearby allies but it only works when he's not engaged in melee so you can't have him fighting anything he has to just be stood there but he will replenish the health up to 30 meters and lastly a couple of vampire wizards who just had the different law spell books they're not bad a melee either as they do have quite a bit of armor and some good stats now to the vampire infantry your first three units skeletons and zombies pretty much just you're tying up distraction units they won't necessarily get a great deal of kills but they'll play their role well enough the taya are a slightly improved version of the zombies they're not going to do too much more damage but they will last a bit longer as they have more in their unit and more health so useful if you want to hold a certain spot for a longer time skeleton warriors will do more damage and lasts a bit longer but with only 30 leadership they're going to be crumbling pretty skeletons women struggle with the same issue of really low leadership when fighting a giant or something they're really going to struggle to be efficient cryptic goals can be handy as a flanking unit because they're fast or as a support unit because they're poison then you have some poison skeletons pretty much the same as the skeleton warriors feast is in the dusk whoo the same but with a stalk and then you've got your grave guard your top Infantry's for the vampires gotta be your best bet for killing tougher enemy Infantry's though of course at that value-for-money disadvantage and then you have can race who are actually a really good unit they could put up a similar performance to the grave guard with great weapons against top tier heavily armored units and believe it or not a single unit of Charon race can nearly take down a steam tank they shred armor really damn well and then you just have the Stern's men who are the same as the grave guard but with regeneration now for the vampire cavalry and they have a lot of different options starting off with the Black Knights a very cheap cavalry not bad one for the price probably best used against cheaper units or for trying to run down skirmishes or even routing units and they're also a melee cavalry which there aren't too many of and then you have the Black Knights with Lance's basically the same just they're a shock cavalry so they have a higher charge bonus but less melee defense great for those hammer and anvil tactics on a budget barracks Reavers basically the same as a previous unit just with slightly higher stats and regeneration their melee defense actually borders them being a melee cavalry now for hex wraiths are very dangerous unit indeed a great one for Vanguard deployment hide them away in some trees leave them there till the late game when all the enemy units beaten up and then bring them out with their terror ability they'll finish off and scare off everything that's left great for taking on heavily armored units as they are a melee cavalry just watch out for enemy units with magical attacks the Cho ghosts a slightly stronger version of the hex Wraith and they also reduced the speed of any enemy they attack very useful for catching Cavalry's so rate the unit's very dangerous for the vampires great for taking down any kind of heavy armor and lastly a unit that needs no introduction the blood Knights one of the strongest Cavalry's in the game there are shock cavalry so they're designed for hit and run the big selling point is that they are anti large so against other Cavalry's they will destroy most of them against some kind of large units though they're not terribly effective something like a giant or dragon ogre it's quite a small target if you charge into them not a lot of them are going to hit it and you don't want to stay there because they're not really a melee cavalry and they're too expensive to be taking tons of damage and if you get them fighting with a giant they're going to take a ton of damage so be careful with them because you are putting a lot of money into them now for one of the stronger aspects of the vampires game its monsters first up bats and dire wolves they're mainly there to be the disruptor of missiles bats are great for stopping enemy units firing at your troops on the way in and dire wolves will eat them alive should they get hold of them so that's those harassing units that I was talking about and that also works on artillery as well and then you have the dire pact who are basically just war hounds except they are anti large which is a pretty cool little trait for them to have and I can't imagine they'd fare too well against larger monsters so cavalry czar probably their best target and no vampire army is complete without crypt Horus one of the best units they've got going their armor piercing their poison they regenerate they're fast the biggest downside of course is their leadership but you can send them in to fight for a while they'll take a bit of a beating they'll lose some leadership they may start to waver and crumble but you can then pull them back let them regenerate let them get that help back and they'll be good to go again there's a pretty good and common tactic you'll see people do with regenerating units especially their Lords so crypt horrors are a must fire ghosts a fantastic flanking unit of course they can fly straight over the enemy lines and just hit them in the back you can hammer an anvil with them they don't have a great deal of melee defence they've got to be a little bit careful with them but much like bats they can get