help, help, help.
the undead vampire things are marching towards my mountain, time is running out and I have no clue what so ever on how to defend my proud people...

I've only played 2 battles and now it seems i'm in for a hard time. I spyed on my opponent while he bashed the greenskins to bits. and the strangest thing happened... when he was defeated in combat they just stood ground and laughed???!! resurrecting a bunch of new ones, they just seemed unstoppable.
to me it seemed that when playing against these sort you gotta know what their strenghts and weaknesses are... I just don't. bummer.

What the heck am I to do if they wont die? hmmm... I need to ask the dwarves of old, the sages, the wise. they will surely know?


the battle is set for 2500pts.
and I must admit that I know absolutely nothing about his army. what should I watch out for?
and more important... how can I beat them?
what about this black coach thing... is it tough?
is vampire magic so devestating? should I maybe add both a runlord and runesmith?

the questions tower above me. please give me some clues. please?

First, don't bother with a Runelord. Ever. It gives no bonus over a Runesmith, or better yet, 2 runesmiths. ;)
Of course, lots of antimagic is a good idea; a couple of spellbreaking runes, and a spelleater should do well.

Against undead, you want a reasonable number of large units - anything less than 20 is unfieldable, basically, and I'd recommend 25 where possible.

The Black Coach is fairly weak; hit is with S7+ and it dies, assuming you don't blow the to wound roll. No worries there.

His units will recover lost models, but only skeletons and zombies can do this. Target your shooting at his other units, and try to kill his characters when you get a chance; if you get his army down to unsupported skellies/zombies, you should have no trouble winning the game.

A nasty trick is to take the MR of Flight with 2 runes of cleaving. As soon as a necromancer comes into range, nail him with it. He won't be able to stand back and use magic on you, which gives you a huge advantage.

Don't take too much shooting, as it won't accomplish much against his main units and you don't want to be outnumbered. A cannon or runic bolt thrower to take out the coach, maybe the other in case of black knights, and a unit or two of thunderers to take out his wights; aside from that, I'd say take combat units, preferably ones that can deal a lot of wounds in preference to ironbreakers, which won't be able to keep up with the outnumber and potential flanking.

The rune of fear is good asit will nullify the advantage undead has.

For your lord I suggest a runic hammer with master rune of flight, Rune of might and rune of fury.

This way you stand a very good chance of takeing out vamps and if a black coach tries to charge you can stand and shoot with your hammer , destroying it instantly.


Also as soon as you know what is supporting the army send some miners or better yet a gyrocoptor after him.

Just my 2 cents

Just Remember, tyhe black coach gets a 5+ward save regardless.

Well Vriishnak seems to have covered all bases, but here's my pointers.

Like he said always have large units, VC will win through rank and fear. They'll have very large units and if you loose combat then you break, for a special unit I would suggest giving them Rune of Courage (except Hammerers of course). Also GWs don't really matter being as most undead creatures have a lower I (or are braindead) than you, and they have very low S so I wouldn't worry much about loosing combat to casulties.

One thing I do suggest is a BSB, now either give him a rune weapon and armour for a bit of a surprise or a rune banner. The idea behind him is the fact that he will better prepare your dwarves in combat ie two chances not to break and with a rune banner your chances can be increases. For the banner I would go for MR Of Stromni Redbeard, this will give all your close by combats a boost and could mean an extra crumbling skellie.

As for war machines I would say only really take a gyrocopter for the steam cannon, a ST for simply being able to cover most a unit and either a rune BT or a cannon for the coach and ranks. Other than that I would spend much more points on core and infantry units.

Like Vriishnak said two runesmiths are better than one runelord, take lots of spellbreaking runes and at least one of the MRs (best would be MR Of Balace). If you decide to take a spelleater rune I would wait to use it on the raising spell.

For your lord and if you take thanes I would try to get many attacks, but I do like the flying hammer suggestion. To way to beat VC is through CR, so make sure all units have as full a rank bonus as possible and for me heros/lords with lots of attacks will mess up many units. So they'll cause as much damage as possible and hopefully give up a large CR which in turn equals lots of crumbling skellies. Just watch out for vamps, they are as tough as they come and will equally screw your infantry over.

Well that's all I can come up with at the moment, but if I think of anything else I'll let yo know.

good, good, good :D

i feel a little bit more capable now.
at first I was totally confused. thanks for the quick posts too, I only have until monday night.

how about:
hero choices:
lord
2 runesmiths
1 thane bsb

I think I will use the fabulous hammer trick, it sounds really coll and fluffy.
also i like to include one or two spelleaters for the raise dead + spellbreakers.

now for the rest of the army:
this is what I own:
core:
25 warriors
10 crossbows
20 miners
17 rangers
16 thunderers
special:
20 hammerers
21 slayers
15 longbeards
24 ironbreakers
1 cannon
1 stonethrower
rare:
1 flame cannon
1 gyrocopter
1 organ gun

1 anvil of doom

how would a slayer unit do against this foe?
perhaps its gonna look like this:
25 warriors
20 miners
12 (or more) thunderers

20 hammerers
20 slayers
or maybe my ironbreakers

although I would like 5 infantry units... for 2500 i think it would be better
i'm stlill in two minds about the warmachines. but i'm sure about the cannon.
I'm guessing the flame cannon won't do much, so maybe a gyro and an organ to counter the cavalry.

is there anything you would recomend that I'll go and buy?

