I am thinking about starting vampire counts. However, I don't know which vampire to choose. I know Blood Dragons are combat monsters, and Necrarch are awesome wizards. Von Carstein is my favourite fluff-wise, but what are they good at?

Have you read the stickys at the top of the board? DLJs' article is well worth the read: gives you a nice summary of the bloodlines and their advantages and disadvantages, as well as some insights into playing with an Undead army(which has very different game mechanics to an Alive! army.)

VonC are the generalists; where BD, Strigoi, and Nechrarch are specialists(BD and Strigoi are both combat monsters just in very different ways); VonC and Lahmian are more "supporting" of the army as a whole(-ok I'm guessing with Lahmian... seem tough to get a grip on regardless.)
However with bloodline powers of walking death and the aura VonC excell at supporting their armies, rather than 1-on-1 heavy melee(-although like all VC they're quite capable of going up against all but the hardest WHFB heroes/lords.)

A Von Carstein is still hard as hell :) The things I've beaten off after all these games, using my Vampire Lord... and for a long time now I've been fielding him without any protection. When he dies, it's not from taking wounds in combat or from shooting or whatever, it's from CR. I've not seen the point of giving him a ward save, although at first I did.

Bear in mind you have an extra option if you play Von Carsteins: the Sylvanian army list.

I would say take lahmia....because you can include heroes of other armies in your army, I think that is pretty cool :P :D

you can make powerfull combos of strong heroes, wizards etc. and they can take cool magic items of the race where they are usually from, you can take a dwarf runesmith with powerfull anti-magic runes against other magic users , a skaven plague-priest against low toughness armies etc.:lol:

thats really great

Bear in mind that you can only take "Swains" from other races as Garagrim mentioned if you have your opponents express permission to use the Appendix list from the back of the book. It's definitley not tournament legal, and not everyone will agree to it, so I think you are far, far better off just using a generic VC list.

Having said that, go Strigoi. I think people here would be worried if I didn't say that.

Cheers,
DLJ

what are "swains"?????

Read the book properly. Swains are what you just described. And they are not legal, because the appendix lists are not legal. You'd know if you go read it again.

owh....ok

I dont collect VC myself but my best friend does, and we had an alliance once against two other friends :P
and then we had "swains" as you call it......

it was really cool....and we won that match too :D :lol:

I've been having a thought; how would it be to have some of each bloodline? that way, I could have the benefit of choice. One problem however, how different are the armies of different bloodlines? Are Strigoi armies vastly different from Von Carstein for example? :unsure:

How would it be? It would be cool if it was legal.

There's a reason why it's not legal. Imagine... Von Carstein general, Blood Dragon BSB, Strigoi Thrall, Necro... Wow.

All vampires in the same army must have the same bloodline.

You may structure armies however you like. The preconceptions of what each bloodline's armies should be like are just that, preconceptions. "Opinions are not rules".

That said, I would imagine a Strigoi army to be ghoul-heavy, and zombies would fit visually better than skellies, although there is absolutely no reason why skellies can't be taken. A Black Coach would look funny, but if you convert it into some sort of "Meat Wagon" it would fit perfectly. Knights and Grave Guard would be a bit hard to fit in, purely from a fluff perspective.

Do NOT refer to the appendix lists. They are bunk.

(I have the models to play either Von Carstein or Lahmian. The two armies look suspiciously similar :P)

I think what Wizzbang was getting at, Derfel, was whether it was a good idea to have models for the different bloodlines so you could change your bloodline between battles, rather than having them all mixed into one list. The same thing you do with your Von C's and Lahmians, the same thing I do with The Greatest Bloodline Of Them All (Strigoi) and Necrarch.

The only thing that seperates the armies of different bloodlines is the fluff, really. Other than that, it's perfectly ok to have a regular, set army list (non-appendix) and simply swap the characters around between the bloodlines. The army itself shouldn't play particularly differently: what will change is the role your characters play within that army.

For example, a Strigoi Count would fill the role of "Combat Resolution Generator", killing as many rank-and-file troopers as possible to help you win combat. A Necrarch Count, on the other hand, would be your main magic user (rather than a necromancer or two if you went Strigoi), and you'd have to get a combat hero in from another source.

Cheers,
DLJ

Yeah that was what I meant Jim ;)
Ok then, well that should be good then, since I can't choose which vampire. They're all too cool :D

My favourite vampires are Blood Dragons (perheps because I love bretonnia and I have army of Mousillon), but they are great warriors too. Their lord has 10Ws, % S, % T, 4 W and 5A, and their thrall has 8WS, 5S, 4T, 3A! They are the best warriors in old world

Yeah, yeah, blah blah, Blood Dragon yadda yadda, blah

***

Ah I see, so that's what you meant :) My mistake then... yeah go ahead, it can be surprisingly easy to interchange between bloodlines. As long as you're not playing the restrictive Sylvanian list (no Ghouls! In Sylvania! Go figure) you can field any type of vampire. And if you go with 2 Necros, as you usually should, then almost any vampire will do.

Anyway some of the models are cool, get them :)

Models from other ranges are cool too, get them :)

ok let me settle this once and for all.... get blood dragons and strogoi.
you get the best of both and can choose one for anykind of battle, plus strogoi are good but blood dragons are BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:lol: dark lord jim please don't take offence!

muhuhahahaha blood dragons won the vampire madness tornement on the offical gamesworkshop site!!! oh yeah we rule!