after the skirmishes in the artillery and generally just fly all over the place being a nuisance harassing anyone and everyone they want also a good unit if you want to hold air superiority and then we have the vargulf very similar to a dragon ogre it's very fast it's very strong in crowds armor piercing regeneration again a fantastic flanking unit got to watch out for that anti large of course but with 80 speed is faster than a lot of cavalry so it can be good for getting after some Cavalry's as well provided they're not anti large and of course the only real problem is its leadership so occasionally pulling it away to recoup its health and regain some leadership might be a good plan rather than just leaving it in combat all the time The Devil's of Schwarz - they're your next unit they are just slightly improved via Geist's with terror and Vanguard deployment which is pretty cool but they're probably one of those units that are best saved for the late game because of that terror ability and speaking of terror the last unit is the terror guys an anti large zombie bat dragon thing it's great for taking on single entity large units like a giant or a dragon ogre or an Iraq in a rock in crowds it tends to try and dive in the middle of them and thus gets itself surrounded and with load leadership that means it doesn't hang around very long so best off trying to keep it out of the crowd it could go after flanking Cavalry's perhaps but being a bit conservative with your terror ghost could be a good call and lastly all the carts and war machines so all these things play great supporting roles this first one the corpse car increases the melee attack and melee defense of any units that it's nearby pretty handy if you want to give your frontline a bit of a buff and make them last a bit longer and then you have the balefire version which is pretty much the same thing except it now does something with magical disruption I think it increases miscast chance but it has to be within 40 meters of the enemy caster which is quite close and I don't think very often you'll be that near the enemy casters so it may be a little bit pointless and then you have the unholy lodestone corpse cut which is pretty much the same it gives the attack buffs like the other one did in defense buff doesn't have the magical thing but it does have mass regeneration instead so this is probably the most useful one because constantly regen in the health of your frontline seems like the best option there and then you have the black coach many people not a fan of this unit it is just a chariot use it like any other chariot keep it moving keep it charging through thin units and it will rack up some kills it's armor-piercing it has a bonus versus infantry it has numerous abilities that help make it even more deadly if you use it properly like a chariot should be used it honestly can rack up a good amount of kills and it causes terror so it's great for scaring off enemy units late in the game then you have the mortar send you in a very popular unit you see it a lot online mastery generation increases power reserves because this terror has a bonus versus infantry just a fantastic supporting unit and a condition a bit of damage itself including this ability called the reliquary corruption which passively damages nearby enemy combatants does have to watch out for missiles though as it is pretty huge so it is susceptible to being gunned down pretty quick and lastly you have the claw of Mukesh which is pretty much the same thing it just causes cold damage which slows down enemies and also has a big magic resistance as well other than that it's not a lot different that speed reduction may prove useful against faster factions now that all that's out the way onwards to battle so my army is on the warpath I've got a whole host of different units in the middle I've got a bunch of expendable units some skeletons and zombies who are of course going to be used just to tie up the enemy who is a bunch of elves by the way lots of ranged units we've got to watch out for those got some wild riders at the side plenty of anti large and infantry so my cheap units are hopefully going to title them up and then all my better units are gonna try and play their role and do a good bit of flanking and getting into the appropriate targets sending my bats up here as well hex wraiths and dire Wolf's at the side trying to hide them but there isn't really anywhere to hide just spotted some enemy units they've got these skirmishes so they got four units of missiles four of course an advantage for them so I'm gonna use my bats just as I'm about to come into range of the enemy so you can see they started firing gonna send the bats in it is a suicide mission with the bats they are gonna get inevitably killed but if they can keep my infantry from getting fired upon on their approach then they're playing their role well enough they are starting to waver but they stopped these two units from firing now so my infantry is gonna take less damage which is going to put them in better stead to fight all their infantry of course wildrider starting to move out to the wings so my blood Knights shall meet them and I'm actually preventing the infantry from moving forward in a front line by having these bats here as well cause they're gonna get caught on the bats why brides coming in now I sent my black coach out front to try and absorb the charge but they kind of ran away anyway so we've sort of hit them in the side as a bit of a weird one on the Left