Well first off get more warriors, you will need at least two units of warriors (20+) but three units are better. Then go for Longbeards, Hammerers, Ironbreakers and then fill in a few gaps with a few war machines.

The flame cannon my work as it's a template and will cover lots of skellies, also yes the gyrocopter is a good choice. It'll stop marching and it might be able to kill a few with it's steam cannon.

But I definatly suggest you get more warriors.

Slayers can either do really well or really badly, depending on your opponent. If he lets them get into combat with skeletons or zombies, they're going to destroy them a lot faster than any of your other units, simply because of the number of attacks they pump out.

On the other hand, you won't do nearly as well against Wights and the like, as they'll be going first and taking down at least most of the front rank. You'll be tying them up if nothing else, though, so it could be worthwhile, especially if you were to take a Dragon Slayer to lead them, armed with the MR of Swiftness and a rune of cleaving.

So slayers could do quite well, but I wouldn't bother upgrading any to Giant Slayers - the points are better spent on more warriors.

BTW the flame cannon is better than the Organ gun...(i'm not a dwarf player yet but i've watched some dwarven generals playing at the club...even played a little battle with the dwarves of a friend...)

Again Vriishnak beat me too it, slayers can be very useful vs the undead, their two attacks and the fact they are unbreakable will mean they have the power to keep a unit in battle unit either they or it dies (which most likely will be most the game).

It maybe better in certain situations, the OG rules vrs low T/AS, large infantry units simply because as soon as they get into range the unit will be blasted by a decent S attack as well as have the min of 2 max of 10 models being lost. Loosing 10 models is always good, also the VCs will have about 2 more turns to be able to charge it, so 2-10 models a turn dying will be a nasty thing (and with decent dwarven anti-magic they shouldn't get many spells through).

Stepping in here as a VC general, I'd just like to reiterate how much of a problem slayers can be. My friend uses a unit of slayers led by a dragon slayer with the Master Rune of Swiftness. A fair number of them are giant slayers as well, and they are a rather problematic unit. They should be able to hold their own vs just about anything the Vamps can throw at them: I normally have to commit my general just to get them out of the way.

Having said that, if you are using Slayers, watch out for ghouls. With multiple poisoned attacks and a higher initiative, these guys are the real slayer-slayers of the undead world. An organ gun takes them out quite nicely though.

And a brief word about the "Summon Something" bloodline powers. Von Carstein and Strigoi Vampires can be given the ability to bring on a small units of troops (wolves, bats or ghouls, depending on the power), from anywhere on the board, and it can't be dispelled to boot. If your opponent has access to these, they will invariably be used to target your war machines, so I'd advise against relying on them to do anything really, really significant as the crews may be tied up in combat for a while.

Cheers,
DLJ

ok, I got many choices I see. if only I could capitalize on every option. 2500 pts. sure gets spent really fast huh?
Well, my battle is tomorrow night and I'll give you a round up when it is done.
I don't know if I have made any giiant mistakes, but I made a bit of compilation of all the pointers you guys gave me. either way, you learn when you get beaten :rolleyes:

this list is also ifluenced by what troops i have available, my guess of what my opponent will be fielding and lastly what i think would be fun. This is my second game of warhammer so i got a lot more to learn than jsut setting up an armylist :)

here goes:

core

28 warriors
HA+ GW
music and champion
with BSB and runesmith

12 thunderers

20 miners
full command

special

19 ironbreakers
full command
rune of courage
with thane

19 hammerers
full command
rune of slowness
with lord

1 cannon
rune of burning

rare

1 organ gun
1 gyrocopter

heroes

lord
gromril, shield
mr spite
rune of stone
2 runes of cleaving
1 rune of fury

runesmith
gromril, shield
3 runes of spellbreaking

thane bsb
gromril
standard with mr of stromni redbeard

thane
gromril, shield
rune of stone
rune of cleaving
rune of fury

total 2499

yessir I can boogie!

I won, and not a single undead was left on the battleground when the game was over. But I still must say that i feel i was indeed very lucky to have the game finish that way.
first of, he fielded without any notable magicusers, concentrating on black knights and a quick charge with a dead hard vamp. at turn four things were looking rather bad since he didn't loose much to my shooting and my warmachines were slowly but surely getting a beating from bats and wolves.
how on earth was I going to win this encounter?
lady luck smiled at me and offered me a game winning position as one of his cavelry units with the general failed his charge against my hammerers (actually he took the bait, as i had cleverly placed my hammerers with rune of slowness in an ideal position). This left his flank opåen for a charge from my warriors and with all the gear of ranks, flank, battle standard and so forth it was enough to put an end to the menace. after that it was only a matter of cleaning up.
the gyrocopter was in hindsight propably one of the most tactically giving units in this battle.

well, i still made quite a few mistakes, but hey as long as you know how to rectify it for next time.
thanks for giving me all the advice.... it came in handy.