we're engaged and I'm sending over my skeleton spearmen to help out get those wild riders there as quick as possible they are pretty strong unit the ancient tree mounts here he can be a bit of a struggle because our anti large isn't that great but I brought a bunch of armor piercing units to help with him the black coach has set its sights on some missile units so they will soon be getting thoroughly slaughtered I'm starting to move my best units up now I've got to just encrypt Taurus I'm starting to flank with them they're both moving to the sides then I've got my grave guard and my rates one of the grave guard armor-piercing going after the ancient tree man they're gonna help try and take him down and the other one would just get stuck into melee I brought them mainly to deal with any of those heavily armored tree units black coach and hex race and dire wolves making an absolute mess of their skirmishes to runnable skirmish units there and at this point this is where I'm gonna start to race some dead got some zombies coming up behind the enemy line so normally I could get these guys after all the skirmishes that here but because I've got all this cavalry and the black coach charging around I don't really need them to get after the skirmishes so we're gonna flank the dryads instead try to get their morale down and get rid of them as quick as possible krypter is moving in the left blood Knights have one on the left they start to charge around on that side on the right looks like we're chasing them off all the way over there crypto is moving into position Corpse kept moving in gonna flank these spearmen not the best matchup for them of course as they are anti knives but I'm gonna try and help these spearmen out a little bit I'm not gonna leave them there for too long just try and smash them in the back of it scare them off a little bit and help those spearmen out this is actually my necromancer in the corpse car who's not meant to be in melee combat here because as I said earlier he regenerates nearby units when he's not fighting I cast the implication of the heck on these characters just now because I'm making use of their armor piercing damage on the tree man and they were down to about half health so I replenished them up so they can serve their purpose more zombies coming in now to get on the flank blood Knights hex Wraith destroying all of these archers so we've taken out one of their biggest strengths there direwolves as well krypter is here they're not getting good matchups equipped hers because they have a lot of anti large units do the elves so they are struggling a little bit but they will do a good bit of damage for the amount of time that they are stuck into combat but now as these units get beaten down it's just a matter of time before they run out of leadership from all our fear and terror abilities the ancient tree man one of the biggest struggles for us at the moment routing some of these dryads very nice black coach he's got himself a fair amount kills just right at those spearmen ancient tree man slowly dying nearly down to half health this is all my grave guard and care and rates mainly you can see here though my grave guard are starting to struggle they're starting to waver they're starting to crumble so I'm gonna spawn up some zombies and I'm gonna send them over to kind of replace the grave guard just in case they break and disintegrate to ash all these elven ooze would then start charging around if I put these zombies there it will stop them and tie them up and keep them in one place until I can get my better units over to come and finish them off hex race over here now trying to help out but again lots of anti large units so quite difficult for these Cavalry's and stuff zombies charging in dryers are running away though all this right side has been pretty crushed just the ancient tree man hanging on for dear life the black coach still looking to devour some souls and it's not looking good for these elves just start to waver and the black coach has made them wrapped completely so this is kind of what the black coach is good for routing enemy units because of that terror is great for just finishing them off when they're nearly done big clump of elves here though Wildwood Rangers very dangerous unit they're anti large and I'm running out of infantry so my monsters going to have to start fighting them I'm still chewing our way through them as well as the ancient tree man starting to get him dead and most of their army has been defeat so you can see I've used most of the tactics there and at this point late in the game I'm starting to rely on the fear and terror to get rid of them and that is indeed how it ends so I hope this illustrates and gives you a rough idea of all that I'm talking about there you have it comrades a guide to the vampire counts I hope this helps improve your vampire game and yes before you hound me with comments I will be doing these guides for the remaining factions that I haven't done so I ask for your patience as I won't rush them because I need to make sure that I get them right I hope you found this useful and hope you enjoyed this thanks for watching I'll see you in the future

Channel: Zerkovich

Views: 609,410

Keywords: vampire guide, vampire army, units, roster, tutorial, vampire counts, vampire, undead, von carstein, guide, beginner, beginners, how to, use, how, strategy, tactics, battle, vlad, zombie

Id: quAyfEOYZuA

Length: 23min 20sec (1400 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2017